Zia Sarhadi
These statements are not made out of spite. There is ample proof for such assertions. Let us begin by outlining the role of the armed forces. In every country in the world, the armed forces are supposed to protect the country’s borders.
They may also be called upon to assist the civil administration at times of natural disasters: floods, earthquakes or snow storms. There are many examples of such kind of assistance.
The Pakistani armed forces, especially the army, also consume the bulk of the country’s budget. They get handouts directly and indirectly. They have set up what is called the Fauji Foundation as a charitable organization thus getting exemption from paying tax.
The Fauji Foundation owns cement, fertilizer and corn flakes factories (yes, you read that correctly). They also grab the choicest land in every city and town and turn them into Defence Housing Societies (colonies). They set up gated communities to protect themselves from the very people they are supposed to protect.
And while they have demonstrably failed to defend the country’s borders against external enemies, primarily India, they have never hesitated attacking and killing their own hapless people. The most glaring example was provided by the army’s criminal attack on the people of former East Pakistan (today’s Bangladesh) in which some 300,000 mostly innocent people were butchered in cold blood in 1971. This ultimately culminated in the armed forces shamelessly surrendering to the invading Indian army on December 16, 1971.
It would be reasonable to assume that for such disgraceful surrender, some generals would be put on trial on charges of cowardice and treason, and publicly hanged. Perish the thought. Not one general was held accountable. They hid behind the excuse that India interfered in our “internal affairs”. Did India also instigate the brutal military assault on the people of East Pakistan?
There was a political crisis, engineered by the generals in connivance with opportunistic politicians like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who refused to accept the verdict of the people. Had the people’s wishes been respected, the crisis would have been averted. There would be no slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent Bengalis nor the humiliating surrender of the army to India.
The fact that no general was court martialed for cowardice, faulty policy and treason, the generals have become emboldened. Soon after the December 1971 debacle, they claimed that the armed forces needed to be rebuilt and should not be criticized in order to prevent their morale from falling.
Such shamelessness would be hard to find elsewhere. In any other country, generals or other officers found in such gross dereliction of duty would be court-martialed and promptly executed as a lesson to others. Not in Pakistan which has brought the country to its present sorry state.
Since 1971, the army has imposed martial law twice and messed up civilian institutions. The bureaucracy has been subordinated to the whims of the army; troublesome politicians standing up to the army’s illegal interference in politics are marginalized or imprisoned. Imran Khan and thousands of his party members and supporters languish in prison because of the generals’ bloodymindedness driven by greed and total usurpation of power.
The country’s parliament has been reduced to a rubberstamp institution doing the army’s bidding and now the judiciary has also been made subservient to the brutes in uniform. Television anchors eagerly sell themselves. In return for money, they parrot the lies the army dishes out to them.
There is not one civilian institution that is allowed to function based on the constitution. The army considers itself above the law. Criticizing its criminal conduct is branded as treason.
And early last month, it rushed through the rubberstamp parliament an amendment extending the chiefs’ tenure from three to five years. If a subsequent extension is granted, that will also be for five years. What have these Napoleons done to merit such rewards?
The army chief who many consider to be illegal, will remain in his post virtually forever. He is not even fit to be a chowkidar (watchman at the gate).
Let us look at the genesis of the current situation. On April 9, 2022, Imran Khan’s government was overthrown by the army and the intelligence agency, the ISI. Some parliamentarians were bribed to withdraw their support from him. The country has been in turmoil ever since.
The thugs in uniform shamelessly claim in front of television cameras that they are not involved in politics. If so, who overthrew Imran Khan’s government and who stole the February 8, 2024 election when the people had voted overwhelmingly for Imran Khan’s Party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI)?
The generals have now moved into the field of economics, agriculture as well as mining. Having messed-up everything else, the wise guys in unfirm have now set their eyes on these sectors as well. With the disaster that they have wrought elsewhere, will the results be any different in these areas?
When some soldiers or junior officers are killed fighting their own people, they are immediately declared “shaheed” (martyrs). This is a complete perversion of Islamic principles. Shahadat is obtained when one dies for the sake of Allah, not to keep the greedy generals in power or by obeying illegal orders to kill their own people.
The generals do little or no work. They live in palatial homes and in the evenings, hold drinking parties at which they indulge in illicit conduct with call girls masquerading as journalists.
Is this the conduct expected of the army of the ‘Islamic’ Republic of Pakistan? There is no republic in Pakistan and there is nothing Islamic about it. For a country to be called Islamic, it must be governed by Islamic laws; Pakistan is not.
It would be best to change the country’s name to the Banana Republic, subservient to the US and the medieval Arabian regimes such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). There is no need to bring Islam into it when there is nothing of Islam to be found in Pakistan, especially when parasitical generals shed the blood of innocent people.
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