News Archives

Latest News

January 2008

December 2007

November 2007

October 2007

September 2007

August 2007

July 2007

June 2007

May 2007

April 2007

March 2007

February 2007

January 2007

December 2006

November 2006

October 2006

September 2006

August 2006

July 2006

June 2006

May 2006

April 2006

March 2006

February 2006

January 2006

December 2005

November 2005

October 2005

September 2005

July 2005

June 2005

May 2005

April 2005

March 2005

February 2005

January 2005

December 2004

The Rediff Interview/Benazir Bhutto
 

August 2005

It would seem so with millions casting their vote in the second phase of local polls. Yes, there are allegations of pre poll rigging particularly in Sindh and Punjab. Police, it is said, has been used to harass ruling party opponents and development funds are being freely distributed to help officially backed candidates.

An atmosphere that suggests total control of the government over the electioneering process has also been cleverly created specially in the Punjab. The message is that without official support you can forget about becoming a Tehsil or district Nazim. Apart from the Chief Minister, who has used all the traditional tricks to strengthen this notion, intelligence agencies have also been active in the background. This has convinced many that if you want to get anywhere official blessing is a must.

No wonder then that many leading lights from the opposition parties are lining up to join the Q party. This does not mean that they have suddenly discovered the glory of General Musharraf or fallen in love with Parvaiz Elahie. Only that, they just cannot bear losing control over local politics in their constituencies. They are deserting their dearly loved but distant leaders to rake in immediate benefits. As the old joke goes, "what is nearer, God or a fist in the face." Apparently fist, or in this case local power that is triumphing over old loyalties.

This manipulation of the electoral process is hardly democratic and would lend credence to the allegation that we are not a democracy. Clever apologist for the government, not any run of the mill mouthpiece, would argue that we do not claim to be a perfect democracy. We have a long way to go, they will say, but we are on our way. General Musharraf also uses a similar formulation. He always says that we are on the road to becoming a true democracy not that we already are a democracy.

Many in the West buy this. Not only because they need the General for the war on terror but because they compare us with Burma or Saudi Arabia or near anarchic African states such as Rwanda and Burundi. They see the electioneering and people going to the polls and what appears to be free comment in the press and they see democracy. But, as Asma Jehangir said on the Hard Talk program of the BBC, we have a long history of struggle for democracy. We would like to be compared to the best examples of it not to military dictatorships or royal autocracies of the third world.

The debate whether we are or are not a democracy can only be credible if some things are conceded straight away. We do have the appearance of a democracy. There is no point in challenging this because to a casual observer we have many of the forms that would constitute a democracy. There is a parliament and a separate institution of the judiciary. Elections have been held, twice for local government and once for provincial and national assemblies. We are not obviously a single party state. This is important too because generally dictatorships allow only one party to function.

The press appears to be free. There is a lot of criticism of the government and open comment on whatever is going on. Even General Musharraf is not immune from unfavourable remarks. His parent institution and the most powerful force in the country, the Army, is also not a no go area. Many critical articles about its corporate activities particularly about housing schemes and land grants appear regularly in the press.

This pretty much looks like a democracy, albeit not perfect, to outsiders.

It is General Musharraf's success or the Army think tanks foresight that before taking over this time, they clearly worked out the parameters of military rule in the twenty first century. They obviously realised that the draconian model of dictatorship pursued by Zia was no longer viable after an eleven year interregnum of civilian rule, multi party democracy and a free press. This time they decided on a unique model that has all the symbols of democracy but in essence is a dictatorship.

Let us look at some of the elements that make us look like a democracy and see whether they really are democratic. We have a parliament that is universally recognised to be toothless, a rubber stamp or a worthless debating society. One example of its meaningless role is the way the military treats it. The parliament cannot discuss the defence budget and its committees have been barred from discussing dodgy defence deals. It cannot pass any legislation without the clearance of the army chief of staff who also happens to be President. So much for the parliament.

The judiciary is indeed a separate pillar of the state but at the risk of attracting the wrath of the honourable judges, it is hardly free and independent. It shies away from taking cognisance of any matter that the government does not want to be adjudicated. Petitions of Shahbaz Sharif are an example. It has never ruled against the General or the military as an institution. The ISI case is still pending in the Supreme Court after ten years. It has also not ruled against the government on any matter in which the government is seriously interested. This is the level of its independence. No need to say anything more.

The press is indeed much freer than under any previous military government and this is the greatest success of the military game plan. Nothing gives the impression of freedom more than a vibrant press and there is little doubt that we do have lively press. The reality is that behind the scenes there is immense pressure on the editors to tone down criticism. There are also no go areas. No one can write about the Generals financial dealings or personal life and no one can write about corruption among the serving military.

Every stratagem is used to get a press that is if not uncritical at least within what are considered acceptable bounds. Those that have strayed out have been punished. Government advertisements, which constitute a fair portion of newspaper revenue, are routinely used as a weapon and lately even private companies have been advised not to give ads to papers that are writing anti government stuff.

Individual journalists are also being marked for action. One story on the grapevine is that the Inter Services Public Relations or ISPR has a marking system. Every article critical of the government is given certain marks with higher marks on the negative part of the scale. If a writer crosses a certain number he comes within the cross hairs and is marked for some action or the other. I was once a victim of this system and others have also felt the wrath in more ways than one. I also have a feeling that I am being barred as guest speaker from government training institutions.

The beauty of this new model of dictatorship unfolded by the military is that it gives the impression of being a democracy. In actual fact, it as tightly controlled as any intelligent dictatorship would be. I use the word intelligent not crude. It is an intelligent use of power if you create a credible facade of democracy to hide a dictatorship.

The writer is a former member of parliament and a Lahore-based freelance columnist.

200 Reports of Rigging
 

Administration involved in rigging in Rawalpindi and Gujar Khan

Islamabad, August 25, 2005: Pakistan Peoples Party lodged complaints regarding election rigging, arrest of Awam Dost Candidates and their supporters in Rawalpindi and Gujar Khan area with the Election Commissioner on election day.

Kamran Zafar, the member of PPP Monitoring Committee for local bodies elections faxed a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner detailing ten instances of rigging and victimisation of Awam Dost Candidates, wrote:

"1. In Union Council 26 Rawalpindi City, Mr. Asad Mughal, candidate for Naib Nazim was arrested by the police without any valid reason.

"2. Similarly in Union Council 70, Mr. Nasim Abbasi, candidate for Nazim was detained unlawfully for almost three hours, in the morning, today.

"3. Union Council 36, Polling Agents of Awam Dost Group were not allowed to be present in the Polling Station, enabling the opposing candidate to indulge in bogus polling with the connivance of the local administration.

"4. Union Council 52, Ward No. 7, Gujar Khan, located at the Vocational Training Center, an unprovoked attack was made by the hooligans of the PML (Q) on the Polling Station to scare away the voters and supporters of the Awam Dost Group.

"5. similar scene was created by these hooligans at Union Council "Doltala".

"6. may be pointed out that the Voters list at Union Council 92 to the Presiding Officer was different from the one provided to our candidate.

"7. "Mujahid", "Chontra", at Union Council 6 "Abdal", the polling staff did not arrive until 11:30 a.m. delaying the polling by two and a half hours.

"8. At Union Council 6, "Dhoke Hasso", Rawalpindi City and Union Council 9 "Bangash Colony", Rawalpindi City, ladies were not permitted to vote.

"9. Union Council 46, Rawalpindi City, the ballot boxed at the polling stations were not found to be sealed.

"10. "Dhoke Tehsildar", "Badana", Gujar Khan, where Ch. Iftikhar is the candidate for the office of Nazim, his agents were driven away from the polling station. The Presiding Officer has been informed about the incident."

He asked the Election Commissioner to immediately take notice of these actions of rigging.

Opp has won 50% seats in Lahore and Pindi: Benazir

LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson Benazir Bhutto said on Friday that despite massive rigging the opposition had won 50 percent of the seats in Lahore and Rawalpindi during the second phase of the local council elections.

Speaking to Geo news channel from Dubai, Benazir said that torture and harassment of opposition candidates and government intervention was rampant during the polls.

She alleged that the Sindh government had harassed and attacked Awam Dost candidates and had changed the election results in their favor.

Asked whether the government would dismiss rigging allegations and get to business as usual, Benazir said the government might possibly dismiss rigging allegations, but government affairs would not be normal, as the post-poll situation would worsen.

She said matters could not be run through fake tactics and foreign pressure against the government on rigging was in the offing. She said the nation’s true leaders had been sidelined whereas President Pervez Musharraf and his government machinery had been running the election campaigns of the candidates they supported.

Asked why foreign observers had not pointed out or criticised the alleged rigging during the polls, Benazir said, “It is too early at the moment. These elections will be discussed seriously later. Foreign governments are analysing the polls and you will see a big difference during the next general elections.”

PPP activist killed in Karachi

KARACHI: An office-bearer of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) district Thatta was killed in Thatta on Friday when he was on the way to his house after attending a party meeting.

According to a press statement issued by the media cell of Bilawal House, the party activist, Haji Qasim Samoon, hailing from Tehsil Mirpur Sakro, was killed by supporters of a rival group.

PPP threatens protest if fresh polls not held

KARACHI: Accusing the Sindh government and the Election Commission authorities of involvement in rigging, the opposition PPP has announced that the party would be launching protest demonstrations all over the province from August 31 if the demands for fresh elections, release of arrested party leaders and workers, and withdrawal of cases were not accepted.

The Sindh PPP President Syed Qaim Ali Shah announced the protest plan at the Bilawal House at an urgent press conference held on Saturday and said that the party would hold rallies and public meetings to protest against the rulers and to press their demands.

He invited the other component parties of the Alliance for the Restoration (ARD) and the participants of the All- Parties’ Conference to join this protest in the larger interest of democracy and for the country.

Qaim Ali Shah said that that the PPP would hold protest demonstration on August 31 in Karachi, on the 1st of September in Sukkur, 2nd of September in Larkana, 3rd of September in Mirpurkhas, and the 4th in Hyderabad against the rigging in the local bodies election.

The PPP leader said that the party would review its strategy and chalk out a future line of action on September 5 when the third process of the local bodies election starts for the election of towns, Tehsils, and districts.

He said that the PPP was the main target in this election and declared that the party would tackle this situation politically. He expressed apprehensions of rigging of the third phase of the election and accused the rulers of manipulating the exercise to elect Nazims of its choice.

The PPP leader said that police were conducting raids on the residences of the elected Awam Dost Nazims to pressurise them to switch loyalties. He claimed that in Karachi and in the rural areas all the SHOs were assigned the task of forcing five opposition councillors to switch loyalties. He said that police had started hounding the opposition councillors while the government contractors were also assigned the task of purchasing the councillors for the ruling parties to facilitate more contracts in the future.

PPP-P leaders visit winning candidates

RAWALPINDI - Pakistan People’s Party leaders Sunday visited the residences of their successful candidates in Rawalpindi and greeted them on their success on behalf of the Party Chairperson Ms Benazir Bhutto.

On Sunday morning Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians MNAs Nahid Khan and Zamurad Khan advocate, PPP leader from Rawalpindi Aga Riazul Islam, Rashid Mir, Baji Nusrat, Haji Saleem Mughal, Mian Khurram Rasool and other leaders visited the residence of their successful candidates in Ratta Amral, Dokh Ratta, Dokh Mantkal Dokh Hassu and other parts of the city where Awam Dost candidates won the elections.

These leaders presented sweets to the successful candidates and greeted them on behalf of the party Chairperson Benazir Bhutto who termed the victory of these candidates as victory of democratic forces in the country.

Talking to party workers and activists during these visits Nahid Khan and other leaders said that dictatorial forces failed to squeeze the popularity of Pakistan People’s Party and made it clear that they would not bow to the forces of oppression and would continue their struggle for establishment of true democratic rule in the country.

These leaders expressed optimism that like in the first two phases the candidates of Awam Dost Group and joint opposition would manage to get their candidates elected on the slots of Nazims and Niab Nazims at district and tehsil level.

These leaders came down hard on the ruling party which had broken all records of rigging and used all state machinery to get the engineered results but as the overwhelming majority was behind the true democratic forces these people failed could not fully succeeded in their nefarious designs.

Nahid Khan demanded of the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take notice of killing of some 60 persons blatant violation of code of conduct by the ruling party backed candidates, kidnapping of opposition party members and life attempts on the opposition leaders and member parliaments.

She said that a judicial inquiry into the whole affair should be held under the supervision of a Supreme Court of Pakistan judge and those who had lost their lives in the elections related violence should be given compensation.

Why Sarabjit Singh must not be hanged
Farhatullah Babar

After meeting General Musharraf on Tuesday Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri told The News "if a mercy petition (for the convicted Indian Sarabjit Singh alias Manjit Singh) comes then the President will decide on merit."

Since the country's apex court has given its verdict on August 18 upholding the death sentence it is no use arguing over the legalities involved. However, some judicial verdicts do invite a sharp public comment even for long after implementation. Sarabjit Singh's case seems to fall in this category whether he is pardoned or not, although clemency may perhaps blunt the sharp edges of the public comment.

Clemency is called for whether seen from the perspective of circumstances of the case or reliance on Sarabjit's confessions or claims to nab enemy agents.

Take the circumstances. In August 1990 one Sarabjit Singh of village Bikhiwind in the Amritsar district of Indian Punjab went missing. The family was clueless as to where he had gone.

On August 30, 1990 Pakistan's border security forces in Kasur in the Punjab arrested an India national for trespassing. That was a time when the media routinely talked of Pakistan's covert operations in Indian Kashmir and India responding to it by sending agents provocateurs in Sindh and Punjab.

The Indian was taken into custody and grilled. He was identified as Manjeet Singh, an agent of RAW and charged with masterminding a series of bomb blasts in Lahore, Faisalabad and Multan.

Within a week he was produced before a magistrate on September 8 for recording his confessional statement. According to the prosecution Manjeet Singh had admitted to his involvement in all the bomb blasts. He also confessed to have joined RAW in 1987, when he received special training in bomb making, made a fake Pakistani ID card in the name of Khushi Muhammad and visited Pakistan fourteen times in different years. He also supposedly confessed that for each blast RAW paid him eight to ten thousand rupees.

He was tried in an anti terrorism court which convicted and sentenced him to death on five counts on the basis of his confession. The conviction was upheld by the Lahore High Court.

From his death cell he appealed to the Supreme Court claiming that he was not Manjeet Singh who had been brought up in Agra and whose family later moved to Amritsar in 1972. He claimed he was Sarabjit Singh of Amritsar. The prosecution had forced him to admit to a wrong identity, he claimed. The two member bench of the Supreme Court last week however dismissed the appeal and upheld the death sentence.

Meanwhile Sarabjit Singh's family who has been missing since August 1990 and who lived in Amritsar has claimed to have proof including birth certificates and identification cards showing that the accused is Sarabjit Singh and not Manjeet Singh. The family has appealed to the leaders in Pakistan and India and to the human rights bodies for help. His teenage daughter Swapandip has threatened that the family will commit suicide if he is hanged.

There is no doubt that a confession in accordance with proper procedure forms a legal basis for convictions. But it is worth pondering whether convictions on the basis of confession alone should be the prime candidate for clemency. It is important because the history of confessions and the history of claims made by security agencies of nabbing enemy agents make a painful reading.

Remember the high profile murder of Hakim Muhammad Saeed in Karachi in the 90's and the confession of one Amirullah before the journalists and also before the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The Prime Minister was so impressed with the prosecution's story and Amirullah's confession that he ordered a promotion out of turn for the police officer superseding some forty senior officers. Later, however, Amirullah turned out to be innocent.

Or take the claims by security agencies of nabbing enemy agents. On June 5, 1992 nine people were killed in Tando Bahawal near Hyderabad in Sindh in an encounter with security forces. The initial official reaction was that those killed were dacoits. Within hours the official news agency APP retracted its earlier story and claimed that those killed were not dacoits but terrorists who wanted to blow up a nearby thermal power station. The ISPR also endorsed the APP story saying that the terrorists had a cache of arms including hand grenades and guns.

The Prime Minister who was visiting Sindh was given a briefing before the TV cameras on how RAW agents had been killed. Senior military and intelligence officers were present at the briefing. A beaming Prime Minister smiled triumphantly and there was a prolonged applause over the daring action by vigilant security forces.

The local Sindhi press and the BBC were however suspicious and refused to accept the official version. They insisted that far from being agents of RAW the nine villagers were actually innocent and unarmed tenants of a local landlord who had been killed in a mock encounter at the behest of an opponent of the landowner.

At first those who pedaled this story were dubbed as anti-state and anti-Army. Later, however, the then Army Chief, in a decision to place him and the institution of the Army on a high moral pedestal, refused to cover up the incident and decided to investigate the matter.

An inquiry revealed that the nine people killed were poor haris aged 16 to 60 who were woken up early morning, shoved into vehicles and whisked away to a deserted water pump of the thermal power station Jamshoro, where they were lined up, and shot dead in cold blood at the behest of rivals of the local landlord. Those involved were tried and punished.

The point to make is that while confessional statements before a court may have legal value, the circumstances and the manner in which they are secured also needs to be probed. Another point is that those accused as enemy agents by our agencies have actually turned out to be poor haris.

Justice Khuda Bukhsh Marri in his book, A Judge may Speak, has lamented about how a 21 year young student leader Abdul Hamid Baloch was executed in the late 70's on conviction of murder by a military court. The name of the deceased victim was twice changed besides many other irregularities in the trial process, according to Justice Marri. The Balochistan High Court had stayed the execution but Hameed Baloch was executed speedily and summarily. Justice Marri finds it hard to come out of the trauma of execution of a young man in a case involving mistaken identity of the deceased victim.

If the Indian convict is really a case of mistaken identity it would be a gross miscarriage of justice if he is hanged and many will not be able to come to terms with the trauma. If the convict is really the alleged RAW agent Manjit Singh it would still be sensible to commute the death sentence as a unilateral step to break clean with the past when the two countries launched covert operations inside each others territories.

After all General Musharraf called for an end to that legacy when he declared on January 12, 2002 that there will be no cross border infiltration.

The French hated the Jews at the turn of the last century. Yet as a people they stood by a Jewish Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus when writer Emile Zola's description of the Dreyfus Trial revealed it as no less than a national embarrassment. We may have serious differences with Indians but it must not persuade us to hang every Indian at the drop of a hat. The Sarabjit Singh trial must not be allowed to become our national embarrassment as was the Dreyfus Trial in France. He must not be hanged.

The writer is a PPP Senator and member of the Defence Committee of the Senate.

PPP files complaints against Major Tahir Sidiq

Islamabad, August 23, 2005: Pakistan Peoples Party apprised the Chief Election Commissioner of the incident of indiscriminate firing by the supporters of Major Tahir Sadiq, former district Nazim Attock and borther in law of Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain at the main election office of the Awam Dost Group at Lari Adda Chaowk on Tuesday 23rd August.

Member PPP Central Monitoring Cell for the local bodies elections, Kamran Zafar in a letter, addressed to the Chief Election Commissioner apprising him of the incident, wrote, "These supporters indulged in the worst kind of "Goondaism" and intimidation with the result that the people have been scared beyond description. All these ruffians earlier on staged a similar show in the stadium of "Fateh Jang" also and vowed that they will see to it as to how the Awam Dost supporters polls their votes on the 25th instant. The people of the area are now demanding the deployment of army in the area to prevent any bloodshed, since the police have so far behaved as passive spectators."

Kamran Zafar demanded of the Election Commission to have very close vigil in order to ensure smooth and orderly election in Attock.

Naheed Khan warns Administration not to indulge in rigging efforts by the King’s party

Islamabad, 24 August 2005: Naheed Khan MNA, the political secretary of the chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has appealed to all democratic people to come out on 25th August and vote for Opposition candidates so that the nefarious designs of the rulers are defeated who want to foist one party rule in the country.

Naheed Khan in a statement said that the country is passing through a very difficult stage and it has become necessary to defeat the forces of dictatorship in the country. A regime, which failed to provide basic necessities to the people, also failed to find enough candidates to field in all the Rawalpindi constituencies. "The party is a clear winner in Rawalpindi and the next Nazim in the city will be from Pakistan Peoples Party who will work for the betterment of the people", she said.

Naheed Khan said that despite massive pre-poll rigging in the first phase of local bodies elections, the people of Pakistan displayed political maturity and voted for Awam Dost and other opposition candidates. The success of opposition was so clear that the regime had to resort to its old tactics of changing results overnight and declare King’s party and its ally’s candidates as winners. Naheed Khan said that the people have the right to reject all those results, which do not represent their choice.

She warned the administration to restrain itself from obeying illegal orders and indulging in rigging activities by the King’s party. She said that all those officials found involved in helping rigging activities will be held accountable and would be punished.

Islamabad, 22 August 2005: Naheed Khan MNA, the political secretary of the chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has asked the Chief Election Commissioner to immediately declare the elections null and void in the areas where women were not allowed to exercise their basic right to choose their own representatives.

Naheed Khan said that the statement of the Chief Election Commissioner that the elections will be declared null and void if it is proved that women were barred from voting in any part of the country is just an eye wash because what more proof he needs to declare these elections null and void when there are several constituencies in NWFP and Punjab where not a single woman vote was cast. She said that no one has the right to insult women intelligence by saying that no women wanted to vote in certain areas in the name of tradition. She said that this would be the worst kind of male chauvinism if someone tries to make us believe that women did not want to vote and they were not pressurised.

"The male prejudice shown in certain parts of NWFP has the domino effect and in different parts of Sargodha and Multan in Punjab where women were stopped from exercising their right to vote which is despicable act on the part of the perpetrators and should be condemned in strongest possible words", Naheed Khan said. She asked the Election Commissioner to review the voting pattern in urban area like Naushehra where in several counts he will find no woman voted for any candidate. This is itself a proof that women were stopped from voting in these areas.

Naheed Khan urged the Human Rights Organisations, international and national monitors and civil society to take notice of this grave injustice meted out to the women in Pakistan. She said that the hollow claims of the regime of being enlightened and liberal under a general in uniform has been fully exposed.

'I Will Go to Do Jihad Again and Again'
By N.C. Aizenman

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The prisoner perched on a metal chair, hugging his knees to his chest and rocking slightly, like a nervous child.

But his expression relaxed into a blissful smile as he described what he would do if released from his cell in the headquarters of the national intelligence service.

"When I get the chance, I will stick to my promise," said Sher Ali, 28, a Pakistani man with cropped black hair and a long beard. "I will go to do jihad again and again."

Ali said he took his vow to wage holy war against U.S. forces in Afghanistan earlier this summer, just before embarking on what he described as a 20-day weapons training course at a secret mountain camp in northeastern Pakistan.

He was captured by Afghan police about three weeks ago, shortly after crossing into Afghanistan's rugged, northeastern Konar province. The area has been a haven for armed renegades from an assortment of groups, including al Qaeda, the Taliban and backers of former Afghan leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is now a fugitive.

Over the last several months, insurgents have killed hundreds of people in Afghanistan, including aid workers, religious and tribal leaders, government officials, and Afghan and U.S. troops, many in ambushes and bombings apparently aimed at derailing parliamentary elections scheduled for Sept. 18.

American and Afghan forces have countered with an aggressive effort to flush the fighters from their remote mountain hideouts, killing several hundred in operations in border provinces from Konar in the north to Kandahar in the south. They have also taken several hundred suspected insurgents prisoner and allowed a few to speak to journalists.

Ali's story, which could not be verified independently, offered a glimpse of what Afghan authorities charge is a shadowy Pakistani network that continues to fuel the insurgency with fresh recruits as fast as U.S. and Afghan forces kill or capture their predecessors.

Ali spoke in the presence of an Afghan intelligence official, but he did not show signs of having been mistreated. Some details, such as the existence of jihadist training camps and the recruitment of Islamic fighters, have been reported separately in the Pakistani press or described by prisoners after their release.

"We know where a lot of these training camps are. We have their names. And we've given the Pakistanis all the information we have," said a senior Afghan intelligence official. "We're waiting for Pakistan to show the willingness to fight."

Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has repeatedly pointed out that his government has captured or killed more than 700 suspected al Qaeda members in Pakistan since 2001. It also lost more than 250 soldiers last year in battles against al Qaeda bases in the largely lawless semiautonomous tribal regions along the Afghan border.

Officials from the two governments have recently exchanged pledges to collaborate closely on security. But they must still contend with the sympathy that many Pakistanis feel toward the Taliban, particularly in tribal border towns such as Miram Shah, where residents share the same Pashtun ethnicity as the Afghan militia.

It was in Miram Shah this summer, at the home of a friend, that Sher Ali said he met Zubair, an Afghan in his late twenties, who recruited him to fight in Afghanistan. Ali, who was visiting from his village, said Zubair did not initially admit to being an insurgent. "But from the way he talked, I could tell that he had been a fighter," Ali said during an hour-long interview in the intelligence headquarters.

Ali said Zubair told him and his companions that Western troops were bombing, arresting and torturing innocent Afghans. "He kept saying, 'It's our duty as Muslims to go there and help,' " said Ali.

That night, Ali recalled, Zubair turned to him and asked point-blank: "Do you want to join the jihad?"

The son of a truck driver, Ali said he had never belonged to any religious movement and had never attended any of the thousands of free religious schools that cater to impoverished Pakistani children. Instead he had dropped out of public school at 13 to take a series of odd jobs, most recently as a security guard.

During that pivotal evening in Miram Shah, Ali said he thought of his wife and 1-year-old son, who lived with his parents in a mud hut. But he also thought of how he had often seethed at the idea of U.S. troops in Muslim lands such as Afghanistan and Iraq and at the U.S. military's detention of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"It was like Zubair had poured the petrol, lit the match and set fire to this issue of jihad for me," he said.

Several days later, Ali said he boarded a public bus for the four-hour journey from Peshawar, the city nearest his village, to the northeastern Pakistani mountain town of Mansehra. He carried only a backpack stuffed with three changes of clothes and a bar of soap. His ears rang with his mother's wails of protest at the news that he was setting off for jihad.

But as the bus sputtered through the flat, hot plain of his youth into hilly green terrain, Ali said his only concern was whether he would prove physically fit for the regimen ahead. Otherwise, he said, he felt deeply happy.

"I knew then that when I was killed in jihad, I would go directly to heaven," he said, smiling.

On reaching the bus stop in Mansehra, Ali walked to a stand selling fried dumplings and looked for the contact Zubair had promised would be waiting.

"Salaam aleikum," peace be to you, he said tentatively to a middle-age man with a long beard.

"Are you the person who has come from Peshawar?" the man asked.

Ali nodded, and the man quickly led him to another bus, this one far more dilapidated. They rode for an hour to a small town, then alighted and began a steep hike up into the hills, following no discernable path. For more than four hours they trekked in silence under a cool canopy of trees, taller than any Ali had ever seen.

Finally they reached a small camp of five white tents, where about 20 men were preparing to perform afternoon prayers. Ali was introduced to a soft-spoken Pakistani instructor who never gave his name, though Ali said he overheard others refer to him as Maksud.

Maksud never gave the name of the group that was training him, Ali said. However, the hills around Mansehra overlook Pakistan's border with Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan province that is split between Pakistan and India.

The area has long been a training ground for Kashmiri guerrillas, unofficially supported by Pakistan. In recent years, several Kashmiri groups have joined forces with al Qaeda or the Taliban to attack Western targets, but critics charge that the Pakistani military remains reluctant to defang them.

Every day, Ali said, the trainees awoke before dawn and did sprinting exercises for 20 minutes. They spent several hours learning how to assemble, aim and fire weapons, from Kalashnikov rifles to rocket-propelled grenade launchers, although Ali said there was only one rocket, so the trainees never actually fired it.

Despite the loud bangs emanating from the camp, Ali said, Maksud took pains to conceal it and warned the trainees not to wander too far away.

Shortly after Ali returned to Peshawar, he said, Zubair arrived and announced they would drive into Afghanistan the next morning. Ali said Zubair never told him whom they would be joining, but an Afghan intelligence investigator said Ali had confessed under interrogation that Zubair was working for a senior Taliban commander, Jalaluddin Haqqani.

Ali said Afghan border guards waved them into Konar, assuming they were Afghan. But some miles later, police stopped their taxi. When they discovered Ali did not have identity papers, they arrested him.

Ali complained that the Konar police kept him tied up for several days and threatened to hurt him. But he said that he was never beaten and added he had been pleasantly surprised by the extent to which Afghans appeared to be in charge of their country.

Still, the Pakistani prisoner remained skeptical and defiant. The interview over, Ali rose from his chair in the investigator's office and began to shuffle out of the room. Suddenly, he stopped and popped his head back through the door.

"So," he demanded, "when are you taking me to Guantanamo?"

PPP issues 6th fact sheet regarding local bodies elections

Islamabad, 22 August 2005: The Media Coordinator of the PPP Central Monitoring Committee for Local Bodies Elections, Nazir Dhoki has said that the Election Commission remained unmoved while the ruling party crossed all limits of rigging in the first phase of elections on 18th August. He said this while issuing the 6th fact sheet regarding rigging and victimisation of Awam Dost Candidates and their supporters in the local bodies elections.

The fact sheet says that the administration in Gujranwala, Sialkot, Sargodha, Khushab, Lodhran, Multan, Khanewal, Sahiwal, Pak Pattan, Vehari, D.G.Khan, Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh, Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan committed acts of rigging in the elections to get the King’s party candidates elected. He said that the candidates who had won in the evening were declared unsuccessful in the morning. A private TV channel showed a film in which the polling staff was shown casting votes with the connivance of the King’s party. The houses of Awam Dost Candidates and their workers were raided at night and the PPP workers were tortured including Nisar Razi in Sargodha and even the electronic media personnel were not spared. The goons of King’s party opened fire in Gujranwala and created an atmosphere of fear. In Silakot, the Speaker National Assembly used police to pick up opposition candidates from the polling stations. The federal parliamentary secretary Dr. Firdaus Ashiq Awan also complained about these tactics used by the Speaker. Nazir Dhoki said that grave irregularities and acts of rigging were committed by the King’s party in Khushab and Rahim Yar Khan. Federal Minister Sher Afgan Niazi and Jahangir Tareen also complained on television regarding these riggings.

The fact sheet says that every limit of state terrorism was crossed by the King’s party in Sindh province. Government machinery was used by the King’s party and its allies on election day in Karachi, Umarkot, Mirpurkhas, Jacobabad, Kashmore, Sanghar, Tharparkar, Tando Allah Yar and Naushehrao Feroz. Several polling stations in Karachi were declared no go area even for the media representatives. Results were changed in Lyari-3, Ghaddap-3, Rehri-2, Kemari-6 and Site Town-9 during the night of the elections. The supporters of King’s party opened fire in Malir at the polling stations and voter lists were snatched from the opposition polling agents in Ibrahim Haidari. The allies of the government opened fire on the voters and workers of the party in Shahra-e-Qaideen, Ajmer Nagri, Lyari and Liaquatabad and seven peoples were arrested by the police but were released on the orders of the governor of Sindh. The election administration helped the King’s party in the acts of rigging and Awam Dost polling agents were not allowed in the polling stations. In Kashmore, on the polling day, the son and the nephew of the former member national assembly, Mir Hazar Khan Bajarani were arrested while member national assembly, Saleem Jan Mazari committed grave acts of rigging with the help of police and administration. Ballot boxes were filled with bogus votes by the Presiding Officers in Kashmore. Thirty workers of Pakistan Peoples Party got injured by the firing of the supporters of King’s party. Several ladies polling agents were kidnapped and dozens of Awam Dost Candidates alongwith 40 PPP workers were arrested in Kashmore.

In Sanghar, the Awam Dost Candidate for Naib Nazim Mumtaz Rajar and his brother Mashooq Rajar were tortured and kidnapped. The supporters of King’s party opened fire on PPP workers injuring 29 of them. Ballot boxes were snatched on gunpoint by the armed Hurr of Pir Pagara. In Thatta, the supporters of Shirazi group opened fire on member Sindh assembly Sassi Palejo, Ghulam Qadir Palejo and Sattar Lohar. The Awam Dost Candidate for Nazim in Jhok Sharif, Allah Rakhio Ghamboh was attacked with an axe and severely injured. In all Thatta district, Awam Dost Candidates and their agents were targeted and the King’s party goons opened fire injuring Mathino, Mir Soomro, Gul Muhammad Soomro, Bachayo, Azeem, Somar, Ghulam Mustaf, Maqbool, Didar and Aziz. The Awam Dost Candidates were refused the result sheets. Dr. Hafeez Jatoi was attacked by the supporters of Shirazi Group in Jhok Sharif. The fact sheet says that the son of Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi used police and the administration for acts of rigging in Naushahro Feroz. Polling agents of Awam Dost Candidate was thrown out of the polling stations. The polling staff was severely beaten up in Tando Allah Yar by the supporting of King’s party. The administration remained unmoved despite complaints filed by presiding officer Inamullah Bhatti in Tando Allah Yar and the office bearer of MQM committed open acts of rigging. The state machinery was used in all these acts of riggings.

The fact sheet says that six workers of PPP were killed in NWFP by the goons of the King’s party. Voters were stopped from using their basic rights to vote for Awam Dost Candidates in Barkhan and other areas of Balochistan. Nazir Dhoki said that the Election Commission did not take notice of victimisation of opposition candidates and use of state terror against Awam Dost Candidates and their supporters. The code of conduct was violated by the government officials but the Election Commission did not take any action. He said that it is very unfortunate that Election Commission has been made a B-team of General Musharraf and the sanctity of ballot was violated without any fear. Nazir Dhoki said that Pakistan People Party rejects the results manoeuvred and engineered by the Musharraf government.

PPP demands removal of Police Officers involved in election rigging in Gujrat

Islamabad, 22 August 2005: Pakistan Peoples Party has filed a complaint with the Chief Election Commissioner asking him to remove several police officers who are involved in picking up the Awam Dost Candidates and their supporters in Gujrat district and demanded him to direct the District Returning Officer to restore candidatures of all those candidates of Nazim and Naib Nazim who have not withdrawn jointly and together in compliance of the election Rule 16(1).

The application filed by the former member national assembly, Advocate Nawabzada Ghazanfar Ali Gul and Chaudhry Qamar Zaman Kaira, Member National Assembly reads, "The ruling Party, Shujaat group, is playing havoc with the election process in the Gujrat district. No norms of elections code of conduct are being followed at all. The Gujrat administration, police and otherwise is at their disposal. No writ or authority of the Election Commission prevail there. The State machinery is being used ruthlessly to crush the opposition to achieve desired results. Ch. Shujaat’s younger brother Ch. Wajahat Hussain MNA is directing the operation. He is acting as a defecto Chief Minister."

It further says, "From the beginning of the election process is being exerted on the opposition candidates of Nazims and Naib Nazims through police, either to join Shujaat group or withdraw from the contest or face the consequences. The candidates are picked up and kept in illegal custody till they submit. At number of places armed gangs are harassing the candidates and their supporters. A number of seats have been secured unopposed. Under rule 16(1), Nazim or Naib cannot withdraw without the consent of both the candidates under joint candidature. In Gujrat this rule is being violated blatantly. A Nazim or a Naib Nazim is picked up by police and forced to withdraw, resultantly it becomes fatal for the non-withdrawing candidate as well. The Returning Officers don’t pay any head to objections."

The application has mentioned names of all candidates of Nazim and Naib Nazim who were pressurised to withdraw by the ruling party using police, administration and government machinery. The application has asked to remove DSP Kharian, SHO PS Jalal Pur Jattan Saddar and City, SHO Karrianwala, SHO PS Saddar Gujrat, SHO PS Civil Line Gujrat, Incharge Police post Dault Nagar and Police Post Rehmanian are playing a main role in harassing and arresting candidates to force them to withdraw. A fair, free and transparent election is just a mad man’s dream. These officers are on active duty. The aforesaid police officers are immediately removed from duty to ensure a free and fair poll, the application prayed.

PPP to cut off talks with govt

By Mubasher Bukhari

LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party chief Benazir Bhutto has decided to cut off talks with the president’s aides following what the party sees as widespread rigging in the local elections and the government’s dogged pursuit of cases against PPP leaders in Swiss courts, party insiders told Daily Times on Sunday.

The sources said that in the last round of talks between the government and the PPP, the government’s negotiators had assured the party that it would not pursue the cases against Bhutto and her husband Asif Zardari pending in Swiss courts, and would allow free and fair local bodies polls. “The government has broken both promises,” said the sources.

When fresh negotiations began between the government and the PPP a few weeks ago, the PPP demanded fresh general elections before the local polls. “Though the provincial governments of the Pakistan Muslim League and its allies were openly supporting their candidates with public funds, the PPP still believed that the ‘real forces’ would not let them engineer the results, but this is exactly what happened,” said insiders.

They said that Bhutto had decided to immediately suspend the talks with the government.

PPP spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar, when asked about the talks, did not deny the report. He said the PPP and the ARD would not boycott the second phase of local polls on August 25, even though it believed there would be more rigging. The party would decide about talks with the government after August 25, he added.

Mohtarma Bhutto condemns denial of treatment to Peer Mukarram

Islamabad: Former Prime Minister and chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has condemned the denial of medical facilities to PPP leader Peer Mukaramul Haq in Jail and described it as inhuman and smacking of vendetta.

Pir Mukarram the husband of the PPP Punjab MPA Farzana Raja was in detention in a NAB case and under treatment in a hospital in Islamabad under medical advice. However when his wife Farzana Raja continued to stridently criticize the government he was forcibly shifted against medical advice from the hospital in the federal capital to jail in Mianwali about two months ago.

Lately Peer Mukarram who is a diabetic complained of high sugar level upon which the jail doctor advised that he be shifted to any jail where the facility of a teaching hospital or a District headquarter hospital were available.

Farzana Raja has complained that the doctor's report coming during local bodies' polls embarrassed the rulers who asked the doctor to modify it. Refusing to bow to the pressure the jail doctor resigned his job and left the town. The Mianwali jail is now without a qualified doctor and there is only one dispenser who looks after the medical needs of several hundred jail inmates.

Peer Mukarram has also applied for urgent bail on medical grounds in the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court through Advocate Dr. Babar Awan but in the absence of a division bench during summer vacations the bail application will come up for hearing after the court vacations.

In a statement today the former Prime Minister said that denial of treatment to Peer Mukarram was not only denial of a basic human right but was also cruel, inhuman and degrading to the perpetrators. She said it was a manifestation of political vendetta in the extreme.

The former Prime Minister demanded of the regime to immediately provide medical care to Peer Mukarram in the light of the medical report and warned that if anything happened to him the rulers will be responsible for the consequences.

She also asked the human rights bodies and members of the legal fraternity to raise voice against this injustice and cruelty and force the regime to desist from perpetrating such crimes against political opponents.

Mohtarma Bhutto shocked over the murder of Derek Cyprian
Demands judicial probe and arrest of criminals

Islamabad: Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has said that it was strange that the regime had adopted a casual attitude towards the murder of a former federal minister.

Former federal minister in an earlier Musharaf Cabinet and a Christian leader Derek Cyprian was kidnapped in Lahore last week and remained untraced for three days. Subsequently his dead body was recovered decomposed and with his hands and feet tied besides marks of strangulation around his neck.

In her compliant lodged with the police the daughter of the deceased had also stated that late Derek Cyprian used to receive threatening phone calls placed by some unknown callers for several days before the incident.

In a statement today the former Prime Minister said that an impartial judicial inquiry was necessary to investigate the matter. She was shocked That the regime had failed to take stern action following the gruesome murder. She said that it was important for the regime to show it was not involved in the matter by ensuring that the crime was investigated and the murderers punished.

"The kidnapping and cold blooded murder of a former federal minister and a Christian leader in the capital of the country's largest province only shows the worsening law and order situation in the country", Mohtarma added.

Mohtarma Bhutto said that it was most unfortunate that the rulers spent time and energy in chasing political opponents but had no time for performing their basic duty of protecting the honor, life and property of citizens.

Mohtarma Bhutto condemns murders of Party workers

Demands arrest of killers, condoles with bereaved families

Islamabad: Former Prime Minister and chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has condemned the killing of PPP workers in Akora Khattak in district Nowshera in Frontier province on the eve of local bodies' polls and demanded arrest and punishment to the killers.

I am shocked beyond measure by the murder of PPP workers in district Nowshera on the eve o elections, she said in a statement today.

A victory procession of Nazim elect of Akora Khattak was on its way back from a local shrine when they were fired upon by opponents resulting in the death of five workers of the Pakistan Peoples Party. Two workers died on the spot while three succumbed to their injuries in the hospital. Nine injured are still in the hospital with the condition of some stated to be serious.

The former Prime Minister demanded a judicial probe into the matter and arrest and punishment to the killers at the earliest. She also demanded that the families of those killed be compensated.

"Those who perpetrated this heinous crime must be punished; they will be".

Mohtarma Bhutto condoled with the bereaved families and prayed for eternal rest for the departed souls and speedy recovery to those injured in the shoot out.

The former Prime Minister also directed the Frontier Party leadership to take up the matter at the highest level and ensure that the culprits were brought to justice without delay. She directed the provincial president to also visit the bereaved families and offer condolences on her behalf.

Zardari in New York for treatment

NEW YORK: Asif Ali Zardari, husband of former prime minister and Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians Chief Benazir Bhutto, reached New York for medical treatment on Sunday.

After initial tests, doctors are likely to operate on him today. Zardari suffers from diabetes and a spinal ailment which prevents him from moving around without support.

Soon after landing at Kennedy Airport, Zardari left for a friend’s house where he will stay during his treatment.

Raza Rabbani condemns attack on Prof. Ghafoor's house

KARACHI: Opposition Leader in Senate and Central Leader of Pakistan People Party (PPP) strongly condemning the firing incident on the residence of Senator Prof. Gafoor Ahmed has accused the government of embarking upon the path of 'fascism and wanting of physically eliminate the opposition'.

In a press statement issued here on Monday he also reject Prime Minister Statement that election were held in a peaceful manner and termed it a cruel joke. He said that the death tolls in the present first round were continued to mount, as did the cases of political violence.

Reminding the attacks on opposition's members of parliaments he alleged that Pakistan Muslim League and their political partner had involved in the attacks.

PPP leader accused the PML of giving birth a new culture of political violence.

Mian Raza Rabbani talks of three-pronged strategy of rulers to chase and hound opposition

Warns against social and political consequences of pushing opposition to the wall

Islamabad: Mian Raza Rabbani leader of the opposition in the Senate has expressed serious alarm over the new wave of intimidation and harassment let loose by the regime against political opponents and warned that if not ended immediately the new wave of repression would result in irreversible polarisation endangering the integrity of the federation.

He stated this in a statement today reacting to the incident of firing on Nisar Khuro Opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly when the latter was addressing a corner meeting of political workers in Larkana on Friday. Nisar Khuro escaped unhurt in the aborted murderous attack.

Mian Raza Rabbani said that the rulers had taken the rigging in local polls to unprecedented pitch so much so that they were now seeking to silence those who exposed the manipulations and gerrymandering.

He said that Nisar Khuro was exposing the fraudulent polls at the corner meeting when he was fired upon by some hired goons of the rulers who later fled under cover of the protective agencies.

He said that the regime had adopted a three pronged strategy to crush and hound the opposition.

First, the opposition leaders were physically attacked to scare them from supporting the PPP and Mohtarma Bhutto. PPP leaders Yousuf Talpur, Ghulam Qadir Palijo and Sassi Palijo were physically attacked by unknown assailants during election campaign of the awam dost candidates, he said.

Second, leading political opponents were framed in false and fabricated murder and other criminal cases to bog them down in running from court to court and from city to city. False murder and other criminal cases had been instituted against MNAs Pir Aftab Shah Jillani and Naveed Qamar, ex Minister Mohsin Shah, ex Nazim Makhdoom Rafiquz Zaman and MPA Sassi Palijo.

Third and worse, the rulers had now resorted to manipulating the election results after the polls to show that the winners had actually lost the elections.

Giving examples Raza Rabbani said that in the UC 2 Liaquatabad Ramzan Malik was declared successful by the returning officer and the results announced on the media but now he was being denied victory through manipulation of results.

Likewise, Rafiq Suleman in UC 3 Liyari, Muhammad Bakhsh in UC 3 Gudap, Ashraf Himayati in UC 2 Rehri, Allah Bakhsh in UC 6 Kemari and Muhammad Niazii UC 9 Site Town were formally declared successful as Nazims by the respective poll officials and this fact was also announced on the electronic and print media. But official results have now been withheld and the candidates have been told that the initial reports of their having won were not correct.

"This is manipulation and rigging unprecedented the political and social fall out of which would be disastrous for social cohesion and national integration".

PPP expected to prevail in Wagah Town polls

* PML-backed Diyals to face off against PPP-backed Ghurkis
* Shalimar and Aziz Bhatti towns’ division plays into PPP’s hands

By Qamar Jabbar

LAHORE: The division of the provincial capital into nine towns from six could potentially help the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) make a clean sweep in Wagah Town.

Wagah Town consists of 12 union councils out of which only four fall in urban areas while eight fall in rural areas. Rural areas have been a traditional stronghold for the PPP for the last fifteen years and so the PPP-backed Ghurki family has a golden opportunity to hold its hegemony on the town and kick out the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML)-backed Diyal family.

Wagah Town was established by dividing the old Shalimar and Aziz Bhatti towns, which damaged the political position of the Diyals and blocked the way for former Shalimar Town nazim Ashiq Diyal to become town nazim again. The Diyals, who joined the PML in 2000, captured the Shalimar Town nazim position in the 2001 local elections and later contested the 2002 general elections on the PML’s ticket.

Reportedly, former Lahore nazim Mian Amir Mehmood divided the Shalimar and Aziz Bhatti towns because of differences with Ashig Diyal. Diyals see this as a conspiracy against them by the former nazim, as they now have to run in rural areas against their old rivals, the Ghurki family.

Ashiq Diyal, who is PML’s nominee for Wagah Town nazim, wanted to run for Shalimar Town nazim and requested the PML Punjab president to nominate someone else to face Ghurki in Wagah town. However, the PML had already made a commitment with Ikhlaq Guddu, who recently joined the PML from the PPP, to run for Shalimar Town nazim.

Under compulsion, the Diyal group, with the help of clans in the area, are fielding candidates in 11 out of the 12 union councils (UCs) in Wagah Town In 10 UCs, the PPP candidates will directly face the PML nominees while the PPP’s allies, the PML-N candidates, will contest the ruling party candidates on two seats.

UC 37: The PPP nominee Syed Zahid Ali Shah will contest Akhtar Nazir of the PML for the nazim slot. This area falls in the constituency of PPP leader Aitzaz Ehsan, which increases PPP’s chances of winning the election.

UC 38: Saeed Nazir of the PML will contest Malik Jaffar of the PPP for nazim. In this constituency, a close fight is predicted as the PML have a substantial vote bank in the area.

UC 39: This contest between three candidates will be purely on the basis of clans. The PML has nominated Chaudhry Majeed for nazim while the PPP and the PML-N have nominated Malik Shahid Imtiaz and Mehmood Sadique Olak, respectively. The Awan, Malik and Rajpoot clans in the area support the PML candidates while the Jatts and the Gujjars support the PPP.

UC 40: The PML has nominated Haji Ghulam Mustafa and Mian Arshad for nazim and naib nazim against Qazi Muhammad Idrees of the PML-N and Mian Ghafoor of the PPP.

UC 42: The PML has yet to finalise its candidate while Chaudhry Sajjad Imran of the PPP and Haji Khadim Hussain of PML-N are contesting the nazim slot.

UC 49: Babar Butt of the PPP and Chaudhry Manzoor of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), candidates for nazim and naib nazim will face Saleem Butt and Liaqat Ali of the PML. This area is mostly rural and the hub for the PPP.

