Since putting up my picture with General Musharraf last
Friday a number of you have been asking about what was discussed and how was
the overall mood of the meeting. So here I am finally putting aside my habitual
lethargy and procrastination to write few lines on the experience.
Meeting Setup:
Like many good things in my life this meeting came through
my radio contacts. One of my very regular listeners, Colonel Fazal Abbas sb
offered me the opportunity to set an appointment with General Musharraf during
an informal lunch I was having with him in mid June. My response was an
immediate yes. I was asked to wait and wait I did. Within ten days I received
a call confirming the time of the meeting and day. I was asked to be present
outside the colony where General sb is residing at Zamzama Karachi. Hearing this,
my wife insisted to be a part of the meeting. I knew she has a soft corner for
General sb in her heart but I saw a dedicated fan in her that evening. Like
every good husband I couldn’t say no to her and eventually managed to take her
along albeit her security clearance came less than an hour before the meeting.
Luckily she was there on time.
Note: Pls don’t ask me to setup the meeting with General
sb…I am in no way in any position to set those up J
It wasn’t a one on one meeting. There were 5 individuals
other than me and Tasmia. One of them was the President of a local Bank
First Impression
of the house:
General sb is
currently living in the a nice spacious house within the General’s Society at Zamzama. The society had its own security while there were few Rangers
personnel giving duty outside his house. We were greeted warmly by the staff at
the main gate. We did pass through the security gate and were asked to hand
over our cell phones (politely). I was allowed to carry my camera inside
though.
The house building itself though not very big was pretty well
organized and decorated. The first things you would note were the pictures
hanging on the wall of the living room with notable leaders of the world.
We were asked to sit in the drawing room and were served with
some refreshments. We had to wait for a few minutes before we heard the
familiar voice coming from the background. Tasmia looked at me and smiled
suggesting “we have heard this voice before haven’t we?”.
So finally General entered drawing room and first thing
which was visible was his grown waistline. Surely he wasn’t working out as much
I read he is used to. He welcomed each one individually. This was supposed to
be a very informal meeting and the good thing was that there were no ground
rules set. General sb appeared in good spirit and fresh. Not a typical 70+ year
old man we know in our society.
Discussions:
Bulk of the opening minutes were taken by the President of
that banking introducing himself and how he was distantly related to him
through many distant contacts. The intro was so long that I knew my number
would never come and I had to get General talk about the current state of
affairs in Pakistan. Which is why we were there after all. Getting an
opportunity I broke the news to General sb about Sri Lanka taking away
on-arrival visa facility from Pakistanis. He was shocked to hear that and said
“ab ye time aa gaya
hai kay Sri Lanka hamaray saath ye kar raha hai”
Sri Lanka naturally holds great importance in General sb’s
life and he believes he is still widely respected there. He narrated an
incident during their civil war when their soldiers were trapped somewhere near
the Jaffna peninsula and were under attack from LTTE. Then President Chandrika
Kumaratunga called General Musharraf for help and Pakistan was prompt to send
as much help as possible in the form of arms, ammunition and technical
expertise to help the Sri Lankan brothers.
Iftikhar
Chaudhary:
Any meeting with General Musharraf could never be complete
without the mentioning of Iftikhar Chaudhary. He joked about the appointment of
Arsalan Iftikhar at the Vice Chairman of Baluchistan BOI and how a national
treasure like Reqo Diq would be under him now for exploitation.
“ye dekho chor ko
chowkidaari pe laga diya”
He highlighted how Chaudhary sabotaged the whole reqo diq
deal GOP signed with a consortium of the Canadian and Chilean company for the
mining of copper and goal reserves. His regret was overwhelming when he
estimated how many millions of dollars worth of exports were to come in 2012 if
Tythian Gold and Antofagasta were allowed to carry out their job. He said that
he met the president of Tythian Gold in London after the annulment of the deal
by Chaudhary and how much disappointed he was on what was going on in Pakistan.
General sb did shed some light on the Pakistan Steel deal
and shared the plan of what Al Tawarqi (the winning party) was supposed to do
with Pak Steel in terms of further investment and exports. I asked General sb
if there was any discussion between the then Judiciary and himself before the
announcement of the decision. General sb smiled and me and said that now I have
asked him he would share the details. The details (which I will not share here)
were shocking on ground of how much aligned General sb, Iftikhar Chaudhary and
the Attorney General were on the pro-privatization judgement which was supposed to come. However the ultimate
judgement was totally the opposite. General sb hinted the reason why this would
have happened and he would share this in the sequel of his book “In the Line of
Fire”.
The Book Sequel:
The sequel of his book is very much on the cards in fact if
appeared that most of the book has already been written. He smiled and said the
text would be completed once the judgement of the ongoing trails especially the
article 6 case is out.
During the meeting we didn’t specifically talk about the on
going cases perhaps due to the shortage of time.
His Political
Future:
I asked General sb on where he sees himself in the politics
now considering how he has been singled out by the biased judiciary in his
previous political endeavour. His response was not very specific. He did
mention that the current political system isn’t helping the country out. People
have tried and tested PPP which failed to deliver and now PMLN isn’t faring any
better. As expected he didn’t have much hope from Imran Khan either. He said
that no matter how many elections you have in Pakistan we will eventually end
up having the same people getting elected. He believed that country desperately
need some form of an interim setup for an extended period of time with a solid
backing of the military. Does General sb see tacit role for himself in any such
setup…I would say yes. At least his body language suggests so. He clearly said
that the days of military coup in Pakistan are now over. He nodded his approval
on the Tahir Ul Qadri’s movement.
Religious Extremism:
General sb dedicated a lot of time in explaining how
extremism can be combated. In a typical Musharraf like style of giving solution,
he divided the war against extremism in various stages with actions like Zarb e
Azab as the first one. He believed that till the time the madrassas have been
incorporated in the modern schooling system we cant win the war. He proudly
mentioned about some of the strict steps he took against madrassa by amending
their curriculum and making them more mainstream. Alas most of this has been
reversed and madrassas have growth has been unabated since he left.
I think the meeting was supposed to last for an hour but it
continued for an hour and a half before him chief of staff requested us to
finish the discussion. There of course were many questions unanswered but I did
ask General sb if he is in touch with Shaukat Aziz and Altaf bhai. About
Shaukat Aziz he said he they talked often when he was in London and Dubai but
haven’t talked since he is in Pakistan. About Altaf Bhai he said “oh yes I am”.
J
General sb came to his door to see us all off. He encouraged
my wife to start working rather than staying at home!
And there it was…that’s the longest I have written in a
while. One question that I really forgot asking General sb was “Which team is
he supporting in the FIFA world cup?” J
