June 2005
Photo appeared in press speaks
itself:
This is Karachi on June 1,
2005
.jpg)
PPP will observe black day on 5th July
Islamabad, 30 June 2005: Pakistan
Peoples Party has planned to observe black day on 5th July. On this day in
1977, the democratically elected government of the first directly elected
Prime Minister Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was overthrown by the military
dictator General Zial-ul-Haq.
The Secretary General Pakistan People Party, Jahangir Bader on the
instruction of Party Chairperson Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has directed the
party provincial and district office bearers to hold seminars and functions
to highlight the military dictatorship and its atrocities against the
people.
Jahangir Bader has asked the party workers to participate in these event in
order to mark the continuity of the historic struggle of the party and its
leadership for civil rights, fundamental rights, rule of law, supremacy of
constitution, sovereignty of parliament and emancipation of downtrodden and
have-nots of the society under the leadership of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.
Jahangir Bader asked the workers to reiterate their resolve to fight against
tyranny, to end poverty, unemployment and injustice in the country and to
continue their struggle to make Pakistan a democratic, egalitarian and just
society as envisioned by our great leader Quaid-e-Awam Shaheed Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto who sacrificed his life for a better future for generations to come.
Mohtarma Bhutto grieved over
loss of lives due to floods
Islamabad, June 28, 2005:
Former Prime Minister and chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma
Benazir Bhutto has expressed her profound grief over the loss of lives and
property due to floods in the Frontier province.
Several people have been killed due to floods in different parts of the
province besides huge losses to livestock property and. The flood situation
in the Frontier worsened on Sunday with a further rise in the level of Kabul
and Swat rivers caused by more than usual melting of snows in the Hindukush
range of mountains.
In a statement today the former Prime Minister said that she was grieved to
learn about the loss of lives and damage to property due to floods in the
Frontier province. She asked the rulers to take immediate steps to alleviate
the sufferings of the flood affected people.
Mohtarma Bhutto also asked the regime in Islamabad to gear itself for the
floods throughout the country during the forthcoming monsoon season. She was
said it was most unfortunate that rulers were spent time and energy in
chasing political opponents rather than planning to alleviate sufferings of
the people.
The Party Chairperson also directed the party organisations to be vigilant
and organise rescue and relief operations during floods.
PPP debunks of claims of
Shaukat Aziz on opposition support to budget
Islamabad June 28, 2005: The PPP has
debunked the claims that the economy under Shaukat Aziz has been flourishing
and that the Prime Minister enjoyed the support of the opposition in the
budget.
"His term first as Finance Minister and then as Prime Minister bootlicked
the military through huge defence expenditures" said a letter sent by the
Foreign Liaison Committee of the Party to all the ambassadors stationed in
Islamabad.
The letter was sent after the PPP received reports that Mr. Shaukat Aziz has
been falsely claiming in his meetings with diplomats that he enjoyed across
the board support of the opposition in the passage of the budget.
Giving examples of ‘bootlicking the military’ the PPP cited the fudging of
the books by taking military pensions out of the military budget and
transferring it to civil expenditure to make the make the military spending
look smaller and the ever rising military allocations in successive budgets.
This is a false impression that Mr. Aziz is giving in his bid to show a
broader base of support than he has, it said.
The Pakistan Peoples Party opposes Mr. Aziz's budget that is for the wealthy
and increases the gulf between the rich and the poor. All claims of growth
and increasing social expenditure made by Shaukat Aziz in budget documents
later turned out to be false, it said.
The economy has kept afloat simply on the rescheduling of loans and
financial assistance given Islamabad in the wake of 9/11, the letter said
and added, "Despite generous rescheduling, Mr. Aziz has ended up taking even
more loans and lost the opportunity to rid the country of debt burden".
Mr. Aziz has presided over the biggest unemployment surge in the country's
history and poverty during his tenure has increased to fifty seven percent
of the population who know live on less than one or two dollars a day, the
letter said.
The PPP letter also talked of mounting speculations on the growth of Mr.
Aziz's own assets. "There are reports doing the rounds that the recent stock
exchange crash in which trillions of rupees were lost and small investors
wiped out had links directly or indirectly to Mr. Aziz". PPP has called for
an inquiry to ascertain the veracity of such charges, it said.
There are other rumours including that in the five years serving military
dictatorship Mr. Aziz's personal fortune has grown from forty million
dollars to two hundred million dollars. These reports may or may not be
true. However, Mr. Aziz has a duty to clarify them.
Mr. Aziz may have social contacts with members of the Opposition. However,
despite his best attempts to have them meet him publicly, they have refused
to do so the PPP letter said.
The opposition has declined to meet him publicly to signal that it does not
have confidence in Mr. Aziz, who presides over a Nation where the worst
political and social repression dictates the scene, the PPP letter said.
PPP
denounces shifting of Peer Mukarram to Mianwali Jail
Islamabad June 28, 2005: The Pakistan
Peoples Party has condemned the shifting of Peer Mukaram from Adyala Jail to
jail in Mianwali in the Punjab and termed it as the worst victimization and
brutalisation of PPP workers by the regime.
Peer Mukarram was shifted from Rawalpindi jail to Mianwali jail last night
on the pretext that he was being taken to hospital for treatment of multiple
ailments from which he is suffering. Earlier Peer Mukarram was forcibly
taken out of the hospital in Islamabad and taken to Adiyal a jail despite
doctors’ advice to keep him in hospital for treatment.
Peer Muakarram’s wife Farzana Raja has been vocal in criticising the Punjab
provincial government in the budget session of the Assembly.
In a joint statement today Makhdoom Amin Fahim vice chair pf the Party and
Raja Pervez Ashraf secretary general of the PPP Parliament said that the
continued victimisation of PPP workers was to avenge the Party's refusal to
accept the dictatorial agenda and anti people policy of the rulers.
Peer Mukarram, a diabetic and suffering from multiple diseases has been
admitted to hospital on doctors' advice. He was shifted to jail last week
after the Opposition criticism of Punjab chief minister during the budget
debate.
The PPP leaders while condemning the shifting of Peer Mukarram to Mianwali
jail said that it was the latest in the series which has seen the
brutalisation recently of MPs Zahid Bhurguri, Asghar Nadeem Kaira, Nafeesa
Raja, Humera Alwani and the arrest and detention of Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani,
Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, Bismillah Kakar and others on political grounds.
They said that the treatment meted out to opposition political workers was a
violation of their fundamental human rights as well as of international and
local laws. The present regime was brutalising its opponents while claiming
to the world that it believed in moderation, they said.
The PPP leaders said that no matter what the rulers did it would not deter
the Party to compromise on its democratic agenda nor let the regime convert
Pakistan into a garrison state.
CIA'S EXASPERATION WITH PAKISTAN
by B.Raman
The exasperation of Porter Goss, the Director of the US' Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), with Pakistan's role in the hunt for Osama bin
Laden and other remnants of the Al Qaeda, is evident from his remarks on bin
Laden during an interview with the "Time" magazine which has been carried by
it this week
2. The interview has come in the wake of the arrest of one Hamid Hayat, a US
citizen of Pakistani origin, his father and some others by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) earlier this month. They belonged to a
2500-strong Pakistani community living at a place called Lodi near
Sacramento in California. Hamid and his father have been charged by the FBI
with covering up from the law enforcement agency the fact regarding his
having attended a six-months jihadi training at a camp near Rawalpindi
during a visit to Pakistan in 2003-04.
3. Hamid was reported to have told the FBI that the camp was being run by
the Al Qaeda, but the indications are that it was actually being run by the
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM--which now calls itself the Jamiat-ul-Ansar), a
virulently anti-US Pakistani jihadi terrorist organisation, which is a
member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad Against
the Crusaders and the Jewish People formed in 1998. Its then Amir, Maulana
Fazlur Rahman Khalil, who was released by the Pakistani authorities after
having been detained for some months last year without being prosecuted, was
a co-signatory of bin Laden's first fatwa of 1998 against the US.
4.The Pakistani authorities have sought to ridicule the FBI's charge against
Hamid by pointing out that it was inconceivable that a jihadi training camp
attended by hundreds of trainees, as claimed by him, could be located in or
near Rawalpindi, where the Pakistan Army's General Headquarters are located.
Coincidentally, Yasin Malik, the head of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation
Front (JKLF), one of the jihadi terrorist organisations of India's J&K,
during a recent visit to Pakistan, revealed that hundreds of members of his
organisation had been trained in the late 1980s in a camp at the very same
place, which was being run by Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, a Kashmiri, who used to
be a member of the Government of Nawaz Sharif and is now the Minister for
Information in the Cabinet headed by Shaukat Aziz.
