Javed Hashmi Fighting
Back a Dictator's State Terrorism
By
Tarique Niazi
"MY
HAIR WAS PULLED. My head was repeatedly banged against brick walls.
I was kept blindfolded in a pitch-dark pit for days. While wrapped
around in blindfolds, I was poked with the nozzles of guns trained
at me. I heard my captors stomping around me, screaming obscenities
at me, and shouting, ‘kill him, kill him.’ My blindfold
was removed only to further blind me with blasts of several thousand
watts of electric light burning, round the clock, inches from
above my head. For days and nights, my captors kept me awake,
thirsty, and hungry to break me down.”
This
is not the story of one of the inmates of Guantanamo, who despite
being “enemy combatants” are still served three warm
meals a day, supplied with a prayer mat, a copy of Koran, a translator,
a medical doctor for emergencies, and West Asian and Middle Eastern
dishes complete with Pita bread and Afghani Naans for their Iftar
and Sahr.
Nor
is this the tale of an inmate of Tihar Prison in New Delhi, whence
even Indian designated “terrorists” --- Sheikh Omer
Ahmed and Masood Azhar – take chartered flights to their
freedom in Kabul with the second most important Indian –
Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh – as their flight attendant.
Most ironically, this is the harrowing narrative of the leader
of the world’s largest movement for democracy, which is
now zeroing in on Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s dictatorship in
Pakistan.
This
is the account of the bravest of brave Javed Hashmi, who presides
over the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) and whom
Gen. Musharraf has had kidnapped on October 29. Mr Hashmi has
since been kept incommunicado. When he told this tale to a visibly
shaken magistrate in Islamabad, according to the Voice of Germany,
several long gashes were visible down his head.
Yet
he has not been seen by a doctor, a family member, or even by
his attorney who is the country’s eminent jurist –
Syed Zafar Ali Shah.
That
said, the U.S. Ambassador in Islamabad, Ms Nancy Powell still
hoped at a Karachi Council of Foreign Relations meeting that Mr
Hashmi would have “a fair and transparent trial.”
Ambassador Powell’s hope is welcome, but it is not without
irony, however. A leader of democracy is being tried by a military
dictator! Wouldn’t it be otherwise? Shouldn’t it be
otherwise? Couldn’t it be otherwise?
I
believe it should be the dictator, whom Ambassador Powell deferentially
addresses as “His Excellency President Musharraf,”
standing trial for his crimes against the constitution, judiciary,
and democracy, not a leader of democracy.
As
Ambassador Powell has rightly pointed out, a huge gap of understanding
exists between Pakistan and the United States. This gap is actually
widening by the day. It is not because Pakistanis are nuts. It
is because of doublespeak of the United States on democracy and
human rights. When the people of Pakistan watch the US recruit
a dictator, who turned their country into an instrument of terrorism
for them and their leaders of democracy, in its war on terror,
they wince in disbelief. They cringe to hear the leader of the
free world, President Bush, publicly praise a dictator: “I
am proud to call him (Musharraf) my friend.” Gen. Musharraf
and the dictators like him are beneficiaries, not blotters, of
terrorism. They are the reason why we have terrorism in the world.
If
the United States wants to be taken seriously in Pakistan or elsewhere
in its war on terror and its campaign for democracy, it should
help Pakistanis to evict the Terrorist-in-Chief from Pakistan’s
Aiwan-i-Sadr and Army House. Ambassador Powell should not be “hoping”
for justice for Mr Hashmi. Instead, she should be “demanding”
his immediate release if justice in Pakistan is to be believed.
It is not Mr Hashmi who needs justice; It is the justice and its
believability in Pakistan that needs Mr Hashmi’s freedom.
Justice
squirms under the boot of the dictator every day. So much so that
even the Supreme Court, which is known for its bottomless capacity
to take abuse, has squealed back. This week the Court has ruled
that no “state employee” can participate in politics.
This is the same Court that four years ago handed the political
control of Pakistan to a state functionary – Chief of Army
Staff. Yet I welcome the ruling!
Can
the Supreme Court, however, forbid the army chief from meddling
in politics? Can it have the corps commanders, whom Gen. Musharraf
parade around every now and then in support of his Legal Framework
Order (LFO), forswear politics? Can it protect its own integrity
from the abuse of a state servant who is law unto himself?
I
have no doubt that the Supreme Court does want to see all state
functionaries -- including Army Chief and his Corps Commanders
– submit to the law and quit politics. But there is no “organized
force” (such as military whose control has been usurped
by a dictator) at its command to enforce its will.
The court is, thus, just as much victim of dictatorship as are
the people of Pakistan, Constitution, and democracy. Yet the Supreme
Court can do one thing to help recover itself from the shadows
of dictatorship, and perhaps empower the democracy movement as
a result: It should return the three-year extension in service
on the bench that a state functionary has granted it -- a grant
that now comes into conflict with its own ruling.
Whether
or not the Supreme Court will walk the walk, Mr. Hashmi certainly
is. He is putting his life on the line to enforce the will of
the Supreme Court. He is telling a state functionary – Chief
of Army Staff -- that he has no business conducting politics.
Can the Supreme Court take on the dictator on behalf of Mr Hashmi,
and order his immediate release? I know that such orders will
not be carried out. Yet the Court will, at least, vindicate its
duty to the innocent who are up against the powerful criminal.
Yet
Mr Hashmi and his movement for democracy are not holding their
breath for “relief” from the Court. Instead, he and
his movement are fighting for the supremacy of the will of the
Court by blazing the trail for the end of dictatorship. Mr Hashmi
believes that independence of the Supreme Court lives in democracy
and dies in dictatorship. While mounting a democratic assault
against dictatorship, he is fighting for the independence of judiciary
as well.
To
achieve this end, he already has deepened the unity within the
movement. He has tethered Pakistan Muslim League (PML), of which
he is the caretaker President, and his rival Pakistan People’s
Party (PPP) to an unbreakable faith in democracy. Five days before
his kidnapping, he addressed a public rally for democracy in Peshawar,
which sits at a stone’s throw from bordering Afghanistan.
Tens
of thousands of Pakhtuns thronged the fabled Kissa Khawni Bazar
to listen to him speak. In a highly dramatic gesture, Mr Hashmi
stepped up to a forest of microphones crisscrossing the podium
and raised a chant of “Benazir, Benazir.” The crowd,
without missing a heart beat, responded ecstatically: “Wazir
Azam Benazir.” PPP’s Makhdoom Amin Fahim reciprocated
Mr Hashmi by leading a chorus of “Nawaz Sharif, Nawaz Sharif;
Wazir Azam Nawaz Sharif.”
This
was a transformative moment in Pakistan’s history that has
long been tarred by inter-party rivalries. It was a moment that
witnessed history actually made. This was the history of a new
Pakistan, a free Pakistan, a democratic Pakistan, and a Pakistan
of and for all.
The
pull of Mr Hashmi is drawing people out of their hovels and hamlets
to become a weapon of mass destruction for dictatorship in Pakistan.
His incarceration will do more than his freedom to drive the last
nail in its coffin.
