November 2007
MUSHARAF IS LOVING IT
SHAME ON HIM
Civilian Presidency
Beckons For Pakistan's Musharraf
ISLAMABAD November
21, 2007: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf returned from
Saudi Arabia on Wednesday expecting to be sworn in as a civilian leader
within days, having already freed thousands of detainees held under
emergency rule.
While critical of his imposition of the emergency on November 3, Washington
has given General Musharraf, a crucial ally against al Qaeda, space to put
things right before a parliamentary election on January 8 that the
opposition could boycott.
"He has said he's going to take off his uniform, he's said there would be
elections. Today he released prisoners, and so far I have found him to be a
man of his word," President George W. Bush told ABC News in an interview
overnight.
"And do I believe that he's going to end up getting Pakistan back on the
road to democracy? I certainly hope so."
Western governments fear that stifling democracy could play into the hands
of Islamist militants threatening nuclear-armed Pakistan, but Bush was
keeping faith with Musharraf.
The Commonwealth of 53 nations, mostly former British colonies, has
threatened Pakistan with suspension unless Musharraf repeals emergency rule
and takes other steps.
Caretaker prime minister Mohammadmian Soomro has asked Commonwealth
ministers meeting in the Ugandan capital Kampala on Thursday to delay their
decision, arguing that the situation was returning to normal.
A government spokesman said more than 5,000 lawyers, opposition and rights
activists detained in a round up of Musharraf opponents had now been
released. They included cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, freed on
Wednesday.
Although Pakistan is racked with militancy, one of Musharraf's aims in
invoking an emergency was to purge a Supreme Court that appeared set to
annul his re-election by parliament in October.
The court, now packed with pro-government judges, is expected to strike down
the last of six annulment petitions on Thursday.
WEEKEND SWEARING-IN
"We hope the petition will be decided tomorrow, God willing, and if it's
done then the president may take an oath as a civilian president, as he has
himself said, on Saturday or Sunday," Attorney General Malik Qayyum told
Reuters.
Police stopped Wajihuddin Ahmed, who ran against Musharraf in the election,
from visiting former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and other sacked judges
under house arrest on Wednesday.
"We want restoration of superior judges and removal of all existing judges.
They are not judges, they are dummies," Ahmed said, as police blocked him
and a dozen lawyers.
Investors in the Karachi stock market, however, took heart from Bush's
comments and the likelihood that Musharraf would finally be sworn in for a
second term.
The main index gained just under 1.5 percent to stand a little less than 3
percent below pre-emergency levels.
While securing his position, Musharraf remains concerned that he will have
few friends in the next parliament.
His visit to Saudi Arabia had sparked talk that he would either reach out to
former prime minister Nawaz Sharif or seek to prolong his exile there.
"This time no one contacted me," Sharif, the man Musharraf deposed in a
bloodless 1999 coup, told Reuters by telephone from the Saudi port city of
Jeddah.
Musharraf has sought support from another former prime minister, Benazir
Bhutto, but his strategy up to now has been to marginalise Sharif.
Chances of a deal with Bhutto, leader of the biggest opposition party, have
receded, but could be revived.
Musharraf allowed Bhutto to return to Pakistan in October shielded from
prosecution in old graft cases she says were politically motivated. Once
back, though, she became increasingly confrontational, and spent a few days
under house arrest.
After meeting British High Commissioner Robert Brinkley at her party
headquarters in Karachi on Wednesday, Bhutto said it was imperative
Musharraf quit the army but she did not repeat a call for him to step down
as president too.
(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider, Kamran Haider, Augustine Anthony
and Simon Gardner in Islamabad; editing by Roger Crabb)
Deposed judges
release ruling against Musharraf
ISLAMABAD:
Three defiant judges of the Supreme Court, who are presently under
house arrest after imposition of emergency, have now declared in their
detailed judgment submitted before the SC last Friday that General Musharraf
could not be allowed to contest the presidential elections.
They say frequent military interventions and destabilization of elected
governments have given “rise to indiscipline, disorder, unemployment,
massive corruption, intolerance, and extremism in Pakistan, which must be
eradicated and eliminated with iron hands”.
These judges who had refused to take oath under the PCO, have also observed
in their joint judgment, which has not been released to the media, that
continuation of Musharraf as the army chief beyond December 31, 2004 was
“illegal and unlawful”.
The judges, Justice Rana Bhagwandas, Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan and
Mian Shakirullah Jan, were part of the nine-member bench which had dismissed
the petitions of Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Imran Khan on September 28, 2007
with regard to the question whether Musharraf could contest election from
the present assemblies with or without uniform.
The judges submitted their detailed judgment to the Supreme Court on Friday
in which they have addressed seven questions that were raised before the
court. Talking to The News, Justice Rana Bhagwandas who headed the bench,
confirmed that he along with Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza and Mian
Shakirullah had submitted their judgment last Friday but the authorities may
not have released their 58-page long observations.
Justice Bhagwandas who was in good spirits and in a defiant mood told this
correspondent they had taken a lot of time and effort to put together the
arguments to establish their points of view. The SC should have made their
judgment public.
But, he said, it was not done. He observed that his staff might have handed
over the judgment to the concerned authorities for its release to the media,
but it was simply dumped and ignored. “These are very important observations
and everybody should come to know about those points on the basis of which
we had decided the issue of eligibility and merit.”
In the judgment spread over 58 pages, the three judges have observed that
“we earnestly feel that this country no longer can afford the luxury of
resorting to circumvent the law and the constitu tional mandate by upholding
and affirming the draconian doctrine of necessity restored to earlier.
Indeed, the judges of this court are under an oath to uphold, preserve and
defend the constitution of Pakistan, which must be strictly adhered to in
letter and spirit without any fear or favour, or ill will.
“Any endeavor to continue and affirm the present system of governance, which
has transformed parliamentary system of governance into presidential form of
government is bound to damage the dignity, respect and honour of the citizen
of this country in the comity of the nations and bring a bad name to it,
which can hardly be appreciated.
“Independence of judiciary, stability of the democratic system, regular
conduct of the general election process, allowing the institutions to serve
freely within the sphere of their scope and without involvement of the armed
would always be in the supreme interests of the nation.
They said: “Needless to emphasis, frequent military interventions and
destabilization of elected governments have always given rise to
indiscipline, disorder, conflict of interests, inflation, unemployment,
massive corruption, intolerance and extremism in the country which must be
eradicated and eliminated with iron hand and strengthen in accordance with
the law”.
In the same judgment the judges have also observed “we earnestly feel, there
appears to be enough substance and force in the submission of the
petitioners that General Musharraf could not contest elections from the
current assemblies as outgoing assemblies can not be allowed to bind the
successor assemblies to be elected as a result of popular mandate. Further
more, members of present electoral college, who have already expressed their
opinion by expressing a vote of confidence immediately after their
assumption of office, may not be in a position to exercise their right of
franchise freely and independently. They would naturally be influenced and
swayed by their earlier decision.
“Since the term of the office of President as well the present assembly
expires simultaneously on November 15, 2007, it would be in the fitness of
the things and in consonance with the democratic norms and intentions of the
framers of the constitution if the new assemblies and the electoral college
are allowed to exercise their right to elect a president of their choice
during the term of electoral college under the constitution.
“An exceptional situation which can be conceived may be where the incumbent
president, before expiration of his term of office, is removed from his
office on the ground of physical or mental incapacity, is impeached on a
charge of violating the constitution or the gross misconduct; resignation or
death when the office of president falls vacant, the existing electoral
college would be constitutionally authorized to elect another president for
the un expired term of office.
“Indeed, General Musharraf, was fully alive to this situation, therefore
while promulgating LFO 2002, he introduced meaningful amendments in the
Chief Executive order, he introduced meaningful amendments in article 224 of
the constitution, providing for time for election bye election. While the
original text provided that a general election to the national assembly or a
provincial assembly shall be held within a period of 60 days immediately
“preceding” the day on which the term of assembly is due to expire, the
expression “preceding” was intentionally substituted by the term
“following”.
“This amendment was intentionally and deliberately made with a view to make
a room for a seeking election to the office of the president from the
outgoing assemblies in conformity with clause (4) of article 41 of the
constitution stipulating that election to the office shall be held not
earlier than 60 days and not later than 30 days before the expiration of the
term of the president in office. The draftsmanship and ingenuity of those
who suggested the above said amendment in the constitutional provisions can
only cause dismay may be looked upon with sorrow and grief”.
“Since the purpose and object of the amendments never saw the light of the
day, it is hard to appreciate the ground realities providing the forum to
present electoral college for election of the same person to the office
president for another tem for which new assemblies have to be elected a as a
result of popular vote based upon election manifestoes of various political
parties.
“It may be further observed that the president being an integral part of the
parliament, it would be quite inconceivable and unusual that the parliament
with whom a president has to work in total cordiality and harmony should not
be elected by such parliament.
“At the cost of repetition, it may be noted that a parliament having
outlived its tenure should not be allowed to bind the successor parliament
with its choice as it is well settled that a parliament may do anything but
bind the successor parliament. The present parliament having outlived its
life, in our view, does not have a democratic mandate of the people to elect
the same person as president for another term of five years, which would
militate against the well entrenched principles of democratic value”.
“For the aforesaid facts, circumstances and reasons these petitions are
allowed and General Pervez Musharraf declared to be disqualified to contest
for the presidential election,” the three judges concluded.
General Musharraf sat on a wall
Husain Haqqani
He feels let down by the West. But every US-backed
authoritarian ruler has blamed America for creating circumstances that
eventually led to his great fall
After imposing martial law disguised as a state of emergency, General Pervez
Musharraf has cracked down on Pakistan’s judiciary, media, moderate
political opposition and nascent civil society. His actions have been
universally condemned by the international community. But instead of
recognising the error of his ways, he feels “let down by the West” and
“betrayed by the media.”
Musharraf is following in the footsteps of the Shah of Iran, Ferdinand
Marcos of the Philippines, and Manuel Noriega of Panama. In their final
days, each one of these US-backed authoritarian rulers blamed the United
States for failing to understand their compulsions and for creating the
circumstances eventually leading to their downfall.
In the days to come, Musharraf and his remaining loyalists can be expected
to whip up anti-Americanism in an effort to deflect blame for their
predicament. Things were going well until the US demonstrated its legendary
fickleness and showed a soft spot for Benazir Bhutto, Musharraf’s apologists
will argue vehemently.
Musharraf recently spoke of Bhutto as “the darling of the West,” completely
forgetting that he, and not Bhutto, was the recipient of billions of dollars
in aid and personal praise from a long list of luminaries ranging from
President Bush to Donald Rumsfeld. If, as Samuel Jackson asserted,
“patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”, then anti-Americanism is
the last refuge of US-backed dictators.
The Shah’s problems were of his own making, as were those of Marcos. Manuel
Noriega mistakenly believed that his status as US ally would allow him to
get away with anything, including drug smuggling. Given the general
misgivings about US foreign policy in third world countries, these rulers
thought that all they had to do to retain US support was to raise the
spectre of joining the ranks of America haters within their societies
against whom they were originally supposed to help Washington. But the crash
of dictatorships comes from mistaken domestic policies; it is not always a
function of foreign policy.
Even now, the uproar against General Musharraf has been caused by his
disregard for Pakistan’s Constitution and his disrespect for rule of law.
After all, of the UN’s 191 member states, why is it that Pakistan is the
only country where the chief of the army staff has got rid of the country’s
Supreme Court to thwart a judicial verdict against his person?
But, accustomed as he is to turning to America for support, Musharraf is
trying to persuade the international community that he is indispensable for
the US-led war against terrorism and given his services for the West, his
coup against Pakistan’s constitution should be treated as a minor matter.
Soon after the 1999 coup d’etat that brought him to power, Musharraf
telephoned General Anthony Zinni, Commander of the US Central Command (CentCom).
Both Generals Musharraf and Zinni have publicly confirmed their
conversation. In his book Battle Ready, written with Tom Clancy and
published in 2004, General Zinni says that Musharraf told him “what had led
to the coup and why he and the other military leaders had no choice other
than the one they took.” Zinni also mentions Musharraf’s help, two months
later, in arresting some terrorists sought by the US, which led Zinni to
tell Washington, “now do something for Musharraf.”
In the aftermath of a military coup that entailed toppling an elected
government, General Musharraf found it expedient, possibly necessary, to
seek advice and support from the top American general dealing with the
Middle East and Central Asia. Musharraf has been proud of his American
connections, citing on more than one occasion US support since 9/11 as
somehow conferring legitimacy on his military regime. But now it is useful
for him to pretend that the West has turned its back on him.
For almost seven years, Musharraf has had a free ride with international
public opinion by pretending to be a reformer without delivering much by way
of internal reform. Now that he has exposed himself in the aftermath of
martial law/emergency, Musharraf should be prepared to lose the
international support he assiduously cultivated.
The US is being nice to Musharraf by giving him time to rectify his mistake
instead of putting its full weight behind Pakistan’s political opposition
and civil society. So, if someone should be complaining right now, it should
be the thousands of civilians jailed without cause, not Musharraf. The US
has already done more than its fair share for Pakistan’s ruler and all that
largesse has still not prevented Musharraf from turning against America. It
is time for America to do something for the democratic aspirations of the
people of Pakistan.
The writer is director of Boston University’s Centre for International
Relations
LEADER ARTICLE: Watch
Your Back
V R Raghavan
November 21, 2007:
In 1999, after mounting a coup, General Pervez Musharraf spoke to the nation
late at night. One of the reasons he attributed for the necessity of the
coup was Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif disturbing the integrity of the
Pakistan army by summarily replacing Musharraf with another general. That
telling observation indicated the army's perception of its role in Pakistan.
The integrity of the army was more important than the integrity of the
country, and for that an elected government had to be removed. This
perception has guided the Pakistan army through the country's independent
history. The past and future of Musharraf is better understood through the
conviction of the Pakistan army's image of itself.
The question being asked now is if, when and in what manner Musharraf would
leave office. But the real question is: How would the Pakistan army respond
to the possibility of Musharraf either continuing in or leaving the
political scene? In my several years of association with senior Pakistan
army officers — many of them with intellectual and professional acumen — the
overwhelming impression is of a deeply held belief that the army is better
endowed to govern the country than any other institution. This is a
conviction which has lasted from Field Marshal Ayub's time.
This belief that the army knows what is best for the country has been
sustained by the dismal political leadership of Pakistan. However, Musharraf
has had more attempts on his life than his predecessors. There have also
been attacks on him in the well-protected Rawalpindi military zone.
Not a few of these attempts involved insiders. The reality of dissent in the
Pakistan army is now recognised by observers. The question is whether the
army and particularly its corps and division commanders view Musharraf as a
liability. In other words, is he doing what Sharif did by disturbing the
legitimacy of the Pakistan army? There is a strong opposition to the US-led
military operations in Pakistan, particularly in the border areas. The army
by its association with American operations is inevitably seen to be
fighting someone else’s war and worse, fighting its own people.
The recent reverses in tribal areas, including surrender of Pakistani
soldiers to tribal militias, has not enhanced the army's image. The army has
also taken more casualties in this campaign than it has in many decades.
Retired generals have gone to the extent of saying that army morale has
"folded up like a tent". While this may be an overstatement, it does provide
clues to the army's state of mind.
General Kayani's elevation as the chief designate until Musharraf demits
office is a pointer to the internal politics of the Pakistan army. Kayani
was not part of Musharraf's inner circle in 1999. He is, however, like
Musharraf, a self-made man. Musharraf reposed faith in Kayani by choosing
him to probe the assassination attempts. Later, he was made GOC of the
Rawalpindi Corps, which is the ultimate indicator of commanding the trust of
the army chief.
Kayani was also deputy military secretary to Benazir Bhutto when she was
prime minister in 1980s. No wonder he was chosen to parley with Bhutto in
Dubai on the power-sharing arrangement with Musharraf. When asked if she
trusted General Kayani, Bhutto is reported to have said that while she has
faith in him, she did not like questions on trust. Bhutto has obviously gone
through too much to trust the army.
The Pakistan army is a professional army with a sound chain of command.
Discipline and commitment has always been high.
On the other hand, the social milieu in the country has changed greatly.
Pakistan now has a far more complex society with greater Islamisation than
ever before. The army cannot remain wholly unaffected by the national mood.
If that mood which has turned against Musharraf now turns against the army,
a real change would have occurred. Greater use of the army in subduing
popular movements and casualties to the civilian population could suddenly
become an explosive issue.
It is not clear if Bhutto can mobilise a million people to march in
Islamabad. The possibility of that has forced Musharraf to have her detained
and released by turn. Musharraf has ruled with the assurance of the army's
loyalty to him and its perceived place in Pakistan's polity. If these
defining elements are increasingly seen to be eroded, there could be a need
to question the general's wisdom.
Alternately, if Musharraf is seen to be above the army, his relevance to the
integrity of the army would be questioned. Musharraf and Kayani are products
of a system which gives primacy to the power of the military over politics.
The infallibility of the military as the only factor in Pakistan's future is
now in question. It remains to be seen if the army views the costs of its
loss of public esteem to be greater than the continuation of Musharraf as
the head of state. In the interim, Bhutto and Musharraf could well find a
way for political cohabitation.
(The writer, a retired lieutenant general, is director of Delhi Policy
Group)
PPP Says PCO SC
verdict would not resolve legitimacy issue
Islamabad, 20
November 2007: The Pakistan Peoples Party said that the PCO
Supreme Court verdict Monday dismissing petitions against General
Musharraf’s nomination as Presidential candidate was expected after the
Constitution was suspended.
In a statement today a spokesperson of the Party said that nonetheless the
issue of legitimacy would still have to be referred to the new Parliament as
and when it was elected, and the verdict had not solved this issue.
He said that the verdict would be viewed by many as reminiscent of the
verdict given by the then Federal Court headed by Justice Munir that still
haunts the country.
Political manoeuvre:
Sharif shuns Mush, woos Bhutto
November 20, 2007:
Exiled former premier Nawaz Sharif urged fellow opposition leader
Benazir Bhutto to join him in boycotting Pakistan’s upcoming elections, as
he said he had spurned a meeting with President Pervez Musharraf.
The former premier’s comments in a telephone interview came amid fevered
political manoeuvring in nuclear-armed Pakistan, as Musharraf jousts with
his foes over his imposition of a state of emergency.
Musharraf was flying on Tuesday to Saudi Arabia, Sharif’s home in exile,
fuelling reports that he would reach out to the former premier in a bid to
split a possible Bhutto-Sharif alliance. Sharif, however, ruled out any
meeting with the man who ousted him eight years ago, saying: "I am not
prepared to meet that man when he has arrested the judiciary, gagged the
media and suspended the constitution."
"I think the nation needs to prepare for a decisive battle against
dictatorship," Sharif said from his home in Jeddah late on Monday. Sharif
said Musharraf tried to contact him three times in the past two months
asking for a meeting. "I regretted it, I said no, it will not serve any
purpose," he said.
The industrialist-turned-politician was kicked out of Pakistan within hours
when he tried to return from exile in September.
Instead, Sharif said talks to form an opposition front with Bhutto had
progressed further — so long as they can agree on an agenda to adopt against
military ruler Musharraf. "I welcome the proposal by Benazir Bhutto for
holding an all-parties conference," he said, referring to a meeting called
by Bhutto for the middle of this week.
Musharraf in Talks on
Exiled Rival
By JANE PERLEZ
ISLAMABAD,
Pakistan, Nov. 20 — In his first trip out of the country since
declaring emergency rule, the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf,
arrived in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss the future of one of his main
political rivals, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who lives in exile
there.
Saudi Arabia, one of Pakistan’s closest allies, has indicated that Mr.
Sharif should be allowed to return to his homeland to participate in
parliamentary elections, Pakistani officials and Western diplomats said.
The Saudis have argued, diplomats said, that since Pakistan allowed a
secular female leader, Benazir Bhutto, to return from self-imposed exile,
then Mr. Sharif, a more conservative and religiously inclined leader, should
be permitted to come back, too.
General Musharraf toppled Mr. Sharif in a bloodless coup in October 1999 and
sent him into exile soon afterward. He has become one of the general’s
fiercest critics, and his return to Pakistan could present a strong
political challenge to the party that backs the president and to Ms.
Bhutto’s party.
In General Musharraf’s absence, the Pakistani election commission said that
parliamentary elections would be held on Jan. 8. General Musharraf has
insisted that these elections will be held under emergency rule, a stance
the Bush administration has criticized.
Opposition parties have that said free and fair elections would be
impossible without the judiciary and the television stations that General
Musharraf banned under emergency rule more than two weeks ago. But so far
the parties have stopped short of forming a united front that would boycott
the voting.
As the Musharraf government prepared for the controversial elections, the
Interior Ministry announced that 3,416 detainees arrested under the
emergency rule had been released. That figure could not be verified. A
Western diplomat said Tuesday that the Pakistani government had indicated
that about 1,000 detainees out of 4,500 had been released.
In Sindh Province, the home secretary, Ghulam Mohammad Mohatarem, said 650
people had been released from detention. Diplomats said there seemed to be a
revolving door; as detainees were let go, other political opponents were
being arrested.
In Karachi, police arrested about 200 journalists Tuesday as they marched
from the press club to the governor’s house in protest over the closure of
Geo TV. The television station has refused to sign a new code of conduct
introduced by the government since emergency rule was imposed on Nov. 3.
Speaking in Karachi from a police station where he was being held with 35
other journalists, Zarar Khan, a reporter with The Associated Press, said
that two journalists were beaten severely by police officers as they were
rounded up and had suffered head wounds.
In an example of the government failing to follow through on its promised
releases, 45 lawyers were ordered released on Monday by the High Court in
Lahore, Iqbal Haider, the secretary general of the Pakistan Human Rights
Commission said. But then the government immediately issued new detention
orders for the lawyers, and they were kept in prison, he said. In Karachi, a
prominent lawyer, Naim Queresh, was removed from the bar association
headquarters Monday as he was addressing his colleagues, Mr. Haider said.
The most prominent of the government’s opponents remain detained. Among them
are the four leaders of the lawyers’ movement, including Aitzaz Ahsan, the
chairman of the Supreme Court Bar Association, and leaders of the Pakistan
Muslim League, the political party led by Mr. Sharif. The judges on the
Supreme Court who were dismissed by General Musharraf are also still under
house arrest.
The role of Mr. Sharif has come to the fore since the return of Ms. Bhutto,
who also is a former prime minister. Mr. Sharif tried to return to Pakistan
a few months ago after the Supreme Court, which General Musharraf dismissed,
ruled that he should be permitted to do so. But soon after landing at the
Islamabad airport in September, Mr. Sharif was unceremoniously deported and
sent back to Saudi Arabia.
Since then, supporters of Mr. Sharif have protested, asserting that it was
unfair of the Saudis to keep Mr. Sharif and effectively prevent him from
participating in Pakistani politics. The demonstrations against Saudi
Arabia, an ally that contributes financially to Islamic schools and sells
Pakistani oil at favorable rates, are deeply embarrassing to the Saudi royal
family, diplomats and Pakistani officials said.
In an interview in Tuesday’s issue of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Mr.
Sharif said that he would not meet with General Musharraf in Saudi Arabia.
In the interview, Mr. Sharif said that he wanted emergency rule lifted
before he would return. Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for Mr. Sharif’s party,
said that General Musharraf would be trying to dissuade the Saudis from
releasing Mr. Sharif.
“From the Saudi point of view, Benazir Bhutto is here, but Sharif is not
allowed,” Mr. Iqbal said. “By having him in Saudi Arabia, they become
involved in party politics here, and they don’t like that.”
In his autobiography, “In The Line of Fire,” General Musharraf described how
he had arranged a deal with Mr. Sharif in 1990 in which criminal charges
against the former prime minister were dropped on the condition that he
agreed to go to Saudi Arabia for 10 years and remain out of politics.
Rasheed Abou-Alsamh contributed reporting from Jidda, Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan's Bhutto
meets US envoy after talks plea
KARACHI
November 19, 2007: Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto met the top
US diplomat in Pakistan on Monday after Washington called for a resumption
of power-sharing talks with President Pervez Musharraf.
Ambassador Anne Patterson travelled to Bhutto's stronghold in the southern
port city of Karachi for talks at her residence.
Patterson also visited the offices of a leading private news channel that
was shut down at the weekend by the government to express her concern at the
move, officials said.
The flurry of activity came after Bhutto spoke late Friday with US Deputy
Secretary of State John Negroponte during his weekend visit here to try to
defuse the crisis over Musharraf's state of emergency.
Before he left Sunday, he urged Musharraf to end emergency rule and resume
talks with Bhutto, who had last week ruled out further contacts.
Patterson told reporters as she left that she was meeting Bhutto and other
political leaders to press for free, fair and transparent elections.
"The United States is interested in the reconciliation of all the moderate
political elements," she said.
"I am here to assure her and all others that we will do everything possible
to ensure that the election takes place."
Musharraf's government said earlier Monday that he had recommended setting
January 8 as the date for long-promised general elections.
Bhutto and Musharraf had been in power-sharing talks before the November 3
imposition of emergency rule, with the United States eyeing an alliance of
the two moderate, pro-Western figures as a bulwark against Islamic
militancy.
Last week Bhutto said those talks were over and pledged never to work with
Musharraf in government, but she pointedly declined to repeat those comments
when interview Sunday by CNN after Negroponte's departure.
"Let's stop a moment and see whether he first responds to Washington," she
said, referring to Musharraf.
Nor
did she repeat them Monday following Patterson's visit.
"I mentioned our concern about the credibility of the election process and
asked for the steps that should be taken to ensure free, fair and
transparent elections," she told reporters.
"Elections are essential for democracy but should be held in a transparent
and impartial way."
Patterson also visited Geo television's studios in Karachi, two days after
the station and another private news channel were closed down by
authorities, the station and US officials said.
"She went in person and expressed great concern over the situation. She said
that it is not only an issue of free speech but also about economic
punishment," US embassy spokeswoman Elizabeth Colton said.
Mir Ibrahim, a senior Geo executive, said the government had also shut down
Geo's entertainment and sports channels beaming out of Dubai in an apparent
punitive measure.
"The US ambassador visited our office in Karachi. She expressed deep
concerns about the staff and their financial well-being," Ibrahim told AFP.
He said Patterson had "expressed solidarity and that she was particularly
concerned why Geo was targeted."
Fading hopes for the
‘disappeared’
Monday, November
19, 2007: The disbandment of the full-bench of the Supreme Court,
hearing the case of about 100 ‘disappeared’ people, and initial indications
of a changed tone and tenor from the apex court, come as a blow to the
families of victims of enforced disappearances. Till early November, when
emergency was slapped on the country, the families of these persons had had
reason to hope they would soon be freed. The tough stance adopted by the
court, its warnings to top intelligence agencies and its harsh words to
government officials, had raised the possibility of more people emerging
from the secret places of detention where they continue to be held,
sometimes for years. Indeed, largely as a result of the active role adopted
by the court, at least 99 secretly detained persons, who featured on a list
of 198 ‘disappeared’ people put before the court by the Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) early this year, in a petition seeking their
release, had been set free, and the whereabouts of several others uncovered.
Investigations by the court, and evidence from accounts given by those
released, also led the bench to conclude that these persons were in the
hands of intelligence agencies. It is unfortunate that rather than utilizing
these findings to restrict, or at least regulate, the working of
intelligence agencies, the regime has instead enacted laws, such as recent
amendments in the Army Act, which give further protection to these agencies.
Previously too, President Musharraf had insisted that the ‘missing’ people
had in fact themselves ventured away from their homes for ‘jihad’. This
conclusion ignores reality. The fact is that the largest number among the
‘disappeared’ are young Baloch men, known as belonging to progressive,
indeed secular, schools of thought. Others on the list are prominent Sindhi
writers or poets, again known to be at least as fervently opposed to
religious extremism as the president himself.
Sadly, a few seem to have been victimized simply because of a personal issue
pitching them against intelligence personnel, and a large number, according
to testimonies they have provided to the court, have suffered severe torture
while in custody. For some, this has brought lasting physical and
psychological damage. It is unfortunate that rather than taking up the issue
of such persons, and indeed the wider matter of human rights abuses
committed by state agencies, the regime would prefer such matters to be
buried and hidden away. Already, Pakistan’s name figures on the lists of
countries where enforced disappearances are an issue, and Amnesty
International, among other groups, has campaigned extensively to draw
attention to their plight. All well-wishers of Pakistan would surely wish
that the country’s name could be removed from this category of countries.
This can happen only if the existence of human-rights abuses is squarely
acknowledged and faced up to, so these problems can be resolved. Denying
that these are an issue at all, or wreaking wrath on all those who deign to
take up the matter, including the courts, can, in the longer run, solve
nothing at all.
PPP files reference
against former PM Shaukat Aziz, Ch. Shujat, Senator Mushahid Syed and former
Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani
Islamabad, 19
November 2007: Pakistan Peoples Party has filed a reference with
the National Accountability Bureau against former Prime Minister Shaukat
Aziz, President Pakistan Muslim League(Q), Ch. Shujaat Hussain, Secretary
General PML(Q) Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed and former Minister Information
Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani for misappropriating huge amounts belonging to
the national exchequer and thereby causing a colossal loss to the government
of Pakistan by way of corruption, corrupt practices and misuse of powers.
The reference was filed by Ch. Mohammad Aslam Advocate on behalf of the
Pakistan Party.
The reference reads, “The Respondents who are deadly against the Pakistan
Peoples Party & it’s Chairperson Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, have been trying
their level best to malign the party with a view to keep the party and it’s
leadership away from the people of Pakistan right from the day, they assumed
the posts in the Muslim League (Q)/ Government of Pakistan and they have not
hesitated from using illegal, unethical, unconstitutional and unprecedented
means and ways even in this regard. In connection with the filthy campaign
launched by the respondents against the symbol of democracy Mohtarma Benazir
Bhutto Chairperson PPP and her popular party which rules the hearts of
millions of people of Pakistan, the respondents got a highly objectionable,
derogatory, insulting, damaging and baseless proclamation published in the
daily The News, The Daily Jang, The Daily Nwa-i-Waqt, daily Waqt, Daily The
Nation, Daily Ausaf and Daily Jinnah vide publications dated 14th & 15th of
November 2007 (Copies attached herewith) at the expense of Government of
Pakistan which amounts to misuse of powers, misappropriation of government
funds and an illegal act, regarding the government funds entrusted to the
Respondent No. 1 who in connivance with the other respondents committed an
offence punishable Under the NA Ordinance 1999.”
The reference reads, “Based on the above facts and grounds respondents have
shown wilful indulgence in misusing their power and corrupt practices under
Section 9 of the NAB Ordinance. They are liable for the punishment under
Section 10 of the NAB Ordinance 1999.