UC 50: Muhammad Asghar Ali and Munir Hussain of the PML, running for nazim and naib nazim, will contest Rana Mehmood of the PML-N for nazim and Muhammad Islam of the PPP for naib nazim. This area falls in the constituency of PML-N’s MPA Rana Tajammul Hussain, putting the opposition in a strong position.

UC 51: Malik Ghulam Habib of the PML and Malik Habib Awan of the PPP are contesting the nazim slot. In this constituency, the Awan and the Jatts support the PPP while the Gujjar and Rajpoots favour the PML candidate.

UCs 52, 53, 62 and 65: Shafqat Butt of the PML and Mian Abio Ali Manwan of the PPP in UC 52, Tahir Majeed of the PML and Muhammad Arif Jatt of the PPP in UC 53, Haji Arif of the PML and Mian Pervaiz of the PPP, in UC 65, and Major (r) Aslam Sindu of the PML and Malik Maqsood Mora of the PPP in UC 62 will contest the nazim elections. These four union councils fall in areas where the Ghurki family has a strong influence. The Jatt, Awan, Gujgar and Arain clans from Manawan, Minhala, Burki and Hudiara villages fully support the Ghurki group.

The 156 nazim, naib nazim and general councillor seats in Wagah Town could play a vital role in the Lahore district nazim election. The PML-N, the MMA and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf have given the PPP a free hand to run the town’s political affairs, given the strong position the Ghurki family has in the town.

The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) has a strong vote bank in Lakhodher, Bhaseen and Dogria Kalan villages and JI Ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmed contested the 1993 elections form this constituency. However, the JI has offered to support the PPP against the candidates from the ruling party in the local elections.

Controlling Army-led Democracy Through Manipulated Vote
By Wajid Shamsul Hasan.

LONDON, August 23: Pakistan's founder Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a democrat par excellence. If he had known that the ideals that he had lived for, struggled all his life and fought for, would be raped so blatantly, as has been done repeatedly by its military establishment and Bonapartist generals, he would have thought twice before opting for an independent state.

He did not have, nor did he seek, help from more than a 100,000 Muslim army officers and other men in uniform serving as the most loyal servants in the British imperial armed forces with quite a few of them at the top licking the boots of their Gora (white) higher ups for promotions. He believed in the power of the ballot over the bullet and hence restricted his struggle for freedom within the democratic parameters.

In his first speech to the Legislative Assembly of Pakistan (11 August 1947) he had laid bare categorically his magna carta for the democratic management of the country. In his Pakistan all citizens were to be equal irrespective of their caste, creed or color and that religion had nothing to do with the business of the state.

His subsequent emphasis, as long as he lived, was that since it was to be a people's government, responsible to the people and none else but the people, it was the sole prerogative of the masses to change the government in Pakistan and its policies. It also rested within the powers of the people to vote in and vote out a government when it failed to perform in the largest interest of the greatest numbers. He had also warned the civil and military bureaucrats and told them: "Make the people feel that you are servants and friends" and that they should maintain the "highest standard of honor, integrity, justice and fair play."

It goes to the credit of the people of Pakistan that despite subversion of democracy by frequent military interventions, they have stood by their commitment to the democratic ideals bequeathed to the nation by the Quaid.

However, now we have come to a crucial pass after many constitutional and electoral dislocations, especially following the farce in the name of local bodies elections that were inflicted on us on Thursday, August 18, that a stage has been reached for the entire nation and its political leadership to evolve a new strategy to meet the Praetorian challenges.

Away from home, thank goodness to the number of Pakistani TV channels, we could see with our own eyes the most shameless mockery of vote. It seemed to be in continuation of the policy of the militarization of the state by the present regime to further disenchanting the masses away from the power of vote, thereby to weaken the democratic forces that don't give up challenging its absolute authority.

State sponsored rigging, fraudulent results and installation of military's favorites in the government have disheartened the voters to the extent that they feel discouraged to vote since they have been denied their right to elect their representatives. This is one major reason for the gradual decline in the voting pattern and the regime feels confident that it can hoodwink international opinion by jacking up falsely the figures of voting turnout.

General Pervez Musharraf's Local Government Ordinance of 2001 drafted painstakingly by the best Praetorian brains, aided by their civilian experts, had an overall objective of not promoting democracy at the grass root level but to control it so that managing of local affairs remains at the mercy and sweet will of the Center. It was perennially designed to convert the real rulers, the people, into serfs and power sharing in it was so devised that on paper it seemed to be devolution but in fact it meant more of overwhelming control of Islamabad. In short, it has been the most deplorable recipe for controlled democracy in the country.

It has been rightly alleged that instead of devolving power in three tiers, by moving power down the provinces and reducing the load of federal ministries, the President has become the reservoir of all power. General Musharraf has had the cake and has been gulping it too. He has used local bodies not for empowering the people at the grass root level but as an institution for extending semblance of civil legitimacy to it, much in the pattern of General Ayub Khan's basic democracy and General Zia's party less local body politics.

Like Musharraf's they also had one objective to further fracture and fragment Pakistani society so that instead of national cohesion, there should be more of local biradari lords with the sole purpose of reducing and minimizing the power of the collective vote. Especially from General Zia's time to this day, calculated attempts are being made to fragment the society into ethnic, feudal and sectarian groups to divide and reduce the democratic power of the people to change a government through their collective vote. This has been real reason for holding non-party local body elections rather than the empowerment of the people.

As usual the regime's propaganda machinery is busy orchestrating that Thursday's local polls were the most transparent and peacefully held ever with more than 50 cent of registered voters turning out. Contrary was the view of various panels of experts who were invited by the private TV channels to comment and analyze the daylong proceedings punctuated by bloody violence, 11 deaths with scores wounded.

It was also a sad commentary on the performance of the Election Commission. It is understandable since an Acting Chief Election Commissioner heads it. It did not take cognizance of pile of complaints lodged at its doors from the day elections were announced. The blatant transfers and postings of officers by the Chief Ministers and for other bandobast (management) it did not have spine good and strong enough to take a stand. Rather, the President and his Chief Ministers who did not feel shy for lobbying openly for their favorite candidates did it most obtrusively in gross violation of its code of conduct.

Back to TV discussions. Some panelists had a point that needs to be answered by the political leaders. They were of the view that since General Zia's time the political parties had been opposing non-party elections and yet they have been participating in them knowing well that the very concept of non-party elections is tendentiously undemocratic, especially when it is inherently designed to divide the political power of the masses.

It is time a consensus decision was taken by the ARD and APC and get over with their contradiction of demanding party-based elections and yet surrendering themselves to a party less contraption designed entirely for the service and perpetuation of the military regime.

One, therefore, expects that having had the bitter and nightmarish experience of the first phase of local bodies elections, ARD and APC parties should get together to tell Musharraf enough is enough, that they cannot be a party to his shameless electoral farce. It needs to be noted that he is already under pressure and he is no more in a position to shrug off lightly any united protest by the Opposition parties. It is time they corrected their stand on non-party polls.

The writer is a former Pakistan High Commissioner to UK

Polls rigged to ensure one-man rule, says PPPP

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party-Parliamentarians (PPPP) on Saturday expressed concerns that the massively rigged local polls were a conspiracy against the parliamentary system in the country to introduce a one-man rule under the presidential system.

“I fear that the country is being pushed towards the presidential system to establish a one-man rule in the country. Gen Musharraf is trying to prolong his rule through rigged elections such as his referendum but he will not succeed,” said Raja Pervez Ashraf, the party’s secretary general, in a press conference at the PPP media centre.

Although he criticised the government severely for extensive rigging during first phase of the local polls, he vowed to contest the second phase polls with full force and was determined not to give a free hand to their opponents. “We will contest the second phase of the polls as well, and call a meeting of our allies in the opposition to launch a joint struggle against the present regime,” he said.

All opposition parties have agreed on a three point agenda including restoration of real democracy, an end to military rule and revival of the 1973 Constitution and make a joint strategy to achieve common goals, he added.

“We were expecting rigging and have been informing the media and the Election Commission but the Punjab and Sindh chief ministers had crossed all the limits and personally supervised the elections process,” he said.

Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said that even ministers Sher Afgan Niazi, Jahangir Tareen and Firdous Ashiq Awan have complained about rigging in their constituencies.

After sensing defeat despite pre-poll rigging, he said that the government arrested Awam Dost candidates to ‘engineer’ a victory for their candidates.

Raja Pervez alleged that the results in certain districts were deliberately delayed and changed, declaring winning candidates unsuccessful.

He also criticised the Election Commission, saying that the commission had become ineffective and had failed to respond to any of the opposition’s complains. “We expect the same attitude from the EC in the second phase,” he said.

“Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi had asked senior police officials and district administration to ensure support for his candidates,” he said.

Talking about Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, Raja said that the PPPP had never lost elections in Kashmore, Jacobabad, Tando Muhammad Khan and Thatha districts, alleging that Rangers and police took the ballot boxes to police stations in the afternoon and filled them with “bogus votes”.

Sindh Opposition Leader Nisar Khoro’s convoy was attacked in Larkana to scare people from voting for PPPP, he said.

Pakistan's opposition cries foul over local polls
(Raises death toll; adds comments from opposition, rights body)
By Faisal Aziz

ISLAMABAD, Aug 19 - Opposition officials accused President Pervez Musharraf's government of electoral fraud on Friday as votes were tallied after the first round of voting in Pakistan's local elections.

At least 15 people were killed and hundreds injured in sporadic violence during Thursday's voting for district councillors that will help determine the make up of the government that emerges from general elections in 2007.

The three-phase local elections are officially being held on a non-party basis, but factions have openly backed candidates to build their power bases ahead of the general election.

Analysts have said the polls could determine whether Musharraf incorporates liberal opponents in a future government.

However, the best-selling Jang newspaper said preliminary unofficial results showed pro-Musharraf parties ahead in the most populous Punjab province and Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi, and Islamist parties leading in regions they already dominated.

The main liberal opposition party, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of self-exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, accused the government of "massive irregularities".

Qaim Ali Shah, a member of the PPP's central executive committee, said the polls had been rigged "in a naked and brutal manner" and demanded a new vote under independent supervision.

"The Election Commissioner is saying there was 50 percent turnout. It's strange he is saying this when the counting is yet to be completed. It appears everything was predetermined."

COMMISSION REJECTS CHARGES

Another senior PPP official, Taj Haider, put the turnout at no more than 12 percent. "It's a different thing how many votes go into the ballot box and how many come out," he said.

A senior member of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, the main grouping of Islamist parties, made similar accusations.

"Some ballot boxes were full even before the polling started," said Naimatullah Khan, a former district chief of Karachi. "It was a complete network of irregularities."

Election Commission official Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad denied this, saying: "The elections were completely free and fair."

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it had reports that women were not allowed to cast votes in some areas of Islamist-dominated North West Frontier Province, and demanded the elections be held again in such areas.

Violence broke out in some areas despite the deployment of tens of thousands of troops to maintain security.

Voting was held in 53 districts nationwide and will be held in the remaining 56 on Aug. 25. Dilshad said official results from the first round were expected to take several days.

On Sept. 29, councillors elected in the first two rounds will elect powerful district chiefs, whose influence will be significant in elections for national and provincial assemblies that will choose a president for a five-year term later in 2007.

Aides say Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism who seized power in a bloodless 1999 coup, will stand in the next presidential election. He is widely expected to win, but what sort of coalition he will work with remains unclear.

Like other military leaders, Musharraf has in the past relied on the backing of religious conservatives but they have fallen out and he has urged voters to shun the Islamists who won power in North West Frontier and Baluchistan in 2002 general election.

Analysts say a poor overall showing by candidates backed by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League could make Musharraf more amenable to a deal with liberal forces, such as Bhutto's party.

Pakistan votes for local councils

Voting has begun in half of Pakistan's 110 districts to elect several thousand local councils.

There are reports of minor clashes and irregularities in Karachi and several other parts of the country despite unprecedented security measures.


Political parties are not allowed to take part in the polls but a specific quota for women and minorities have encouraged their greater participation.

Voting in the remaining districts will be held next week.

Polling has been suspended at two polling stations in Karachi following armed clashes between rival groups.

And at a women's polling station in the city's densely populated Burnes Road, election officials discovered four ballot boxes that had been stuffed with votes before being delivered.

A polling officer was also been beaten up by supporters of one candidate.

Meanwhile there are reports of incomplete voter lists from all over Karachi.

In Lyari, one of the most colourful and multiethnic localities of the city, hundreds of people are complaining that their names are missing from the lists.

"I have been voting for the last 20 years from this area but this time, I cannot find my name in the voters list," says one resident.

The problem seems to be particularly acute at women's polling stations, says the BBC's Aamer Ahmed Khan in Karachi.

There are also reports of a clash between rival groups in the southern Punjab town of Vehari. Seven people were injured in an exchange of fire, police said.

But officials say that the atmosphere in most districts has remained peaceful.

Women ban

The Chief Minister of North West Frontier Province Akram Durrani has contradicted reports that tribal elders had prevented women from voting in some parts of the province.

Tribal elders had banned women from voting in three councils in the province, but the government had persuaded councils - or jirgas - to lift the ban late on Wednesday.

Nonetheless reports from the area suggest that women are not turning out to vote in large numbers.

The present system of local governments was introduced by President Pervez Musharraf four years ago.

Voting is being held for over 6,000 local councils and more than 40,000 troops have been deployed.

A record 218,000 candidates are contesting what are only the second such elections since General Musharraf took over.

They include more than 55,000 women candidates, including many in the highly-conservative part of the North-West Frontier Province.

Crying foul

The BBC's Zaffar Abbas in Islamabad says since the elections are on a non-party basis they are devoid of the traditional rivalries of Pakistani politics.

But political parties are supporting their own set of candidates which has generated a fair amount of controversy.

Opposition parties have accused the government of pre-poll rigging - pointing to the fact that a large number of candidates have been elected unopposed.

For its part the government says the opposition has not been able to find enough candidates to contest all the seats.

When the local government system was first introduced it was an instant hit because of the promise to transfer political and financial powers to the district councils.

But analysts say these elections are not just about choosing a new set of local governments - they are also a test of General Musharraf's commitment to restore complete democracy in the country.

And our correspondent says with the opposition parties already crying foul, the results are not likely to end the continuing controversy about the military's role in the country's politics.

Mohtarma Bhutto condemns murders of Party workers

Demands arrest of killers, condoles with bereaved families

Islamabad August 20, 2005: Former Prime Minister and chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has condemned the killing of PPP workers in Akora Khattak in district Nowshera in Frontier province on the eve of local bodies’ polls and demanded arrest and punishment to the killers.

I am shocked beyond measure by the murder of PPP workers in district Nowshera on the eve o elections, she said in a statement today.

A victory procession of Nazim elect of Akora Khattak was on its way back from a local shrine when they were fired upon by opponents resulting in the death of five workers of the Pakistan Peoples Party. Two workers died on the spot while three succumbed to their injuries in the hospital. Nine injured are still in the hospital with the condition of some stated to be serious.

The former Prime Minister demanded a judicial probe into the matter and arrest and punishment to the killers at the earliest. She also demanded that the families of those killed be compensated.

"Those who perpetrated this heinous crime must be punished; they will be".

Mohtarma Bhutto condoled with the bereaved families and prayed for eternal rest for the departed souls and speedy recovery to those injured in the shoot out.

The former Prime Minister also directed the Frontier Party leadership to take up the matter at the highest level and ensure that the culprits were brought to justice without delay. She directed the provincial president to also visit the bereaved families and offer condolences on her behalf.

Mian Raza Rabbani talks of three-pronged strategy of rulers to chase and hound opposition

Warns against social and political consequences of pushing opposition to the wall.

Islamabad August 20, 2005: Mian Raza Rabbani leader of the opposition in the Senate has expressed serious alarm over the new wave of intimidation and harassment let loose by the regime against political opponents and warned that if not ended immediately the new wave of repression would result in irreversible polarisation endangering the integrity of the federation.

He stated this in a statement today reacting to the incident of firing on Nisar Khuro Opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly when the latter was addressing a corner meeting of political workers in Larkana on Friday. Nisar Khuro escaped unhurt in the aborted murderous attack.

Mian Raza Rabbani said that the rulers had taken the rigging in local polls to unprecedented pitch so much so that they were now seeking to silence those who exposed the manipulations and gerrymandering.

He said that Nisar Khuro was exposing the fraudulent polls at the corner meeting when he was fired upon by some hired goons of the rulers who later fled under cover of the protective agencies.

He said that the regime had adopted a three pronged strategy to crush and hound the opposition.

First, the opposition leaders were physically attacked to scare them from supporting the PPP and Mohtarma Bhutto. PPP leaders Yousuf Talpur, Ghulam Qadir Palijo and Sassi Palijo were physically attacked by unknown assailants during election campaign of the awam dost candidates, he said.

Second, leading political opponents were framed in false and fabricated murder and other criminal cases to bog them down in running from court to court and from city to city. False murder and other criminal cases had been instituted against MNAs Pir Aftab Shah Jillani and Naveed Qamar, ex Minister Mohsin Shah, ex Nazim Makhdoom Rafiquz Zaman and MPA Sassi Palijo.

Third and worse, the rulers had now resorted to manipulating the election results after the polls to show that the winners had actually lost the elections.

Giving examples Raza Rabbani said that in the UC 2 Liaquatabad Ramzan Malik was declared successful by the returning officer and the results announced on the media but now he was being denied victory through manipulation of results.

Likewise, Rafiq Suleman in UC 3 Liyari, Muhammad Bakhsh in UC 3 Gudap, Ashraf Himayati in UC 2 Rehri, Allah Bakhsh in UC 6 Kemari and Muhammad Niazii UC 9 Site Town were formally declared successful as Nazims by the respective poll officials and this fact was also announced on the electronic and print media. But official results have now been withheld and the candidates have been told that the initial reports of their having won were not correct.

"This is manipulation and rigging unprecedented the political and social fall out of which would be disastrous for social cohesion and national integration".

Mohtarma Bhutto condemns denial of treatment to Peer Mukarram

Islamabad August 21, 2005: Former Prime Minister and chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has condemned the denial of medical facilities to PPP leader Peer Mukaramul Haq in Jail and described it as inhuman and smacking of vendetta.

Pir Mukarram the husband of the PPP Punjab MPA Farzana Raja was in detention in a NAB case and under treatment in a hospital in Islamabad under medical advice. However when his wife Farzana Raja continued to stridently criticize the government he was forcibly shifted against medical advice from the hospital in the federal capital to jail in Mianwali about two months ago.

Lately Peer Mukarram who is a diabetic complained of high sugar level upon which the jail doctor advised that he be shifted to any jail where the facility of a teaching hospital or a District headquarter hospital were available.

Farzana Raja has complained that the doctor’s report coming during local bodies’ polls embarrassed the rulers who asked the doctor to modify it. Refusing to bow to the pressure the jail doctor resigned his job and left the town. The Mianwali jail is now without a qualified doctor and there is only one dispenser who looks after the medical needs of several hundred jail inmates.

Peer Mukarram has also applied for urgent bail on medical grounds in the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court through Advocate Dr. Babar Awan but in the absence of a division bench during summer vacations the bail application will come up for hearing after the court vacations.

In a statement today the former Prime Minister said that denial of treatment to Peer Mukarram was not only denial of a basic human right but was also cruel, inhuman and degrading to the perpetrators. She said it was a manifestation of political vendetta in the extreme.

The former Prime Minister demanded of the regime to immediately provide medical care to Peer Mukarram in the light of the medical report and warned that if anything happened to him the rulers will be responsible for the consequences.

She also asked the human rights bodies and members of the legal fraternity to raise voice against this injustice and cruelty and force the regime to desist from perpetrating such crimes against political opponents.

Mohtarma Bhutto shocked over the murder of Derek Cyprian Demands judicial probe and arrest of criminals

Islamabad August 21, 2005: Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has said that it was strange that the regime had adopted a casual attitude towards the murder of a former federal minister.

Former federal minister in an earlier Musharaf Cabinet and a Christian leader Derek Cyprian was kidnapped in Lahore last week and remained untraced for three days. Subsequently his dead body was recovered decomposed and with his hands and feet tied besides marks of strangulation around his neck.

In her compliant lodged with the police the daughter of the deceased had also stated that late Derek Cyprian used to receive threatening phone calls placed by some unknown callers for several days before the incident.

In a statement today the former Prime Minister said that an impartial judicial inquiry was necessary to investigate the matter. She was shocked That the regime had failed to take stern action following the gruesome murder. She said that it was important for the regime to show it was not involved in the matter by ensuring that the crime was investigated and the murderers punished.

"The kidnapping and cold blooded murder of a former federal minister and a Christian leader in the capital of the country's largest province only shows the worsening law and order situation in the country", Mohtarma added.

Mohtarma Bhutto said that it was most unfortunate that the rulers spent time and energy in chasing political opponents but had no time for performing their basic duty of protecting the honor, life and property of citizens.

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's government parties claimed early wins while opposition groups cried foul as unofficial results poured in on Saturday following the first round of Pakistan's local elections.

Political parties could not contest district council elections, but they openly showed which candidates were theirs even if colors and symbols were barred from campaigns.

At least 16 people were killed and hundreds injured in sporadic violence during Thursday's voting.

With general elections due in 2007, parties want district leaders in place who can influence voting for seats in provincial and national assemblies.

It matters for President Pervez Musharraf, one of the West's main allies in a global war on terrorism, as he will seek re-election by the assemblies and the Senate that emerges from the vote in two years' time.

The chief minister of Punjab reckoned the ruling Pakistan Moslem League (PML-Q), the party backed by Musharraf, had scored a landslide in the most populous of Pakistan's four provinces.

"Eighty percent of the winners are candidates supported by us. The PML has come out as a strong political force, and its impact would be visible in the 2007 general elections," Punjab's Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi said.

In southern Sindh province, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a junior partner in government, was sure of wresting Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, from Islamist parties who won in 2002.

"We have won in 110 out of the 178 union councils in Karachi," Kunwar Khalid Yunus, a central leader of the MQM and a member of the National Assembly, told Reuters.

Democracy has had a sorry history in Pakistan. The military

has ruled for more than half the country's 58 years since independence.

General Musharraf took power in a popular and bloodless military coup in 1999, and the two civilian prime ministers from the 1990s, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, live in exile.

Successes in these polls appeared patchy for Sharif's Pakistan Moslem League-N and Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party, but political analysts believe they still possess popular support.

ISLAMISTS BRUISED IN TRIBAL PROVINCES

In the two tribal-dominated provinces of Baluchistan and North West Frontier, there were signs that conservative Islamist parties' grip on power was also in danger of slipping.

Banded together under the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), the Islamist parties became the largest opposition block after scoring their largest ever gains in 2002, thanks in part to a backlash against the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Taliban's Islamist government in neighbouring Afghanistan a year earlier.

The PML-Q was leading in Baluchistan, while in the North West Frontier Province the MMA's dominance has been cut by another opposition group, the Awami National Party, which wants more autonomy.

Opposition groups hurled accusations of widespread fraud as votes were counted for the first round of voting held two days ago, but an Election Commission official said on Saturday "absolutely no complaints have been received".

Voting was held in 53 districts nationwide, the turnout was officially put at 50 percent -- for women voters it ranged from 43 percent in Punjab to 16 percent in Frontier province.

Official results are expected late on Saturday.

A remaining 56 districts will be contested in August 25.

Councillors elected in the first two rounds will elect powerful district chiefs on September 29, in a third and final phase of the local elections.

Musharraf introduced district council elections in 2002 for the first time in Pakistan's history, and says they are meant to create grassroots democracy. As part of the reforms 33 percent of seats in district councils were reserved for women.

Ishaq meets Benazir Bhutto

Friday August 19, 2005 LONDON: August 20 (Online): President Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Azad Kashmir Sahibzada Ishaq Zaffar called on PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto at her residence here on Friday.

During one and half hour meeting, they discussed political situation in Kashmir and Pakistan besides ongoing Kashmir freedom movement.

Later talking to reporters, AJK PPP president said Ms Bhutto would take the final decision regarding the selection of party's candidate to contest upcoming Kashmir Council Polls after the meeting of party's Parliamentary Committee.

