Head Chowkidar and Other News

Every now and then your Blogger does a perusal of the day’s local news. Here is today’s:

Musharraf will stay in uniform after 2007: Daily Times
Apparently yesterday Pervaiz Ellahi announced:

• ‘Whatever, the Punjab stands with the President’
• ‘General Musharraf will remain army chief, as well as the president, after the next general election due in 2007”.
• ‘The 2007 elections will, of course, be properly rigged to ensure this comes to pass
• 'We, the Chaudhries of Gujrat, will continue to happily kneel before any military dictator as per the dictates of our family tradition’

Comment: Actually the last two points were not really made by Pervaiz Ellahi. It’s just your Blogger construing the man’s true political intent. For Musharraf’s ‘true’ attitude on his uniform please read my blog ‘ CNN -Predicting Pakistan’s Future’

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Then we have two completely contradictory front page headlines on last Sunday’s rail derailment near Jehlum:

‘Train derailment termed sabotage’ Dawn

LAHORE, Jan 30: Government investigators and federal and state ministers for railways on Monday termed the derailment of the Lahore Express an act of sabotage and said saboteurs tampered with a section of rail tracks…

‘Investigations reveal no evidence of sabotage’ Daily Times

Investigations carried out so far into Sunday night’s train derailment near Domeli village in Jehlum have revealed no evidence of sabotage, APP reported.

Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema, director general of the Interior Ministry’s National Crisis Management Cell, said late on Monday night that earlier reports that indicated the removal of a section of the railway track proved to be incorrect.

Comment: It just goes to show that where mouths blather, brains refuse to tread.

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Bugti clans leave Multan, DG Khan - Dawn
According to this newspaper report three major clans of the Bugtis – Kalpars, Masuris and Raijas - ‘who had been forcibly evicted from their areas’ by Nawab Akbar Bugti ‘are returning to their native areas under government protection’.

Tariq Masuri Bugti, who is reported to be the son of the Masuri clan chief told Dawn:

Masuris were 40% of the main Bugti tribe’s population while Raijas were 10 per cent and Kalpars 50 per cent.

Comment: 40% + 10% + 50% = 100%. If 100% of the Bugtis had been banished by Akbar Bugti, then who exactly is opposing the military forces in the Dera Bugti area?

I would therefore tend to agree with my sources who tell me that these banished Bugtis were intelligence agency surrogates who attempted to topple Akbar Bugti a decade or so ago. They obviously failed and paid the price for their actions. The fact that another newspaper,

The News, reports that the returning Bugtis consist of simply -

‘750 Kalpar and around 200 [Masuri] tribesmen’

- only goes to further support this contention.

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US Congressman Raises Balochistan Issue

Dawn reports that Tom Tancredo, a republican US congressman, has written a letter to Condi Rice, US Secretary of State, requesting George W. Bush to raise the issue of Balochistan with Musharraf when he visits Pakistan in March this year.

Among the hard hitting points raised in Tancredo’s letter the following is worth quoting:

The evidence suggests that a central government lines its pockets with Balochistan’s wealth, its innocent citizens suffer at the hands of merciless soldiers’.

Comment: Somehow I don’t think George Bush will take Tancredo too seriously. According to

Wikipedia, Tancredo ‘has been accused of xenophobia, hate-mongering and ethnic demagoguery’ and is not taken too seriously by the White House.

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Finally, I’d like to share this entertaining letter which appeared in today’s Daily Times. It is written by a witty Riaz Chaudhry from Ontario, Canada

What India lacks

Sir: The Indian leaders lack style. That perhaps is the reason why they do not undertake frequent foreign trips. Indian claims of big foreign exchange reserves also appear hollow. For what else could force its leaders to forgo a lavish lifestyle, limousines, private jets and others perks that our leaders enjoy? The hotels where Indian ministers, senior bureaucrats and CEOs of state-owned corporations stay during their foreign trips are not fit for the personal attendants of our VIPs.

India also lacks the unity of command, provided in Pakistan by our uniformed president in supreme national interest. The Indian president does not look like he can even name the designers that provide our suave leaders’ wardrobe. This prevents the Indian president from speaking annually at Davos to attract foreign investment.

India has to do without a prime minister with experience as a senior executive of world’s leading bank or the right to reside in the United States. These advantages ensure that our PM feels at home in America.

India continues to be held hostage to democracy — half-literate peasants decide the fate of the prime minister and the president. It needs to learn from its neighbour. It needs to stop useless expenditure on providing housing and protocol to former prime ministers. Can’t they be forced into exile or imprisoned if not hanged? India made a mistake in shedding the legacy of British Raj. No wonder there is no Defence Housing Authority in any part of India or a training institution like Kakul, where a two-years course makes a man competent to handle just about any job. Instead it wastes its resources on IITs.

Comment: Yup, the problem with most Indian leaders is that many of those poor fellows lack our leadership’s heightened sense of pomposity and sycophancy - which makes our chappies the rightful heirs to the grand Mughal durbari system.

Pakistan