Business Recorder editorial July 30, 2016

Erdogan’s counter-coup The failed military coup in Turkey of July 15 has spawned even uglier consequences than the condemnable putsch itself. First, the reasons for the attempted overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP government are not hard to seek. In power for the last 13 years, Erdogan must be credited with transforming Turkey into a modern economic powerhouse. And this was achieved during his two stints as prime minister while allaying apprehensions about his and the AKP’s Islamist roots by adopting a moderate stance that would not disturb Turkey’s fundamental status as a secular state. However, signs of trouble began appearing after Erdogan was elected president three years ago. Observers noted his increasing bent towards authoritarianism, with accompanying expressed intent to shift power to the presidency. The coup attempt may have been triggered by such trends. However, the main suspect behind the coup attempt in Erdogan’s eyes was self-exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, now residing in the US. Turkey insists Gulen must be extradited, but has yet to move a formal request for the same, since that would require substantiation. Gulen also stands accused of earlier trouble making through the alleged influence of his followers in the police, bureaucracy, judiciary and the media. What has cut little ice with Erdogan is the denial of responsibility and condemnation of the coup attempt by Gulen. While no right minded person could support the putsch by a section of the armed forces (the conspirators did not even have the backing of the entire military), what has followed its collapse has alarmed even Turkey’s friends. US Central Command chief General Joseph Votel had the ‘temerity’ to suggest the other day that the turmoil surrounding the coup bid and the subsequent round up of dozens of Generals could affect US military cooperation with Turkey. Despite Erdogan taking umbrage at this statement, was this an idle thought? Turkey’s critical position as a member of the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State (IS) in Syria and the strategic Incirlik air base from which strikes against IS are launched cannot but be affected by the purge of nearly half of Turkey’s 358 Generals, not to mention the sackings and arrests of judges, teachers, journalists and other alleged ‘Gulenists’. Amnesty International has reported the beatings, severe torture, rape of coup plotters in detention. This does not behove a democracy wedded to the rule of law. The media has received more than its due share of unwanted attention too, including the shutting down of 130 media outlets amongst whom can be counted 45 daily newspapers and 16 TV channels. Besides this, arrest warrants have been issued for nearly 50 former staffers of the Zaman newspaper. Earlier, 42 arrest warrants were issued for journalists, 16 of whom have been detained. Amidst the wider crackdown against Gulen’s alleged or actual supporters, the witch-hunt in progress seems to be Erdogan and the AJK government’s seeing an opportunity to purge all political rivals, dissidents and the critical media. Although Erdogan in his paranoia has rounded harshly on General Votel for his remarks, his crackdown promises the opposite of what is intended: further polarisation of Turkey amidst the country’s backsliding on human rights, the right to information, imposition of a state of emergency, partial withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, and contemplation of the restoration of the death penalty. The shock of the attempted coup notwithstanding, nothing justifies this response and this trend. No democratically elected ruler/s, no matter how solid their majority and the demonstrated support against the attempted coup by even the opposition, can simply throw all restraint to the winds and ride roughshod over the rights, even existence, of all dissident opinion. Turkey, beset by a full plate of problems with IS’s turning its guns on its erstwhile covert supporter, the war against the Kurds and now the attempted coup, is not being well served by Erdogan’s turn towards what increasingly is looking like a ‘fascist’ state. For that matter, in the long (or perhaps not even that long) run, neither are Erdogan’s own interests or future.