However, PPP Secretariat, Islamabad received twenty-two applications and party's Central Secretariat, London received one application of the candidates aspiring to contest elections of Kashmir Council, he noted.

Sahibzada Ishaq said PPP chairperson has approved three names to contest polls for the seat falling vacant in Muzaffarabad constituency after the death of senior AJK minister Mumtaz Ali Gillani.

Farooq Ahmed will contest elections on vacant seat while Muhammad Hanif, the PPP (Muzaffarabad) president and Adil Bashir are the covering candidates, he added.

The AJK PPP president hoped that PPP would got victory in by-polls.

PPPP rejects 'disgraceful'poll conduct

ISLAMABAD: Rejecting the first phase of the local government elections, the Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) Thursday accused the Election Commission of failing to stop the government from using state machinery to change "the people's verdict".

"We out-rightly reject the polls as the Election Commission remained biased and was unable to implement its own directives to ensure free, fair and transparent elections," said the Opposition Leader in the Senate, Mian Raza Rabbani, while talking to The News.

He said it is disgrace to call these elections as the massive rigging took place during the whole process of the elections. The opposition leader in the Senate said the party is reviewing the whole situation and would make its next strategy within next few days for the second phase of elections.

He said the party has already issued a detailed report about how the pre-poll rigging has taken place and also about the political victimization of the opposition candidates. Rabbani said the party had drawn the Election Commission's attention about the faulty voters list but it remained silent and did not take any notice of it.

He said there were reports pouring from the different parts of Interior Sindh about how the government sponsored candidates' supporters attacked Awam Dost candidates with the help of police. "Even in Karachi, polling started late at some of the polling stations on the behest of the provincial government," he added.

Our Karachi correspondent adds: Addressing a hurriedly called press conference at Bilawal House, PPPP leaders Taj Haider, Sherry Rehman, Rashid Rabbani and Rafiq Engineer rejected results of the first phase of local government elections alleging that these were rigged by the ruling parties at gunpoint.

They said that armed Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and other ruling parties' activists occupied polling stations all over Karachi and in interior Sindh particularly in Tharparkar and filled ballot boxes with bogus votes.

"It was a systematic rigging in which the MQM and other ruling coalition parties set up a new trend and robbed the elections," they said and accused the police of collaborating with the armed activists of the ruling parties.

"It was unfair and partial election and people were disappointed," Taj Haider said. They said it was surprising that armed activists of MQM moved freely in polling stations in presence of army and rangers. Polling agents of Awam Dost candidates were forced out of polling stations and armed activists of ruling parties not only threatened them but also voters.

They alleged that flouting the ban of chief election commissioner, ministers, advisers and members of parliaments of the ruling parties entered polling stations with armed activists and supervised rigging.

Rejecting the CEC claim that turnout at the polling in Karachi was 50 percent, they put the turnout at 10 to 15 percent.

Criticizing the rulers, the PPPP leaders said that this election violated the sanctity of ballot and democratic process. 150 complaints were send to CEC about serious violation and rigging but no action was taken, they alleged.

They said that rangers arrested some armed activists of a ruling party occupying the SMS School on gunpoint and recovered 15 books of ballot papers. They said people saw on TV channels that teenagers were casting votes. In most of the polling stations, poling staff allowed vote without checking National Identity Card.

Sherry Rehman said in polling stations where Awam Dost candidates were in strong position, balloting was started two to three hours late and despite complaints to CEC no action was taken.

She said in interior Sindh armed activists of allied parties forced out even women polling agents. Two PPPP women MPAs Sassi Palejo and Humaira Alwani were also tortured in Thatta. PPPP city chief Rashid Rabbani said ballot boxes were stuffed with votes late Wednesday night, adding the party rejects the result of these polls as fraud.

KARACHI: PPP terms poll process ‘a farce’

KARACHI: The Pakistan People’s Party has rejected Thursday’s electoral process in the first round of the second local body elections, alleging that “a fraud had been imposed on people through the government-nominated constellation.”

Senator Taj Haider, head of the PPP’s election monitoring cell, announcing his party’s decision, also contested the Election Commission’s claim of 50 per cent turnout in Karachi and other parts of the province.

He was of the view that due to the difficult and time-consuming voting procedure, the turnout remained thin in most parts of the city. “Therefore, the EC’s claim of 50 per cent turnout is a farce.”

He argued that such a fraud was made possible because the EC did not take notice of the complaints lodged with it. This, he added, had also encouraged ballot fixing. The PPP leader alleged that at many places, polling agents of Awam Dost candidates had forcibly been evicted from polling stations which, he claimed had later been taken over by Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s activists and its proxy volunteer corps.

He alleged that massive rigging had been resorted to at the women’s polling station in UC Kaloi, District Tharparkar, where the chief minister’s cousin, Arbab Anwar, had been sitting to supervise the stuffing of ballot papers and deny voters the right of secret ballot.

Ms Sherry Rahman, head of the PPP’s policy planning, claimed that rigging and ballot stuffing had taken place at polling stations 16 and 17 at Karachi Milk Plant (UC 4), Gulshan Town.

PPP issues 5th fact sheet regarding local bodies elections

Islamabad: "General Musharraf has rendered the Election Commission irrelevant and powerless by allowing his lackies to flout election laws and giving a free hand to the King's party to carryout pre-poll rigging with impunity". This was said by Nazir Dhoki, the Media Coordinator PPP Monitoring Committee for local bodies elections while issuing the fifth fact sheet regarding incidents of victimisation of Awam Dost Candidates, their supporters and PPP workers.

The fact sheet details victimisation incidents in Punjab and Sindh provinces where on the behest of provincial governments police has continued harassing and victimising Awam Dost Candidates at every level. The fact sheet says that the Chief Minister Punjab has crossed every limit to pressurise Kaira family, Ghazanfar Gul and his family and the family members of Chaudhary Mazhar in Gujrat. Members of these families have been arrested and their business outlets have been closed down.

Nazir Dhoki said that the failure of Election Commission to take any action against General Musharraf, Prime Minsiter Shaukat Aziz, Chief Minister Sindh and Punjab Arbab Ghulam Rahim and Chaudhry Pervez Ilahi, Federal Ministers, Ministers of state and advisors of the regime who have violated every election law during the election campaign is a proof of its inability to hold free, fair, transparent and impartial elections. All of them announced development projects in public gathering during the election campaign despite ban on the announcement of such projects by the Election Commission. Awam Dost Candidates and their supporters were kidnapped in various districts in Sindh and they were detained for prolonged period of time, tortured and forced to withdraw from the race but the Election Commission remained unmoved.

The fact sheet says that General Musharraf has admitted that he fully supports Arbab Ghulam Rahim whereas Arbab Ghulam Rahim has turned Sindh province to a police state. DPOs have been involved in picking up Awam Dost Candidates, their proposers, seconders, and supporters and conducting of raids on the houses to harass their families.

Awam Dost Candidates Nawab Khan Babbar and Noor Khan Brohi were kidnapped in Sanghar Police raided several villages in Sanghar including Rukan Bara, Jehan Khan Babbar, Saeed Khan Babbar, Ainee Chandio Bachayo Rind, Siddique Mangrio, Pirano Mangrio, Gul Muhammad Babbar and tortured PPP voters seriously injuring Amina Begum, AllahBachai, Noor Khatoon, Ms. Khairan, Hoor Bai, Jannat Khatoon, Bakhtawar, Muradan Begum and dozens other. Police arrested 15 workers and cases have been registered against 39 innocent PPP supporters. Advisor government of Sindh, Ghulam Rasool Unar is harassing Awam Dost supporters. The goons of King's party attacked Awam Dost Candidate Amanullah Dahri in Daulatpur and his hotel was ransacked. Police has initiated cases against over 50 workers in Sakrand and raids are being conducted on their homes. In Thatta, case have been registered against 192 Awam Dost Candidates and PPP supporters including Ghulam Qadir Palijo and member Sindh assembly Sassi Palijo. In Tando Mohammad Khan, cases against 200 candidates and PPP workers have been initiated including former provincial minister Syed Mohsin Shah Bokhari. Several employees of education department have been suspended in Naushehro Feroz because their relatives are Awam Dost Candidates. Member national assembly Pir Aftab Shah Jilani has been stopped from visiting Sindhri where police raided houses of 23 Awam Dost Candidates and PPP office bearers including candidate for Nazim, Chaudhry Ahsanul Haq. Six employees of Chaudhry Ahsan have also been detained.

Nazir Dhoki has appealed to all democrats on the election day to cast their votes and be vigilant to stop any effort of rigging by the King's party. He said that the candidates, their polling agents and the people would not let the military regime and the King's party to change the results. He said that tomorrow would be the beginning of new era if the elections are free, fair, transparent and impartial.

PPP accuses CM of rigging

KARACHI: The opposition PPP has accused that the brothers and cousins of Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Rahim and allied parties of the Sindh government were involved in election rigging by using all illegal and third degree methods for stuffing ballot papers in Karachi and other districts of the province.

The party accused this in a white paper (Dhandlinama) released on Thursday, blaming that the sanctity of the ballot paper was violated as the armed activists of these parties occupied the polling stations and denied the right of secret ballot even to women voters.

According to PPP, Tharparker witnessed record rigging as Arbab Khalique, brother of the chief minister, and his other cousin forced the voters to show them the ballots to know for whom they cast the votes. The party claimed that the polling agents of the Awam Dost candidates were kidnapped, adding that the presiding officers, polling agents and Arbab’s men started stuffing the ballots. The CEC and other authorities were informed of the incidents in the morning but no action was taken, it alleged.

The rigging also took place in Chore Town, Umerkot, Allahbaksh Samejo, Aabloor and Biterwah UCs, Chachro tehsil, Tharparkar, where the Chief Minister’s henchmen threatened Awam Dost candidates and supervised the stuffing of ballot papers openly, denying the voters the right of secret ballot, while Awam Dost voters were not allowed to enter in the polling stations, it said.

The party claimed that the Advisor to the Sindh CM, Jadam Manghrio’s brother, forcibly closed down the polling station in the presence of the Presiding Officer in polling station, Walidad Pali, UC Atta Mohammad Pali, Umerkot District.

The party claimed that a havoc was created in District Tharparkar by the Chief Minister himself. In six different UCs of the district - UC Malanhar Veenha, UC Kaloi (being contested by CM’s elder brother), UC Kheesar, UC Vijhuar and UC Rajpzo - agents of all Awam Dost candidates were thrown out of the polling stations. In UC Kheensar the polling lists with the agents were grabbed and torn to pieces.

The party pointed out that votes were stuffed in polling stations 16 and 17 at the Milk Plant in UC 4, Gulshan Town, Karachi, where polling started only at 9.15am, when the Muttahida Qaumi Movement supporters arrived. After the polling began, no Awam Dost voter was allowed in the women’s booths. The Presiding Officer also told Awam Dost voters that their names did not exist on the voters list in that station.

In Polling Station 3, Government Girls Primary School, UC 13, Baloch Goth, Orangi Town, the Muttahida’s armed gangs forcibly evicted the women polling agents.

The voters of the Awam Dost candidates were also forcibly evicted from polling stations No. 20, 21, 22 and 23, UC 11, Lyari Town.

The party said that all the Awam Dost women polling agents were evicted from the polling booths by the Muttahida activists from all the polling stations in UC 7, Usmanabad, Dharamsiwara, Saddar Town. In Polling Station GBSS, 48-H, Chakra Goth UC 3, Korangi Town, the Muttahida workers entered the polling booths and openly stamped ballot papers in their candidates’ favour. The Awam Dost’s chief polling agent was severely beaten up and barred from intervening and objecting to this open aggression. The Polling Station 5, Ali Bhai School in UC 3 Gulshen Iqbal Town, Karachi, was occupied by Muttahida activists who did not allow anybody except their party voters, the PPP alleged.

In UC-3 Korangi, Muttahida activists occupied 80 percent of polling stations and stamped the ballot papers.

The PPP said all polling stations were occupied by the administration-backed terrorists in UC4 Mohammad Nagar, Orangi Town and polling agents of Awam Dost were beaten up and thrown out of the polling stations. The same incident also took place in Sadar.

It further said a Muttahida minister Mustafa Kamal threatened the staff and Awam Dost polling agents in UC 12, while in Jamshed Town armed activists entered the ladies booths and stamped ballot papers in polling station No. 20, Major Ziauddin Shaheed School, Nazimabad 2, Karachi UC9 in Mujahid Colony, Liaquatabad Town.

The PPP accused that "Muttahida terrorists with the help of local police impounded public transport in Karachi last night to ferry its voters to the polling stations while the party brought teenage voters to add to their party vote count.

Pakistan's opposition accused President Pervez Musharraf's government of electoral fraud

By Faisal Aziz

ISLAMABAD, Aug 19 - Opposition officials accused President Pervez Musharraf's government of electoral fraud on Friday as votes were tallied after the first round of voting in Pakistan's local elections.

At least 15 people were killed and hundreds injured in sporadic violence during Thursday's voting for district councillors that will help determine the make up of the government that emerges from general elections in 2007.

The three-phase local elections are officially being held on a non-party basis, but factions have openly backed candidates to build their power bases ahead of the general election.

Analysts have said the polls could determine whether Musharraf incorporates liberal opponents in a future government.

However, the best-selling Jang newspaper said preliminary unofficial results showed pro-Musharraf parties ahead in the most populous Punjab province and Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi, and Islamist parties leading in regions they already dominated.

The main liberal opposition party, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of self-exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, accused the government of "massive irregularities".

Qaim Ali Shah, a member of the PPP's central executive committee, said the polls had been rigged "in a naked and brutal manner" and demanded a new vote under independent supervision.

"The Election Commissioner is saying there was 50 percent turnout. It's strange he is saying this when the counting is yet to be completed. It appears everything was predetermined."

COMMISSION REJECTS CHARGES

Another senior PPP official, Taj Haider, put the turnout at no more than 12 percent. "It's a different thing how many votes go into the ballot box and how many come out," he said.

A senior member of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, the main grouping of Islamist parties, made similar accusations.

"Some ballot boxes were full even before the polling started," said Naimatullah Khan, a former district chief of Karachi. "It was a complete network of irregularities."

Election Commission official Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad denied this, saying: "The elections were completely free and fair."

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it had reports that women were not allowed to cast votes in some areas of Islamist-dominated North West Frontier Province, and demanded the elections be held again in such areas.

Violence broke out in some areas despite the deployment of tens of thousands of troops to maintain security.

Voting was held in 53 districts nationwide and will be held in the remaining 56 on Aug. 25. Dilshad said official results from the first round were expected to take several days.

On Sept. 29, councillors elected in the first two rounds will elect powerful district chiefs, whose influence will be significant in elections for national and provincial assemblies that will choose a president for a five-year term later in 2007.

Aides say Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism who seized power in a bloodless 1999 coup, will stand in the next presidential election. He is widely expected to win, but what sort of coalition he will work with remains unclear.

Like other military leaders, Musharraf has in the past relied on the backing of religious conservatives but they have fallen out and he has urged voters to shun the Islamists who won power in North West Frontier and Baluchistan in 2002 general election.

Analysts say a poor overall showing by candidates backed by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League could make Musharraf more amenable to a deal with liberal forces, such as Bhutto's party.

Pakistanis vote amid claims of election rigging
By Jo Johnson in Islamabad and Farhan Bokhari in Peshawar

Military-ruled Pakistan began holding nationwide elections for the first time in three years on Thursday amid claims of widespread vote-rigging and of women being barred from casting ballots in many constituencies across the Islamist-dominated North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

The two-phase elections to municipal councils are a key step in the country's slow-moving return to full democracy six years after a military coup by General Pervez Musharraf and will setthe stage for the vital elections for provincial and national legislatures planned for 2007.

The direct voting, which concludes next Thursday, is seen as a critical test of strength of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam), the “King's party” that backs Gen Musharraf, who is in ever greater need of political support as he attempts to crack down on Islamic extremism.

A strong performance by the PML (Q) will influence the extent to which a Gen Musharraf feels the need to broaden his political base by reaching out to the exiled leaders of the two main liberal political parties, the Pakistan People's party of Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif.

“If the PML (Q) does well, it can persuade President Musharraf that he can afford only to rely on them and does not need a reconciliation with other parties,” says one western diplomat who has been pushing the Pakistani leader to strengthen his position by winning over the centre-left PPP.

He added: “Our analysis shows he would be unableto win the 2007 elections with only the support ofthe PML (Q) and that this might in turn compel himto manipulate the 2007elections to get a working majority.”

Voter turnout has been falling in Pakistan because of widespread pre-poll rigging and this election, which has been relatively calm, is expected to follow the pattern. “People are getting less interested because they know votes are rigged,” said another western diplomat. “In the 1970s the turnout would be 50-60 per cent. Now it's in the low 40s.”

The recent return to Pakistan of Ms Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari saw some PPP party workers jailed under anti-terrorist legislation. Women's organisations in Punjab, a province controlled by the ruling PML (Q), have complained they have been prevented from campaigning.

In parts of the NWFP, ruled by the main alliance of Islamic parties known as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), councils of elders have moved to ban women from voting and have resisted apparently weak government pressure to reverse their decisions.

In one polling station in Peshawar, the NWFP capital, western election observers found more than 300 votes cast by men from a total of more than 700 registered voters butonly eight women had cast votes from more than 500 registered.

Islamabad, 17 August 2005: "General Musharraf has rendered the Election Commission irrelevant and powerless by allowing his lackies to flout election laws and giving a free hand to the King’s party to carryout pre-poll rigging with impunity". This was said by Nazir Dhoki, the Media Coordinator PPP Monitoring Committee for local bodies elections while issuing the fifth fact sheet regarding incidents of victimisation of Awam Dost Candidates, their supporters and PPP workers.

The fact sheet details victimisation incidents in Punjab and Sindh provinces where on the behest of provincial governments police has continued harassing and victimising Awam Dost Candidates at every level. The fact sheet says that the Chief Minister Punjab has crossed every limit to pressurise Kaira family, Ghazanfar Gul and his family and the family members of Chaudhary Mazhar in Gujrat. Members of these families have been arrested and their business outlets have been closed down.

Nazir Dhoki said that the failure of Election Commission to take any action against General Musharraf, Prime Minsiter Shaukat Aziz, Chief Minister Sindh and Punjab Arbab Ghulam Rahim and Chaudhry Pervez Ilahi, Federal Ministers, Ministers of state and advisors of the regime who have violated every election law during the election campaign is a proof of its inability to hold free, fair, transparent and impartial elections. All of them announced development projects in public gathering during the election campaign despite ban on the announcement of such projects by the Election Commission. Awam Dost Candidates and their supporters were kidnapped in various districts in Sindh and they were detained for prolonged period of time, tortured and forced to withdraw from the race but the Election Commission remained unmoved.

The fact sheet says that General Musharraf has admitted that he fully supports Arbab Ghulam Rahim whereas Arbab Ghulam Rahim has turned Sindh province to a police state. DPOs have been involved in picking up Awam Dost Candidates, their proposers, seconders, and supporters and conducting of raids on the houses to harass their families.

Awam Dost Candidates Nawab Khan Babbar and Noor Khan Brohi were kidnapped in Sanghar Police raided several villages in Sanghar including Rukan Bara, Jehan Khan Babbar, Saeed Khan Babbar, Ainee Chandio Bachayo Rind, Siddique Mangrio, Pirano Mangrio, Gul Muhammad Babbar and tortured PPP voters seriously injuring Amina Begum, AllahBachai, Noor Khatoon, Ms. Khairan, Hoor Bai, Jannat Khatoon, Bakhtawar, Muradan Begum and dozens other. Police arrested 15 workers and cases have been registered against 39 innocent PPP supporters. Advisor government of Sindh, Ghulam Rasool Unar is harassing Awam Dost supporters. The goons of King’s party attacked Awam Dost Candidate Amanullah Dahri in Daulatpur and his hotel was ransacked. Police has initiated cases against over 50 workers in Sakrand and raids are being conducted on their homes. In Thatta, case have been registered against 192 Awam Dost Candidates and PPP supporters including Ghulam Qadir Palijo and member Sindh assembly Sassi Palijo. In Tando Mohammad Khan, cases against 200 candidates and PPP workers have been initiated including former provincial minister Syed Mohsin Shah Bokhari. Several employees of education department have been suspended in Naushehro Feroz because their relatives are Awam Dost Candidates. Member national assembly Pir Aftab Shah Jilani has been stopped from visiting Sindhri where police raided houses of 23 Awam Dost Candidates and PPP office bearers including candidate for Nazim, Chaudhry Ahsanul Haq. Six employees of Chaudhry Ahsan have also been detained.

Nazir Dhoki has appealed to all democrats on the election day to cast their votes and be vigilant to stop any effort of rigging by the King’s party. He said that the candidates, their polling agents and the people would not let the military regime and the King’s party to change the results. He said that tomorrow would be the beginning of new era if the elections are free, fair, transparent and impartial.

PPP files reference against SAF Officials

Islamabad, 16 August 2005: Pakistan Peoples Party has filed a reference against 12 high officials of SAF games under Section 5 and 18 (b) Sub-Section-ii of the National Accountability Bureau (NAb) Ordinance 1999, against the holders of public office for punishment under Section 10 of NAB Ordinance for causing huge financial loss to the national exchequer by corruption and corrupt practices.

Nayyar Hussain Bokhari, MNA advocate High Court on behalf of Pakistan Peoples Party has nominated Lt. Gen. Arif Hasan, Chairman SAF Games, Amjad Javaid, Chief Of Staff and Chief Coordinating Officer, Col. Syed Mujtaba Tirmizi, Information and Media Director, Ahmed Riza Siddiqi, Administration Director,. Abid Hussain Bhatti, Communication Director, Col. (Retd) Muhammad Yahya, Technical Director, Col. Mansoor Abbas, Procurement Director, Col. Umer Farooq, Information Technology Director, Col. Azhar Deen, Finance & Marketing Director, Brig. Arif Rasul Qureshi, Ceremonies Director, Brig. Khalid Rasheed Lodhi, Protocol Director, Lt. Col. Usman Saeed as respondent of the complaint.

The reference giving ground reads that as reported in the daily "The Dawn" dated 27-3-2005, "The Law" dated 1-6-2005 (Copies of Press Clippings enclosed) & Audit Report on Accounts of Federal Government -

(Civil) Audit Year 2003-2004 Vol - B from Page 21 to 26 issued from the office of the Auditor General of Pakistan, Islamabad claimed that Respondents were deeply involved in corruption of Millions Rupees in SAF Games.

That the respondents gave underhand benefits to private organizations through verbal agreements as revealed in Audit Report of the Auditor General of Pakistan.

That the respondents accepted that they failed to recover Rs 9.45 millions from ARY in violation of an amendment in contract clauses and some clauses of previous contracts were not implemented.

That according to article 3.17 and 504 (h) of principle agreement entered into by Chairman 9th SAF Games with M/s Interflow Communications

(Private) Limited, and 30% of the sale proceeds of Hero Cards Scheme was required to be credited into SAF Special Bank Account, but a sum of Rs 16.98 million was yet to be realized by the respondents according to para 2.2 page 22 of Audit Report 2003-2004.

That according to para 2.4 page 23 of Audit Report 2003-2004, the Sponsorship Agreement was granted to M/s Pakistan Moblink Communication Company Limited on 31-8-2001 for setting up the Gun Club for Rifle Shooting. Under this agreement M/s Moblink were declared as official sponsors of the 9th SAF Games and the whole project to promote their business through advertisements, promotional signboards & banners. They were to pay Rs 3.5, 1.5 and 7.0 million respectively. The payment was made only for advertisements and promotional signboard. However Rs. 7.0 million was not paid.

That failure to return loan of Rs 150.0 Million to the Ministry of Minorities, Culture, Sports, Tourism and Youth Affairs that was released from SAVER Fund by the Ministry for the preparation of 9th SAF Games vide para 205 on page 24 of the Audit Report.

