Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: June 3, 2009
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/180491/JuDas-judiciary.html
What next? Saeed for Nishaan-e-Pakistan?
In freeing Jamaat-ud-Dawa'h chief Hafiz Mohammad
Saeed and more or less whitewashing his role in the conspiracy behind the
November 26, 2008, terrorist attack in Mumbai, the Lahore High Court has acted
completely in character. It has also confirmed the widespread apprehension
that the Pakistani state has atrophied beyond repair. Its systems are completely
compromised and incapable and unwilling to take on the challenge of Islamist
terrorism. To call the proceedings in Lahore a kangaroo court would be to
violate the dignity of marsupials. The three-judge bench listened patiently
to the extraordinary arguments of Saeed's lawyer, who claimed his client was
innocent, that the United Nations Security Council had only sought a ban on
the JuD and travel restrictions on its leaders, not their arrest, and that
in any case Pakistan was not bound to implement Security Council resolutions
because India had not acted on UN resolutions on Jammu & Kashmir! Amazingly,
the three judges concurred with this mix of non-sequiturs and nonsense. They
then pronounced Saeed a free man, even as his lawyer ran out of the courtroom
screaming, "Allah hu Akbar." The JuD, as is well known, is the mother
agency of the Laskhar-e-Tayyeba. It is one of the world's most dangerous religio-terrorist
organisations, the patron of mass murderers. As per the admission of the Pakistani
Government and its lawyers, JuD is linked to Al Qaeda. None of this meant
anything to the Pakistani judiciary, which has in the past few years systematically
sabotaged its country's anyway half-hearted war against terror by releasing
a series of suspects and terrorist accomplices, including history's greatest
WMD proliferator. True, the higher judiciary has had a degree of support from
street mobs on this score - the battle against Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the
LeT is not quite popular in Pakistan - but in its greed for cheap applause
it has certainly made this a riskier planet. Even so, the sheer brazenness
of the Lahore High Court's verdict is unique. It is difficult to match, even
for a judicial system that once murdered a deposed Prime Minister following
a trumped-up charge and a show trial.
In Saeed's case, it is not possible to pretend
that the judiciary acted independently. Obviously there was an element of
concert with the rest of the Pakistani establishment. Following the action
in Swat - the Pakistani Army has been taken kicking and screaming into the
battleground against its domestic Taliban - Islamabad's Generals may have
concluded that the Americans will not pressure them on Saeed and the LeT.
That is why Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani chose Tuesday to deliver a speech
attacking India for disrupting the so-called peace process and demanded negotiations
on Jammu & Kashmir. His silence on the outrageous Saeed verdict, on the
freeing of a truly evil man, was eloquent.
The real message from Lahore and Islamabad
is for the White House, for President Barack Obama and his team of wide-eyed
Pakistan enthusiasts. There are severe limits to treating Pakistan as a normal
country, with functional state institutions and systems. Its Army is a mix
of mercenary and jihadi tendencies - oscillating between exaggerating operations
to claim American dollars and seeing the Taliban as an auxiliary. Its political
class and judiciary regard the Islamists as essentially good people who can
be used to further the strategic and social goals of Pakistan. Perhaps all
that remains is for Hafiz Mohammad Saeed to be awarded the Nishaan-e-Pakistan.