“It is therefore requested that the orders may kindly be passed for
investigation into the matters set out herein above and a reference against
the respondents for violating the provisions of Section 9 of the NAB
Ordinance 1999 punishable under Section 10 of the Ordinance be initiated in
competent court of law.” The reference prays.
Pakistan caretaker PM
vows to improve army capabilities
Islamabad, Nov 17 -
Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Mohammadmian Soomro said Saturday the
government would continue to extend all necessary support to enhance and
improve the capabilities of the armed forces to meet the defence needs of
the country.The prime minister was talking to the chairman of Joint Chiefs
of Staff Committee, General Tariq Majeed, who called on him at the Prime
Minister Secretariat, reports Online news agency.Soomro said Pakistan is a
peace loving country and does not harbour aggressive designs against any
country. Nevertheless, peace is achieved through strength and not
weakness.He also said every Pakistani is proud of the role played by the
armed forces in maintaining internal and external security, particularly
their role during earthquake and the recent floods in Sindh and
Balochistan.Gen. Majeed updated the caretaker prime minister on the
modernisation and upgradation projects undertaken by the army to increase
its defence preparedness.
Pakistan Rejects
Calls to End Emergency
By PAUL HAVEN
November 18, 2007:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's
government dismissed a last-ditch U.S. call to end emergency rule, leaving
the Bush administration with limited options Sunday in steering its
nuclear-armed ally back toward democracy.
Pakistan said U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte brought no new
proposals on a make-or-break visit, and received no assurances after urging
Musharraf to restore the constitution and free thousands of political
opponents.
"This is nothing new," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq told The
Associated Press. "The U.S. has been saying this for many days. He
(Negroponte) has said that same thing. He has reiterated it."
Locked in a battle with increasingly powerful Islamist militants, Pakistan
is seen as a key front in the war on terror. U.S. officials are clearly
fearful that the emergency rule imposed more than two weeks ago could lead
to a potentially destabilizing round of political turmoil.
In an early morning news conference before departing Pakistan, Negroponte
said he hoped that the president listened to his appeal to end a crackdown
on opponents before legislative elections scheduled for January.
"I urged the government to stop such actions, lift the state of emergency
and release all political detainees," Negroponte told reporters at the U.S.
Embassy. "Emergency rule is not compatible with free, fair and credible
elections."
But Musharraf has appeared intent on setting his own pace despite warnings
from Washington, which has been hesitant to match criticism with actions
such as cutting military aid.
Militant gains have raised U.S. concerns about Pakistan's ability to combat
militancy and flush out remnants of al-Qaida and the Taliban believed to be
sheltering in the country's rugged northwestern tribal areas.
Pakistani army helicopter gunships strafed militant positions in the
northwest on Sunday, hitting a valley where fighters loyal to a pro-Taliban
cleric have been battling security forces for months, the army said.
Soldiers also fired artillery and mortar shells at militants in Swat,
inflicting "many casualties," the army said. It did not offer any specific
casualty figures.
Fighting in Swat, a former tourist destination about 100 miles northwest of
Islamabad, has turned parts of the region into a no-go zone for journalists,
and the army claims could not be independently verified. The rebels could
not be reached comment.
Fighters loyal to Maulana Fazlullah, a rebel cleric who wants to impose
Islamic rule, have steadily advanced down the Swat valley since July, taking
over towns and driving back government forces.
On Saturday, a top general said 15,000 troops were massed for a major
offensive against the insurgents, and the military said that between 35 and
40 rebels had been killed in attacks by army helicopter gunships a day
earlier, bringing the total number of rebels killed in the past week to more
than 100.
Elsewhere in the northwest, rival Sunni and Shiite Muslims battled Sunday in
a town where three days of sectarian violence has left 91 people dead,
officials said.
Both sides fired mortars and other heavy weapons at each other in the town
of Parachinar late Saturday and early Sunday, targeting residential areas
and hitting mosques, an intelligence official said. He spoke on condition of
anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Plumes of smoke were seen billowing from two Sunni neighborhoods in the town
early Sunday, the official said.
In a bid to quell the violence, the military said it was deploying an
unspecified number of soldiers and members and Pakistan's Frontier
Constabulary paramilitary force to Parachinar.
Musharraf has insisted he would only lift the emergency if the national
security situation improved, and strongly hinted that such a move was
unlikely before parliamentary elections scheduled to be held by Jan. 9. The
opposition has called that position preposterous, saying a free and fair
vote could never be held while thousands of opponents were behind bars and
political parties were denied the right to assemble.
Sadiq insisted the government was taking all necessary steps to hold a fair
election.
Despite Musharraf's apparent intransigence, Negroponte would not
characterize his trip as a failure.
"In diplomacy, as you know, we don't get instant replies when we have these
kinds of dialogue," he said. "I'm sure the president is seriously
considering the exchange we had."
Senior Bush Administration officials have said publicly that they have no
plans to cut off the billions of dollars in military aid that Pakistan
receives each year.
Musharraf has said he would step down as army chief by the end of the month,
but has insisted that he will serve out a five-year term as civilian
president. He won the extra term in an October vote in parliament. The
Supreme Court was set to rule on whether the vote was constitutional when
Musharraf declared the emergency on Nov. 3, effectively purging the court.
In addition, some 2,500 opponents have been jailed and independent TV
stations taken off the air.
Musharraf has defended the moves, saying they are necessary as his forces
struggle to combat an increasingly virulent Islamic insurgency. But
opponents note that the vast majority of those targeted in the crackdown
have been pro-Western moderates, human rights activists, lawyers and
journalists.
Negroponte met for more than two hours Saturday with Musharraf and
Pakistan's deputy army commander, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, as well as other
leaders. He also spoke by phone with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto,
who returned to Pakistan last month hoping to work out a power-sharing deal
with Musharraf but has ended up becoming one of the leading voices calling
for his resignation.
Negroponte urged the two on Sunday to restart talks and ease "the atmosphere
of brinkmanship and political confrontation."
"If steps were taken by both sides to move back toward the kind of
reconciliation discussions they were having recently, we think that would be
very positive and could help improve the political environment," he said.
Bhutto told CNN's "Late Edition" that: "I believe Mr. Negroponte did the
right thing in asking General Musharraf to lift the gags on the media, to
release the thousands of opposition and human rights leaders, as well as to
retire as chief of army staff ... We just wonder how we can have fair
elections when so many people are under arrest and the media is gagged."
Though measured in his comments, Negroponte expressed some impatience with
Musharraf, saying he hoped to see more steps toward democracy soon. "There
remain some other issues that are yet to be considered, or yet to be
undertaken," he said, without going into detail.
Associated Press reporters Matthew Rosenberg and Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad
contributed to this report.
PPP
workers and leaders sent to jail
Islamabad, 18 November 2007:
The arrested leaders, office bearers and workers of Pakistan Peoples
Party were brought hand cuffed before duty magistrate Rawalpindi. These
included former Senator Malik Hakmeen, Atif Kiyani, Rashid Nasim Abbasi,
Muhammad Anwer, Jaffer Shah, Babu Idrees, Malik Sher Ahmed, Ashfaq Kazi,
Riasat Abbasi and Gulfraz Awan.
Afterwards, they were sent to Adiyala Jail. Earlier PPPP Secretary General
Raja Pervez Ashraf, Zammurad Khan and Sardar Shoaib Mumtaz were released.
These PPP workers and leaders were arrested on Saturday while protesting
against the imposition of Martial Law in the country.
In NWFP, the PPP workers, leaders and office bearers arrested on 9th and
10th November have been kept in Dera Ismail Khan and Haripur jails.
They include Rahim Dad Khan, Arbab Alamgir, Fareed Toofan, Israr Khan,
Behramand Tangi, Sarmad Khan, Attaullah Khan and dozens other.
PPP leaders in Faisalabad have been charged under 16 MPO and sent to
district jail. These include Raja Riaz, Rana Aftab Khan, Jahanzeb Gill,
Zafar Iqbal and Bashir Ahmed.
Mohtarma Bhutto condemns murder of Hayatullah’s wife
Demands probe and arrest of killers
Islamabad November 18, 2007:
Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma
Benazir Bhutto has condemned the brutal murder of the wife of tribal
journalist Hayatullah and demanded a thorough probe into the matter and
arrest of the culprits involved.
The wife of Hayatullah was killed in a bomb attack on her house in Mir Ali
in North Waziristan late last night.
In a statement today the former Prime Minister said that she was shocked and
grieved to learn about the gruesome murder of the widow of a young and
promising journalist who himself had been slain last year by unknown
assailants.
Mrs Hayatullah has been vigorously pursuing the killers of her husband and
had complained of receiving threatening calls warning her against chasing
her husband’s murderers.
Only an impartial and judicial probe can reveal the bloodstained hands
behind the crime, Mohtarma Bhutto said.
Last year her husband the 29-year-old journalist, who was abducted on
December 5 2005 while investigating the death of an Al Qaeda operative in
the tribal areas, was found dead on 17 June 2006. He was handcuffed and had
been shot in the back of the head.
A few months later his brother was killed under mysterious circumstances.
The family members of tribal journalist Hayatullah Khan alleged that state
agencies were involved in his murder.
She also prayed for eternal peace for the soul of Mrs. Hayatullah and solace
to the members of the bereaved family.
Meanwhile Mohtarma Bhutto has also condemned the disappearance of journalist
Shoaib Bhutta and demanded his early release. The family of Shoaib Bhutta
has alleged that he was whisked away by some men in plain clothes from his
office in Islamabad and taken to an unknown place.
The former Prime Minister said that the mysterious disappearances in the
country had increased alarmingly and called for bringing the agencies under
the ambit of law. She also called for the immediate release of Shoaib Bhutta.
Pakistan’s Collapse, Our Problem
New York Times
By FREDERICK W. KAGAN and MICHAEL O’HANLON
November 18, 2007, Washington:
AS the government of Pakistan totters, we must face a fact: the United
States simply could not stand by as a nuclear-armed Pakistan descended into
the abyss. Nor would it be strategically prudent to withdraw our forces from
an improving situation in Iraq to cope with a deteriorating one in Pakistan.
We need to think — now — about our feasible military options in Pakistan,
should it really come to that.
We do not intend to be fear mongers. Pakistan’s officer corps and ruling
elites remain largely moderate and more interested in building a strong,
modern state than in exporting terrorism or nuclear weapons to the highest
bidder. But then again, Americans felt similarly about the shah’s regime in
Iran until it was too late.
Moreover, Pakistan’s intelligence services contain enough sympathizers and
supporters of the Afghan Taliban, and enough nationalists bent on seizing
the disputed province of Kashmir from India, that there are grounds for real
worries.
The most likely possible dangers are these: a complete collapse of Pakistani
government rule that allows an extreme Islamist movement to fill the vacuum;
a total loss of federal control over outlying provinces, which splinter
along ethnic and tribal lines; or a struggle within the Pakistani military
in which the minority sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda try to
establish Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism.
All possible military initiatives to avoid those possibilities are daunting.
With 160 million people, Pakistan is more than five times the size of Iraq.
It would take a long time to move large numbers of American forces halfway
across the world. And unless we had precise information about the location
of all of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and materials, we could not rely on
bombing or using Special Forces to destroy them.
The task of stabilizing a collapsed Pakistan is beyond the means of the
United States and its allies. Rule-of-thumb estimates suggest that a force
of more than a million troops would be required for a country of this size.
Thus, if we have any hope of success, we would have to act before a complete
government collapse, and we would need the cooperation of moderate Pakistani
forces.
One possible plan would be a Special Forces operation with the limited goal
of preventing Pakistan’s nuclear materials and warheads from getting into
the wrong hands. Given the degree to which Pakistani nationalists cherish
these assets, it is unlikely the United States would get permission to
destroy them. Somehow, American forces would have to team with Pakistanis to
secure critical sites and possibly to move the material to a safer place.
For the United States, the safest bet would be shipping the material to
someplace like New Mexico; but even pro-American Pakistanis would be
unlikely to cooperate. More likely, we would have to settle for establishing
a remote redoubt within Pakistan, with the nuclear technology guarded by
elite Pakistani forces backed up (and watched over) by crack international
troops. It is realistic to think that such a mission might be undertaken
within days of a decision to act. The price for rapid action and secrecy,
however, would probably be a very small international coalition.
A second, broader option would involve supporting the core of the Pakistani
armed forces as they sought to hold the country together in the face of an
ineffective government, seceding border regions and Al Qaeda and Taliban
assassination attempts against the leadership. This would require a sizable
combat force — not only from the United States, but ideally also other
Western powers and moderate Muslim nations.
Even if we were not so committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, Western powers
would need months to get the troops there. Fortunately, given the
longstanding effectiveness of Pakistan’s security forces, any process of
state decline probably would be gradual, giving us the time to act.
So, if we got a large number of troops into the country, what would they do?
The most likely directive would be to help Pakistan’s military and security
forces hold the country’s center — primarily the region around the capital,
Islamabad, and the populous areas like Punjab Province to its south.
We would also have to be wary of internecine warfare within the Pakistani
security forces. Pro-American moderates could well win a fight against
extremist sympathizers on their own. But they might need help if splinter
forces or radical Islamists took control of parts of the country containing
crucial nuclear materials. The task of retaking any such regions and
reclaiming custody of any nuclear weapons would be a priority for our
troops.
If a holding operation in the nation’s center was successful, we would
probably then seek to establish order in the parts of Pakistan where
extremists operate. Beyond propping up the state, this would benefit
American efforts in Afghanistan by depriving terrorists of the sanctuaries
they have long enjoyed in Pakistan’s tribal and frontier regions.
The great paradox of the post-cold war world is that we are both safer, day
to day, and in greater peril than before. There was a time when volatility
in places like Pakistan was mostly a humanitarian worry; today it is as much
a threat to our basic security as Soviet tanks once were. We must be
militarily and diplomatically prepared to keep ourselves safe in such a
world. Pakistan may be the next big test.
Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute. Michael O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Musharraf Refuses to
Say When Emergency Will End
ISLAMABAD,
Pakistan, Sunday, Nov. 18 — Continuing to defy the United States,
Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declined to tell a senior
American envoy on Saturday when he would lift a two-week-old state of
emergency, Pakistani and Western officials said.
In a two-hour meeting, Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte urged
the president to end the emergency. But General Musharraf said he would do
so when security improved in the country, the officials said. Mr. Negroponte
is the United States’ second highest ranking diplomat.
“The president said, ‘I have noted your concerns and I think I will address
all of these,’ ” a close aide to General Musharraf said.
In a news conference before he left Pakistan on Sunday, Mr. Negroponte said
it would take time to determine whether the American message had an impact.
“In diplomacy, as you know, we don’t get instant replies,” he said. “I’m
sure the president is seriously considering the exchange we had.”
The state of emergency remains a major embarrassment for the Bush
administration, which has given more than $10 billion in aid to General
Musharraf’s government since 2001 and declared him a valued ally. Ten days
ago, President Bush personally telephoned General Musharraf and asked him to
end the state of emergency, with no result.
The Bush administration has also pushed for General Musharraf, who is army
chief as well as president, to resign from his military post. The general
has said he will, but not until the Supreme Court certifies his re-election
last month to a five-year term as president, which opposition groups say was
illegal.
In addition to meeting with General Musharraf, Mr. Negroponte met twice with
Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the deputy commander of Pakistan’s army and
General Musharraf’s designated successor to head the army. The time and
attention paid to General Kayani, a pro-Western moderate, seemed to signal
American support for him.
Mr. Negroponte met with General Kayani for an hour on Saturday morning.
Then, Mr. Negroponte had a two-hour dinner with General Kayani and Tariq
Aziz, a close aide to General Musharraf. General Kayani is widely believed
to want to remove the military from politics and to focus on securing the
country.
On Nov. 3, General Musharraf declared emergency rule, blacked out
independent news stations and began a crackdown that led to the arrest of an
estimated 2,500 opposition politicians, lawyers and human rights activists.
The move, which General Musharraf has said is an effort to curb terrorism,
is widely seen by Pakistanis as an effort by the increasingly unpopular
ruler to cling to power.
Mr. Negroponte said he had urged the Pakistani leader to end the emergency,
release all political prisoners, resign from his post as army chief and hold
free and fair elections in January.
“Emergency
rule is not compatible with free and fair elections,” Mr. Negroponte said at
the news conference. “The people of Pakistan deserve the opportunity to
choose their leaders.”
In a sign of General Musharraf’s growing isolation, the secretary general of
the main political party backing him called Saturday for an end to the
emergency. The leader, Mushahid Hussain, said that ending the state of
emergency would cause “less tension, less political conflict and less
polarization.”
“The national interest would be better served,” Mr. Hussain said in an
interview with Dawn News, a Pakistani television channel. “The emergency has
been having a very negative impact, both at home and abroad.”
A poll in late August and early September by the International Republican
Institute, a Washington-based group that conducts democratic training
programs overseas, found that 70 percent of Pakistanis supported General
Musharraf”s immediate resignation. His popularity is believed to have
decreased further since the declaration on Nov. 3.
Western diplomats say they believe that Pakistan’s army still supports
General Musharraf, but that there is unease with his leadership. With the
army facing a growing insurgency from Islamic militants in the northwest,
generals are eager to have an army chief who is focused solely on military
matters, they said.
Twice in Pakistan’s history, senior generals have asked military rulers to
resign when their conduct was deemed damaging to the army. So far, no signs
have emerged that General Kayani or other leaders have asked General
Musharraf to step aside.
Mr. Negroponte held a series of meetings that seemed intended to revive an
alliance between General Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto, an opposition
politician and former prime minister.
On Friday, Mr. Negroponte telephoned Ms. Bhutto. He then met Mr. Aziz, the
Musharraf aide who served as a back-channel negotiator in an effort to
broker a deal between the president and Ms. Bhutto.
American officials hoped that Ms. Bhutto’s presumed popularity in Pakistan
would bolster General Musharraf’s low standing. The state of emergency
decree seems to have scuttled any deal, for now.
European diplomats and Pakistani analysts have long questioned the viability
of an American-engineered Bhutto-Musharraf alliance. Any government they
form would be viewed as a United States puppet, they said, and be unpopular.
In the September opinion survey, only 28 percent of Pakistanis polled named
Ms. Bhutto as the best person to handle the problems facing Pakistan, out of
seven choices. Seventeen percent named General Musharraf. Nawaz Sharif, the
former prime minister who is in exile in Saudi Arabia and refuses to
negotiate with General Musharraf, received the highest marks, with 36
percent support.
The poll of about 4,000 Pakistanis had a margin of error of plus or minus
two percentage points.
Also on Saturday, hundreds of Pakistani journalists in three cities
protested the president’s continuing crackdown on the media.
In the days before Mr. Negroponte’s arrival, the government allowed several
independent news stations to resume broadcasting on cable television, but
they operate under a strict new law that carries a sentence of up to three
years in jail for journalists who “ridicule” the president.
Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Islamabad.
Bush
Failed to See Musharraf’s Faults, Critics Contend
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
WASHINGTON,
Nov. 17 — In the six years since Pakistan’s president, Gen.
Pervez Musharraf, joined President Bush in the fight against Al Qaeda, it
has been an unlikely partnership: a president intent on promoting democracy
and a military commander who seized power in a bloodless coup.
Mr. Bush has repeatedly called Gen. Musharraf “a friend.” In 2003, the
president invited the general to Camp David, a presidential perk reserved
for the closest of allies. Last year, at the general’s insistence, Mr. Bush
risked a trip to Pakistan, jangling the nerves of the Secret Service by
spending the night in the country presumed to be home to Osama bin Laden.
But now that the general has defied the White House, suspending Pakistan’s
Constitution and imposing emergency rule, old tensions are flaring anew. Mr.
Bush is backing away from the leader he once called a man of “courage and
vision,” and critics are asking whether the president misread his Pakistani
counterpart.
They said Mr. Bush — an ardent believer in personal diplomacy, who once
remarked that he had looked into the eyes of President Vladimir V. Putin of
Russia and had gotten “a sense of his soul” — was taken in by the general,
with his fluent English and his promises to hold elections and relinquish
military power. They said Mr. Bush looked at General Musharraf and saw a
democratic reformer when he should have seen a dictator instead.
“He didn’t ask the hard questions, and frankly, neither did the people
working for him,” said Husain Haqqani, an expert on Pakistan at Boston
University who has advised two previous Pakistani prime ministers, Nawaz
Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. “They bought the P.R. image of Musharraf as the
reasonable general. Bush bought the line — hook, line and sinker.”
White House aides said Mr. Bush is clear-eyed about his pact with the
general, a pact that was sealed on a Saturday evening in November 2001, over
an intimate dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. They had just
met face-to-face for the first time, during a meeting of the United Nations,
and, despite past tensions between their countries, an air of cozy
familiarity filled the room.
“It was a lovely dinner, very sociable,” said Wendy J. Chamberlin, the
former ambassador to Pakistan, who attended. “I wasn’t nervous, because I
knew Musharraf and I knew how charming he is, and I could see that they
would get along fine. And besides, the mood was exuberant. Musharraf was
like a conquering hero, Musharraf had done the right thing. He was the man
of the day.”
Today, the general is hardly the man of the day. On Saturday, Deputy
Secretary of State John D. Negroponte — who was the host at the Waldorf
dinner as the ambassador to the United Nations then — met with General
Musharraf and pushed him to end Pakistan’s state of emergency. Back in
Washington, Mr. Bush was close-mouthed, saying little about the man he once
praised as “a courageous leader and friend of the United States.”
The
two have spoken just once, on Nov. 7 by telephone, in the two weeks since
General Musharraf imposed de facto military rule. Mr. Bush, who initiated
the call, termed it “a very frank discussion” — Washington code for a
pointed airing of differences.
“My message was very, very plain, very easy to understand,” the president
said. “And that is: the United States wants you to have elections as
scheduled and take your uniform off.”
The “Bush-Mush relationship,” as some American scholars call it, has always
been complicated, more a bond of convenience than a genuine friendship, some
experts said. When he was running for office in 2000, Mr. Bush didn’t even
know General Musharraf’s name; he couldn’t identify the leader of Pakistan
for a reporter’s pop quiz during an interview that was widely replayed on
late-night television.
Relations between the nations had been tense over Pakistan’s nuclear
ambitions even before Mr. Bush took office, and American aid to Pakistan had
been all but cut off. But Sept. 11 threw the United States and Pakistan
together. Mr. Bush demanded General Musharraf’s allegiance in pursuing Al
Qaeda — and got it. General Musharraf demanded military aid that could help
him maintain power — and got it.
Experts in United States-Pakistan relations said General Musharraf has
played the union masterfully, by convincing Mr. Bush that he alone can keep
Pakistan stable. Kamran Bokhari, an analyst for Stratfor, a private
intelligence company, who met with General Musharraf in January, said the
general viewed Mr. Bush with some condescension.
“Musharraf thinks that Bush has certain weaknesses that can be manipulated,”
Mr. Bokhari said, adding, “I would say that President Musharraf doesn’t
think highly of President Bush, but his interests force him to do business
with the U.S. president.”
In his autobiography, “In the Line of Fire,” General Musharraf writes
glowingly of the trust Mr. Bush placed in him. But he passed up a chance to
praise Mr. Bush on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” where he was promoting
the book. Mr. Stewart asked who would win a hypothetical contest for mayor
of Karachi, Mr. Bush or Mr. bin Laden.
“I think they’ll both lose miserably,” the general replied.
Mr. Bush, by contrast, was “favorably impressed” with General Musharraf,
according to Ari Fleischer, the president’s former press secretary. Mr.
Fleischer recounted one session where the general had been warned in advance
not to ask the president for F-16 fighter jets, because the answer would be
no. “Musharraf brought it up anyway,” Mr. Fleischer said, “and Bush told him
the answer is no. But I think Bush liked the fact that he does what he wants
to do, and says what’s on his mind.”
Their ties have not always helped General Musharraf; critics in Pakistan
have accused him of being a tool of the United States, and derisively call
him “Busharraf.” In Washington, Mr. Bush has faced criticism as well, from
those who say he should have been tougher on General Musharraf, especially
with top Al Qaeda operatives like Osama bin Laden still on the loose.
Richard C. Holbrooke, the ambassador to the United Nations under President
Clinton, said one of Mr. Bush’s biggest mistakes was not pressing General
Musharraf to turn over A. Q. Khan, the former chief of Pakistan’s nuclear
program, to American interrogators.
“I don’t see that the Bush administration was wrong in 2001 to put its chips
on Musharraf, who promised democracy and who promised to take off his
uniform, but something has gone very badly wrong,” Mr. Holbrooke said,
adding, “The question is, is this because Bush was soft on Musharraf the way
he was soft on Putin?”
As the state of emergency drags on, the administration has begun thinking
about alternatives to General Musharraf, and is reaching out to generals who
might replace him. Mr. Haqqani, the Boston University professor, and Ms.
Chamberlin, the former ambassador, said the effort was long overdue.
Mr. Haqqani has been cautioning the administration for years not to
“personalize this relationship,” while Ms. Chamberlin said it is a mistake
to view General Musharraf as indispensable. “Our relationship with the army
and with the people of Pakistan is indispensable,” she said, “but it is not
based on one man.”
Yet, having declared General Musharraf a friend and an ally, Mr. Bush is not
ready to give up on him. The president places a high premium on loyalty;
when top aides like Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, and
Alberto R. Gonzales, the former attorney general, disappointed him, he was
reluctant to cut them loose. So it is with General Musharraf.
“President Musharraf made a decision the president didn’t agree with,” said
Dana Perino, the White House press secretary. “We are disappointed with it,
but the president doesn’t want to pre-emptively throw up his hands. He wants
to help him get back on track.”
Arrest of PPP workers
and leaders continues
Islamabad, 17 November 2007:
The arrest, torture and harassment of Pakistan Peoples Party workers
continue all over the country. From Karachi to Khyber PPP workers continued
their protest against imposition of Martial Law by General Musharraf.
In Khairpur Mirs, PPP candidate from PS-30 and President Bar Association
Khairpur, Syed Muhammad Bachal Shah Jillani was arrested along with over 200
PPP workers yesterday.
Today the Secretary General Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians, Raja
Pervez Ashraf continued the long march for the restoration of democracy from
Gujar Khan with a procession of thousands of PPP workers. A heavy contingent
of police stopped the procession at Mandra toll plaza and police baton
charged the protestors and arrested over seventy PPP workers including Raja
Pervez Asharaf. The arrested were taken to civil lines police station,
Rawalpindi.
The police also stopped another procession in Rawalpindi led by Zammurrad
Khan, former Senator Malik Hakmeen and Atif Kiyani. Police used tear gas
shelling and baton charged the procession causing injuries to dozens of PPP
workers including women workers. Dozens of workers have been arrested
including Zammurrad Khan, Malik Hakmeen Khan, Atif Kiyani, Jafar Hussain
Shah, Sohaib Mumtaz, Rashid Nasim Abbasi, Babu Idrees, Malik Sher Ahmed,
Mohammad Anwer, Ashfaq Ahmed Kazi and Riasat Abbas. PPP women workers have
also been arrested.
The PPP workers took out a procession in NWFP and blocked the Tourkhan –
Afghanistan road for few hours. They were protesting against the imposition
of Martial Law in the country by General Musharraf. Severaloffice bearers
and PPP workers were arrested including President PPP Khyber Agency, Farhad
Shabab Afridi, President PPP FATA, Malik Waris Khan Afridi, PPP General
Secretary FATA Mirza Ahmed Jihadi, PPP Information Secretary FATA, Ishrat
Shinwari, Presidnet Muhammad Agency, Dr. Farooq, Khiyali Khan, President PPP
Landi Kotal Ata Mohammad Shinwari, President PYO Khyber Agency Fawad Afridi,
President PSF FATA Saiful Islam, Mannan Afridi and Chief Coordinator PPP
Women Wing FATA Ms. Ayesha Gulalay.
All Pakistan Minority Alliance also took out procession in Karachi against
imposition of Martial Law and house arresting Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto in
Lahore. The APMA workers were detained at defense police station and cases
were registered against them under Section 7 of Anti-Terrorist Act, 16 MPO,
148/188 and 290/147.
Despite the arrests, intimidation, registration of cases, harassment and
victimization, the PPP workers reiterated their resolve to continue their
struggle for restoration of democracy under the fearless leadership of
Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.
Dispatches from sub-jail
By Sherry Rehman
November 16, 2007: When
an elephant starts dying, it thrashes around for its survival. The danger is
that if it takes too long, it damages the very soil it feeds on.
Unfortunately for Pakistan, the regime in power today is doing more than
just collateral damage as it thrashes about blindly to save itself.
In Islamabad, on November 10th, the whole world saw how the police
barricaded the PPP Chairperson, Mohtarma Bhutto and a few parliamentarians
into her home. All of Islamabad was paralysed and the whole of Rawalpindi
blocked. The PPP workers at Liaqat Bagh were arrested in hordes and the area
sealed off.
For those who have seen Pakistan 's many political convulsions, it felt like
history was repeating itself. The regime clearly fears the pulling power of
the PPP as once again, the party openly took on a martial law regime in a
cloud of teargas, mass arrests, and clashes with police. The show of public
strength on October 18th in Karachi had caused many sleepless nights in the
establishment's ranks. The threat of a million people waving flags from
Islamabad to Laiqat Bagh, Rawalpindi was enough to rock the sinking ship.
Yet everyone knew that after the Karachi welcome, the second real challenge
to the tottering regime would come from the heart of the Punjab. The
prospect of a PPP Long March, led by a defiant Ms Bhutto from Lahore to
Islamabad via a long route, over three days, was again too much for the
regime to stomach without further blundering. On the night of November 12th,
before we could say the words " midnight knock", right after Ms Bhutto met
with a group of senior editors in Lahore at Senator Latif Khosa's house, the
gate slammed shut on all of us inside the house.
All those outside had remarked on the huge police contingent amassing around
the Defence Road bungalow, and by midnight when the last visitors had left,
the barbed wire started rolling out by the kilometre. Massive trucks filled
with wet sand positioned themselves in front of all the barricades to
prevent the PPP skirmishes which occurred in Islamabad, where a handful of
parliamentarians had managed to break the barbed wire mesh and battle past
the first barricades to get Ms Bhutto out of the house near the press, who
were waiting near the turning. But in Lahore, by 12.30 am, two Armoured
Personnel Carriers, like mini-tanks, positioned themselves in front of the
house. The side walls were encircled and the house at the back filled with
more police.
We stayed up most of the night in illegal detention, while the morning saw a
notice slapped on the padlocked gate. The notice was a Maintenance of Public
Order charge against Ms Bhutto, putting her under house arrest for seven
days. Even though the house was declared a sub-jail, the rest of us on the
inside were illegally detained.
