Abid Mastikhan

The innuendo and disillusionment persists for Pakistan and each question in mind goes unanswered. Or innumerable answers confuse the mind not knowing which can be the correct one. Here comes dignity and self esteem to gradually whither with the only norm for respect in society being Power & Money. Wealth amassed   mostly through illegal channels. The word corrupt replaced with how intelligently such wealth is earned and spent to acquire Power and how Power used as a tool to exploit the masses to bring in more wealth to individuals. With the ill earned wealth being laundered to foreign countries, the country has reached at the verge of Bankruptcy.  These are because of the actions of Pakistan’s Economic Hitmen blessed with immunity within the country and abroad.

The debacle for Pakistan started right from the early years of its independence. The Quaid’s dream for a Pakistan that he had dreamt was lost during the early days of independence immediately after his death. A senior now no more living, carried the Pakistan flag chanting “lay kay rahingay Pakistan” was later so dismayed that his words to his closest childhood friend “My friend, I never cursed you but now in my death bed I curse you and in return you curse me for chanting lay kay rahingay Pakistan as this is neither the Pakistan that the Quaid dreamt of nor we could ever imagine to become.”

Pakistan, after becoming the only Nuclear Muslim state in the world, became a target of the west. Since an option for a direct invasion was ruled out as Pakistan being a Nuclear Country, the West started to create the Pakistani Economic Hitmen in the shape of the country’s corrupt political leaders. Where the source of funds in access of USD10,000.00 to a foreign country has to be explained for a common man, these Pakistani Hitmen funneled billions of ill earned dollars invested & deposited in the Banks in U.A.E., U.S.A., Saudi Arabia, France, U.K. Panama, Switzerland etc. with no questions asked. Two birds are being killed with one stone. For Pakistan to eventually go bankrupt triggering unemployment and unrest within the country where the hungry masses have become prone to either join extremist groups or join sit-ins thinking that it may bring them relief creating turmoil and secondly, unrest in the country to be suppressed by the Creditors under the burden of Foreign Debts.

The history of the country is distorted in schoolbooks with the intention to wash away the truth that there was once a Part of Pakistan that was called East Pakistan. The part of the country that was lost to become Bangladesh. None of the actors who were part and parcel of this calamity were punished for such a heinous crime that went un-noticed. With the present state of affairs, pray that history is not again repeated due to selective accountability and discriminatory policies. A saying, “Fools learn from their own mistakes whereas the intelligent learn from other’s mistakes” but are we learning from our own mistakes, it seems that the answer is in the negative.   All actions to govern what is left of Pakistan seem to be the same as that prior to the dismemberment of the country; we have not learnt the lesson even from the recent past. The worse has come where all the neighbors are antagonized; Pakistan is in the middle of a proxy war. With the United States never to tolerate a Military or an Economic imbalance in any region in the world, is quite upset with the CPEC that benefits Pakistan’s only friend, the P.R. China.

The country today is caught in a vicious financial quagmire.  The exports are declining, the foreign debts increasing day by day, the utilities & cost of living going up multifold each month, not each year, the wealth of the country in Billions of Dollars being laundered and funneled by a few to foreign countries and more is still going while they see the country moving towards further financial and political crisis, instability and turmoil. There is no institution that can control the Rampant Corruption, an open secret to all. The curse of NRO hovers while politicians keep on changing their sympathies from one Political Party to the other and their past sins happen to be washed away with it in doing so.

Wars were once fought with guns and bombs but this strategy has now changed as it brings physical destruction, rather to drain a country’s economy to bring it to its eventual end. The cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States continued for years following World War II. Both were Nuclear Countries. In a book “The Rise and fall of the American CIA”, the Americans sold failed blue prints of Reagan’s Space Wars Program to the Soviets who spent billions of dollars finding it to be a failure. The eventual end came when the Soviets got directly involved in the Afghan war against the west that were smart enough to fight back with the help of their proxies. The Soviet Union could not withstand and crumbled like a deck of cards.

The same strategy is being followed by patronizing Pakistan’s Economic Hitmen where the corrupt are allowed to so smoothly launder their ill earned wealth from the country with no questions asked while the country is being inundated under the burden of foreign debts and therefore foreign dictates.  The book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” vividly elaborates this fact. The big difference, there the Hitmen are created for the benefit of their own country whereas here, the Hitmen are patronized for the economic destruction & disaster of their own motherland.  A time may not be far where under the burden of heavy foreign debt reaching USD100.00 Billion mark, Pakistan is dictated to reverse its Nuclear Program and do away with its Nuclear Arsenal. Alarming, isn’t it?

The stolen wealth of the country laundered is causing an end game for Pakistan.  The only survival calls for the return of the stolen wealth back to the country and all those responsible irrespective of who or what they are, should be tried for Treason under Article 6 of the Constitution above board to save the country. It is the height of hypocrisy where one corrupt is accusing the other for rampant corruption.  In the present situation, the vultures continue to be active in scavenging what is remaining to eventually be left with the bones to be discarded.

(The writer is former project director and Deputy Managing Director of Saindak Copper Gold Project, district Chagai, Balochistan)