Anil Kalhan

(Posted at Dorf on Law)

(Just kidding. But now that you’ve been lured into reading a post about Pakistan….) As I briefly noted last week, General Pervez Musharraf rather quickly dashed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s hopes of a triumphal homecoming last week. After throwing hundreds of leaders and other supporters from Sharif’s political party in jail to prevent them from organizing a big welcome, Musharraf’s regime acquiesced to the invited entreaties of the Saudi intelligence chief by taking Sharif into custody at the airport in Islamabad, hustling him into an awaiting aircraft, and rendering him to Saudi Arabia.

Pakistani officials seemed to have some difficulty getting their story straight on exactly what transpired:

• Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz: “‘We did not force him to return. I have been told that he was given two options — either to go to prison or proceed to Saudi Arabia,’ the prime minister said in a live interview with a private television channel on Monday evening.” [link]
• Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani: “Nawaz Sharif has gone to Saudi Arabia according to the same agreement that took him there earlier.” [link]
• Musharraf backer Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain: “A few hours after the event, on the evening of 10th September, the PML (Q) chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain appeared on Geo television and disingenuously announced that the deportation had taken place entirely at the behest of the Saudis. And further, that while he and his party had demanded that Nawaz Sharif be given an unobstructed right of return to Pakistan, the written request of the ‘Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques’ had rightly been given precedence over domestic concerns.” [link]
• Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry: “When asked whether it was not paradoxical that on one hand the government criticised statements from foreign capitals on Pakistan’s domestic affairs and on the other hand it solicited intervention of other countries in its internal political issues, the spokesperson said: ‘We do not accept foreign interference in our internal affairs as we do not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. This is an accepted, recognised international norm. As regards the ongoing events, well this is not in my domain. I would suggest you seek comments from other government spokespersons.’” [link]

Sharif is now once again a “guest” of the Saudi royals in Jiddah — a “guest,” that is to say, who apparently is being held incommunicado in what seems best described as “house arrest.”

Whatever else one might say about this sordid affair and its flawed protagonists, to say that Sharif was “deported” — as the Musharraf regime and most mainstream media have largely characterized the expulsion — doesn’t seem quite the correct way to put it. “Deportation” connotes the orderly explusion of a non-citizen pursuant to some sort of lawful, regularized process. Sharif, however, is a citizen of Pakistan who, as the Supreme Court of Pakistan explicitly said only weeks ago, has an “inalienable right to enter and remain” in his country of citizenship. Even assuming that the new corruption charges slapped upon Sharif at the airport have some merit, an assumption which certainly doesn’t require one to stretch the imagination all that much, the normal approach would of course be to try him on those charges in Pakistan, rather than to summarily banish him without trial to Saudi Arabia, where he hasn’t been charged with anything. And the process by which Sharif was expelled to Saudi Arabia — which seems to bear a family resemblance to the process by which one gets on a flight booked with Jeppesen International Trip Planning — was anything but orderly and lawful, as the many journalists and supporters who accompanied Sharif from London to Islamabad witnessed and recounted:

The authorities moved clumsily but quickly. Hospitality was swept aside. New charges of corruption were made against Mr Sharif and he was manhandled away. The Pakistani Government claims that he chose a return to exile rather than detention. The tea cups and biscuits were ground underfoot. Aside from a few scuffles and shouted insults, the test of strength was over in seconds. [link]

Human Rights Watch maintains that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia “have flouted international law by forcibly transferring Nawaz Sharif into exile.” Some Pakistani lawyers and human rights advocates have gone even further, arguing not only that Musharraf’s government should be held in contempt of court for violating the Supreme Court’s order that Sharif be permitted to enter and remain in the country, but even that the individuals responsible should be criminally charged with kidnapping:

Legal experts and lawyers representatives, terming it an open violation of the Supreme Court’s orders to send Mian Nawaz Sharif forcibly to Saudi Arabia, said the PML-N chief was abducted by Pakistani authorities since no Pakistani citizen can be deported under any law. The experts maintained that, according to section 363 of [Pakistan Penal Code], the military dictator can be punished with seven years imprisonment for sending Nawaz Sharif beyond the limits of Pakistan without his consent. [link]

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Is the hidden hand in Sharif’s expulsion that of the office of the Vice President? The Musharraf regime has denied that the U.S. government played any role in Sharif’s rendition, and officially, Washington regards Sharif’s transfer from one allied country to another, across international airspace, as an “internal matter” for Pakistan. Yet, the sequence of events in this episode remains remarkably odd:

Believing in silent diplomacy and enjoying extremely good relations with Pakistan and its people, Riyadh not only sent its intelligence chief to Islamabad, but also asked it to re-exile Sharif as soon as he lands.