Herald Op-ed July 29, 2016

A controversial, unresolved case Rashed Rahman The controversial case of Dr Shakil Afridi remains in limbo. Five years after the Abbottabad raid by US Navy Seals that killed Osama bin Laden (OBL) and the subsequent arrest of Dr Afridi on charges of high treason, he remains incarcerated, with his case lost in the labyrinth of our justice system. Dr Afridi was picked up for running an alleged CIA-run fake vaccination programme in Abbottabad, ostensibly to confirm OBL’s presence by obtaining DNA samples of the residents of the area. He was sentenced to 33 years imprisonment under the FCR. The sentence was initially believed to be for treason in connection with the OBL raid, but was later revealed to be on a dubious charge of alleged ties with Khyber Agency’s notorious terrorist Mangal Bagh (who was subsequently killed but not before his group denied any links with Afridi and threatened to murder him at the very first opportunity). Afridi’s appeal resulted in the sentence being overturned and a fresh trial ordered on the grounds that the trial court did not have jurisdiction. That retrial according to the fair trial provisions of the Constitution has still to see the light of day. In a sign that the partial justice accorded to Afridi did not mean the end of his woes, he was further charged with murder in the death of a patient he had treated eight years previously. It should be recalled that the Abbottabad Commission on the OBL raid had recommended on October 6, 2011 that Afridi be charged with “conspiracy against the state…and high treason”. Why then have the authorities charged him with virtually everything but? And why, even before the cases against him have reached a conclusion were his assets seized, his residence sealed, and his family moved to an ‘undisclosed location’? Nor has there been any investigation so far of the claim that he was tortured in custody. Given the spurious charges actually laid at his door, US ‘confirmations’ of his role, the obvious and glaring denial of a fair trial, the very least owed to Afridi is that due process be ensured. However, the security establishment may block any such move for fear it would open up the Pandora’s box of whether OBL’s presence in Abbottabad was known to Pakistan and the US raid exposing the defence forces’ vulnerability to such clandestine ‘invasions’.

Business Recorder editorial July 27, 2016

Karachi attack Two army soldiers have been killed in a gun attack in one of Karachi’s busiest areas on July 26. The two soldiers were shot in their vehicle by gunmen on motorcycles who managed to escape after the attack through the narrow, crowded lanes of the Saddar area. The law enforcement authorities say the attack appears to be by a banned group but add that it is too early to confirm any specific group being responsible (especially as there is no claim of responsibility so far by any terrorist organisation). As it is, the plethora of banned terrorist groups that afflict the country makes it difficult to pin down responsibility in the absence of any claim of responsibility or evidence to clinch any conclusion. While the law enforcement authorities immediately cordoned off the area and carried out a forensic examination of the soldiers’ vehicle that hit a wall after the shooting caused the driver to lose control, they were hampered in their investigation by the fact that the CCTV cameras installed in the area were found to be non-functional. This is a serious breach of the security protocol, especially since this is the fourth such attack in this very area. There are similarities with the attack on December 1, 2015 that left two military police personnel dead in a shooting on M A Jinnah Road, the lobbing of a chemical bomb into a Preedy police mobile that killed three policemen, and a few months later, three more policemen being killed in the same area. Whether the same group was behind all four terrorist incidents is not known at this juncture. The crowded area offers terrorists opportunities to meld into the teeming traffic, strike and make good their escape in expert fashion amidst the choked streets and alleys of the area. The fact that three earlier incidents were known to have occurred in the area should have alerted the security and law enforcement agencies to the fertile soil for terrorism presented by the peculiarities of the area. However, the pattern does not appear to have sunk home. And the icing on the cake is the dysfunctional CCTV cameras in this sensitive locale. The other significant aspect of this latest terrorist attack is that it was not directed at the police or, logically, the Rangers carrying out an operation against terrorists and criminals in the city, but regular army soldiers. Whether this is owed to the fortuitous (from the terrorists’ perspective) circumstance of randomly having discovered the military vehicle traversing the area or was the result of a well prepared ambush on the basis of prior information is also not known. However, the security and law enforcement agencies need to wake up to the terrorists’ ‘happy hunting ground' that the Saddar-Preedy area seems to have turned into and take well thought through, stringent steps to prevent a recurrence of such incidents. The fact that the toughest component of the country’s defence and security forces was targeted this time could be indicative of a mounting riposte by the terrorists to the operations being conducted against them in the city. As it is, reports speak of a surge in random attacks all over Karachi in recent weeks. This could be the start of a more aggressive campaign by the terrorists. That spells bad times again for the citizens of Karachi, who had barely heaved a sigh of relief at the improved security and law and order situation in the wake of the Rangers’ operation. It is a common error to perceive the relative quietude of terrorists when under attack by the security forces as an indication of their defeat or elimination. By its very nature, asymmetrical warfare follows the guerrilla principle of retreating and lying low while the security forces are actively campaigning, wait for the apparent lull to produce a level of complacency and then utilize the gaps in the security architecture to renew their attacks. We may well be witnessing such a development in Karachi at present. The lesson to be derived from this see-saw urban battlefield is that we cannot afford to let our guard down, irrespective of seeming ‘peace’ having been restored. In fact, if anything, all such sags in terrorist actions should be treated as the lull before fresh storms.

