There is an essential tension between private interest and public interest which we also refer to as interest of the state, or national interest.
Those who govern are supposed to guard public interest and ensure that private interest remains subservient to it. Pakistan’s essential dilemma is that those who are governing the state:
a. have come out firmly in favour of promoting private interest to the extent that interests of the state have been entirely subverted to this cause.
b. this has brought the state, and those who are governing it, in opposition to each other.
c. normally, in such situations resolution of the difficulty and relief is supposed to come through the legal and administrative infrastructure. Unfortunately, in our case, the first of these has been so subverted, and the latter so constructed, that instead of providing resolution and relief, they provide total immunity to those who are governing and subverting the interest of the state to their own private interests. And given how the administrative and legal systems stand practically structured today, private interests of those governing the state will continue to subvert national interest in perpetuity.
d. the only answer to this dilemma is that the administrative and legal infrastructure of the state be reformed, so that they become guardians of public interest, instead of remaining facilitators and protectors of private interest.
e. but this cannot happen unless the governors of the state, who have brought the present situation about, are first removed from power.
f. there are only two institutions of the state which can effect this change, the judiciary, or the Army–or both in tandem, with due consultation. And if the country has to be saved, this needs being done. And done, not conspiratorially, but openly, while putting aside technical legal niceties. When governors of the state, charged with protecting national interest are hollowing out the state and working against its interest, they are criminals masquerading as democratic leaders. The legal infrastructure which gives them immunity, should itself be considered a criminal construct, and be found to have no legal or moral sanctity.
However, despite having fortified itself with every manner of immunity against prosecution for crimes of massive corruption, which constitute high crimes against the state, the government has opened itself to a charge which can be legally sustained against it.
It has consistently blocked the investigations which could lead to uncovering criminals who are funding the terrorists. This it has done because such investigations would lead straight to political bigwigs. But by blocking such investigation at a time when the state is at war against the terrorists, the government is guilty of treason and should be charged, impeached, bundled out, and suffer the punishment which is its due.
A crime of treason in war can legally breach every measure the government has taken to fortify and immunize itself against prosecution. And this would be quite legal. The Army needs to bring evidence of the willful dereliction of its obligations under the National Action Plan to the Supreme Court. And should the court drag its heels, a full-blooded coup will be entirely justified. Immediately in its wake, a national government should be put in office.
The formation of such a national government should be decided upon well in time, before the removal of the present set up. This new government should then over turn all such legislation which has brought the country to its present sorry pass. This can be done through ordinances.
At the same time it should enact ordinances whereby speedy trials can be conducted against the criminals whose actions made this exercise inevitable, so that the state can survive the ravages of its rulers, and escape them in the future. The Army should then step back and support the new set up, while making no attempt to hiding the big stick it is holding.
Every other security measure currently being debated will be meaningless if there is no plan to get rid of the present set-up. Reforms can be suggested and tabulated simultaneously and in parallel with plans to remove this government and bring to trial all persons forming it, who have committed high economic crimes against the state, and also committed treason against it. And among the reforms, those occupying the first order should be those which indemnify the state against the rape which it has suffered at the hands of the present rulers. In committing treason in time of war, these rulers have done the state a favour of breaching the impregnable wall of immunity which they had erected to protect themselves. This breach should be widened and exploited to bring them down. This should be the first order of the day. Unless the state first survives, nothing else matters. And it cannot survive when those expected to guard it are the very ones undermining it.
So, just remember the word treason. Thank the rulers for committing it, and thus providing us a justification to bring them down legally. P.S. Countries all over the world suffer much at the hands of their governments. But very few suffer on account of the fact that their very governments are actively involved with undermining the interests of the very state which they have been sworn to protect and defend. But this is the tragedy and the novelty of the punishment being inflicted on Pakistan.
ahmed sabir