Source: Teeth Maestro

Guest Post by Amer Nazir

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Part One of the ‘The NAB Diaries’ can be read here
Part Two of the ‘The NAB Diaries’ can be read here
Part Three of the ‘The NAB Diaries’ can be read here

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“Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money.

Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to take permission from men who produce nothing – when you see money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men go richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.”
Ayn Rand (Atlas shrugged)

Perhaps we are missing out on a simple point. It is not an issue of the Army against Democracy. We want democracy but what is holding us back are the illiterate, incompetent, and corrupt politicians. And we do want our army – Pakistan needs an army but what is holding us back from having a professional army are the 150 or so generals that are in command…

Corrupt institutions can only bring forth corrupt people and a lawless society. Proper institutions bring forth proper people and transparency. Apart from institutions we need wealth and prosperity – a larger pie. With the pie shrinking it is but natural that the men with guns would want to snatch other people’s share as well… there being no other solution for their personal economic survival. Any moral slogan is adopted – patriotism, morality, religion, terrorism whatever.

The army cannot increase the pie. It has not been able to do so since the last sixty years although it has been in control directly and indirectly. Consequently, it has settled itself as an extremely prosperous welfare state within an otherwise poor state and is defending its boundary with all its might. Except for one or two projects all the army projects are commercial failures in spite of monopolies and unlimited funding – so what skill-set do they have to increase the size of the pie… are they not responsible for increasing the national debt just to satisfy their own thirst and greed? Having found nothing else to say, Musharraf declares rather apologetically that the army helps during natural calamities… and even if we are to forget what happened during the Kashmir earthquakes, is there any reason why more than 70% of the budget is spent on the army and not even a tiny bit spent on the creation and maintenance of a professional national emergency service? For how long will the country be hoodwinked and forced into accepting the hegemony of the army as a last resort? The trend is for everyone to see: the army blames illiteracy as the cause of failure of democracy but decade after decade it stubbornly refuses to spend on education at the cost of depriving its generals with a grand lifestyle…

Since the NAB Diaries started people are sending me details of several cases with the hope that they will be published in one form or another. Interestingly, someone has sent me mobile phone footage of two Generals. The footage shows the Generals in their full glory, their palatial houses, cars, servants, the royal style of their families… Accompanied with the footage is a simple statement, ‘I am fed up of the international coverage of poor people being beaten and killed on the streets of Pakistan. I am fed up of the poverty that is shown. Let’s show the world we are a prosperous nation for after all when the international media projects Columbia they show grand life styles and not poverty, so why not in our case…’

After seeing the above, what came to my mind was a wish… that the nation gives unlimited medals to our Generals, invent a few more if required to cover each and every inch of their bodies, after all they are aluminium and tin and not more… then we allow them to keep the 100 million or so that America sends every month for one year on the condition that they leave the country… and then we start all over again… for we do need our army.

This is the last part of the NAB Diaries. I am thankful for the support I have received. I have no choice. I will fight for truth and justice till the last drop of blood in my body. I have been brave not because I am a brave man but it is more out of compulsion. I have nothing more to lose. At the least, I want to leave a legacy of having stood up for honour and truth… what else can someone do who has been falsely disgraced and punished in the name of corruption…

It is requested that please try to send across only those cases and incidents that can be verified and substantiated. The footages of the General colonies and houses etc should somehow clearly indicate the owners/residents… of course it goes without saying that everything will be kept confidential unless instructed otherwise. Additional contact details with the media, Human Right organisations, publishing houses, lawyers (local and International) would also be appreciated. As much needed are the e-mail addresses of ex-pat Pakistani organisations, international business and trading concerns etc – for NAB has to be disbanded if it cannot face up to its consequences. I have taken my punishment with as much dignity as can be possible – but NAB cannot admit mistakes, it can only kill and maim… (amer1959@btinternet.com)