5. Amongst the members of the present Cabinet, he is considered as close to
President Pervez Musharraf. He has had a long history of association with
the HUM and Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil and had obtained for the HUM a
large plot of land near Rawalpindi for starting a jihadi training camp.
6. Embarrassed by the disclosure of Yasin Malik, Sheikh Rashid strongly
denied running any such training camp and maintained that he was only
running a humanitarian camp for the refugees from J&K. Yasin Malik also
subsequently retracted from his statement and accused the media of
misreporting him. He asserted that what he had said was that Rashid was
looking after the refugees. He denied having said anything about jihadi
training organised by Sheikh Rashid.
7. The loud-mouthed Sheikh Rashid, who has many enemies in Pakistan because
of his proximity to Musharraf and his habit of frequently dropping the name
of Musharraf, found himself contradicted not only by Benazir Bhutto's
Pakistan People's Party (PPP), during whose Government the jihadi training
camp was started, but also by Gen. (retd) Mirza Aslam Beg, who was the Chief
of the Army Staff (COAS) at that time, Brig. (retd) Nasurullah Babar, who
was the Interior Minister in Benazir Bhutto's Cabinet, a former officer of
the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Hashim Quereshi, a co-founder of
the JKLF, who had hijacked an Indian Airlines aircraft to Lahore in Pakistan
in 1971.
8. While all of them asserted that it was correct that Sheikh Rashid was
running a jihadi terrorist training camp, the PPP revealed that the ISI,
without the clearance of Benazir, had got transferred hundreds of acres of
land in the suburban areas of Islamabad for starting his training camp.
Hashim Quereshi, who corroborated the allegations against Sheikh Rashid
during a media interview, was asked whether any other member of the present
Cabinet had been associated with jihadi terrorism. He replied: "It would be
easier to answer who are the members of the present Cabinet who were not
associated with terrorism?"
9. From a study of the various statements emanating from these persons, it
is clear that the camp at which Hamid attended a jihadi training course was
probably the same as the one run by Sheikh Rashid on behalf of the HUM in a
large plot of land got transferred to him by the ISI. However, the name of
the camp as given by Hamid in his statement to the FBI slightly differs from
the name as given by the critics of Sheikh Rashid. According to the FBI,
Hamid had given the name as Tamal, whereas the critics of Sheikh Rashid have
given the name as Tarnol.
10. While the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon have been
very generous in their praise of the co-operation received from Gen.Pervez
Musharraf and the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment in the
so-called war against terrorism, their positive perception of the Pakistani
Army's role is not shared by their officers at the field level--- either by
the American Army officers deployed in the Afghan territory across the
Pakistani border or by the US diplomats in Kabul or by the US intelligence
officers posted in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan.
11. The American Army officers have been particularly outspoken in giving
expression to their dissatisfaction over the effectiveness of the combing
operations conducted by the Pakistani Security Forces in the Waziristan area
of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The Pakistan Army's claim
that the Security Forces had fought vigorously against the foreign
terrorists, who had taken shelter in this area, losing during their
operations nearly 230 officers and men has not been satisfactorily
corroborated. There are grounds to suspect the casualty figures given by the
Pakistan Army.
12. During the last few months, the Pakistan Army has practically suspended
its combing operations in the area, claiming that most of the foreign
terrorists operating from this area have been killed or captured or driven
into Afghanistan. This claim is not accepted by the US Army officers who
have been demanding that the combing operations be resumed.
13. The Pakistan Army has also not taken any action to arrest Mulla Mohammad
Omar, the Amir of the Taliban, and other Taliban leaders who have been
operating from the Pashtun areas of Balochistan. Since the end of winter,
these remnants, with the help of the survivors of the Al Qaeda operating
from the Waziristan area, have stepped up their acts of violence in
Afghanistan. There have also been one or two acts of suicide terrorism,
involving Arabs, suspected to be of the Al Qaeda.
14. The differences between the US officials in Afghanistan and their
Pakistani counterparts came to a head last week when Geo TV, a private TV
channel of Pakistan, interviewed a leader of the Taliban, who assured the
viewers that both Mulla Omar and bin Laden were alive and well. In an
interview to an Afghan TV station, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to
Afghanistan who is under orders of transfer to Iraq, asserted that Mulla
Omar and other Taliban leaders were operating from Pakistan. He asked: "If a
TV station can get in touch with them, how can the intelligence service of a
country which has nuclear bombs and a lot of security and military forces
not find them?" The Pakistan Foreign Office strongly protested against
Khalilzad's TV interview and described his remarks as irresponsible.
15. It is against this background that one has to see the comments of Porter
Goss, which apparently reflect the exasperation of his own officers in the
field. India has always been saying that Musharraf has not taken any action
to dismantle the training infrastructure of the pro-Al Qaeda Pakistani
jihadi terrorist organisations in Pakistani territory. While this was not
disputed by the US, it was at the same time not exercising adequate pressure
on Musharraf to dismantle these camps because the US apparently felt that
these were being used only to train jihadi terrorists to operate in J&K. The
reported revelation by Hamid that these camps were also being used to train
jihadis from the Pakistani community in the US for operating in US territory
has come as a shock to the US agencies.
16.In his interview to the "Time", Goss made the following points: It was
unlikely bin Laden would be brought to justice until "we strengthen all the
links" in the chain in the US-led hunt for terror suspects. "In the chain
that you need to successfully wrap up the war on terror, we have some weak
links . When you go to the very difficult question of dealing with
sanctuaries in sovereign states, you're dealing with a problem of our sense
of international obligation, fair play. We have to find a way to work in a
conventional world in unconventional ways that are acceptable to the
international community." Asked if he had a good idea where bin Laden is, he
said: "I have an excellent idea of where he is."
17. He did not mention Pakistan by name, but it was apparent that he was
talking of Pakistan. On the Afghan side of the border, it is the
16,000-strong US troops, which have the responsibility for the hunt for bin
Laden. If he was in Afghan territory, there was no reason why Goss should
have talked of sanctuaries in sovereign states, weak links etc. If bin Laden
was in Iranian territory, there was no reason why he should have refrained
from naming Iran since the US relations with Iran are already at the
rock-bottom.
18. His reference to the need for working in unconventional ways in a
conventional world is intriguing. Is he talking of the need for the US
Special Forces operating clandestinely on their own in Pakistani territory
in order to kill or capture bin Laden, with or without the concurrence of
Musharraf? Is the State Department refusing to agree to this? If he has such
an excellent idea of where bin Laden is, why is the CIA not using the
Predator aircraft to kill him?
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of
India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,
Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation
(ORF), Chennai Chapter. E-Mail:
itschen36@gmail.com
US must support
democracy’s return to Pakistan:
Sen Khawaja
Washington: US assurances
to Pakistan of a long-term relationship are to be welcomed, but they must be
accompanied by support for genuine political reform, return to democracy and
social liberalisation, Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians Senator Dr
Akbar Khawaja said in a keynote speech to the Pakistani-American Congress
which concluded its annual three-day conference here on Saturday.
The PPPP leader said the US should recognise that the future of US-Pakistan
relations lay in a people-to-people relationship. It was also evident that a
system where the parliament was supreme offered more benefits to the people
of Pakistan than military rule with only trappings of civilian
participation. If Washington wanted what it called the war on terrorism to
succeed, then it should accept that it could only be won by promoting
democracy, rule of law, justice, equality and popular government, not only
in Pakistan but everywhere, he said.
Khawaja said, “Pakistanis and Americans have been together in a friendly
relationship grounded in old and new values and common interests. Many of us
are also bound by strong personal ties.
Although our relationship has been a turbulent one, with repeated ups and
downs, and marked sometimes by understanding, at others by misunderstanding,
a feeling of friendship still remains the dominant feature. Khalid Hasan, 27
June 05
PPP Norway
and USA celebrate Mohtarma Bhutto’s 52nd birthday
Islamabad, 27 June 2005: Pakistan
Peoples Party Norway has demanded of Pakistani regime to withdraw all
concocted and fictitious cases against the party Chairperson, former Prime
Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and allowing here honourable return to
Pakistan.
These demands were made in the gathering organised by the party workers and
supporters to celebrate Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto’s 52nd birthday. The
celebration was attended by a large number of Party supporters and workers
addressed by the former president PPP overseas, Yousaf Khan, Saeed Butt,
Akhtar Niazi, M. Islam, Saeed Sibtain Shah, Annu Shah and Shahid Shah.
Speakers paid rich tribute to Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto for continuing her
struggle for emancipation of Pakistani nation from the jaws of military
dictatorship. They expressed their concern regarding deteriorating law and
order situation in Pakistan and demanded immediate fair and free elections
in which all parties and politicians are free to participate. They vowed to
continue struggle for democracy under the dynamic leadership of Mohtarma
Benazir Bhutto and prayed for her long life.
