ISLAMABAD: In an apparent change of roles, an opposition anti-US outburst in the National Assembly on Monday provoked a government rebuff, which, in turn, led to an uproar before the house admitted for investigation an opposition lawmaker’s breach-of-privilege complaint for being barred from a PIA flight to Canada last week at the behest of an American agency.
The government ignored Leader of Opposition Khursheed Ahmed Shah’s demand that the foreign ministry lodge a protest with the American ambassador in Islamabad, though it agreed to the admission of Awami Muslim League president Sheikh Rashid Ahmed’s privilege motion over the alleged action of the US government’s Transport Security Administration which forced the Pakistan International Airlines to disallow him from boarding its flight to Toronto on Friday though he possessed a valid Canadian visa.
But Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, known for his severe attacks on US policies and actions as opposition leader during five years of the previous PPP-led coalition government, launched a bitter attack against the PPP for its perceived pro-US stance in the past, prompting protest shouts and more fiery exchanges between the two sides until conciliatory remarks by Railways Minister Khwaja Saad Rafique and government-allied Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai calmed tempers.
Speaker Ayaz Sadiq sent to the house committee on privileges Sheikh Rashid’s motion in which he complained his right of travel had breached by the intervention of a foreign agency, which requires its clearance of passengers on flights overflying the United States before the issuance of boarding cards to them.
Mr Shah called the arrangement dishonourable, which he said could deserve a similar requirement from Pakistan and asked the foreign ministry to call the American ambassador to hand a protest note. “Should we consider ourselves an independent country or slaves,” he said as he referred to the national flag-carrier being bound by such instructions from a foreign country while flying to another country.
“It is a matter of self-respect of the whole country if a citizen of Pakistan is barred (from travel) in this way,” Mr Shah said, adding: “Then we should also think why we hold them tight to our chests.”
The interior minister retorted by saying that the agreement binding the PIA to such US conditions was signed “during the government of those people who are now making speeches against America”.
And then, in a reference to the May 2011 US commando attack that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Abbottabad, he wondered why the same people did not make similar speeches against the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and hosted US spying agencies.
Chaudhry Nisar’s call to the PPP against what he called hiding its “present-time failures by narrating stories of (Zulfikar Ali) Bhutto’s bravery” proved to be the worst provocation of the day for PPP benches, prompting references from them to ruling PML-N leader and present Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif accepting a Saudi exile under a deal with former military president Pervez Musharraf and what Mr Shah said a letter sent to Gen Musharraf on behalf of another PML-N leader to be spared harsh action.
Mr Achakzai seemed patronising in asking both Chaudhry Nisar and Mr Shah to “behave like good boys”, but found his advice to them to shake each other’s hands as a mark of conciliation ignored by them.
The first sitting of the present session was earlier delayed for more than one and a half hours because of a protest sit-in by Islamabad lawyers outside the Parliament House linked to the March 3 militant attack on the capital’s district courts complex that killed 12 people, including a senior judge.
Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid, who also holds the charge of the law ministry, told the house that the lawyers had ended their sit-in after he assured them of the government’s acceptance of their demands for providing security to the district courts by Rangers, building new court accommodation and removing discrepancy in the rates of compensation paid to those killed in terrorist attacks.
However, he said the lawyers’ demand for punishing officials responsible for the perceived security lapse on March 3 would wait for the report of a judicial commission investigating the incident.