New York Times: Pakistanis are fed up with Musharraf’s Lies and Thuggery.

Remember this disgusting photo?

It was taken on 28 December 2006 when the police began wildly thrashing family members of the ‘missing’ who had the temerity to present a memorandum of protest at the Army GHQ at Islamabad.

The poor boy in the photo is 17-year-old Mohammad bin Masood (son of ‘missing’ Masood Janjua) who was beaten and publicly stripped by policemen and later dragged away to a waiting police wagon.

Last Sunday one of NYT’s leading columnists Nicholas Kristoff met with Amina Masood Janjua, wife of the ‘missing’ Masood Janjua and mother of the teenaged Mohammad.
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The General and the Housewife
March 25, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
Gen. Pervez Musharraf is facing angry street demonstrations around the country in the most serious crisis of his presidency — and that’s partly because he picked a fight with a middle-class housewife who is proving tougher and shrewder than he is.

This drama is playing out in extraordinary scenes on Pakistani streets: crowds of roly-poly lawyers in dark suits braving clouds of tear gas to demand that Mr. Musharraf resign — or even be tried for treason. It’s impossible to know whether the protests will lead to a democratic revolution that topples Mr. Musharraf, to a military crackdown, or to a political deal that causes the protests to fizzle.

And behind it all is the saga of the general and the housewife.

“The nation is ready to rise up; there is a revolution behind me,” says Amina Masood Janjua, a mother of three who has emerged as a nemesis of General Musharraf. Mrs. Janjua says she was a “very timid person,” uninvolved in politics and content to be “queen of my house.” But then two years ago, her husband disappeared, presumably kidnapped by government security agents.

The government has regularly “disappeared” people it doesn’t like, apparently keeping them in secret detention centers to be tortured and interrogated for months or years. Human rights groups count at least 400 such disappearances since 2002, when Mr. Musharraf began using the war on terror as cover to eliminate troublesome nationalists, religious activists and human rights organizers.

Mrs. Janjua’s husband, Masood Janjua, may have been picked up because of ties to a Muslim organization, but there is no indication he had broken any law. Mrs. Janjua says her family received a phone call from Mr. Musharraf’s military secretary last year promising that her husband would be freed soon. But nothing happened, and officially the government knows nothing of his whereabouts.

Terrified that her husband was being tortured, Mrs. Janjua began organizing other family members of the disappeared. They held a public demonstration — but the police attacked the group and beat and publicly stripped Mrs. Janjua’s 17-year-old son. As the police dragged him off, Mrs. Janjua’s 11-year-old daughter screamed: “You’ve taken my father; don’t take my brother!” He was freed that evening. The aim of the assault presumably was to warn Mrs. Janjua to be quiet — just as relatives of other missing people have been warned that their loved ones will be harmed if they protest or speak to the press.

One of the missing is Safdar Sarki, a Pakistani-American doctor and American citizen seized a year ago while campaigning for the rights of people in Sindh Province.

“I was crying today; I was thinking of him,” his wife, Rukhsana, said by phone from California. Her voice breaking, she promised that if Pakistan would just release her husband, she would make him stop fighting for human rights. She added: “My sons are asking every day, ‘Where is Papa? Where is Papa? …’ ”

Likewise: Where is the U.S.? The Bush administration has stuck more solidly with Mr. Musharraf (“a solid friend” is the current State Department formulation) than with its principles. President Bush needs to make clear that the U.S. sides with Pakistan’s democratic future, not its autocratic past.

That future is being shaped by Mrs. Janjua, who sued the government over the disappearances. To everyone’s astonishment, the Pakistani Supreme Court took up the case and ordered the government to account for those who are missing.

Perhaps partly as a result — and also to prevent the Supreme Court from complicating his election-fixing plans — Mr. Musharraf this month suspended the chief justice of the Supreme Court. That’s what has set off nationwide outrage and protests.

Ordinary Pakistanis seem increasingly fed up with the president’s lies and thuggery. Mr. Musharraf’s contributions to Pakistan are enormous — he rescued Pakistan’s economy, fostered 7 percent growth rates, promoted education and nurtured an expanding middle class. But those same accomplishments are now raising aspirations for genuine democracy rather than the sham he offers.