On the very day when Sharif was exiled, [Musharraf ally] Chaudhry Shujaat [Hussain] admitted in a Geo News talk show that not only he, but Musharraf was also of the view to allow Sharif’s entry into Pakistan.

Shujaat, however, disclosed that still the former premier was exiled because of Saudi rulers’ insistence that Sharif should be deported back to Riyadh. [link]

Reports of Washington’s involvement have abounded:

In the case of Sharif’s exile, some Middle Eastern countries had seriously tried to blackout the event that was being broadcast by private Pakistani television channels.

A journalist in one of these countries was clearly told by the local authorities that they are under pressure from Washington to do this.

Former Prime Minister Sharif initially wanted to come to Islamabad after seven years of exile via Dubai, but changed his mind after being warned that the Dubai authorities might divert him to Riyadh because of American pressure. [link]

And at least one unnamed Bush administration official could barely contain his glee at Sharif’s rendition:

One Bush administration official, declining to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, said the deportation was “not necessarily the worst thing that could happen.” While the United States is loath to appear publicly as if it is interfering in Pakistan’s politics, the Bush administration has been urging General Musharraf to agree to a power-sharing deal with another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. . . .

The Bush administration official said that one hope now was that General Musharraf’s strong move against Mr. Sharif would enable him to stand up to Mr. Sharif’s allies in Pakistan and go ahead with the power-sharing deal. [link]

Regardless of whether the United States had any involvement, the whole episode seems to reflect rather poorly upon the State Department. Lots of U.S. taxpayer money gets spent every year on rule of law initiatives in Pakistan, and yet, when the Musharraf regime brazenly undermines the rule of law by openly defying a major ruling by the Supreme Court of Pakistan — which, with the support of many lower court judges and large segments of the Pakistani bar and civil society, has been exhibiting as much integrity and independence as at any time in its history — senior State Department officials proceed with high-level meetings with Musharraf as if nothing of concern had happened at all.

An even greater reckoning may be right around the corner:

Now Justice Chaudhry has set up a nine-member panel of Supreme Court judges to begin hearing two constitutional cases against Musharraf: the first disputing his right to seek re-election, the second his right to continue in high political office while heading the army.

Either could prevent Musharraf from staying in office beyond the next few weeks, in which case allies say he is ready to impose full military rule. “If the court confronts me, I’ll definitely use the option of martial law,” Musharraf told a senior party member recently, the newspaper said. [link]

What will our gleeful, unnamed Bush administration official be saying if that happens? And the State Department?

(Posted at Dorf on Law)

UPDATE (9/10/07): SHARIF BANISHED (AGAIN) — Musharraf has apparently made Nawaz Sharif’s stay in Pakistan a brief one, openly defying last month’s Supreme Court order and expelling him to Saudi Arabia. (Would it more appropriately be characterized as rendering? Or “kidnapping”?) Some Pakistani bookies will feel vindicated, but what happened to the Bush administration’s insistence last week that Pakistani leaders “honour the terms of Pakistani law and constitutional process“? Perhaps we all just misunderstood — maybe when the State Department spokesman said “honour … Pakistani law and constitutional process,” what he really meant was “do whatever the Saudi intelligence chief says“…. More details at SAJAforum and All Things Pakistan.

* * *

On the eve of the anticipated return to Pakistan of former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to lead their parties in the coming elections, I have a column for AsiaMedia that tries to reframe somewhat the particular way in which U.S. observers have been characterizing the soap opera unfolding between Bhutto, Sharif, and General Pervez Musharraf and to consider some of the deeper issues that transcend the conflict among these personalities. As sometimes also happens with coverage of domestic politics, U.S. news coverage of the relationships among these three individuals at times has edged close to relying upon what NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen might describe as a “master narrative,” the “big story … that generates all the other stories.” In this case, the net result has been to obscure some of the more fundamental issues that lie beneath. In particular, the focus on the mutual antagonism between Musharraf and Sharif, on the one hand — who literally tried to kill each other in 1999 and 2000 — and the current negotiations between Musharraf and Bhutto, on the other, has obscured the third side of the triangle: the relationship between Bhutto and Sharif, and the larger issues at stake for Pakistan that arise from that relationship.

