Opinion Qureshi’s disclosures

On November 15,The Express Tribune quoted him as saying,“I had joined the PPP under Benazir Bhutto’s leadership,but this is not the same party anymore,it is Zardari’s league.” He cited the PPP’s alliance with erstwhile arch-rivals PML-Q as the reason behind his departure. “How can we make an alliance with Qatil (murderer) league? A PPP worker will never accept this… Today,those people are sitting in the Gilani cabinet who had abandoned Benazir (in her lifetime).” Qureshi had been inducted into the cabinet the day it was formed in 2008.

He claimed that he had quit the party and resigned his parliamentary seat because he had been pressured to make concessions in the Raymond Davis case earlier this year. Dawn quoted him on November 15 as saying: “Raymond Davis did not have diplomatic immunity and President Zardari was pushing to grant immunity to the CIA contractor.” The Express Tribune added this quote on November 16: “I was being greatly pressured to give him immunity and I refused to do it.”

Shortly thereafter,the Lahore high court received an application requesting the court to have Qureshi put this claim on the record. The Nation reported on November 17: “A local lawyer filed this application in his already pending main petition on the issue of whether Davis was entitled to immunity. The petitioner stated that Qureshi had alleged that he refused to bow down to pressure over giving diplomatic immunity to Davis because the CIA contractor was not a diplomat.”

Memo problems

Pakistan’s papers are calling it “memogate” — an article in the Financial Times on October 10 by Pakistani-American businessman Manzoor Ijaz claimed that an “incendiary” memo was sent by Zardari via Pakistan’s ambassador to the US,Hussain Haqqani,and Ijaz,to be delivered to the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff,Admiral Mike Mullen — purportedly to avert a possible military takeover in Pakistan. The Express Tribune reported on November 18: “The memo,which was allegedly conveyed to Mullen by Haqqani a week after the Osama bin Laden raid in May,was reportedly sent by President Zardari who,at the time,feared a military takeover in Pakistan. The memo allegedly refers to ‘a dangerous devolution of the ground situation in Islamabad where no control appears to be in place.’ It adds that if the military does take over,Pakistan may ‘become a sanctuary for Osama bin Laden’s legacy and potentially the platform for far more rapid spread of al-Qaeda’s brand of fanaticism and terror’. It also stated that an opportunity exists for ‘civilians to gain the upper hand over the army and intelligence directorates due to their complicity in the Osama bin Laden matter.’”

An article in Foreign Policy confirmed that Mullen had received the memo. It quoted Mullen’s spokesman,Captain John Kirby: “Admiral Mullen had no recollection of the memo and no relationship with Ijaz. After the original article appeared on Foreign Policy’s website,he felt it incumbent upon himself to check his memory. He reached out to others who he believed might have had knowledge of such a memo,and one of them was able to produce a copy of it.”

The News reported on November 17 that Haqqani had offered to quit but quoted him as saying,“No memo of the kind being discussed in the media was drafted or delivered by me.”

The 39ers

On November 18,Daily Times reported that the loya jirga debating the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan has been divided into 40 committees,but none of them is willing to be called committee number 39: “The members of committee 39 refuse to acknowledge the number because of an urban myth which associates it with pimps.”