Pakistan Peoples Party California also celebrated the 52nd birthday of their
Quaid Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, attended by hundreds of party workers and
supporters from different parts of northern California. Speaking at the
occasion president PPP Clifornia Khuda Bux Bhutto said that the regime in
Pakistan is following anti-people agenda and the people are suffering from
poverty, hunger and unemployment. He said that there is no justice in
Pakistan and the only way to end the miseries of the people is the return to
democratic government in Pakistan. A large cake was cut and distributed
among the party workers and supporters.
Raza Rabbani challenges
Prime Minister on land grabbing law
Islamabad June 28, 2005: Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
Mian Raza Rabbani has issued the following statement today.
"The Prime Minister is wrong in claiming to make a comprehensive law to
eliminate land mafia.
" ‘The Illegal Disposition Act 2005’ for which the Prime Minister has taken
credit was bulldozed in the last session of the Senate using brute force of
the ruling coalition’s majority and by rejecting all amendments proposed by
the opposition.
"If the government of Shaukat Aziz was really sincere in controlling the
activities of land mafia it would not have backed out at the last moment
during budget making from taxing the real estate transactions.
"The fact that government backed out of the proposal to tax the realtors
shows that it buckled under the pressure of the land mafia and it actually
works in the interest of land mafia.
"The government law on the subject does not empower the judiciary at the
investigation stage that was proposed by the opposition. Under the
government scheme the investigation is entrusted to the police SHO and not
to the judiciary.
"The government bill that was bulldozed in the Parliament at best addressed
the issue of individual land grabbers using force to grab land.
"It fails to address the more fundamental issue of grabbing lands by state
institutions.
"There are state institutions that not only deploy the force of guns but
also manipulate law making to institutionalise land grabbing. It is this
land grabbing that needs to be addressed rather than the individual land
mafia".
Mohtarma
Benazir Bhutto addressed on 52nd Birthday Party
Organized by K. B. Bhutto
Report by Saleem Soomro
Pakistan People’s Party California celebrated Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto’s 52nd
birthday in San Pablo, California near San Francisco. Hundreds of people
from different parts of northern California participated in the event.
Saleem Soomro formally started the event by inviting office bearers to the
stage. Talawat-e-Quran Pak was recited by Mr. Zahid Saif, and then every
body prayed for long life of our great leader.
Mr. Hashim Jaffery President PPP City of Los Angeles thanked Mr. KB Bhutto
to provide us such wonderful opportunity to get together and have political
activities, so that our kids of new generation who are born and raised in
USA who other wise would not know about the great leaders of Pakistan like
Zulifqar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto.
Mr. Zahid Saif said we should do our best to make Pakistan People’s Party
stronger. Advocate Chaudhary Akram said current government of Pakistan
is busy with all kinds of destructive activities, innocent people and
prominent leaders are very unsafe in Pakistan. He said the father of
Pakistan Nuclear Power Dr. Qadeer Khan is sick and admitted in Combined
Military Hospital Rawalpindi. And also people of Pakistan and press should
be allowed to get update on his health.
Mrs. Sabira Farooq said the next prime minister of Pakistan is Mohtarma
Benazir Bhutto. InshaAllah the day is not far away when she is going to
return her home land and fortunate people of Pakistan will get true democrat
leader.
In the end Mr. KB Bhutto President Pakistan People’s Party California
started his speech with a slogan “ Long live Benazir Long Live Benazir” he
said how fortunate we are that we have privilege to celebrate Mohtarma’s
52nd birthday . Mohtarma wish you happy birth day. He said on TV general
Parvez Musharaf said his words about father’s day event, following that a
poor girl and her father were interviewed. They had no idea what the
father’s day is, poor girl said “ we do not have enough money to buy school
bags” Mr. KB Bhutto further said current government does not represent poor,
and is not pro development, pro education, and there is no justice.
InshaAllah Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto will become prime minister of Pakistan.
There will be a dawn of democracy very soon. “ “Noor-e- Haq Shama-e- Illahee
Ko Bujha Sakta Hay Kon.
Jis Ka Haami Ho Khuda Use Mita Sakta Hay Kon”
Mrs. Najma Bhutto finally announced the most important part of this event
she said Mohtarma Benazir is going to address the nation. Mohtarma’s speech
was sent to Mr. KB Bhutto earlier. Mohtarma’s speech was played following by
Pakistan’s national anthem. Every body stood up while the national anthem
was played. Every listened to Mohtarma’s speech with high affinity.
Cutting the cake ceremony was performed finally in two segments, men and
women did cut the cake separately.
A delicious dinner was served finally. Every body appreciated Mr. KB
Bhutto’s services.
Mohtarma Bhutto
felicitates new Iranian President
Islamabad June 27, 2005:
Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma
Benazir Bhutto has congratulated Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his election as
the President of Iran. She expressed the hope that traditional ties of
friendship between Pakistan and Iran will further grow under the new
dispensation in Iran.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected President of Iran after run off polls on
Friday last between former President Rafsanjani and the former mayor of
Tehran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who had secured first and second place in the
Presidential elections.
In a message of felicitation the former Prime Minister said that the smooth
elections in Iran were a good omen for democracy in Iran and especially for
the young people who make up the majority of the population.
She said that the change in Iran through a democratic electoral process held
lessons for many countries and many people.
"For the people of Pakistan, the Iranian Presidential election has
highlighted the contrast in Islamabad. In Iran the President was elected
whereas in Pakistan this was not so" said the former Prime Minister
recalling the fraudulent referendum and controversial vote of confidence for
General Musharaf.
Mohtarma Bhutto said she welcomed the announcement of President-elect Iran
asserting that his government would follow the policies of 'peace and
moderation'. She said that the statement 'no extremism will be acceptable in
popular government' would be particularly welcomed by all peace loving
people and democrats throughout the world.
"On behalf of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the people of Pakistan and my
self, I extend to you our warmest felicitations on your election as the
President of Iran. We pray for the peace, progress and prosperity of our
Iranian brothers and sisters under your leadership", she said.
She also expressed the hope that the traditional and historical ties between
the governments and people of the two countries will grow from strength to
strength during the Presidency of Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mohtarma
Bhutto condemns victimisation of Nadeem Asghar Kaira and other political
opponents
Islamabad June 27, 2005: Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of
the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has strongly condemned
the new wave of repression let loose by the rulers against political
opponents the latest victim of which has been Nadeem Asghar Kaira Nazim
Tehsil Council Kharian and brother of PPP MNA Qamar Zaman Kaira.
Nadeem Asghar Kaira was first sent to jail merely on the basis of disputed
audit reports without any trial. When the audit reports were cleared by the
Assembly Nadeem Kaira was re-arrested on false charges of possessing liquor.
The latest round of victimisation started when Nadeem Kaira and his family
decided to provide transport facilities to the Party workers who wanted to
welcome Senator Asif Zardari on return from Dubai on April 16. The fleet of
transport belonging to his family has since been impounded and the transport
offices and addas sealed by the police to punish the family and the people
for according welcome to their leader.
In a statement today the former Prime Minister said that the wave of
repression had been let loose because the Party had taken the principled
position and refused to succumb to the dictatorial demands of the military
dictatorship. These demands include that Mohtarma abdicate Party leadership,
accept the 17th Constitutional Amendment and stay in exile even after the
next general elections.
She said that victimisation of Nadeem Asghar Kaira in the wake of
brutalisation recently of Sindh MPA Zahid Bhurguri, denial of hospital
facility to Peer Mukarram against doctor's advice and the arrest and
detention of Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani, Makhdoom Javed Hashmi and Bismillah
Kakar were all aimed at forcing the Party to agree to the rulers' agenda to
turn Pakistan into a garrison state.
She said that the massive violation of human rights of political opponents
by the regime had only demeaned the rulers and exposed the hollowness of
their tall claims of moderation, and enlightenment. The junta trampled basic
rights of its own people under the heavy boots while it licked the boots of
others to keep itself in power.
The PPP cannot, indeed will not, agree to the undemocratic agenda of the
military dictatorship, she said.
She asked the people to get united to face forces of tyranny. "Tyranny can
not last before the might of the people", she said.
Mohtarma
Bhutto condoles the deaths of Malik Younus Ali Turi and Zaffarullah Cheema
Islamabad, 26 June 2005: Former Prime
Minister and Chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has
condoled the death of Malik Youuns Ali Turi who passed away the other day.
Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto in a condolence message addressed to Naqeeb Hussain
son of Malik Younus Ali Turi wrote, "Senator Asif Ali Zardari and I are
writing to condole the sad demise of your father Malik Younus Ali Turi. The
loss of a parent is a great tragedy. Our sympathies are with you at this
difficult time. Malik Younus Turi will be long remembered for his services
for the cause of Pakistan Peoples Party by the leadership and workers of the
Party."
She also prayed to Almighty Allah for eternal peace to the departed soul and
courage to the family members to bear this irreparable loss with equanimity.
In a separate condolence letter Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto condoled with Shah
Nawaz Cheema on his elder brother Zaffarullah Cheema’s death after a prolong
illness recently. She also prayed to Allah to grant eternal peace to the
departed soul and strength to the family and friends to bear this
irreparable loss with equanimity.
Mohtarma
Bhutto debunks widening gap between rich and poor
Asks people to unite against the tyranny of military dictatorship
Islamabad, 26 June 2005: Former Prime
Minister and Chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has
said that the country was facing a serious economic crisis but unfortunately
the military regime was too busy taking free trips overseas to notice the
poverty and unemployment which was destroying the lives of the majority of
the people.
In a statement today say said that that the imported Prime Minister Shaukat
Aziz besided being an imported and unrepresentative figure who could not win
a union council seat without the support of the establishment, had created a
false image of prosperity through public relations skills.
"This false image was an attempt to hide the ugly reality of abysmal poverty
and continued rise in rate of economic suicides, people who were killing
themselves because they could not eat". The PPP, as a party of the people,
was alleviating poverty and providing jobs when power hungry people who did
not care for the national interest toppled it, she said.
The former Prime Minister said that the Islamic values of humanism and
equality were being ignored by a regime that had grown rich and was
concerned only about the rich while the poor and the working classes were
suffering.
The Musharraf-Aziz combine was more concerned about fabricating cases
against opponents than governing. She said that the injustice meted out to
Mai Mukhtaran was an example of how those who spoke the truth or tried to
change society for the better were treated.
The PPP Chairperson noted that the situation was worse than in 1970 when the
PPP first swept to power in a landslide win. She recalled that in 1970, top
20 % of Pakistanis accounted for 40 percent of national income while the
lowest 20 percent held only 8 percent. Now the top 20 percent own 42% while
the lowest 20% still have around 8% of the national income. Obviously, the
increase in the income of the richest 20 percent has been at the expense of
the middle 60%.
She said that on Saturday June 25, the press reported that several people
committed suicide. She said she was pained to read this figure even as money
was pouring into Pakistan from external sources due to the war against
terror.
According to press reports, "Muhammad Shaaban, a 25-year old, committed
suicide by drinking bleaching liquid. His mother, a widow, told reporters
Muhammad had come home to find no food in the house. Frustrated by his
inability to find a job and provide for his family, he drank bleaching
liquid" and died. He was one of several who killed themselves only in one
district, Multan, over the unemployment rates.
The former Prime Minister said that in a PPP government such criminal
negligence could never take place. She said that she had refused to accept
dictatorship because she wanted the people of the country to prosper. The
suicides showed that dictatorship and suffering go together and democracy
and development go together.
She called upon the people of Pakistan to unite because through unity came
change. Mohtarma Bhutto said that irrespective whether one was a government
employee or a private citizen, it was the duty of their conscience not to
accept the harsh reality that millions of Pakistani citizens were facing
under the six-year tyranny of a military dictatorship which was exploiting
the international situation to keep itself in power.
Mohtarma Bhutto condemns brutalisation of political opponents
Ask rulers to fear God
Islamabad June 25, 2005: Former Prime
Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir
Bhutto has condemned the continued victimization and brutalisation of PPP
workers by the regime to avenge the party's refusal to accept the
dictatorial agenda and anti people policy of the rulers.
The latest incident of torture on political opponents was witnessed on
Thursday last when Peer Mukarram the jailed spouse of PPP MPA Farzana Raja
was forcibly thrown out of hospital in Islamabad and taken to Rawalpindi
jail.
Peer Mukarram, a diabetic and suffering from multiple diseases has been
admitted to hospital on doctors' advice. Following the Opposition criticism
of Punjab chief minister during the budget debate by the PPP MPs Peer
Mukarram was made to pay the price. He was forcibly discharged from the
hospital and taken to Adiyala Jail.
Peer Mukarram's wife and PPP MPA Farzana Raja has been one of the more vocal
opponents of CM Punjab. She has alleged that the provincial chief minister
was taking personal interest in the victimization of Peer Mukarram. Raja
Basharat Law Minister threatened her on the floor of the house to make an
example out of her for making allegation of corruption, she has said.
In a statement today the former Prime Minister while condemning the incident
said that it was the latest in the series which has seen the brutalisation
recently of MPs Zahid Bhurguri, Nafeesa Raja, Humera Alwani and the arrest
and detention of Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani, Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, Bismillah
Kakar and others on political grounds.
She said that the brutal manner in which Peer Mukarram was thrown out of
hospital was a violation of his fundamental human rights as well as of
international and local laws. She said that by trampling on fundamental
human rights the regime was demeaning itself and showing how intolerant,
immoderate and unenlightened it is. Mohtarma said that the country needed a
democratic government which treated the citizens of the country with
respect. Instead the present regime was treating citizens with contempt
while butter polishing outside powers by false claims of moderation.
The former Prime Minister said despite this pressure, the PPP was determined
to stand by the people for the principles of Quaid e Azam for which Quaid e
Awam gave his life. Mohtarma said that history is replete with examples of
tyrants who fell from power. She called upon the people of the country to
unite in ending military dictatorship and restoring democracy and peoples
power.
June 25 National
Newspapers Articles Summary
Ayaz Amir writes in daily Khabrein that we can be so dumb, at the highest
levels of government too, that it is not even funny. Imagine someone going
into crouching position and ramming his head into a brick wall and then,
head all bandaged, saying life is unfair. Or someone diving superman-style
to clutch an arrow flying through the air meters away, and sticking it into
his own back.
He says in the Mukhtaran Mai case the generalissimo’s government of
"enlightened moderation" has done precisely this, ramming into a brick wall,
making a complete ass of itself, and in the process spreading the impression
around the world that a woman who is raped in Pakistan stands the additional
risk of having her passport confiscated. In terms of sheer silliness, it’s
hard to beat this.
He says of course, rapes happen everywhere, certainly more in the United
States than in Pakistan (all the statistics vouching for this statement).
But is that the issue here? Rapes happen but they are usually not sanctioned
by village councils which is what happened with Mukhtaran Mai and which is
the single most important factor which has lent her case international
publicity.
He says this and the added factor of police incompetence. Mukhtaran’s case
having hit international headlines, shouldn’t the Multan police — shaking
off the lethargy, corruption and sheer incompetence which are the staples of
police work in Pakistan — have shown extra care in investigating it and
making the prosecution case stick? Apparently, however, large enough holes
were left for an elephant to walk through. Little wonder if the high court
threw the case out and acquitted the prisoners.
He says this may have been strictly in accordance with the tenets of justice
— a court handing out a verdict on the basis of the evidence before it. But
what does it do for Pakistan’s image? Well, from here to Topeka, Kansas, the
impression spreads that in Pakistan you can subject a woman to collective
rape and then walk away free.
He says Pakistan’s blessed image gets another ducking in dirty water.
He says considering that all this is happening in Punjab, Chaudhry Pervez
Elahi’s bailiwick, you wonder what Pakistan’s leading advertizing genius is
up to. He’s a great one for ads — at public expense, naturally — singing his
praises and extolling his largely fictional achievements, but has he thought
fit to ask his chief secretary, the inspector-general of the Punjab police,
the district police officer, Multan, why such a mess has been made of
Mukhtaran Mai’s case?
He says Asif Zardari thinks of arriving in Lahore and all hell breaks loose.
Mai’s case does wonders for Pakistan’s international standing once, twice
and then once again, but Punjab’s chief minister remains unfazed.
He says one would think this was enough. But, no, who should step into the
breach but the generalissimo himself? Some do-good NGO invites Mukhtaran to
the US and someone in government has an apoplectic fit. As Mukhtaran was
sure to give Pakistan bad publicity, she shouldn’t be allowed to go to the
US. The government goes into overdrive, virtually arresting Mukhtaran,
confiscating her passport, putting her name on the Exit Control List.
He says as anyone but the government of Pakistan might have guessed, the
dirt hits the ceiling. The New York Times pummels Pakistan editorially. The
State Department says it will look into the matter. Columns are written,
e-mails sent. As outrage spreads and He says Pakistan becomes a laughing
stock, from overdrive the government jumps to damage-control mode. What is
its idea of damage-control? Parading Mai on television in the company of
prime ministerial adviser, Neelofar Bakhtiyar.
