Fresh peas – Musharraf update

It’s been known for a while that Musharraf, post-Supreme Court summons, is staying in digs in London’s Edgware Road.  The Guardian’s Declan Walsh last week tracked him down for an interview, finding his neighbours to be the familiar kebab houses and shisha cafes tourists know, love, and wouldn’t be too sure about living next door to. Despite the relatively humble surroundings – compared to what he came from previously -  he is keeping busy: dining at the Dorchester, playing golf and games of bridge with arms dealer Brigadier Niaz Ahmed. Tomorrow he starts a 40-day lecture tour of the US, organised by the Harry Walker Agency who also look after Dick Cheney – the possibilities for a war-on-terror reunion tour are endless.

Senior officials tell Walsh, however, that Musharraf is on a short leash. Despite splashing out a million quid on a flat in a down market, Mush is only on a visitors visa. The UK government believe his stay to be temporary and expect him to toddle off to the states or the Middle East in the near future, like Benazir and Sharif before him.

Those officials’ fingers must be crossed, with allegations surfacing that the UK taxpayer is footing a hefty bill to keep Mushy in one piece. Lord Nasir, back in the summer, tabled a parliamentary question asking how much the dictator was costing UK taxpayer, and at the time got nowhere. Now the Daily Mail and the Times say the Metropolitan Police spend up to £25,000 a day on bodyguards for Mush, in fear an attack could injure or kill bystanders. Lord Nasir is continuing to complain and wrote a letter to the home secretary claiming his presence could stoke “unrest within the Muslim Community”. The Guardian’s Michael White wonders if Nasir would have raised a titter if the police protected friend Nawaz Sharif. Its doubtful.

Meanwhile Musharraf is continuing to warm himself to the world with spontaneous outbreaks of honesty. Express News scored a scoop when, in an interview with the channel, the loveable ex-despot admitted US aid was used to strengthen the country’s defence against India. Asked whether he thinks the admission would anger his war-on-terror ally, he eloquently replied:

"Whoever wishes to be angry, let them be angry, why should we bother? We have to maintain our security, and the Americans should know, and the whole world should know that we won’t compromise our security, and will use the equipment everywhere."

If Mush is ever politically rehabilitated, the question must be asked: would you give $4 billion to this man?

 

Clip: ZA Bhutto and the Baloch

Excellent historiography over at Grand Trunk Road on the circumstances that saw Balochistan’s first provincial government dismissed within ten months. A must read:

It is not surprising why the actions of the provincial government, while by no means particularly aggressive, (for example, they did not make the official provincial language Balochi, but settled on Urdu) were regarded with suspicion by the centre. For one thing, the Bhutto government was closely aligned with the Shah of Iran and the Shah was deeply suspicious of any political autonomy given to Balochistan since he had just spent a decade suppressing secessionist movements in Iranian Balochistan. Iraq, allied with the USSR, had a history of supporting Baloch separatism in Iran in response to Iran’s support of Kurd separatists in Iraq. So the US, too, was suspicious of the political empowerment of the Pakistani Baloch. The Pakistani army, fresh from its defeat in East Pakistan, was deeply suspicious of the Baloch nationalists and moves like the establishment of the provincial rural police only added to this suspicion.

 

The Americans are coming – Blackwater and really, really bad journalism

It’s not news that Pakistanis are cynical about America’s involvement in the region. Back in August an Al Jazeera poll found 59 per cent of people believed the US to be more of a threat than the Taliban and India combined. Years of drone attacks and the internment of individuals at the behest of the US, to then be passed on to Guantanamo and elsewhere, have not endeared Uncle Sam to the big P.K. The poll was taken before the killing of Baitullah Mehsud, and it would be interesting to see how Pakistanis feel about Americans now – but even with that scalp in hand rumours that a private security company is in cahoots with the US to establish a neo-imperial presence in Pakistan are spreading fast.

That company is Blackwater – perhaps the most prominent symbol of private, American military power in the world. Operating as a defence contractor in Iraq, it was accused of a string of deadly incidents, the most notorious of which taking place two years ago when armed personnel shot dead at least 14 civilians. The company became so associated with scandal it undertook a rebrand, calling itself Xe – a move that has proven to be unsuccessful with journalists and others refusing to call it anything other than Blackwater.

