News
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
IN THE LINE OF FIRE: Nawaz Sharif had long planned to sack me: MusharrafBy Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Gen Pervez Musharraf has accused Nawaz Sharif of planning his ouster and “waiting for the right time to strike”, while admitting that “I had already conveyed an indirect warning to the prime minister through several intermediaries, ‘I am not Jehangir Karamat.’” He did not want Sharif to think that he could “violate the constitution so easily again.”
Musharraf writes that Sharif was being fed disinformation to make him paranoid about him by people who stood to gain from his exit. “He was constantly being told that I planned to remove him,” he adds. Musharraf writes that in the third week of September 1999, the prime minister’s attorney general told him that the army was going to remove him that very night but did not identify the source of the intelligence. Sharif confided in his principal secretary Saeed Mehdi who made an effort to identify the source, but did not succeed. This increased Sharif’s “paranoia.” Some days later, Shahbaz Sharif came to see Musharraf in Rawalpindi and was told that he did not care who was made chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, but he wanted to retire Quetta Corps Commander Lt Gen Tariq Pervez who was “ill disciplined” and causing “dissension in the army.” He was also suspected to “plotting” against his chief. When Musharraf met Sharif at a lunch some days later, he was informed of his being made chairman of the JCSC and Sharif also agreed to Gen Tariq Pervez’s retirement.
Next Sharif invited the author and his wife to dinner, earlier having invited them to accompany him for umra. The meal was presided over by Abaji, the Sharif patriarch who dominated the conversation with the two brothers behaving like “little children” and “courtiers”. It was clear to Musharraf that the real decision maker in the family was the father. After dinner, Abaji called Musharraf his son but, according to the general, it was all a “charade” to put his mind at rest while his ouster was being planned.
When the ambitious Gen Tariq’s early retirement was announced in the press, Sharif asked Musharraf’s spokesman to issue a denial but was told that this could only be done with the chief’s permission who was in Colombo.
This infuriated Sharif. Musharraf also learnt that Gen Tariq was planning to make a farewell call on Sharif which he was not required to. By then, according to him, Sharif was in the grip of paranoia. Musharraf then goes on to narrate details of how Gen.Ziauddin was appointed army chief, although the defence secretary had issued no notification and the announcement did not carry the force of the law.
Courtesy DailyTimes.com.pk