That loss of Rs 220,150 due to embezzlement of 22,015 post cards (Rs 10 per card) was found in the inventory of post cards vide para 2.7 on page 25 in the Audit Report of 2003-2004.

The reference asking Chairman NAB to take action says, "As such the Chairman of the National Accountability Bureau is called upon to initiate investigation in connection with matters set out herein above and further proceed to file a Reference against respondents for violating the provisions of Section 9 of the NAB Ordinance 1999 punishable under Section 10 of the NAB Ordinance in competent court of law and proceed against those concerned for violating Section 9 of the NAB Ordinance 1999."

Mohtarma Bhutto condoles death of Begum Shamsuddin

Islamabad, 16 August 2005: Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto called on former Additional Secretary to the Prime Minister Siraj Shamsuddin in London to condole the death of his Mother Begum Shamsuddin. Late Begum was the widow of Shamsuddin Ahmad, Deputy Collector of Customs who expired the other day.

Begum Shamsuddin was the first lady from Rajastan, India, to have completed a Masters degree from University of Lucknow. She taught at prestigious institutions including Aligarh Muslim University Women’s College at Aligarh and Lamartiniere School in Calcutta. After Partition she served as Directress, Physical Education, Government of Punjab.

Begum Shamsuddin was the Founder President of Women’s Voluntary Association (W.V.A) in East Pakistan and did volunteer work serving the poor by participating in the Food and Education Programme for women and children.

PPP reacts to General Musharraf’s statement

Islamabad, August 16 2005: Sherry Rehman, MNA and Coordinator of the Policy Planning Committee of the Pakistan Peoples Party has sharply reacted to the assertion of General Pervez Musharraf that PPP has lost support, adding that another General Zia had also dreamt the same but he vanished into thin air while the PPP remained in the heart of the majority of masses.

In a press statement issued here, the PPP MNA said that her party remains the most popular liberal political force of the country despite facing the worst form of victimization at the hands of three consecutive dictatorial regimes. "Dictatorship has always wanted to disperse the nation into smaller political segments for its own interests but the PPP has kept the federation of Pakistan politically united," she added.

She pointed out that no sane nation including Pakistan could allow tin-pot dictators to dictate what national interests were as Musharraf is doing here, advancing only his own agenda of clinging on to the power and promoting one-man rule in the country. Pakistan was not created to be held hostage by a gun-toting general.

Sherry Rehman said that the PPP had given this country a stable foundation and consensus constitution, during the democratically elected Prime Ministers Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Mohtrama Benazir Bhutto. The whole nation bears this in mind and would never accept the so-called statement of national interest spouted everyday by anti-democratic forces. General Musharraf is out to make Pakistan a garrison state, and this scale of election rigging to exclude the PPP is being done to pave the way for his unlimited tenure in power.

The PPP leader further pointed out that Pakistan was neither made by the generals nor has General Musharraf sacrificed even a single drop of blood for the country, as compared to the PPP which sacrificed even the life of its founder and its leadership. The PPP has sustained the worst forms of victimizations with no match in contemporary politics.

The PPP is not afraid of opposition politics nor of oppression and victimization at the hands of the General's henchmen.

PPP apprises CEC of abduction of candidates in Gujrat and election rules violation by CM Punjab

Islamabad, August 15, 2005: Pakistan Peoples Party has asked the Chief Election Commission to assert his authority in stopping the Chief Minister Punjab from violating election laws and end to police excesses.

Kamran Zafar, the Member PPP Monitoring Committee for Local Bodies Elections in a letter apprising the CEC of the violations committed by the Chief Minister Punjab, Chaudhry Pervaiz Illahi, wrote, "He made a public announcement at Rahim Yar Khan declaring Mr. Bashir Cheema as PML-backed candidate for District Nazim Bahawalpur for a second term. A similar announcement was made for retaining Mr. Ali Akbar Wains as District Nazim Bahawal Nagar. The Chief Minister is also receiving delegations of Local Bodies seat hopefuls at the Chief Minister’s house in Lahore and assuring them success for the seat of District Nazim in Local Bodies Elections, as he did in the case of Mr. Abdul Rehman Kanjo of Lodhran. Suffice it to say that the Chief Minister has thrown the Electoral Laws and Code of Ethics to the winds."

He further wrote regarding police excesses in Gujarat wrote that on the morning of 14 August, Nasrullah Warriach, SHO Police Station Jalalpur Jattan Saddar, Gujrat picked up two Nazim and one Naib Nazim candidated for Machhiwal Union Council. Muhammad Akbar, ex. Nazim and now contesting again, Babu Muhammad Akbar candidate for Naib Nazim and Amjad candidate for Nazim from Machhiwal council were picked up from their homes and are now in the police custody. They are being asked to withdraw or face the consequences. They are being asked to withdraw from contest or face the consequences. Last week the same SHO had picked up Abdul Rehman Gondal, candidate for Nazim from Union Council Mandiala and a bogus case was registered against him and finally he withdrew from contesting eletions. In another incident in Gujrat city Anjum Mir a Naib Nazim candidate was picked up from his house at midnight in presence of his old mother, by the Civil Lines police. His brother was also picked up in the morning. Mir Anjum is still missing and is not found in any police station. Reportedly he is being kept in a hiding to extract his withdrawal but he is still resisting.

Kamran Zafar asked the CEC to take immediate action before it is too late.

Naheed Khan’s rejoinder to General Musharraf

Islamabad, 13 August 2005: Naheed Khan MNA, the Political Secretary to the Chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has challenged General Musharraf to take off his military uniform and contest election against any PPP worker from any constituency in the country.

Reacting to General Musharraf’s assertion that the popularity of PPP is fading, Naheed Khan said that General Zia in the past had also tried to crush the PPP and had meted out extreme atrocities against party leadership and workers but all his dreams to quell the party were shattered. Naheed Khan said that every dictator hallucinates that he is all powerful because in reality dictators are frightened of popularity of peoples’ leader. This is the reason, General Musharraf is erecting hurdles in the way of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto’s return to the country, she said.

Naheed Khan said that General Musharraf surrounded by security agencies has no means to gauge the popularity of any political party. He should come out on the streets and only then he will find that an overwhelming majority of Pakistani citizens is with the Pakistan Peoples Party and has confidence on the leadership of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. Naheed Khan said that there was another dictator in Pakistan named Ayub Khan who had established his own Functional Muslim League, which vanished as soon as he was forced to leave power by the people.

Naheed Khan said that this assertion by General Musharraf proves that he is frightened of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and her party because people of Pakistan are with the party under the leadership of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.

Mohtarma Bhutto condoles death of former Advisor Qurban Ali

Islamabad August 13, 2005: Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has expressed grief over the death of Qurban Ali former advisor to Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and member federal council of the Pakistan Peoples Party from Northern Areas.

Qurban Ali who was also ex-President of the Pakistan Peoples Party Northern Areas passed away the other day due to sudden cardiac arrest.

In a condolence message today the former Prime Minister said that she was deeply grieved to learn about the death of Qurabn Ali. She said that late Qurban Ali was with the Party for the past three decades and served the people and the cause of the Party with great dedication and distinction.

"Qurban Ali’s sacrifices, commitment and dedication will serve as a source of inspiration to the people who suffer for the cause" she said and added, "his great services will be long remembered".

Mohtarma Bhutto also prayed for eternal peace to the soul of Qurban Ali and patience to members of the bereaved family to bear the loss with equanimity.

Islamabad 13 August 2005-Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has said that on the country’s 58th Independence Day being celebrated on August 14 there was little to rejoice as the country and its institutions had been hijacked by a few and the dream dreamt by the founding fathers for the teeming millions had gone sour.

"Ordinarily today should be a day of rejoicing and celebrations to mark the emergence, fifty eight years ago, of a separate homeland wherein we could live in freedom and shape our lives according to our values.

"But as we look around we find that there is little to celebrate and little to rejoice.

"Myopic adventurers have hijacked the country and its institutions. A few individuals have re-written the Constitution with the sole aim of perpetuating themselves in power. A uniformed general has sneaked into the Presidency via a fraudulent referendum.

"Worse still, the judiciary was assaulted as half of the Supreme Court was sacked when judges refused to take oath of allegiance to an individual rather than to the Constitution. Elections were stolen and power transfer manipulated so as to retain the real power in the hands of the few unelected. The process of stealing elections and denying the people their right to choose their representatives still continues as the local bodies elections draw close.

"Pakistan was envisaged to be a country where sovereignty of the elected Parliament, supremacy of Constitution, rule of law and respect for human rights were to reign supreme. It was envisaged to be a country where there would be social justice and economic opportunities for all. "It is a sad thought that on this Independence Day we find those ideals and principles stand trampled.

"Perpetual military rule has been foisted on the country in the name of ‘sustainable democracy’. A few powerful individuals have hijacked economic opportunities while the ordinary people groan under grinding poverty and un-employment. Tenants have been dispossessed of their lands and subjected to unspeakable atrocities. Poor people are committing suicides due to joblessness and poverty as the rulers continue to grab lands and plots and convert state lands into golf courses for their pleasure. A new political code of conduct has been written; to reward turncoats and punish and banish those who refuse to play to the tune.

"Pakistan was supposed to be a state in which every one was equal before law in accordance with the principles of Islam and all civilised societies. Unfortunately a handful of generals who have seized the state apparatus have placed themselves above the law and the Constitution. This is a blatant negation of the Quaid’s vision who declared ‘we all are citizens and equal citizens of our state’. It must be reversed. It will be.

"So on this auspicious occasion while I wish to compliment all Pakistanis I also urge them to rededicate themselves to the principles of democracy, human rights and economic opportunities for all. The PPP believes that the country can be saved from internal and external dangers only through democracy and addressing the problems of poverty and unemployment of the teeming masses

Mohtarma Bhutto condemns registration of false murder cases against PPP MNA

Urges judiciary to take suo moto notice of political victimisation

Islamabad August 13, 2005: Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has condemned the institution of murder cases against PPP MNA Pir Aftab and his brother Shafqat Shah Jillani in Mirpurkhas in Sindh to send a message of terror among the Awam dost candidates in the local bodies elections.

PPP MNAs from Mirpurkhas region, including Pir Aftab Hussain Shah Jilani, Nawab Talpur, Syed Qurban Ali Shah and MPAs Shameem Ara Phanwar, Syed Irfan Ali Shah and Dr. Zulfiqar Ali Talpure, have been exposing before the media and he international community how the Arbab Rahim government inSindh was indulged in massive rigging of the LB polls. Two days ago Pir Aftab Shah MNA strongly denounced the rigging in the local polls to ensure a clean sweep in District Tharparkar for the Arbab Group and in District Umerkot for the group of Speaker Sindh Assembly Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah backed by PML(F).

No sooner did he issue the charge sheet the PPP MNA was involved in a murder case and a false case instituted against him.

Almost simultaneously PPP leaders Yousuf Talpur, district President Ali Mardan Shah, former provincial Minister Munawar Talpur and other PPP leaders were travelling in the area after complaints of harassment from awam dost candidates were attacked and fired upon by a gang of supporters of the candidates of King's Party. No case was however registered against the attackers.

In a statement today the former Prime Minister said that the registration of murder cases against Pir Aftab Jillani, murderous attacks on the PPP leaders and the blatant claims by Sindh chief minister that the PPP has been wiped from his district Thar exposed the true face of the rulers and their claims of a level playing field. She said that these incidents proved that the rulers were hell bent upon intimidating the awam dost candidates in the local polls so that the candidates of the King's Party made a clean sweep.

"This is the limit of high handedness" she said and urged the human rights bodies and international organisations to take note of such incidents.

Mohtarma Bhutto demanded the immediate withdrawal of murderer case against Pir Aftab Shah and others. She said that the awam dost candidates would not be deterred by such tactics and would not abandon the field to the King's party. She also asked the Party leaders to provide legal support to the awam dost candidates who are victims of highhandedness of the administration.

The former Prime Minister also asked the administration to remain neutral and dispense justice according to the law and warned that those transgressing their official duties and acting as partisan politicians at the instance of the provincial administration would have to face accountability.

Mohtarma Bhutto also urged the judiciary to take suo moto notice of these incidents of high handedness and victimisation of opposition MPs and awam dost candidates..

Rape victim Dr. Shazia Khalid met Mohtarma Bhutto in London

Islamabad, 13 August, 2005: Former Prime Minister and Chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto met with Dr. Sahzia Khalid the Pakistani rape victim in London to show solidarity and sympathy with her. Mohtarma Bhutto praised Dr. Shazia and said that her courage had given hope to millions of Pakistanis that crimes against women would no longer be neglected.

Mohtarma Bhutto said on the occasion that the PPP would continue to raise voice against injustices the women and demand that justice be done to victims like Dr. Shazia Khalid, Mukhtaran Mai and countless others.

PPP demands actions against violators of Election Laws

Islamabad, 13 August 2005: Pakistan Peoples Party has apprised the Chief Election Commissioner of the police brutality and highhandedness meted out to the Awam Dost Candidates and asked to take necessary action against the concerned members of police and administration.

Kamran Zafar, Member PPP Monitoring Committee for local bodies election in a letter addressed to Chief Election Commissioner informed him regarding kidnapping of Jalal Bajeer, the Awam Dost Candidate for UC Kheensar, Tehsil Chachro, District Tharparkar by the armed goons of Arbab from Mithi recently. The candidate was taken to Umerkot where he was severely tortured by the kidnappers who demanded him to withdraw from the contest.

Kamran Zafar wrote that this is one of the dozens of incidents which clearly indicate the atmosphere of coercion and repression in Sindh during the election campaign. He demanded the CEC to take immediate notice of such incidents and action against the violators of election rules.

PPP accuse government of planning massive rigging in the elections

Islamabad, 11 August 2005: Media Coordinator of the PPP Monitoring Committee for local bodies elections, Nazir Dhoki has said that massive rigging has been planned in Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Tharparker and Umerkot by the regime and the Chief Minister and his associates have issued directives to the bureaucrats in this regard.

Nazir Dhoki in a statement said that it is despicable that PPP MNA Pir Aftab Shah Gilani and his brother Shafqat Shah Gilani have been booked in a false murder case to dampen the election campaign of the Awam Dost Candidates in Mirpurkhas region. The Chief Minister Sindh Arbab Ghulam Rahim has frequently visited Mirpurkhas region to organise rigging in the elections. Nazir Dhoki said that the Election Commission has failed to take any action on the hundreds of complaints filed by Awam Dost Candidates, their proposer, seconders and supporters which has encouraged Arbab Ghulam Rahim to use force against his opponents and he has publicly threatened opposition of dire consequence.

Nazir Dhoki said that the Awam Dost Candidates would not surrender before the despotic regime and would continue to expose the rigging by the administration, use of force by the police on the behest of Chief Minister, Ministers and other government functionaries.

Nazir Dhoki demanded of the CEC to take immediate action and stop the government functionaries from intimidating and victimising the opposition. He appealed to the Human Rights Organisations and national and international observers to take note of victimisation of the Awam Dost Group and raise the issue with the Election Commission.

PPP seeks clarification on reports of amendments in the Constitution

Nazims being turned into Electoral College for President

Islamabad August 12, 2005: The Pakistan Peoples Party has asked the regime to clarify whether the Constitution was being further amended to turn the nazims into an Electoral College for the election of the President.

In a statement today spokesperson of the PPP said that the Party has learnt from reliable sources that legal experts of the regime were working overtime to finalise draft of Constitutional amendments.

"The massive rigging in the local bodies’ polls lends credence to the reports that it is a prelude to further amend the Constitution to suit the agenda of the rulers and create a semblance of popular acceptability through election by nazims".

It appears that the rulers believe that the new plan of the nazims electing the President will help in addressing a serious concern of the international community about Musharraf’s legitimacy as President, he said.

The spokesperson said that General Musharraf first tried the referendum route to seek legitimacy but legitimacy eluded him despite claims of a massive win. Then he tried the route of the Parliament, which too was exposed by the opposition for its fraud.

The opposition filed petition exposing how MPs in London were counted as present and voting in the Parliament and how the proportion of provincial seats was wrongly counted to make the defeat appear as win, he said.

The spokesman asked the rulers to confirm or deny whether it was still working on a new set of constitutional proposals that will further the military dictatorship in the country.

PPP issues fourth fact sheet regarding local bodies elections

People would not accept results of rigged elections—Nazir Dhoki

Islamabad, 12 August 2005: "Massive pre-poll rigging, incidents of victimisation and intimidation of Awam Dost Candidate and their supporters the inability of the Election Commission to take measures to stop government functionaries and the King’s party from violating election laws would make the forthcoming local bodies elections a complete fArce."

This was said by Nazir Dhoki, the Media Coordinator of the PPP Monitoring Committee for local bodies elections in a statement while issuing the fourth fact sheet regarding local bodies election. He said that it is unfortunate the Secretary Election Commission is of the view that 97 percent of the complaints were baseless whereas the fact is that the Election Commission has failed to take any action against the violators of the election laws including General Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Chairman Senate Mohammad Mian Soomro, Chief Ministers of Punjab and Sindh, Federal and provincial minister and the government functionaries.

Nazir Dhoki said that issuing notices to two ministers by the Election Commission is just an eyewash. No action has been taken against any DCO or DPO for initiating false cases against PPP leaders, Awam Dost Candidates, their proposers, seconders and supporters. A false case against three hundred PPP workers has been registered in Mirpurkhas where a false murder case against PPP MNA Pir Aftab Shah Gilani and his brother has already been initiated. When a conscious police officer Mohabbat Khan Mari refused to register false cases against Awam Dost Candidates, he was suspended by the Chief Minister Sindh. The relatives of opponents of Mrs. Saeeda Soomro in Jacobabad were summoned in the police station and threatened of dire consequences if their candidates do not withdraw from the race. In Khairpur provincial minister Saddaruddin Shah Rashdi has established election office at the DCO house and using the administration and police for his candidates. Police detained Awam Dsot Candidate Ali Gul Buzdar in Khairpur. An atmosphere of fear has been created in the entire Khairpur district and Awam Dost Candidates are receiving death threats.

The fact sheet says that an attempt on the lives of PPP MNA Nawab Yousuf Talpur, Mir Munawwar Talpur and Ali Sardar Shah when they were fired upon in Umerkot. The Chief Minister Sindh is protecting the attackers and has issued directives to the police not to register any case. In Dadu district, on the behest of federal minister Liaquat Jatoi, employees of WAPDA are being suspended because their relatives are contesting election against King’s part candidates.

Fact sheet further says that the petrol pump of Ali Akbar in Naushero Feroz has been sealed because he is supporting Awam Dost Candidates. Forest Officer Sibghatullah Ansari has been suspended because his son Kamran Ansari is contesting in Hala as an Awam Dost Candidate.

Nazir Dhoki said that the Election Commission failed to take any action against Chief Minister Sindh Arbab Ghulam Rahim dspite his open threat to opposition which indicates that the Election Commission is totally helpless and powerless. In Karachi and other urban areas of Sindh, the MQM is openly violating election laws and using state resources in the election campaign but the Election Commission is totally unmoved. MQM is taking out rallies and holding public jalsas everyday whereas a case against Makhdoom Rafiquzzaman has been registered for taking out a rally. Nazir Dhoki warned the regime and the Elections Commission that people would not accept the results if the rigging continues and the Election Commission would be held responsible for any consequences.

Islamabad August: Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has condemned the attack on the convoy of led by PPP leader and former federal Minister Yousuf Talpur on Tuesday in Samaro in district Umarkot in Sindh.

PPP leaders Yousuf Talpur, district President Ali Mardan Shah, former provincial Minister Munawar Talpur and other PPP leaders were travelling in the area after complaints of harassment from awam dost candidates when they were attacked and fired upon by a gang of supporters of the candidates of King's Party in the local bodies' polls.

Yousuf Talpur and other victims tried to file report in the police station against the attackers whom they had identified but the police refused to register the case.

Yousuf Talpur has said that the gang had also previously attacked the PPP workers some ten days ago but the police had not registered the case against them.

He said that in Mirpurkhas also following a clash during electioneering FIR was registered against PPP MNA Pir Aftab Shah and other PPP workers. A PPP worker Ghulam Haider Narejo was presented before court in injured conditions and was given into police remand. But no case was being registered against those who attacked the PPP convoy.

In a statement today the former Prime Minister said that the attack on the PPP leaders on Tuesday had once again demonstrated how the rulers were hell bent upon intimidating the awam dost candidates in the local polls to pave way for the candidates of the King's Party.

"Gerrymandering has crossed all limits and claims of level playing field and even handedness have been exposed badly" she said and urged the human rights bodies and international organisations to take note of such incidents.

Mohtarma Bhutto said that the awam dost candidates would not be deterred by such tactics and would not abandon the field to the King's party. She also asked the Party leaders to provide legal support to the awam dost candidates who are victims of highhandedness of the administration.

The former Prime Minister also asked the administration to remain neutral and dispense justice according to the law and warned that those transgressing their official duties and acting as partisan politicians at the instance of the provincial administration would have to face accountability.

Mohtarma Bhutto also urged the Chief Election Commissioner to take note of these latest incidents of political victimisation of the awam dost candidates.

PPP indicts government of planning massive rigging in the elections

Islamabad: Media Coordinator of the PPP Monitoring Committee for local bodies elections, Nazir Dhoki has said that massive rigging has been planned in Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Tharparker and Umerkot by the regime and the Chief Minister and his associates have issued directives to the bureaucrats in this regard.

Nazir Dhoki in a statement said that it is despicable that PPP MNA Pir Aftab Shah Gilani and his brother Shafqat Shah Gilani have been booked in a false murder case to dampen the election campaign of the Awam Dost Candidates in Mirpurkhas region. The Chief Minister Sindh Arbab Ghulam Rahim has frequently visited Mirpurkhas region to organise rigging in the elections. Nazir Dhoki said that the Election Commission has failed
to take any action on the hundreds of complaints filed by Awam Dost Candidates, their proposer, seconders and supporters which has encouraged Arbab Ghulam Rahim to use force against his opponents and he has publicly threatened opposition of dire consequence.

Nazir Dhoki said that the Awam Dost Candidates would not surrender before the despotic regime and would continue to expose the rigging by the administration, use of force by the police on the behest of Chief Minister, Ministers and other government functionaries.

Nazir Dhoki demanded of the CEC to take immediate action and stop the government functionaries from intimidating and victimising the opposition. He appealed to the Human Rights Organisations and national and international observers to take note of victimisation of the Awam Dost Group and raise the issue with the Election Commission.

Zia moves disqualification reference against CM

Opposition leader says CM had Rs 38m in loans written off

LAHORE: Qazim Zia, the opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly, has moved a reference to the assembly speaker for the disqualification of Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi for allegedly getting Rs 38 million in loans written off.

Raja Basharat, the provincial law minister, said in response that Zia was trying to pre-empt legal action against himself for alleged involvement in a housing scam, and the opposition leader would be charged in civil and criminal proceedings.

Zia, who is Punjab president of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), said at a press conference on Tuesday that United Bank Limited wrote off a loan of Rs 16 million to Mr Elahi’s SPARCO Industries in 2002. Muslim Commercial Bank wrote off a loan of Rs 22 millions to the Punjab Sugar Mills Vehari, he said.

He said under Article 63(2) Q of the constitution, members of national and provincial assemblies could not get loans of more than Rs 2 million written off. He said the speaker was constitutionally bound to forward the reference to the Election Commission within 30 days of receiving it.

APC on pre-poll rigging:
Opp may resign from parliament

* To file references against president, PM
* Calls for grand alliance

ISLAMABAD: Leaders of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal said for the first time on Thursday that they were considering resigning from parliament.

This emerged at an all parties conference (APC) organised by the ARD and attended by over 60 representatives of political parties, bar councils and HR bodies.

A joint declaration said the opposition would file references against President Musharraf, PM Aziz, CMs, ministers and others for their alleged involvement in pre-poll rigging. The opposition parties called for a Grand National Alliance to oust Musharraf from power.

The APC demanded the appointment of a consensus-based chief election commissioner with full authority to conduct free and fair elections. The government should cancel the postings made after the announcement of the local elections schedule and cancel the unopposed election of local government representatives, it said.