The risk is that a replacement would be worse: Pakistan has been one of the world’s worst-ruled nations over the last 50 years, and Mr. Musharraf is better than his predecessors. But if the Pakistani public demands better government, that is ultimately a bullish sign for Pakistan and a useful warning to other autocrats.

And maybe the movement will bring Mrs. Janjua and Mrs. Sarki their husbands home again.

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Yesterday the newspaper received a funny little letter from one Nadeem Haider Kiani, presently Press Attaché at Pakistan Embassy in Washington DC, which among other things claimed that:

Musharraf has always believed in freedom of speech, press and judiciary.

It was a hallmark of the military regime ‘to provide basic freedoms and not to politically victimize opponents

Musharraf was ‘a person who is respected by millions of people around the world’.

Kiani then complained that Kristoff’s assertion that Pakistanis “seem increasingly fed up with the president’s lies and thuggery” was ‘highly inappropriate’ and disrespectful.

Nadeem Haider Kiani reminds me of one Qutubuddin Aziz, who did the same sort of duplicitous work for a previous military dictator - General Zia.

Today Mr Aziz prefers to be recalled as a journalist and writer of international repute, a former diplomat, a lecturer, broadcaster and social worker.

On the other hand I will always remember him as one of Zia’s mendacious toadies.

Pakistan

The Times (UK): Musharraf Severely Weakened By CJ Debacle

The Times had a piece today on Pakistan titled Genteel hunger strike and a protest in suits poses big threat to President.

Here are some extracts:

The saga began on March 9, when General Musharraf called in Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, his Chief Justice, and told him to resign for allegedly abusing his authority. When Mr Chaudhry refused he was summarily suspended, manhandled by police and put under effective house arrest.

To most of the outside world, the incident came as no great surprise, given General Musharraf’s track record of crushing all political dissent. But the 100,000 lawyers and judges of Pakistan, who regard themselves as the country’s last democratic redoubt, were incensed.

They accused General Musharraf of violating the constitution to get rid of an independent-minded Chief Justice who could block the President’s plans to be reelected while remaining head of the army.

Thousands took to the streets in their black suits and starched collars, battling with riot police in Islamabad, Lahore and other cities. At least seven judges and one deputy attorney-general resigned.

…This is by no means the first challenge to General Musharraf’s rule. In the eight years since he took power, the former commando has survived at least four assassination attempts and mass protests by Islamists. What makes this so serious is that it is the first time that secular forces from across the political spectrum have united to oppose him.

It also comes as American officials and politicians start to question his democratic credentials and his ability to fight the Taleban and al-Qaeda along the Afghan border.

Last month Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, warned him that he risked losing support in the United States unless he took tougher action against the insurgents. This month a group of Democratic senators wrote to the Pakistani President asking him to guarantee fair parliamentary elections next year and to allow exiled opposition leaders to contend.

“The feeling is growing that President Pervez Musharraf will have to quit sooner rather than later,” said Ahmed Rashid, an expert on Pakistani politics. “After eight years of military rule, it appears people have had enough.”

And this is The Times correspondent Jeremy Page’s take on the future:

General Musharraf now hopes to persuade the PPP, which won 25.8 per cent of the vote in 2002, to form a new coalition that would represent Pakistan’s moderate, secular majority. But the PPP is likely to demand that he step down as Army chief, guarantee fair elections and allow Mrs Bhutto or another one of its leaders to be Prime Minister. And while the President is unlikely to give up without a fight, his negotiating position has been severely weakened by the Chief Justice controversy.

Pakistan

Media Buzz

There was a buzz among the journalistic community about how Musharraf got on the Geo programme “Aaj Kamran Khan Key Sath” a week after having it banned.

The story goes that the Commando General (along with a handful of powerful subordinates) reportedly subjected the boss of Geo/Jang Group to 2 ½ hour verbal battering via conference telephone, after which the gentleman is rumoured to have emerged a sweating, gibbering wreck.

And so, shortly afterwards, on 19th March Musharraf got his moment on Kamran Khan’s TV show. It is widely believed that Kamran Khan was under severe editorial limitations as to what he could ask Musharraf and what he could not. Taking this view into account, it not surprising that the interview turned into a voluble Musharraf talk fest.