He says doing all the talking and fielding all the questions, Bakhtiyar says
Mukhtaran is not going to the US of her own free will and because her mother
is ill. Obviously, the government of Pakistan thinks that everyone else is
as dumb as itself.
He says trying to be charitable, you think some over-zealous official must
be responsible for this fiasco. But, no, the generalissimo on one of his
frequent flyer programmes — at the rate he is going, he is sure to clock up
more air travel time than anyone else in history — declares that it was he
who ordered the ban on Mai’s going abroad. For good measure, he denounces
NGOs for working against the country’s interests.
He says a hundred speeches on "enlightened moderation" — the phrase in
danger of sticking in Pakistani gullets — and this one declaration takes
care of all of them. And the general likes to think that he is an image
expert. Mukhtaran going to the US: so bloody what? Taken around Capitol
Hill, so what? A confident nation would never worry.
He says as for NGOs, it is true most are foreign-funded. As a result some of
Pakistan’s best and brightest earn a good living from the NGO trade.
(Perhaps I would too if given half the opportunity). Their agendas, more
often than not, are foreign-driven. The old story: he who pays the piper
calls the tune.
But why is it that Gen Musharraf is discovering the ills of the NGO sector
only now? He has been in power for almost six years, the time it took to
start and finish the Second World War. He should have done something about
it long ago.
He says the luxury of whining is for those without power and influence. It
sits ill on the powerful who can fix problems if they choose to. So let’s
hear no more about NGOs unless someone is willing to do something about
them.
Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto condoles the death of Nabi Bux Khoso
Islamabad, 24 June 2005: Former Prime
Minister and Chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has
condoled the death of former member National Assembly Nabi Bux Khoso.
In a condolence message addressed to the cousin of Nabi Bux Khoso, Munawar
Khoso, she wrote, "Senator Asif Ali Zardari and I are writing to condole the
sad demise of your Cousin Mr Nabi Bux Khoso. The loss of a near relative is
a great tragedy. Our sympathies are with you at this difficult time."
Paying tribute to the services of Nabi Bux Khoso, she wrote, "Mr Nabi Bux
Khoso was a successful leader of Pakistan Peoples Party in Dera Murad Jamali
and had successes during elections for the National Assembly. He worked hard
for the Party in the area and his services will be long remembered by the
leadership of the Party."
Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto prayed to Almighty Allah for eternal peace to the
deported soul and courage to the family to bear this irreparable loss with
equanimity.
PPPP
Condemns the Government’s Treatment and Cover-up of Mukhtara Mai’s Plight as
Shameful
Islamabad, 24 June 2005: Sherry Rehman,
MNA and Chairman Central Policy Planning Pakistan Peoples Party in a
statement today said that the Mukhtaran Mai episode has exposed General
Musharraf and his coterie of advisors as an insecure and unprincipled
military junta that perpetuates its absolute hold on state power at the cost
of innocent, underpriviliged citizens . On the one hand, we have General
Musharraf jet-setting from one global capital to another to ostensibly
peddle Pakistan’s ‘soft image’ abroad. On the other hand, we have a woman
who has the courage to speak out about the injustice done to her by feudal
jirgas, yet she is being prevented from going abroad on the invitation of a
Pakistani doctors’ forum.
She said that it is a sad indictment of the government’s double-dealing that
foreign powers had to intervene to get Mukhtaran off the Exit Control List.
But even today she is being coerced by government officials and ‘ moderate’
women ministers to say that she is free to go abroad while they keep her
strictly under their surveillance and physical control.
Sherry Rehman said that instead of turning its attention to curbing
injustices done to women in society, the government is focusing its energies
in sloppy spin-doctoring about Pakistani NGOs and the utility of sweeping
such episodes under the rug. General Musharraf himself admitted to the
instructions he gave preventing Mukhtaran’s foreign travel or free movement.
What he does not realize is that the quantum and quality of official lies
has become more of an embarrassment than anything that Mukhtaran would have
said at a private citizens’ forum anywhere in the world.
She said that it is even more unfortunate that when a large number of NGOs
do get together to do their job of promoting the fundamental human rights of
all citizens including women and minorities, they are condemned and tarred
with one brush by the ruling establishment which does nothing for women
except hold seminars for the international community about its so-called
commitment to women and human rights. The governments’ recent treatment of
Mukhtar Mai has revealed its true colours of a policy-less regime which
spends billions of state money on propagandizing tall claims of promoting
women’s rights, while on the ground, it colludes with right-wing forces who
seek to push women out of the public mainstream. To equate a citizen’s right
to talk about the injustice done to her to ‘washing dirty linen in public’
amounts to saying that it is better if all such crimes go unreported. This
is not just shocking and unconscionable, but impossible in this age of
global channels and communication.
The Pakistan Peoples Party condemns this shameful travesty of justice done
by the government in the name of enlightened moderation. It urges all
stakeholders to unite against such open violations of human rights
entitlements. To pretend that Mukhtaran is not a symbol of courage and
resistance for Pakistani women is tantamount to turning away from a history
of commitments made by the state to its oppressed underclass.
She said that it is high time we reject all policies that depend on
covering-up a festering wound and concentrate our energies on healing the
injury. Pakistani women are not lesser mortals or citizens with half rights.
They deserve a better deal than the one being given to them today by this
anti-democratic and blatantly hypocritical military government.
"It is bad enough that this government has kept none of its promises to
women and minorities. It should at least not add insult to injury by forcing
a brave victim to keep quite about her search for justice or her fears. In
silencing Mukhtaran the government is not just silencing one woman. It is
degrading the status of all women in Pakistan", she concluded.
Sacking of Famous Poet Ahmed Faraz Slurs Pakistan's Image
By Shaheen Sehbai
WASHINGTON, June 25: Pakistan’s most
widely known and internationally respected living Urdu poetry legend, the
fearless and outspoken Ahmed Faraz, has been unceremoniously and summarily
dismissed from Government service by General Pervez Musharraf, in what one
of his friends described as “a gang rape a la Mukhtaran Mai.”
Faraz, the 73-year old rebel, who has been variously described as the
most important Urdu poet of the subcontinent, a political activist and a
romanticist, was working for many years as the Chairman of the Pakistan
National Book Foundation with its headquarters in Islamabad.
Asked to confirm what had happened, Faraz told his story to me on the
telephone on Friday and described the situation in one Urdu couplet: "Kon
Takoun Main Raha, Kon Sar-e-Rah Guzaar"; "Shehr Kay Saaray Charaghon Ko Hawa
Jaanti Hay." (Who was resting on shelves and who was out lighting the
Streets; The Winds recognize every flame in the City.)
He agreed that the action had been taken at the behest of some ambitious
people who wanted his job and these people had used the political clout of
Karachi’s ethnic group to oust him. But he would fight it out and continue
to write poetry and visit friends and admirers outside Pakistan. Faraz said
he had plans to go to Iran and the United States in the near future.
He becomes the latest victim of the Enlightened Moderation of the General
partly because he has been speaking out truthfully on the media against the
army rule and partly because General Musharraf’s Urdu-speaking allies, the
MQM of Altaf Hussain, wanted a Mohajir to head the Book Foundation.
Faraz by birth is a Pathan, born in Nowshera near Peshawar and having lived
and grown up in NWFP. Immediately after his sacking, an Urdu-speaking
official was given the charge of the Book Foundation and he was specially
recognized at a political rally addressed by Altaf Hussain in Karachi.
But Faraz's services to Urdu language have no parallel, making him a living
legend and an icon for being an upright fearless character who would stand
up to even the most ruthless dictator.
In a recent interview on ARY TV Channel, Faraz was asked to describe how he
saw the State of the Pakistani Union. His brief response was: “When Pakistan
was born, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah headed the Pakistan Muslim
League. Now the same party is headed by Choudhry Shujaat Hussain. That’s
where we stand.”
Altaf Hussain’s MQM has been after Faraz for many years as the party
believes that the job of Chairman of the Book Foundation must go to an
Urdu-speaking person. The party does not consider Ahmed Faraz as someone who
has promoted and served Urdu as a language.
Two years ago, the MQM which had joined the military government as a
political ally, used its influence to throw Faraz out of the job and out of
his house as well. MQM's Minister for Housing, Safwanullah tried to vacate
the house where Faraz lives, three times in the last two years. His
household stuff was once thrown out of his house. It was only after General
Musharraf, who had by then not yet adopted his Enlightened Moderation,
intervened and stopped Faraz from becoming jobless and homeless.
Two days ago the MQM again got its chance when a PPP member of Parliament
raised an irrelevant point in the National Assembly complaining that Ahmed
Faraz had refused to provide official transport of the Book Foundation to
carry the dead body of the son of one of the Foundation’s employees, a
Sindhi, allegedly murdered by activists of Karachi’s dominant ethnic group,
from Islamabad to Larkana. Faraz declined saying none of the official
vehicles was in a position to make the journey.