Fakhar Imam, former NA speaker, advised parliamentarians to resign from parliament because it had failed to play its role in national affairs.

Amin Fahim, ARD chairman, accused the government of using state machinery in campaigns for candidates backed by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League. He said the government had “set new records” for pre-poll rigging while the chief election commissioner had been a “silent spectator”.

Raja Zafarul Haq, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chairman, said the rigging of local polls was a “rehearsal” for what would happen ahead of the next general elections.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed, MMA president, urged opposition parties to form a joint strategy for the upcoming elections. He accused the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) of practising “bloody politics” in Karachi and feared violence on polling day.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the MMA said Gen Musharraf was confronting the religious parties only to please the United States.

PPP calls on CEC to resign

LAHORE - While leveling serious allegations of unprecedented pre-polls rigging on the ruling party, the PPP has demanded the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) to resign, for what it terms, his failure to take stock of the situation and adopt concrete measures.

The local bodies candidates enjoying support of the ruling PML (Q) have every sort of official machinery at their disposal to rig the elections and to defeat their rivals by hook or crook, alleged office bearers of the PPP Human Rights Committee and PPP Punjab Election Monitoring Cell while addressing a press conference Wednesday.

The officials of electronic media are also not lagging behind the official machinery to project the official candidates and to check the way of the true representatives of the people to the power, said the office- bearers including S.M.Masud, Muhammad Kazim Khan, Raja Mahmood Akhtar, Mian Muhammmad Jahangir, Ch Muhammad Ishaq, Shahid Mahmood Bhatti, Abdul Sadiq Choudhary and others.

They said the government in order to give impetus to the campaign of its favourites has also deferred the senate session. They particularly mentioned about Sindh where, they blamed, the Chief Minister is in the forefront to run the election campaign of the official candidates, and has gone to as far as kidnapping and pressurising the opponents candidates. This all runs contrary to the assurance which the Election Commissioner had extended to the American Ambassador and other diplomats about fairness, and transparency of the LB elections. They have also accused the government of keeping the CEC under the pressure and added, circumstances warrant the CEC should quit the office on moral ground as well as to serve the cause of democracy in the country.

The office holders have also blamed the Chief Minister Punjab for going ahead with a worst kind of horse trading in the province. The CM is releasing all development funds to the candidates of his party and added, the pre-polls situation adumbrates that the local government election will not be better than the referendum held by the Martial Law of Ziaul Haq and General Pervez Musharraf for the presidential office.
They said what the rulers are doing with respect to the LB election has badly tarnished the image of Pakistan at the international level. The speakers also expressed their reservations about the electoral rolls being used in the current LB polls.

RO’s decision invalidated

The Lahore High Court while setting aside the District Returning Officer decision has allowed Syed Zakir Hussain Shah and Rana Arshad to contest the election respectively for the office of Nazim and Naib Nazim in the Union Council 2 Phoolnagar.

Earlier the DRO had rejected their nomination papers on the ground that Naib Nazim matriculation certificate was not genuine.
Before the LHC, Dr A Basit argued for the petitioner that matriculation certificate of the petitioner was valid but his opponent candidate had manipulated the Board record pertaining to his client.

The counsel also presented material to prove to the point that petitioner was holding a genuine matriculation certificate. The court after hearing the petitioner counsel allowed the said two to contest elections.

PPPP fears election violence in Gujrat

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party-Parliamentarians (PPP-P) on Tuesday fear that there might be violence on the local election day in Gujrat and asked the government to declare the area sensitive along with six other districts in Punjab.

PPP-P leaders Qamaruz Zaman Qaira, Nawabzada Ghunfar Ali Gul and Mazhar Hussain demanded this in a press conference. They alleged that the Chaudhries in Gujrat politically victimised opponents, saying it was the worst ever pre-poll rigging. They also presented a list of party workers and leaders who had either been kidnapped or harassed by the administration.

They called upon the chief election commission to visit Gujrat and listen to their complaints and added that they would quit politics if any of the allegations made against the regime were proven false. “Even the district returning officers and returning officers do not pay attention to our complaints,” he said.

“I fear bloodshed in Gujrat on the polling day. Therefore government should declare the district sensitive and provide protection,” said Nawabzada Ghunzfar Ali Gul.

He accused the Punjab chief minister of creating a civil war-like situation. He also accused him of sheltering criminals and using them to harass people to get their candidates elected unopposed.

He said that the Chaidhreis used the state machinery to get desired results. Qamaruz Zaman Qaira said that his family was being victimised for opposing the chaudhries in local polls. “I want to make it clear that we neither expect courts to do justice nor the chief election commissioner because they were working on the government’s advice,” he said.

He alleged that the district police officers and the district coordination officers worked in favour of the Chaudhries and were involved in land grabbing and kidnapping opposition candidates.

Although Chaudhries had reached the top slot in the government, he said they still indulged in “thana and putwari” politics and concoct cases against opponents.

He also accused the Punjab chief minister to have influenced the release of criminals, who rob people without fear. “They are in fact working under the command of their ‘real commander’ (the Punjab chief minister),” he said.

PPPP workers to offer voluntary arrests against victimisation: Fahim

JAMSHORO: PPPP leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim here on Tuesday alleged that official machinery was being used to rig the forthcoming local bodies (LB) elections.

He was addressing a party meeting held here on Tuesday to review arrangements for the LB polls. The meeting was attended by Dr Makhdom Rafique, MPA Makhdom Jamil, Syed Shah Muhammad Shah, Syed Ali Muhammad Shah and Pir Yasin Shah Rashdi, besides a large number of local office-bearers and workers. The meeting condemned victimisation of the opposition candidates.

Later addressing a press conference, Fahim and other PPP leaders said police, on the orders of the present rulers, were harassing the Awam Dost candidates everywhere in the country to make them change their loyalties. He said party workers would face these atrocities in a democratic way. Fahim said thousands of party workers would soon offer voluntary arrests throughout the country against the political victimisation of their leaders.

He said the government was openly violating the code of conduct announced by the Election Commission to win the elections. He said they had informed the chief election commissioner about the victimisation of Awan Dost candidates, besides involvement of federal and provincial ministers in the election affairs.

An all parties conference (APC) had been called on August 11 by the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy to discuss the pre-poll rigging by government functionaries. Responding to a question, the PPPP leader said the APC would not discuss boycott of the forthcoming LB polls.

He alleged that some government officials, who were relatives of the candidates participating in the LB polls, had been called to the Chief Minster House, where they were threatened and pressured to change their affiliations.

He advised the bureaucracy not to follow "illegal orders" of the government, otherwise they would be taken to task. He dispelled the impression of seat adjustment with the PML-N in Matyari district.

Later, a protest march was held, which started from the Makhdom House and ended at the PPP Secretariat Hall.

KARACHI: Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Benazir Bhutto has expressed concern over the baton charge on school teachers in Sindh and demanded an end to state repression and brutalities against the civil society.

Schoolteachers in Sindh employed on contract have been demanding regularisation of their services. On Saturday teachers from interior Sindh gathered in Karachi and along with other teachers marched towards the Chief Minister's house to press for their demands. However, the police baton charged the protesting teachers to break their demonstration.

In a statement today the former Prime Minister said that she was shocked to see the pictures showing brutal treatment meted out to the teachers by the Karachi administration. She said that teachers helped shape the lives of the youth in whose hands lay the future of the country. "It is most unfortunate that they should be so assaulted merely for airing their grievances against blatant injustice".

She said that the demand of the protesting teachers to be regularized was a genuine one and asked the rulers to regularize the service of teachers employed on contract basis.

She recalled that the PPP government had regularized the services of teachers and doctors who were recruited on contract basis. "It is important that economic and job opportunities are fairly and justly distributed among various segments of society otherwise the deprived would feel alienated resulting in chaos".

She also sympathized with the teachers who were roughed up by the law enforcing agencies and assured them of the support of the civil society and the PPP.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim demands withdrawal of cases against Benazir

ISLAMABAD, August 10: Vice Chair PPP and Chairman ARD Makhdoom Amin Fahim has demanded the withdrawal of all politically motivated cases against the Party Chairperson Benazir Bhutto and other leaders and the holding of free and fair elections in which all leaders and parties are allowed to participate with a level playing field.
In a statement Tuesday he said that the crisis engulfing the country had deepened which can be resolved only by seeking the mandate of the people and allowing the genuine leaders of the people end their exile and return to the country to lead the nation out of crisis and despondency.

"The PPP demands that the political issues including reversion to the Constitution, end of militarisation and withdrawal of the fake and fabricated cases instituted to re-engineer Pakistan's political landscape be addressed seriously if the country is to be extricated out of the morass".

He said that the regime withdrew cases against the parasitical political class, the MMA leaders in Baluchistan and Frontier and also against the MQM leaders to achieve its agenda of political re-engineering. He said that for this purpose NAB was being used as a political tool and NAB officials had allowed themselves to be used as such.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim said that a different yardstick was used for the PPP and Benazir Bhutto because the Party and Mohtarma had refused to submit to political blackmail and the rewriting of political landscape of the country on the terms of the dictators.

He said that the post election 2002 political structure was standing on sandy foundations as it had been contrived by using NAB to create artificial majority of the King's Party by breaking the mainstream political parties. He said that the regime went to the extent of creating a one vote majority for the King's Party by lifting ban on an MNA belonging to a banned religious extremist outfit who was released from jail to vote for the establishment's candidate.

"This charade must come to an end now".

LONDON, August 8: In my last article: "Pakistan getting too hot for the Generals to handle", I had underscored that the "justification of evil on the ground of expediency" by top world leaders, "has converted God's little earth into a cesspool of intrigue, machinations and chicanery now even beyond their own control."

While I would be the last person to subscribe to the view that democracy can only come to Pakistan via Washington, a large number of our opinion makers believe that it is the United States that calls the shots in Pakistan and holds the whip that makes our military establishment wag its tail. Since it has been the main provider of the shield of legitimacy to military rulers from the day we had the first martial law in October 1958, we have seen American preference to generals rather than democratically elected politicians. Even when it comes to American aid, the ratio of assistance to the dictators is four times more than the civilian governments. That, perhaps, has been one of the key reasons that genuine restoration of democracy in which "we the people" are the sole arbiters of power remains an elusive dream.

It was not love for democracy among the generals that had seen the restoration of some semblance of democracy in Pakistan following General Zia's fatal fall from the sky. They could not impose another martial law in August 1988 when the entire world had been romancing with the democratic dream. It would not have fitted in the American agenda for a democratic Eastern Europe and Central Asian Republics. They made a tactical retreat, allowed elections, manipulated them to deny PPP leader Benazir Bhutto an otherwise assured landslide.

An assertive democratic Benazir Bhutto, much like her father, was not their ball game. They had her removed to switch on yet another round of musical chairs that ended in two terms, actually two half terms, both to her and Mian Nawaz Sharif as prime ministers. Throughout these half terms the Praetorian power wielders orchestrated unproven corruption charges and instability from behind the curtain. When they saw that time was ripe to strike, they struck and now in coming October General Pervez Musharraf would be completing his sixth year as absolute ruler of Pakistan, much more than the two terms of each elected prime ministers.

Like Zia General Musharraf also used Afghanistan to further implement the Praetorian dream of converting Pakistan into a garrison state, a country for the military, of the military and run by the military. Its intelligence apparatus, ISI-employed Taliban, foreign and local Jihadis trained and armed by it from the stacked up funds received in tonnes from the United States during the 80s, created a situation when Washington would forget all about its commitment to democracy as a global phenomenon and support to the hilt yet another military dictator.

After the invasion of Baghdad to restore democratic rights of the Iraqi people by toppling Saddam Hussain (the only defence for the Anglo-American invasion in the absence of the weapons of mass destruction), further democratization of the Palestinian State Authority and President Bush's Scheme for the democratization of Middle East, Washington's continued support to a military dictator in Pakistan, whom it had earlier declared a pariah, has been a constant source of embarrassment.

To correct this selectivity in its foreign policy, my last article urged that, "Both Washington and London must get down to tell Musharraf point blank that he cannot combat terrorism by isolating the great majority of the people in his country by denying it its democratic right to vote in a government of its choice. By keeping former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif out of the mainstream politics, he has given an open field to the religious parties and extremists to call the shots. Hasba is yet another step towards Talibanisation of Pakistan and a powerful manifestation of Mulla-Military alliance."

Washington would do well to listen to American experts like Stephen P. Cohen who can see Pakistani population's "growing alienation" from the United States that feeds into support for extremism. And this growing anti-Americanism obviously is due to absence of democracy and a level playing field for popular leaders like Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif who continue to command the support of the majority in the masses.

It is encouraging to note that after all observations are being heeded to. The recent declaration of the American Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca in Islamabad that it was the 'US policy that free and fair elections, a level-playing field and return to full democracy was the key to long-term prosperity and stability in Pakistan' shows that there is a growing realization where things have gone wrong.

In her Washington-Islamabad video conference with senior journalists, Ms Rocca said that the US administration did not believe that the President's uniform guaranteed success of war against international terrorism and that it ensured that Pakistan's nuclear assets would not fall into the hands of fundamentalists.

Washington has at last started seeing through General Musharraf's game of misleading the international opinion in insisting that his uniform was essential for stability and fight against terror. The earlier the Bush administration realizes that political stability comes only with legitimacy backed by general will and not by tin pot generals the better.

Musharraf occupies Presidency through Saddam-like referendum and he wields power on the basis of a contrived, distorted, fractured constitution that has no legitimacy left. Besides, he is also at war with the entire civil society as a result of which there is no consensus behind him.

Notwithstanding the view spinned by Musharraf's media mongers that Ms Rocca's pronouncements should be dismissed lightly since she does not occupy a very high position in the American power hierarchy, her assertions definitely carry a new message that could not have been made without higher approval especially when it is much in line with the earlier statement of the world's most powerful woman, US Secretary of State Condi Rice, who had underscored the importance of free and fair elections and genuinely representative government when she visited Islamabad last.

Ms Rocca's statement definitely assumes special significance due to the timing and the venue of the video-conference held amidst wide scale reports of most blatant pre-poll rigging in the local bodies elections. Ms Rocca's remarks for the need for a level playing field essential not only for the local bodies elections, but also for the 2007 general elections, require no interpretation. Washington was "very clear about it publicly and privately," indicating that this concern had been conveyed to the government also through proper channels.

This wind of change has been widely welcomed in Pakistan. People would acknowledge generously the return of democracy no matter how it comes. However, our military establishment, to save the people of embarrassment of receiving democracy delivered in an American gift wrap, should rise to the occasion and come to terms with the genuine political leadership that lives in exile per force, hold earliest free and fair elections and go back to the barracks where they belong, with some respect and dignity intact rather than go with mud on its face.

PPP debunks Chaudry Shujat’s remarks

Islamabad August 7, 2005: Central Secretary Information of PPP Mr. Taj Haider has termed the statement of Chuadhry Shujaat Hussain claiming that he had gone to Mr. Makhdoom Amin Fahim with the offer of forming government in Sindh, but Makhdoom Sahib had put forward the condition of withdrawal of cases against the PPP leadership, nothing but a pack of shameless lies.

In a statement today Taj Haider said that the obvious purpose behind the statement of Chaudhry Shujaat is to cover up his own anti-democratic role and anti-Sindh role in the matter and to defame PPP and its leadership.

He said that it was well known to all that in spite of historic rigging of the 2002 elections PPP had emerged as the majority party and it was its constitutional right to form the government in Sindh.

Taj Haider said that the inaugural session of the Sindh Assembly was repeatedly postponed as Choudhry Shujaat Hussain accompanied by the sleuths of the agencies unleashed a despicable sequence of pressurizing members of Sindh assembly and buying their loyalties to create an artificial majority for a PPP turncoat and to install him as Chief Minister Sindh.

Earlier Choudhry Shujaat Hussain and the agencies had played the same game of bribe and blackmail to manufacture post-elections, an entire new party consisting of PPP turncoats to artificially create a one vote majority for their candidate for the Prime Minister’s slot. And for that one vote majority too, an MNA belonging to a banned religious extremist outfit had to be released from detention on the condition that he would vote for the establishment’s candidate, he said.

Mr Taj Hiader said that the Establishment had made many offers Mr. Makhdoom Amin Fahim with the condition that Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto be abandoned but these immoral offers were turned down by the Makhdooms.

The false cases against Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and Senator Zardari have been instituted with the purpose of pressurizing them and are a reminder of how judicial processes have been perverted. PPP demands an end to this mockery and blackmail. In the face of irrefutable evidence, the Supreme Court of Pakistan gave a historic verdict pointing out the malafide and for the first time in the history of Pakistan two judges of the higher Judiciary had to tender their resignations, he said.

The PPP leader said that there was never any question of making these false cases a bargaining chip. Millions and millions in public money have been most fraudulently pocketed under the cover of pursuing these false cases.

He said that it was a matter of record that Choudhry Shujaat Hussain himself declared as interior minister on more than one occasion the drug case against PPP leadership as being false and concocted. It is for him to explain the real purpose behind these false cases as also the real hands on whose behest these false cases had been instituted, he said.

PPP demand CEC to take notice of pre-poll rigging in Sindh and Punjab

Islamabad, 07 August 2005: Pakistan Peoples Party has issued the third fact sheet regarding incidents of pre-poll rigging and demanded of the Election Commission to file cases of kidnapping of Awam Dost candidates against Chief Minister Sindh, Arbab Ghulam Rahim and the federal minister Liaqat Jatoi and take action against DCOs and DPOs of Larkana, Qamber, Dadu, Jamshoro, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Thar, Thatha, Nawabshah, Hyderabad, Matyari, Badin, Naushehro Feroz, Gothki, Sukkur, Shikarpur and Jacobabad in Sindh and Gujrat and Attock in Punjab for their illegal interference in the electoral process.

Issuing the fact sheet, the media coordinator of the Central Monitoring Committee for local bodies elections said that Awam Dost candidates are being harassed by the administration in Attock and Gujrat where false cases are being registered against the Awam Dost candidates, their supporters and the PPP workers. In Gujrat the family of Qamar Zaman Kaira MNA is being targeted and his brother Nadeem Kaira, the former Tehsil Nazim is still languishing in prison on false charges. False cases have also been registered against Awam Dost candidates Mazhar uz Zaman, Naeem Malik and Arshad Chaudhry in Gujrat. Police raided the office and the house of Dr. Naeem Awan in Hazro, Attock and he has been threatened of his life to withdraw his candidacy.

Nazir Dhoki said that in Sindh province, the Chief Minister is using all state resources to harass Awam Dost candidates and all the DPOs and DCOs are obeying the illegal orders of the Chief Minister. The federal minister Liaqat Jatoi is involved in kidnapping of the Awam Dost candidates and a senior civil judge recovered kidnapped candidates Koral Agro, Akbar Chandio and Mubarak Sario from the property of Liaqat Jatoi which proves minister’s involvement in Kidnapping. Nazir Dhoki said that government ally MQM is spending taxpayers’ money on election campaign. False case has been registered against Makhdoom Khaliq-uz-Zaman. The DCOs and DPOs are acting as election agents for the King’s party. DPOs are pressurising Awam Dost candidates to withdraw from the elections and join the King’s party, Nazir Dhoki concluded.

Daily Times August 8, 2005 WASHINGTON: Citing the India-United States nuclear deal as a precedent, Pakistan must urge the United States for extending similar assistance to it for meeting the country’s growing energy needs, Pakistan People’s Party Senator Akbar Khawaja told Daily Times.

Khawaja said the government should bring into confidence all parliamentarians on such national issues, no less than the leaders of the mainstream parties living in exile. He said the Indo-US deal could have an adverse effect on Pakistan’s future relationship with India, Afghanistan and the Central Asian states. This shift in US policy had also brought new pressures to bear on Pakistan’s civil and military assets.

The PPP lawmaker said collective efforts are necessary to deal with challenges facing the nation today such as perceptions of terrorism, human rights abuses, economic deprivation of the people and the disturbing spread of poverty. There are suspicions among Pakistan’s Western allies that Genenral Pervez Musharraf’s support for the war against terrorism may not be as sincere as he makes it out to be and that his government is unwilling to bring political stability to the country or to improve its democratic and human rights credentials. He pointed out the 7/7 bombings in London, expatriate communities of Pakistanis in the United Kingdom and the United States were experiencing greater difficulties because of the widespread perception that the roots of Islamist militancy lie in Pakistan.

Turning to the ongoing local council election process, Senator Khawaja said there was a perception among the general population that there has been “pre-poll rigging.” The fact has to be faced that rising unemployment and poverty, coupled with frustration over corruption, is driving the young towards extremism. The human rights situation in country is worsening. Crackdowns on political opponents, the media and civil society have only sharpened the focus on these issue. There is much criticism of the fairness and even-handedness of the of the accountability process. Public confidence in the judicial system is waning rapidly. Concerns are being raised about the effectiveness of the position of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz who appears to be stuck in a loop given the inordinate delay in the NFC award. This situation will prove to be untenable, he added.

Khawaja stressed that Pakistan’s socio-economic agenda is heavily dependent on its Western allies. As such, stronger measures were needed to mount effective collective responses to the evolving threats by bringing in basic changes to the present system, he said. In addition to the suppression of extremist group, the country must take measures to improve the national image. Some of the steps needed in that area are: reform of the judicial system to ensure supremacy of the rule of law, amendment of the NAB ordinance, including the institution of norms of accountability at all levels, strengthening of parliamentary governance through an effective committee system, reform of the Election Commission, enhancement of the socio-economic effectiveness of all policies, programmes and practices, and, finally, the bringing about of a grand national reconciliation so that Pakistan can move forward as a nation united, not a nation divided, as at present it is, he said.

LANDI ARBAB, Pakistan -- As Pakistani security forces rounded up hundreds of suspected Islamic militants last week in the wake of the bomb attacks in London, Ibrahim Qazmi, a slightly built 28-year-old cleric with a wispy black beard, leaned on a pillow in his herbal remedy shop in northwest Pakistan and smiled skeptically.

In 2001, shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Qazmi and scores of his associates in Sipah-i-Sahaba, or Army of the Prophet's Followers, were arrested in a crackdown announced by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, who vowed to crush the network of radical Islamic groups that had flourished in the country for years.

But just 10 days later, Qazmi said, he and the others were released without charges. Although their group was banned for fomenting sectarian violence, they simply changed its name and revived it. Their top leader was elected to the National Assembly, and Qazmi was elected to the legislature of the North-West Frontier Province, now dominated by fundamentalist Islamic parties preparing to establish a morals police force.

"So you see, despite the ban, we have only gotten stronger," Qazmi said with a chuckle.

The story of Qazmi underscores Musharraf's contradictory record as one of the most important allies in President Bush's war on terrorism.

Since 2001, Musharraf's government has arrested or killed more than 700 suspected al Qaeda members. Last week, as Pakistani authorities investigated several radical Islamic groups for possible links to the London bombers, Musharraf told journalists his government had "completely shattered al Qaeda's vertical and horizontal links" within Pakistan.

But when it comes to eliminating homegrown extremist groups, the commitment is less clear.

Since 2003, Musharraf has been allied with a coalition of radical Islamic parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) or United Action Forum, which has helped him cement his power. The government has banned 16 domestic radical groups and arrested thousands of suspected fighters, but most of them were quietly released.

Critics charge that the government has been slow to implement a pledge to review the finances and curriculums of thousands of religious schools, or madrassas . Most have no links to violence, but analysts say that some have served as breeding grounds for Islamic fighters. Two suspects in the July 7 London transit bombings were young men of Pakistani origin who had recently visited Pakistan.

Similarly, although the Pakistani army killed more than 300 militants in a campaign against al Qaeda bases near the Afghan border last year, it has since proved unable or unwilling to stop fighters from the ousted Taliban militia from slipping back into Afghanistan to launch bombings and attacks.

"The crackdown after September 11, 2001, was just window dressing for Western consumption," said Afrasiab Khattak, a human rights activist in the northwestern city of Peshawar. "None of the top Pakistani leaders were arrested."