Before the authorities could swoop down on the rest of this battle-hardened
party, PPP Punjab President, Shah Mahmoud Qureshi left with over 200
vehicles joining him along the way to lead the Long March from Ferozepur
Road to Okara. This group took hundreds of people along the way, joined
later by Qasim Zia and Makhdoom Yusuf Reza Gilani, which inflamed the regime
that had grown used to arresting leaders and de-mobilising entire political
parties. By the evening, Punjab crackled with the din of "Jeay Bhutto"
slogans resounding from police vans rounding hundreds of PPP leaders and
workers.
Back at the Khosa House, the gaggle of bristling paparazzi at the barricade
was moved away as part of the media black-out policy the regime had adopted
since November 3 2007. A journalist at the barricade rang to say that 4000
policemen were posted around the house, wondering why such a heavy
contingent was needed to lock in one unarmed woman. I told him that the one
woman whom they needed an army to detain, was the symbol of resistance to
all that the Zia-ist establishment had plotted for.
He asked why was this group relevant today? What had they got to do with the
state Pakistan was in now, where terrorists were on the rampage with
impunity, while police and rangers ran around rounding up peaceful
democrats? This group is relevant today because this was a nexus that had
spent billions of rupees of slush money to create the IJI in 1990 against
the PPP, and this was the group that had fuelled the Afghan jihad. They had
a heavy investment in keeping the PPP out of power, and they would stop at
little, including creating new leaders with no following to pose as
alternatives. They were paranoid about a political party with real mass
support and plans, to run the country without military hegemony. They
preferred politicians who fast-tracked their careers via the intelligence
agency route. This was the group that had been instrumental in sponsoring
the Afghan Mujahideen, the Arab Al-Qaeda, and later the Pak-Afghan Taliban.
After scanning the work of experts on Pakistan's role in the Afghan jihad,
and its own blowback in Pakistan, the journalist rang back to say that this
was also the shadowy nexus that was now feeding key people in his profession
to say that Ms Bhutto was insincere, and that her defiance, both at great
personal and physical cost was part of a pantomime staged to pressure
Musharraf. He added that he had reason to believe that this group had
international links, and was powerful enough to shuffle one military
dictator for another military ruler dressed up as a moderate in order to
counter Bhutto.
His words were prescient. Sub-jail is not the same as suffering in a nasty
jail, but it has its limitations. Access to amenities one takes for granted
start drying up and newspapers have to be smuggled in. On November 14th, the
small group with Ms Bhutto in Khosa House woke up to many newspapers
carrying huge half-page advertisements plastering a forged letter written by
Ms Benazir Bhutto to Peter Galbraith in which she was cast in an anti-state
mould, appealing to the Americans and the Indians to lean on Pakistan to
facilitate her return to power. Even in 1990, the Zia-ist combine that had
the letter forged and planted all over the national press, was widely seen
as a crudely put-together chapter of the dirty-tricks campaign that the
Bhutto-bashers had been running since 1986. And here it was again, funded
and sponsored by the same people who had probably sprung for the hit on Ms
Bhutto's truck on October 19th, killing 158 people.
Political activists have now been thrown summarily in jails all over the
country under terrorist cases. In Lahore as in Islamabad, women
parliamentarians like Uzma Bokhari, Farzana Raja, Mehreen Raja and Fawzia
Habib were dragged by the hair to be shoved into police lock-ups with no
washroom facilities, left to sleep on freezing floors. Phone calls flooded
our cell phones to report arrests all over the Punjab, with reports of the
jails and lock-ups bursting with detainees shouting slogans.
Without missing a heartbeat, Sindh rose up with one voice to protest the
internment of the PPP chairperson. Mass arrests followed virtually
everywhere. Earlier on, Karachi had seen almost the entire Sindh leadership
of the PPP arrested for peaceful marches. Now Larkana, Jacobabad, Matyari,
Tando Mohammad Khan all saw laathi charges and police action where the
protestors were tear-gassed ruthlessly. In Qambar Ali Khan, Thatta, Badin
and Ranipur, women and students were violently dragged to armoured vans. All
over the province, we heard of major arteries like the National Highway
blocked in Dadu while the Hub River Road remained blocked by protesting
citizens and the Qaidabad routes were choked off by angry students the whole
day. In the NWFP too, police has swooped down on the PPP Frontier President
Rahimdad Khan, and arrested him with the entire party executive of the
province.
In Lahore, as the battle on the streets intensified with the state clashing
with the PPP everywhere, Ms Bhutto demanded the end of General Musharraf's
divisive and violent rule in Pakistan. "His promises mean little, as his
goalposts keep changing," she said. People phoned in, excited by the
prospect of an open challenge to a tottering regime. But this is not a
matter to celebrate, a colleague rightly said. Pakistan does not need more
chaos and instability.
Unfortunately, this is not a choice we made, but a responsibility thrust on
the party. People are looking for leadership out of this crisis, and the PPP
will not disappoint. Ms Bhutto is determined that the Long March to freedom
will continue, in more ways than one. If not this week, then the next, or
the next, the sound of our feet will drown the sound of the jackboots.
Sherry Rehman is Central Information Secretary of the Pakistan Peoples
Party.
Pakistan's One-Man
Calamity
By Nawaz Sharif
Saturday, November 17, 2007 JIDDAH,
Saudi Arabia: My country is in flames. There is no constitution.
Judges have been sacked on a whim and arrested, political leaders locked up,
television stations taken off the air. Human rights activists, lawyers and
other members of civil society are bearing the brunt of a crackdown by a
brutal regime. Extremism has assumed enormous and grave proportions.
All of this is the doing of one man: Pervez Musharraf. He first struck at
the core of democracy on Oct. 12, 1999, when he dismissed my government at
gunpoint. My government was chosen by the people of Pakistan in free and
fair elections. But Musharraf so feared my popularity that he banished me
from the country and won't allow me to return. After Pakistan's Supreme
Court declared this year that I have a right to return, I flew into
Islamabad in September. But Musharraf brazenly refused me admittance to my
own country.
On Nov. 3, Musharraf struck again at democracy. He abrogated the
constitution and declared a state of emergency. For Musharraf, the
constitution is nothing but a piece of paper that can be crumpled and
discarded. After the Supreme Court stood up to him early this year and
attempted to restore the fundamental rights of the people, he dismissed
Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. Stung by the successful civil
society movement that led to Chaudhry's reinstatement, Musharraf acted
quickly after suspending the rule of law. The Supreme Court was considering
Musharraf's eligibility to be elected president despite being the army
chief, but before the court could rule, Musharraf dismissed the entire
judiciary.
These are the wages of dictatorship. Democracy holds the key to resolving
Pakistan's problems. Musharraf hopes that other nations will prefer his
despotism to the anarchy he claims would erupt were he to leave office. This
is a lie that America and other Western nations should not accept. Tyranny
is never a substitute for freedom, and there is no substitute for democracy.
Musharraf's self-serving contention that a free vote would result in
extremists coming to power is utterly flawed and intended to frighten the
West. First, the people of
Pakistan should have the chance to elect people they trust. My party, the
Pakistan Muslim League, and Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party enjoy
tremendous support across the country. Both of these parties are more
progressive and forward-looking than the general's ineffective autocracy.
Second, were there to be free and impartial elections, the world would see
the rise of moderates in Pakistan. We are a moderate country. It is
dictatorship that is fueling extremism. Return to the people their right to
vote in free elections, and you will see the results. Musharraf and his men
have turned their backs on freedom and put their lust for power over the
good of the nation.
They are hoping that a state of emergency will continue their control and
are ignoring the fundamental damage to Pakistan.
America has always been a friend of Pakistan. It is our strategic and
natural ally. I remember the good relationship I shared with President Bill
Clinton during my term in office. When Musharraf's misadventures in Kargil
in 1999 brought us close to nuclear confrontation with India, I, in close
consultation with Clinton, defused the situation. I remember President
Clinton saying: "The world should thank Nawaz Sharif for averting a nuclear
conflict between Pakistan and India."
Clinton refused to shake hands or be photographed with Musharraf when he
visited Pakistan in 2000. People took that as a gesture from a friend who
wished Pakistan well. By refusing to associate with a dictator, President
Clinton essentially won the hearts of the Pakistani people. That was the
policy that should have been pursued. That is the policy that should be
pursued now. America should not alienate 160 million Pakistanis by
supporting a dictator who prefers rifles to reason.
America must support the Pakistani nation -- not a single individual.
America must also support the democratic process in Pakistan. The people of
Pakistan are waiting for the powerful voice of America to be heard clearly
by the enemies of freedom. The generals must go back to the barracks. The
judiciary should be reinstated as it stood before the proclamation of
emergency. There is no other way forward.
We are struggling for the restoration of genuine democracy in Pakistan. Our
jails should be filled with criminals and law-breakers, not politicians and
law-abiding lawyers. The army of Pakistan should be defending the liberty of
the people at the direction of elected, civilian leaders, not usurping power
and creating a police state. Musharraf is the problem, and he should quit --
both as army chief and as president.
Nawaz Sharif was twice elected prime minister of Pakistan. He is living in
exile in Saudi Arabia.
Reverend Jessie
Jackson telephones Mohtarma Bhutto
Expresses solidarity with efforts for restoration of democracy
Mohtarma Bhutto invites Reverend Jessie to visit Pakistan
Islamabad November 17, 2007:
Reverend Jessie Jackson today telephoned Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and
conveyed his support for the efforts aimed at restoration of democracy in
Pakistan and to her struggle for the holding of free and fair elections in
the country.
Reverend Jessie Jackson a distinguished leader of the Democratic Party
leader is known for his outstanding humanitarian efforts in Syria Cuba
Yugoslavia and Liberia.
He is known the world over for supporting democracy movement in South Africa
when Mr Nelson Mandela was fighting apartheid and for saving countless
lives.
The former Prime Minister appreciated his services for the cause of
democracy and human rights throughout the world and thanked him for his
support to the struggle for democracy in Pakistan.
She also invited him to also visit Pakistan. Jessie Jackson accepted the
invitation and would be soon visiting Pakistan in a show of solidarity with
the forces of democracy.
Click on the image to see larger view
On
Sunday, November 11, 2007, PPP, USA held a protest demonstration in New
York, 65th Street and 5th Avenue (in front Pakistan Consulate) against
emergency rule in Pakistan and arrest of political leaders and workers by
dictator Gen. Musharraf's regime.
Some office bearers and members of PPP, USA who were present were: Dr. M.
Hassan, President, PPP, USA (who lead the demonstration); Chaudhry Ijaz
Farrukh, S.V.P, PPP, USA; Farasat Chaudhry, V.P, PPP, USA; Shafqat Tanweer,
Gen. Sec., PPP, USA; Ch. Hafiz Kalooh, V.P, PPP, USA; Shoukat Bhutta,
President, PPP, Tristate chapter; Khalid Awan; Masood Zikria, Additional
Info. Sec, PPP, USA; Malik M. Iqbal Awan, President, NYC chapter; Malik
Mushtaq Ahmad, Gen. Sec., PPP, NY chapter; Farooq Khwaja, Info. Sec, PPP, NY
chapter; Munawar Alam, President, PPP, Pennsylvia chapter; Victor Gill,
President Study Circle, PPP, USA; Rana Ramzan; Inam Abbasi; Abida Sitar;
Shahid Comrade, General Sec. Pakistan Freedom Forum; Dr. Ghonbal; along with
big number of PPP's supporters, sympathizers and democracy lovers.
The demonstrators were holding Pakistani flags and PPP flags. They were also
holding placards and banners on which were written slogans against dictator
Gen. Musharraf and his regime.
Some slogans were:
1.) Go Musharraf Go, No Musharraf No.
2.) Restoration of Democracy,
and end emergency rule immediately
3.) Uniform democracy: NO, NO.
4.) Bawardi Jamhuriat Ka khatima lazmi ha.
5.) Release all the political prisoners.
6.) Jeeway Jeeway, Bhutto Jeeway.
Also, PPP, USA passed a resolution in which they stated:
1.) Dictator Gen. Musharraf must resign.
2.) No more army general rule the country.
3.) Release all the political prisoners immediately.
4.) Military must go back to the barracks.
5.) Hold The Scheduled Elections on time.
It was a very succesful Demonstration.
Chaudhry Ijaz N. Farrukh
SVP./ SEC. INFO. PPP, USA
Long March protest
Two killed, several injured, countless arrested
Dispatches from sub-jail
By Sherry Rehman
November 16, 2007:
When an elephant starts dying, it thrashes around for its
survival. The danger is that if it takes too long, it damages the very soil
it feeds on. Unfortunately for Pakistan, the regime in power today is doing
more than just collateral damage as it thrashes about blindly to save
itself.
In Islamabad, on November 10th, the whole world saw how the police
barricaded the PPP Chairperson, Mohtarma Bhutto and a few parliamentarians
into her home. All of Islamabad was paralysed and the whole of Rawalpindi
blocked. The PPP workers at Liaqat Bagh were arrested in hordes and the area
sealed off.
For those who have seen Pakistan 's many political convulsions, it felt like
history was repeating itself. The regime clearly fears the pulling power of
the PPP as once again, the party openly took on a martial law regime in a
cloud of teargas, mass arrests, and clashes with police. The show of public
strength on October 18th in Karachi had caused many sleepless nights in the
establishment's ranks. The threat of a million people waving flags from
Islamabad to Laiqat Bagh, Rawalpindi was enough to rock the sinking ship.
Yet everyone knew that after the Karachi welcome, the second real challenge
to the tottering regime would come from the heart of the Punjab. The
prospect of a PPP Long March, led by a defiant Ms Bhutto from Lahore to
Islamabad via a long route, over three days, was again too much for the
regime to stomach without further blundering. On the night of November 12th,
before we could say the words " midnight knock", right after Ms Bhutto met
with a group of senior editors in Lahore at Senator Latif Khosa's house, the
gate slammed shut on all of us inside the house.
All those outside had remarked on the huge police contingent amassing around
the Defence Road bungalow, and by midnight when the last visitors had left,
the barbed wire started rolling out by the kilometre. Massive trucks filled
with wet sand positioned themselves in front of all the barricades to
prevent the PPP skirmishes which occurred in Islamabad, where a handful of
parliamentarians had managed to break the barbed wire mesh and battle past
the first barricades to get Ms Bhutto out of the house near the press, who
were waiting near the turning. But in Lahore, by 12.30 am, two Armoured
Personnel Carriers, like mini-tanks, positioned themselves in front of the
house. The side walls were encircled and the house at the back filled with
more police.
We stayed up most of the night in illegal detention, while the morning saw a
notice slapped on the padlocked gate. The notice was a Maintenance of Public
Order charge against Ms Bhutto, putting her under house arrest for seven
days. Even though the house was declared a sub-jail, the rest of us on the
inside were illegally detained.
Before the authorities could swoop down on the rest of this battle-hardened
party, PPP Punjab President, Shah Mahmoud Qureshi left with over 200
vehicles joining him along the way to lead the Long March from Ferozepur
Road to Okara. This group took hundreds of people along the way, joined
later by Qasim Zia and Makhdoom Yusuf Reza Gilani, which inflamed the regime
that had grown used to arresting leaders and de-mobilising entire political
parties. By the evening, Punjab crackled with the din of "Jeay Bhutto"
slogans resounding from police vans rounding hundreds of PPP leaders and
workers.
Back at the Khosa House, the gaggle of bristling paparazzi at the barricade
was moved away as part of the media black-out policy the regime had adopted
since November 3 2007. A journalist at the barricade rang to say that 4000
policemen were posted around the house, wondering why such a heavy
contingent was needed to lock in one unarmed woman. I told him that the one
woman whom they needed an army to detain, was the symbol of resistance to
all that the Zia-ist establishment had plotted for.
He asked why was this group relevant today? What had they got to do with the
state Pakistan was in now, where terrorists were on the rampage with
impunity, while police and rangers ran around rounding up peaceful
democrats? This group is relevant today because this was a nexus that had
spent billions of rupees of slush money to create the IJI in 1990 against
the PPP, and this was the group that had fuelled the Afghan jihad. They had
a heavy investment in keeping the PPP out of power, and they would stop at
little, including creating new leaders with no following to pose as
alternatives. They were paranoid about a political party with real mass
support and plans, to run the country without military hegemony. They
preferred politicians who fast-tracked their careers via the intelligence
agency route. This was the group that had been instrumental in sponsoring
the Afghan Mujahideen, the Arab Al-Qaeda, and later the Pak-Afghan Taliban.
After scanning the work of experts on Pakistan's role in the Afghan jihad,
and its own blowback in Pakistan, the journalist rang back to say that this
was also the shadowy nexus that was now feeding key people in his profession
to say that Ms Bhutto was insincere, and that her defiance, both at great
personal and physical cost was part of a pantomime staged to pressure
Musharraf. He added that he had reason to believe that this group had
international links, and was powerful enough to shuffle one military
dictator for another military ruler dressed up as a moderate in order to
counter Bhutto.
His words were prescient. Sub-jail is not the same as suffering in a nasty
jail, but it has its limitations. Access to amenities one takes for granted
start drying up and newspapers have to be smuggled in. On November 14th, the
small group with Ms Bhutto in Khosa House woke up to many newspapers
carrying huge half-page advertisements plastering a forged letter written by
Ms Benazir Bhutto to Peter Galbraith in which she was cast in an anti-state
mould, appealing to the Americans and the Indians to lean on Pakistan to
facilitate her return to power. Even in 1990, the Zia-ist combine that had
the letter forged and planted all over the national press, was widely seen
as a crudely put-together chapter of the dirty-tricks campaign that the
Bhutto-bashers had been running since 1986. And here it was again, funded
and sponsored by the same people who had probably sprung for the hit on Ms
Bhutto's truck on October 19th, killing 158 people.
Political activists have now been thrown summarily in jails all over the
country under terrorist cases. In Lahore as in Islamabad, women
parliamentarians like Uzma Bokhari, Farzana Raja, Mehreen Raja and Fawzia
Habib were dragged by the hair to be shoved into police lock-ups with no
washroom facilities, left to sleep on freezing floors. Phone calls flooded
our cell phones to report arrests all over the Punjab, with reports of the
jails and lock-ups bursting with detainees shouting slogans.
Without missing a heartbeat, Sindh rose up with one voice to protest the
internment of the PPP chairperson. Mass arrests followed virtually
everywhere. Earlier on, Karachi had seen almost the entire Sindh leadership
of the PPP arrested for peaceful marches. Now Larkana, Jacobabad, Matyari,
Tando Mohammad Khan all saw laathi charges and police action where the
protestors were tear-gassed ruthlessly. In Qambar Ali Khan, Thatta, Badin
and Ranipur, women and students were violently dragged to armoured vans. All
over the province, we heard of major arteries like the National Highway
blocked in Dadu while the Hub River Road remained blocked by protesting
citizens and the Qaidabad routes were choked off by angry students the whole
day. In the NWFP too, police has swooped down on the PPP Frontier President
Rahimdad Khan, and arrested him with the entire party executive of the
province.
In Lahore, as the battle on the streets intensified with the state clashing
with the PPP everywhere, Ms Bhutto demanded the end of General Musharraf's
divisive and violent rule in Pakistan. "His promises mean little, as his
goalposts keep changing," she said. People phoned in, excited by the
prospect of an open challenge to a tottering regime. But this is not a
matter to celebrate, a colleague rightly said. Pakistan does not need more
chaos and instability.
Unfortunately, this is not a choice we made, but a responsibility thrust on
the party. People are looking for leadership out of this crisis, and the PPP
will not disappoint. Ms Bhutto is determined that the Long March to freedom
will continue, in more ways than one. If not this week, then the next, or
the next, the sound of our feet will drown the sound of the jackboots.
Sherry Rehman is Central Information Secretary of the Pakistan Peoples
Party.
PPP delegation meets
Secretary Election Commission
Islamabad, 16
November 2007: A delegation of Pakistan People Party called on
the Secretary Election Commission to handover the letter addressed to the
Chief Election Commissioner by the Chairman Election Monitoring Cell, PPP,
Senator Sardar Latif Khan Khosa. The delegation included Kamran Zafar, Nazir
Dhoki, Ms. Palwasha Behram, Sheikh Mansoor and Tariq Malik.
The letter drew attention to an immoral and indecent media campaign launched
by Pakistan Muslim League (Quid-e-Azam) to malign the Chairperson of
Pakistan Peoples Party, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. Two advertisements have
been published in the national media on November 14, 2007 and November 15,
2007 that are based on forgery and out of context press headlines.
Ordinarily name of the advertising agency which has prepared the
advertisement appears with the advertisement, but in this particular case,
the name of the advertising agency has not been indicated that shows a
clandestine nature of the campaign.”
It was asserted in the letter that these advertisements flout the Code of
Conduct for elections on multiple levels, as detailed below: The campaign is
being run at the State expense to malign the leadership of the largest
political party of the country. The advertisement on November 14, 2007 was
based on a forged letter. (Please see the enclosed letter from Mr Naveed
Malik) Mohtarma Bhutto never wrote such a letter nor received any reply.
Hands involved in forging such a letter must be identified. Additionally
full page advertisements are being issued on State expense by both the
Punjab Govt and the Federal Govt to project certain individuals. An
international forensic expert should be hired for audit trail that will
prove that the Government money is being used for such advertisements. The
slanderous campaign is against the law and against the Code of Conduct and
you are to implement the law and the Code of Conduct.
The letter further reads, “It has been learnt that the Musharraf regime has
also hired a new PR Firm in the USA to which it is paying US$ 650,000/- to
malign the political standing of Mohtarma Bhutto with a view to bring her
political opposition. The Election Commission of Pakistan must issue notice
to terminate the present specification mandate of duty given to the Firm
wherein to malign Mohtarma Bhutto, call for all correspondence with that
Firm including by the Govt officials or any other deputed for the task and
do an audit trail to find the source of money. Genuine
political parties have been denied an opportunity to state their position by
creating a mediaenvironment where people of Pakistan have no access to
independent electronic media. Popular leadership of the political parties is
under detention and not allowed to interact with the media. In these
circumstances, we feel that possibility of a fair and free election where
all political parties are provided a level playing field is increasingly
bleak.”
The letter asks the Chief Election Commission to take the above steps
immediately for fulfilment of constitutional obligation to hold fair, free
and impartial elections.
PPP workers arrested
on 4th day of long march
Islamabad, 16 November 2007:
Over 200 PPP activists were arrested today in Lalamusa, Gujrat and Kharian
on the 4th day of the long march .
Those arrested included, Imtiaz Safdar Warraich MNA, Chaudhry Manzoor MNA,
Dr. Firdaus Ashiq Awan MNA, Kamar Zaman Kaira MNA, Ijaz Saman MPA, Saood Dar
MPA, Lala Shakeel MPA, Malik Tahir MPA, Abdullah Virk Ex-MNA, Tahir Zaman
Kaira District President Gujrat and Zahid Bashir Chaudhry City President
Sialkot.
There have also been clashes in Gujranwala between police and people.
REBUTTAL TO GPM AND
THUGS OF GUJRAT
By Wajid Shamsul Hasan- November 16, 2007
Gujrat—in the province of Pakistani
Punjab—has earned international notoriety for at least two things—if not
more. Firstly, it is known widely what many in their reverence call “Shah
Doula Dey Chohay”—men and women with shrunken heads over a large human
body-- described medically as micro-encephalic children. When one looks at
their sad plight, it evokes sympathy and remorse.
While not under-estimating them, one can not, however, ignore yet another
ignominiously cursed breed—though in appearance normal but otherwise no
better than those creatures that gnaw the society at its roots, grind their
teeth into its vitals and yet take pride in being known as Choudhries
otherwise popularly described as Co-operative Thugs of Gujrat.
Not that it is something despicable to be scions of a foot constable to rise
in a society--from rags to riches particularly when they have used all
means—fair and foul including their kinky queer habits-- what makes one take
exception to them is their most outrageous attempt at drowning Punjab in
their filth and stinking scum. By abusing 44 per cent of the province’s
development fund in an advertising campaign to white wash their overly <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">kala-kola image and also to re-launch a
recycled dirty tricks media operation of 1990 election campaign against PPP
chairperson Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto—they have started digging their own
grave to be finally buried deep down under the loads of dung-heap of their
misdeeds.
I am sure painful and agonising shrieks of Imran Khan’s sisters as well as
brave PPP ladies, human rights workers—when pulled by their hair and dragged
by the private police force raised on the pattern of Hitler’s Storm troopers
by the Choudhries directly under the orders of their commando
godfather—would be recorded as one of the most gory and blood curdling
chapters that would make previous tortures to political dissidents bed-side
tales for the kids.
The clarion call by Bhutto for a people’s revolution for the restoration of
democracy, rule of law, restitution of the Chief Justice of Pakistan and
other judges sacked by General Pervez Musharraf to save his second skin and
to perpetuate his illegal hold on power by media blackout and Draconian
clampdown on the journalists---sooner than later—would unleash the dynamics
of change for the good of the country.
By returning home under direct threats of assassination by those who have
wielded power for more than eight years and having survived an attempt on
her life just when she landed back home to a tumultuous welcome by millions,
her message to them is loud and clear—nothing can stop the caravan of
democracy from reaching the goal post of its destiny. Her timely return has
awakened the masses from their deep inertia inflicted on them by hunger,
starvation and deprivation and they are ready for the battle to save
Pakistan especially at this critical juncture when Pakistan’s mighty General
has been conceding territory miles followed by miles to the conquering
militants in Swat and Northern Pakistan.
When he has dragged the country to the point when it could be declared a
failed state any hour, he wants more time to Viagra-ise himself through
emergency so that he could do what he could not do in last eight years. In
short, his is a recipe for a total disaster.
At this defining moment all the saner political elements should join hands
with Bhutto to make a united effort to stop Pakistan’s slide down the eddy
of doom.
It needs to be realised that the Gujrat’s co-operative thugs, their
Praetorian godfather and other political scavengers in cahoots with them,
have bloated themselves on the nation’s blood. They have got addicted to it
and it is running through them—instead of giving it up they are hell-bent to
devour the body to the barest of its bones. One feels that Pakistan needs to
be saved from these vultures first, obscurantist forces that thrived due to
their patronage can be taken care of later. The masses know well that Bhutto
haters are the doddering vestiges of the old order who are writhing in the
last trauma and tremors and to get rid of them for good now requires one big
and final push to send them rolling down never to rise again.
A Pakistan designed to be secular and democratic by the founding fathers was
perforce allowed to be hijacked by the obscurantist elements who had opposed
the Quaid’s progressive and modern vision. And the land where its citizens
were not to be discriminated on account of their caste, creed or colour was
allowed to be fragmented by those who had opposed Mr Jinnah’s egalitarian
Pakistan. And the Generals instead of surrendering to the political will of
the masses and accept them as the sole arbiters of power, preferred to lay
down their arms before the Indians.
Ms Bhutto’s announcement to return to Pakistan had made nights sleepless for
those who had socio-economically and politically scavenged Pakistan. Ever
since then and more desperately now her political adversaries—both in the
corridors of power and outside—have been trying to outdo each other in
distorting her image by their vicarious spins to derail her well-thought out
mission to restore the supremacy of the masses.
Enormously vicious print media blitzkrieg through heavily paid huge
advertisements is much more of the same that the masses have suffered
through since 1970. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was targeted then and now once again
his daughter is facing the malicious propaganda on slought. All the filth
that has been catapulted at the Bhuttos has fallen back direct on the face
of its perpetrators. Theirs indeed, is a rare phenomenon. The more Bhuttos
are character-assassinated, the more endeared they become with the masses.
Almost all her adversaries—including those in the government-- joined hands
to malign her political brinkmanship under different interpretations and
connotations.
Even those in the media who claim to have an eye to see things that are
normally opaque, could not guess. They rushed to declare that she had lost
her face by agreeing to engage herself in talks for peaceful transition to
democracy only to be jolted out of their firmly taken up positions by the
teeming cavalcade of her “shirtless and shoeless” supporters from every nook
and corner of Pakistan to converge onto Karachi to give it the look of a
“mini-Pakistan” as a newspaper correspondent aptly described the look of the
Quaid’s last resting place. All their calculations and estimates failed and
most of them wimpishly agreed: deal or no deal, people wanted her back, to
be in their midst and to lead them once again.
Now most of her political contemporaries who did not see eye to eye with
herpolitics—sneakily accept that she played her cards exceptionally well. As
a result now to campaign against her are only the Thugs of Gujrat,
Musharraf’s HMVs and those that wag their tongues and tails just to please
their master with the whip. With rotten eggs spread on their faces, even
likes of Shedda Tullies (not mistake him for Mark Tully) are accusing the
PPP Chairperson of doing what General Pervez Musharraf has come to be
internationally known as: “mother of all about turners” and “mother of
service to his foreign masters”.
In their heart of hearts they know that none of the military dictators in
our history has done so much for the Americans as the GPM. And there is no
other reason but this “mother of all services” rendered by him to them that
has made Washington—despite being fed up with him for being too much of an
embarrassment for them now--to continue trying to seek a safe exit strategy
for him. Indeed, the common man in the street though empty in the
stomach—gets a full laugh when he hears the general now rendered into a
tin-pot stutterer on the idiot box claiming that he does not accept foreign
dictates—only welcomes foreign exchange. It is something like pot calling
the kettle black. His band-wagoners have conveniently forgotten the fact
that it were Pakistan’s military rulers who have rendered Pakistan’s
sovereignty and independence into a myth and not Bhuttos.
Is it not a fact that a Pakistani prime minister had to rush to President
Clinton to plead to him to save Pakistan from the dreadful fall-out
consequences of the Kargil misadventure in 1999? Had the Americans not
intervened effectively then, a war with India could not be averted. And
indeed much earlier to that--in 1971- had not President Nixon stopped Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi from advancing her conquering troops into West
Pakistan after having captured 5000 square miles of Pakistani land on the
western front, by now Pakistan would have become a foot note in history. It
was ZAB who got back in the Simla summit what our generals had shamelessly
lost in the battlefield.
It was again a Bhutto that saved Pakistan from being declared a terrorist
rogue state in 1993. Even in General Zia’s time —Benazir Bhutto—considered a
‘security risk’ by him had used her good offices to save Pakistan from
American sanctions.
Even his worst critics acknowledge today that ZAB had restored Pakistan’s
image of honour and respect in the comity of nations by his pro-active
foreign policy, his support to the Arabs and his sincere commitment to the
Third World. It was General Zia who rendered this revived image of respect
back to square one.