The interview highlights include the following:

Musharraf insisted that Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had not been summoned on March 9 – the day the general supposedly sent a reference against him to the Supreme Judicial Council – saying: “He actually called on me.

Musharraf also said that had been dressed in his army uniform because he was at work – “Should I have been in a sports kit?”, he asked.

The General also revealed that Sharifuddin Pirzada was the first person to complain against the chief justice, saying: “He advised us on the constitutional and legal aspects of the reference. He has offered a technical excuse on why he cannot represent the state against the chief justice in the SJC. But he is part of the game”.

To your Blogger his use of the word “game” for the manner in which the chief justice had been suspended was highly revealing.


The next day Dawn rightly panned the show in a front page article titled "Not very convincing, Mr President". The newspaper accused the General of being glib, evasive and unconvincing, but then the newspaper made the mistake of criticising the already harassed Kamran Khan with the comment:

Many fundamental questions were left unanswered and, more crucially, unasked in the TV interview

In retaliation Kamran Khan sent a sharp emailed rejoinder to Dawn’s Editor Abbas Nasir criticising the newspaper’s front page interview of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. This email was widely disseminated among the journalistic community (and through further distribution a copy managed to reach even your Blogger today.)

My humble advice to these two senior journalists is to kindly lay down their swords. Unity among senior members of the press is a must in present conditions.
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Vanity of Vanities

Some weeks ago I chanced upon a senior member of PTV who made a very interesting admission.

Actually the confession came as a result of some polite teasing on my part about PTV News and how it was largely a Mush & Shortcut show.

The PTV senior staffer then revealed to me how closely Shaukat Aziz monitored his appearances on PTV News.

Aziz, it seems, regularly contacts PTV complaining about mundane trivialities like ‘Why didn’t the cameraman point out to me that my tie knot was slightly askew?’ or ‘Why did they shoot me with the lights at an incorrect angle?’ I gather he even lets them know if the any tickertape news about him at the bottom of the screen needs minor editing.

All I could say was, ‘Wow!’

I suppose it is a reflection of how much time Shaukat Aziz has on his hands in between cutting ribbons and his overseas jaunts.

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Kamran Khan
Shaukat Aziz

A Foreign Take on Events

While many of us vent our steam at recent events in Pakistan, it is perhaps pertinent to note what neutral observers are also saying.

Here is a view from today’s Christian Science Monitor

...Earlier this month, Musharraf suspended the country's Supreme Court chief justice. Ever since, Pakistan's middle classes – ironically one of the chief beneficiaries of the military leader's eight-year rule – have taken to the streets. Also fueling the uproar are suspicions that Musharraf is paving the way to another term as both president and chief military leader.

The protests are prompting concern, both in Pakistan and the US, that pent-up political frustrations and social stagnation threaten the stability of a key American ally at least as much as Islamic extremism in the country's less-advanced regions.

"For too long, we've heard that the only alternative to Musharraf is something worse. But the fact is we don't need him if he doesn't move towards a civilianized government with broadened representation of Pakistan's people," says Selig Harrison, director of the Asia program of the Center for International Policy in Washington. The lack of political reform and civilian rule has exacerbated divisions, he says, "and the more polarized Pakistan is, the more unstable it's going to be."

While no one expects the social unrest to cause Musharraf's imminent demise, many observers do see the coming months as crucial to Pakistan's direction

"This is not just a flare-up. It is reflective of a broader discontent about the failure of the Musharraf regime to take concrete steps to restore civilian rule," says Karl Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of State for south Asian affairs. "With elections on the horizon, this could be an important turning point."

Musharraf cited "abuse of power" when he suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry on March 9, and many Pakistanis agreed – with the charge at least, though they attached it to the president himself. Mr. Chaudhry had taken the government to task over hundreds of disappearances of Pakistanis, some suspected Islamic extremists but others human rights activists and representatives of ethnic minority populations.

Perhaps more telling for many Pakistanis, Chaudhry had also expressed his view that it was not legal under the Constitution for Musharraf to seek another presidential term while remaining the Army chief. In addition, he had said publicly that he anticipated a number of ways in which the issue could come before him.