And, as far as I am concerned, the Chairman NAB should deposit his salary into the Eidhi Trust if he has any ethics and dignity. He has not responded to my letter asking him to either clarify NAB’s position on this case or else resign his role. Copies were sent to the President and the British High Commission as well. My message to him… Mr Chairman, you think you are so high and mighty that you cannot stoop low and acknowledge a lowly citizen… perhaps you have been taught that the dignity of your office requires you not to glorify the existence of a common man… but you are wrong. You are just a public servant, no sorry that is not the case, you are just a government servant… what you have lost is any moral reason to sit in that chair for even a single day… you have no right whatsoever to accuse others of moral corruption… if you had been in a civilized government set-up you would have probably been behind bars… Come on resign. There is after all God who is mightier than the Major General sitting in the next room watching your every movement…

I was still living in the Defence Sunset Club in Karachi. My money was running out but NAB would neither take my case to a court and neither would they remove my name from ECL. Nobody wanted to know me, I was a NAB accused and they were afraid. Interestingly, even the closest of my relatives seem to have rationalized the situation within themselves, that I must have done something seriously wrong. That I probably deserved it otherwise from where did I get my house, cars and Rolex… a perfectly normal approach in a society where there is a story behind every success. Where it is the accused that has to prove his innocence and not otherwise…

I was saved at the last moment. A friend from Cathedral approached me from out of the blue and urged me to move to his house in Lahore and that is where I stayed for the last three months of my ordeal… My friend used to travel to Islamabad often and would take me along. During one of the trips I suddenly thought of a Major General (retd) whom I had once tried to appoint as the Chairman of the E-Tech Group. He was also very close to Musharaff. I rang him up and he was surprised. We had no news of each other since the last three years. The General asked me to come to his house at once and then once again I told my story to another general from amongst the twenty or so that I knew and who had already heard me…

The General told me that Lt General Munir Hafeez had served under him and that he will make sure that he grants me an interview… I told him that Munir Hafeez does not have the guts to see me and that he should take the matter to Musharaff otherwise there is now no hope for me to survive and that my wife and daughters will now approach every Human Rights organisations in the world whether it is of any good or not… But the General insisted that Munir Hafeez cannot refuse him…

This General also never met me again but he did start the ball rolling. A few days later, I received a call from my brother-in-law saying that he had a message from my brother. I was to be given an air ticket to Karachi and was asked to write an application to the new PALPA board asking for their forgiveness. Apparently, now an ex-air force captain was the new President PALPA along with my brother also occupying a powerful board position. The ex-air force crowd were now in control and my brother had decided to save my life… I was also offered thirty-five lacs to buy a one-way ticket to London and for expenses to help start a new life in the UK. Of course, my name was to be taken off the ECL… My brother also rang up my wife and daughters in London and said to them that he was going to save me… he said to them that it was all my doing since I am a greedy person who had crossed every limit to make money…

In return of the generous offer, I was to become a partner with PALPA in a civil case against the previous trustee captains who had invested with me in the first place… The logic was simple, now that NAB seemed to be withdrawing, they needed a civil case after three years to keep the facade going… They said that they now knew that I had not embezzled money but I was still a beneficiary. That my actual mistake was that I was incompetent and my financial acumen was zilch. They said that it is all the fault of the previous trustees who should not have invested with me…

It was all so laughable. People whose own financial and management training and experience was zilch were passing judgements on someone who had run a sizeable organisation for eighteen years. Who had audit and evaluation reports from PriceWaterHouseCoopers stating how the value of the business had increased five-fold… But then what they really wanted was to silence the previous trustees once NAB got out of the case and I left the country - and for which apparently NAB was giving them time and perhaps even urging them as well… As it is, and which is rather funny if it had not been so sad for me… the previous trustees were suppose to be the actual accused and I was suppose to be a beneficiary and yet the actual accused were never put on the ECL, they never lost a single day’s salary and continued as normal…. In fact, when one of them was caught red-handed shop lifting at the Dubai airport, the warring tribes within the PIA captain community even decided at the time to set aside their differences for the moment to defy Muahraff’s order to terminate his services…