Business Recorder editorial July 26, 2016

Change of guard The Dubai meeting of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leadership has decided to show octogenarian Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah the door. The ‘surprise’ decision could have been anticipated since in recent days the air was full of speculation that a change was coming. Of Qaim’s three terms in office, the second one, 2008-13 was the only full one. In the current term, his ministry was beset with a whole series of new problems to add to the perception of ineffective governance that dogged his footsteps in earlier stints. Amongst these new problems, the Rangers operation against terrorists and criminals in Karachi perhaps proved the reef on which Qaim’s ship finally foundered. The issue of the extension of the Rangers’ mandate reared its head again and again, complicated further by the recent incident in Larkana in which Home Minister Anwar Siyal got implicated as a result of his brother Sikandar Siyal’s attempt to come to the rescue of Asad Kharal, arrested by the Rangers on corruption charges. This highlighted the desire of the military-backed Rangers to have their mandate extended not only in Karachi but further to all of Sindh. The perception is that Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and the senior leadership of the PPP were dissatisfied with Qaim Ali Shah’s handling of the Rangers issue, in which they found him too ‘soft’ and pliable. However, just as Qaim could not defy the will of the security establishment without risking the Sindh government per se, it remains a moot point whether his successor will be able to do any better. Given Karachi’s importance as the industrial, commercial and financial hub of the country and the decades old unrest, terrorism and crime that held the city hostage, the establishment’s impatience with ineffective civilian governments fed into the pressures applied and visible, especially since 2013, on the Sindh government. In this obtaining scenario, it is unlikely his successor will not face the same scenario. In addition, there has been a widespread perception that Qaim was largely a ‘showpiece’ chief minister, and that the province was actually being run in all important respects by multiple power centres, all roads from which eventually led to Asif Ali Zardari abroad. If Qaim Ali Shah was squeezed between the rock of the establishment and the hard place of multiple power centres dictating affairs in Sindh and answering only to Asif Zardari, what is the guarantee that his successor will not face the same fate? In a meeting in Karachi of the PPP leadership chaired by Bilawal after returning from Dubai, the decision has been taken to induct former Sindh finance minister Murad Ali Shah as Qaim’s replacement. Since the PPP enjoys a comfortable majority in the Sindh Assembly, it will have no problems in getting Murad Ali Shah elected as the new chief minister. However, Murad Ali Shah’s new assignment may not prove a bed of roses despite the confidence reposed in him by the PPP leadership. For one, the chances of being reduced to grist in the mill of the tensions between the establishment and the multiple centres of power answering only to Asif Zardari mentioned above remains a real risk. Second, many senior PPP Sindh leaders regard relatively young Murad Ali Shah as their ‘junior’. Whether they, and the powerful families and communities they are drawn from will be willing to serve unreservedly under him and offer him their full support remains a moot point. With two years to go to the next elections, the PPP in Sindh sees its already dwindled political fortunes nationally further weakened by the ineffective governance of Qaim Ali Shah over the last eight years in Sindh, its last remaining bastion. To engender some momentum going into the next elections, the PPP wants to switch its strategy from the ‘back foot’ (defensive, visionless, adrift) style of Qaim Ali Shah to a more aggressive ‘front foot’ posture. Whether the PPP will be able to successfully negotiate the ripples this is likely to produce in its relationship with the security establishment and use the 'victim’ card successfully if the latter moves against it, remains an open question that only time can answer.

