Where is my military coup? – by S Gulbadan
I wrote this for the Express Tribune’s sunday magazine and they published a much shorter (“mutilated”, according to the editor dude) version.
General sahab,
I have been a silent admirer of you and your methods for a long time now. You have impressed all and sundry with your charm, your cool, your foresight and your prudent outlook on matters of great importance. You have admirers in the motherland, in the Enemy Nation across the border, the Great Red North and the Imperial Kingmaker, a hard feat that even your charismatic and skilled predecessor struggled to achieve. And yet, respected sir, I have a major bone to pick with you:
Where is my military coup?
With the predecessor, looking sharper than him. (Image courtesy random google images search)
I have waited with bated breath for you to step up to the plate and provide deliverance to us measly Pakistani and rid us of this corrupt, ineffective, incompetent and unpleasant dispensation, and put the country back on the path of progress and unbridled nationalistic fervor. I have bit my nails at odd hours and during moments of crises, waiting for you to appear on national television looking your usual dapper self, with an inspirational picture of the Quaid in the background, announcing the wrap-up of this nonsensical farce that has been running for two years now. And yet, you have not lived up to my expectations. I only have one question on my parched lips:
Where is my military coup?
I sat through many hours of the trudging Long March hoping you will seize the moment and send home these misguided champions of democracy and people power, only to see you display a reverential-yet-frustrating measure of restraint. I was on the edge of my seat, laddoos ready, during all of December 2009 hoping your friends and admirers in the media will finally convince you to heed their prophecies and put in place the ingenious and admirable Minus-One Formula. And yet again, you displayed your characteristic self-discipline. Watching Geo News every day, I cannot help but wonder:
Where is my military coup?
You went to the United States and were wined and dined by the most fashionable members of the World Capital’s foreign policy apparatus. They fawned over you and listened to your every word with wide-eyed wonder. You rather cleverly got your Boy, Mr Foreign Minister, to schmooze with the former First Lady and get cute pictures taken together that were mocked the world over, while you got down to the real business of deal-making with the powers-that-be. What a skillful move that was, General sahab – I must say I was left rather awestruck and dazzled by your aura. You also went to Europe and charmed our NATO allies with your great acumen and insights into the War and our nation’s crucial rule in its endgame. And all I could think was how a son of the soil was telling the world what rightful place our great nation deserves in the galaxy of global powers. People listened to us and respected our opinions – for the first time in an era, if ever, I might add – and you were our worthy voice. I saluted you then.
After Mumbai, when the Enemy Nation sent its fighter jets over for a brief reconnaissance mission, you scrambled our boys up in the air and drove the Enemy jets back over the border. You took pictures and nonchalantly passed on this message to the offenders: “Next time we will bring them down.” I felt proud to be a Pakistani that day, realizing you were guarding not just our physical borders, but also keeping watch on our much-maligned and always-threatened ideological frontiers, a task that the current dispensation, with its motley crew of misguided, traitorous, anti-Pakistan separatist loonies, is ill-suited to accomplish. And when the journalist from across the border wrote a two-part piece on you in The News, profiling you in great depth and showing reluctant admiration, I fawned with him. Finally, when Ayesha Siddiqua wrote her piece in Dawn, calling it you a man of destiny, I found a kindred spirit. My resolve was permanently strengthened and I vowed that day to support you in this noble endeavor that you are, as she implied, destined for.
And yet, General sahab, you are disappointing me. Your time at the helm is running out, and I am afraid that you will not grab at the opportunities that are presenting themselves. Please, for the sake of my nation and its ideologically motivated and endlessly frustrated citizens, I implore you to reconsider this restrained approach. You rid us of the monsters in Swat, and you can do so with those in Islamabad as well. I urge you to step up and claim what you are destined for. Make amends, sir, and take the throne that is rightfully yours, so that no other dispirited man like myself can longingly ask the question:
Where is my military coup?
Courtesy : Gulbadan
Kiyani ne kiya nahi.
Kiyani must try Coup because it would greatly benefit “Budding Democracy” in Pakistan in view of this news report:
Zardari earns friend reprieve from agencies
By Our Staff Reporter
Tuesday, 01 Jun, 2010
KARACHI, May 31: Personal intervention of President Asif Ali Zardari led to the return of his close friend and prominent businessman Riaz Laljee, who was allegedly picked up by intelligence operatives early on Sunday morning soon after his return from Dubai, it has been reliably learnt.
Laljee returned home early on Monday morning after he was released by his captors.
Sources told Dawn that the president, after having been briefed about the incident by the police hierarchy following his arrival in the city from Dubai late on Sunday night, sent out a strong message to the quarters concerned: “Confront out in the open, instead of picking up on my friends.”
It was apparently after this message that Riaz Laljee was dropped somewhere along the Hub River Road by his captors to give an impression that he had been taken out of the city.
However, his driver Kishan and guard Muhammad Ahmed were not released, police said.
The city police chief was quoted as saying by a private television channel that the businessman had not been harmed.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik and the chief of Federal Investigation Agency dashed to Karachi on Sunday to ensure an early recovery of the tycoon. Riaz Laljee was picked up on Sunday morning by around a dozen men from beneath the Shah Faisal Colony Bridge on Sharea Faisal.
The tycoon had returned from Dubai by a PIA flight and was heading to his Clifton home along with his driver and guard when the incident occurred at around 5:30 a.m. According to sources, Mr Laljee had met President Zardari in Dubai on Saturday.
Police had registered an FIR under Section 365 – “kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person at the Airport police station on the complaint of Major (retd) Mohammad Tahir, manager of the businessman.
Following the incident, police found the abandoned Mercedes bearing registration number (AQS-686) at Sharea Faisal from beneath the Colony Gate bridge.
At the time of abduction, guard Muhammad Ahmed tried to put up resistance but was badly beaten up by the armed men, the sources told Dawn.
Mr Laljee, who owns the Abbas Steel Group, was allegedly involved in rice exports through Rice Export Corporation of Pakistan in 1995-96, a time when the People’s Party was in its second stint in power.
Last year, investigations by the Competition Commission found the owner of the Abbas Steel Group was responsible for the crisis in the organization.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani removed Moeen Aftab, the chairman of Pakistan Steel Mills, after allegations of corruption.
Mr Aftab was appointed to this job reportedly at Mr Laljee’s recommendation. During Mr Aftab’s stewardship the Mills accumulated losses of Rs 12 billion in record time.
Two of the companies cited in the scandal are owned by Mr Laljee. This was one of the cases due to which the government earned the wrath of the Supreme Court.
Last year, the Competition Commission of Pakistan’s investigation found that the owner of the Abbas Steel Group was responsible for the Pakistan Steel Mills crisis.
In 1996, Laljee left Pakistan and returned to the country only two years ago after the Pakistan People’s Party came to power.
Repeated attempts to obtain a police version went in vain, ostensibly because of intelligence agencies’ alleged involvement in the abduction.
Sources told Dawn that a new grey coloured and an old white coloured police mobile, along with three private cars, were used in picking up the businessman.
The sleuths must have had prior information about positioning of security cameras.
This is borne out by the fact that they had thus positioned themselves under the Colony Gate Bridge to avoid exposure to the cameras.
Sources familiar with such crimes feel that the method employed in the abduction bore all the hallmarks of an operation by intelligence agencies. “Neither the Taliban nor kidnappers use 12 people for abductions,” an expert painted out.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/zardari-earns-friend-reprieve-from-agencies-160
Zardari earns friend reprieve from agencies By Our Staff Reporter Tuesday, 01 Jun, 2010 KARACHI http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/zardari-earns-friend-reprieve-from-agencies-160
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