The complaint was instantly withdrawn by the PPP MP but the MQM members of
the cabinet raised hell with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz demanding that
Ahmed Faraz be sacked. “It was like ordering a gang rape for someone else’s
fault, just like the case of Mukhtaran Mai,” a friend of Faraz said. "Shaukat
Aziz and General Musharraf could not stand up to the blackmail of MQM this
time and agreed to make Ahmed Faraz a political scapegoat."
The Secretary of Education of the Pakistan Government summoned Faraz to his
office and asked him either to resign or get fired. He preferred to be
sacked and is now waiting for the MQM activists to come and vacate his
official residence in Islamabad.
Faraz has been an agitational poet par excellence whose poetry is marked by
sweetness and lyricism with a quality of grace, a tremulous sensitivity, an
ineffable beauty about human relationships that has timeless appeal.
The creator of some of the most popular verses, both political and literary,
Faraz has always been an activist for democracy and rule of law and was even
jailed by the authoritarian Pakistani rulers. He was in exile during the
dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq in the 80s and has been a sharp critic of
military rule of General Musharraf.
But his international stature and his recognition round the world as the
greatest poet after Faiz Ahmed Faiz protected him from being persecuted.
He is widely traveled and late last year when he visited New Delhi, the
popular web site Rediff.com interviewed him and compared him to Allama
Mohammad Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the greatest Urdu poets of the last
century. “Faraz is a writer who has fearlessly opposed tradition, tyranny
and military rule in his country,” it said.
For Faraz adversity is nothing new and neither is romance. "Mera mijaz shuru
se hi Aashiqana tha. (I was romantic from the very beginning)," he told
Rediff.com last year, explaining how he started writing poetry. “At school,
there was a girl in my class who was my friend. My parents asked me to learn
mathematics from her during the summer vacation. I was weak in mathematics
and geography. I still don't remember maps and roads."
"But maths took the back seat when the girl asked me to compete in bait-bazi
with her." Bait-bazi is a game in which one person recites a couplet and the
other one recites another couplet starting with the last letter of the
previous couplet.
"She was very good at it. So I started memorizing hundreds of couplets for
her," he recalled smiling at the memory. "But I always lost. So I started
manufacturing my own couplets, and she couldn't catch me."
His poems, like those of Faiz and Sahir Ludhianvi, are equally popular with
common readers and scholars. Full of remorse and anguish, most of them have
social and political themes. He firmly believes in the philosophy of the
progressive movement and is hopeful of history repeating itself.
Faraz also spoke about his political philosophy to Rediff.com. "The USSR has
failed, but the philosophy is still the same. And it will emerge sooner or
later. It is not a religion that it will die. It can be amended and with
corrections and lessons from the past, it will come up again."
As for America, "It (the US) is promoting terrorism across the globe. I even
said this in America. They are pushing humanity towards destruction."
What about the India-Pakistan relationship? "People are trying to promote
peace. But after reading the newspapers and looking at violent incidents and
statements made by the leadership of both countries I am not very
optimistic," he says. "Ordinary people want to live together. I don't know
what the politicians want."
He has led several peace delegations to India, but he expressed helplessness
at the state of affairs. "We are poets. What can we do? It is difficult for
us to manage our homes. How can we save a country?"
But today the famous poet Ahmed Faraz could not save his own job in his own
country. Nations take pride in people like him and present them to the world
as their sign of greatness and achievement. In Pakistan, self-interest and
petty politics kills its own legends.
And those who are presiding over this day light murder claim to improve the
image of Pakistan in the world. The New York Times calls them nuts and that
is what they are.
PPP slams
corruption in district governments
Raja Pervez Ashraf says sham of accountability exposed
Islamabad June 24, 2005: Pakistan Peoples Party has expressed grave concern
over the reports that of massive frauds, embezzlements, bogus payments and
other financial irregularities detected in several district governments of
Punjab and Frontier.
The Auditor General of Pakistan has detected financial fraud to the extent
of 5 billion rupees in 34 district governments of Punjab and eight of
Frontier province during the course of audit for the year 2002-2003.
Dera Ghazi Khan the home district of r former President Farooq Leghari,
Attock, Mianwali, Sheikhupura, Rawalpindi and Jhang are some of the
districts in Punjab where corruptions level was found to be very high.
In the Frontier province Dera Ismail Khan, Sawabi, Karak Haripur and
Batagram districts were found to be reeking with corruption and financial
mismanagement, according to the audit report.
In a statement today Raja Pervez Ashraf Secretary General of the PPP
Parliamentarian and deputy leader of the Parliamentary Party in the National
Assembly said that corruption had increased during the military regime of
General Musharraf.
"Corruption had not only increased but corruption charges are being pursued
only against the regime’s political opponents, claims of across the board
accountability notwithstanding", Raja Pervez said.
He said that barely a week ago former Chairman NAB disclosed in a press
interview that judges and journalists were exempted from accountability on
his personal decision. Gen Amjad also disclosed that before he left NAB in
2001 he was investigating six high ranking military officers on various
charges. Those cases of corruption have since been shelved and no one knows
what happened to them.
The former NAB chief has refused to divulge the names of corrupt senior
officers of the military against whom he claims to have initiated cases of
corruption.
The real corrupt ones were being protected by the state and blackmailed into
joining the cabinet whereas those who were innocent were being maligned to
break their spirit and their will to oppose dictatorship and fascism, Raja
Pervez Ashraf said.
Raja Pervez Ashraf said that he would not be surprised if the mayors of
district governments accused of corruption in the audit reports are spared
the rod of accountability in return for agreeing to carry out regime’s
agenda to turn Pakistan into a garrison state.
Al Qaeda
camp in Pakistan?
By Arnaud de
No sooner did the FBI arrest two Pakistanis, father and son, in Lodi
(Calif.), and allege the son, Hamid Hayat, 22, was trained at an al Qaeda
terrorist training camp near Rawalpindi, Pakistan, than the military regime
went into deep denial. How could Osama bin Laden's terrorists operate a
training facility near the army's principal garrison town where President
Pervez Musharraf has his principal residence at Army House? The very idea
was too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
Think again. Hamid told the FBI his father had paid for his trip back to
Pakistan and his training at a jihadi facility called Tamal in Rawalpindi
run by Maulana Fazlur Rehman.
It so happens there is just such a jihadi training facility known as Dhamial
within the sprawling army city, 20 minutes from Islamabad, the capital. But
it isn't run by firebrand Fazlur Rehman, one of two chairmen of Mutahhida
Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), the coalition of six Islamist politico-religious
parties that emerged from the last elections as the third-largest group in
Pakistan's National Assembly (and governs two of Pakistan's four provinces).
The top honcho at Dhamial (which the FBI phonetically juxtaposed to Tamal)
is another jihadi extremist, Fazlur Rehman Khalil.
Dhamial has trained hundreds of youngsters to become good jihadis. But Mr.
Musharraf has had to develop a Jekyll and Hyde personality that
distinguishes between what the U.S. considers terrorists and what Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency considers patriotic jihadis, holy
warriors that backed Taliban rule in Afghanistan before the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks and the liberation of Indian-held Kashmir.
Mr. Musharraf is committed to eradicating al Qaeda and is convinced he
speaks the truth when he assures his American allies there is no terrorist
training camp in Pakistan. But if he were serious about eliminating
militancy that is borderline terrorism, he would have ordered Dhamial
closed. Instead, it has been allowed to train jihadis with impunity, both
before and since September 11. Thus, deep denial became policy.
One knowledgeable Pakistani who is familiar with Mr. Musharraf's split
personality that speaks one language to U.S. interlocutors and another to
MMA chieftains is Husain Haqqani, associate professor of international
relations at Boston University. Mr. Haqqani served in a wide variety of key
posts in his native Pakistan that included ISI, ambassador to Sri Lanka, and
advisor to Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, two former prime ministers and
Pakistan's principal democratic leaders, in exile abroad and banned by Mr.
Musharraf from returning.
In his latest book, "Pakistan Between Mosque and Military" (Carnegie 2005),
Mr. Haqqani says, the military regime's priority appears to be to suppress
or deny bad news rather than change the circumstances that give rise to it.
Rehman Khalil, Mr. Haqqani reminds us, was one of the signatories of Osama
bin Laden's 1998 fatwa against the United States and all Americans, and was
reported to be in the Afghan camp President Clinton ordered hit by U.S.
