Will commission on Hamid Mir make history?

LAHORE: As Premier Nawaz Sharif formed a judicial commission to probe into the attempt on Hamid Mir’s life, over 180 million Pakistanis are now hoping against hope that this investigating body will at least succeed in making history by helping them learn the vital facts and will not opt to place this file in the cold storage in line with past practice.

Innumerable commissions have been established in Pakistan since its inception, but no one has actually possessed thecourage to shed light on various national disasters, tragedies and losses that have rocked the country. This is totally contrary to what happens in countries like India, United States and Israel, where both governments and militaries have gone a long way in discovering the truths by evaluating the facts placed before them and without taking recourse to any expediency.

The journalist community is still perplexed about who may have killed investigative newsman Saleem Shahzad in May 2011 because the findings of the Justice Saqib Nisar Commission set up after his death continue to remain a mystery.

The Saleem Shahzad case thus stands buried and forgotten despite the fact that the learned judge had finalised his report on January 9, 2012 and had submitted it to then Prime Minister the very next day.

Pakistanis are also clueless as to what may have led to the dsmemberment of their country in 1971; who may have benefited from the 1988 Ojhri Camp catastrophe and who may have orchestrated General Zia-ul Haq’s plane crash in 1988.

Remember, the Hamoodur Rahman Commission had analysed the probable lapses of country’s Army during the East Pakistan debacle of 1971. It did reportedly come up with a lot of intriguing and explosive facts, but the actual truth remains a black hole.

This Commission was set up under Justice Hamoodur Rahman (the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court). The other two members of the Commission were Justice Anwar-ul-Haque of Supreme Court and Justice Tufail Ali Abdul Rehman Zubedi (the former Chief Justice of the High Court of Sindh and Balochistan).

This Commission had unveiled a host of factors behind the killing of thousands of Bangladeshis, besides unmasking the powerful men behind the rampant rape incidents, smuggling and looting of banks in East Pakistan.

After cross-examining nearly 300 witnesses, this Commission had also recommended dozens of court-martials and trial of top army officers, but no heed was paid to its suggestions. Justice Hamoodur Rahman, who had also served a member of the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague (Holland), had finally submitted his report on October 23, 1974.

His illustrious son Justice Iqbal Hameed ur Rahman will now be looking into the factors and motives leading to the attack on Hamid Mir.Apart from fixing responsibilities on key Army officials, the top arbiter of his time had also blamed the then Premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for the East Pakistan fiasco. However, as was expected of him, Bhutto had gone on to accuse the Enquiry Commission of exceeding its jurisdiction.

Even General Zia ul Haq, Bhutto’s worst enemy, could not publish this report during his 10-year long reign owing to certain expediencies.

Similarly, the Ojhri Camp truth continues to remain locked up in dusty files for the last 25 years, despite the fact that the havoc caused by this disaster is still fresh in most memories.

On April 10, 1988, the Ojhri Ammunition Depot in Rawalpindi’s Faizabad area had blown up and over 100 people were killed by the free-flying missiles and projectiles.

An investigation was thus conducted into this tragedy on orders of then Premier Mohammad Khan Junejo, but the findings of General Imranullah Khan had met the same fate as did the Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report.

A Parliamentary Commission, headed by politician Aslam Khattak, was also given the same task at the same time. There is a theory that General Zia had dismissed the Junejo government on May 29, 1988, for the Premier’s ‘sin’ of trying to ‘uncover the reality.’

Interestingly, successive regimes of Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and General Musharraf also could not make this report public during their tenures. The outgoing Asif Zardari-led PPP government and now Nawaz Sharif in his third tenure, have also chosen to look the other way on this issue of paramount national importance.

Four years after General Zia-ul-Haq’s plane had crashed near Bahawalpur in August 1998, the then Premier Nawaz Sharif had decided to form an enquiry commission under a Supreme Court judge called Justice Shafiur Rehman.

Though Justice Shafi had reportedly accused the Pakistan Army of obstructing his work, the body headed by him did not clearly blame the Pakistan Army for General Zia’s death.

Despite the fact that General Zia’s son Ijaz-ul-Haq had repeatedly been accusing General Aslam Beg (his father’s successor as the Army Chief) for the mystifying plane crash; the Shafiur Rehman Commission could just look into the possibilities of the involvement of the Shias, Americans or the Ahmedis in the disaster.

This Commission had examined all the three likely possibilities, but dismissed all of them in the end. Although this Commission was convinced that the air crash was an act of sabotage that had killed 30 senior Pakistani army officers and two important Americans, even an ordinary Pakistani had reached the same conclusion.

