Haider K. Nizamani writes about the deal that allows Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan. While it is called National Reconciliation Ordinance, it is neither national nor is their any openness that allows for transparent reconciliation - it is another effort by the ruling elite in Pakistan to arrange things for their own benefit.

Related Links
Meanwhile, Back in the Trenches
Preventing More Lal Masjids
Military Inc and the Death of Civic Society
Another Dictatorial Regime in South Asia?

An assault on people's intelligence, disservice to the English language and insulting serious political undertakings elsewhere in the world are among the three side effects of governance in a country where the ruling class is riddled with contradictions. The recently issued National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) is the latest example of such governance.

The ordinance joins the dubious line-up of its predecessors including the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB).The word national is common to all three entities. While the term is all too visible in nomenclature, in reality it is the missing link when it comes to the rationale, practice and implications of the NRO, NAB and NRB. The yawning gap between what these terms say and what they do is too obvious for anyone to miss, except their beneficiaries. That's why I think their drafts can be used as examples of taking metaphors to absurd levels.

Let's take the NRO. First of all, some of its beneficiaries have the audacity to compare it to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Let's state the simplest of difference between the two. Pervez Musharraf is no Nelson Mandela. We don't have Oliver Tambos and Walter Sisulus among the cast of characters making the rounds of numerous television channels defending the NRO.

Ignorance is no excuse for us in Pakistan to belittle the valiant struggle of the African National Congress (ANC) against Apartheid and the courage of the post-Apartheid national unity government's initiative to establish the TRC in 1995 by comparing it to the sham of the NRO.

The TRC was aimed at looking at the 'causes and extent of the gross violations of human rights committed during the period from March 1, 1960'. Its granting of amnesty applied only to persons 'who make full disclosure of all the relevant facts relating to acts associated with a political objective committed in the course of the conflicts of the
past'. It was to offer victims 'an opportunity to relate the violations they suffered'. This arduous path was deemed worth taking so that 'the restoration of the human and civil dignity' could be achieved and the nation could be informed about 'violations and victims'. The Act that Nelson Mandela signed in 1995 reads a treatise in political wisdom.

Transcripts of Amnesty hearings are available on the Internet and even a random reading of cases would testify that the South African TRC was one of the noblest and the most humane way to publicly come to terms with the dirty and violent legacy of Apartheid.

The NRO that Musharraf has signed is neither national in scope nor reconciliatory in spirit. It is, for all intents and purposes, a legal indemnity by a military chief to a select number of individuals allegedly involved in financial corruption. The NRO applies only to cases that were registered between Jan 1, 1986, and Oct 12, 1999.

To reconcile is to restore to friendship or harmony. If the present set-up and its allies led by Musharraf is the side which wants to reconcile with its opponents on the national level, the opposing party would have to include, but not be confined to, Fata tribes, Baloch dissidents, people allegedly kidnapped by the intelligence agencies, the lawyers' community and the political opposition in the shape of political parties. The NRO is a misnomer because it does very little to extend the olive branch to any of the above.

Put bluntly, the political bargain that has been struck is a fragile understanding between Musharraf and the PPP where the former would not block the way of Benazir Bhutto's future political plans in return for her providing him political oxygen at this crucial juncture.

In a divided society, national reconciliation has to be a healing process where victims are heard and perpetrators offer full disclosure of their deeds. The NRO prescribes hiding and not open healing.

The NRO is an offspring of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Accountability refers to an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions. The NAB process selectively targeted people and spared those who threw in their lot with Musharraf's political system. Reconstruction as per the NRB's activities was designed to come up with a political system that would undermine the role of the national parties and provinces in the name of devolution.

When I draw attention to qualitative and contextual differences between the South African TRC and the NRO in Pakistan, the purpose is not to be dismissive of the rapprochement between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto. Her party has got more than 30 per cent of the popular vote cast in every national election since 1988.

At the end of the day, the deal she has got falls well short of her stated non-negotiable demands. The cases against her have been withdrawn but she couldn't get Musharraf to lift the ban on a twice-elected prime minister running for a third term. She also did not get the written pledge from Musharraf's side to have an independent election commission to conduct the upcoming elections.

Does that mean that the party cadres would be accusing Ms Bhutto of short-changing them? Barring isolated voices of political puritans within the PPP, most will be content with the deal. In the charisma-based party, the person of Ms Bhutto is the biggest asset that the PPP has. Her absence from the home front is acutely felt by the PPP leadership at all levels. If she can come back without having to worry about being hounded by the NAB operatives, the PPP cadres would love to have their leader return as the country gears up for elections.

Can she deliver the results? It is too early to say. Currently, her party is not much different from the other main contenders of power as far as offering a compelling programme of governance is concerned. She is a tenacious campaigner and is fully capable of retaining 30 per cent plus of the popular vote in the party's bag. The stars smiled on her in 1993 when Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Nawaz Sharif collided.

In 2007, circumstances have made Musharraf eat his words of never allowing Benazir to set foot in Pakistan as long as he was in power. The NRO should be renamed the BRO (Benazir Return Ordinance) as that captures its essence more accurately. That way it won't be a misuse of the English language and we won't be trivialising the South African TRC. Above all, we would not be insulting the intelligence of ordinary Pakistanis.

- The writer teaches at the University of British Columbia, Canada.