While one would have ignored with contempt the well-orchestrated media
blitzkrieg launched against her following her return in which “she came, she
saw and she conquered”, the lowly swipe by GPM at her showed his pathetic
state of mind. One had heard much about his other inadequacies but one did
not know that he suffered from what doctors call figure-blindness. Giving an
interview to a foreign journalist he ridiculed the popularity that Bhutto
enjoys among the masses. Having kept her illegally hostage, her house
surrounded by more than 3000 police men plus an equal number in civvies, he
said that she could not collect 150 people. One was reminded of a similar
guffaw by him when he could not see the huge crowd at the Supreme Court
through his window which was either shut or opened on the opposite side. Not
only that, he also gave reasons for “her” unpopularity.
He referred to her statements on Dr A.Q. Khan, Red Mosque and the Islamic
militants, giving these the twist that only people who suffer
foot-in-the-mouth disease can. His spin doctors had started shooting from
their hips—to accuse her of being anti-state and of having belittled Dr A.Q.
Khan. Like his now former ministers, his was an attempt at insinuating her.
His ministers, it needs to be recalled, had twisted her statement that in
which she had said that Dr A.Q. Khan had been singly made a scapegoat and to
know the truth as to who were the real culprits or who other beneficiaries
were along with him in the nuclear money loot—she would allow IAEA access to
meet Dr A.Q.Khan in Pakistan to find out the truth. No where did she ever
say that when she would come into power she would hand over Dr Khan to IAEA
interrogators.
Ms Bhutto was once asked the hypothetical question whether a government led
by her would cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in
investigating charges against Dr. A.Q. Khan. She responded by saying that a
PPP government would extend full cooperation to the International Atomic
Energy Commission. This position was not very different from what Musharraf
government has maintained. Her simple statement of a factual position was
deliberately distorted to imply that she promised any unlawful handing over
of anyone to foreigners. Rather, she has maintained that the PPP has always
sought to establish rule of law and there was no question of violating
Pakistani or International law in relation to the freedom and personal
rights of anyone, including Dr A.Q. Khan. One may add here that to get to
expose the real racketeers behind the nuclear super market she had demanded
immediately institution of a by-partisan parliamentary committee to
investigate. There is, indeed, something more than meets the eye that
whenever there is any move to let Dr A.Q. Khan speak out, those generals
having the major share in the nuclear pie rush to shoot it down as
anti-Pakistan.
We must remember Zulfikar Ali Bhutto preferred death than to give up his
pursuit of the nuclear glow for Pakistan.
In one of his last meetings ZAB emphasised to his daughter that Pakistan’s
nuclear programme should remain deterrent and at no stage transfer of
technology be permitted.According to him, those opposed to it might swallow
the bitter pill of a Pakistani bomb but they would unleash their wrath on
Pakistan if it passes the technology onto other Muslim or friendly
countries. They would not let Pakistani bomb become an Islamic bomb.
In the light of her father’s instructions she made Pakistan’s Nuclear
Doctrine very clear. No export of it at any cost. It has been Benazir
Bhutto’s mission to protect Pakistan’s nuclear programme. According to her,
Pakistan’s nuclear programme was a matter of life and death for Pakistan. No
one would be allowed to roll it back nor would be permitted to stop its
further development solely as a deterrent. In her nuclear doctrine there is
total ban on transfer of nuclear technology for “money or friendship”.
It is for its future protection that Bhutto has always emphasised upon the
need for a investigation into the violation of Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine.
It is a must to reassure the international community that Pakistan is a
responsible nation and it can secure its nuclear arsenal. It will have to be
done sooner than later to nip that lobby in the bud that believes that in
order to attack Iran’s nuclear programme Pakistan’s shall have to be
destroyed first to ensure it does not fall in the hands of Taliban and
religious extremists.
PPP condemns roughing
up of women protestors and activists
Islamabad,
November 16, 2007: Pakistan Peoples Party has condemned the
roughing up of women workers and elected members of Parliament by male
members of the security forces and lodging them in lock ups with males in
police stations.
Women workers and members of provincial and national assemblies have
undergone harsh treatment and subjected to shockingly abusive treatment by
the security personnel over the last couple of days.
A large number of female activists of the Party have been arrested during
the long march and shoved into police vans as male policemen beat and shoved
them around. The women protestors were also booked under various offences
including terrorism. The people also witnessed the scenes of state brutality
against them.
In a statement today PPP Senator Rukhsana Zuberi said that it was most
condemnable that female political workers were so maltreated by male police
personnel and booked under anti terrorism laws.
Amongst others those who have been arrested, jailed and now under house
arrest are PPP Punjab information Secretary and MPA, Farzana Raja, Yasmin
Misbah ur Rehman MPA, Mehreen Anwar Raja MNA, Uzma Zahid Bokhari MPA, Fayza
Malik MPA, Dr. Nadia Aziz MPA., Saghira Islam MPA, Talat Shakoor, and Bilum
Hasnain MNA.
For two nights the arrested women were not allowed to sleep and were
subjected to harassment and torture. They were moved from one place to
another to ensure that the party and their relatives could not reach them.
The PPP has demanded that all the women workers should be released
immediately and persecution and harassment should come to end forthwith.
She also demanded strict action against the male police personnel who
misbehaved with the women protestors.
It is highly deplorable that the state apparatus is being used to target
innocent political workers, Senator Rukhsana Zuberi said.
PPP welcomes Senator
Dodd’s call for ending emergency, shedding uniform
Islamabad November
16, 2007: Pakistan Peoples Party has welcomed Senator Dodd’s
letter to Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte urging him to press for
ending the state of emergency in Pakistan and Musharraf doffing uniform.
As General Pervez Musharraf refuses to doff uniform and lift the siege
imposed through emergency, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) a senior member of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a letter asked Secretary Negroponte
to press Musharraf to end Pakistan's state of emergency, lift the
restrictions on Pakistani media and release detained members of political
opposition.
Dodd also said General Musharraf must resign his post as head of Pakistan's
Armed Forces and allow free and fair elections, saying that Musharraf
regime’s clampdown “are troubling developments that threaten to destabilize
an already fragile region".
"General Musharraf's recent imposition of a state of emergency is extremely
worrisome with ramifications that extend well beyond Pakistan's borders,"
Dodd said in the letter.
In a statement today spokesperson of the Party said that Senator Dodd’s
letter lends encouragement and support to the movement for the restoration
of democracy in Pakistan that the PPP is presently embarked upon under the
leadership of Benazir Bhutto.
It is also a timely reminder that the people of Pakistan do not stand alone
and that their struggle has the support of peoples and nations in every
continent of the world, he said.
The following is the full text of Senator Dodd's letter.
Dear Secretary Negroponte,
I am writing about the dangerous developments in Pakistan and your upcoming
meeting with Pakistani President, General Pervez Musharraf.
General Musharraf's recent imposition of a state of emergency is extremely
worrisome with ramifications that extend well beyond Pakistan's borders. The
Musharraf government's recent clampdown on former Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto and other members of the political opposition and civil society, the
Pakistani Supreme Court, and Pakistani and international media are troubling
developments that threaten to destabilize an already fragile region.
I have no doubt that in your meeting with the Pakistani President you will
reiterate the Administration's stated policy that General Musharraf should
resign from his position as Chief of Staff of Pakistan's Armed Forces. A
return to civilian rule is, in my view, a necessary first step on the road
to democratization. However, if General Musharraf is truly committed to a
democratic Pakistan, such a step must be followed by free and fair elections
in which opposition groups are free to operate and campaign in an open and
democratic fashion and in which the media and civil society are able to be
actively engaged in the political process.
No such democratic transition can take place, however, without an immediate
end to Pakistan's state of emergency rule. Therefore, I respectfully request
that you urge General Musharraf to move quickly to end Pakistan's state of
emergency, halt restrictions on Pakistani media and unconditionally release
detained members of political opposition, including Benazir Bhutto, Imram
Khan and members of the Pakistani Judiciary.
I encourage you to make it abundantly clear to General Musharraf that
Pakistan's stability, security and democracy is of paramount interest to the
United States and must be as well to Pakistan's political leaders. You
should also inform General Musharraf that the US Congress stands with the
U.S. Administration in its efforts to resolve the current crisis in Pakistan
and stands ready to do its part at the appropriate time.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, and please do not hesitate to
contact myself or my staff if you have any questions”
Meanwhile the Pakistan Peoples Party North Texas Dallas chapter has decide a
protest against the emergency on Saturday and for demanding fair and free
election in Pakistan.
“We appeal to all the people of our country to walk with us on our common
destination towards freedom. We ask the international community to give us
moral support”, said Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada General Secretary PPP Dallas
in an announcement today.
Pakistan: Musharraf
Uses Anti-Terror Laws to Jail Critics
Government Expands Crackdown by Detaining Hundreds of Opposition Activists
New York, November
16, 2007 – Pakistan’s government under General Pervez Musharraf’s
emergency rule has expanded its crackdown on its critics by detaining
hundreds of opposition activists from the country’s largest opposition
party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Human Rights Watch said today.
When US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrives in Pakistan on
Friday, he should publicly demand the immediate release of all protestors
and Pakistan’s judiciary held in detention or house arrest since the
crackdown began on November 3, including Supreme Court Chief Justice
Iftikhar Chaudhry and PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.
After Bhutto on November 13 called off power-sharing negotiations with
Musharraf, activists from the PPP have faced police violence and mass
arrests, particularly in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab. On November 13,
the government announced that it would not allow Bhutto to mount a protest
march planned by her party for the same day. Bhutto and many PPP leaders
have been under house arrest in the central city of Lahore since November
13. There are multiple reports of the police tear-gassing and beating
protestors with batons.
“Musharraf is trying to cling on to power by beating and jailing an
ever-growing number even of opposition activists,” said Brad Adams, Asia
director at Human Rights Watch. “But as Musharraf fills the jails with his
critics, Pakistanis are expressing their disgust at his repressive rule
through continued protests.”
November 14 saw arrests all over the country. In the city of Jhang, a former
Pakistani ambassador to the United States and a PPP member, Abida Hussain,
was arrested and placed under house arrest after she attempted to lead an
anti-Musharraf rally. The Punjab province president of the PPP, Shah Mehmood
Qureshi, along with several others, was arrested in Rajewala in Punjab
province while attempting to lead a protest march from Lahore to the capital
Islamabad.
Human Rights Watch has received reports that hundreds of PPP supporters
along the route of the party’s proposed protest march have been detained
without charge to prevent mobilization for and turnout at the march.
Similarly, in the southern province of Sindh, the political base of the PPP,
hundreds of party activists have been arrested in the cities of Karachi,
Hyderababad, Jacobabad, Khairpur, Thatta and Larkana. Human Rights Watch has
been able to confirm the detention of at least 600 PPP activists across
Sindh who were protesting Bhutto’s house arrest. Unconfirmed butcredible
reports indicate the numbers are likely to be much higher.
Human Rights Watch expressed concern at the use of anti-terrorism laws to
detain peaceful opponents of the Musharraf government. While most of the
detained activists are being held without charge, many have been charged
under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), while others are being held under
provisions of the colonial-era Maintenance of Public Order Act (MPO).
PPP Senior Vice Chairman Yousaf Raza Gillani and 150 PPP activists were
charged and produced in an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Lahore, then sent
to jail on judicial remand. The 150 detainees include at least 40 women,
some of them PPP members of the national and provincial legislatures.
Imran Khan, a former captain of Pakistan’s national cricket team and leader
of a small but vocal opposition party, Movement for Justice (PTI), was
arrested on November 14 after he attempted to lead a student
rally at Punnjab University in Lahore. Aftab Cheema, a senior Punjab police
officer, confirmed to the Associated Press news agency that Khan was being
held at an undisclosed location and had been charged under the
Anti-Terrorism Act.
“Musharraf is trying to portray opponents of his power grab as terrorists,”
said Adams. “His abuse of Pakistan’s anti-terrorism laws in a desperate bid
to hold onto power must end.”
Human Rights Watch reiterated its call for Musharraf to end the state
of emergency, rescind the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) and return
to constitutional rule. Musharraf must reinstate the judiciary headed by
Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, restore fundamental rights, remove
restrictions on the media, and release thousands of political detainees held
since November 3.
Human Rights Watch also urged Musharraf’s principal patron, the United
States, toimpose comprehensive sanctions on all military and economic aid,
with the exception of humanitarian assistance. The US should also
impose travel restrictions on members of the Musharraf government. US Deputy
Secretary of State Negroponte should make it clear to Musharraf that
continued US support depends on his reversing the measures he has instituted
since November 3. Negroponte is due to arrive in Islamabad on November 16.
“US failure to back up its words of criticism with concrete sanctions has
only fueled further political repression in Pakistan and deepened resentment
of the US among Pakistanis,” said Adams. “Negroponte’s message to Musharraf
needs to simple and straightforward: if he doesn’t end repression, respect
human rights and restore the rule of law, Pakistan will lose billions of
dollars in US support.”
Islamabad Nov 15,
2007 : The following is the update on the arrests of PPP leaders and
activists on the third day of the March on Nov 15.
Ghulam Abbas, Sec Gen Punjab PPP has
reached Sheikhupura with hundreds of supporters and over a 100 buses. Deputy
Leader Opposition Punjab, Rana Aftab arrested while leading Long March out
of Faisalabad.
Reports of clashes between protestors and police trying to break up the
march were pouring in at the time of compilation of the report.
In Peshawar the Frontier PPP Sec General Najmuddin Khan and others were
arrested after baton charge and clashes with police. Demonstrators also tear
gassed as clashes erupted.
Frontier President of the PPP Rahim Dad Khan already locked in jail.
In Karachi violent clashes took place in Lyari that resulted in the killing
of two PPP workers. Opposition leader in the Senate Mian Reza Rabbani and
former federal minister Yusuf Talpur arrested while leading a procession.
Police fired upon the protesters as major towns and villages shut down amid
shelling, baton-charges protesting the detention of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto
and arrests of over 7500 leaders and workers of the party on third
consecutive day Thursday.
Nawabshah remained shut completely. In Sakrand, police resorted to firing
injuring PPP worker Raza Mohammad Chandio. Eight PPP workers including the
injured one whisked away by the police which also registered case against
them.
Over 50 PPP leaders and workers including PPP District President Dr Mohan
Kohistani, Dr Sikandar Shoro and others were arrested in Kotri. The
protesters blocked the Kotri roads paralyzing the vehicular traffic while
shopkeepers pulled their shutters down in protest.
In Chachro, over two dozen PPP workers were arrested following a protest
demo. Those arrested include PPP tehsil Chachro President Ghulam Hussain
Gajju, Kamal Bajeer, Jalal Bajeer, Ghulam Rasool Rahimoon and others.
The reports about protests were pouring in from Tando Ghulam Ali, Talhar,
Matli, Gulab Leghari, Tando Bago, Jam Sahib, Dando, Hyderabad, Larkana,
Naudero, Qambar, Thatta, Gharo, Dadu, Khairpur Nathan Shah, Mehar, Ghotki,
Khairpur, Faiz Gunj, Shikarpur, Kot Mirs, Garhi Yasin, Badin, Mirpurkhas,
Umerkot etc.
PPP demands probe
into misuse of state funds for media trial of Mohtarma Bhutto
Calls upon CEC to take note of Code violation
Islamabad November
15, 2007: Pakistan Peoples Party has demanded probe into the use
of state funds spent on slanderous campaign against the PPP and Chairperson
Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.
In a statement today spokesperson of the Party said that the Party had
credible information that public funds at the disposal the Information
Ministry have been used in financing the smear campaign.
“Funding slanderous campaign with public money is a grave violation of the
code of conduct for elections” he said adding “The Party calls upon the EC
to immediately take steps to stop it and hold accountable those
responsible”.
Silence and inaction by the EC on such a grave violation of the code of
conduct would be seen that the Election Commission is either unable or
unwilling to enforce its code of conduct, he said.
He said that the Party had also learnt that the government had hired a new
lobbying firm in the US for $650,000 for regurgitating allegations against
the Party leadership in the foreign media.
“The Party demands a thorough probe into the misuse of state funds and the
hiring of a lobbying firm for the media trial of Mohtarma Bhutto and urges
the CEC to take notice of the violation of code of conduct at state expense.
Mohtarma Bhutto
expresses shock over fall of town after town to militants in Swat
Islamabad, 15
November 2007: Former Prime Minister and Chairperson Pakistan
Peoples Party, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto expressed shock that yet another town
in North West Frontier Province had fallen in the Swat Valley. She expressed
alarm that under the present military dictatorship, Pakistan was facing
threat of dis-integration. She called upon the people of Pakistan especially
the youth, the middle classes, working classes, labour, peasants,
intellectuals, doctors, teachers and lawyers, those in uniform or retired,
civil or military, or retired to strengthen her hands so that PPP and its
allies could succeed in restoring democracy and strengthening the Nation by
strengthening the people.
Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto said instead of sending the police force to
strengthen the administration in Alpuri, following the fall of Madyan and
Kalam, the regime had sent its forces to fortify Lahore and Rawalpindi.
“Tear gas, baton charging, and rubber bullets should be used on militants
not on pro-democracy forces,” Mohtarma Bhutto said.
She said it was a matter or National shame and humiliation that the Pakistan
flag had been lowered in Alpuri, and the Pakistan Constitution had been torn
to shreds. Mohtarma said that this regime was “more interested in self
preservation than National preservation”. Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto called on
the people to rise up and join the Freedom March of the people to obtain
freedom from martial Law, freedom from tyranny and freedom of the people.
She said, “The motherland is calling to every patriotic son and daughter to
stand up and defend the sacred soil of our territory”.
Mohtarma Bhutto recalled the days of 1971 when General Yahya surrendered to
Indian forces. She said such surrender must never again be witnessed. The
PPP had given a call to the people to bring an “Awami Revolution” to save
the country. She called upon all the people of Pakistan to join the Freedom
March of the people by participating with PPP flags, their own party flags,
or white or black-flags as suited them.
She said, “We must save Pakistan by saving democracy.”
Mohtarma Bhutto said that General Musharraf had announced sending the Army
to Swat yet Alpuri had fallen, and before that Kalam, Madyan, Khyber, Bajour,
Waziristan. Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto said army jawans are brave, police
sepoys are brave, and people of Pakistan are brave. They can defend the
country from the forces of terrorism, militancy and extremism and the
conspiracy to tarnish the name of Islam by distorting its image. But she
questioned how the Army, the police, or people could fight if the Nation was
leaderless and rudderless. Mohtarma said she had returned to Pakistan to
save the people, especially, the young from the dis-integration of the
country and with her hands strengthened by the 16 crore people of Pakistan,
she would raise the flag of the country in Alpuri, in Madyan, Kalam, and all
the parts of Pakistan now lost under an illegal military dictatorship.
It may be noted that Alpuri in Shangla fell four days after Mohtarma warned
it would fall if re-enforcement were not sent.
Mohtarma Bhutto
condemns arrest of Imran Khan and PPP Leaders
Islamabad November
14, 2007: Former Prime Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has
condemned the arrest of Imran Khan and PPP leaders Shah Mahmood Qureshi MNA,
Raja Riaz MPA, Dr. Asad MPA, Hasan Murtaza Shirazi, Khawaja Rizwan Alam and
others in Lahore and Faisalabad.
In a statement today she said that the arrests of PPP leaders and workers
and baton charge of women activists would not discourage the Party from the
freedom march.
She said that the march was aimed at ending the martial law, restoration of
the Constitution, independence of the judiciary and prosperity of the
people. The march is to end Martial Law and return Pakistan to its peoples.
She called for the immediate release of Imran Khan, Shah Mahmood Qureshi and
all those detained by the police.
Mohtarma Bhutto
condemns baton charge on students
Islamabad November 14, 2007: Former Prime
Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party has condemned the
assault on teenage school students in Islamabad and called for inquiry into
the incident and punishment to those who have transgressed the law and
crossed all limits.
The regime on Monday crossed a new threshold by attacking, arresting and
detaining schoolchildren in Islamabad. A group of students, most of them
between 14 and 18 years of age, was walking outside a public park as a sign
of protest when it was intercepted by the Islamabad Police who said that
they had no special approval from the magistrate's office to walk any
further.
Even as the students did not challenge the police, they were immediately
surrounded by hundreds of policemen and began manhandling the children and
charging them with batons, pushing them into police vans. 48 boys were
physically assaulted and detained, amongst them a 12-year old boy.
In a statement today the former Prime Minister said that she was shocked to
learn of the incident. She said that the state’s brutality against school
going children would leave deep scars on them that would not be conducive to
their growth as law abiding and peaceful citizens.
She demanded a thorough probe into the matter and bringing to book the
minions of law enforcing agencies who committed such a crime at the behest
of their political masters.
Mohtarma Bhutto also sympathised with the beleaguered and harassed students
and their families.
Mohtarma Bhutto
expresses solidarity with Okara tenants
Deplores state excesses against them, calls for giving tenants rights
Islamabad,
November 14, 2007 - Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the
Pakistan Peoples Party Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has hailed the heroic
struggle waged by the tenants on the farmlands in Okara and said that the
Pakistan Peoples Party was with them and would not abandon them.
In a statement today she said that she planned to meet the tenants in
Okakara during the long march to express solidarity with them but an
unnerved regime had blocked her from visiting them.
She said that she was shocked to learn during exile the atrocities committed
against the tenants and how their lands were being grabbed that had damaged
the image of the country.
She said that two years ago the PPP took up the issue in the Human Rights
Committee of the Senate which called for an end to the victimization of
tenants. It also said that since the land belonged to Punjab the provincial
government should also be involved in resolving the dispute.
The Senate report had also lamented the massive human rights violations of
the tenants and the filing of false cases against them and recommended that
the investigations into cases should be entrusted to agencies outside Okara.
But within days of the Senate body’s recommendations another offensive was
launched against the tenants, she said.
"It was an affront to the elected Parliament that the Parliament's
recommendations were so brazenly disregarded and brute force used against
tenants". She said that the PPP will implement the Parliament’s
recommendations.
Mohtarma Bhutto said that the Human Rights Watch also criticized the torture
of Okara tenants. "Pakistan's military and paramilitary forces are
brutalizing their own people in the Punjab instead of protecting them," said
a recent HRW report. "It's a dangerous moment in Pakistan when the military
turns on its own core constituency."
The report said that even children of the farmers were tortured to coerce
them into signing tenancy agreements.
The former Prime Minister demanded that a bipartisan parliamentary probe
into the shameless and barbaric incidents of torture of tenants. She said
that she was shocked beyond measure that the security forces continued with
killing and torturing farmers in the Punjab with impunity because they
refused to sign contracts to cede their land rights to the army.
The PPP Chairperson called upon the regime to stop torturing poor peasants,
restore them their rights and punish those 'responsible for inflicting
torture on the tenants and bringing huge embarrasment to the nation'.
Mohtarma Bhutto said that soon she will visit her deprived and dispossessed
brothers and sisters at the farmlands.
PPP denounces smear
campaign of Mohtarma Bhutto
Decides to take legal action against plotters
Islamabad November
14, 2007: Pakistan Peoples Party has denounced the smear campaign
of character assassination through newspaper adverts today against the Party
Chairperson Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto as “dying kicks of the Jehadi remnants
of Zia era”.
In a statement today spokesperson for the Chairperson PPP former Senator
Farhatullah Babar said that the letter alleged to have been written by
Mohtarma Bhutto was forged in 1990 by elements in agencies. The forgery
behind it has been exposed from the following, he said.
1. Mohtarma Bhutto has never used letterheads titled “Mrs. Benazir Bhutto”.
2. The name was deliberately misspelled as GAILBRAITH in the letter to evade
legal action just in case Mr Peter Galbraith challenged it.
3. In September 1990, the date of the forged letter, the purported addressee
Peter Galbraith was a senior advisor to the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee (1979 to 1993) and not in the NDI as stated in the forged letter.
4. The letter is full of grotesque grammatical mistakes that are
unimaginable from the office of Chairperson PPP.
The publication of a forged letter after nearly two decades shows how the
moving finger that has engineered elections in the past is at it again, he
said.
These elements had also cobbled together an anti PPP alliance IJI using
money stolen
rom the banks, he recalled.
He said that it was curious that the ad was printed even though, contrary to
the normal practice, the name of the advertising company that designed the
advert was not mentioned.
Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the Party had credible information that
the secret hands behind the campaign financed the advert from the public
funds at the disposal of Information Ministry and paid at commercial rates.
“The dirty brigade playing dirty tricks at public expense must be punished;
they will be”
The Party has decided to take legal action against all those involved in
planning, executing and financing this smear campaign, he said.
November 8, 2007
Press Release
Kerry, Biden Introduce Pakistan Resolution Condemning State of Emergency
Washington, DC
-- Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Subcommittee on Near East and South and Central Asian Affairs, which
includes Pakistan, and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Joe Biden
(D-DE) today introduced a resolution, urging President Musharraf to end
Pakistan’s state of emergency and reinstate the Constitution. The
Kerry-Biden Resolution urges that United States military assistance to
Pakistan should be subjected to careful review. The resolution asserts that
assistance for the purchase of certain weapons systems that are not directly
related to the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban should be suspended if
President Musharraf does not revoke the state of emergency, restore the
Constitution, follow through on the pledge to relinquish his position as
Chief of the Army and allow for free and fair elections to be held in
accordance with the timeframe announced today by the Government of Pakistan.
“It is important to send a strong message to Pakistan that we will hold them
to their word when it comes to getting back on the path to civilian
democracy,” said Sen. Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Subcommittee on Near East and South and Central Asian Affairs. “The
Resolution I have introduced with Senator Biden today provides a real
incentive for General Musharaff to restore the rule of law and move forward
with crucial democratic reforms while preserving our core interest in
fighting terrorists in Pakistan.”
"This resolution sends a strong message on the need for a speedy return to
the democratic path – a message that I sincerely hope President Musharraf
will take to heart. Musharraf should immediately release the lawyers,
journalists, and human rights activists he's arrested since imposing
de-facto martial law; restore the independent judiciary he's subverted by
firing Supreme Court justices unwilling to sign a loyalty oath to him; make
good on his pledge to hold free and fair elections in the legal timeframe;
and restore rule of law and constitutional government to Pakistan,” said
Sen. Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “This
resolution backs up the Administration's statement that military aid for
Pakistan will now be placed under review. It also puts Musharraf on notice
that if the current crisis continues and President Bush declines to take
action, Congress will.”
Below is the text of the Kerry-Biden resolution:
Expressing the Sense of the Senate on the declaration of a state of
emergency in Pakistan.
Whereas, a democratic, stable, and prosperous Pakistan that is a full and
reliable partner in the struggle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban and a
responsible steward of its nuclear weapons and technology is a vital
national security interest of the United States and essential to combating
international terrorism;
Whereas, General Pervez Musharraf became the President of Pakistan following
a military coup in October 1999;
Whereas, President Musharraf dismissed Pakistan’s Chief Justice Iftikhar
Chaudhry on March 9, 2007, resulting in massive street protests and a
unanimous decision by the Supreme Court of Pakistan to clear him of any
wrongdoing and reinstate him on July 20, 2007;
Whereas, the Government of Pakistan announced on September 18, 2007 that if
re-elected president, General Musharraf would resign his position as Chief
of the Army by November 15, 2007;
Whereas, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, called this
announcement “a clear reflection of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s firm
belief in democracy.”;
Whereas, an amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan allowing President
Musharraf to hold the Government of Pakistan’s top civilian and military
leadership positions expires on December 31, 2007;
Whereas, President Musharraf and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto
conducted extensive negotiations on a power-sharing arrangement that would
allow Ms. Bhutto to return to Pakistan and lead the Pakistan People’s Party
in parliamentary elections scheduled for January 15, 2008;
Whereas, President Musharraf was elected to another term by the parliament
of Pakistan on October 6, 2007;
Whereas, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has been reviewing the
constitutionality of this election and intended to issue a ruling in
November 2007;
Whereas, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan on
September 10, 2007, and was immediately forced to leave the country in
contradiction of a ruling by the Supreme Court;
Whereas, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan on
October 18, 2007 after more than eight years in exile, and was immediately
targeted in a suicide bombing by extremists that left at least 140 people
dead and over 500 injured in Karachi, Pakistan;
Whereas, on August 10, 2007, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice personally requested that President Musharraf refrain from suspending
the Constitution, and on November 1, 2007 again reiterated to President
Musharraf U.S. opposition to any “extra-constitutional” measures;
Whereas, over the past six years the United States has provided more than
$10 billion in aid to Pakistan, of which approximately 60% was Coalition
Support Funds designed to reimburse Pakistan for counter-terrorism efforts,
15% was for security assistance to the military, 15% was for general budget
support, and approximately 10% was for humanitarian assistance; and
Whereas, Admiral William Fallon, the senior U.S. military commander in the
Middle East and Southwest Asia, advised General Musharraf on November 2,
2007 that emergency rule might place that aid at risk;
Whereas, on November 3, 2007, General Musharraf, in his role as Chief of the
Army, declared a state of emergency, suspended the Constitution, dismissed
Pakistan’s Chief Justice Chaudhry, and initiated a nation-wide crackdown on
political opposition, the media, and the courts of Pakistan resulting in the
arrest of over one thousand political opponents;
Whereas, the White House declared that imposition of emergency rule was
“deeply disturbing,” and Secretary of State Rice said that the United States
would “have to review the situation with aid” in light of these
developments.
Whereas, on November 7, 2007, President George W. Bush spoke with President
Musharraf and conveyed the message that “we believe strongly in elections,
and that you ought to have elections soon, and you need to take off your
uniform.”
Whereas, on November 8, 2007, the Government of Pakistan announced that
parliamentary elections would be held by February 15, 2008, and that
President Musharraf would relinquish his position as Chief of the Army prior
to being sworn in as President.
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate—
(1) to condemn the decision by President Musharraf to declare a state of
emergency, suspend the Constitution, dismiss the Supreme Court, and initiate
a nation-wide crackdown on political opposition, the media, and the courts;
(2) to call on President Musharraf to revoke the state of emergency, respect
the rule of law and immediately release political detainees, restore the
Constitution, freedom of the press and judicial independence, and reinstate
all dismissed members of the Supreme Court;
(3) to call upon President Musharraf to honor his commitment to relinquish
his position as Chief of the Army, allow free and fair parliamentary
elections in accordance with the schedule mandated by the Constitution,
establish an independent commission to guarantee that such elections are
free and fair, and permit full and unfettered independent monitoring of such
elections;
(4) that the Government of the United States should provide whatever
assistance is necessary to facilitate such free and fair elections,
including by supporting independent election monitoring organizations and
efforts;
(5) to call upon the Government of Pakistan to conduct a full investigation
into the attempted assassination of former Prime Minister Bhutto and provide
her and other political leaders with all necessary security to ensure their
personal safety; and
(6) that United States military assistance to Pakistan should be subjected
to careful review, and that assistance for the purchase of certain weapons
systems not directly related to the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban
should be suspended if President Musharraf does not revoke the state of
emergency and restore the Constitution, relinquish his position as Chief of
the Army, and allow for free and fair elections to be held in accordance
with the announced timeframe.