Although Musharraf defended his anti-terrorism record in a speech last week, he also said that "restraining factors" such as an unstable economy and tension with India over the Himalayan province of Kashmir had limited his ability to go after domestic militants. Now, he said, "we need to act against the bigwigs of all the extremist organizations."

But analysts said Musharraf's resolve would likely continue to be counterbalanced by the same domestic political problems that have bedeviled him in the past.

One is the Pakistani military's reluctance to defang militant organizations that were sponsored by government intelligence agencies in the 1980s as proxy fighters against Indian troops in Kashmir. Since then, many Kashmiri groups have linked up with members of al Qaeda to attack Western targets.

One such group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, is affiliated with a madrassa where one of the suspected London bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, may have studied for several months, according to news accounts. Another group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, has been blamed for two assassination attempts against Musharraf.

"These groups have all increasingly morphed together," Peter Bergen, a Washington-based expert on Islamic terrorism, said in a telephone interview. "It's like a pickup basketball game where anybody who is available for a particular operation will do it."

But a Pakistani intelligence official said many military and political leaders believe the Kashmiri militant groups are still a vital lever against India. The idea of Pakistani authorities "nabbing the people who challenged the Indian army in Kashmir . . . sounds scary to all decision-makers," the official said.

Thus, even after the government banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, its leader continued to preach openly and attend rallies in Islamabad, the capital. A recent Pakistani press report described a training camp for Kashmiri militants just 60 miles from Islamabad. If Musharraf tried to move against such camps, observers said, he could be undermined by religious conservatives inside the military.

"Even if I were to give him the benefit of the doubt, I don't think he has the structures in place to implement such policies," said Sen. Raza Rabbani, a leader of the moderate Pakistan People's Party.

Musharraf must also contend with scattered public support for Taliban insurgents fighting in Afghanistan, as well as resentment toward the United States fueled by its policies in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

On a recent afternoon, worshipers streaming out of a mosque in the northern city of Peshawar expressed strong sympathy for Taliban fighters. One, Jamil Khan, a postal worker, said the United States "just wants to spread Christianity" in Afghanistan. "Pakistan should be helping the Taliban," he added. "Musharraf is just an agent for America."

Such sentiments helped the MMA, the coalition of Islamic parties, win 20 percent of seats in the 2002 National Assembly elections, as well as a controlling majority in the North-West Frontier assembly. Although this was a setback for Musharraf's moderate policies, the need for legitimacy drove both sides to form an alliance in 2003.

The MMA agreed to help pass a constitutional amendment that would allow Musharraf to remain both president and head of the military; in exchange, Musharraf agreed to recognize the MMA as the official opposition in parliament. Now, religious figures who once trained Taliban adepts in their madrassas have become powerful politicians.

"The people who created the Taliban are now effectively running half of Pakistan," said Samina Ahmed, an Islamabad representative from the International Crisis Group, a research organization based in Brussels.

Many Pakistanis worry that the MMA is trying to re-create Taliban rule. In June, the North-West Frontier assembly passed a law allowing religious ombudsmen to fine or jail people for conducting "entertainment shows" near mosques and "indecent behavior at public places."

Qazi Hussein Ahmed, who heads the dominant party in the MMA coalition, said that his group had criticized some extreme Taliban practices and that terrorist attacks on innocent civilians were prohibited by Islam. But he also said Kashmiri militants were justified in their "holy war" against India, and he implied the same of Taliban insurgents fighting the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan is an occupied country," Ahmed said. If there is no peaceful way to remove foreign troops, "it's inevitable that violent approaches will be adopted. I won't say this is compatible or incompatible with Islam."

Aides to Musharraf said his relationship with the MMA had recently grown strained. The government has appealed to Pakistan's Supreme Court to overturn the religious ombudsman bill, and the MMA has protested the arrests of suspected militants. But to Islamic radicals like Qazmi, the future still looks solid.

"It will be difficult for the government to really ban us," he said confidently, sitting in a shop crammed with religious texts and tapes. Musharraf, he said with disdain, is a "tool in the hands of Western forces" but still incapable of stopping the radical Islamic movement at home. "If we wanted to, we could bring life in Pakistan to a standstill and take control."

Special correspondent Kamran Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.

London Metropolitan University Pakistan scholarship awarded

Islamabad, 6 August 2005: London Met has awarded Pakistani student Sadaf Zafar the Benazir Bhutto scholarship to study at the University.

The scholarship for Pakistani women, which is run in conjunction with former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, provides free tuition at the University.

Sadaf, who has over seven years of experience in HR within telecommunications, will be studying for an MBA programme starting in September. She said: "It’s my great pleasure to receive this prestigious scholarship. I will do my best to become a valuable addition to London Met as well as to my country."

The scholarship winner was grateful for the work that the former Prime Minister has one for women in her country. "I really appreciate Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto for her efforts for the betterment of Pakistani women," she said. "If women in Pakistan are continued to be encouraged like this, they can do wonders." Benazir Bhutto commented: "I congratulate Sadaf on winning the scholarship and wish a successful beginning to the MBA programme. We will look forward to the continued hard work for a successful career during the years ahead."

This is the fourth year that the University has offered a full scholarship to a female Pakistani student through its scholarship programme with Benazir Bhutto.

Signs That Washington is Ready to Stop Backing Musharraf

By Wajid Shamsul Hasan

LONDON, August 8: In my last article: "Pakistan getting too hot for the Generals to handle" (SAT, August 2), I had underscored that the "justification of evil on the ground of expediency" by top world leaders, "has converted God's little earth into a cesspool of intrigue, machinations and chicanery now even beyond their own control."

It was pleaded that if the deepening world disorder has to be arrested, preference to double standards and selective justice will have to be given up. Most of the article was concerned about the situation in Pakistan following the London bombings of the last month that had once again catapulted Pakistan as the epicenter of global terrorism. It was emphasis ed that only a total national effort, mobilization of the masses and the best political brains can steer Pakistan out of the stormy oceans.

While I would be the last person to subscribe to the view that democracy can only come to Pakistan via Washington, a large number of our intellectuals/academics and opinion makers believe that it is the United States that calls the shots in Pakistan and holds the whip that makes our military establishment wag its tail. Since it has been the main provider of the shield of legitimacy to military rulers from the day we had the first martial law in October 1958, we have seen American preference to generals rather than democratically elected politicians. Even when it comes to American aid, the ratio of assistance to the dictators is four times more than the civilian governments. That, perhaps, has been one of the key reasons that genuine restoration of democracy in which "we the people" are the sole arbiters of power remains an elusive dream.

Pakistan had the first taste of some democracy at the end of Cold War. Decline and subsequent demise of the Soviet Union had opened floodgates of change worldwide in favor of democratic movements. It was not love for democracy among the generals that had seen the restoration of some semblance of democracy in Pakistan following General Zia's fatal fall from the sky. They could not impose another martial law in August 1988 when the entire world had been romancing with the democratic dream. It would not have fitted in the American agenda for a democratic Eastern Europe and Central Asian Republics. They made a tactical retreat, allowed elections, manipulated them to deny PPP leader Benazir Bhutto an otherwise assured landslide.

An assertive democratic Benazir Bhutto, much like her father, was not their ball game. They had her removed to switch on yet another round of musical chairs that ended in two terms, actually two half terms, both to her and Mian Nawaz Sharif as prime ministers. Throughout these half terms the Praetorian power wielders orchestrated unproven corruption charges and instability from behind the curtain. When they saw that time was ripe to strike, they struck and now in coming October General Pervez Musharraf would be completing his sixth year as absolute ruler of Pakistan, much more than the two terms of each elected prime ministers.

Like Zia General Musharraf also used Afghanistan to further implement the Praetorian dream of converting Pakistan into a garrison state, a country for the military, of the military and run by the military. Its intelligence apparatus, ISI-employed Taliban, foreign and local Jihadis trained and armed by it from the stacked up funds received in tonnes from the United States during the 80s, created a situation when Washington would forget all about its commitment to democracy as a global phenomenon and support to the hilt yet another military dictator.

After the invasion of Baghdad to restore democratic rights of the Iraqi people by toppling Saddam Hussain (the only defence for the Anglo-American invasion in the absence of the weapons of mass destruction), further democratization of the Palestinian State Authority and President Bush's Scheme for the democratization of Middle East, Washington's continued support to a military dictator in Pakistan, whom it had earlier declared a pariah, has been a constant source of embarrassment and a big spanner in its move to garner wider acceptability to democracy as a universal movement.

To correct this colossal biased selectivity in its foreign policy, it was urged in my last article that, "Both Washington and London must get down to tell Musharraf point blank that he cannot combat terrorism by isolating the great majority of the people in his country by denying it its democratic right to vote in a government of its choice. The enormous magnitude of the terrorism requires a national effort to combat it. By keeping former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif out of the mainstream politics, he has given an open field to the religious parties and extremists to call the shots. The recently passed Hasba Bill by the North Western Frontier Provincial Assembly and the evils it will unleash in the country should be nipped in the bud before it acquires the magnitude of a death-knell for the liberal and democratic forces in Pakistan. Hasba is yet another step towards Talibanisation of Pakistan and a powerful manifestation of Mulla-Military alliance."

It was also urged that Washington would do well to listen to American experts like Stephen P. Cohen who can see and measure Pakistani population's "growing alienation" from the United States that feeds into support for extremism. And this growing anti-Americanism obviously is due to absence of democracy and a level playing field for popular leaders like Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif who continue to command the support of the majority in the masses.

It is encouraging to note that after all observations such as Stephen Cohen's are not falling like seeds on the stony ground in Washington. It seems they are being heeded to. The recent statement of the American Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca in Islamabad amounts to singing the lion's beard in his den. Ms Rocca's declaration that it was the 'US policy that free and fair elections, a level-playing field and return to full democracy was the key to long-term prosperity and stability in Pakistan' shows that all is not all that bad in Washington and that there is a growing realization where things have gone wrong.

Besides, in her Washington-Islamabad video conference with senior journalists, Ms Rocca also brought on record that the US administration did not believe that the President's uniform guaranteed success of war against international terrorism and that it ensured that Pakistan's nuclear assets would not fall into the hands of fundamentalists. "It is a policy we continue to pursue," she said.

It is better late than never. It is heartening to see that Washington has at last started seeing through General Musharraf's game of misleading the international opinion in insisting that his uniform was essential for stability and fight against terror. The earlier the Bush administration realizes the better it would be for Pakistan and its war on terrorism that political stability comes only with legitimacy and the writ of the state gets acceptability when it is backed by general will and not by tin pot generals who confess to be anorchous without their uniforms.

Moreover, winning war against terrorists and extremists requires national consensus that comes with democracy alone.

Musharraf occupies Presidency through Saddam-like referendum and he wields power on the basis of a contrived, distorted, fractured constitution that has no legitimacy left. Besides, he is also at war with the entire civil society as a result of which there is no consensus behind him. Pakistan and its people can regain their respectability and honor in the comity of nations when they have a freely and fairly elected government.

Notwithstanding the view spinned by Musharraf's media mongers that Ms Rocca's pronouncements should be dismissed lightly since she does not occupy a very high position in the American power hierarchy, her assertions definitely carry a new message that could not have been made without higher approval especially when it is much in line with the earlier statement of the world's most powerful woman, US Secretary of State Condi Rice, who had underscored the importance of free and fair elections and genuinely representative government when she visited Islamabad last.

Ms Rocca's statement definitely assumes special significance due to the timing and the venue of the video-conference held amidst wide scale reports of most blatant pre-poll rigging in the local bodies elections. Ms Rocca's remarks for the need for a level playing field essential not only for the local bodies elections, but also for the 2007 general elections, require no interpretation. Washington was "very clear about it publicly and privately," indicating that this concern had been conveyed to the government also through proper channels. She reassured her commitment when she said the US was providing technical assistance with observers along with the rest of the international community. No wonder many in Islamabad are having sleepless nights.

This wind of change has been widely welcomed in Pakistan. People would acknowledge generously the return of democracy no matter how it comes. However, our military establishment, to save the people of embarrassment of receiving democracy delivered in an American gift wrap, should rise to the occasion and come to terms with the genuine political leadership that lives in exile per force, hold earliest free and fair elections and go back to the barracks where they belong, with some respect and dignity intact rather than go with mud on its face.

Opposition Leader in the Senate urges CEC to stop harassment of women candidates

Islamabad, 6 August, 2005: The Deputy Secretary General Pakistan People Party and the leader of opposition in the senate, Senator Mian Raza Rabbani has questioned the assertion of the Returning Officer of Tharparkar who in his report stated that despite vide publicity no one came to register their complaints.

Senator Razar Rabbani in a letter addressed to the Chief Election Commissioner has wrote, "If the Election Commission can guarantee a safe passage to and from the Returning Officer’s Office and provide reasonable safeguards against redressal action by the administration a large number of such complainants will come forward not only in this constituency but through out the Province of Sindh in particular."

In a separate letter to the CEC, Senator Raza Rabbani has informed him of the harassment of women candidates in district Thatta. Giving details he wrote, "Mst. Jannat Jalbani a candidate for the General Council seat in UC-2 Sajawal, Thatta was kidnapped on 30th July, 2005. She returned two days later. She was a candidate on the Awam Dwst Panel, during her captivity she was threatened and has now decided not to contest the elections. Mst. Noorani a candidate for the General Council seat was kidnapped on the 30th July, 2005 from UC-2 Sajawal. She returned after two days, subsequently on her return she has refused to contest the said elections. She was a candidate on the Awam Dost Panel. Mst. Nargis Bano a candidate from UC-2 Sajawal, Thatta, runs a private school. The said school was broken into and ransacked. She has now been threatened that the school will be burnt if she contests the election."

Senator Mian Raza Rabbani has urged the CEC to take necessary measures so that free, fair, transparent and impartial elections can be ensured.

Islamabad, 5 August 2005: The Media Coordinator of Monitoring Cell PPP for local bodies’ elections Nazir Dhoki has urged the Election Commission to take note of what was happening in the district of Kashmore where all codes for free and fair elections were being flouted with impunity.

In a statement today Nazir Dhoki said that Kashmore district is comprised of 37 Union Councils from where the PML(Q) MNA Saleem Jan Mazari is contesting for the post of Zila Nazim. The Sindh government has posted majority of police officers in the district from Mazari tribe who are close relatives and friends of Saleem Jan Mazari. Din Muhammad Mazari, Mukhtar Ahmed Mazari, Raza Muhammad Mazari, Abdul Hakim Mazari, Roshan Din Mazari, Bilawal Mazari, Barkat Ali Dombki and Qamar Din Mazari have been posed as SHO Kashmore, SHO Guddu, SHO Geehalpur, SO investigation Kashmore, Incharge Investigation Guddu, SHO Buxapur and Additional Investigation respectively.

He said that this situation is indicative of the fact that the entire Kashmore district has been handed over to a war Lord of Mazari tribe and the administration obeys orders of the warlord. The Chief Minister Sindh is openly supporting Saleem Jan Mazari.

Nazir Dhoki warned the regime not to start a tribal war in Kashmore as there is another strong Bijarani tribe opposing Saleem Jan Mazari and any undue favours to one tribe by the government may result in serious law and order situation in Kashmore.

He demanded immediate replacement of Mazari police force with neutral police officers so that any threat of bloody confrontation could be avoided.

He said that despite continuous reminders to the Elections Commission regarding victimisation of Awam Dost Candidates and their supporters, the Election Commission has so far failed to take any action. He said that a candidate for the post of Nazim Bashir Mirani, Union Council Dhadlo, Ghotki, has been picked up by police officers DSP Ghulam Muhammad Mahar and Inspector Mitha Khan Mahar. Police is conducting raids to arrest Bashir Malik, a candidate for the post of Nazim in Union Council Umar Draho, Ghotki.

"If the police and administration continuous to act like this then there is no chance of a fair, free and impartial elections", he concluded.

Changes in the Local Government Laws have undermined devolution

Islamabad August 5, 2005: The claims of devolving power to grass roots is a fiction as the changes made in the local government laws recently have instead of devolving power to the provinces from the centre empowered the provincial chief ministers at the expense of the state assembly as well as the councils at the local level.

This has been stated by Raja Pervez Ashraf MNA and PPP leader in a statement today.

He said that with the latest changes the local bodies have become fiefdoms of provincial chief ministers instead of empowering the people.

He said that 81 amendments have been made in the Sindh Ordinance, 76 in the Punjab and similar changes in the Frontier Ordinance.

The main changes involve provisions for the removal of nazims (mayors) and setting aside of decisions and resolutions of local governments. The system hitherto was that disciplinary action against a local government had to be sanctioned by a higher elected body. This system has been revised by giving extraordinary powers to the provincial chief executives (chief ministers).

The provincial Local Government Commission is a small body of bureaucrats headed by the provincial minister for local government. Five of the six members of the commission are government nominees - in other words, they represent and are dependent on the chief minister. The commission will be a tool in a chief minister's hands to take control of the local government network in his province.

This means that Opposition Nazims will be at the mercy of the ruling Chief Ministers, Raja Prevez Ashraf said.

He said that the procedure for removal of nazims through votes of no-confidence also has been changed. Now with the changes the matter will not be referred to union council members, as heretofore, but to be effective a no-confidence motion will need to be supported by two- thirds majority of the relevant assembly.

Previously, the initiative for setting aside an order of the district nazim had to be taken by the Local Government Commission. Now the chief executives can suspend the Zila Nazim's order and refer the subject to by the Local Government Commission for endorsement.

The reduction of union council membership from 21 to 13, has entailed a substantial reduction in the level of women's representation in local councils. The representation of minorities, peasants and labour will also go down proportionately adversely affecting participation by discriminated groups in the political process, he said.

"A fraud has been perpetrated on the people in the name of devolution" he said.

Islamabad, 4 August 2005: A Pakistan Peoples Party delegation called on to the acting Ambassador of Saudi Arabia today Thursday to condole the death of Saudi King Shah Fahad and to deliver a condolence message by the former Prime Minister Chairperson Pakistan People Party, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.

The delegation was headed by Coordinator Foreign Liaison Committee PPP, Senator Enver Beg and members national assembly Syed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari and Fauzia Habib as its members.

First it was Mukhtar Mai, now it is Dr Shazia Khalid. When a group of Pakistani-Americans and an NGO invited Mukhtar Mai to New York to address a gathering and get an award for her courage in the face of social oppression, the government — in fact General Pervez Musharraf himself — decided it was essential to stop her from going abroad “to save Pakistan’s image”. That decision, as we have noted before, was ill-advised. Unfortunately, our worst fears materialised when the international press started to whip the Musharraf regime for “oppressing a rape victim” and, in the process, also began to present Pakistan as a medieval country where women did not have space to breathe. One columnist in The New York Times — who had earlier come to Pakistan and written about Mukhtar Mai — especially took it upon himself to highlight her case, this time proving that tragedies like hers keep visiting Pakistan partly because of what the governments in this country can, and actually, do. The story regarding the columnist is also instructive. After he had visited Pakistan and written about various issues, including the Mukhtar Mai episode, his later request for a visa was denied by the Pakistani government. It was as ill-thought a decision as the one to prevent Mukhtar Mai from going abroad. In this day and age, no one can stop the media from reporting by banning the entry and exit of journalists.

Now, the same columnist has written about Dr Khalid who was raped while she was working at a hospital in Sui, Balochistan. The Musharraf regime tried to hush up that case, too. The incident sparked unrest in the area, which fed into the larger trouble in Balochistan. Additionally, initial suspicion fell on an army officer and some of his personnel. Again, the government erroneously thought that the best way to handle the situation was to keep Dr Khalid away from the media and to get her out of the way as soon as possible. A couple of months after the incident, Dr Khalid was dragged to a plane to London and told to shut up or else. Of course, she hasn’t. Indeed, she has gone and spilled the beans to none other than the NYT journalist estranged from the Pakistan government.

There is a common denominator in these three events: Mukhtar Mai’s going abroad, the denial of a visa to a foreign journalist deemed “hostile” to Pakistan and sending Dr Khalid away. In all three, the government acted foolishly by thinking that the best way to avoid bad publicity was to pretend that nothing had happened or to put a lid on it. It is time General Musharraf realised that his policy has not worked; instead it has redounded to our disadvantage and battered the image of the country as well as that of General Musaharraf himself. General Musharraf must also ask himself why, despite being a strong US ally and claiming that he is very popular abroad, he should constantly come in for stick from the US and international media. Surely, rapes happen everywhere in the world, including the United States. In neighbouring India, much worse has happened and continues to happen. Why does Pakistan get the short end of the stick? It is certainly not because the Indian government or media keep a lid on it. Far from it. It is so commonplace that the international media has lost interest in it. It is not a novel item to be reported and the Indian government isn’t constantly trying to cover it up and thereby making news. General Musharraf keeps asking this question but clutches at the wrong bureaucratic and autocratic answer every time.

Cover-ups do more harm than good. Worse, in today’s world, there can be no cover-ups. General Musharraf knows that there is much that is wrong with Pakistan, as it is with other countries. He should consider people who highlight these wrongs as his allies rather than as his adversaries. Denying journalists visas, preventing people from going abroad or actually bundling them off in planes and spiriting them abroad in order to silence them is not the solution — it is part of the problem. Building the image means making clear to the world that despite problems the government is earnest in trying to solve them. If Mukhtar Mai had been allowed to go to New York and the government had facilitated the travel and given her a discreet minder, none of the bad press would have come Pakistan’s way. The same is true in the case of Dr Khalid. It is time the government chucked its strategy of denial.

PPP slams non-bailable arrest warrants for Zardari
 

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has criticised the issuance of non-bailable arrest warrants for Asif Ali Zardari in the BMW case as perversion of the judicial process to harass political opponents, said PPP Deputy Parliamentary leader MNA Raja Pervez Ashraf on Thursday.

According to a statement, the Rawalpindi Accountability Court had issued non-bailable arrest warrants for Zardari in the BMW car reference and directed prosecution to arrest him and present him before the court on August 26.

Pervez said Zardari had submitted an application with a medical certificate about his health problems and sought exemption from personal appearance in the case. He said the insistence by the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) prosecutors to issue arrest warrants without observing the legal formality of issuing notice showed the NAB’s policy of blackmailing political opponents.

He said the double standards by the NAB had exposed that it was a tool of political manipulation and coercion in the government’s hands. He said the NAB was staffed by the remnants of jihadis of a Zia era that had set before itself the agenda of persecuting the PPP.

“NAB is acting as a political arm of the government to re-design Pakistan’s political landscape,” he added. Meanwhile, a PPP delegation called on to acting ambassador of Saudi Arabia to condole the death of the late Saudi King Shah Fahd and to deliver a condolence message by PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto. PPP Coordinator Foreign Liaison Committee Senator Enver Beg, National Assembly members Syed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari and Fauzia Habib led the delegation.

ARD not to hammer out any deal with military rulers

ISLAMABAD: PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto has reiterated ARD will never strike any deal with military rulers and the alliance will go for any deal only with the people of Pakistan.

" ARD will never go for any deal with the military rulers. Whenever a deal is hammered out , it will be only with the masses of the country", she said this while talking to PML-N MNA, Memoona Hashmi in London, a statement issued here on Thursday said.

Benazir underlined that rulers were fearful of ARD. Therefore, they continue on propagating about a deal to bring cracks in the alliance.

Paying rich tributes to Javed Hashmi on his write up "Haan Main Baghi Hoon", she said Javed Hashmi was not only a courageous politician but also was a bold writer. The dauntless stance taken by Javed Hashmi in the struggle for restoration of democratic order in the country has inculcated courage in the workers.

Dubbing ARD a vital and positive step, Benazir said this alliance would serve as a milestone in the revival of democracy in the country. All the bids on the part of rulers to create breaches in opposition alliance will be thwarted, she remarked.

ARD will remain in place unless constitution is fully restored and country returns to real democracy , she declared. Under ARD code of conduct both PPP and PML- N will cooperate with each till the completion of their term if they are voted to power.

She asserted Javed Hashmi will soon be set free with popular force.