Now, in Pakistan, it is at the centre of rumours rising from several mainstream media sources: one is the Jang Group. The News has printed a string of stories either directly accusing or suggesting the company of operating in Pak. One article by Ansar Abbasi said a “senior lady anchorperson” was heard “sharing information” with Nawaz Sharif that the company was operating in Peshawar, Quetta and Islamabad. Another reported “suspicious foreigners” lording it up and renting homes in University Town, Peshawar: although Blackwater isn’t mentioned, the name pops up in denials from various officials. The News’s article appears to be gleaned from German-agency DPA’s copy, which says the firm provides security for the NGO Creative Associates International Inc. (CAII). It isn’t clear where the DPA journalists got their information from.

The News also hosted similar insinuations from Shireen M Mazari, a defence analyst and member of Imran Khan’s unpopular Tehreek-e-Insaaf party. Her rants in the News have accused the company of increasing its presence in Pakistan, while suggesting the US is encouraging the growth of the firm and pushing to station 1,000 marines in Islamabad. Again, like the DPA article, she doesn’t state her sources. Her claims have been repeated by various badly-written websites, including Globalresearch.ca – a site that also claims Nicolas Sarkozy to be a CIA spy.

And then there’s the New York Times. Late August the paper said Blackwater employees were loading bombs onto US military drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan, after previously being identified as the contractor in an extraordinary deal to hunt down top Al-Qaeda heads. Writers James Risen and Mark Mazzetti cite multiple officials and Blackwater employees past and present for the piece.

Regardless of the source of the rumours, the suspicion the US is building a secret army with or without Blackwater help riled US embassy staff into flat denials. Ambassador Anne Patterson, speaking to McClatchy newspapers, accused one of Shireen Mazari’s columns to be “wildly incorrect” and said without doubt Blackwater was not operating in Pakistan. Moreover, after the upcoming expansion of the US embassy there would be between 15 and 20 Marine guards, not 1,000. Gilani and Rehman Malik also weighed in, saying the hated firm had no business with the country.

The NYT article stands up to a little more scrutiny than the News’s recent output, but it relies on anonymous input – leaving us no nearer to whether Blackwater is operating in Pakistan or not. The only individuals who speak on record say the firm has nothing to do with the country. It muddies the waters that Xe themselves would not respond to a request for comment from the Times. The News, meanwhile, has abandoned all obvious journalistic ethics by failing to cite the source of any of its assertions. How a “a lady anchorwoman” doubles as a informant on the movement of US troops beats me.

I myself am in no place to say whether the company is building bombs, running milk rounds or selling ice cream in Pakistan. You can understand why, with a history of US-backed military coups, why conspiracy theories have such a high currency. But that doesn’t mean the media itself should present such gossip, without fact checking, as news. What does the Jang Group think it will gain by spreading mis-information? And how are Pakistani’s meant to make decisions like who is to run their country, when the media are no better informed than the average taxi-driver?

 

Saad Khan

 

On the night of November 15th, 1986, viewers of BBC1 were treated to an eerie announcement that the Late Late Breakfast Show – a mid-80s vehicle for professional creep Noel Edmunds – was cancelled. During filming for that weekend’s episode Michael Lush, a participant in a bungee jumping stunt, was killed when the clip holding his bungee cord in place broke free. The fall out left the BBC £120,000 poorer. After the coroner recommended safety officers be present for all future stunts, MD Bill Cotton swore no member of the public would be put in harm’s way in such a situation ever again.

Fast forward to last week. Reports emerge of the death of Saad Khan, a 32-year-old RBS employee from Karachi. As a contestant in an reality-TV show apparently paid for by multinational chemicals firm Unilever as an advertorial for shampoo, his task was to swim across a pond with a seven kilogram backpack. In the midst of the task Mr Khan ran into trouble, turned over and drowned, leaving four children fatherless and a wife widowed.

In Michael Lush’s case, one corporation was solely responsible for the death of Mr Khan – from commission of the programme to production. But in Mr Khan’s death, a network of liabilities emerged. Unilever’s branding is managed by an outside firm, widely understood to be WPP-owned Mindshare. They in turn hired an unnamed Indian production house, based in Mumbai, while the events took place during filming in Thailand. The programme appears to be commissioned as an advertising vehicle for Unilever, but they outsourced this to one firm who outsourced it to another and then went to work within another legal system. This complex weave allowed Unilever spokespeople to legally wash their hands of the tragedy. Despite apparently bankrolling the show, the corporation’s Pakistan branch told AP it would not accept liability for Mr Khan’s death.

Yet while it was happy to rid itself of blame it is more than pleased to point the finger at the dead contestant. In a response to Gibran Peshimam’s questioning for the News, a spokesperson said all contestants were offered lifejackets but refused the them. They also implied Khan chose to swim across the pond while other contestants used a rope. Mr Khan is unable to defend himself.