PAKISTAN: Canadian,
Dutch and Hong Kong lawyers call for release of Pakistan lawyers
and return to rule of law
Lawyers Rights Watch Canada (LRWC) and
Lawyers without Borders/Québec (LWB) and the Dutch Lawyers for Lawyers
Foundation (L4L) and the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) join to call
for:
1. The immediate release of all lawyers arrested under preventative
detention measures, including, without limiting the generality of the
foregoing, Asma Jahangir, United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of
religion or belief; Aitzaz Ahsan, President of the Supreme Court Bar; over
50 members of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) including
Executive Director I.A Rehman, Secretary-General Iqbal Hiader (former
attorney general of Pakistan) and Jawed Iqbal Burqi; Muneer A Malik former
president of the Supreme Court Bar Association; Imran Qureshi, of the
Women’s Rights organization; Ali Ahmed Kurd, former Vice Chair of the
Pakistan Bar Council; Tariq Mahmood, Ali Ahmed Kurd, Abrar Hassan, Ahsan
Bhoon and others;
2. Strict adherence by the State and state officials to all Pakistan laws
and to applicable international standards governing the guarantees,
safeguards, rights and freedoms applicable to the role of lawyer, including
those embodied in the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers
3. Strict adherence by the State and state officials to all Pakistan laws
and to applicable international standards governing the humane treatment of
prisoners, including the universal non-derogable prohibition against
torture;
4. Appropriate civil and criminal remedies for violations of the rights of
those detained.
5. Dismissal of the warrant for the arrest of United Nations Special
Rapporteur in Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani.
6. The immediate re-instatement of and adherence to the Constitution of the
Republic or Pakistan and rescission of the Emergency Declaration of November
3, 2007, the Provisional Constitutional Order No. 1 of 2007 and the Oath of
Offices (Judges) Order, 2007
It is apparent that the above named and numerous other Pakistan lawyers have
been arrested and detained solely to prevent them from carrying out their
professional duty to advocate vigorously against the arbitrary suspension of
the rule of law and violation of human rights by the Musharraf regime, and
for the restoration of law in Pakistan. Reports indicate that the lawyers
arrested have been subjected to a number of serious violations of their
fundamental rights in addition to arbitrary arrest and detention, including
denial of due process, denial of necessary medical attention, denial of
access to legal representatives and visitors and exposure to the possibility
of torture and other prohibited inhumane treatment. Recent (November 11,
2007) amendments were made to the law to allow the trial of lawyers and
other civilians by military courts for a range of acts including making
statements ‘conducive to public mischief’.
LRWC, L4L, LWB and ALRC state that lawyers in Pakistan are duty bound to
uphold the rule of law and to advocate for justice and against repression.
To do so, they must be willing and free to stand between the state and the
citizen and to criticize and call into question the actions of the State
when human rights are threatened.
Norms of international law establish minimum standards protecting the
advocacy rights of lawyers and these standards have been adopted by Pakistan
both as a member of the United Nations and the Commonwealth Secretariat.
Part VIII of the Latimer House Guidelines for the Commonwealth, provides,
"An independent, organized legal profession is an essential component in the
protection of the rule of law." The UN Basic Principles on the Role of
Lawyers, at Articles 16 and 17, require Pakistan to ensure that lawyers are
free to "perform all of their professional functions without intimidation,
hindrance, harassment or improper interference..." and "where the security
of lawyers is threatened as a result of discharging their functions, they
shall be adequately safeguarded by the authorities." Furthermore, Article 23
of the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers provides that "Lawyers
like other citizens are entitled to freedom of expression, belief,
association and assembly. In particular, they shall have the right to take
part in public discussion of matters concerning the law, the administration
of justice and the promotion and protection of human rights ."
Pakistan is also obligated to respect the prohibitions against torture,
arbitrary arrest and detention contained in, inter alia, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). State practice and opinio juris have
resulted in these rights becoming part of customary international law.
Regardless of the current status of the Pakistani Constitution, the Islamic
Republic of Pakistan remains obligated to observe these basic tenants of
international law.
LRWC, L4L, LWB and ALRC condemn military president General Pervez
Musharraf’s repression of the peaceful efforts of members of the Pakistani
Bar to uphold the law and to advocate for the rule of law, the independence
of the Pakistan judiciary and adherence by the Musharraf regime, to the
Constitution of the Republic of Pakistan. LRWC, L4L, LWB and ALRC condemn
the extra-legal measures being used to punish the legitimate and lawful
exercise of freedom of speech and assembly by lawyers.
LRWC, L4L, LWB and ALRC view the Emergency Declaration and subsequent
changes to Pakistan law as being illegitimate, prohibited by both the
Constitution of the Republic of Pakistan and by international law, with a
cloak of apparent legality.
Background
When military President Musharraf sacked the Chief Justice of the Pakistan
Supreme Court on March 9, 2007, hundreds of lawyers rallied and spoke
publicly in support of the Chief Justice and against proceedings brought
against him by Musharraf. Protests by lawyers, judges and others continued
up to July 20, 2007 when the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered Chaudhry
reinstated as Chief Justice and dismissed the proceedings against him as
illegal.
The repression of lawyers by the Musharraf regime recommenced when a state
of emergency was declared and the Pakistan Constitution suspended on
November 3, 2007. The suspension of the constitution resulted in the repeal
of fundamental human rights, including the right to life and liberty,
freedoms of assembly, association and speech, equality before and equal
protection of the law. Core legal rights related to arrest and detention are
also repealed, including the right to counsel. Since then, thousands of
lawyers and human rights activists have been arrested and detained.
LRWC, L4L, LWB and ALRC join with other lawyers and human rights advocates
in Pakistan and around the world in calling for the immediate remedies set
out above.
Sincerely,
Gail Davidson, Executive Director, Lawyers Rights Watch Canada Judith
Lichtenberg, Executive Director, The Lawyers for Lawyers Foundation Pascal
Paradis, Executive Director, Lawyers without Borders Québec Basil Fernando,
Executive Director, ALRC
Winding Back Martial
Law in Pakistan
Asia Briefing N°70
12 November 2007
OVERVIEW
General Pervez Musharraf imposed martial
law in Pakistan on 3 November 2007. He suspended the constitution, sacked
the chief justice of the Supreme Court and removed other judges of that
court who declared his act illegal. Police immediately began arresting
lawyers, politicians and human rights activists. Independent television
channels were taken off the air and reporting restrictions imposed.
Thousands have since been jailed, journalists threatened and protests by
lawyers and others suppressed. Replacing dissenting judges with hand-picked
appointees, and ruling by decree, Musharraf’s objective is to retain
personal power by gaining judicial approval for martial law, followed by the
creation of a democratic façade through rigged elections. The international
community should demand the immediate restoration of constitutional order,
the rule of law and the legitimate judiciary, the release of political
prisoners and the appointment of an impartial caretaker government to
oversee free and fair elections.
Musharraf has said he expects polls before 9 January and will take off his
uniform before taking his oath for a new presidential term. But this offer
does not go far enough. No proper elections can be held under martial law,
supervised by a Musharraf-controlled Election Commission and a judiciary
that has been purged and hand-selected by the military, and while some
political leaders are in jail and others are barred from standing.
Musharraf claims he acted to restore stability but in fact he has sought to
stamp out demands for democracy after eight years of military rule. The
general’s claims to legitimacy had worn thin, and he was facing a challenge
by the Supreme Court to his re-election as president by a lame-duck and
stacked electoral college in October. While saying he was tackling
extremism, the arrests of non-violent, secular people showed his true
intentions. Even as the military was filling the jails with lawyers and
journalists, they were releasing 28 militants, some of whom had been
convicted of terrorism, in yet another deal with violent extremists.
In response to all this, the U.S., the UK and the European Union (EU) have
expressed disappointment, but signalled they wish to continue cooperation
with President Musharraf and his government, particularly on
counter-terrorism. The focus has been on the need for Musharraf to remove
his uniform and conduct elections – not on the necessity of restoring the
constitutional order and the rule of law. The mistakes of the international
response in the past to Pakistan are being repeated. The general has used
the issue of terrorism with skill for years, drip-feeding anxious Western
governments limited intelligence on jihadi groups while doing little to
address extremism at home. Officials in Washington and London have been
particularly prone to mistaken belief that the choice in Pakistan is between
democracy and stability. Apart from handing over a few high-level al-Qaeda
members, Pakistan has done little else: it has refused to close Taliban
camps and jihadi madrasas or end extremist recruitment and fundraising.
Driven by what is even in the short term a highly questionable
interpretation of their security interests, Western governments have
weakened their long-term security by supporting military rule rather than
democratic institutions and the people of Pakistan.
A strong international response to military dictatorship has been hampered
by anxiety that Pakistan might become another Iran, hostile to Western
interests and yet a greater security threat if Musharraf were to leave the
scene, as happened when the Islamic Revolution deposed the Shah in 1979. The
analogy is false. Pakistan is a very different country, with a vibrant civil
society, courageous and respected judicial and media institutions and above
all a long democratic tradition and civilian parties that are widely popular
and experienced in government. Its extremist forces have gained what status
they have in the country’s politics as the beneficiaries of military
manipulation, not broad citizen support.
This latest coup makes it essential to rethink policy towards Pakistan and
to recognise that Musharraf is not only not indispensable; he is a serious
liability. Extremism would be better reduced now and would be more assuredly
barred in the future by the rule of law under a democratic government led by
one of the moderate political parties.
In response to martial law, the international community should take the
following
steps:
speak out unequivocally for democracy in Pakistan, rejecting
the idea that martial law is needed for stability, and demand a return to
constitutional order;outline a series of graduated sanctions starting
immediately with suspension of high-level talks on military cooperation,
suspension of new military training, review of military aid to distinguish
what is essential counter-terrorism (CT) help from general assistance, and
establishment of performance-based conditionality on all non-CT military
assistance until constitutional order is restored;
follow this up – if Musharraf makes it necessary by not giving up his post
as army chief by 15 November when his parliamentary dispensation to hold
that post as well as the presidency expires, and does not restore the
constitution, release political prisoners, restore the independent judiciary
and accept its judgement on the legality of his October 2007 re-election as
president, and set a date for elections – with gradually tougher sanctions,
including suspension of all non-CT military aid and visa bans for top
military and government officials;
if these steps are not taken within 30 days, restrict non-CT arms sales;
freeze officer training abroad and foreign assets of the military and its
foundations and businesses; and refuse to accept high-level visits by
Pakistani officials for as long as the constitution is not restored and the
military holds politicians, lawyers and civil society actors under arrest
and otherwise restricts their civic freedoms; also insist that the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) be given unrestricted access
to prevent torture and abuse in custody; and simultaneously expand aid for
education, poverty reduction, healthcare and relief work, channelling money
through secular non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
U.S. Is Looking Past
Musharraf in Case He Falls
By HELENE COOPER, MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID ROHDE
WASHINGTON, Nov.
14 — Almost two weeks into Pakistan’s political crisis, Bush
administration officials are losing faith that the Pakistani president, Gen.
Pervez Musharraf, can survive in office and have begun discussing what might
come next, according to senior administration officials.
In meetings on Wednesday, officials at the White House, State Department and
the Pentagon huddled to decide what message Deputy Secretary of State John
D. Negroponte would deliver to General Musharraf — and perhaps more
important, to Pakistan’s generals — when he arrives in Islamabad on Friday.
Administration officials say they still hope that Mr. Negroponte can salvage
the fractured arranged marriage between General Musharraf and former Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto. But in Pakistan, foreign diplomats and aides to
both leaders said the chances of a deal between the leaders were evaporating
11 days after General Musharraf declared de facto martial law.
Several senior administration officials said that with each day that passed,
more administration officials were coming around to the belief that General
Musharraf’s days in power were numbered and that the United States should
begin considering contingency plans, including reaching out to Pakistan’s
generals.
More than a dozen officials in Washington and Islamabad from a number of
countries spoke on condition of anonymity because of the fragility of
Pakistan’s current political situation. The doubts that American officials
voiced about whether General Musharraf could survive were more pointed than
any public statements by the administration, and signaled declining American
patience in advance of Mr. Negroponte’s trip.
Officials involved in the discussions in Washington said the Bush
administration remained wary of the perception that the United States was
cutting back-room deals to install the next leader of Pakistan. “They don’t
want to encourage another military coup, but they are also beginning to
understand that Musharraf has become part of the problem,” said one former
official with knowledge of the debates inside the Bush administration.
That shift in perception is significant because for six years General
Musharraf has sought to portray himself, for his own purposes, as the West’s
best alternative to a possible takeover in Pakistan by radical Islamists.
While remote areas in northwestern Pakistan remain a haven for Al Qaeda and
other Islamic militants, senior officials at the White House, the State
Department and the Pentagon now say they recognize that the Pakistani Army
remains a powerful force for stability in Pakistan, and that there is little
prospect of an Islamic takeover if General Musharraf should fall.
If General Musharraf is forced from power, they say, it would most likely be
in a gentle push by fellow officers, who would try to install a civilian
president and push for parliamentary elections to produce the next prime
minister, perhaps even Ms. Bhutto, despite past strains between her and the
military.
Many Western diplomats in Islamabad said they believed that even a flawed
arrangement like that one was ultimately better than an oppressive and
unpopular military dictatorship under General Musharraf.
Such a scenario would be a return to the diffuse and sometimes unwieldy
democracy that Pakistan had in the 1990s before General Musharraf seized
power in a bloodless coup. But the diplomats also warned that removing the
general might not be that easy. Army generals are unlikely to move against
General Musharraf unless certain “red lines” are crossed, such as
countrywide political protests or a real threat of a cutoff of American
military aid to Pakistan.
Since he invoked emergency powers on Nov. 3, General Musharraf has
successfully used a huge security crackdown to block large-scale protests.
Virtually all major opposition politicians have been detained, as well as
2,500 party workers, lawyers and human rights activists, and on Wednesday, a
close aide to General Musharraf said the Pakistani leader remained convinced
that emergency rule should continue.
Pakistan’s cadre of elite generals, called the corps commanders, have long
been kingmakers inside the country. At the top of that cadre is Gen. Ashfaq
Parvez Kayani, General Musharraf’s designated successor as army chief.
General Kayani is a moderate, pro-American infantry commander who is widely
seen as commanding respect within the army and, within Western circles, as a
potential alternative to General Musharraf.General Kayani and other military
leaders are widely believed to be eager to pull the army out of politics and
focus its attention purely on securing the country.Senior administration
officials in Washington said they were concerned that the longer the
constitutional crisis in Pakistan continued, the more diverted Pakistan’s
army would be from the mission the United States wants it focused on:
fighting terrorism in the country’s border areas.
The officials said there was growing worry in Washington that the situation
unfolding in the mountainous region of Swat, where Islamic militants
sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda are battling Pakistan’s Army, was a
sign that General Musharraf — and the Pakistani Army — might be too busy
jailing political opponents to fight militants. The administration officials
said they were also dismayed that General Musharraf last week released 25
militants in exchange for 213 soldiers captured by militants in August, and
agreed to withdraw soldiers from certain areas of South Waziristan.Since
spring, concern has been growing in the armed forces that General
Musharraf’s battle to remain in power and his recent political blunders have
cost him popularity with the public and damaged the reputation of the armed
forces, Western and Pakistani military analysts say.
The army’s poor performance battling militants in the country’s rugged
tribal areas in the northwest has placed enormous strain on the army as
well. Hundreds of soldiers have died, dozens have surrendered without a
fight and militants have carried out beheadings to demoralize the force.
“The army is getting more and more concerned and worried and disturbed,”
said Talat Masood, a retired general and political analyst. “They have a
genuine engagement in the tribal belt of Frontier Province and Baluchistan,”
he said, referring to armed clashes. “And now they have such a major
confrontation between the military and civil sectors of society, and the
lines are getting sharper.”While the military supports the emergency, it is
doing so with caution, and there are red lines the army will not cross,
Western military officials in Pakistan said. “Kayani is loyal to Musharraf,”
said one Western military official. “But also to Pakistan.”
One red line the military would probably not be prepared to cross would be
if it were called on to maintain internal security anywhere beyond the areas
of the insurgency. If widespread political protests were to emerge, the army
could be called out to enforce law and order.
While no large-scale protests have emerged since the emergency was declared,
the apparent collapse over the last week of American-backed talks to create
a power-sharing deal between Ms. Bhutto and General Musharraf could lead to
more street confrontations, diplomats said.
As General Musharraf has refused to lift his emergency declaration,
lawmakers in Washington have stepped up threats to freeze aid payments to
Islamabad. “There is widespread disapproval in Congress of these actions,”
said Representative Nita M. Lowey, a New York Democrat who is on the House
Appropriations Committee. “As long as the emergency rule continues, I don’t
know if we can provide direct cash assistance to the Musharraf government.”
But other top Democrats say they are wary about endorsing cuts in aid,
citing concern that it could undermine efforts to fight Al Qaeda in
Pakistan. And the Western military official in Pakistan warned that an aid
cutoff could anger Pakistan’s army. Other experts argue that pressure could
build on General Musharraf if the corps commanders believed that the
president’s actions threatened the $1 billion in annual aid Washington
provides to Pakistan’s military.
“The military is pretty demoralized right now,” said Christine Fair, a
Pakistananalyst in Washington. “But what keeps Musharraf in the position he
is in with the military is the huge largess from the United States.”
David Rohde and Carlota Gall reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Thom
Shanker contributed from Washington.
Musharraf's Electoral
Farce
The Washington Post
By Benazir Bhutto
Wednesday,
November 14, 2007 LAHORE, Pakistan: All through the years of the
Soviet empire, its Politburo held "elections." Of course, calling
something an election and actually having it be an election are
different things.
I am under house arrest in Lahore, barricaded in by Pakistani police with
bayonets. Despite Gen. Pervez Musharraf's announcement of a date for
parliamentary elections, I doubt that we are in for a change. I
cautioned the general earlier this year that his election as president
by the present parliament was illegal. He insisted otherwise.
We agreed to disagree and decided that we both would accept a ruling by the
Supreme Court regarding eligibility. Yet when the court was on the
brink of deciding, Musharraf imposed martial law by suspending the
constitution, and he removed several of the Supreme Court justices.
Today the nation is paying for his mistake.
We are witnessing a farce in Pakistan: While an election schedule has been
announced, the problem lies in what has not been announced. No
indication has been given as to whether Musharraf will keep his
previous commitment to retire as army chief on Thursday.
No date has been given for the lifting of emergency rule; the reconstitution
of the election commission; the implementation of fair election
practices; the removal of biased officials; or the suspension of the
mayors, who control the guns and the funds -- that is, police and
government resources -- to adversely influence elections.
Moreover, judges, lawyers, human rights activists and students across the
country are in prison or under house arrest. The independent media
have been shut down, television stations stopped from broadcasting
news.
Several foreign journalists have been expelled. Thousands of political
activists, a majority from my Pakistan People's Party, have been
arrested.
Police have erected barricades and deployed armored personnel carriers and
trucks filled with sand to cut off access to my house and to prevent
people from going from one city to another. Musharraf knows how to
crack down against pro-democracy forces. He is, however, unwilling or
unable to track down and arrest Osama bin Laden or contain the
extremists. This is the reality of Pakistan in November 2007.
The only terror that Musharraf's regime seems able to confront is the terror
of his own illegitimacy. This is the second time Musharraf has imposed
martial law and the second time he has sacked judges since taking over
the country in a coup in 1999. It was then that he first promised "to
bring true democracy."
The election commission has promulgated election rolls judged illegitimate
by Pakistan's Supreme Court and the National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs. Some polling sites have been kept secret.
Musharraf's political opposition is banned from campaigning or
organizing and has been denied access to state-controlled media. We
cannot meet, we cannot rally, and when we try to bring the people to the
streets they are gassed, beaten and shot at with rubber bullets. This
is not only a military dictatorship, it is a classic police state.
On top of a litany of assaults on the rule of law, the general has
unilaterally amended the Army Act of 1952 to grant the army the power to try
civilians in military courts. Courts-martial will operate by military rules
in secret, and defendants are not allowed legal representation.
No attempt has been made to differentiate between average citizens and
terrorism suspects associated with militant groups. Many believe that these
laws were passed to intimidate pro-democracy forces, not to try terrorism
suspects. This is the "democracy" that Musharraf envisages.
While living in America when I attended Harvard in the early 1970s, I saw
for myself the awesome, almost miraculous, power of a people to change
policy through democratic means. Today I am seeing the power of the people
coalescing once again. Journalists, judges, and political and civil
activists have joined together against Musharraf's second declaration of
martial law. They see him as the obstacle to the democratization of
Pakistan.
This is why I have called upon Gen. Musharraf to resign as president and
chief of army staff, and to pave the way for the composition of an interim
government of national consensus that will oversee the transfer of power to
duly elected representatives of the people.
The people of the Soviet Union knew that "elections" for the Politburo were
fraudulent. The people of Pakistan know that elections under martial law are
a similar sham.
Benazir Bhutto, head of the Pakistan People's Party, was twice elected prime
minister of Pakistan. She is under house arrest in Lahore.
Things Get Uglier In
Pakistan
Ruth David
November 14, 2007:
Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan was arrested Wednesday
after he made a public appearance at a student rally against President
Musharraf’s move to impose emergency rule.
Khan, a former cricket captain for Pakistan, was spotted in Lahore for the
first time after he was placed under house arrest, following emergency rule
that was declared by the government on Nov. 3. He led a rally in the city
where he had gone to a university and told the media that he was happy to
have started “the student movement.”
Thousands of students wearing black arm-bands shouted anti-Musharraf slogans
as Khan was taken away.
Some religious students in the university had detained Khan, enabling the
police to whisk him away. The move was a setback for Pakistan People’s Party
leader Benazir Bhutto, who Tuesday said she would scrap a proposed
power-sharing agreement with Musharraf, and join forces with the opposition.
Bhutto has also been placed under house arrest in Lahore.
Opposition parties say police have detained around 15,000 supporters since
Musharraf imposed emergency rule and clamped down on the judiciary and
media. (See: “Activists Detained In Pakistan Crackdown”)
He blamed a rise in militancy and judicial intervention in the government’s
functioning for the move, which has been criticized by the West. The Bush
Administration, which said it was reviewing aid for the region, is sending
Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte to Pakistan this week to urge
Musharraf to lift the emergency rule.
Opposition lawmakers and civil society have also launched protests against
the military leader’s latest move. On Wednesday, exiled prime minister Nawaz
Sharif told media from Saudi Arabia that he was willing to set asides his
differences with Bhutto and work with her party to restore democracy.
Sharif attempted to return to Pakistan last month, but Musharraf didn’t
allow him to step out the airport, instead sending the Pakistan Muslim
League-Nawaz leader to Saudi Arabia.
In a release on the party web site, Sharif was quoted as saying the
opposition needed to unite to tackle Musharraf. “That is the need of the
hour because single-handedly to fight dictatorship is going to be a
difficult task.” He also offered praise for Bhutto’s initiative to cut ties
with Musharraf.
An alliance between Sharif’s and Bhutto’s parties and popular Islamic
political outfits will also bring thousands more supporters on to the
streets, intensifying pressure on the government, analysts say.
Musharraf has promised to hold national elections on Jan. 9, but opposition
leaders say the polls will be rigged if they are held under his rule,
especially since politicians are being arrested every day.
In an interview with Britain’s Sky News, the leader who came to power in a
coup in Oct 1999 said he would not give up his post till political turmoil
in the country ceased.
“I am not a dictator, I want a democracy,” he was quoted as saying.
Student protests
build in Pakistan
Campus protests gather steam throughout the country, worrying the fragile
regime.
By Shahan Mufti
November 15, 2007:
The steady rumbling of dissent on university campuses across
Pakistan is an ominous development for the country's military regime.
Student activists in Pakistan have a history of effecting dramatic political
change.
What began last week as a protest against the arrests of academics at a
university in Lahore has quickly spread across larger campuses, energizing
new movements and inciting old student political groups from a near
two-decade slumber. But when opposition leader Imran Khan, a perceived hero
of the student movement, arrived Wednesday to address students in Lahore,
members of a powerful and established Islamist student group quickly handed
him over to police.
For Mr. Khan and others, targeting university campuses is a shrewd move. But
his arrest reveals the scattered nature of the students' potent political
power. Unless the opposition can arrive at a consensus, observers say, the
movement will remain incoherent. At the core of this confused effort lies
the clashing visions of the old student political groups with a new wave of
activists who hope to effect a more profound shift in Pakistani politics.
"This 'new student movement' is very significant," says Rasul Baksh Rais, a
professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) who is a
liaison between the administration and student leaders on his campus. Mr.
Rais added that students even snubbed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto
when she invited them for a meeting. The students' lack of interest in
Pakistan's premier opposition figure, Rais says, indicates that "until all
parties are able to come on one platform it is unlikely these students will
want to support one party over another."
Whether Ms. Bhutto will eventually be able to seize the reins of such a
unified movement remains a question, observers say. Security officials said
she will likely remain under house arrest until Thursday at the earliest. On
Tuesday, Bhutto called on the president to resign. Her spokeswoman told
reporters Wednesday that she is attempting to rally the political
opposition, including former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to present a more
unified opposition to President Pervez Musharraf's authority.
Musharraf said Wednesday that he expects to step down as Army chief by the
end of November and begin a new presidential term as a civilian, warning
that Pakistan risked chaos if he gave into opposition demands to resign. In
an interview with the Associated Press, he accused Bhutto, currently under
house arrest, of fueling political turmoil and rejected Western pressure to
quickly lift emergency rule, which he indicated was likely to continue
through the January elections. "I take decisions in Pakistan's interest and
I don't take ultimatums from anyone," he said at his Army office.
Khan was one of the only prominent political leaders to have avoided arrest
by going into hiding, and had sparked student activism by speaking at a
university campus on the eve of the emergency. Through underground messages
from hiding, Khan had called for a "youth army" to take to the streets. "My
goal was to set in motion a student movement," he said after his arrest.
'No greater ideology at work'
Students became the latest ingredient in the urban street caldron – along
with political party workers, lawyers, and civil society groups – after
President Musharraf extended his sweeping security crackdown to academics.
The arrests of two professors from LUMS, after the declaration of emergency
last week, sparked immediate protests and the arrival of riot police at the
campus gates.
The agitation spread like wildfire to other smaller, private universities.
Within a week, Khan visited Punjab University, the historic core of student
activism, to try to harness the unwieldy power of the students. Shortly
after his arrest, Khan told reporters that student "collaborators" had
betrayed him to security officials. His surprising detention indicates that
the youth movement is united only by its opposition to the current regime –
and little else.
"There is no greater ideology at work here that I can describe," says Hashim
bin Rashid, a LUMS student leader, dressed in all black and topped off by a
black headband. The students at his campus, he says, are more inspired by
larger concepts of social justice.
"It's easy to turn a blind eye to everything going around you when you have
a silver spoon stuck in your mouth," he says. "But we are here because we
have a stake in saving this country."
Pakistan's history of student struggle
This sentiment, admits Mr. Rashid, might not be what is driving students in
older, more established student groups, which have been the breeding grounds
for many of Pakistan's old guard politicians. But in a country that places
student activism at the center of its historical narrative of independence,
student politics in any form has often been essential to carving the
country's political power dynamic.
In the 1960s, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto toppled military ruler Gen. Ayub Khan on
the back of a seething student street movement. The early 1980s saw student
groups target Gen. Zia ul-Haq's regime, prompting him to ban student unions
as part of an effort to depoliticize the schools.
But some of the newer institutions have no experience with political
activism. Their opposition to the military regime is defined by "a liberal
ethos, a modernist structure of values," that focuses on "constitutionalism,
rule of law, and the independence of judiciary, rather than identifying with
any prevailing political party," says Rais.
This new movement has awaked student activism after two-decades of
depoliticalization. While it remains germinal and incoherent, the students
have the potential to help decide Musharraf's fate – as other movements have
done in the past. As the new, nonaligned movement spreads to the traditional
centers of student power, it's likely to become more complicated – both for
the students and the government they oppose.
Nadeem Farooq Paracha, a journalist who was active in student politics
during the military rule of General Zia and was arrested several times for
"anti-state" activities sees this as a very different movement than that of
the 1980s, when large state owned universities, not elite colleges, were the
center of activity.
"If this spreads further to local colleges and universities, this will
become a totally different ball game," says Mr. Paracha. "The government
will have to really start worrying in that case."
Bhutto to call Sharif
to form opposition front
November 14, 2007:
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said she is to call exiled
premier Nawaz Sharif later on Wednesday to ask him to form a united
opposition front against President Pervez Musharraf.
"The aim of those talks will be to form a common front, to formulate a joint
strategy for saving democracy," Bhutto said in a telephone interview from a
key aide's house where she is being kept under detention.
"I will be talking to Nawaz Sharif, I have tried twice and spoken to
officials from his party and I have not been able to speak to him yet and I
will be trying again."
The two-time former premier, who heads Pakistan's biggest opposition group,
has spoken to nine other leading political opponents of Musharraf in the
past two days, a senior aide in her party said.
Seeking to isolate Musharraf after he declared a state of Emergency, they
are hoping to reach agreement for an all-parties conference later this month
-- possibly as early as next week.
"She is talking to other political leaders and the agenda of the talks is
the revival of democracy and restoration of the 1973 constitution," said the
aide, Safdar Abbasi.
We are ready to work
with Benazir: Sharif
November 14, 2007:
Pakistan's exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on
Wednesday he was ready to work with another former Prime Minister, Benazir
Bhutto, against the military rule of President Pervez Musharraf.
Bhutto has been trying to forge an opposition alliance after she called on
Musharraf to give up power and has spoken to leaders from Sharif's party
about a coalition.
"We are ready to set aside our differences with the People's Party and work
for the return of democratic rule,"
Sharif said on telephone from Saudi Arabia, referring to Bhutto's party.
Pakistan opposition
aims to unite against Musharraf
November 14 2007:
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani opposition parties tried to forge a united front on
Wednesday against military president Pervez Musharraf who insisted a state
of Emergency was necessary for fair elections.
US ally Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, declared emergency rule in
nuclear-armed Pakistan on Nov. 3 when he suspended the constitution, rounded
up thousands of opponents and curbed the media. "We are ready to set aside
our differences with the People's Party," former prime minister Nawaz Sharif
said, referring to the party of another former prime minister, Benazir
Bhutto.