Business Recorder Column July 26, 2016

Socialism’s revival Rashed Rahman Mairaj Mohammad Khan’s passing away this July 22, while undoubtedly the loss of a towering icon of the Left and a major figure in the struggles of the people for democracy and rights, also presents us with an opportunity to reassess his life and political career within the context of the present day crisis of the Left, globally as well as in Pakistan. Mairaj came to prominence on the Pakistani political firmament as a radical student leader, militant agitator and powerful orator. As leader of the National Students Federation (NSF), he distinguished himself by taking up the cudgels against the Ayub dictatorship in the 1960s, graduating to mainstream politics when he fashioned a partnership with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who had been ousted as foreign minister after he fell out with Ayub over the Tashkent Declaration in 1966. This partnership fathered the left-of-centre Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in 1967, whose radical reform agenda owed a lot to the group of left-wing intellectuals who joined Bhutto to form the party. The first test for the newly formed PPP came in 1968 when a student-led agitation against the regime escalated into a countrywide struggle against the Ayub regime. After a six month continuous agitation in both the wings of the country, in which the working class came out in strength for the first time in the country’s history, Ayub had no choice but to relinquish power. However, in a last stab at the country, he handed over power to the army’s commander-in-chief General Yahya in April 1969, thereby throttling the very Basic Democracies system and the 1962 Constitution he had himself authored. The Yahya dictatorship, under the pressure of the mass movement that overthrew Ayub, made a series of concessions to defuse the popular mobilisation. One Unit in West Pakistan was abolished and the four provinces restored, the ‘parity’ between West and East Pakistan’s electoral votes was abandoned in favour of one man one vote, and general elections were announced for 1970. The Yahya regime perhaps concluded that Pakistan’s first and fair and free elections would throw up a fractured mandate, which the regime would then be able to manipulate to its advantage. The people, however, spoke decisively. With Maulana Bashani’s National Awami Party-Bhashani (NAP-B) erroneously boycotting the elections, the East Pakistan political field was left open for Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s Awami League (AL) to sweep all but two seats in the eastern wing, which because of East Pakistan’s numerically larger population, gave it an overall majority nationally. In West Pakistan, the PPP swept the polls in Punjab and Sindh, with an alliance of the NAP-Wali and Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islam winning majorities in NWFP and Balochistan. Thus the mandate was ‘fractured’, but not the way the Yahya regime had anticipated. Yahya conspired to deny the AL its right to form the federal government, with Bhutto collaborating. This produced the first fissures in the Bhutto-Mairaj partnership. The second and more fatal breach occurred when, after coming to power in the wake of the loss of East Pakistan, in 1972 Bhutto had the police fire on factory workers occupying their workplaces in the industrial area of Karachi in order to forcibly take back the factories he had rhetorically been promising would belong to the workers. This led to Mairaj’s resignation from the federal cabinet. In 1973 the breach became an insurmountable gulf when Bhutto launched a military operation and a crackdown in Balochistan and NWFP respectively. Mairaj left the PPP and now began his long years on the margins of mainstream politics. Mairaj’s effort to form a Left party in the shape of the Qaumi Mahaz-i-Azadi failed to take off and his five-year flirtation with Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) too foundered on the rock of Imran’s closeness to the military. Like many other leftists of his and earlier generations, Mairaj spent the last years of his life in quiet but dignified resignation to the currents of the time. It is during this period that he was heard to muse about the correctness of his decision to leave the PPP. This is where the history of the Left in Pakistan needs revisiting. During the independence movement, while the Communist Party of India supported the Pakistan demand on the touchstone of (religious?) self-determination, many leftists joined the ranks of the Pakistan Muslim League in the hope of influencing its policies towards a pro-people direction from within. This was the first of repeated attempts by leftists to use the umbrella of mainstream political parties to further their socialist agendas (e.g. NAP, PPP), especially after the Communist Party of Pakistan was banned in 1954. All these efforts based on the theory of using the platform of ‘multi-class’ parties to further socialism came to naught at the hands of the state’s repression and marginalisation by the right wing in all these parties. What went abegging in the process was the emergence of an independent and effective Left party. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 meant different things to different people. To the capitalist cold warriors, it was the triumph of capitalism, variously interpreted, sometimes even as the Hegelian realization of his Idea (the ‘end’ of history). In this heady triumphalism, the west not only enjoyed the horizontal expansion of capitalism into the former socialist bloc and the underdeveloped world (globalisation), it saw this as the chance history had offered once more to demolish all existing and emerging rivals. This is the only explanation for the west’s otherwise inexplicable hostility towards post-Soviet Russia and rising China. Ironically, in a repeat of its early history, late, triumphalist capitalism has engendered its own class opposition in the shape of the new, emerging Left in Europe (and Latin America) in response to its latest economic crisis (2007-08). This is a Left unencumbered by the burden of twentieth century socialism’s defeat. It is pragmatic, social-democratic, and prepared to contest on the ground of the existing mainstream politics. The Left in Pakistan, already reeling from its implosion a decade earlier, sank into retreat and defeatism. Although the existing Left virtually collapsed in Pakistan around 1981, a full decade before the Soviet implosion, it has yet to re-emerge as a viable and effective voice of change, despite the efforts of the surviving Left parties and formations. To do this, and despite Mairaj’s late life second thoughts about sticking with the PPP, the Left has to reinvent itself theoretically, practically and organisationally. And this time without kowtowing to foreign centres such as Moscow or Beijing, and without the illusions about the ‘umbrella’ provided by so-called multi-class mainstream parties. rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