The pungent and distasteful comments from Unilever do offer an insight into how poorly planned the competition was. In attempting to defend the Indian production firm, the spokesperson stated onlookers jumped in to save Mr Kahn but couldn’t because the water was too murky, revealing not only did they ask a contestant to behave like a human anchor, but the body of water itself was a murky grey swamp. The water was so unclear they apparently had to wait for divers to recover the body, indicating that no lifeguards were on hand if something went wrong.

It’s difficult to see how Mr Khan’s death would have ever taken place if the production firm had followed some of the basic steps laid out by Endemol producer Max Robinson. Writing for Dawn, he says most UK TV firms fall over themselves to ensure the safety of their participants – often beyond that required by regulators. He says:

As with any stunt, proper risk assessment should be carried out and signed off by senior execs (a requirement before any filming can even start in the UK). And there’s one thing the producers should never forget: judicious and clever editing in the cutting room ensures that the viewer believes in the dare-devil escapades – the actual challenge in which the contestants take part should, in reality, be as safe as a walk in the park.

If an individual was given the task of assessing the risk, would a man have ever been laden with weights in a pond too dark to rescue him from? Not without proper supervision, or with trained crew to retrieve the individual if he came to trouble.

Measures to avoid this kind of eventuality in Britain only arose because of tragedies such as Michael Lush. After all, as the BBC case showed, the families of people that die on set tend to sue, and deaths and injury make for bad publicity and attract the wrath of further regulation – which they would rather avoid.

Like the BBC Unilever are a London-based firm, existing within the health and safety restrictions that the BBC and other British broadcasters do. Did they think they did not need to apply standards as they would have had to in Britain, purely because of Pakistan’s different legal and regulatory environment? Did they bother to do due diligence on the Indian-production company and the stunts it planned? Unilever should know better – but has done and is doing as little as it needs to because it knows it can get away with it.

As the firm which commissioned the programme Unilever should take the flack and fess-up to their ultimate responsibility. Instead the firm is the stereotype of an arrogant, irresponsible corporation that doesn’t give a damn beyond its bottom line. The company obviously cares about its branding in Pakistan – until it carries the can its brand is as dark as the water Saad Khan died in.

 

Baluchistan: An Introduction

While many Pakistani’s celebrated Independence Day last Friday, the western province of Baluchistan was reeling from two attacks. A policeman was killed in Hub when a bomb on a motorbike planted at a rode side exploded, while three power pylons were also the target of explosions in the province. Baluch nationalists had already declared August 14th a “black day”, and earlier in the month a member of the Baluch cabinet Sardar Rustam Khan Jamali was shot and killed in Karachi. Even the heat of the day’s celebrations apparently caused the Baluchistan chief minister Nawab Aslam Raisani to feint – no doubt seeding speculation as to whether the incident was choreographed.

Unrest in the region is now prompting alarm among international observers and has caused investors to reconsider their interests in the gas and oil rich area. The Financial Times reported last Friday that a Chinese contractor suspended plans to build Pakistan’s largest oil refinery in Gwadar following recent attacks, with the previously low-level insurgency rising to its most violent since the 1970s – with threats even extending to Pakistan studies professors told to stop practicing while Punjabis are sent death threats. If the conflict flares further, the FT worries the military could find itself overstretched and less able to tackling the Taliban in the tribal belt.

The Baluchistan question itself is nothing new, and has brewed for decades. As well abbreviated by Chapati Mystery, the region suffered from a long period of direct rule from the 40s through to the 70s. It saw its administration dominated by Punjabis through the creation of “West Pakistan” and attempts at self-rule nobbled by a flip-flopping ZA Bhutto in 1973. The situation led to around 60,000 tribesmen clashing with the Pakistani army in the middle of the decade, until the matter settled into neglect in the 80s and 90s.

Grievances over self-rule never disappeared though, and in 2005 Baluch political leaders presented a 15-point agenda of demands, The New York Times reported. The script included calls for greater autonomy, putting the breaks on military expansion in the province and an end to development projects which many feel, according to this BBC article, marginalise local Baluch. But rather than coming to a settlement, in the year that followed nationalists and government troops clashed again. This period saw the rise of the shadowy Balouchistan Liberation Army, of which ex-Baluch chief minister Nawab Akbar Bugti claimed the BBC enjoyed popularity among the people of the province.