Bhutto, who had been in power-sharing talks with Musharraf for months,
returned home in October from eight years of self-imposed exile and aimed to
work with the president on a transition to civilian rule. Then came the
crackdown.
After police stifled a protest by Bhutto on Tuesday and put her under house
arrest, she announced her talks with Musharraf were over, and for the first
time called on him to step down as president as well as army chief. She said
her party might boycott a parliamentary election Musharraf has promised to
hold by Jan 9 Bhutto also contacted old rivals including Islamist alliance
leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, whom
police detained on Wednesday, and Sharif's party to urge a "coalition of
interests", party officials said. "She's trying to unite all political
parties on a minimum agenda to return the country to true democracy," said
Latif Khosa, a senator and aide to Bhutto. "The minimum agenda is the ouster
of General Musharraf and formation of a neutral government of national
consensus to organise free and fair elections."
Sharif and Bhutto were bitter rivals during the late 1980s and 1990s. They
both served two terms as prime minister until Musharraf ousted Sharif in
1999. Both Bhutto and Sharif faced corruption charges. Underscoring the
difficulty of uniting a fractious opposition, students loyal to religious
alliance leader Ahmed briefly detained Imran Khan when he emerged from
hiding to lead a campus protest in Lahore. Police later detained Khan.
Pakistan EC to decide
on election schedule today
November 14, 2007:
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Election Commission is meeting on Wednesday
to decide on the schedule for the general election and a draft code of
conduct for political parties.
The meeting, to be chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Qazi Muhammad
Farooq, will review the draft code of conduct and decide when to call
political parties for discussions on implementing the regulations, said
Kanwar Dilshad, the Secretary of the Election Commission.
Referring to the schedule for the polls, Dilshad said the commission had
decided in principle that this would be announced soon after all the
national and provincial assemblies are dissolved by November 20.
"In principle, the election schedule will be issued after the dissolution of
the assemblies. The National Assembly will be dissolved on November 15, the
provincial assemblies will be dissolved on November 20 and after this, the
election schedule will be announced," Dilshad told Dawn News channel.
The meeting will also decide on the appointment of returning officers across
the country, he said.
President Pervez Musharraf announced on Sunday that the general election
will be held by January 9 next year.
Opposition political parties and civil society groups have, however, called
for the Election Commission to be reconstituted to ensure free and fair
elections.
The Pakistan People's Party of former premier Benazir Bhutto has also
alleged that there are numerous discrepancies in the voters' lists announced
by the poll panel last month.
Bhutto, Musharraf:
After the Break-up
Benazir Bhutto under house arrest in Lahore.
As breakups go, it was pretty spectacular.
On Tuesday, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto ended months of
speculation over a pending marriage of convenience between her and
Pakistan's President, General Pervez Musharraf, by announcing she was
breaking off the engagement. "It's impossible to work with him," she told a
small group of reporters by telephone. "I'm calling for General Musharraf to
step down, to quit, to leave, to end martial law."
Bhutto was speaking from house arrest in Lahore where she had just been
served a seven-day detention order. Hundreds of police prowled the
neighborhood where she was staying, preventing journalists and supporters
from reaching her. Trucks filled with wet sandbags had been pulled up to her
front gate, dozens of empty buses parked crosswise blocked the street and
the neighborhood's entire perimeter had been wrapped in barbed wire and
lined with baton-wielding riot police. Anti-government protestors burned a
tire, then a car. Paddy wagons disgorged police and sucked up low-level
opposition politicians who chanted pro-Bhutto slogans. Bhutto, whose
welcome-home rally had been the target of a suicide bomb attack in Karachi
on October 18 that killed 156, lamented her choice of housing, saying that
she had picked because it had seemed impervious to outside attacks. "Now we
are seeing it's playing to General Musharraf's advantage," she told
reporters, "who should be hunting Osama bin Laden but who instead is hunting
me."
Since the implementation of emergency rule on November 3, Bhutto has
vociferously attacked Musharraf, calling for an immediate return to rule of
law, the reinstatement of suspended Supreme Court justices and a lifting of
media bans. Yet Bhutto had, until now, refused to rule out future
negotiations, prompting critics to dismiss her actions as political theater,
suspecting Bhutto would sell out the democracy movement for a chance at
another term in office.
On Sunday Musharraf announced that parliamentary elections would be held on
January 9, a month earlier than his original declaration, and a key Bhutto
demand. It looked like the diplomatic tango would continue in that vein for
a while: Choreographed shows of protest by Bhutto, followed by tactical
retreats for the general. The end goal was democratic equilibrium —
Musharraf would remove his military uniform and in exchange Bhutto's
powerful Pakistan People's Party would support him as a civilian president.
Bhutto justified her negotiations with the loathed dictator by saying she
was ensuring Pakistan's smooth transition to democracy.
But the duet ended in discord on Monday evening, when thousands of PPP
supporters across the country were rounded up in advance of a planned
democracy march from Lahore to the capital, Islamabad. "It left my party
with the conclusion that he does not really want to do business with us,"
says Bhutto. "It made it clear that he was using us as icing on the cake to
make sure no one notices the cake was poisoned."
In many ways, Bhutto's brief alliance with Musharraf may actually work to
her, and Pakistan's, advantage. "Bhutto did a smart thing by negotiating
with Musharraf," says former Bhutto advisor Husain Haqqani. "By doing so she
assured the world that she was not a spoiler, that she was committed to the
war on terror. Now it is up to the western governments to realize that
Musharraf is a problem, not the solution."
Even so, it won't be easy. Musharraf too, is a consummate politician, and he
has measured Bhutto's weaknesses precisely. Bhutto was allowed back in the
country without fear of arrest for longstanding corruption charges — which
she claims were politically motivated — on the basis of a controversial
amnesty granted by the General. The independent judiciary sacked by
Musharraf when he assumed emergency powers had, in fact, been considering
appeals to reverse that amnesty on constitutional grounds, and with a newly
loyal Supreme Court in place, the General may have the means to yank back
his engagement gift, leaving Bhutto vulnerable to arrest and imprisonment.
But the lady has backup. Frustration and discontent with Musharraf's
attempts to stay in power are mounting in the international arena. "If it
becomes more and more clear that he is not budging," says a Western diplomat
based in Islamabad, "Then certainly you start thinking of alternatives." The
Pakistani Army, which has been suffering a backlash against Musharraf's
rule, may agree. "The military does not want to be in this position," says
the diplomat. "They want out of politics, and they are upset that Musharraf
has placed them front and center."
As a charismatic leader with the force of the country behind her, Bhutto
could very well lure the military away from Musharraf, especially if Western
powers force him to step down as army chief. Internal pressure on Musharraf
is increasing to such an extent that he may be forced to step down
regardless. "At this point there is no way to put humpty dumpty back
together again," says an Islamabad-based analyst, who, fearing a new
Emergency rule ordinance that prohibits defamation of military personnel,
asked not to be named. "If the military asserts power over Musharraf, this
will be the beginning of a true transition to democracy in Pakistan."
Bhutto for campaign
with MMA
November 13, 2007: Former
Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto established direct contact with MMA
president Qazi Hussain Ahmed for the first time today to forge consensus for
a joint campaign for the restoration of democracy.
The Pakistan People's Party chairperson, under house arrest here to prevent
her leading along march to Islamabad against the emergency, and the
Jamaat-e-Islami chief talked on phone, PPP leaders said.
They spoke about the possibility of convening an all party conference and
stressed the need to strengthen ties. They also said a joint strategy would
be worked out in consultation with their allies, Geo News channel reported.
The PPP had earlier used senior leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim to hold talks
with the Jamaat leader. Political circles termed the talks between Bhutto
and Ahmed as a significant breakthrough.
Bhutto also contacted Tehreek-e-Insaaf leader Imran Khan, who is in hiding
in Lahore to evade arrest. Khan has been critical of her efforts to forge a
power-sharing arrangement with President Pervez Musharraf.
Khan welcomed Bhutto's statement that the PPP would boycott polls held under
emergency. Bhutto today also asked Musharraf to quit as both president and
army chief.
Bhutto and PML-N chief and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif also
separately contacted Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Wali Khan and all
three leaders agreed to launch a
combined struggle against the emergency, Geo News reported.
Sharif, who is in exile in Saudi Arabia, also welcomed Bhutto's call for
Musharraf to resign and said the opposition should unite against the
military ruler.
Protests against
Bhutto's house arrest
November 13, 2007:
Members of the Pakistan Peoples party organised protests across
the country on Tuesday, after PPP chief Benazir Bhutto [Images] was put
under under house arrest for the second time in less than a week, to prevent
her from leading a long march from Karachi to Islamabad against the
emergency rule imposed by President Pervez Musharraf [Images].
Top Lahore [Images] city police official Aftab Cheema delivered a seven-day
detention order for Bhutto but PPP leaders refused to accept it.
Hundreds of PPP workers were also arrested in overnight swoops by police
across Punjab province, especially at places where Bhutto had planned to
address rallies during the long march.
Bhutto also asked Musharraf to quit as President, saying the days of
dictatorship in Pakistan were over.
"We say Musharraf must leave. The time for dictatorship is over. It's time
to bring a transfer to democracy," she said.
Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan from an eight-year self exile after
Musharraf promulgated an ordinance that allowed withdrawal of graft case
against her, has repeatedly called on the general to resign as head of the
army, end emergency rule, reinstate the Constitution and free detained
activists.
Meanwhile, the PPP had to start its long march without Bhutto. Shah Mahmoud
Qureshi, the president of the Punjab unit of the PPP, led the march with 110
vehicles and thousands of followers.
Bhutto remains in
house arrest, PPP vows to continue march
Lahore:
Former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto remained under house arrest
here for the second day on Wednesday as her Pakistan People's Party said it
would push ahead with its "long march" against the emergency amidst a tense
stand-off with President Pervez Musharraf.
Nearly 1,000 policemen are deployed around the home of PPP leader Latif
Khosa, where the 54-year-old Bhutto has been detained, preventing her from
stepping out to join the march from Lahore to Islamabad.
Police also stepped up efforts to block the march, now being led by Shah
Mehmood Qureshi, the head of the Punjab unit of the PPP. Officials moved to
block PPP activists from across the province joining the motorcade as it
makes its way through the interiors of Punjab.
Bhutto stepped up efforts to forge a united front with other political
parties to take on Musharraf, whom she had called on on Tuesday to quit as
president and army chief.
She has also ruled out serving with the military ruler in any future
government.
For the first time, Bhutto on Tuesday held direct parleys on phone with
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed. PPP secretary general
Jahangir Badar, talking to reporters outside Khosa's house, said: "Talks
with other parties and all democratic forces like the bar associations are
on to carry on our campaign for civilian democratic rule."
Khosa's house has been surrounded by barbed wire and metal barricades while
police vehicles and trucks have been used to block nearby roads. Officials
said Bhutto's house arrest would continue under a seven-day detention order
served on Tuesday and there was no plan to shift her to Karachi or
Islamabad.
The officials said Bhutto had been detained "for her own safety" as there
are reports that suicide bombers had entered Lahore to target her. The PPP
has dismissed this contention, saying the military regime is "dead scared of
the street power" of the party and "will leave no stone unturned to crush
the resistance" that the PPP has put up.
Hundreds of PPP workers have been arrested across Punjab to prevent them
joining the long march that is expected to culminate in Islamabad with a
sit-in. PPP workers also clashed with police in Karachi and Peshawar during
protests against Bhutto's detention.
HUNDREDS TAKE TO THE
STREETS EVEN WITHOUT BHUTTO
Lahore Nov 13:
Despite the absence of former PM Benazir Bhutto, under house arrests since
yesterday - and for the next seven days - at the dwelling of one of her
aides in Lahore, the long protest rally she convened against the state of
emergency and the suspension of the Constitution (declared on 3 November by
Pakistani President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf), has begun. Several activists of
the PPP (Pakistani Peoples' Party), led by Ms Bhutto, have taken to the
streets of the capital city of the eastern province of Punjab, slowly
marching to Islamabad: 275km, to be covered in 3/4 days, provided that law
enforcement personnel doesn't intervene, considering that the rally has been
officially forbidden. The march is being led, on behalf of Ms Bhutto, by the
provincial leader of the PPP, Shah Mahmoud, who claimed he is sure that many
others will join the motorised convoy along the way.
"Should I be arrested - he said, speaking in English - some other party
official will take my place at the head of the rally". He also added that
whilst starting off the march, he and other party members were briefly
stopped by anti-riot police officers. "But we did manage to get going
eventually", he added. Police sources, on the other hand, deny that the
march actually began and reached the Lahore countryside, playing down the
extent of the march itself.
Pakistan won't allow
Bhutto's protest
November 12, 2007:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto will not be
allowed to hold a protest procession across Pakistan because it will violate
a ban on political rallies under the state of emergency, a government
spokesman said today.
Bhutto and other opposition members have threatened to boycott upcoming
parliamentary elections unless the restrictions imposed by President Gen.
Pervez Musharraf come to an end and he resigns as army chief. Musharraf said
the vote would take place in mid-January, but critics say with the state of
emergency, elections will be neither free nor fair.
Bhutto was due to depart from the city of Lahore on Tuesday.
Musharraf's Electoral
Farce
By Benazir Bhutto
November 14, 2007:
LAHORE, Pakistan -- All through the years of the Soviet empire, its
Politburo held "elections." Of course, calling something an election and
actually having it be an election are different things.
I am under house arrest in Lahore, barricaded in by Pakistani police with
bayonets. Despite Gen. Pervez Musharraf's announcement of a date for
parliamentary elections, I doubt that we are in for a change.
I cautioned the general earlier this year that his election as president by
the present parliament was illegal. He insisted otherwise.
We agreed to disagree and decided that we both would accept a ruling by the
Supreme Court regarding eligibility.
Yet when the court was on the brink of deciding, Musharraf imposed martial
law by suspending the constitution, and he removed several of the Supreme
Court justices. Today the nation is paying for his mistake.
We are witnessing a farce in Pakistan: While an election schedule has been
announced, the problem lies in what has not been announced. No indication
has been given as to whether Musharraf will keep his previous commitment to
retire as army chief on Thursday.
No date has been given for the lifting of emergency rule; the reconstitution
of the election commission; the implementation of fair election practices;
the removal of biased officials; or the suspension of the mayors, who
control the guns and the funds -- that is, police and government resources
-- to adversely influence elections.
Moreover, judges, lawyers, human rights activists and students across the
country are in prison or under house arrest. The independent media have been
shut down, television stations stopped from broadcasting news. Several
foreign journalists have been expelled. Thousands of political activists, a
majority from my Pakistan People's Party, have been arrested.
Police have erected barricades and deployed armored personnel carriers and
trucks filled with sand to cut off access to my house and to prevent people
from going from one city to another.
Musharraf knows how to crack down against pro-democracy forces. He is,
however, unwilling or unable to track down and arrest Osama bin Laden or
contain the extremists. This is the reality of Pakistan in November 2007.
The only terror that Musharraf's regime seems able to confront is the terror
of his own illegitimacy. This is the second time Musharraf has imposed
martial law and the second time he has sacked judges since taking over the
country in a coup in 1999. It was then that he first promised "to bring true
democracy."
The election commission has promulgated election rolls judged illegitimate
by Pakistan's Supreme Court and the National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs. Some polling sites have been kept secret. Musharraf's
political opposition is banned from campaigning or organizing and has been
denied access to state-controlled media. We cannot meet, we cannot rally,
and when we try to bring the people to the streets they are gassed, beaten
and shot at with rubber bullets. This is not only a military dictatorship,
it is a classic police state.
On top of a litany of assaults on the rule of law, the general has
unilaterally amended the Army Act of 1952 to grant the army the power to try
civilians in military courts. Courts-martial will operate by military rules
in secret, and defendants are not allowed legal representation.
No attempt has been made to differentiate between average citizens and
terrorism suspects associated with militant groups. Many believe that these
laws were passed to intimidate pro-democracy forces, not to try terrorism
suspects. This is the "democracy" that Musharraf envisages.
While living in America when I attended Harvard in the early 1970s, I saw
for myself the awesome, almost miraculous, power of a people to change
policy through democratic means. Today I am seeing the power of the people
coalescing once again. Journalists, judges, and political and civil
activists have joined together against Musharraf's second declaration of
martial law. They see him as the obstacle to the democratization of
Pakistan.
This is why I have called upon Gen. Musharraf to resign as president and
chief of army staff, and to pave the way for the composition of an interim
government of national consensus that will oversee the transfer of power to
duly elected representatives of the people.
The people of the Soviet Union knew that "elections" for the Politburo were
fraudulent. The people of Pakistan know that elections under martial law are
a similar sham.
Benazir Bhutto, head of the Pakistan People's Party, was twice elected prime
minister of Pakistan. She is under house arrest in Lahore.
Digging a Hole
The New York Times
EDITORIAL
November 14, 2007:
With five words in an interview with reporters for The Times
yesterday, Gen. Pervez Musharraf showed how far removed he is from
understanding what democracy is, never mind fulfilling his oft-broken
promise to lead Pakistan back toward a stable and prosperous future.
Asked about Benazir Bhutto's call for his resignation, General Musharraf,
Pakistan's president, shot back that the opposition leader, who is under
house arrest, ''has no right to ask.'' Oh, really?
Although General Musharraf seems to believe that he can continue calling the
shots, his political space is narrowing. Ms. Bhutto has ruled out a
power-sharing deal with him in a future government. Washington had hoped
such an agreement would be the key to Pakistan's transition back to
democracy. And is there anyone who assigns any credence to his claims that
he declared martial law to assure free and fair elections?
The world knows what it would look like if the general were serious about
giving up a dictator's power. He would resign as the army's chief of staff
by tomorrow, the day he is supposed to be sworn in for another term as
president. He would reinstate the Supreme Court justices that he dismissed
so they could not declare his ''re-election'' to be the sham that it so
evidently was -- rather than have it validated by pliant justices he
installed after declaring martial law.
In the interview, General Musharraf continued to defy Pakistan's
Constitution -- and direct appeals by President George W. Bush and Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice -- by refusing to say when he would step down as
army leader. He offered a ludicrous defense of his scrapping the
Constitution, dismissing the Supreme Court and arresting some 2,500
opposition party workers, lawyers and human rights advocates -- and gave no
hint when he might lift martial law.
Although he proved his tough-guy bona fides by rising to the top army post
and then staging a bloodless coup in 1999, General Musharraf looks
increasingly weak. He has taken to petty name-calling against the head of
Pakistan's human rights commission. Putting political rivals under house
arrest makes it seem as if he fears them as much, if not more, than Al Qaeda
and the Taliban, which are the real threats to his country and beyond.
Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte is scheduled to meet General
Musharraf in Islamabad later this week. We hope his message will be
unambiguous. General Musharraf must lift martial law, reinstate
constitutional processes, release political detainees, unfetter the media,
give up his army post and accept whatever ruling the Supreme Court makes on
his eligibility to be president. He must set a firm date for elections in
January and facilitate everything -- an election commission, voter
registration, media access, international monitors -- to make those polls as
free and fair as possible.
Otherwise, the United States, which has provided Pakistan with more than $10
billion since Sept. 11, 2001, should condition some of that assistance on
Islamabad's performance in fighting extremists and reconsider aid not
directly linked to counterterrorism, like support for the F-16s that
Washington let Pakistan buy. It should also shift money toward political
parties, schools and courts to help the Pakistani people build a democracy.
The United States has core interests in Pakistan that need to be defended.
That means standing firm for a stable civil society and democratic
processes, fighting terrorism and securing the nation's nuclear arsenal.
Large scale arrests
of PPP leaders and workers
Former Speaker Yousuf Raza Gillani, Opposition Leader Qasim Zia and Punjab
Secretary Information among arrested
Islamabad, 13 November
2007: Hundreds of Pakistan Peoples Party workers including women
Parliamentarians have been arrested in different cities in the Punjab and
Sindh on the eve of Long March as the former Prime Minister and Chairperson
Pakistan Peoples Party, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was placed under house
arrest at the house of Senator Khosa House in Lahore.
According to initial reports those arrested included Vice Chairman of PPP,
Yousuf Raza Gilani, opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly, Qasim Zia,
Punjab Information Secretary Farzana Raja, Beelum Husnain MNA, Yasmin Rehman
MNA, Mehreen Anwar Raja MNA, Tasneem Qureshi MNA, Uzma Bokhari MPA, Faiza
Malik, Nadia Aziz, Mirza Afzal, Samina Naveed, Sughra Imam, Hoor Bokhari,
Saghira Islam, Ashraf Ejaz Gill, Abdul Qayyum jatoi and others. Farzana Raja
was detained at a male prison and treated with violence and disrespect.
Others who have been arrested include
President PPP Punjab, Shah Mehmood Qaurshi reached Kasur with a large
procession and started Long March towards Okara. The procession was
intercepted near Dibalpur by the heavy police deployment but the provincial
PPP President managed to escape and continue his Long March and reached
Okara. PPP Parliamentarian Ch. Manzoor also escaped arrest and managed to
reach Okara.
In Lahore, the Khosa House was surrounded by thousands of policemen to stop
the Chairperson from leading the Long March.
Meanwhile PPP Karachi has announced three-day strike against Mohtarma
Benazir Bhutto’s house arrest. Member Sindh assembly Sassi Palejo was
arrested along with dozens of workers in Thatta. Police raided village
Dinabad district Thatta, the village of member Sindh Assembly Humera Alwani
and arrested her 72 years old uncle Imamdino Khwaja after torturing him
during the raid. The police also tortured Waloo Baloch, Juman Mirbahar and
Allahno Mirbahar.
Police has carried out raids in towns, cities and villages on the route of
the long marc h. Clashes have erupted between PPP activists and baton
charging police in Lahore, Kasur, Dipalpur, Allahabad and other cities and
towns on route of the Long March. The Long March will resume from Okara
Wednesday morning.
Presidential
notification and retirement as army chief two separate issues
Islamabad, 13 November
2007: PPP leader Raja Pervez Ashraf has said that the
Presidential notification and retirement as army chief were two separate
issues and it was wrong to connect the two.
In a statement today he said that the announcement that National Assembly
would be dissolved on Thursday, provincial assemblies on Nov 20th and
elections to the National and provincial assemblies would be held on the
same day before January 9, 2008 is a step the right direction.
However, the nation still has not been given any date of Musharraf retiring
as Chief of Army Staff.
The PPP demands that General Musharraf retires from the Army on or before
November 15 as promised by him to the PPP, the Supreme Court and the people
of Pakistan, he said.
General Musharraf says that he cannot do so unless the PCO Supreme Court
decides the case.
He said that the PPP believes that the issues of Presidential notification
and retirement as Army Chief are two separate issues. Musharraf must retire
as Army Chief on or before November 15 while the issue of eligibility is
decided.
It is therefore wrong to connect the eligibility issue with retirement as
Army Chief.
The Pakistan Peoples Party believes that fair, free and impartial elections
and free expression of the will of the people of Pakistan cannot be made
under the present environment. The opposition parties are gagged and their
hand tied while the Election Commission has still not been reconstituted, he
said.
The issue agitating public mind including emergency, a pliant judiciary, a
non-independent Election Commission and the presence of the political mayors
controlling guns and funds have still not been addressed.
Raja Pervez Ashraf said that the amendments made in the Army Act making it
applicable to all citizens rather than extremists militant groups has also
raised many questions and sent wrong signals to the peoples.
Unless these issues are addressed the parties would be going into the
electoral arena with their hands tied, he said.
The announcement of the election schedule may raise hopes but far too often
in the past hopes were raised only to be dashed, he said.
Bankrupt Relationship
Despite George W Bush's rhetoric about freedom,
the struggle against terrorism is provoking a reaction familiar from the
Cold War and nowhere is that clearer than over Pakistan.
In the old parlance, General Pervez Musharraf is "our sonofabitch". He has
failed to stamp out extremist groups and close the madrassas that inspire
them. He has allowed the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan to fall into the
hands of assorted jihadis. And he has sacked independent-minded judges for
fear that the Supreme Court declare illegal his re-election as president
last month.
Yet, despite this combination of incompetence and brutality, America and
Britain continue to back him as head of what has a strong claim to be the
most dangerous country in the world.
In order to broaden the government's political base, their plan is for the
general to doff his army uniform later this month and enter into a
power-sharing arrangement with Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan
People's Party, after general elections in February.
If that ever comes to pass, it will bring together a soldier whose
popularity has plummeted and a politician whose standing has been undermined
by her willingness to cut a deal with him. And the prospects for its lasting
are slim: Miss Bhutto and the military are like oil and water.
In short, the relationship between Gen Musharraf and the West is bankrupt.
Valued as an ally after 9/11, he is now part of the problem. Under his
dictatorship, Pakistan has become an increasingly ungovernable country in
which moderate, secular forces have been sidelined to the advantage of the
Islamists.
An alternative – an alliance between General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, the army
chief designate, and Miss Bhutto's secular rival, Nawaz Sharif – seems
neither imminent nor especially enticing. But that should not blind Britain
and America to the fact that their "sonofabitch" in Pakistan is a spent
force.
Pakistan's High Commission sent the following response to this article:
"The language used for the President of Pakistan in your leading article
("Bankrupt relationship", November 9) is offensive and flouts the norms of
decent journalism.
"For a newspaper of The Daily Telegraph's reputation to resort to such
derogatory language is highly regrettable. This deserves an apology." Imran
Gardezi, Minister Press
Musharraf Makeover
Proves Too Much for One Lobby Firm
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
November 13, 2007:
Lobbying can be an unsavory business. Just ask former senator John Edwards
of North Carolina. He hopes to ride that fact to the Democratic nomination
for president.
Then again, lobbyists love it when companies and countries get into trouble.
The bigger the problem, the larger their fees.
So it was noteworthy last week that Cassidy & Associates, one of D.C.'s
biggest lobbying firms, resigned from its just-signed $1.2 million-a-year
lobbying contract with the government of Pakistan.
Cassidy dropped the engagement, it said, because the military crackdown by
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had rendered its efforts to generate
good will useless. "We thought it best to withdraw from the account as the
dramatic changes in Pakistan impeded our effectiveness on their behalf,"
said Tom Alexander, Cassidy's spokesman.
A statement by the Pakistani Embassy, however, raises the prospect that the
decision was more mutual. "The contract for one year was still at the trial
phase when, during the course of the first month of association, both the
Embassy of Pakistan and Cassidy & Associates came to the conclusion that
the latter could not effectively implement the contract as lobbyist," an
embassy spokesman said in a statement. "As a result, Cassidy &
Associates asked for withdrawal from the contract that the Embassy has
accepted."
Cassidy says it was not pushed out by Pakistan. "There was never any concern
about our work expressed by the embassy," Alexander said.
Whatever the story is, there's no need to worry about Pakistan (not that you
would). It still has a lobbyist, the same one it has had for 2 1/2 years.
Van Scoyoc Associates continues to represent the government at half the
price Cassidy was charging -- $660,000 a year. "We work with the embassy to
address legitimate concerns that have been raised in Congress and recent
actions by the government of Pakistan," said Mark Tavlarides, a vice
president of the lobbying firm.
And clearly, with no regrets.
Proclamation of Emergency Issued by Gen. Pervez
Musharraf
Following is the text of the Proclamation
of Emergency declared by General Pervez Musharraf on Saturday, as released
by The Associated Press of Pakistan, a state-run news agency.
WHEREAS there is visible ascendancy in the activities of extremists and
incidents of terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, IED explosions,
rocket firing and bomb explosions and the banding together of some militant
groups have taken such activities to an unprecedented level of violent
intensity posing a grave threat to the life and property of the citizens of
Pakistan;
WHEREAS there has also been a spate of attacks on State infrastructure and
on law enforcement agencies;
WHEREAS some members of the judiciary are working at cross purposes with the
executive and legislature in the fight against terrorism and extremism
thereby weakening the Government and the nation’s resolve and diluting the
efficacy of its actions to control this menace;
WHEREAS there has been increasing interference by some members of the
judiciary in government policy, adversely affecting economic growth, in
particular;
WHEREAS constant interference in executive functions, including but not
limited to the control of terrorist activity, economic policy, price
controls, downsizing of corporations and urban planning, has weakened the
writ of the government; the police force has been completely demoralized and
is fast losing its efficacy to fight terrorism and Intelligence Agencies
have been thwarted in their activities and prevented from pursuing
terrorists;
WHEREAS some hard core militants, extremists, terrorists and suicide
bombers, who were arrested and being investigated were ordered to be
released. The persons so released have subsequently been involved in heinous
terrorist activities, resulting in loss of human life and property.
Militants across the country have, thus, been encouraged while law
enforcement agencies subdued;
WHEREAS some judges by overstepping the limits of judicial authority have
taken over the executive and legislative functions;
WHEREAS the Government is committed to the independence of the judiciary and
the rule of law and holds the superior judiciary in high esteem, it is
nonetheless of paramount importance that the Honourable Judges confine the
scope of their activity to the judicial function and not assume charge of
administration;
WHEREAS an important Constitutional institution, the Supreme Judicial
Council, has been made entirely irrelevant and non est by a recent order and
judges have, thus, made themselves immune from inquiry into their conduct
and put themselves beyond accountability;
WHEREAS the humiliating treatment meted to government officials by some
members of the judiciary on a routine basis during court proceedings has
demoralized the civil bureaucracy and senior government functionaries, to
avoid being harassed, prefer inaction;
WHEREAS the law and order situation in the country as well as the economy
have been adversely affected and trichotomy of powers eroded;
WHEREAS a situation has thus arisen where the Government of the country
cannot be carried on in accordance with the Constitution and as the
Constitution provides no solution for this situation, there is no way out
except through emergent and extraordinary measures;
AND WHEREAS the situation has been reviewed in meetings with the Prime
Minister, Governors of all four Provinces, and with Chairman Joint Chiefs of
Staff Committee, Chiefs of the Armed Forces, Vice-Chief of Army Staff and
Corps Commanders of the Pakistan Army;
NOW, THEREFORE, in pursuance of the deliberations and decisions of the said
meetings, I General Pervez Musharraf, Chief of the Army Staff, proclaim
Emergency throughout Pakistan.
2. I hereby order and proclaim that the Constitution of the Islamic Republic
of Pakistan shall remain in abeyance.
3. This Proclamation shall come into force at once.
Pakistan's
'Proclamation of Emergency', the Judiciary and Other Stories
Pakistan's military ruler, General
Musharraf, has for the second time in eight years imposed Martial Law in the
country. One should not be led astray by the 'Proclamation of Emergency'
issued by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS). Although the official TV channel
of the government is busy selling the idea of an 'emergency' to its viewers,
the reality remains that Pakistan is facing its sixth Martial Law since
independence.