Such open threats to the continued reign of Pakistan's military became intolerable, says Mr. Harrison. "The military establishment is deeply involved in a wide range of business in the country, and they have a big stake in staying in power," he says...

pakistan

Daily Dawn comes of Age?

The blame for the over fifty year long, chronological abuse of the press in Pakistan can be quite properly laid at the autocratic attitude commonly found in Pakistani leadership – be it civilian, military or bureaucratic.

However, one cannot completely absolve the press itself for its historical subservience to Islamabad. The blame for this lies squarely on the press owners - such as Mehmood Haroon, Khalil-ur-Rahman, Majid Nizami et al - for placing self-interest and financial profit before the principle of press freedom. All of these gentlemen have had ingratiatingly close connections with various despotic governments over the years. For instance Dawn's Mehmood Haroon happily served as Interior Minister and Governor of Sindh under the military dictator Zia, Nawa-i-Waqt's Majid Nizami was exceedingly close with the Sharif family (while it was trampling on the press and arresting the likes of Najam Sethi) and Jang's Khalil-ur-Rahman remained thick with many a dictator.

Coming back to Dawn, a senior member of its editorial staff (M Ziauddin) took his own newspaper to task not so long ago by saying:

The Dawn survived decades of military dictatorships basically because it shamelessly toed the government line. Ziauddin recalls printing verbatim government press releases and letting the censor board remove entire pages.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise that Dawn has finally come out of its dusty closet and decided to take on a military dictatorship.

I wonder how much of this is due to the efforts of Zafar Abbas, the ex-BBC Urdu correspondent and recently appointed Islamabad editor for the paper?



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dawn karachi

Back in a While

Your Blogger is going to be away for a while.

In the meantime he requests you all to keep your dreams alive and your hopes high.

Cracking Down or Cracking Up

The scenes outside the Supreme Court made for riveting TV this afternoon. Armed Police were attempting to prevent hundreds of determined demonstrators from reaching the court building. There were clouds of tears gas amid reports of a heavy use of rubber bullets and the ever-present lathi.

Intriguingly behind the lines of police one saw a large backup contingent of military rangers dressed in their khaki uniforms, carrying automatic weapons.

Then one heard a live report from the politico Qazi Hussain Ahmed speaking from a local police station. It appears he had been arrested by the police who somehow had allowed him to keep his phone. The JI Chief informed us that he had been physically picked up by Army Commandos and carried to a police wagon.

Shortly afterwards we saw the scene of Qazi Hussain Ahmed’s arrest on TV and he had not made the story up at all. There were a large number of burly men in green outfits picking up the protesting politicians one by one.

First the rangers, and now army commandos?

Then the 4pm Geo TV News came on at about 14 minutes past the hour. Your Blogger, suspicious as ever, reckoned something was in the wind. Within minutes of the news coming on a large detachment of police attacked the Geo office in central Islamabad, smashing windows and thrashing the staff with lathis. Unbelievably they even fired off a number of tear gas shells within the confines of the office.

As the police rampaged in the Geo office ransacking whatever came to hand, the Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohamed Ali Durrani appeared on the scene and began remonstrating with the police. Quite incredibly they went on with their work of destruction and completely ignored him. Obviously the order to invade Geo must have come from a higher source.

All this leads your Blogger to conclude that that the man micromanaging the ‘defence’ of Islamabad was none other than the Commando general himself. Angered by the showing of mayhem a door away from his own Presidency, a message must have been sent to Geo to behave or else. The Geo staff must have contacted Shakil-ur-Rehman (or some other senior), hence the 14 minute delay in showing the 4pm News bulletin. The moment Geo decided not to buckle down the assault commenced.

Given the unfolding scenario I think it fair to ask: Is Musharraf cracking down or cracking up?

The answer to that question will emerge in the coming days.


pakistan

Get Up, Stand Up

Pakistan finds itself once again at a critical crossroad – the last it happened was in 1970-71 when we lost a majority of our population. The Establishment in West Pakistan had declared the East Pakistanis traitors. Tens of thousand were killed; countless women were raped – all in the name of a jingoistic brand of patriotism. It is shameful to recall, that with a few notable exceptions, the ruling elite silently acquiesced to the carnage.

