In the ever-changing scenario in the memogate scandal case, Mansoor Ijaz has reportedly refused to come to Pakistan and appear in court. Ijaz has based his decision on ‘unsatisfactory’ security arrangements and that the government is interfering in the security plan.
This latest development has created furore amongst politicians, diplomats, analysts and the media – as they all voice their opinion on the case.
While one cannot take away from the significance of the alleged memo, given its contents and the personnel involved – should it continue to remain the most important issue, nearly four months after it first surfaced?
Given the problems being faced by the country and its people, such as the energy crises, terrorism, street crimes, inflation, health issues – should the memogate scandal really be at the top of the agenda?
Should the government, the military, the media and all other concerned players be as concerned with the memogate as they currently are?
Dawn.com invites its readers to give their views and suggestions.
Memogate appears to be a planted drama initiated by the sitting government with the connivance of establishment and judiciary just to shift the attention of gullible masses of Pakistan from serious issues like energy crises,price hike and deteriorated law and order situation ln the country.May Allah save us from such tricky elements and provide a sincere and true leadership.
This seems to be misleading brief. The issues , listed herein as priority concern,like,law and order,power,gas,inflation etc are addressed by the top echelon of ruling class.If they are involved in Machiavellian games, for their power greed, personal security and self-interest, then what can be expected from them to address those issues. Thus the prime interest and focus of people and apex court ,becomes to sort out those Machiavellian characters to be replaced by the right class of rulers to address the national issues.
Memogate, may not be so important to some. However, discussion and investigation about the subject is very important as it relates to honesty among politicians and overall democracy in the country. Pakistani present civil leadership and their link to foreign intelligence need to be open to the public.
I regard the ‘memogate’ as one of the most important events in the history of Pakistan as it involves a grave issue. It is alleged that the Pak Ambassador to the USA requested help from the US government alleging that a military coupe is imminent. Further, he did so at the behest of the Pak President. Inviting assistance from a foreign power against a country’s army without consulting the Parliament is a serious matter. The ex-Ambassador claims that the allegation is false. Pak Army Generals, however, believe that there is some truth in the allegation. If Pak citizens wish to be ruled by law, they should insist that he matter needs to be investigated fully.
What about investigating and punishing Pasha and his Boss for visiting Arab countries for soliciting support for the coup as alleged by the same person who is involved in the Memogate. Why the CJP is not taking so prompt cognigance of it.
well said!
I should have thought that it is well known that this case is before the Pak Supreme Court (SC) because an important politician appealed to it. There is no reason why some other important politician should not appeal to the SC concerning the allegation that General Pasha sought support for a military coupe from Saudis.
It is a shame that Pakistani civil and military leaders have made a mountain out of a mole hill of “Memogate”. This worthless peace of paper has transformed many Pakistanis with supreme brains and intelligence as paranoids. The purported recipients of this peace of paper, the American government have already dubbed this paper as worthless. However, the Pakistanis are determined to make a mountain out of it regardless of how much money is spent on investigation and how this will affect the unity and solidarity of Pakistanis. What the memogate said is “a conspiracy by military to overthrow government of Pakistan and asking America to stop this over throw”.
The memogate has no signature of President or Prime Minister of Pakistan or any government employee. Why the learned Pakistani leaders do not accept it as hoax and bogus. Even if it is true a Pakistani American Ijaz indeed delivered the paper, it is well known that the Pakistani American Ijaz does not represent Government of Pakistan. Also, it is for government of America (not Pakistan) to go after the man for delivering a hoax or bogus message to American authorities.
All I can say “May Allah give wisdom to Pakistani leaders to refrain from unwarranted foolish acts.”
PM Gilani and other government officials threatended to arrest Mansoor Ijaz and put him on ECL, obviously scaring him from coming to Pakistan, this is obstruction of justice and violation of Supreme Court orders. The people of Pakistan want the truth, therefore his testimony is crucial. If his safety can’t be guaranteed, then commission members should meet him elsewhere, just as the ISI Chief met him.
Under what legal authority ISI Chief met MI, can you point out that. If he met without any legal authority what action is being taken against him. What are the views of the CJP. When he will take cognigence of this illegal act of Pasha in meeting MI.
Zero has become hero. No one knew about this follow and now everyone knows. What else, he wanted! Army Plotted the drama against civil government. Judiciary is part of this plot. Judiciary has proved again that it is part of the establishement.
Its Déjà vu, history repeats itself, at least in Pakistan. Our establishment along with its accomplices especially in media and politicians deliberately keeps on destabilizing the situation so that an elected government cannot work. We need an end to it like Turkey so that real issues of this country can be addressed.
