Have a heart, you are the president, Mr Zardari! (by Shaheen Sehbai)

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Shaheen Sehbai

WASHINGTON: When an elected head of the state, who is also the head of the largest political party of the country, the Supreme Commander of the country’s armed forces and (at least on papers) the man with his finger on the country’s nuclear button, cannot venture out of his bunker in the presidency, a five-star prison of sorts, and attacks a TV channel, a newspaper editor or a talk show anchor, he must be seriously in trouble or scared to death with insecurity.

It was a great day in my professional career to get so much attention on live TV, nationally and throughout the world, with the country’s president talking about me (why did you not name me) in a furiously threatening tone, foaming and frothing as if he would shoot me if I had been somewhere close to him at the time. I have just landed in Washington to spend a few days with my family on Eid ul Azha and the first thing I hear on TV is my head of state calling me names. It was a unique welcome to the festival of sacrifices.

I heard Asif Ali Zardari’s speech, his first major political address in months, which dealt with no other burning issue of the country, many times wanting to find out what message he had for the country, other than saying that he was a brave man, he was ready to offer sacrifices and he would not be coweddown and would prefer to leave in an ambulance rather than walk out of the presidency under duress. The more I heard his rants, the more loudly I laughed, again and again.

Here is the strongest man in the country so rattled by a few reports and articles by me, or a few talk shows by Dr Shahid Masood, that he forgets to mention anything about the infamous NRO, the shame of the Kerry Lugar Bill, the gross charges of corruption, money laundering or misuse of power against him and his cronies. He did not mention the issues of sugar, atta, electricity and unemployment. He did not praise the soldiers and people fighting the deadly terrorists. He and his few people now sharing power were only worried about their own fate, with the loud spoken Zulfikar Mirza declaring to the world that he would use the Sindh Card, if worse comes to worst.

Zardari referred to me by frequently mentioning someone with “an American passport”. He also said I was not a Pakistani national. He has to get his facts right. But carrying an American passport is not something he would like to turn into a disqualification as bulk of his own cronies are exiles who have acquired foreign passports, including US passports, and they would be the ones to jump the ship first. I am a Pakistani and work in Pakistan and will continue to do so.

His biggest accusation against me was that I wanted him “to leave the presidency in an ambulance”. I think he knows better as he has been telling many who meet him in his bunker that he would not quit and people will have to take him out. This is what he reiterated in his speech on Wednesday night.

But he is wrong on this count as well. I had only quoted his own words on Nov 4 in my column: “The contours of a changed, unwritten script” in these words: “This assessment will purely be an analysis and conclusions drawn up by a journalist....So my analysis is that he will fight back. Some who still have access to him claim that he has expressed these defiant views many a time saying he would never resign and if someone wanted to remove him, he should send an ambulance because he would not walk out on his own two feet.” This is where ambulance was used. In his speech he confirmed what I had written that he would not go away.

In the same article, my opinion was: “All stakeholders agree, and this I can claim after meeting almost all of them in the last few days in Islamabad and Lahore, that President Asif Ali Zardari will have to either step down with dignity, hand over his presidential powers to the PM through a fast-track constitutional amendments process, or become a figurehead and stay within his bunker for as long as he does not create any nuisance.” I was seeing him as a figurehead as long as he behaves. This does not mean his murder, though it could mean a political suicide.

His party leaders have also been objecting to my use of the word ‘martyr’ for Zardari and one Minister, Dr Babar Awan, had the temerity to ask me in a TV show to name the people who would kill Zardari, as if I had been plotting his murder or martyrdom with these people. There has to be a limit to sycophancy and toadyism.

My words in my Nov 7 article were: “Zardari will have to make his decision very quickly on whether he wants to exit with dignity or become a martyr. The days, as they say, are in fact numbered.” It is clear for anyone who understands English what is meant here is a ‘political martyr’ and not dead in the physical sense. If someone cannot understand the language, a very handy Prof Husain Haqqani can help any time.

Other than these references in Zardari’s speech about me, what I can guess is that he is rattled because I have been criticising his style of governance, his failures in taking successful political decisions, his U-Turns at every critical time, his arrogance and stubbornness and lately his indecent manner of speech with his own prime minister.

Neither the president nor the PM have denied any of the contents of my article about Zardari using insulting words against Gilani. In fact, my sources say, when PM Gilani was asked about my article and whether there was a tiff between him and the president, Gilani’s very diplomatic reply was: “I am not angry with the president.” He decided not to comment on what he had heard from Zardari and in what tone.

It is the right of every writer and journalist to criticise the rulers on their policies, their decisions and their actions. This is exactly what I have been doing during my 42-year-long career. I have criticised every ruler, without fear or favour and whenever the political rulers were out of office and struggling to come back, I happened to be one of their most favorite journalists and had even developed personal friendships with them. This is also true in the case of Zardari.

When he was arrested in 1990 by Jam Sadiq Ali and thrown in the Landhi jail, I and my friends Nusrat Javeed, Mohammad Malick, Shakil Sheikh and a couple of others had confronted Jam Sadiq and forced him to allow us to visit him in the jail. That was the first move in his political comeback. Then I wrote a series of seven articles in which I had questioned Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Jam Sadiq. When in 1993 Benazir and Zardari again came to power, he offered me political jobs and only one journalist, Azhar Sohail, accepted his offer. Sadly he then paid for his life and his family’s ruination three years later.

Once again when Zardari was in power I wrote against his corruption in 1994-95 and then as well he had threatened me and others. I did what I had to do then and faced the consequences.

It was Zardari and Benazir Bhutto who became very friendly to me during their days of wilderness in the Nawaz Sharif/Musharraf eras. In his years in New York, Zardari was particularly friendly and even attended my son’s wedding in Washington. He should be ashamed of now pointing accusing fingers at me for holding a US passport. Can’t he come up with anything better to accuse me? What he was doing in US himself during all those years is also known to people who were in the knowledge. My fault is that I again refused his offer to join his government in 2008 although it is totally wrong that I was ever offered to become Pakistan Ambassador in Canada. Neither had I ever asked him for a political or diplomatic job.

I am totally satisfied that even despite such anger and frustration that the president has expressed against me publicly, without any reason, he has not been able to point any single small or big finger of accusation against me for misusing my professional position or getting any benefit from his or any other government. The charge of dubbing me and others as “political actors” is ridiculous and laughable because if this is all he can come up with, it is pathetic case against me with no legs to stand on. His speech was 90 per cent rhetoric, based on shallow looking claims of pursuing Bhuttoism and the rest 10 per cent was attacks on me, Geo TV and Dr Shahid Masood.

If his corruption, amassed wealth and grabbed lands are questioned, it is pure and simple journalism in the interest of the people and the country and no one can deny us that right. He says he will not listen to any criticism except from his political rivals. What a lame statement is that. Where does he place the others pillars of state, the judiciary, the media, the civil society, the ‘ghairat’ and ‘izzat’ brigades? His political colleagues are easy for him to handle because many of them are in the same boat of looted wealth and plundered resources. But he will have to listen to all of us and hiding in a bunker while claiming to be a brave man, will not wash away his sins or wish us away from the scene.

The real issue is that since the previous government I and my colleagues in the Jang group have been highlighting important issues concerning the constitution, governance, independence of judiciary, rampant corruption and ever-increasing prices. These issues have made miserable the life of common man in Pakistan. Neither the previous government nor the present government could tolerate the Jang Groups’ decision to highlight those issues that affect the lives of ordinary people.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=25792