Analysing the White Paper on Pakistan Air Force corruption

By Editor Nov28,2023

A detailed, anonymous white paper on massive corruption and nepotism in Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has shaken up the military establishment and exposed serious inter-force rivalries, dubious role of ISI and Pakistan Army chief, General Asim Munir’s hard-core but desperate action to consolidate his position.

The paper highlights serious charges of corruption, ineptitude and favouritism on the part of the air force chief, Air Chief Marshal, Zaheer Ahmed Baber. These are grave charges and indicate the work of disgruntled insiders. The paper gives details of how Baber has promoted favourite officers, pushed aside able and deserving officers. It also highlights the air force chief’s weaknesses and bribery charges. No less interesting is the allegation that Baber was appointed as the chief courtesy former Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa and his ISI chief, Lt. General Faiz Hameed.

More intriguing facts are how these charges were made public and the silence of the media as well as the military establishment. Few proxy twitter handles of the military, however, have been at pains to deny the charges. The white paper first appeared on a blog, https://khamoshmujahid981.blogspot.com/, which only has two entries–first one was how the military lied about the number of trainer aircraft damaged or destroyed in the terrorist attack on the Mianwali air base on November 4, 2023. The second one was the white paper on corruption. The blog was created in November 2023. Who runs the blog is still a mystery. The same paper was also handed over to well-known Pakistani journalist, Wajahat Saeed Khan, a non-nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center.

This is not the first time the air force has been embroiled in murky corruption deals. In 2017, a Group Captain, Rizwan Attique, was found hanging from a window grille of a room inside the PAF headquarters under mysterious circumstances. His widow filed a police complaint at the Margalla police station that her husband was abducted and killed by his colleagues because he had threatened to expose their corrupt deals. The air force, on the other hand, argued that the senior officer had committed suicide to avoid investigations into his own actions of corruption.

In August 2015, a petition was filed with the Islamabad High Court (IHC) where it was alleged that senior PAF officers had made two airmen a ‘scapegoat’ to exonerate senior officers in a Rs6.4 million fraud case. The petition was filed by one of the airmen, corporal technician Mohammad Irfan who was charged with the alleged embezzlement of Rs6.4 million at the Nur Khan Airbase, Chaklala.

This is also not the first time that corruption has pitted the army against the airforce. In 2009, a former Air Force chief, Air Chief Marshal Saadat Kaleem, accused former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf of forcing a USD 1.2 billion deal for acquiring surveillance aircraft from Sweden’s Saab firm for “possible kickbacks”. He claimed that despite the PAF objections, Musharraf forced a modification in the contract to include two Chinese aircraft.

In the present case also, it is suspected that the white paper has been leaked with the connivance of ISI. The intelligence agency of the Pakistan Army has in the past done such mischief. There may be few reasons for this ploy. The army wants to scuttle the present Air Force chief’s attempts to get an extension before he retires in March 2024. He became the chief courtesy Generals Bajwa and Hameed. Since Baber has not been kowtowing to the army chief, General Asim Munir may have his own candidate as the next Air Force chief.

By Editor

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