By
LampPost
ISLAMABAD:
Congratulations Mr Hussain Haqqani! you have now been added to the
list of "Officially Certified Indian Agents" which has,
over periods of time, included Najam Sethi, wife Jugnu Mohsin, Shaheen
Sehbai, Maleeha Lodhi, Raja Asghar of Reuters, Ahmed Hasan Alvi of
Dawn, Late Humayun Fur, Late Azhar Sohail, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Zafaryab
Ahmed Khan and anyone and everyone who wrote against the sitting government
of the day, political or military.
These
OCIAs, however, acquire a place of honour and respect as soon as the
government is booted out and a new one comes in, obviously to prepare
its own list of OCIAs. A new addition is about to be made in the current
list, after Haqqani. He is the courageous Ghulam Husnain of Time Magazine,
previously of Reuters and Dawn, who has just managed to reach the
safe shores of the United States after playing hide and seek with
the real spooks of ISI. His informative pieces on the ISI involvement
in the Jihad mess got him in trouble. Husnain went in and out of several
detention and interrogation sessions before he went underground and
succeeded in taking a flight away from the dirty action.
One media
man, is however, not so lucky and not so courageous. The Editor of
Urdu Daily 'Jasarat' was so scared last week he requested every one
not to call him to ask what happened to him when the ISI guys kidnapped
him for several hours to find out the source of a reporter's story
against an ISI high up dabbling in politics. The man has been given
some lesson he would not forget any time soon. Well, somebody would
notice the difference between the Urdu and the English medium print
media.
Still
on the media, LampPost heard a lot of cries of a female voice the
other day, coming out of a deceased journalist's wife because some
Dis-info Monastry big wig had taken over her late husband's news networking
agency and she was not being given her due share. This big boss is
enjoying power these days, like they all do before they retire from
service. Many claim he has a fair amount of equity share in the agency
and has kept it quietly tugged under his sleeve for a rainy day after
he joins the list of "former" Grade-22 "baboos".
This
word is a respectable description of a government servant and was
introduced in the 
colonial
days of the British when locals were illiterate. If any bright kid
made it to a clerkship in the government, he would become a "baboo".
The Dis-info boss does not like himself, or his other colleagues,
to be called "baboos" and so he said before General Musharraf's
so-called "Public Accounts Committee" which is neither public,
nor can take account of anything nor can be called a committee. It
is a sham arrangement to create a farce of accountability but the
chairman conducting this exercise knows his limits, as he is also
a retired and re-employed "baboo".
The Dis-info
boss went to the committee and ordered them to stop calling him a
"baboo", stop describing the irregularities of bureaucrats
as "corruption" and start behaving. Well, the committee
began complying with his third order instantly and except for a single
voice of a former general, no one objected to his lecture. The Press
was also told not to call misappropriation of accounts as "corruption",
because this word was to be used only for politicians. What else should
the Press call it, no one explained. Someone suggested a few names
and the Dis-Info boss can pick up any of these: "organized loot",
"official plunder", "dacoity by the book" "officially
certified theft". It is, however, another matter that this official
will call everything going on now as "corruption of the worst
kind" when, in a few months, or a couple of years, he retires.
Speaking
of retired persons, one general raised his (question) mark last week.
He had almost made it to the top army slot but for his political family
connections. He comes from the family of a former dictator, the only
Field Marshal Pakistan had. After retirement he straightaway went
into the business of supplying his former organization with equipment.
But now it was business and he had to compete with others, including
stiff competition in the dirty tricks department. His very first venture
to supply some trucks to the army was blown off by competition and
he started crying foul.
A mole
in his office, however, remembered the time when this general was
the deputy of the big army boss. A Karachi businessman met him to
offer Russian jeeps and trucks at 40 per cent of the price with easy
payment terms (50 pc cash, 50 pc in shape of Pakistani exports). He
would not take it because of the argument one General gave against
the Russian jeeps: "Our officers' bums are now used to plush
comfort and we can't use these Jeeps." The vehicles were to be
produced in Pakistan on transfer of technology basis but would have
cost Pakistan US$7,500 a piece against the British and Japanese models
bought cash at $30,000 a piece. As deputy chief he was definitely
guarding the interests of the fighting force.
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