Gen Raheel Sharif plans judicial coup against Nawaz
Analysts in key countries who are engaged
in tracking developments in Pakistan warn that GHQ Rawalpindi has initiated a
plan to remove Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif before the middle of 2017. Instead
of a Musharraf-style military coup, this time around the planning is for the
Pakistan Supreme Court to perform the (not very difficult) task of finding
Nawaz Sharif guilty of corruption and initiating his prosecution. The grounds
given will be the Panama Papers revelations, along with fresh evidence against
the Pakistan Prime Minister that has been gathered by GHQ Rawalpindi, including
undeclared assets in the United States and Canada. Contrary to those in India
who claim that Sharif is insincere about wanting peaceful relations with India,
and indeed in contrast to his own fiery rhetoric on Kashmir, these experts say
that Sharif has sought to work out a peace agreement with Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, on the principle that “only hawks can ensure a peace
settlement”.
They
say that PM Modi’s gesture of dropping in on the Sharif family for a birthday
celebration towards the close of last year “made a big impact on the entire
(Sharif) family”, who “saw in Modi a man who could be expected to keep his side
of the bargain” in contrast to Manmohan Singh. The 2004-14 Prime Minister is
blamed by high-level circles in Islamabad for “making promises which
subsequently get forgotten” and in not “walking the talk” on the several secret
and overt peace overtures made to Pakistan during the UPA period, including the
“Musharraf Formula” of soft borders between the parts of Kashmir held by the
two sides, a solution that would allow the migration of several hundred
thousand Pashto and Punjabi-speaking settlers across Jammu & Kashmir,
thereby strengthening the influence of GHQ Rawalpindi in all corners of the
state.
According
to these sources, the reason why GHQ seeks to oust Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
is that “he is not in favour of an aggressive and adventurous line to match the
Modi government’s newfound assertiveness on the Line of Control (LoC)”. Aware
of the harmful consequences of any such escalation on the business environment
in Pakistan, Sharif is known to have argued against General Raheel Sharif’s
call for a “matching response” to recent Indian moves, including the surgical
strike on terror camps which took place last month. The Pakistan Prime Minister
is known to be against giving an extension to the present Chief of Army Staff,
and is seeking to replace him with a Corps Commander “who is junior to at least
two other serving generals in the (Pakistan) army”, besides of course General
Sharif himself. A key source revealed that “initially the view within the
higher command of the Pakistan army was to make the extension of service of the
present chief a matter of prestige”, but in September, a Plan B was adopted.
This would involve a fresh election in Pakistan, where General Raheel Sharif
would take over as the leader of a coalition of parties that would act as a
“Third Front” separate from both the PML(Nawaz) and the Zardari-run PPP. The
expectation is that the popularity of the present army chief would be
sufficient to ensure that this coalition gets a majority in Parliament,
especially as there would be a division of votes between the PPP and the
PML(N). According to the analysts talked to, GHQ Rawalpindi “has dossiers on
every top leader of both the main parties”, and “these would be selectively
leaked during the campaign” to contrast them with Raheel Sharif, who has a
reputation for integrity.
These
sources claim that Imran Khan’s latest agitation was scripted by GHQ to ensure
that the Pakistan Supreme Court took up the matter of Nawaz Sharif’s
corruption, thus setting into motion the chain of events expected to end in his
downfall. They claim that Imran Khan has reached an understanding with the
military to accept the leadership of Raheel Sharif in a future coalition
government, in which he would be the Foreign Minister. It may be mentioned that
Raheel Sharif has very close contact with both the US and China, and has
recently built bridges with Moscow on the recommendation of China’s People’s
Liberation Army (PLA). Over the past four years, China has ensured that the
Pakistan military retains its strike capability against India, “as the PLA
wants to launch a second front, should India join the US and Japan in entering
into a conflict with China over the East or South China Sea or over North Korea
or Taiwan”. According to the sources spoken to, “Raheel Sharif has promised to
open a second front in the event of hostilities between India and China”,
despite the fact that such a reciprocal gesture has not been made by Beijing
during any of Pakistan’s wars with India.
A
high-level source claimed that “while Raheel Sharif is trusted in Beijing,
Nawaz Sharif is not”, thereby implying that Pakistan’s closest ally would have
no problem were the present Prime Minister of Pakistan replaced by the Chief of
Army Staff, “especially if such a change were to occur through the ballot box”.
China is in the process of supplying fifth-generation fighter aircraft to the
Pakistan air force “as soon as two squadrons of fourth-generation Rafale
aircraft get inducted into the Indian Air Force. Beijing is already
co-producing J17 aircraft with Pakistan, and has gifted that country’s navy
eight diesel submarines to counter the Indian fleet. Interestingly, General
Raheel Sharif has managed to persuade Russia to supply Mi-35 helicopters, using
the excuse that these were intended for counter-terror operations in FATA and
in parts of Balochistan. Interestingly, together with the move of the military
in Pakistan to remove the PM, terrorists from the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba,
Jamat-ud-Dawa and Jaish-e-Mohammad are openly congregating in cities across
Pakistan, even though these are wanted by both the US as well as India.
Once a
new government linked to the Pakistan military gets formed in Islamabad, the
intention is to ramp up the “internal insurgency” in Kashmir. In this context,
GHQ claims that four districts in south Kashmir have become no-go-zones for
police, with those in uniform still present “being rendered frightened and
ineffective” by pro-Pakistan groups. GHQ Rawalpindi has asked its men in
Kashmir to get hold of police weapons, “so that innocent people can be shot and
the police blamed”. More than a hundred such weapons have already been seized
by pro-Pakistan elements from the police, “with around two dozen having been
handed over voluntarily by police personnel” close to such elements.
The
intent of GHQ Rawalpindi is to “ensure that future acts of violence get
perpetrated entirely by home grown terrorists” and not by imports from across
the border. In this context, “the effort to make Burhan Wani a heroic martyr is
intended to tempt many more such impressionable youth into joining the groups
planning to launch a wave of insurgent attacks in Kashmir around the time Nawaz
Sharif is removed in Islamabad”. “Along with responding through conventional
actions such as sniper fire and rocket shelling from across the LoC, the plan
is to intensify terror operations across India and create a climate of
insurgency in Kashmir”, claimed an analyst based in the US. These sources say
that GHQ Rawalpindi “does not share the feelings of Nawaz Sharif for (PM) Modi,
and hence wants to replace him with a substitute who would be supportive of a
policy of robust move across the LoC and through proxies the rest of Kashmir”.
According
to them, the present Prime Minister of Pakistan is “counting the days before he
is removed from office by the judiciary”.
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