The tribal leader was one of many to lose their lives during the war. At least 100 were killed in early 2006 alone according to the NYT, and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan claimed hundreds of political party members, students, doctors and tribal leaders disappeared. The issue of the missing has remained on the agenda of nationalists in 2009, with the Baluch Liberation United Front said to secure a trade off for hostage American UNHCR officer John Solecki. The organisation previously demanded the release of several individuals taken by security forces without trial, although it was unclear whether it secured any of the people it had called to be taken out of custody.

Other than autonomy, a growing sore is the continued difference in the wealth of Baluchistan’s natural resources and the wealth of its people. One article claims the province generates $1.4 billion of gas annually for Pakistan, but receives only $116 million in royalties. At the same time it is home to the largest number of dilapidated school buildings, as well as the country’s lowest literacy rate of 34 per cent. The recent gas-pipeline deal between Iran and Pakistan stoked fears local labour would be sidelined, with Sanaullah Baloch saying the project…

does not promise any economic and social benefit to the deprived people of Balochistan… security will be handed over to the federal forces, technical jobs will go to urban youths from other provinces, and there is no guarantee that reasonable royalty including gas will be provided to the people of Baluchistan.

Some have sought to pin the blame for the insurgency on India, and vague reports a few months back indicated that a dossier detailing involvement of RAW in the Baluch insurgency may have been passed to the Indian government. India denied any dossier was ever given. Beyond innuendo, parliamentary efforts to resolve the matter within Pakistan’s borders came to a conclusion this month, although news coverage regretted to report what was actually said by the document, other than the recommendations were “comprehensive”. One writer suggested the committee itself has been a waste of time, and the government could have implemented 31 recommendations made under caretaker premier Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain more swiftly. In a sense, the PPP may have tried to reinvent the wheel, and it will be interesting to see how much the new suggestions differ if at all.

Whatever the report says, a line in the sand has been drawn in some quarters at independence. Rehman Malik declared at the end of July “back-channel” talks would resolve many of the issues, but said the government will refuse to talk to separatists. An editorial in Dawn also firmly rejected the idea, saying that although the “legitimate grievances” of the Baluch should be addressed, Pakistan’s boundaries are not up for negotiation.

If the insurgency really is ramping up as the FT suggest, the government will need to act quickly to resolve the region’s long standing complaints. Otherwise it remains to be seen whether the goal of a peaceful Baluchistan within Pakistan will be realistic.

 

Clip: British FCO man lobbies for Mushy?

I hope this report from the Telegraph isn’t true:

Sir Mark Lyall Grant, political director of the Foreign Office and a former High Commissioner in Islamabad, was reported to have visited the former premier Nawaz Sharif and urged him not to press for Mr Musharraf to be extradited to Pakistan to face trial over his imposition of emergency rule in November 2007…

“He [Sir Mark] said not to insist on this issue, that Pakistan needs stability and peace and to focus on the many challenges within and without. We need to prioritise and should not raise such problems for ourselves, it will divide the nation, he said,” the aide claimed.

This was later denied by the same FCO director, who said the purpose of his visit was not to mediate on behalf of Musharraf. Even if he wasn’t there to lobby, it doesn’t mean he didn’t say what was reported – and considering his involvement in the reconciliation process that allowed Benazir to return it may be likely he felt he had leverage.

Regardless, former colonial powers and their representatives should not be telling independent democratic governments what they should or shouldn’t do to their old dictators. The argument that taking action on Musharraf could distract Pakistan from other issues is completely patronising – assuming Gilani and others can’t deal with more than one problem at a time. He and the civilian government have every right to consider the damage Musharraf caused towards the end of his rule, and diplomats funded by British taxpayers should not be arguing on his behalf.

 

Happy Independence Day, Pakistan

Originally published at Independence.teakbreak.pk.

My mum would tell me off for complaining at Christmas – and seeing as Independence Day is a holiday I don’t see why she’d say any different today.

Fact is, US generals and others were predicting the death of Pakistan just a few months ago. One was as bold to give the country a deadline of two weeks to save itself. But despite bombings, suicide attacks, an insurgency, riots and other disturbances, the state is not the teetering Russian monarchy some imagined it would be, or wanted it to be, in 2009. And there’s plenty to be happy about.