Tomahawk cruise missiles in 1998. Following the terrorist attacks on America
of September 11, 2001, and Mr. Musharraf's decision to answer affirmatively
President Bush's are-you-with-me-or-against-me phone call, Rehman Khalil's
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen organization was banned. He quickly popped up again as
the leader of the equally extremist Jamiat-ul-Ansar.
Bugged by U.S. questions about the wisdom of letting Khalil run free, Mr.
Musharraf finally ordered him arrested in March 2004 -- only to have him
surface again seven months later a free man. When news broke of the FBI
arrests in Lodi (where 2,500 of the town's 62,000 residents are Pakistanis
and Pakistani Americans), Khalil slipped underground and the authorities
said they couldn't find him.
As Mr. Haqqani points out, the same government that kept Benazir Bhutto's
husband Asif Ali Zardari in prison for eight years without a conviction has
never found sufficient grounds for detaining all manner of jihadi-preaching
extremists.
Nor can Mr. Musharraf accede to repeated U.S. requests for direct access to
Abdul Khader Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and the Don
Corleone of a nuclear black market that sold America's enemies -- North
Korea, Iran and Libya -- the wherewithal to acquire weapons of mass
destruction.
Suspicion is growing in U.S. intelligence circles that those protecting A.Q.
Khan wish to keep open the option of a lucrative nuclear black market for
future years. Pakistan's national hero acquiescing to CIA interrogation
would most probably trigger widespread riots in the country's major cities.
Abu Ghraib prison pictures, the Newsweek story about Korans flushed down the
toilet, Amnesty International's preposterous and insidious comparison of
Guantanamo to the Soviet forced labor concentration camps, and the anti-U.S.
insurgency in Iraq, all have been force multipliers for venting anti-U.S.
feelings in Pakistan and in the rest of the Muslim world.
Pity poor Karen Hughes who as the Bush administration's image-improvement
czarina has to swim against a rip tide -- without any salmonlike attributes.
This same powerful current keeps Mr. Musharraf from cracking down on
Taliban's Pakistani support group. "Pakistani authorities cannot eliminate
the international terrorist network or the sectarian militias without
decapitating the domestic jihadis groups," writes Mr. Haqqani. What the FBI
did in California, President Musharraf cannot do in his own country.
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of
United Press International.
Mai
Demolishes Musharraf as US Policy Changes under Condi Rice
By Jim Hoagland
.jpg)
WASHINGTON, June 24:
A straw breaking the camel's back, a pebble triggering the avalanche, a
drop causing the cup to overflow: Choose your own image for Mukhtar Mai and
the troubles she creates for her country's frightened and duplicitous
leadership. If there is justice, any of those images will fit.
Mai is the courageous Pakistani woman who has refused to be silenced after
being gang-raped as a tribal "punishment." She has also refused to knuckle
under to the unconscionable shut-up-or-else treatment inflicted on her by
President Pervez Musharraf's government.
By standing up and getting her story noticed at this particular moment, Mai
may have dealt a crippling blow to the credibility of Musharraf, who has
buffaloed the Bush administration into deluging him with fulsome praise,
money and arms in return for Pakistan's incomplete help in fighting al Qaeda
and the Taliban.
The sordid details of the campaign to break Mai's will are emerging at a
moment of strategic change in South Asia. The Bush administration is greatly
expanding the bet it initially put down on India, while beginning to hedge
its investment in Islamabad's military-dominated regime. The effect is to
free US relations with India from decades of "tilt" toward Pakistan.
So the ears of Bush officials are more open to hearing about the limitations
of Pakistan as an ally. It may also count that Musharraf no longer deals
with a fellow career military officer, retired Gen. Colin Powell, as US
secretary of state. Instead, Condoleezza Rice, a woman sensitive to the
humiliations and personal destruction aimed at Mai, who is in her early
thirties, now runs US diplomacy.
In this easily understood case, Musharraf's eagerness to cover up the
reprehensible behavior of other officials cannot be escaped or glossed over,
even in Washington.
President Bush has decided not to call Musharraf on his fairy tales about
Pakistan's reckless nuclear proliferation being the work of one man --
scientist AQ Khan -- or to press the general publicly on Pakistan's support
for terrorism in Kashmir or its manifest unwillingness to do everything it
can to capture Osama bin Laden and his Taliban allies.
What Bush would not do in those cases, Mai has done in hers. She has spoken
truth to power and let the consequences fall where they may. Aided by
Pakistani reformers in her village and abroad, she has challenged the
inhuman conventions of her country's misogynist rural society, forcing
Musharraf to take sides. To his eternal shame, he backed the primitive
conventions instead of her.
In June 2002 Mai -- whose name is rendered Mukhtaran Bibi in the
outstanding, detailed opinion columns on this case by Nicholas Kristof of
the New York Times -- was raped by four men. They had been given license to
assault her sexually by a tribal council charged with retaliating against an
alleged social infraction by her brother. In the normal course of things,
Mai would have been murdered by her family as a matter of "honor" or
expected to commit suicide.
Instead she went to court and secured the conviction of her rapists. They
were briefly imprisoned, then freed after Mai accepted an invitation to
speak in the United States this month. When this intimidation did not work,
the central government put Mai on a restricted travel list and confiscated
her passport.
Musharraf acknowledged his involvement in blocking the trip to reporters on
Friday, two days after the Pakistani Embassy in Washington implausibly
denied that and much more. Rice authorized a tough scolding of Pakistan by
the State Department's spokesman, and other officials finally began to speak
critically of Pakistan's tolerating al Qaeda's presence in its border
regions with Afghanistan.
These are signs that the State Department is breaking out of an old pattern.
It no longer holds US policy in South Asia hostage to the Indo-Pakistani
confrontation and a perceived need to cater to Islamabad. The Bush
administration seeks a strategic partnership with India independent of what
the United States does or does not do with Pakistan.
Pakistan is the ultimate hard case for US strategy: As a persistent critic
of the Bush team's hype about Musharraf and of the general's own
shortcomings, I have to acknowledge that the Pakistani leader is less
corrupt and more courageous than the weak civilian governments that preceded
him, including the one that forced him to take power in 1999 to save his own
life.
And Musharraf does put limits on the extremists who control Pakistan's
malignant intelligence services. A new and revealing-if-true account of
Pakistan's active role in jihadist terrorism is contained in an interview
with former intelligence officer Khalid Khawaja that is posted on the Asian
Times Online site. But one Pakistani woman has shown that, like all
autocrats, the general needs to be constantly monitored and challenged, not
conspired with and consoled with rewards. Getting Pakistan to face and
change its own grim reality should be an urgent American priority.
The writer is a well known columnist for the Washington Post. This column
appeared on June 23, 2005 when a demonstration was held in front of the
Pakistan Embassy to support Mukhtaran Mai. Email:
jimhoagland@washpost.com
Rice Snubs
Musharraf Over Mukhtar Mai Episode
By M T Butt
.jpg)
ISLAMABAD, June 23:
In one of the most humiliating snubs to the hot-headed Pakistani General
Pervez Musharraf, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has personally
intervened to ensure that Musharraf makes his latest U-Turn, this time on
the popular issue of allowing gang rape victim Mukhtaran Mai to visit the
US.
Musharraf had just recently claimed during his Australian tour that he
himself had stopped Mai from leaving Pakistan because he could not allow any
one to damage Pakistan’s image abroad. Mai, he said, was going to bad mouth
Pakistan, pushed by western NGOs, which he had equated with terrorist
organizations.
“That was the most undiplomatic and most ill considered statement Musharraf
had made as what he actually did was damage Pakistan’s image many times more
than what Mai could have done,” a Foreign Office source told the South Asia
Tribune. “But Musharraf speaks without thinking and now it has become a
trend that he shoots from the hip whenever he gets trapped into a corner.
That damages Pakistan.”
Secretary Rice’s intervention has come in such a forceful manner that
Musharraf and his officials are now looking for excuses and cover under any
fig leaf as they have been made to eat humble pie with the entire world
shocked watching their stupidity.
“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice secured a personal pledge from Pakistan
that gang rape victim Mukhtaran Mai will be allowed to visit the United
States,” US officials said on Tuesday. Rice's personal intervention came
after The New York Times reported that the Pakistani Government still had
Mukhtaran’s passport, despite lifting a ban on her traveling last week.
Unnerved Pakistani officials were embarrassingly claiming there had been no
US pressure in the case of Mukhtaran, something which adds insult to injury
and reflects the stark helplessness of the Pakistani junta when faced with
pressure from Washington.
This Pakistani lie was nailed instantly by State Department deputy spokesman
Adam Ereli, who said on Tuesday the issue was raised last Thursday by Rice,
in a telephone call with Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri.