Business Recorder editorial July 23, 2016

An icon of the Left Mairaj Mohammad Khan, who passed away after a long illness on July 22, was a towering figure in Pakistan’s chequered political history and an icon of the Left. Even a cursory glance at his life and career would bring out the truth of this statement. Pakistan’s early years saw the students and youth as the repository of the idealism that informed the independence movement as well as the aspirations of the people post-independence. In this milieu, it came as no surprise that this section of society was often in the forefront of struggles for the rights of the people. In the 1950s, students led the resistance to Pakistan joining cold war anti-communist military pacts led by the west. Mairaj acquired his early political consciousness in this culture of student resistance. Come Ayub’s military coup of 1958 and Mairaj was already active in student politics in Karachi. This involvement led to the founding of the National Students Federation (NSF), which under the leadership of Mairaj Mohammad Khan emerged as the leading Left student body in the country opposed to the Ayub dictatorship. In 1961, Pakistani students and youth agitated against the CIA-driven murder of Congo’s first prime minister Patrice Lumumba. Mairaj and the NSF were centre-stage in that struggle, which was brutally put down by the Ayub dictatorship. In the first instance of a recurring pattern that defined Mairaj’s political life, he and his NSF associates were arrested and sentenced to six months imprisonment. The next significant milestone in Mairaj’s trajectory came with the promulgation of the Universities Ordinance 1963 by the Ayub regime, seeking to extend the tenure of undergraduate degrees to five years from the previous four. This led to a widespread student struggle against the Ordinance, because of which Mairaj and a dozen of his student comrades were expelled from Karachi, the first such internal ‘exile’ in Pakistan’s history. When, however, this expulsion only served to strengthen student resistance to the Ordinance because of Mairaj and his comrades receiving a rapturous heroes’ welcome in the rest of the country, the Ayub dictatorship finally had to retreat and withdraw the Ordinance. This success elevated the NSF to a significant political force. When the split in the international communist movement emerged, it divided the NSF too, with Mairaj heading the pro-China faction. He earned the further ire of the Ayub dictatorship by turning out in support of the opposition’s candidate Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah in the 1964 presidential election and was elected a Basic Democrat under the gerrymandered electoral structure the dictator had erected to ensure his continuing grip on power. Although at loggerheads with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto throughout his association with the Ayub regime, Mairaj drew close to and joined hands with Bhutto to first create the (at that time) the left-of-centre Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) after Bhutto fell out with Ayub in 1965, and then played a leading role in the 1968-69 countrywide agitation against the Ayub regime that finally saw the back of our first military dictator. However, being the man of principle he remained throughout his life, Mairaj opposed Bhutto over the military crackdown in East Pakistan following the 1970 elections, and in 1972, with Bhutto in power, quit a federal ministry, the PPP and the mantle of Bhutto’s political heir-apparent over Bhutto’s violent repression of the working class movement in the industrial heartland of Karachi. Later, in 1973, he opposed the dismissal of the Sardar Attaullah Mengal ministry in Balochistan and the subsequent military operation and crackdown against the Baloch and Pashtuns respectively. This did not deter him, however, from opposing General Zia’s persecution and eventual hanging of Mr Bhutto. In fact he was one of the founders of the 1983 Movement for the Restoration of Democracy against the Zia regime. After these turbulent years that took their toll of his health, not the least because of the repeated incarcerations and tortures inflicted upon him by military dictators and authoritarian civilian rulers, Mairaj’s political fortunes declined along with the virtual collapse of the Left in Pakistan. Although he attempted to keep the flag flying in the shape of a new party he founded called the Qaumi Mahaz-e-Azadi, it never took off in a political climate in which the message of the Left had weakened immeasurably. Casting about for an anchor in the wake of the disintegration of his party, Mairaj briefly flirted with Imran Khan’s PTI, but soon left in disgust over the latter’s predilection for getting close to the military. The Left may currently appear just a footnote of history pending its revival, but the example of a principled, committed, simple life full of sacrifice for his ideals that Mairaj Mohammad Khan leaves behind should serve as an inspiration to today’s students, youth, workers and peasants, as it once did during his lifetime. RIP Comrade Mairaj.