For a start, Pakistani civil society is healthy. There is no way without the pressure of constant protests and the lawyer’s movement would General Pervez Musharraf have been forced out of office. Neither would it have suffered without the media playing irritant. Musharraf may have allowed Pakistan’s television channels to establish themselves, but they did not return the favour with slavish coverage when times got hard and – for a short time – they paid for their independence. Pakistan continues to have a thriving free press with reams and reams of coverage, some of it world class, not to mention a ridiculous number of news channels. There are plenty of eyes and ears watching the government are doing, and although there’s self-censorship there’s a healthy and developing public sphere.

Pressure from civil society manifested itself again into the Long March earlier in the year, holding Zardari to account and forcing the PPP government to bring back Chief Justice Chaudhry. It is difficult to imagine that a neo-Musharraf could retain control now without howls of opposition from the media, the judiciary, lawyers and ordinary members of the public. The quiet coup of 1999 could not take place now without provoking massive opposition – even with the incompetence of Asif Zardari as it is.

The resilience of Pakistanis was shown during the IDP crisis, which prompted mass acts of kindness among ordinary people. Although the figures of cash raised may not have been as high as during the 2005 earthquake, many homes, schools and other buildings opened their doors to the displaced during the Swat action. These provided shelter and food where IDP camps, riven with poor sanitation and a lack of resources, could not. It underlines that the concept of Pakistan is still strong among Pakistanis. Sport is a crude barometer of patriotism but the celebrations following the T20 shows the country still gets behind the flag, as it did in it’s widespread support for the military action against the Taliban in the north.

This deliberately positive article isn’t to decry Pakistan’s problems – of which I have written about many at my blog. Musharraf was of course replaced with a dynastic crook. Chief Justice Chaudhry was never exactly an unbiased party when he ruled the former president’s actions were unconstitutional. The country’s finances are a mess, while the Establishment remains convinced India is it’s biggest enemy and is still willing to make deals with men with guns and sue for peace. Protests can turn brutal, and Gojra showed Pakistan has a lot to reconcile with it’s minorities.

I could go on, but most of these issues are at state level, and I know not everything I listed above is perfect. But among the people there’s a lot to like in Pakistan.

Happy Independence Day.

 

Bilawal says if people are naked, clothe them

Fans of the Office, Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place and other cringe comedies are in for a treat from the Pakistan People’s Party, as if a 19-year-old inheriting the helm of the country’s most popular party wasn’t bad enough. On July 18, Oxford undergraduate and easy target Bilawal Bhutto attempted to give a populist speech at an event held in honour of PPP parliamentarians. The result was a stunted pleasegodshootme disaster given in English, which as Ahsan blogged at Five Rupees was like turning up to a funeral in a clown costume. (Hattip to 5R for flagging up the video).

I couldn’t watch the whole thing – it’s comedy car crash. For a start his accent is about as Pakistani as mine. He’s patronising and repeatedly refers to an unknown mass called the “people” and what they want like an out of touch royal at the tail end of a teetering empire. A lot of the time he takes an issue (e.g electricity), says the PPP is doing something about it, then will say if the people don’t think that’s enough then we’ll do more. Occasionally he sounds like a drunken Bono forced into giving a speech at a charity aid gig. He says if they’re hungry, we’ll give them food. Well, duh.

Much of his problem appears to stem from a lack of experience in public speaking and politics – his intonation is all over the place for example. But he is at Oxford and there should be plenty of opportunities to get some practice in this and in general political activity. Even at my redbrick uni there were Labour and Conservative groups to cut your teeth on. The politically minded could campaign for and win sabbatical positions at our student union, and could eventually move to a UK-wide stage through the National Union of Students – a well known stomping ground for future Labour party ministers. And there was the debating society, with national competitions… I could go on.

Frankly, if a presidential candidate looking for my vote had delivered a similarly structured and badly delivered speech the audience would have laughed him off. It remains to be seen whether the PPP will do the same.

 

Rehman Malik killed in shoot-out with own mouth

Did you hear the one about the Taliban? Yeah, where those two guys shot at each other after they were trying to work out who would run things after their leader was killed? And one of them died?

Funny story – the guy who kicked the bucket, he can use a mobile:

“Both I and our emir, Baitullah Mehsud, are alive,” Hakimullah Mehsud, a fiery young commander, told Reuters news agency by phone. It was one of several interviews in which he rebutted claims by the Pakistani interior minister, Rehman Malik, that he was killed in a gun battle during a shura (leadership council) to select a new leader.

“I have proven the government’s claim of my death is wrong and I challenge the government to prove the death of our emir,” Hakimullah said. A rival commander who was said to have killed Hakimullah, Wali ur Rehman, has also contacted the media.

