Return of the fugitives

The Candid Corner

And far away
Shadows quivering around lamps
No one knows whether
It is a gathering of mourners

Or an assembly around pitchers and goblets
Quaffing drinks
And those colours which seem distressed
Clinging to doors and walls
One can’t make out from here
Whether these are flowers

Or there is blood spilled around

Adapted from Faiz Ahmad Faiz

With the advent of October, there is this fleeting whiff of change in the season. The heat of summer is giving way to the cold of winter.

There is also another season which is dawning upon us: the season of return of the fugitives from far-off lands where they have been hiding to stay safe from the court injunctions and their consequences. The fact that they had been declared absconders had no effect on either their status or their wicked doings. Now that they have their own people in power who moved quickly to amend the appropriate laws to secure relief from multifarious corruption cases, they are not only coming back; they are doing so with state protection to assume charge of powerful offices and portfolios. Ishaq Dar, a self-confessed criminal, who was helped to flee the country by the then prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, in his official plane, has returned in the incumbent prime minister’s plane to be administered oath as senator and finance minister.

Let’s also not forget the case of that other convict, Maryam Nawaz, who was granted temporary release from prison some years ago to look after her (then) ailing father. While Nawaz Sharif managed to flee the country by manoeuvring a fake medical certificate and has since been declared an absconder, living in his palatial abode made with illicit earnings, she, instead of being sent back to the cell, has roamed the country free, escorted with full protocol, puking abuse and venom at his political opponents. Will Allah Rakhas, Imam Dins and Rehmat Bibis of this land also be given comparable privileges, or will they continue to languish in jails irrespective of whether they are guilty of the crime they are accused of having committed? Are these privileges only reserved for the corrupt and criminal Sharif and Bhutto/Zardari clans who believe that the law of the land does not apply on them and, that, they shall forever remain above the enforcement of the state writ?

So I say, what is happening in this country? How can every institution of the state become complicit in flouting the constitution and the laws emanating from there in such blatant and shameless manner to provide reprieve to fugitives who run away to escape punishment for their grievous crimes? How can proclaimed absconders be accorded state protocol and kept from facing the consequences of their lurid crimes? Will our courts and the justice system continue to serve the vested interests at the cost of the inherent principles of jurisprudence, the state and its ordinary subjects? Why have these bands of criminals been inducted into power by removing Imran Khan’s government illegally and unconstitutionally through a wicked foreign-dictated and domestically-collaborated conspiracy? What is the agenda that they are implementing and who are their foreign sponsors and domestic handlers?

It is now a known fact that the bargaining chip for the contract signed with these criminals was to help them sneak into power and secure reprieve from their crimes. No wonder that the first task they undertook was to incorporate amendments in the NAB laws which would put their cases beyond the purview of the accountability bureau. These cases have since been sent back to NAB and other investigation agencies by the relevant courts saying that they are no longer empowered to hear them. That is what has paved the way for the fugitives to travel back to the country with assurance of safety and security and with full protocol formalities. Criminal Ishaq Dar is here to test waters. The master criminal, Nawaz Sharif, will follow suit in due course together with a host of absconders who are all members of his immediate family.

The cancellation of Ishaq Dar’s perpetual warrants of arrest and, now, the release of Maryam Nawaz from all convictions in the Avenfield reference are amply symptomatic of the game plan that was hatched encompassing the removal of Imran Khan’s government and hoisting of this bunch of criminals in seats of power. Basically, it aims at criminalising the entire state and society by dissolving the distinction between right and wrong. In the process, for these family fiefdoms, wrong will be perceived and treated as right and right would lose its identity and relevance in matters of governance. Likewise, state institutions will be criminalised so as to become potent instruments in the implementation of this sinister and damning game plan.

The ominous intentions of the operatives of these decrepit family fiefdoms together with their international sponsors and domestic handlers are patently clear: they want to weaken Pakistan and render it subservient to the diktat of their foreign masters who would then squeeze it to concede to their wish list including stripping it of its assets and rendering it subservient to play a subordinate role, both to the international power centres as well as their regional strategic partner/s. Pakistan shall effectively lose its independence and its freedom to take decisions in line with promoting its interests. Let’s also not forget that it was because of sincere attempts to avoid this eventuality that the vote of no-confidence had to be moved against Imran Khan when all state institutions were forced to line up and play a supportive role to achieve the objective of handing over Pakistan to a cabal of criminals with their souls sold out who have since been instructed to move swiftly to attain the objectives of the conspiracy.

In this season of return of the fugitives and granting carte blanch reprieves to established criminals and their henchmen, what are the options available for launching an effort to first stall and then possibly reverse the poisonous tide which has been set in motion? It looks certain that the incumbent criminals are not willing to cede any space for a peaceful movement for change. Simultaneously, it is a given that things cannot stay static any longer. Something has to give way.

Ironically, it was John Kennedy who said that “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”. The crumbling edifice of the status-quo and its vile protectors and promoters constitute the most vulnerable components of a morbid system which has been rendered unsustainable. They will have to bear the brunt of the change which is looming.

The writer is a political and security strategist and the founder of the Regional Peace Institute