Business Recorder editorial July 20, 2016

The Musharraf saga The long, winding saga of former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s high treason trial appears to have ended up in a cul de sac. The three-member Special Court trying the former military dictator on the charge of imposing the emergency in 2007 has ruled that it cannot proceed with the case unless the accused is either arrested and produced before it or surrenders and records his statement under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). Adjourning the case sine die, the court however held that Musharraf was a proclaimed offender for having failed to appear after he was allowed to proceed abroad for medical treatment by the Supreme Court earlier this year. Musharraf left for Dubai in March 2016, having made solemn commitments and given guarantees to return to face the charges as soon as his health allowed. Since then, reports speak of a hale and hearty Musharraf enjoying his lifestyle abroad that is by now familiar to Pakistanis. The Special Court has ordered that all Musharraf’s moveable and immoveable properties and bank accounts be attached under Section 88 of the CrPC. This order too appears to have run into snags as some of Musharraf’s properties are either army land allotments, co-owned by others, or have already been transferred, including to his wife Sehba Musharraf. Challenges on these and other legal bases are possible if not likely. The assignation of Musharraf as a proclaimed offender too could be negated by the usual ploy of medical certificates being produced in court to justify his continued absence abroad. In its July 19 order, the Special Court rejected the prosecution’s pleas for continuance of the trial even in the absence of the accused as well as suggestions that the former dictator’s statement could be recorded via Skype. Should we be surprised at Musharraf’s treason case ending up as a damp squib? After two and a half years of meandering through the courts, it has reached a not unexpected dead end. The support of the institution Musharraf headed may have been an important factor in this outcome, given that the military has not allowed any military coup maker in the past to be put into the dock either (General Yahya was declared a usurper by the courts only after his death). Musharraf had been expediently given safe passage abroad by the PPP-led government in 2008. He however, carried away by hubris, returned to the country under the illusion that he enjoyed immense support at home. Facebook ‘likes’ aside, what the dictator in his labyrinth failed to recognize was that those who supported him during his years in power were by and large sycophants, coattail hangers on and vested interests. This soon became obvious and Musharraf found himself in hot soup with few friends in sight. His trial by the Special Court, after he was charged with high treason for the imposition of the 2007 emergency in December 2013 and indicted on March 31, 2014, remained suspended after the Special Court in November 2014 ordered a reinvestigation to identify Musharraf’s abettors. Specifically, the order targeted then (and now again) law minister Zahid Hamid, Chief Justice (CJ) Dogar and then prime minister Shaukat Aziz. When the trial did eventually resume on the directions of the Supreme Court earlier this year, there was no shortage of sceptics who looked askance at the prospects, both because the charge of treason was confined to the 2007 emergency and not extended to the coup of 1999, and the track record of military coup makers getting away scot-free because of the overweening influence of the military. The 1999 coup was indemnified by the Supreme Court under the implied but still notorious doctrine of necessity, ironically by a bench that included Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. The latter’s subsequent elevation to CJ reflected the good relationship he enjoyed at that time with Musharraf. It was only in 2007 that the two fell out, the reason being the dictator’s fear that Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry would obstruct Musharraf’s ambition of being re-elected president in uniform. The rest, as they say, is history. That history continues to uphold the right of military coup makers and dictators to get away scot-free after wreaking havoc on the country.