"Secretary Rice made it clear that the Mai was welcome to come to the United
States at any time and that we were looking to the Government of Pakistan to
ensure that she was free to travel whenever she wanted," he said.
"The Government of Pakistan has committed itself to that and therefore it is
our expectation that should the Mai want to travel, to come to the United
States, there will be no obstacles presented to her to do so," Ereli said.
Mukhtaran’s case arose again on Tuesday when New York Times columnist
Nicholas Kristof wrote his second op-ed in a week on the subject, stating
that initially he may have been wrong by calling Musharraf “nuts” but when
the Pakistani General admitted that he personally stopped Mai from going
abroad, the General had proved that he actually had gone nuts.
The childish manner in which the military rulers tried to fool the world by
announcing that Mai had been put off the Exit Control List but at the same
time they confiscated her passport was blasted by New York Times.
The same issue was raised by Condoleezza Rice with Kasuri. But a senior
State Department official said on condition of anonymity that US officials
believed that one of Mukhtaran’s minders or bodyguards had her passport.
"Whoever has her passport, there is not going to be any obstacle to her
traveling to the United States," the official said. "Her freedoms, and her
rights and well being are what we are concerned about and we are going to
act to protect those."
The claim that Mai’s passport was with her bodyguard was another of the
lowly tricks Musharraf’s men played. While they were claiming that the
passport had been returned, Mai herself was on air with world famous human
rights activist Amy Goodman on “Democracy Now” Radio and TV channel in US
saying her passport was still with the Government. Read Full Text of Amy
Goodman's Interview or Listen on Real Audio
The next trick in the bag of these out of control Pakistani men is to use
the courts to keep Mai in Pakistan. The Supreme Court suddenly has decided
to hear her case and Mai told Ami Goodman she will have to stay in Pakistan
to fight her legal battles in the highest court of the country.
But the Supreme Court is also in a tight corner. If they let go the rapists
of Mai, Pakistan’s image will be damaged beyond repair and it will then be
interesting to see how Musharraf reacts to that damage.
If the Supreme Court convicts the rapists, Mai would have successfully
challenged and won against the men and the system that violated her. She
would then visit the US with an additional pride that her country’s judicial
system did work for her.
But it is just beyond the vision and capacity of the Generals to think about
such a scenario.
Whatever the court decides, Mai has now become an international celebrity
and whenever she visits Washington, she will definitely be a guest of
President George Bush at the White House.
She would then have to thank the hot-headed General Musharraf for making it
possible by issuing stupid statements.
General Nasir has Exposed His Own Lies on Kargil Disaster
By Senator Farhatullah Babar
In writing about what he calls ‘the bitter hard facts’ about Kargil the
former ISI chief Lt General (Retd) Javed Nasir has sought to absolve General
Pervez Musharraf ‘my instructor in the War Wing of the National Defence
College’ of the Kargil debacle and blames the executioners of the plan who
‘faulted in the correct application of the methodology’ of the plan.
But history is a ruthless judge of men and matters. Its verdict is not
influenced by evidence like ‘whom I had always rated as the best’ coming
from a bystander of events who also had ‘the best of relations’ with General
Musharraf. Objective history must depend more on the analysis of hard facts.
Javed Nasir was not an actor in the Kargil misadventure. He was a bystander
who by his own account asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif “to make me in
charge of logistics in the Kargil area”. With a fixation about the ability
of his instructor “to carry out the most critical analysis” and himself
wanting to take over the command of logistics of the operation, Lt General
Javed Nasir sees the plan as brilliant but laments the way it was executed
by dwarfs surrounding Musharraf.
Former ISI chief may like to believe that his becoming in charge of the
logistics would have brought together the ‘brilliant analyst’ and master
logistician on the same side at the same time and turned the tables on the
Indians.
As there is no ban on the flight of fanciful imagination the former general
may be permitted to indulge in this fancy. The supposition that the Chief’s
responsibility lay only in making “a brilliant analysis” and thereafter it
was not his but his team’s (identified as Chief of General Staff, Corps
Commander, Director General Military Operations and Commander FCNA) job to
carry it out successfully, is both naive and dangerously faulty.
What is ‘brilliant’ about a plan the implementation of which cannot be
guaranteed? And where is the ability of carrying out “the most critical
analysis” when such simple fact is lost sight of that neither India nor the
international community would permit it?
It is unbelievable that a former Lt General should advance in such spurious
logic. If all generals really think like him it is all the more reason why
issues of war should not be left to them alone, being too serious.
Accordingly to the writer “General Musharraf correctly evaluated that in the
event of Pakistan Army occupying Kargil, the Indian Army would neither be in
a position to undertake hot pursuit operations nor in a position to fight
even a defensive battle should the conflict be enlarged”. It is offensive
even to the meanest intelligence to say that this evaluation was ‘correct’
and that after making this ‘brilliant’ evaluation the responsibility was no
longer that of General Musharraf.
A case of a brilliant former general paying compliments to the brilliance of
another general. Isn’t it?
Was it a correct evaluation? Certainly not. When Kargil was occupied the
Indians launched a massive diplomatic, military and political offensive
forcing Pakistan to withdraw its troops from Kargil. General Anthony Zinni
in his book, Battle Ready, says about Kargil, “ I met with the Pakistani
leaders in Islamabad on June 24 and 25 and put forth a simple rationale for
withdrawing: If you do not pull back, you are going to bring war and nuclear
annihilation down on your country. That’s going to be very bad news for
every body”.
He then goes on to add, “Nobody actually quarreled with this rationale”. It
is strange that the brilliant visionary who did not quarrel with this
rationale in June was unable to anticipate it early that year.
As a result of Kargil the bluff of nuclear deterrence was called. Nuclear
Pakistan could not deter India from deploying its troops on the borders and
adopting coercive diplomacy. Nuclear Pakistan had to back down from Kargil.
As a result of Kargil also the genuine struggle of the Kashmiri people was
reduced to cross border terrorism as no one talked of liberation movement
but of jihadis sent into Kashmir by Islamabad.
It did not internationalize the Kashmir issue. On the other hand it
internationalized the issue of cross border terrorism so much that even
China had to caution Pakistan against exporting jihadi zeal.
As a result of Kargil, Pakistan was isolated as never before. It is
therefore quite clear that the Kargil led to consequences, which the
‘brilliant analyst’ who had the ability to carry out the ‘most critical
analysis’ failed to anticipate.
Nawaz Sharif claims that he was kept in the dark about the Kargil plan.
Chaudhry Shujaat says that he is prepared to affirm on oath that Nawaz
Sharif was briefed and knew about it. The central issue is when Kargil was
occupied and when Nawaz Sharif was briefed about it.
This can be ascertained only through an independent commission of inquiry
and not on the testimony of a personal friend ‘not only my most favorite
chief instructor but also my colleague’.
Lt General Nasir has also taken a swipe at Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for allegedly
agreeing to include in the Simla agreement the condition that ‘the areas
captured across ceasefire line in Kashmir would neither be vacated nor given
back’. He says Bhutto did this ‘to put the Army in such a humiliating and
disgraceful position that no Chief in future would ever dare to remove the
politically elected government”.
Simla agreement is not a secret document and is publicly available. One only
has to read it to know the lie in the assertion that there is a clause in it
about Kashmir, which requires that areas captured across the ceasefire line,
would neither be vacated nor given back. The lie is also unwittingly exposed
by General Nasir himself as he says in the same breath, “the Indian army
chief therefore moved his troops to occupy the vacant snow line features in
Kargil”.
The question is that if Kargil was already under Indian occupation why
should the Indian army chief move his troops to the ‘vacant snow line
features’ in Kargil. And if Kargil was not in Indian occupation then and
Indian troops moved later to occupy it, who was to blame; Bhutto for
‘wanting to humiliate the Army’ or the military leadership whose
responsibility it was to defend Pakistani territory?
If Bhutto wanted to heap humiliation on the Army he would have allowed
Sheikh Mujib to proceed with the war crimes which have now come to public
knowledge after the publication of Hamood Commission report.
If he wanted to humiliate the Army he would not have striven to bring back
the tens of thousands of soldiers back from humiliating captivity in India.
In fact in the view of some he went too far in saving the Army from
humiliation by not allowing the court martial of those responsible for war
crimes.
The writer also laments that a Kargil like plan was also submitted to
Benazir Bhutto in 1989 but she ‘very curtly disapproved the plan’. History
has proved that her curt disapproval saved Pakistan from humiliation, which
was later to be heaped on it not by Bhuttos but by the Bonaparts.
The writer is a member of the Pakistan Upper House belonging to the PPP of
Benazir Bhutto
PPP takes Fauji Foundation issue overseas
Reminds CW of principle of making rulers answerable to people
Islamabad June 22, 2005:<