No responsibilities were hence fixed by this toothless body and mystery continues to shroud Zia’s death, even though quarter of a century has gone by.Last but not least, the report of the Abbottabad Commission, authored by Justice Javaid Iqbal, was submitted to the then Pakistani Premier on January 4, 2013.

Formed in June 2011, this commission was supposed to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. Upon submission, the report was immediately labeled as “classified” by the then prime minister and its findings were not made public.

This report reportedly had scrutinised more than 3,000 documents pertaining to the raid by US forces to kill Osama on May 2, 2011.

The previous Pakistani government had declared the contents of this report as “Classified,” but it was released by “Al-Jazeera” on July 8, 2013.

The four-member Abbottabad Commission had interviewed 201 people, including the country’s intelligence leaders, in an effort to piece together the events around the May 2011 American raid.

This body had held 52 hearings and had conducted seven field visits, but an ordinary Pakistani citizen remains unaware of its findings to a large extent.

The history of such enquiry commissions dates back to 1780, when a British Army Major, John Andre, was executed for espionage and conspiracy during the American Revolution on orders of General George Washington, who had later become the first US President in 1789.

The first documented use of enquiry commissions was recorded during the Mexican-American War in 1847 and then thousands of people were prosecuted during the American Civil War (1861-65), Reconstruction Era (1865-77), the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the World War II (1939-45).

During its post-independence history, India has formed quite a few enquiry commissions too. In 1950, a bureaucrat A. D. Gorwala was asked by Government of India to recommend improvements in governance. In his report, Gorwala had made an observation that quite a few of Nehru’s ministers were corrupt and that government patronised its cronies.

The Santhanam Committee, which was appointed by the Government in 1962 to examine the issue of corruption, had observed in its 1964 report: “There is widespread impression that failure of integrity is not uncommon among ministers and that some ministers, who have held office during the last 16 years have enriched themselves illegitimately, obtained good jobs for their sons and relations through nepotism and have reaped other advantages inconsistent with any notion of purity in public life.”

The Liberhan Commission was formed in December 1992 to investigate the Babri Masjid dispute in Ayodhya. After 17 years, the report of this longest-running Indian Commission was finally submitted to Premier Manmohan Singh on June 30, 2009. The commission was given 48 deadline extensions and had cost Rs80 million.

The report had held Kalyan Singh, the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, responsible for posting bureaucrats and police officers who had remained silent during the mosque’s demolition, besides accusing him of dismantling the security apparatus and infrastructure.

It had also accused the Kalyan Singh regime of lying consistently to the courts and to the people of India. The Liberhan Commission had also blamed senior BJP leaders Atal Behari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Uma Bharti and Murli Manohar Joshi etc of being intellectually and ideologically responsible for the mosque’s destruction.

The report had said that although Vajpayee, Prime Minister in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, was not present on December 6, 1992 when the mosque was brought down, it could not be assumed that Vajpayee, Advani and others did not know of the designs of the people who had brought the mosque down.

The Liberhan Report had come under severe criticism from the Hindus especially, for being biased and rhetorical in nature. The Justice Thakkar Commission was set up to probe into Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984. It had recommended a separate probe for the conspiracy angle behind the assassination.

Leading Indian magazine “Outlook” had viewed in its April 13, 1998 edition that Justice Thakkar had himself recommended that some parts of his report should not be made public.

The Justice M.C. Jain Commission was formed to probe into the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. This is how the “Outlook” magazine of April 1998 had looked at this commission’s report:”What did the Jain Commission’s interim report on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case achieve, besides enabling our politicians to thrust an election on the country? It got 12 extensions and took six years to complete the probe-Jain wasn’t given an extension when his term expired on February 28. Now, more than a month after he submitted his final report, it’s still with the government.”

The Indian magazine had gone on to write: “In the days of Nehru and the old Congress, inquiry panels had a better fate. The M.C. Chagla Commission, which took up the Life Insurance Corporation scam, is unique in more ways than one-as it is the only Commission that submitted its report in less than a month.”

After the Kargil conflict of 1999, the Atal Behari Vajpayee government had constituted a Kargil Review Committee to peek into the causes of the conflict and analyse the perceived Indian intelligence failures.

This committee, chaired by eminent strategic affairs analyst K Subrahmanyam, even had the powers to interview former prime ministers.

Though the Subrahmanyam Report had led to massive restructuring of the Indian Intelligence, it was slated in media for not fixing the responsibilities of the intelligence lapses.