Anyway, I told the pilots to go to hell as usual and refused to travel to Karachi to meet the new President PALPA…

However, my meeting with the latest General in Islamabad worked. Instead of granting me an interview, General Munir Hafeez decided to remove my name form the ECL…

I reached London and met my wife and daughters after three years but I had only two thousand pounds and I was on a visit visa… The economic realities were harsh. And more than that was the fact that I had not been able to fulfil my responsibilities towards my family – having left them on their own…

We applied for a spouse visa but were advised to go back to Pakistan and apply from within the country of origin – something that could have proved fatal if I was again seen back in Pakistan… With no recourse left, I applied for asylum knowing well that Pakistan has been put on the ‘safe list’ if not legally than in spirit at least and that Pakistanis are generally refused asylum, immediately arrested and deported especially after the London bombings…

My asylum case was also refused since it did not come under the Geneva Convention however I was awarded Humanitarian Protection by the British Government due to the overwhelming evidence of state persecution in my case…

After six months of my reaching London, NAB seemed to have decided that I was not a threat anymore and they closed own all the cases against me… I immediately wrote to NAB that they should then help me to recover my assets from the PIA Captains who had been selling them at 1% of the actual costs between them… After six months NAB answered that it could not help me…

In the meantime, I got my Humanitarian Protection and I now wrote to the new Chairman NAB Lt General Shahid but received the same answer after six months…

I then sent an application to the President with copies to the High Commissioner of Pakistan in the UK and the Defence attaché…

An e-mail came from the President of Pakistan asking for all the documents and detailed case facts – which I sent but have never received another reply in spite of reminders… I did receive an un-expected phone call from Dr Maleeha Lodhi, the High Commissioner of Pakistan on my mobile one day… she talked for almost an hour sympathising and feeling sorry. She said she was sending the case in the diplomatic pouch and would make sure that it reaches the President… but since then her social secretary says that her Excellency does not have the time to see me as she has back to back meetings…

There were a few odd calls from the Intelligence services asking whether I have the knowledge of the fact whether my case has reached the President or not before they put it up themselves. An unmarked envelope probably from the UK High Commission also arrived in the post containing a photocopy of a letter from a certain Major General Nasir Mahmood of NAB addressed to Dr Maleeha Lodhi stating that since NAB has closed all the cases against me they cannot do anything more in this regard….

Desperate, soon I saw hope again and sent an application to the Chief Justice asking for his suo motto action… but the CJ was removed since he had been taking too many suo motto actions and had been interfering in the writ of the government, even ridiculing and reprimanding state officials…

And this is my story which has not ended…

“But what sort of offence! I’ll explain publicly what happened. If people are human they’ll have to laugh!

“As you like. But you’ll learn either that people aren’t human or that you don’t know what humans are like. They won’t laugh. If you put before them everything as it happened, it will then appear that not only did you fail to fulfill your obligations as they were indicated on the schedule – that you did not do what you should have done – but on top of this, you lectured secretly – that is, you did what you shouldn’t have done. It will appear that you insulted a man who was asking for help. It will appear that your private life is not in order, that you have some unregistered girl living with you, which will make a very unfavorable impression on the female chairman of the union. The issue will become confused, and God knows what further rumors will rise…

Whatever they are they will certainly be useful to those who have been provoked by your views, but were ashamed to be against you on account of them.”

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“But what sort of offence! Everything can be explained so easily. The facts are quite simple and clear!”

“Facts mean little compared to attitudes. To contradict rumor or sentiment is as futile as arguing against a believer’s faith in the Immaculate Conception. You have simply become a victim of faith, Comrade assistant.”

“There is a lot of truth in what you say, I said, but if a sentiment has arisen against me like an act of faith, I shall fight with reason. I shall explain before everyone the things that took place. If people are human they will have to laugh at it.”

Milan Kundera
Nobody will laugh
A short story from laughable loves

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Tags: Accountability, Corruption, Musharraf, NAB