Idle Comment

By:L. E. Brown Jr., The Sampson Independent

Proof that international treaties don't work can be found in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a pet project of Jimmy Carter when he played president on TV, and of many other progressive liberals.

Since the treaty was first put in place, establishing five "declared" nuclear powers - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - the number of countries with nuclear weapons has doubled.

The nuclear club now includes India, which has developed and tested nuclear weapons since the 1970s, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. Iran is doing so now.

Under the treaty, countries can only get help building nuclear power plants if they sign the treaty.

India has not signed, yet President Bush has promised to help India build nuclear power plants.

At the same time, Bush finds it convenient to cite the treaty as he opposes Iran's and North Korea's nuclear programs.

One can certainly see the logic in what such people as former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the architect of Pakistan's nuclear program, have said. According to an article written by Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor of nuclear and high-energy physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Bhutto pointed out in his death cell - he was hanged two years later - that only privileged nations were allowed to have nuclear capabilities.

Hoodbhoy said Bhutto made the statements long before Sept. 11 and that Bhutto wrote in 1977: "We know that Israel and South Africa have full nuclear capability. The Christian, Jewish and Hindu civilizations have this capability. The communist powers also possess it. Only the Islamic civilization was without it, but that position was about to change."

And, according to Hoodbhoy, in 1992 the Iranian vice president said, "Since Israel continues to possess nuclear weapons, we, the Muslims, must cooperate to produce an atomic bomb, regardless of U.N. efforts to prevent proliferations."

However, Hoodbhoy maintains that the danger of a nuclear conflict comes not from any Muslim state but from radicalized individuals within the states. He says that the decision to use atomic weapons against U.S. targets has already been made and that the sites will be chosen by pious men with beards.

L. E. Brown, Jr. can be reached at 910-592-8137, ext. 20. or email sicity@intrstar.net

Washington: What happened to Maulana Fazlur Rehman at Dubai airport is “only the tip of the iceberg” and should “make up all sit up and think,” according to Senator Dr Abdullah Riar of the Pakistan People’s Party.

He said in a statement that the sense of concern felt at the Leader of the Opposition’s deportation from Dubai was understandable but the incident was disturbing since it was symptomatic of the state in which the Muslims of the world found themselves today. It was unfortunate that they were increasingly being associated with violence in the name of religion. He said the incident in Dubai should lead to “soul searching” on the part of the leadership in Pakistan. The country’s image is being targeted due to “a historic baggage of wrong priorities and a distorted view of life promoted by a small minority in the country.”

The PPP senator said, “ We should make every effort to correct the image that Muslims are to be associated with a narrow vision of life and the desire to impose their beliefs on others. In the global village of six billion people, no one segment has the right to dictate its way of life to others. We all need to live in peace, amity, tolerance and respect for each other. We should be prepared to adapt and to accommodate points of view with which we may not be in agreement.

We should live and let live. We should not harp on ideological divides which can only tear apart the basic fabric of civil society.”

Dr Riar said Pakistan is at the centre of the global alliance against terrorism. At the same time, is being accused of being “fertile training ground” for those who commit acts of terror around the world. It is time for Pakistan and its political and religious leadership to engage in introspection and undertake corrections where corrections are needed. “The world has neither patience nor time to indulge us. There is going to be no grace period for those who indulge in doublespeak and whose words and actions are marked by a wild gulf,” he observed. He said, “We must unequivocally condemn terrorism and terrorist actions. We should take charge of civil society to purge it of radicalism and extremist ideas. Time is no longer on the side of those who believe, practise and sponser what they mistakenly call Jehad. Suicide bombings and acts of wanton violence which take innocent lives, including the lives of Muslims, are not the answer to the Ummah’s problems. These energies should instead be channeled to fight illiteracy, disease and poverty.

The PPP senator said the nation must work together to reclaim Pakistan’s good name and rehabilitate its image as a forward-looking country of immense potential and dynamism. All those who believe in a progressive, democratic and moderate society should join hands and work for the greatness and glory of Pakistan. This is the time when the nation should be brought together. As such, Gen. Musharraf should turn a new leaf and free himself of his bias against mainstream political forces that believe in democracy as manifested through the freely-expressed will of the people. It is time to mobilise the 160 million people of Pakistan to shun extremism and radical views of life so that the country can return to the path from which it has strayed. No single individual can be the remedy of every ill that plagues our society. Anyone who believes that is headed for failure with dire consequences for the country and the nation, he added.

PPP criticises non-bailable arrest warrants against Senator Asif Zardari

Islamabad August 4, 2005: Pakistan Peoples Party has criticised the issuance of non bailable arrest warrants of Senator Asif Ali Zardari in the BMW case as perversion of judicial process to harass and hound political opponents.

The Accountability Court Rawalpindi has issued non bailable arrest warrants of Mr Asif Zardari in the BMW car reference and directed prosecution to arrest him and present him before the court on August 26.

In a statement today Raja Pervez Ashraf MNA and deputy parliamentary leader of the Party in the National Assembly said that Asif Zardari had submitted an application supported by a medical certificate about his health problems and sought exemption from personal appearance in the case. The former Senator was also represented by one of his defence counsels yet the non bailable arrest warrants were issued..

He said that the insistence by NAB prosecutors to issue arrest warrants even without observing the legal formality of issuing a notice showed the desperation of NAB and its policy to blackmail and intimidate political opponents.

Raja Pervez Ashraf said that the NAB was staffed by the remnants of Jehadis of Zia era that had set before itself the agenda of persecuting the PPP as the known opponents of jehadi way of resolving national and international conflicts.

The PPP leader said that NAB was acting as political arm of the rulers to re-engineer Pakistan’s political landscape.

Illustrating this he said that in reply to a question in the Senate on December 5, 2003 the NAB had said that a three star general of the Army who was heading a civil department was being investigated for amassing assets beyond known means. While those investigations still continue for the past several years and the ex Lt General roams free the PPP opponents of the regime were being chased and hounded by perverting the judicial process, he said.

Such double standards employed by the NAB had thoroughly exposed it as no more than a tool of political manipulation and coercion in the hands of the rulers, he said.

Election Monitoring Committee circulates code of conduct among awam dost candidates

Asks awam dosts to be vigilant and bring to attention code violations

Islamabad August 03, 2005: The Election Monitoring Committee of the Pakistan Peoples Party has asked all awam dost candidates contesting local bodies’ polls to be vigilant before and during polls and bring to the attention of the Committee all incidents of polls rigging so that these are taken up with appropriate authorities and also highlighted in the media.

The Election Monitoring Committee today also circulated among all awam dost candidates the election code announced last month by the election Commission and asked them to immediately notify the breach of any provision of the election code.

In a statement today the Media Coordinator of the Election Monitoring Committee Nazir Dhoki reminded the awam dost candidates that according to the election code issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan ‘a candidate or his/her agent will not stop any other rival candidate from holding a corner meeting or try to stop or disrupt any corner meeting of any other rival candidate’. He said that any bid by the election candidates of the King’s Party to stop them from holding corner meetings but be resisted lawfully and brought to the attention of the returning officer as well as the Monitoring Committee.

Similarly according to the code a candidate or his/her agent will neither stop any candidate from distributing handbills or leaflets nor try to disrupt or interrupt speeches of rival candidates, he said.

Nazir Dhoki said that the Party had received credible information that one of the strong arm tactics used by the King’s Party would be to carry firearms, indulge in aerial firing and use explosives at corner meetings. He said that the code of conduct forbids use of firecrackers and other explosives at corner meetings and the awam dost candidates should not be intimidated by such show of force.

He said that the code also barred candidates or their supporters from deliberately levelling baseless and concocted accusations against their opponents or make the opponent’s personal life a part of their campaign and added that if the King’s Party resorted to such underhand tactics the matter should be immediately reported to the concerned authorities and also the election committee of the party.

Nazir Dhoki said that the Election Monitoring Committee will set up a hot line of communication to facilitate the awam dost candidates bringing to its attention instances of violation of the code of conduct.

PPP welcomes Rocca’s remarks on democracy in Pakistan

Says there is not alternative to fair elections and level playing field

Islamabad August 3, 2005: The Pakistan Peoples Party has welcomed the remarks of the US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca it was the ‘US policy that free and fair elections, a level-playing field and return to full democracy was the key to long-term prosperity and stability in Pakistan’.

Christina Rocca made these remarks while answering questions from senior Pakistani journalists during a Washington-Islamabad video conference on Tuesday.

She also said that the US administration did not believe that the president’s uniform guaranteed success of war against international terrorism and that it ensured that Pakistan’s nuclear assets would not fall into the hands of fundamentalists

"It is a policy we continue to pursue," she said.

In a statement today spokesman of the Party said that the PPP has all along believed that General Musharraf was misleading the international opinion in insisting that his uniform was essential for stability and fight against terror.

He said that political stability comes only with legitimacy. Winning war against terrorists and extremists requires national consensus that comes with democracy alone.

General Musharraf who has entered Presidency through referendum and re-written the Constitution has no legitimacy. He is also at war with the entire civil society as a result of which there is no consensus behind the General, he said.

The spokesman said that without fair and free elections in which all political parties and leaders are allowed to participate and which are held under an independent Election Commission with representation from the Human Rights Commission the goal of stability will continue to elude the nation.

"The PPP welcomes the realization that there is no alternative to fair elections, a level-playing field and return to full democracy for Pakistan’s stability".

The Party hopes that the dynamics of this reality will soon remove the fog from the thinking of military rulers, he said.

"The absence of alternatives should make the mind clear; the sooner the better", the spokesman said.

PPP denounces General Musharraf’s plea to people to vote for PML candidates

Islamabad August, 1, 2005: The Pakistan Peoples Party has denounced General Muhsaraf’s plea to the people to vote for PML candidates in the local bodies elections as a grave and blatant violation of the code of conduct and asked the Election Commission to take note of it and take appropriate action.

Addressing a public meeting in Swat on Saturday General Pervez Mushaarf asked people to vote for the PML candidates in the forthcoming elections.

In a statement today Nazir Dhoki member of the Election Monitoring Committee of the PPP said that the Election Commission had on July 13 issued a Code of Conduct. According to the clause 16 of the code ‘the Local Government Elections will be held on a non party basis’.

Nazir Dhoiki asked as to whether the Chief Executive of the country was not aware of this fact or whether the dictator deliberately disregarded with contempt the orders of the Election Commission believing that he can get away with it as he got away with contempt of the Constitution of the country.

The Media Coordinator of PPP Election Monitoring Committee said that the General’s categorical plea to the people to vote for the Pakistan Muslim League candidates was a proof that the King’s Party had put up candidates in LB polls in violation of the Election Commission’s code of conduct.

"This is nothing but double standards, one for the King’s Party and the other for the opposition", he said.

Nazir Dhoki asked the Chief Election Commissioner to call for the tape recording of the speech of General Musharraf to verify for himself the veracity of what has been reported in the press today with reference to voting for the PML candidates in the elections. He said that General Musharraf’s statement was a direct interference in the electoral process, a public admission of the fact that the King’s Party had formally nominated candidates in election in violation of the code of conduct and an unprecedented contempt of the Election Commission of Pakistan.

If the Election Commission fails to take notice of this people will be constrained to believe that the election laws were framed and the code was made only to give an edge to the King’s Party at the cost of opposition political parties.

He said that the Acting Chief Election Commissioner on Saturday warned that action will be taken against the violators of poll code. There could be no greater contempt for the Election commission when on that very day the General publicly asks people to vote for Party candidates put up by the King’s Party, he said.

"The people would now watch whether and what action is taken against the violation of polls code or whether the warning of the election commission was the usual sound and fury signifying nothing", Nazir Dholki said.

PPP issues fact sheet regarding victimisation of Awam Dost Candidates and their supporters

Islamabad, 1 August 2005: Pakistan People Party has asked the Chief Election Commissioner to take note of victimisation of Awam Dost Candidates and their supporters all over the country especially in Sindh and Punjab provinces and the use of government resources by the ministers and advisers of the government.

The Media Coordinator of the Central Monitoring Committee for the Local Body Elections PPP, Nazir Dhoki issuing the second fact sheet regarding cases of victimisation against the Awam Dost Candidates and their supporters said that these cases have been already brought to the notice of Election Commission. He said that it seems that the Election Commission is helpless in stopping the government functionaries from committing gross violations of the election laws.

Detailing the cases the fact sheet says, after Punjab and Sindh, General Pervez is campaigning in NWFP for the pro-government candidates and addressed a public meeting in Swat asking people to vote for PML(Q) candidates. Governor Punjab and adviser to Prime Minister Ms. Nilofar Bakhtiar are distributing monies from Baitul Mal fund for getting support for the pro-government candidates. Police and administration are hounding and harassing Awam Dost Candidates and PPP workers. Candidate for Naib Nazi, Union Council Adowal Mirza Abid was kidnapped from session court on the day of scrutiny. Policy arrested candidate for Naib Nazim Azhar Hussain in Gujrat. Police snatched vehicle of candidate for Nazim, Zafar Iqbal in Gujrat. Candidates supported by Alliance for Restoration of Democracy are being threatened and forced to withdraw their nomination papers.

The fact sheet says that MQM is openly threatening Awam Dost Candidates in Karachi. Proposer of Nazim, Union Council 11, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Abdul Hameed was kidnapped from the PPP Office Karachi. False cases have been registered against candidate Naib Nazim Jamshed Town, Jamshed Ghani and Aurangzeb. Similarly false cases have been registered against candidates for Nazim and Naib Nazim Union Council Ranipur in Khairpur, Hakim Ali Dayo and Abdul Khaliq Bhutto. Candidate for Nazim and Naib Nazim, Union Council Sadarji Bhattiyoon have been kidnapped and similarly police kidnapped their proposers.

Nazir Dhoki said that candidate for Nazim Deparja, Khadim Sehto has been arrested by the police and false cases have been initiated against several other Nazims, Naib Nazims and their supporters including Niaz Solangi of Gadeji. Police is detaining candidates and DPOs are carrying out these illegal acts on the behest of Chief Minister Sindh and other government functionaries. The candidate of Naib Nazim, Union Council Sami, Ghulam Sarwar Tunio has been arrested by the police so that his nomination papers are rejected. Police has also arrested Sikandar Ali Bhanban, the candidate for Nazim in Union council Sandan.

The fact sheet says that Police is targeting and harassing Awam Dost Candidates and their supporters in Dadu and Jamshoro on the behest of Chief Minister Sindh and the Federal Minister Liaquat Jatoi. Police tried to arrest Dur Muhammad Palari in the office of Returning Officer Jamshoro. Police tortured his supporters and injured several of them including three women. Police also snatched gold lockets, money and mobile phones from them. Awam Dost Candidates in Union Council Shah Panjo, Bashir Lakho and Akbar Chandio, and candidate for Naib Nazim Nau Goth, Koro Khan have been arrested. Policed arrested Bakhshal Solangi, the candidate for Nazim, Union Council Sindhi Batra and raided his house and took away money and other valuables from his house. The police also arrested his proposers Ali Gohar Bhurguri and his wife. Police raided the house of Mubarak Sariyo, the candidate of Naib Nazim, Union Council Kukar and harassed women in the house. Awam Dost Candidate Liaquat Khoso has been arrested in Union Council Goro. Police is carrying out raids to arrest PPP leader Dr. Imam Din in Nasirabad, Larkana to keep him out of campaigning in the elections. Police raided the house of Hussain Bux in Union Council Depra and arrested Ahmed Khan, the candidate of Nazim. Attempt was made to kidnap Shams Abbasi and Ali Gohar by the supporters of PML leader Shabbir Chandio.

Nazir Dhoki said that all the complaints have been sent to the Elections Commission but so far no action has been taken. He demanded immediate release of the arrested and initiation of cases against the DCOs and DPOs of the area where these atrocities have taken place.

PPP asks Election Commission to take measures for holding free and fair elections

Islamabad, 02 August 2005: "Failing to take action against the violators of election laws has exposed the inability and impotency of Election Commission to hold free, fair, transparent and impartial elections". Naheed Khan, member national assembly and the political secretary to the chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, said this in a statement today.

Naheed Khan said that the Monitoring Committee of the party has so far issued two detailed fact sheets regarding violation of election laws by the government functionaries and the King’s party and victimisation of Awam Dost candidates and their supporters but the Election Commission remained unmoved which reflects that the Commission is totally helpless and powerless to stop these gross violations by General Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Governors and Chief Ministers of Sindh and Punjab, Federal and state ministers, advisers and the office bearers of the King’s party. The Commission has also failed to stop the incidents of victimisations against Awam Dost candidates, their supporters and PPP workers.

She said that the Commission also did not take any action against the people who publicly announced disenfranchising women of their right of participation in the elections in Dir and Batagram. It was the duty of the Commission to probe the situation and take measures to ensure women participation but it did not do so which indicates its incapacity to hold free and fair elections in the country. This is the reason that the PPP has been demanding formation of an independent election commission with the help of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Naheed Khan said.

Naheed Khan condemned the government functionaries for illegally interfering and using state resources in the elections and their efforts to stop the Awam Dost candidates to participate freely in the elections. She also condemned institution of cases and arrests of Awam Dost candidates, their proposers and seconders and supporters. She said that it is shameful that the houses of several candidates and their supporters are being raided by the police and security personals in plain clothes and women are being harassed every day.

Naheed Khan demanded immediate release of all the arrested political workers and withdrawal of cases against them so that the elections could take place peacefully. She warned the regime of dire consequences if the people are not allowed to freely express their choice and choose their own candidates without any pressure and threat. Naheed Khan said that the party is keeping all record of the government functionaries who are involved in those violations and atrocities or helping the King’s party and would hold all of them accountable in due course of time.

NAB as seen from the parliament
Farhatullah Babar

The News Tuesday August 02, 2005: The National Accountability Bureau has often been accused of being more of a tool for political victimisation than an instrument of accountability. The draconian provisions of the NAB Ordinance and the selective manner in which these have been applied has also come under criticism. But, politics apart, let us take a look at the NAB from the vantage point of Parliament.

On December 5, 2003, a question was asked about the military officers working in civil departments against whom cases had been registered by the NAB during the previous two years. The 14 military officers on the list included a former lieutenant general heading a civil department, as being "under investigation for accumulating assets beyond his means." The endless investigations apparently still continue, while the lieutenant general roams free, unlike politicians under investigation.

Another question on the same day was about the expenses on foreign trips made by NAB officials. Forty-eight foreign trips had been undertaken by NAB officers at public expense during the previous two years, costing over Rs10 million. One senior officer alone made 16 foreign trips that cost the exchequer some Rs3.3 million.

Twenty-five of these visits were undertaken for participation in seminars, conferences and conventions in various world capitals. The officials made three trips to Riyadh and Dubai to attend Pakistan Day celebrations, to make presentations to the Pakistan Executive Group, and to address members of PPF, whatever that means.

A senior officer of the Bureau, during several journeys to European countries, also travelled to Dubai ten times, the purposes of the trips not being explained in most cases. While visits at public expense to world capitals for "attending conferences and seminars" may be understandable, what purpose did the ten trips to Dubai serve?

On Dec. 9, 2004, Senator Sanaullah Baloch asked how much money had been recovered under plea bargains from politicians and civil and military officers on the orders of the court. It was revealed that whereas an amount of Rs432 million had been recovered from politicians, nearly two billion rupees had been recovered from the civil-military bureaucracy under pleas bargain. Who said the politicians were the most corrupt segment of society?

On Dec. 2, 2004, a questions was asked about the status of NAB cases against sitting members of Parliament, if any. Nine sitting MPs were named against whom there were cases of corruption, misuse of authority and accumulation of assets beyond their known sources of income.

Some of the cases were under trial, some under investigation, some"under process," whatever that means, and some closed for undisclosed reasons.

Federal ministers Faisal Saleh Hayat, Aftab Sherpao, Rana Nazir Ahmad,

Jehangir Khan Tareen and Liaquat Ali Jatoi were named in the list. All had been the target of the NAB until they joined the King's Party, were rewarded with ministerial jobs and let off the hook.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Syed Mushahid Hussain, had also been named as being involved in a case of "misuse of authority." The case was closed in May 2002 after over two years of investigation, the government said in its reply.

Just when the opposition asked why cases were closed on the eve of the general elections, Mushahid Hussain rose in the House and challenged the NAB. He stunned everyone by saying that he had not even been informed of any case against him let, alone his being under investigation, and the case closed after such investigations.

A privilege motion was filed against the NAB for misleading the House. The meeting was scheduled for Dec. 22 and the chairman of the NAB summoned to attend it. At midnight on Dec. 21, panic telephone calls by the Senate Secretariat informed the members that the meeting had been cancelled, but no reason was given.

When the meeting was rescheduled for Jan. 6 this year, the chairman of the NAB was exempted and not called to attend it. Does it require too much imagination to guess why the first meeting was cancelled and why the chairman was not asked to attend the rescheduled meeting?

The opposition protested and asked that the meeting be adjourned to another date and the chairman directed to appear in person to answer some questions. As they staged a walkout the government lost no time in rushing through the procedure to reject the privilege motion. Who hides what, and from whom?

During a reply to a question last Feb. 15, it transpired that the NAB had paid Rs390 million as fees to lawyers during the past five years. The expenditure incurred on the boarding and lodging of NAB officers to represent the Bureau in the courts was in addition to this amount.

Various provisions of the NAB Ordinance have been likened by legal experts to the notorious POTO in Indian Kashmir that Pakistan has been condemning at all international forums. But while the POTO has been disbanded the NAB Ordinance continues to be applied with relish.

This emerged in dramatic form when sometime ago the Supreme Court asked the NAB's chief prosecutor whether petitioner Siddiq ul Farooq, the information secretary of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), was in NAB custody and what the status of investigations against him was. In reply, the prosecutor general admitted that the petitioner was in NAB custody. But he added that he could not inform the Court about the case, because after being arrested, Siddiq ul Farooq had been "dumped somewhere," and he did not where he was kept or what the status of investigations was.

The draconian provision requiring an accused to prove innocence has also been applied against the political class with sadistic pleasure. In an interview with The News sometime ago a former chairman of the NAB gleefully remarked that it was not the Bureau's task to prove charges against the corrupt, "the accused must prove his innocence."

A two-dimensional view of the NAB that emerges from the vantage point of Parliament is: One, if after spending nearly Rs400 million rupees on lawyers and over Rs10 million on 48 foreign trips, it is found that civil-military bureaucracy is more corrupt than politicians, although it has the audacity to assert that politicians were more corrupt than others. Two, while the NAB is carrying out investigations -- open or secret -- an accused may roam free, be made a cabinet minister, or "dumped" and forgotten.

The writer is a PPP Senator and member of the Defence Committee of the Senate.

Mohtarma Bhutto condoles death of King Fahd

Islamabad August 02, 2005: Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has condoled the death of King Fahd Bin Abdul Aziz and paid tributes to the late Saudi monarch who died Monday.

In a statement today she said that the Pakistan Peoples Party, as indeed the people of Pakistan, had received the news of the late King's passing with profound sorrow.

Not only was King Fahd the Ruler of a strategically important country with vast oil reserves but he was the Custodian of the two Holiest sites of Islam she said and added that this had earned him a special place in the hearts of Muslims worldwide. She recalled the unprecedented renovation and extension of Islam’s two holiest sites in Makkah and Madinah under his leadership, which had rightly earned him the title of "Custodian of Haramain Sharifain".

The former Prime Minister said, "King Fahd was a man of vision who wisely led his countrymen for a quarter of a century as king". She recalled that King Fahd had tried to save the life of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during a dark period in the history of Pakistan.

Mohtarma Bhutto said that King Fahd was an internationally respected statesperson who played a critical role in regional stability.

King Fahd who led Saudi Arabia for the past 23 years ascended the throne in 1982 after seven years as crown prince.

She said that Pakistan- Saudi Arabia relations acquired new dimensions and grew from strength to strength during the rule of the late monarch.

She prayed for Allah’s blessings on the soul of King Fahd and expressed the hope that relations between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will continue to grow in the years ahead.

Words of Shaheed