Under the 1973 Constitution, the only way for the Federal Government to
issue a proclamation of emergency is under Article 232 in case the country
faces a threat of war or external aggression, or internal disturbances
beyond the control of a Provincial Government. The proclamation is to be
made by the President and must be placed before the Parliament for the
latter's approval. While a proclamation is in force, the Federal Government
may make orders to the Provincial Governments and may suspend the operation
of constitutional provisions with regards to provincial bodies and matters.
Such orders must be approved by the Parliament. The Parliament may also
legislate on provincial matters while the emergency is in force and may
extend its life for up to a year. The Federal Government may suspend the
enforcement of fundamental rights. However, the government may not hold the
constitution in abeyance and may not suspend provisions related to the
senior judiciary.
The Proclamation of Emergency issued by the COAS today is not a proclamation
under Article 232. It has not been issued by the President but by the COAS.
It contains no reasons that show neither an objectively verifiable threat of
war or external aggression nor an internal disturbance that was actually
outside the control of a Provincial Government. It only alleges that
judicial activism is hampering the war against terror and is demoralizing
the executive. The proclamation holds the Constitution of Pakistan in
abeyance which is not permitted under the Constitution. Pursuant to this
proclamation, the political leadership is being arrested alongside of
prominent lawyers. Reports indicate that the Chief Justice of Pakistan, who
was illegal removed not so long ago, has been put under house arrest and
that other senior judges are being forced to retake oaths under a
Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO). The proclamation is hence illegal,
unconstitutional and amounts to an act of treason under Article 6 of the
Constitution.
The PCO is of great importance as it manifests the intentions of the
military dictator. The document provides that no court will take cognizance
of any order made by the government pursuant to the proclamation of
emergency. It further gives power to the federal government to require that
all Superior Court judges retake their oaths and provides discretion to the
former to choose which existing judges to call for such an oath. Such a
measure has met tremendous resistance from existing judges. As of now,
reports in leading newspapers indicate that only three Supreme Court judges
out of seventeen and around twenty judges out of almost a hundred from the
four provincial High Courts have taken oath under the PCO. Moreover, acting
on the application of the Pakistan Bar Council President, a eight member
bench of the Supreme Court set aside the PCO and the Proclamation of
Emergency just hours before law enforcement agencies surrounded the SC
building. The bench ordered all civil and military officers and personal to
disregard any illegal and unconstitutional order of the government.
The latest move by the general is an illegal, ultra-constitutional and
desperate attempt to hold on to power by unconstitutionally clipping the
power of the judiciary that was trying to uphold that constitution and
safeguard the fundamental rights of the citizens. By clipping the power, the
general has done away with the hundreds of cases challenging the actions of
the executive including the case regarding his candidacy for the Presidency
and the notorious National Reconciliation Ordinance.
It remains to be seen what level of protest the political, legal, and civil
communities can gather in the coming days and weeks. Clearly the public can
draw inspiration from the Honorable Judges of the Superior Courts who
refused to retake their oath and upheld the sanctity of the Constitution.
Syed Umair Javed is a third-year law student in the Department of Law &
Policy, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan.
It is martial law
* Emergency imposed, Constitution held in
abeyance
* ‘Judicial interference’, law and order cited as reasons
* PM, CMs and cabinets to continue
* Senate, NA, PAs and local governments not suspended
* COAS empowered to amend Constitution
* Fundamental rights under articles 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 19, 25 suspended
* Troops deployed at government installations
* Private TV news channels blacked out
By Rana Qaisar
ISLAMABAD: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Pervez Musharraf on Saturday
imposed a state of emergency in the country and promulgated a Provisional
Constitutional Order (PCO) holding the Constitution in abeyance.
“Chief of Army Staff General Pervez Musharraf has imposed a state of
emergency in the country and issued a Provisional Constitutional Order,” an
official statement said, without using the word “president” for Gen
Musharraf.
Under the PCO, the Constitution will remain in abeyance. However, General
Musharraf did not suspend the Senate, National Assembly or the Punjab, Sindh
and Balochistan assemblies. The local governments will also continue to
work.
The PCO empowers the president to amend the Constitution. With the
promulgation of the PCO, fundamental rights under Articles 9, 10, 15, 16,
17, 19 and 25 of the Constitution will remain suspended while all provisions
of the Constitution under Articles 2, 2A, 31, 203A to 203J, 227 to 231 and
260(3a and b) will remain in force.
The proclamation of emergency order cited “increasing interference by some
members of judiciary” and increasing terrorist attacks as justifications.
The imposition of emergency comes as the Supreme Court was hearing a
petition challenging Gen Musharraf’s eligibility to contest presidential
elections. The government was reportedly expecting an adverse decision in
the case, with intelligence reports indicating that most judges on the
11-member bench were likely to rule against the president. The prime
minister and his cabinet, and the provincial governors and chief ministers
of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan and their cabinets will remain in place.
The decision to impose an emergency and promulgate the PCO was taken at a
high-level meeting, which started at noon and continued till 5pm. Gen
Musharraf chaired the meeting and his top commanders attended.
All private local and foreign TV news channels were taken off air at 5:05pm
and Pakistan Television (PTV) made the first announcement about emergency
rule at 6:05pm. Army troops, Rangers and police were deployed at the PTV
headquarters, Radio Pakistan, parliament building, Constitution Avenue,
airport and other government buildings.
Reasons behind
imposition of emergency
* Attacks on state infrastructure, security
agencies
Judicial interference:
* Affecting war against terrorism, economic growth
* In executive functions
* Weakening government’s writ
* Demoralising police, hampering intelligence agencies
* Release of some militants by court orders
* Judges overstepping their authority
* Supreme Judicial Council made irrelevant
* Judges humiliating government officials in courts
* Trichotomy of powers eroded, law and order affected
‘Emergency to end
judicial activism’
By Ihtasham ul Haque
ISLAMABAD, Nov 3:
President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Saturday defended the proclamation of the
state of emergency and said that judicial activism had brought the country
to a complete standstill.
“Pakistan is on the verge of destabilisation and this is not acceptable to
me and this has forced me to take this action. Also I believe that at this
stage inaction will be suicidal and I cannot allow this situation as it will
harm the third stage of transition to full democracy,” he said in his
address to the nation on state-run PTV and Radio Pakistan.
He said that some members of the Supreme Court were creating hurdles in the
launching of the third phase of return to complete civilian rule.
The president requested the United States, European Union and the
Commonwealth to realise the gravity of Pakistan’s problems and avoid
criticising the government for imposing the state of emergency.
“Please don’t demand your level of democracy as we are trying to learn. Give
us time. We are trying to lean about civil liberties and other such issues,”
he said. “Please bear with me and understand our problems,” he told the
West.
He justified his action by quoting US President Abraham Lincoln who,
according Gen Musharraf, broke laws and usurped the rights of the people to
preserve the Constitution.
The president said that Pakistan was passing through a difficult phase and
could not anymore accept the downslide of economy and the overall law and
order situation, particularly created by terrorists and religious
extremists.
He accused some judges of the superior judiciary of bringing harm to three
pillars of the state -- judiciary, legislature and executive. “On the one
hand, Pakistan’s sovereignty has been seriously challenged by terrorists and
on the other the country’s system is semi-paralysed due the judicial
activism,” he said.
Gen Musharraf regretted that senior government officials were forced to
visit the Supreme Court almost daily and their reputation was being dragged
in dirt. “Over 100 suo motu cases are being heard by the Supreme Court,
besides thousands of applications against the executive were being
entertained due to which the government’s system has collapsed totally,” he
said, adding that senior government officials were not performing their
duties due to fear and state of uncertainty.
He said he had drawn a three-stage strategy to introduce full democracy in
Pakistan. From 1999 to 2002, he said, he was running the country alone and
then from 2002 to 2007, elected federal and provincial governments were
performing their duties. “And I was just overseeing that system,” he said,
adding that he was ensuring the complete transition by first having the
presidential election and then general elections.
“But they created problem for me after I was elected president by with 57
per cent vote. They kept on dragging the issue and did not allow its
notification and this was how they created a state of uncertainty and
frustration among the masses.”
The president said that while some members of the superior judiciary were
deliberately creating problems for him, some people in the media, especially
a few television channels, remained busy in adding to the negativism in the
country.
“I want to ask the nation why did this judicial activism create problems in
the relationship of judiciary, legislation and executive,” the president
said.
He said since there were serious allegations against the CJ, he was forced
to send this reference to the council on the advice of the prime minister.
“And I did nothing wrong but then I saw that the Supreme Judicial Council
was not allowed to run properly and this led to the breakdown of everything
in the country.”
What may follow after
PCO
Jalil-ur-Rehman
LAHORE: The promulgation
of the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) by Chief of Amy Staff (COAS)
General Pervez Musharraf issued here Saturday will affect and cause the
following developments and steps to be taken in continuation of the PCO as
well as Proclamation of Emergency.
The Senate of Pakistan shall continue to exist.
In terms of the PCO imposed by the COAS, the National Assembly, provincial
governors, the federal cabinet, chief ministers, provincial cabinets in
Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan and all the provincial assemblies except NWFP
shall continue to remain functional.
Judges of the superior courts (provincial high courts and the Supreme Court
of Pakistan) may be asked to take their oath afresh.
The federation can invite judges of its own choice for taking oath afresh
and the judges not invited for the fresh oath shall be deemed to have been
retired from the judiciary.
If some judges of the Supreme Court including Chief Justice Iftikhar
Muhammad Chaudhry and others are not invited for taking oath afresh, the
next senior most judge in the seniority list shall be the new chief justice
of Pakistan. Since Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar has sworn in as Chief Justice
of Pakistan as such after his retirement the next judge will be the CJP.
Justice Falak Sher of the Supreme Court of Pakistan if invited for taking
oath afresh may become the new Chief Justice of Pakistan after the
retirement of Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar in case he was invited for taking
oath under the PCO.
The COAS may set up special courts comprising military and judicial officers
for the trial of extremists and terrorists under some new law to be
introduced in the next few days.
All kinds of public rallies and meetings shall be banned in the country.
The federal and the provincial governments can be dismissed at any time by
the COAS and new interim caretakers set up formed as and when required to
run day-to-day affairs.
Some fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution can be suspended in
the Provincial Constitution Order (PCO).
After Proclamation of Emergency, the COAS may also impose governor's rule at
any time during emergency in the provinces under which the provincial
governments shall be under the direct administrative control of the
federation.
The tenure of the National and provincial assemblies can be extended for one
year as provided in the 1973 Constitution.
The Proclamation of Emergency and the PCO can be assailed on legal and
judicial grounds, provided the 1973 Constitution is intact or the new PCO
keeps fundamental rights intact.
The constitutional organs and institutions shall continue to exist.
In case the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies of the Punjab,
Sindh and Balochistan are dissolved on completing their five years tenure,
the speaker of the National Assembly and all four speakers of the provincial
assemblies shall continue in their offices until the new speakers are
elected by new members of the National and provincial assemblies.
Bhutto criticizes
martial law in Pakistan
Former prime minister talks with NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell
NBC
News' Andrea Mitchell speaks with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, from
her home in Karachi, Pakistan. Bhutto had just arrived in Pakistan after the
imposition of martial law by President Pervez Musharraf.
MITCHELL: Prime Minister Bhutto, tell me what your latest information
is about what President Musharraf has done, and your reaction to it.
BHUTTO: General Musharraf has suspended the constitution of Pakistan,
so it's really a declaration of martial law. But he's calling it an
emergency. An emergency sounds more palatable to international opinion. But
the proclamation says that the constitution of the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan shall remain in abeyance, and that's very worrying. My party and I
would like to see the constitution restored.
MITCHELL: Is there any justification that you know of for him
declaring this suspension of the constitution?
BHUTTO: Well, General Musharraf has tried to justify the imposition
of martial law or emergency claiming that there has been an ascendancy in
the activities of extremists. I agree with him that there has been
ascendancy in the activities of the extremists, but I don't believe in the
solution. In my view, dictatorship fuels extremism. The extremists feed off
dictatorship, and dictatorship feeds off the extremists. The dictatorship
needs the extremists to justify its existence, and the extremists need
dictatorship to expand and spread. So I believe the solution lies in
respecting the constitution, respecting the rule of law, and investing in
the people, trusting the people, and allowing the people to determine their
future.
MITCHELL: What are you planning to do?
BHUTTO: I returned to Pakistan to give moral support to the people of
my country and to tell them that they were not alone in the struggle for the
restoration of our constitution. I plan to meet with leaders of other
political parties and discuss with them the policies we should make in
trying to seek a restoration of our constitution.
MITCHELL: At this point, given what General Musharraf has done, have
you abandoned any plan to work out a political agreement where you would
run, and become prime minister, and work with him in a government?
BHUTTO: Well, it's very difficult for me to work with a military
leader. General Musharraf has committed to the Supreme Court of Pakistan,
and he has personally assured me, that he would retire as Chief of Army
Staff. But now he has declared martial law in this capacity, as Chief of
Army Staff. The constitution gives our president emergency powers, but the
constitutional articles for emergency have not been utilized. Instead
General Musharraf has said that in his capacity, that "I, General Pervez
Musharraf, Chief of the Army Staff, proclaim emergency." So he has actually
said that he will continue as Chief of Army Staff, and that makes for a very
difficult situation. Of course, if he was to restore the constitution and
retire as Chief of Army Staff, that would be a totally different situation.
It would lend confidence that he was once again considering the democratic
route. But not while he remains Chief of Army Staff and suspends the
constitution.
MITCHELL: And what do you think you and your supporters can do now,
politically or in any other fashion?
BHUTTO: Well, we would like to protest the imposition of martial law,
and we would like to raise our voices for the restoration of democracy. So
we're going to be meeting together to discuss the most effective ways of
doing that. We are calling upon the international community to use its
enormous leverage with General Musharraf to persuade him that this is a
regressive step, it's a violation of the promises and the commitments that
he made to the people of Pakistan and to the international community. And
that if he really wishes to fight extremists, then the best way to do that
is to trust the people, restore the constitution, establish an independent
election commission, and hold fair, free and impartial elections.
MITCHELL: Have you had any communication with Secretary Rice or any
American officials?
BHUTTO: Not yet. I just came to Pakistan. But before, earlier,
yesterday I heard that there were efforts being made to stop the imposition
of emergency. And I also planned to come back to Pakistan so that I could
also contact the people in the regime here and tell them not to take this
step. But by the time I left, they had already taken this step.
MITCHELL: I've seen a report from Sky News that you believe that this
is an attempt to delay elections for a year or two. Is that what you believe
is happening?
BHUTTO: That's right. My reports from inside the regime are that
there is going to be a salami (piecemeal) approach, where we are going to be
told this is a temporary measure for three to six months, and then it will
be extended for another six months. And in fact, I believe that the
hard-liners within the regime, and there are many hard-liners which served
with an earlier military dictator of the 80's, who formed the Afghan
muhjahideen who went on to become al-Qaida and Taliban. These hard-liners
believe that America will be caught up in the presidential elections for a
year. And then a new administration in the U.S. will take another year to
settle down. And they feel they need two years to drive NATO out of
Afghanistan, destabilize (Afghan President) Karzai, and set up a kind of
puppet government there, as well to expand their influence in Pakistan.
These are the reports I'm getting from inside the regime.
MITCHELL: You think that General Musharraf is trying to suspend the
constitution for an extended period of time, for a matter of years?
BHUTTO: Yes. But he will not say so immediately. It will be done in
installments. I believe this position has been taken to suspend the
constitution for at least one year, if not two.
MITCHELL: I was going to ask you if you're concerned for your safety?
BHUTTO: I do have concerns for the safety of all the people of my
country, not just myself. I am unsure what will happen; this is a difficult
period, but at the same time, General Musharraf has also been sensitive to
international opinion. He was going to impose emergency earlier, and then
the United States intervened; there was a long conversation with the
secretary of State. And so I do believe that it's very important for us to
try and get Pakistan back on to the democratic track. To persuade General
Musharraf to restore the constitution, and to respect the courts, to respect
the judiciary, and to trust the people of the country.
MITCHELL: Prime Minister, what would you like the United States
government to do at this stage?
BHUTTO: I would like the United States government to telephone
General Musharraf to tell him that it's not possible for them to support the
suspension of Pakistan's constitution or the sacking of the judges. And that
democracy is important, as President Bush has rightly said, it is democracy,
it is the strength of the ballot, not the bullet, that is more important,
and if it's about winning hearts and minds then democracy is very important.
I would like the United States to tell General Mushararf -- please, accept
the verdict of the people, hold elections, restore the constitution.
MITCHELL: Do you think it's so risky at this point that you would not
hold rallies or marches? Have you decided one way or another what you want
you and your political supporters to do?
BHUTTO: We would like to hold rallies and public demonstrations, but
now fundamental human rights have been suspended, and we are going to have
to get together to decide what is the best form of protest. But there will
be a protest. Whether it's a public meeting, whether it's a sit-in, there
will be protests, because it's very difficult to keep quiet in the face of
the suspension of the constitution of Pakistan, which amounts to a military
rule. We would like to see the restoration of the constitution, and I would
like to urge General Musharraf to restore the constitution, to accept the
verdict of the court, even if it's a verdict that he does not like. Because
we can only strengthen the rule of law if we accept the verdict of the
court. And I would like to ask Washington not to put everything behind one
man, but to put it behind the people of Pakistan. People of my country must
know that the international community and the world's only superpower stands
with them rather than with an individual.
Lawyers will protest
tomorrow
KARACHI/LAHORE/ISLAMABAD:
Lawyers’ associations said on Saturday that lawyers would observe a strike
on Monday, November 5, to protest the imposition of an emergency in the
country.
Pakistan Bar Council Vice Chairman Aziz Akbar Baig said the lawyers would
hold meetings and rallies to condemn this “unconstitutional step”.
Punjab Bar Council Vice Chairman Tariq Javed Warraich said the emergency had
put the country in danger and lawyers would resist it at any cost.
Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) President Ahsan Bhoon said the
whole nation would resist the emergency and the lawyers would never accept
judges taking oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order.
Separately, the Sindh High Court Bar Association hosted a meeting in Karachi
after the proclamation of the emergency. The meeting passed a resolution
stating that lawyers were concerned over the proclamation of emergency in
the country at a time when the nation was preparing to elect its
representatives and the Supreme Court was about to decide petitions
challenging Gen Musharraf’s eligibility to run for a second presidential
term.
Lawyers elsewhere in the country hosted similar meetings and resolved to
resist the president’s step.
Gen Musharraf’s Second
Coup:
•Charge-sheet against
judiciary
•Media ‘promoting
negativism’
•Country’s ‘integrity
at stake’
•Legislatures intact
ISLAMABAD, Nov 3:
In what is a virtual martial law, President Pervez Musharraf, acting as army
chief, on Saturday imposed a state of emergency throughout Pakistan,
suspended the Constitution and replaced superior courts in a move that could
put the country’s political future into disarray.
In his proclamation of emergency, the general blamed growing violence by
militants and a judiciary which he said was working at “cross purposes” with
his government and the legislature for his most drastic action since he
seized power in an October 12, 1999 coup.
A Provisional Constitutional Order was also issued, putting the Constitution
in ‘abeyance’ but saying the country would be “governed, as nearly as may
be, in accordance with the Constitution” although seven of its articles
relating to fundamental rights would remain suspended, and empowering the
president to amend the document ‘as is deemed expedient’.
The move, greeted with immediate condemnation at home by opposition parties,
lawyers and human rights groups and concern from “war on terror” allies like
the United States and Britain, came only 12 days before the expiration of
General Musharraf’s presidency and the present assemblies and while an
11-judge bench of the Supreme Court was in a weekend recess in its hearing
of challenges to his election for another five-year presidential term mainly
on grounds of his army office.
General Musharraf seemed to have run out of other political and
constitutional options as he took one of the most extraordinary steps by a
ruler in 60 years of Pakistan’s life, putting aside not only the
Constitution but also his own sweeping powers as president and preferring to
act as Chief of the Army Staff.
The emergency proclamation said a situation had arisen where the “government
of the country cannot be carried out in accordance with the Constitution”
and “the Constitution provides no solution for this situation”.
However, the present federal and provincial governments, both houses of
parliament and the provincial assemblies were kept intact.
CHARGE-SHEET AGAINST JUDICIARY: While it started with what it called
“visible ascendancy in the activities of extremists and incidents of
terrorist attacks” as grounds for the action, the proclamation contained a
long charge-sheet against the superior judiciary some of whose members, it
said, “are working at cross purposes with the executive and legislature in
the fight against terrorism and extremism, thereby weakening the government
and the nation’s resolve and diluting the efficacy of its actions to control
this menace”.
“... (T)here has been increasing interference by some members of the
judiciary in government policy, adversely affecting economic growth, in
particular,” it said, adding that there was “constant interference in
executive functions.”
It also blamed the judiciary’s interference for having “weakened the writ of
the government, the police force ... been completely demoralised and ...fast
losing its efficacy to fight terrorism, and intelligence agencies ...
thwarted in their activities and prevented from pursuing terrorists.”
While “some hard core militants, extremists, terrorists and suicide bombers,
who were arrested and being investigated were ordered to be released,” it
said and added: “The persons so released have subsequently been involved in
heinous terrorist activities, resulting in loss of human life and property.
Militants across the country have, thus, been encouraged while law
enforcement agencies (were) subdued.”
CONSULTATIONS: The proclamation said the general acted after reviews of the
situation in meetings with the prime minister, governors of all four
provinces, armed forces chiefs and army corps commanders.
“Now, therefore, in pursuance of the deliberations and decisions of the said
meetings, I General Pervez Musharraf, Chief of the Army Staff, proclaim
emergency throughout Pakistan,” it said. “I hereby order and proclaim that
the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan shall remain in
abeyance.”
BLOW TO JUDICIARY: The emergency proclamation’s charges against judicial
activism, which were immediately followed by change of command at the
Supreme Court as well as changes in provincial high courts, appeared aimed
at reversing what was hailed as a revival of independence of the judiciary
after months of an epic movement led by lawyers since the president
suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on March 9.
Justice Iftikhar, who was reinstated by a bench of Supreme Court judges on
July 20, and several of his colleagues got marching orders under the new
Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) though some of them put up a last-ditch
resistance by holding the action void.
The proclamation accused “some” unspecified judges of the superior courts of
“overstepping the limits of judicial authority” and having “taken over the
executive and legislative functions”.
The references seemed to be mainly directed at Justice Iftikhar and his
colleagues for some of their actions against government officials and
pursuance of the cases of missing people allegedly detained by intelligence
agencies.
The fundamental rights suspended by the PCO related to security of persons
(article 9) safeguard as to arrest and detention (article 10), freedom of
movement (article 15), freedom of assembly, (article 16) freedom of
association (article 17), freedom of speech (article 19), and equality of
citizens (article 25).
It said the Supreme Court or a high court or any other court “shall not have
the power to make any order against the president or the prime minister or
any persons exercising powers or jurisdiction under their authority”.
Reports on Saturday’s events in Islamabad were filed by Raja Asghar, Nasir
Iqbal, Amir Wasim, Khaleeq Kiani, Baqir Sajjad, Ahmed Hassan, Munawar Azeem
and Muhammad Asghar.
Black Saturday
November
3 will go down as another dark day in Pakistan's political and
constitutional history. It can be safely said that this is one of General
Pervez Musharraf's gravest errors of judgment, and a sorry indication that
nothing has been learnt from the mistakes of the past. The imposition of
emergency rule and suspension of the 1973 Constitution announced on Saturday
is only going to destroy the very institutions that this country crucially
needs for evolving into a true democracy, particularly the judiciary, media
and parliament. It will further fracture an already weakened federation,
alienate those who have grievances against the centre, such as the Tribal
Areas and Balochistan, and push whatever little credibility the government
had down a very deep abyss. Such a draconian step will also have little
effect on our ability to fight terrorism and extremism. It would be fair to
assume that the emergency has been imposed only to target two institutions:
the judiciary and the media but it may well have poisonous effects on
another: i.e. parliament. Those in the ruling PML-Q will be foolish not to
realise that the legislative branch of government has received a death blow
as well since the imposition has come from an army general.
The fact that the official statement carrying the emergency announcement
used 'army chief' rather than president to refer to the authority behind the
promulgation is significant as well indicating that perhaps what we have on
our hands is a de facto martial law -- one in which the assemblies will
function but only to give the impression that democracy has not been
hampered in any manner. Furthermore, the timing of the proclamation, a few
days before an expected judgment on a case that could have potentially
declared the president's re-election null and void, is such that very few
people in this country, or overseas for that matter, will buy the argument
that it has been imposed to arrest the deteriorating law and order situation
and to allow the government to focus on fighting extremism and militancy. It
will be difficult to remove public doubts that it has only been imposed to
target a superior judiciary that has finally found some spine and is
carrying out its constitutional role of acting as a watchdog on the
executive, which in Pakistan's case was often overstepping its
constitutionally-defined authority. As for the media, the fact that private
television channels were blacked out for the better part of Saturday is a
grim indication of the government's intentions. However, here too, such bans
are essentially counter-productive and will be seen by ordinary Pakistanis
as a desperate act of a regime bent on shielding itself from criticism.
Meanwhile, the Chief Justice of Pakistan has been informed that his services
were no longer required. In any case, the promulgation of a provisional
constitutional order would mean that most of the judges of the Supreme Court
who had in recent weeks taken a brave and defiant stand against the
government and the military would be pushed aside and not be invited to take
a fresh oath; many would in all probability decline such an offer. As news
of the imposition of emergency spread, eight members of the Supreme Court
defiantly struck down the proclamation, which could well trigger off a new
stand-off. The future is not looking good -- not least because the
president's move is bound to have massive repercussions and a severe
response from all segments of civil society. Such acts are indefensible at
any time, more so in this day and age.
Musharraf Declares
Emergency Rule in Pakistan
Constitution Suspended; Chief Judge Fired
By Griff Witte
ISLAMABAD,
Pakistan, Nov. 4 -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on
Saturday declared emergency rule, suspended the constitution and fired the
country's chief justice, extraordinary steps that gave him almost absolute
power in a country that he described as spinning out of control.
The government deployed hundreds of army rangers on the streets of
Islamabad, arrested some opposition figures and blacked out privately owned
television stations across the country.
For Musharraf, who has become deeply unpopular in recent months, the moves
represented a drastic gamble and came despite intense appeals from the
United States and other Western allies to stay within the bounds of the
Pakistani constitution.
In an emergency order, Musharraf cited rising extremism and a judiciary "at
cross purposes" with the rest of the government as reasons for the moves.
But the timing suggested he was also attempting to extend his rule as both
president and army chief. The Supreme Court had been reviewing a challenge
to his candidacy for another presidential term, and was expected to rule as
early as next week.
The court made a defiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt Saturday to
block Musharraf's implementation of emergency rule; in response, seven
dissident justices were immediately removed from the bench. Musharraf said
the Parliament, where he holds a commanding majority, would remain intact.
Members of Pakistan's fragmented political opposition condemned Musharraf
for moves they said effectively put the country under martial law, and they
vowed to take to the streets in protest. Former prime minister Benazir
Bhutto, a longtime political rival of Musharraf's, immediately flew back to
the country from a trip to the United Arab Emirates.
Musharraf appeared on national television just before midnight Saturday and
delivered a rambling, 50-minute defense of his decision. He described a
government that, faced with terrorist threats and on the verge of
destabilization, could no longer function. The country has been beset by a
wave of attacks by Islamic extremists in recent months; those attacks have
expanded from tribal areas along the Afghan border to regions farther east
that have traditionally been relatively peaceful.
"In my view, this was the simplest way to save Pakistan, to put it back on
the right track," Musharraf said.
At one point in his speech, Musharraf, 64, began speaking in English, saying
he wanted to address the United States and the West. "I would kindly ask you
to understand the criticality of the environment inside Pakistan and around
Pakistan," he said. "Inaction at the moment is suicide for Pakistan, and I
cannot allow this country to commit suicide."
He then quoted Abraham Lincoln, saying that America's 16th president had
broken laws, violated the U.S. Constitution and trampled individual
liberties to keep the country together during the Civil War.
Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999, vowed to continue to
move Pakistan toward democracy but did not specify how. He said only that he
"hoped" the country could still hold parliamentary elections that had been
expected by January.
State-run TV aired interviews in which pro-government analysts criticized
political opponents and the independent media for not backing Musharraf at a
time of crisis.
Meanwhile, the government instituted tough new media restrictions that made
it a crime to defame Musharraf, the army or the government. One private news
station that has been particularly critical of Musharraf, Aaj, was raided
early Sunday, and police attempted to remove the station's broadcasting
equipment.
"He's pretty much carrying out a second coup," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, an
analyst. "For all practical purposes, it is direct military rule. And he
becomes the supreme ruler of Pakistan. There's no constitutional limit on
him because he's set aside the constitution."
Rizvi said Musharraf's stated reasons for declaring an emergency were
misleading. "It has nothing to do with the insurgency," he said. "It has to
do with Musharraf's political survival."
Mushahid Hussain, a close adviser to Musharraf and a top leader in the
ruling party, said the steps amounted to "de facto martial law." He said he
had repeatedly tried to persuade the president against the measures in
recent days but was outvoted in Musharraf's inner circle.
Hussain predicted that the moves would be disastrous for Musharraf and for
the country.
"The way forward has to be democratic and constitutional. Any other course
is a recipe for disaster. More importantly, it will not be accepted by the
people of Pakistan and it will not work," he said.
According to Hussain, Musharraf convened a meeting of his top advisers on
Wednesday to discuss options; 20 of 25 were in favor of emergency rule.
Musharraf appointed a new chief justice to replace Iftikhar Mohammed
Chaudhry, who was believed to be under house arrest Saturday night.
Journalists were barred from approaching Chaudhry's residence.
This March, Chaudhry was removed from the court by Musharraf, but the court
reinstated him in July.
The other dissenting judges were also removed from office Saturday and
escorted away in police vehicles about 8:30 p.m. Before they were removed,
the group of seven justices had issued a ruling that Musharraf's decision
was unconstitutional and had "no ground/reason." The court ordered that the
emergency rule should not be instituted.
Four judges signed an oath to abide by Musharraf's new provisional
constitution, and were immediately sworn in to a new panel.
"This is a very fateful day for the country. Pakistan is in deep, deep
crisis," Aitzaz Ahsan, Chaudhry's attorney, said hours before being
arrested. "It is one man against the nation."