Pakistan is the only country in the world where the military is called “the Establishment”. This is a result of the fact that the military generals have seen themselves as the true inheritors of sovereignty from the British Raj. While the other dictators are dead, Musharraf is still alive and should be brought to court for acting on this absurd assumption. Only then will the people of Pakistan start to realize that it is the elected representatives of Pakistan, working within the rule of law, who are “the Establishment”.
Media, Mullah, Politician, Bureaucracy and Security forces are responsible for present condition of Pakistan.
This whole drama started with MI writting to FT of Lndon and subsequent to the embarrasement the Military of Pakistan began to face after the OSBL was picked up and they did not knew this action by by US. It thus is a cover up to divert the attention the Pakistani were paying on the ineptness of their Military which began to loose its respect. From this the Military got Husain Haqqani to resign but their DG ISI who also secretly met with MI did not. Husain Haqqani was successful in getting support of US for the civilian Govt. and this they achieved in addition to diverion of attenon their criticizem.
Discovry of OBL in Abbottaad is not a National Issue, terrorist attack on naval base Mehran in Karachi is not National issue but this ridicule piece of ill written memo by two controversial personalities becomes talkof the town & even reaches to the bench of the Supreme Court. The military & ISI were sleeping tight and having merry when the above stated two incidents occured and suddenly this non sensical memo in broken english proves strong enough to shake the core of entire military establishment.
No we should be least worried about this thing as we have much much more important and larger issues to tackle, forget about this and move to real issues.
Though it is true that real issues concerning the hapeless, poor citizens of our beloved country Pakistan have nothing to do with the so called ‘ memogate ‘ scandal ‘. However it must be kept in the mind that this is a serious allegation on the top most leadership of the country, and if the allegations are true, the faces of the true actors must be unvieled and and stark punishment must be accorded to them. The point is that there shuold be a clear balance when it comes to the accordance of justice. All the serious issues, the energy crises, the ever increasing inflation, the problem of missing personel, unemployement etc, must be given the weight and importance they really deserve. Since all these problems are directly concerned with Pakistan’s existance as a sovereign country.
The issue would not have lingered on if govt would have cooperated with Judicial commission. Hussain Haqqani refused to hand over his Blackberries. His and Zardari’s old friend, Mansur Ijaz, was issued open threats from PM, Interior Minister and other PPP ‘leaders’. That made it difficult for him to come to Pakistan. They know Mansur has evidence against them. Else they’d have let him and come discuss the issue.
I totally agree. If I were Mansur Ijaz, I would definitely refuse to go to Pakistan where the PM and Interior Minister are offering(fake) security and at the same time, threatening him with all kinds of fake restrictions. I am sure they have arranged some one to take him out. Mansur do not go there- let them sort out their own problems. You simply published an article and they jumped on it. They can crown Hussain Huqqani a king- who cares. You should not risk your life for this government in Pakistan who could not provide security to their own governor Punjab. Just stay away with your family and let them roll in their mire.
Yes MI should not come to Pakistan. Instead he should publish all his proofs in a renowned journal. By the way how come ICJ is trying to involve in the matter at the behest of a well wisher of H H ?
I feel that Memogate must be investigated thoroughly and let it take five years. We, people of Pakistan must focus on Memogate issue so that China can take advantage of us and lead us to doom. Power cuts, rising prices of petrol, gas will take care of itself.
Whats is credibility of Mansoor? The Hadith ‘A BELIEVER IS NEVER STUNG FROM THE SAME HOLE TWICE’ requires from believers including Superior courts that we should not rely on the person who is lire, who has said time and again that he would come to Pakistan and appear before the court, but did not come on one pretext to another, as such did not show due respect for the Superior Court, and has also been playing sentiments of 200 million people. He is damaging and degrading the institutions of Pakistan, has written venomous against Pakistan Military and Government. It is very unfortunate and sorry for the people of Pakistan to credit this treacherous person who is destroying time and energy of the nation that is being ridiculed around the world.
Mammogate is a fictional creation of Kiyani and Pasha to discredit democratically elected government. Both of them were trying to hide their incompetency and failures about Abbotabad incidence.
“Mansoor Ijaz given final chance to appear before the commission”? It looks like memo gate issue has been amicably settled between all parties concerned. Is it the commission that want the truth out and, therefore, it needs Mansoor Ijaz or is it Mansoor Ijaz hell bent upon toppling the government? Rehman Malik used the old thanidar tactics to scare away Ijaz and apparently his tactics are working. The military establishment that wanted Mansoor Ijaz’s testimony so badly, seems to have reached some kind of agreement with the government. It wasn’t about the truth about some breach in national security system, but about the army that wanted to coerce the government. In the commotion everyone will forget about the Abbottabad and Karachi episodes.