Now Reuters, AP and others may be the victims of an elaborate prank. But it looks like interior minister Rehman Malik was quite wrong when he told the National Assembly that Hakeemullah Mahsud was killed in a shootout during a meeting to discuss Baitullah Mehsud’s succession, as Dawn reported. The interior minister has also poured his own brand of nonsense over the death, or not, of Baitullah Mehsud, telling the BBC’s Urdu service that a DNA test to establish his death was feasible. This would somehow be performed without exhuming the body of Baitullah, with the government holding the DNA of his brother killed a few months back to compare.

But a DNA test of what? As Kalsoom Lakhani points out, a military forensics team would need to recover some personal item of Baitullah’s to make a match. And even then, it would only prove the item was Baitullah’s – not that he had expired. Generally, and like Kalsoom I’m not speaking as an expert, a dead body with a positive identification is the only categorical proof of anybody’s death. Do they hold a body? A part of a body? Or does Rehman Malik not know what he’s talking about?

In any case, he is a terrible communicator – either lacking clarity or passing on what may be rumors or unconfirmed intelligence reports as facts, oblivious to the damage it causes to his and his bosses’ reputation. He’s not a passive observer passing on gossip, he is the interior minister of Pakistan who the media look to for official statements. It should be obvious he makes the government look stupid when he repeatedly speaks out of turn.

This isn’t the only recent foot-in-mouth incident the government has suffered. Back in May foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi announced triumphantly that France agreed to transfer civilian nuclear technology to Pakistan, following talks between Asif Zardari and Nicholas Sarkozy. The deal was in recognition of the energy crisis, he said, and that nuclear power was needed to guarantee the country’s electricity supply.

Great news, except that the French never mirrored the comments. When a French embassy official, grilled by reporters, reiterated that the agreement only concerned safety and security of nuclear assets, Dawn said the government should “be censured for acting with undue haste and indulging in hype”.

Somebody, please, hire these people a public relations expert. Or a set of mouth-sized rolled up socks.

 

Musahrraf’s Exile

Does Musharraf carry an Oyster card?

Pity the poor Mushy – kicked out of his job by an ungrateful country and almost declared a criminal by the judiciary, he’s now being advised to slum it out in London while the political heat makes his return unfeasible. But that’s OK, as the Pakistani taxpayer may well be bankrolling his protection in Britain. And one British law-maker, you know who, has suggested the UK government may be involved in keeping Mr Peas safe as well.

In interviews given by the former despot, Musharraf said his new London pad is but an “ordinary flat” and that the stay was temporary. The News reported that it was so ordinary it cost him just £1.4 million, and while that’s out of the reach of most Londoners, you can spend a lot more in the capital and rich dignitries and exiles often do. To many an armchair property expert, who has watched Joe Public on Property Ladder do up a London apartment for a couple of mil, it smacks as a little modest of the former leader of Pakistan.

But what’s even more puzzling is the valuation itself. Edgware Road, as the News locates him, is not an exclusive area and a basic web search can find similar flats for around £500,000. What’s he getting for the extra £900k – platinum taps? Or was this recently-arrived rushed-off-his-feet general royally ripped off?

Not that I have much sympathy for him. Another report in the News suggests Musharraf has a 12-man team of Pakistani Army guards at his disposal paid for by the Pakistani federal budget, amount undisclosed. The measure is part of his protocol as an ex-president while he stays in London, the report says, although this has been denied by the PPP. Lord Nasir has also accused the UK government of paying for five to six police officers to bodyguard Musharraf. When he put the question to a home office minister in the House of Lords the government declined to answer.

He’s not exactly skint either. After his ouster last year Newsweek suggested Musharraf could earn up to $200,000 a day on the speaker’s circuit – with multiple events raking in a possible $1 million. Earlier in July The News said Musharraf took away with him 168 luxury items mostly gifted to him by foreign dignatries. The newspaper put a bottom value on the items at Rs 40 million rupees (roughly £284,960), which included:

boxes of jewellery, necklaces, pearls, diamonds, four American revolvers, Rolex watches, gold, earrings and rings.

If that wasn’t enough there are reports he’s turned tabla performer, although whether anyone would pay him to do that remains to be seen. Of course it’s more likely that he is in London to rebuild his political career than hang out with musicians, and one commentator says a group of well-connected businessmen are organising in the city to relaunch him into politics.

With Gilani keen to see him tried for high treason, it’s likely Musharraf will be a Londoner for some time to come. And if even if the legal heat rises in the capital, the door to asylum in Saudi is always open.