This Commission had even indicted a few high-ranking Indian Army officials for not reporting Pakistan Army’s war moves in time.

The Justice Phukan Commission was set up to investigate the allegations of corruption in the wake of the controversy generated by the Tehelka tapes in March 2001. The expose had led to the resignation of the then Defence Minister, George Fernandez.

However, in May 2005, “The Newsweek” had reported that Justice Phukan along with his wife and eight officials used Indian Air Force plane and went to Pune and Mumbai etc.

India had also established some enquiry commissions to probe into the 2002 Gujarat violence, which had started after the burning of the Godhra train on February 27, 2002.

After 58 Hindu pilgrims were burnt alive in their train apartment at the city of Godhra in Gujarat state, communal riots had sparked off—killing 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus.

These events, which also led to burning of 298 shrines, 205 mosques, 17 temples and 3 churches, had forced the Indian government to set up a few commissions like the Shah-Nanavati commission.

In 2008, the Shah-Nanavati commission came out in favour of the Gujarat government and both Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Indian National Congress party had come out protesting against the exoneration of the Narendra Modi regime.

The Congress had lashed out at the Commission for absolving the Gujarat government, viewing it should have been held accountable for complacency for the carnage.

The Banerjee Committee, set up in 2004 to probe the Godhra train fire, had concluded that the fire was accidental.

However, after its findings were challenged by the BJP and the Gujarat Police, the court ruled in 2006 that the panel was illegal.

The Concerned Citizens Tribunal, headed by retired Supreme Court justice Krishna Iyer, also investigated the Gujrat violence and accused Chief Minister Narendr Modi of complicity in the violence.

Opposition parties reacted and demanded the dismissal of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for failing to curb the violence.

A few others called for the removal of Union Home Minister L. K. Advani also.

The Pradhan Inquiry Commission was appointed by the Maharashtra Government on December 30, 2008, to probe the response to the November 26, 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The committee submitted its report to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra in April 2009, but the government did not release it initially, citing security concerns.

The Pradhan Inquiry Commission report said that since the Maharashtra police had not experienced a direct commando attack, such as the 2001 Parliament attack or 2002 Akshardham temple attack, so they were only thinking of stealth bomb attacks

The Pradhan Committee said it did not find any serious lapses in the conduct of any individual police officer and generously appreciated the law enforcement agencies.

It observed that the managements of the Taj and the Oberoi Hotel did not implement certain important security advice given to them by the local authorities.

In American history, 10 official inquiries were conducted into the Japanese attack on the Pearl Harbour attack on December 7, 1941.

Ever since the Japanese attack, there has been debate as to how and why the United States had been caught off guard and how much knowledge did the Americans have about the Japanese offensive.

All the 10 official inquiries into this incident had reported incompetence, underestimation and misapprehension of Japanese capabilities and intentions, problems resulting from excessive secrecy about cryptography and dearth of intelligence manpower.

The 9/11 Commission, which was set up to prepare a comprehensive account of the circumstances leading to the September 11, 2001 attacks, had concluded that the intelligence failures of the American CIA and FBI had contributed largely to these terrorist offensives.

In November 1963, the then US President Lyndon Johnson had appointed a Commission on the assassination of his predecessor, John Kennedy.

This Commission, headed by the then US Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, is thus also known as the Warren Commission.

Its 888-page final report was presented to President Johnson on September 24, 1964, and made public three days later.

The Warren Commission had concluded that Kennedy’s killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, had acted alone and that a man called Jack Ruby had murdered Oswald during the trial.

The Commission’s findings have been dubbed controversial by many during the last 48 years and hundreds of conspiracy theories have surfaced since.

In Israel, the Agranat commission probing the failures of the country’s 1973 Arab War had given a clean chit to the then Prime Minister Golda Meir and the Defence Minister Moshe Dayan and had blamed Army for the debacle.

The report’s contents were so scandalous that the public rose up against them.

Resultantly, the commission’s report was rejected and Premier Golda Meir and her Defence Minister Moshe Dayan were forced to resign.

On April 30, 2007, the Justice Dr Winograd-led Inquiry Commission had submitted its interim findings about Israel’s 2006 military attack on Lebanon to the then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The Commission had held Olmert responsible for the failures, observing that the Premier had made up his mind hastily, without studying the complex features of the Lebanese military, without asking for a detailed military plan and without any systematic consultation with others.

According to the Israeli Government Press Office, the Commission had further observed, “We impose the primary responsibility for these failures on the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence (Amir Peretz)