The bigger scandal is that ISI chief meets Musharaff in Dubai. Just think about it.
The Chief architect of NRO is our top Military commander.
Army needs to be reformed . This personal fiefdom needs to come under People’s control through their elected representatives, otherwise there will be much more destruction ahead for our country.
Memogate brought one worst thing on surface that is existences of state within state. ISI chief meeting with Musharraf is an ample proof how situation is out of hand. This is a high time if prime minister can at least take resignation of ISI chief for his repeated failures and incompetency.
Memogate is the one of the biggest fraud in the history of the country, created deliberately , to topple the civillian goverment and derail the democracy. supreme court should stay away from politics and such scandals otherwise it will lose its crediblity.
if an elected govt is concerned that the army may take over then it will be within its rights to quell the rebiloin and help by ban outside agency should be welcome
ISPR threatened prime minister with serious consequences and that is rebellion.
We brought world’s amusement on how immature are we in dealing and prioritizing our country’s issues. Memogate should have been absolutely dead the day American Generals Mike Mullen and James Jones declared that they took both memo and Mansoor Ijaz “not credible”. Instead of believing in the respected and credible American generals and taking our own ambassador trustworthy we gave importance to an American citizen who has history of poor credibility and habit of earning cheap publicity (refers his video commentating on nude women wrestlers). It was equally unfortunate when our apex court accepted to hear this case when already a parliamentary commission was looking into it.
It is a time that Pakistan’s establishment gives a beak to an elected government so that issues of national importance can come into attention. Pakistan desperately needs to progress economically so that we can eliminate poverty and bring food, energy, safety and security to people of Pakistan. This can only be happened when we put them on top of our priority list.
We need to ask ourselves for some soul searching. Does anybody have any idea how much time, energy and money we have spent on this non issue? Was not a better deal for military if they could saves lives of those soldiers who have been killed by Taliban in the past week? If our government brings more engines on rail track so that people’s faith on democracy can be flourished? And how about our judges if they can bring justice to poor people so that they should not fall prey to justice of Taliban.
it is created by the govt itself to aviod the anger of people about their daily need issues…its so unfortunate.please think 10000000000 times before voting this time and also educate the ill litrate people..
Wrong. Mansoor Ijaz Published the op ed in Financial times and DG ISI went to investigate it to London,without Government’s knowledge. Then Hussain Haqqani was summoned and questioned. Where is the government’s hand in the initiation of all this. Who is illiterate? Why do you demean Pakistani Public?
i would extent this article, it has so much of RIGHT things!
How is this memogate issue any more important than the crush of poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, and insecurity that stalks the land? How is it any more important than the Abbottabad fiasco or the Mehran base attack? I do not recall the military or the media spending half as much time on these very, very serious incidents and with as much intensity than on the memogate nonissue. What if Ijaz refuses to visit Pakistan to testify?
One’s heart bleeds to see almost the whole Pakistani nation, including the so-called intelligentsia, behaving like jokers and dancing to the tunes of a foreigner who is notorious for his venomous stance and rhetoric towards Pakistan and its state institutions. Don’t we, i.e. our politicians, judiciary and media, etc have something more important and better to do than making a mockery of ourselves and portraying a clown image of Pakistani nation to the whole world? It’s unimaginable to see our lordships and politicians stooping so low in this turf war that they seem to have forgotten all norms of decency, neutrality and justice. To top it all, media view everything in terms of rating and money. National repute and interest seem to be alien terms to them. Let us behave like sane people and concentrate on doing something good for the nations. Inflated egos will get buried with the persons but this country has come into being to stay for eternity.
Very Well said, Jamal. I completely agree with you. Great job.
To me, this Memo scandal is invention of those minds who want to oust incumbent Government at every cost. Opposition and Judiciary are just entrapped in this mouse trap by certain other forces and the issue has now proved counter-productive to all Army,Nawaz Sharif and Judiciary. However,Media is striving to keep this issue alive for longer than its life. Most probably it is to benefit Govt which is now laughing under its sleeves at the follies of SC and Nawaz Sharif etc. Once again this drama is going to be drop-scened in the benefit of PPP led Govt.
The investigation of the memogate affair by the commission and the other problems such as energy shortge, general insecurity,… have nothing to do with one another. However, they are being mixed up by the governmental side as a diversion from its incompetence in dealing with the country’s deep problems and preventing the commission from unrevelling the memo affair.