Ahsan said Musharraf had declared emergency rule because he expected to lose
the upcoming Supreme Court decision on the future of his presidency.
Bhutto, who returned last month from an eight-year exile, condemned
Musharraf's moves and said emergency rule made it unlikely there would be
fair elections. Her spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said she has not been in
recent contact with Musharraf.
Opposition leaders reported late Saturday that squads of police officers
were conducting raids and arresting Musharraf critics. Ahsan Iqbal, with an
anti-Musharraf group led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said he had
managed to slip out a back door when police came to his house to detain him.
"By seconds, I managed to get away," he said. Iqbal said his party would
take to the streets to oppose the emergency.
"If the situation in Pakistan has become so grave that you need an
emergency, then the person who has been responsible for the past eight years
needs to be taken to task," Iqbal said. "General Musharraf is not serious
about restoring democracy. He is only perpetuating his own power. He could
not afford free and fair elections."
Hundreds of police officers and army rangers set up multiple checkpoints in
and around Constitution Avenue, the wide, leafy boulevard where the
president's house, the Parliament building and the Supreme Court sit. At one
of the checkpoints, dozens of Musharraf's opponents began gathering in an
apparently spontaneous display of anger at the emergency declaration,
shouting, "Go, Musharraf, go!"
"This is a shame for all of the nation," said Chaudhry Asahgar, a resident
of Islamabad. "The whole nation has been destroyed due to this." Several
people shouted criticisms of the United States, blaming it for keeping
Musharraf in power.
On Friday, U.S. officials had tried to pressure Musharraf to avoid declaring
emergency rule or martial law. Adm. William J. Fallon, chief of the U.S.
Central Command, met with Musharraf and tried to encourage him to back down
from his plan.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Saturday that the United
States was "deeply disturbed by reports that Pakistani President Musharraf
has taken extra-constitutional actions and has imposed a state of
emergency."
Musharraf won a new, five-year term as Pakistan's president in elections
last month. But the Supreme Court was still deciding whether he was eligible
to run in the first place.
While most analysts had predicted that the court would rule in Musharraf's
favor and allow him to begin his new term, the government seemed to be
getting nervous as the case dragged on in recent weeks.
With his current term as president set to expire Nov. 15, Musharraf had
vowed to step down from his military post before he was sworn in for a new
term. But he has broken promises to take off his uniform before and was
considered reluctant to do so now. Government officials had been vague
lately about Musharraf's plans, refusing to rule out the possibility of an
emergency.
Special correspondents Imtiaz Ali in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Shahzad Khurram
in Islamabad and staff writers Robin Wright in Washington and Karen DeYoung,
traveling with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, contributed to this
report
The president sends troops into the
streets, expels the chief justice and cuts communication, plunging the
country deep into political crisis. The U.S. condemns his actions.
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 4, 2007:
President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule in Pakistan
plunged the country into fresh crisis Saturday, clouding the prospects for a
return to civilian rule and posing the greatest quandary yet for the United
States in its dealings with an essential but problematic ally.
Saturday's proclamation gives sweeping powers to Musharraf, an army general
who seized the presidency in a coup eight years ago but has seen his grip on
power falter in recent months.
He wasted little time in wielding his new authority, suspending the
constitution, sending troops into the streets and deposing the chief
justice, who had been a particular thorn in his side. He jammed private TV
channels that have been critical of his rule and cut telephone service in
Islamabad, the capital.
In a televised address to the nation late Saturday, Musharraf declared that
Pakistan was at a "dangerous" juncture and that Islamic extremists were
threatening the authority of the government. But critics denounced the
emergency measures as driven more by domestic political woes than threats to
national security.
Musharraf has been considered a crucial U.S. partner since his decision, in
the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, to aid the United States in its war
against Islamic militants, including Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But even as
the United States pours billions of dollars of military aid into the
country, many have questioned the depth of his commitment to fighting the
radicals.
The Bush administration expressed deep concern Saturday, but stopped short
of personal condemnation of the general, whom it has supported through
months of growing unpopularity among his people.
"The U.S. has made clear that it does not support extra-constitutional
measures, because those measures would take Pakistan away from the path of
democracy and civilian rule," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told
reporters Saturday while traveling from Turkey to Israel. "And whatever
happens, we will be urging a quick return to the path of constitutional rule
and constitutional order. . . . We are urging calm on all the parties."
She declined to say whether Musharraf had given the United States advance
notice of his actions, but said Washington had told him many times that it
would oppose such a move. In August, when the general considered imposing a
state of emergency, Rice called him at 2 a.m. Pakistan time and dissuaded
him.
Still, the Pakistani leader's action will not mean an automatic suspension
of U.S. military aid, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Saturday. "At
this point," Morrell said, "the declaration does not impact our military
support for Pakistan."
Some analysts described the declaration as a last-ditch effort by Musharraf
to hang on to power.
"It's effectively martial law," said Hassan Abbas, a former Pakistani
government official who is now a scholar at Harvard University's Kennedy
School of Government. "He wants to eliminate all those who were trying to
challenge him."
The state of emergency throws into doubt elections that had been set to take
place by mid-January. In his address, the military ruler said he hoped
democracy would be restored after parliamentary elections.
"But, in my eyes, I say with sorrow that some elements are creating hurdles
in the way of democracy," said Musharraf, who was clad in a traditional
black tunic rather than the military fatigues he often wears. "I think this
chaos is being created for personal interests and to harm Pakistan."
He even invoked Abraham Lincoln, describing how one of America's greatest
presidents had suspended some liberties to keep order and preserve unity at
a time of national crisis.
Many ordinary Pakistanis, unmoved by such rhetoric, responded with somber
dismay.
"So he really has done it," said Javed Rashid, a businessman in Karachi,
Pakistan's largest city. "I feared for my country before. I fear for it even
more now."
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whose return to Pakistan last month
has roiled an already turbulent political scene, flew back to Pakistan from
a family visit to the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai as the emergency order
was taking effect.
Met at the Karachi airport by supporters from her Pakistan People's Party,
she declared it the country's "blackest day."
Police escorted her from the airport, and paramilitary troops were deployed
outside the compound that houses her office and home. It was not clear
whether the troops were for protection or to restrict her movements.
Musharraf's dramatic move came days before an expected Supreme Court ruling
on whether his election last month to a new presidential term was valid.
Opponents said the vote should be thrown out because Musharraf, under the
constitution, was not eligible to run while serving as chief of the army.
In recent days, Musharraf's aides had appeared to be laying the groundwork
for an emergency declaration, citing intensified attacks by Islamic
militants along the border with Afghanistan, together with a spate of
suicide bombings in major cities.
Word of the declaration of emergency rule came in a terse announcement on
official Pakistani television, though rumors had raced through Islamabad,
Karachi and other big cities for hours beforehand.
"The chief of the army staff has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued
a provisional constitutional order," a grim-faced newscaster announced.
Witnesses reported that military vehicles patrolled Islamabad's main avenues
and blocked roads, including Constitution Avenue leading to the Supreme
Court building. Several justices, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed
Chaudhry, were inside the building at the time, and later were taken away in
a police convoy.
Pakistan's political scene has been increasingly tense. When Bhutto returned
last month from eight years in exile, she was met with a devastating attack
on her homecoming procession that killed more than 140 people.
Bhutto and Musharraf have been in power-sharing talks. But analysts said the
emergency declaration would make it difficult for Bhutto, who advocates a
return to civilian rule, to cooperate with Musharraf.
Some analysts said the Bush administration had placed too much emphasis on
the personal relationship with Musharraf rather than cultivating allies from
a broad political spectrum.
"His record is erratic both as a statesman and a strategist -- something the
administration realized too late," said Stephen Cohen, a Pakistan expert at
the Brookings Institution.
He and others said they believed the decision might have been generated by
the army's fear that Musharraf could no longer control events without
expanded powers.
Musharraf has previously conducted large-scale roundups of political
opponents, and his foes feared that mass arrests were inevitable. "GOING
INTO HIDING," one said in a text message sent moments after emergency rule
was declared.
Before going off the air, private GEO television reported that Aitzaz Ahsan,
a Musharraf critic and the president of the Supreme Court Bar Assn., had
been taken into custody.
A declaration of emergency, which is similar to martial law, gives the
government the right to suspend basic civil liberties. Judges were also
asked to take a new oath of office, swearing allegiance to the regime.
Opposition parties expressed shock over Musharraf's move. The party of
former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was deported when he tried to return
to Pakistan in October, denounced the emergency rule declaration and vowed
to resist it.
The Supreme Court immediately issued a ruling, signed by seven judges,
saying that the government did not have grounds to declare an emergency.
Lawyers and other opponents gathered outside the high court building,
apparently trying to provide protection to the justices inside.
Musharraf had pledged to step down as army chief before being inaugurated to
a new presidential term. His swearing-in was to take place Nov. 15, provided
that the court did not invalidate his election.
The general's downward spiral began this year, when he tried to remove
Chaudhry on misconduct charges. But lawyers and other opponents took to the
streets in protests that eventually swelled into a nationwide pro-democracy
movement. Chaudhry was reinstated by the high court in July -- a ruling
Musharraf accepted at the time.
Human rights groups denounced the declaration. New York-based Human Rights
Watch called it a "shameless attempt to prevent Pakistanis from enjoying
their basic rights under the law, and a brazen attempt at muzzling the
judiciary."
laura.king@latimes.com
Times staff writers Paul Richter in Istanbul, Turkey, and Julian E. Barnes
in Washington and special correspondent Mubashir Zaidi in Islamabad
contributed to this report.
Musharraf Pledges
Democracy as Bush Condemns Pakistan Emergency
By Ed Johnson and Farhan Sharif
Nov. 6
(Bloomberg): President Pervez Musharraf pledged to return
Pakistan to democracy and step down as army chief as the U.S. called for an
end to emergency rule and elections to be held on schedule.
``I am determined to remove my uniform'' and complete Pakistan's transition
to civilian government, Musharraf said yesterday in a televised briefing for
overseas diplomats on the emergency decree. ``There will be harmony.
Confidence will come back into government and the law enforcement
agencies.''
President George W. Bush said yesterday the elections must be held ``as soon
as possible.'' The national ballot is due by Jan. 15 and Prime Minister
Shaukat Aziz said it will be held according to schedule.
Musharraf suspended the constitution on Nov. 3 for the second time since he
took power in a 1999 military coup, saying judicial interference in
government affairs had hampered the fight against terrorism and extremism in
the world's second largest Muslim country.
He fired Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, barred the Supreme Court
from making any ruling against his administration and curbed freedom of the
media.
``We made clear that these emergency measures would undermine democracy,''
Bush told reporters following talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan. He declined to say what actions the U.S. would take if Musharraf
doesn't lift the decree.
U.S. Ally
Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and other terrorist
groups operating along the mountainous border with Afghanistan. Officials
said the U.S. will review financial assistance to the South Asian country in
response to the decree, although it won't cut funding for counter-terrorism
operations.
Musharraf told diplomats the election would be held ``as close as possible
to the schedule,'' Agence France-Presse reported, citing presidential
spokesman Rashid Qureshi.
Attorney-General Malik Muhammad Qayyum said Musharraf would step down as
armed forces chief and take the presidential oath as a civilian, AFP
reported. He didn't provide a date, it said.
The declaration of emergency rule came as the Supreme Court was nearing a
decision on the legality of Musharraf's Oct. 6 re- election as president.
Opposition parties had asked the court to disqualify him on the grounds that
the constitution bars him running for another five-year term while remaining
army chief.
The Supreme Court banned the Election Commission from declaring a winner
until its ruling.
Musharraf told diplomats yesterday that senior judges had ``paralyzed
various organs of the state'' and threatened to make his government
dysfunctional, the official Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
Court Challenge
The court has repeatedly ruled against the government in recent months. It
reinstated Chaudhry as chief justice in July, five months after Musharraf
sacked him for alleged misuse of authority.
Judges also said the government must allow former Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif to return from exile in Saudi Arabia. Sharif flew back to Islamabad
on Sept. 10 after the ruling to campaign against Musharraf's re-election. He
was deported within hours.
Security forces sealed court buildings in Karachi and Rawalpindi yesterday,
beat protesters with batons and arrested more than 150 lawyers challenging
the state of emergency decree.
About 500 people have been killed in terrorist attacks, including suicide
bombings, in Pakistan since July, when troops stormed the Red Mosque in
Islamabad, ending a challenge by pro- Taliban clerics seeking to impose
Islamic law in the capital.
The country witnessed the worst terrorist attack in its 60- year history
last month when suicide bombers targeted opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on
her return to Pakistan to contest the elections. At least 136 people were
killed.
To contact the reporters on this story: Ed Johnson in Sydney at
ejohnson28@bloomberg.net Farhan Sharif in Karachi, Pakistan
on
Fsharif2@bloomberg.net
Protests spread
across Pakistan
Lawyers take to streets again; return to constitutional path, says Rice
Defying emergency: Riot police beat up a
lawyer during a demonstration in Lahore on Monday as protests against the
Emergency erupted in a number of cities across Pakistan.
Islamabad/Washington: Baton-wielding police on Monday fired tear gas and
clashed with thousands of lawyers protesting against President Pervez
Musharraf’s decision to impose Emergency rule, as Western allies in the “war
on terror” threatened to review aid to, and ties with, Pakistan.
More than 1,500 people have been arrested all over Pakistan since Saturday,
when a state of Emergency was declared.
Gen. Musharraf laughed off rumours that the Army had placed him under house
arrest. He promised foreign diplomats at a meeting that elections would be
held and defended his decision to impose Emergency, but gave no dates.
He told envoys at his official residence that the “superior judiciary had
paralysed various organs of the state and created impediments in the fight
against terrorism.” He accused the country’s independent media of helping
the cause of extremists “by showing the gory scenes of suicide bombings that
encouraged these elements to carry on with their heinous acts.”
Polls on schedule: Aziz
General elections due by mid-January will be held “on schedule” despite a
state of emergency, state media quoted Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz
also as saying on Monday. “The next general elections will be held according
to the schedule,” the Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Mr. Aziz as
saying.
Foreign governments, which had urged Gen. Musharraf not to impose Emergency
rule, stepped up pressure on the General, who faces waning domestic support.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington was reviewing its
assistance to Pakistan, which has received billions of dollars in aid since
Gen. Musharraf threw his support behind the U.S.-led “war on terror” after
the September 11, 2001, attacks. At a news conference in the West Bank on
Monday, she urged Gen. Musharraf to follow through on past promises to “take
off his uniform.”
“I want to be very clear,” she said. “We believe that the best path for
Pakistan is to quickly return to a constitutional path and then to hold
elections.”
The U.S. warned Gen. Musharraf that “our relationship will not remain the
same” unless he reverses course on the Emergency and steers back to
democracy. U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in Washington, “It
is our hope that this decision will be reversed in short order.”
Lawyers attempted to stage rallies in major cities, but were beaten and
arrested. In the biggest of several gatherings, about 2,000 lawyers
congregated at the High Court in Lahore. As they tried to exit on to a main
road, hundreds of police personnel stormed inside, swinging batons and
firing tear gas. Lawyers, shouting “Go Musharraf Go!” responded by throwing
stones and beating the police personnel with tree branches. The police
bundled about 250 lawyers into waiting vans. At least two of them were
bleeding from the head.
Musharraf Gambles
with Pakistan's Future
The President declares a state of emergency, but his army is no longer so
popular and the U.S. may withdraw military aid
Pakistan's political crisis has reached its
predictable zenith, with President Pervez Musharraf declaring a state of
emergency on Nov. 3. Opposition party workers, civil society leaders,
human-rights activists, lawyers, members of the judiciary, even former
intelligence chief Gul Hamid, an extremist sympathizer—but no members of the
armed forces—have been arrested without charge and jailed. "Inaction at this
moment is suicide for Pakistan," said Musharraf in a nationally televised
statement. "And I cannot allow this country to commit suicide."
Suicide or murder, this move has taken Pakistan back to where it began—as a
poor, developing nation with great promise that had been ruined by 60 years
of bad administration and an opportunistic and dominating military which
effectively seals off any democratic impulses. "We are in 2008, but Pakistan
is back to 1958," Nasir, a reader of the popular Pakistani Web site
pkpolitics.com, posted sorrowfully on its site on Nov. 4. The country has
been led by military rule or martial law for more years than it has by
democratic election, and, judging by the army's support for Musharraf's
recent unpopular move, the generals are in no hurry to return to the
barracks.
That Musharraf has overplayed his hand is obvious. Blaming his own nine-year
rule for increased terrorist activity and a newly emboldened judiciary, as
an excuse to prevent a democratic election, is audacious—and could prove
foolhardy.
Military's Risky Turn Against Extremists
What is less apparent is that for the first time, the Pakistani army may
have serious reason to reconsider its place in the country. Over the years,
a once-popular army has lost its luster for the population. In the early
days of Musharraf's rule, the military maintained goodwill. Even after 2001,
when Musharraf entered into a close embrace with the U.S. as an ally and got
his country badly needed economic aid, the army was tolerated—despite its
obvious links with extremists in the region.
The double game was exposed when the extremists—Musharraf's core
constituency after the military—were targeted by his army under pressure
from the U.S. In 2006, the Pakistani army lost nearly 100 soldiers fighting
extremists and Al Qaeda in the wilds of Waziristan in eastern Pakistan. That
number has increased dramatically to more than 700 in 2007—600 alone since
July, according to Eurasia Group, a political risk analysis outfit based in
New York.
This matters, because more than 25% of Pakistan's foot soldiers come from
the same tribal areas and they are not inclined to fight their own people.
Several hundred soldiers have been court-martialed this year for refusing to
fight in the region. Army rule has ensured that most state benefits are
funneled into Punjab, the most prosperous state in the country with the
majority of army recruits. The eastern tribal regions, on the other hand,
have suffered from decades of neglect and lack of development. In the
absence of strong administrative machinery, these regions have held together
on the old tribal loyalty system. The influx of foreign fighters, which has
made the tribal areas a haven for terrorists, has broken down the old
loyalties. Here, more than anywhere else in Pakistan, the army is viewed
with suspicion for fighting America's war, not Pakistan's.
New Rulers of a Feudalistic Society
Over the years, the military has taken control over all other aspects of
Pakistan—political and economic. There is very little private business in
Pakistan compared with the army's vast commercial interests. The army is the
largest landowner in Pakistan (12% of the country's land), the largest
corporation, the largest nongovernment organization, the largest farmer. It
consumes more than 50% of the country's annual budget, in addition to the
annual $2 billion in military aid it receives from the U.S. Ayesha Siddiqa,
an independent security and strategic affairs analyst in Pakistan, and
author of the bold Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy,
estimates the army's business interests at more than $4 billion. Over the
years it has co-opted civilian institutions such as the Education Ministry
and even the Cricket Board, with military officers heading them. Army
officers have become the new rulers of an already deeply feudalistic
society.
This has not gone unnoticed by ordinary Pakistanis, who have seen their lot
deteriorate as the military has enriched itself at their expense. U.S. aid
has helped to increase the country's GDP, but a basic education is still not
within the reach of most Pakistanis, health care continues to deteriorate,
the media is often intimidated, and journalists are often jailed and killed.
Emergency rule by the army will do nothing to strengthen business and
investor confidence, say expatriate Pakistanis.
Across the border sits India, with its booming economy, robust democratic
political systems, and rising middle class, a country on its way to becoming
a world power. In Pakistan, the military identified itself with soldiers and
the elite feudal classes, ignoring the poor and the middle classes who are
the backbone of Pakistani society and make up its intelligentsia.
Calls for Resignation
This middle class, which nurtures civil society groups and yearns for a more
equitable, democratic, and independent-acting Pakistan, is now asserting
itself. The last six months have seen an astonishing blossoming of that
civil society, led by lawyers and the judiciary. The goal: the restitution,
to pride of place, of the much-manipulated constitution of the country. The
target: Musharraf, who further abused and misused the constitution to stay
in power as both President and army commander-in-chief and to suspend the
rights of opponents.
The spark was ignited in March, when Pakistan's chief justice, Iftikhar
Chaudhry, began asking uncomfortable questions about Musharraf's dual
position, the quick and cheap sale of state assets, and people missing from
their homes after the army conducted random searches across Pakistan.
Infuriated, Musharraf asked Chaudhry to resign. The judge's refusal became
the rallying point that ordinary Pakistanis needed; hundreds of thousands
rose up in support, asking for Musharraf's resignation instead and a return
to democratic rule.
It could have worked. A deeply flawed but workable power-sharing agreement
with exiled opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, brokered by the U.S., was
nearly in the bag. And the Supreme Court, under the popular, reinstated
chief justice Chaudhry, had allowed Musharraf to run for reelection—subject
to a Nov. 6 hearing on whether he would have to give up his post as army
chief. Afraid the public mood for democracy would force him to run for
president as a civilian, Musharraf imposed emergency rule. "Let's not kid
ourselves that it's an 'emergency'—it's martial law," said Talat Hussain, a
popular host on Pakistan's Aaj TV, minutes before Islamabad blacked it off
viewers' screens.
The Money's on Musharraf
Perhaps Musharraf should have stuck to what he knew best, running the army.
A shrewd politician would have sensed the national mood and gone with it,
instead of against it. But Indian intelligence officials who have studied
Musharraf say he is a high-risk gambler, with the luck of the devil. Despite
deepening discontent and growing radicalization within the rank and file of
the army, Musharraf has hung on to power for nine years, and survived four
assassination attempts during that time. The emergency was a calculated
risk, and though India immediately deployed additional troops on its western
borders, the bets in the bazaar are that Musharraf has a 60% chance of
pulling off his audacious, unpopular move.
Certainly those chances will diminish if the U.S. withdraws its military aid
from Pakistan, or if the Pakistani army refuses orders to shoot its own
countrymen. Already, rumors have surfaced that the vice-chief of army staff,
Lt. Gen. Ashfaq Kaini, placed Musharraf under house arrest on Nov. 5, taking
over as army chief. The rumors have been denied by Musharraf, but reflect
the tensions between him and his army over the declaration of the state of
emergency.
Pakistan's fate will be sealed in the next few days. Already, the country is
split between pro- and anti-Musharraf groups; many judges in Sindh and
Peshawar have refused to swear allegiance to the new chief justice installed
by Musharraf. Increased agitation and street protests will be evidence of
reduced support for Musharraf from the public and from within his army, and
will speed his execution or departure. If he is able to contain the
agitation, it will enhance his standing within the army, and ensure a few
more years of army rule in Pakistan while effectively silencing democratic
voices.
Either way, the U.S. would do well to expand its circle of friends in
Pakistan beyond Musharraf and his army—or cast its net wider for another
strategic country to be its ally in the war on terror.
Kripalani is BusinessWeek's India bureau chief .
Bhutto slams Pakistan
crackdown, calls for elections
KARACHI--Former
Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto on Monday condemned a police crackdown on
lawyers rallying against a state of emergency and called for elections as
planned in January.
"We strongly condemn the violence against lawyers and media people. This
force and brutality should be kept away from our society," Bhutto told a
news conference in the southern city of Karachi.
"All political prisoners should be released."
Bhutto, who leads the opposition Pakistan People's Party, flew back from a
short visit to Dubai on Saturday just hours after military ruler and army
chief President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule.
She had earlier returned to Pakistan on October 18 after eight years of
self-exile after talks on a power-sharing deal with Musharraf ahead of
general elections. The government dropped corruption charges against her to
enable her homecoming.
"I want elections to be held on time," Bhutto said. "Elections should be
completed by 16 January.
"Musharraf should fulfil his promise to remove his uniform, which he made to
the Supreme Court and that he made when he was having dialogue with us," she
added.
"If Musharraf wants to defuse this crisis he should immediately restore the
constitution."
Bhutto also called for a "political solution" to the ongoing problem of
Al-Qaeda and Taliban militancy in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering
Afghanistan.
Two suicide bombers tried to assassinate her during her homecoming parade
last month, missing her but killing 139 people.
"There should be a political situation of problems in the tribal areas... We
want all moderate political parties to unite to deal with extreme.
Pakistan's Failure --
and America's
With the declaration of emergency rule,
Pakistan authorities are rounding up not terrorists but judges, human-rights
lawyers, journalists, opposition politicians -- in short, the unarmed. And
what is the the U.S. response to this outrage?
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she is "disappointed" in Pakistan
President Pervez Musharaff's declaration of emergency rule and that the U.S.
will "have to review the situation." But she vows to continue American aid
so that Pakistan can continue "to fight against terrorists." Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates says that the U.S. should be "mindful not to do
anything that would undermine ongoing counter-terrorism efforts."
America seems so powerless because Musharraf is a "key ally" in the war on
terrorism and because, with as many as 30 nuclear weapons, there is little
it can do. The larger issue is the failure of the the generals: those in
Pakistan who have poorly executed the "war" against terrorism, and those in
the U.S. who have been unable to get above the day-to-day fighting to come
up with a winning strategy for what they themselves call the long war.
Barely a year ago, when the Pakistani general, so witty and so sharply
dressed, came to America to promote his new book "In the Line of Fire," we
chuckled when he appeared on the talk shows and on Comedy Central. Now in
his final hours, this snake has taken private television off the air, cut
telephone lines and rounded up hundreds of prominent members of society.
The irony is that, by declaring emergency rule, Musharraf demonstrates what
he can do with the massive military machine and system of secret police at
his disposal. Why hasn't the same decisive tactic been used against al
Qaeda, Taliban and other terrorists residing in the country?
The Bush administration says that it pressured Musharraf to allow former
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan so that the two could
fight terrorism together. But even that accommodation was not acceptable to
the general, particularly when his relative unpopularity was highlighted by
the massive turnout that greeted Bhutto on her return. (Bhutto, perhaps
seeing the truth as Musharraf's plan unfolded, left Pakistan on Friday "for
family reasons.")
But on the larger issue, the war on terrorism, the Bush administration has
proved less forceful. The general was supposed to have been a godsend. Yet
we are witnessing wholesale violence and the imposed spread of Sharia
(Islamic law), perpetrated by a coalition of Pakistani and Afghan Taliban,
working with al Qaeda and local clans who have no interest in democracy or
the 21st century.
Musharraf has created sympathetic supporters in Washington and the West who
acknowledge the spread of Islamic radicalism under his reign but also fret
about the difficulties of countrymen fighting countrymen and the "ways" of
tribes in a difficult and remote part of the world. Add to that Pakistan's
nuclear weapons, its always-dangerous standoff with India and its explosive
demographics, and no wonder it appears that there is "little" Washington can
do.
In October 2001, when the United States invaded Afghanistan to depose the
Taliban and defeat al Qaeda, no one was keen on focusing on the thousands of
Pakistan "volunteers" sent to fight Americans across the border. Musharraf
was a crucial ally, and there was a hierarchy of priorities. Today, however,
many of those same volunteers, some of whom have taken American lives, are
the new Pakistani terror class, protected and given sanctuary by Musharraf's
bad generalship and by the American focus elsewhere.
Large swaths of the northwest Pakistani border lands have come to resemble
Taliban Afghanistan. Pakistani Taliban, as they are now called, have even
persuaded (or forced) people to destroy their televisions, a move that now
must look quite pleasing to the military dictator and enabler who does the
same from far away.
Emergency rule in Pakistan demonstrates not only Musharraf's failure, but
that the joint U.S.-Pakistani approach to fighting terrorism is badly
conceived and poorly implemented. I don't have the answer here. But clearly
we need to rethink the war and our approach for the future. Sadly for
everyone, the best possible outcome now may be for the Pakistani military to
stage yet another coup to rid the country of Musharraf. Then maybe it can
actually go after the armed terrorists in its country
US
Tied to Pakistan With Billions in Aid
By PAULINE JELINEK
WASHINGTON: The United
States and Pakistan are bound together in a multibillion-dollar relationship
aimed at buying Washington an ally against terrorism and providing the Asian
nation with benefits ranging from military equipment to child health
programs.
U.S. assistance and other payments to Pakistan have totaled $9.6 billion in
the six budget years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States,
according to the State Department.
The largest payout each year is for what the Bush administration calls
"reimbursements" for Pakistan's help in the global war on terrorism. Under
that program, Pakistan submits claims — such as its costs for providing
observations posts along the Afghan border or its costs for taking part in
joint operations with the U.S. against al-Qaida.
The reimbursements amount to some $80 million a month, said Defense
Department spokesman Bryan Whitman — or nearly $1 billion a year.
On top of those payments, the U.S. also gives Pakistan direct aid for
humanitarian programs, economic development, military needs and so on — well
over $700 million in each of the last two years.
Pakistan receives military equipment under the assistance programs, as well
as by buying some, such as the 36 F-16 aircraft it is purchasing for up to
$3 billion.
"This request will maintain Pakistan's support in the global war on
terrorism and efforts to build peaceful and positive relations with its
neighbors, India and Afghanistan," the administration said in documents
justifying the budget requests.
Following is a sampling of how the State Department proposes to spend $785
million on Pakistan in fiscal year 2008:
_$342 million for efforts to counter extremists, narcotics trafficking,
weapons proliferation and other security issues.
Money from this group will be used to help modernize Pakistan's military,
provide training, buy military equipment and help maintain previously
purchased U.S. military equipment.
_$249 million for economic growth. That includes developing infrastructure
for transport, power, irrigation and vocational training.
_$50 in humanitarian assistance, including to rebuild hospitals and schools
damaged or destroyed in the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan's northwest.
_$103 million for health, education and water and sanitation. That includes
scholarship programs to help the disadvantaged get advanced educational
degrees in agriculture and business as well as programs against HIV/AIDS and
tuberculosis, for mother and child care and to promote family planning.
_Nearly $42 million for governance and democracy programs. The money is to
support democratic practices in political parties and in civil society,
promote free and fair elections, develop the media and support the
legislative process. The Bush administration budget request noted that
elections were planned in 2008, a prospect now in doubt because of the
imposition of emergency law over the weekend.
There was a great Prime Minister, the first Prime Minister, the father
of the present Prime Minister of India, who said, "We were too old, we
were too tired to oppose Pakistan, and Pakistan had to come into being.
But we hope that one day we will get together gain." I too hope so, not
that Pakistan will emerge as subservient to India but in the sense that
we will get together again as equal friends, in a common fraternity,
living in a common subcontinent and sharing the common effort of seeing
that poverty, ignorance and misery are wiped out. If there are any two
countries in world that are the poorest in the world, they are Pakistan
and India. Our resources might be tremendous, but the fact is that we
two are the poorest in the world. Yet in the last 24 years, we have gone
to war three times. Three times there has been conflict in the
subcontinent. I remember that Prime Minister of the Soviet Union once
telling me that even rich nations try to avoide war; poorer nations
should make a greater attempt to avoid war.