Bhutto’s unilateral, U.S.- and U.K.-backed negotiations with Musharraf raise questions about the fate of the Charter of Democracy, an important preconstitutional declaration that Bhutto and Sharif signed on behalf of their respective political parties in May 2006, when very few people in the United States were paying attention to developments in Pakistan at all. We often don’t think about the significance of preconstitutional documents like the Charter, but as Kirsten Matoy Carlson has argued, analysis of such documents can be helpful in “identifying and better understanding persistent constitutional tensions” within a particular political community. The Charter of Democracy is a remarkable document, bringing together two Pakistani political figures between whom no love has ever been lost. When Bhutto and Sharif agreed to the Charter — a moment that most U.S. observers ignored altogether — a number of Pakistani citizens spoke about the declaration in strikingly grand terms, with some even comparing it to preconstitutional documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Lahore Declaration, and the Magna Carta. Unfortunately, the current efforts by the Bush administration to broker a deal between Musharraf and Bhutto at the expense of Sharif and other opposition leaders might well be undermining the viability of the Charter as a foundation and starting point for a collaborative effort to restore democracy.

While on the subject of Pakistan, let me also quickly plug the terrific work of my former colleagues at The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, who have invested significant resources to do some serious, in-depth reporting in Pakistan this month. Every day this week, the show featured extended stories filed from Pakistan by Margaret Warner, who spent the last two weeks along with producer Simon Marks in Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi. Margaret also conducted a couple of extended interviews with Bhutto and Sharif before arriving in Pakistan.

Their coverage is not entirely beyond critique — in particular, I think that they, too, could have contextualized their political analysis by going beyond the conventional narrative about the relationships among Sharif, Bhutto, and the Pakistan army a bit more than they have. Moreover, it also would have been particularly appropriate for the NewsHour, as a U.S. news organization, to probe a bit more deeply the active role that the Bush administration seems to be playing in bolstering Musharraf’s regime and seeking to influence the political dynamic among Musharraf, Bhutto, and Sharif. (As an example of both gaps in the coverage, Monday’s story contrasted Pakistan’s economic growth under Musharraf with the “instability” that prevailed under Bhutto and Sharif, but without noting the potential role in that recent growth played by massive, post-2001 inflows in U.S. aid and the lifting of sanctions that had been in place throughout most of the 1990s.) By not doing so, the stories at times make developments in Pakistan sound a bit too much like events taking place in a vacuum “over there,” unaffected by anything that the United States is doing. In fact, as Mohsin Hamid — whose excellent novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, was just shortlisted for the Booker Prize — wrote over the summer, political developments and attitudes in Pakistan have long been influenced by the United States’s engagement with the region. Hamid goes so far as to say that to the extent that anti-Americanism may be ascendant in Pakistan today, it has been fueled — at least in part — by the “accreted residue of many years of U.S. foreign policies.” [link]

Still, the NewsHour’s nuanced reporting in this series has been quite good — well beyond the standards of most television news outlets in the United States, who don’t seem even to phone it in any more when it comes to meaningful international coverage, and excellent even when evaluated against the NewsHour’s own high standards. All of the stories are available on this page, and a series of podcasts produced in connection with their coverage is available here.

In Pakistan, it increasingly appears that everything old may soon be new again — for better, but perhaps also for worse.

With all of the media attention paid to the mutual antagonism between Musharraf and Sharif — who literally tried to kill each other in 1999 and 2000 — and to the negotiations between Musharraf and Bhutto, observers outside of Pakistan have virtually ignored the third side of this triangle, between Bhutto and Sharif themselves. In the process, the deeper structural issues that transcend the soap opera transpiring among these three personalities — and the folly of the U.S. and British governments’ efforts to broker a deal between Musharraf and Bhutto — have been wholly obscured.

Continue reading at AsiaMedia….