Patriotism is a much abused concept in Pakistan and for some reason seems only to apply to the ‘sacred soil’ of the country. I disagree. To my mind ‘patriotism’ cannot be defined as some kind of loyalty to a geographical piece of real estate. True patriotism instead ought to symbolize the people that live within it. To be a true patriot, I believe, one has to be loyal to the people of Pakistan – that is the 159 ½ million of us (and not just the ‘cream’ at the top).

For most part of our sixty years of the history of Pakistan its people have been deprived of fundamental freedoms. The ruling class holds that the people of Pakistan are incompetent and incapable of deciding their own fate. The greed, ineptitude and corruption of past civilian leaders – such as Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif – are constantly held out as examples.

I beg to differ.

Firstly, both these leaders are creations of the military – Nawaz Sharif was handpicked by General Zia and Benazir came into prominence as the daughter of ZA Bhutto, whose political career was fathered by General Ayub Khan.

The other point which is regularly overlooked is that while in power, neither of these two civilian leaders had free reign. During their terms of office a large part of their time was expended in placating and dealing with the constant demands and conspiracies hatched by their co-rulers ensconced in Rawalpindi – the likes of Mirza Aslam Baig, Hamid Gul and Musharraf.

And then having got rid of these ‘wretched’ civilian leaders what have we been landed with? A cynic would reply: A rule of the Generals, by the Generals, for the Generals. And as long as members of the elite adhere to this system, they believe they will be left alone to pursue their comfortable and relatively worry free lifestyles.

But that raises the question: Acquiescence at the price of what? The answer is, at the cost of freedom denied to 159 ½ million of us.

So what is this freedom? Is it something gifted to the ruling educated class to enjoy life and make as much money as possible, providing of course they do not raise their voices and oppose the existing system? No. As we all know freedom is the ability to live without fear of official repression, to live under a system of rule of law where everyone is adjudged equal and possess the right to choose the government the majority wishes.

The one thing that history teaches us is that freedom is only attained by making sacrifices – the Americans had their brutal civil war and a century later their civil rights marches and the Europeans had their WWII when millions died. Today the ordinary citizen in the West enjoys his liberties as a result of the sacrifices made by his ancestors.

Sadly in modern Pakistan very few people have ventured to sacrifice anything for any cause. Perhaps the exceptions are the Baloch, but then look at what is happening to them. Hundreds of them have been arbitrarily adjudged traitors and have gone ‘missing’.

And so we woke up last Saturday to discover that the Chief Justice of Pakistan had gone ‘missing’ as well – missing that is from his august office (and unlawfully placed in detention).

It is time, dear readers, to make a stand and vent our rage at was has happened to our country – it is what true patriotism is all about. Otherwise one day we or someone dear to us might also go ‘missing’ as well. And there will be no courts and judges left to offer us even a modicum of protection.

The coming generations will justly entitled to curse us if we twiddled our thumbs while the future of Pakistan is burning.

So get up, stand up and fight for your rights!

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PS: Don’t expect the West to come and support us. The US, UK and other governments are solely concerned with the future safety of their own citizens and would happily support an Attila the Hun in Pakistan providing he guaranteed to destroy Al Qaeda for good.

Safeguarding the future wellbeing of Pakistan can only be achieved by Pakistanis by themselves.


Pakistan
Chief Justice
Iftikhar Chaudhry

Shaukat Aziz the Scapegoat?

The PML(N) lota and perennial political loudmouth was back on TV today.

Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, the Federal Minister for Railways, made an appearance on Geo TV this evening claiming that his government had ‘shot itself in the foot’ by keeping the Chief Justice of Pakistan in custody. He openly lamented the fact that the Chief Justice's children were being prevented from attending school.But he then defended the General by blaming the current state of events on incorrect advice given to Musharraf by Shaukat Aziz.

It is possible that Musharraf has himself enlisted Sheeda Tulli’s help to extricate him from the present debacle, or then again it may be a case of Tulli trying to regain his lost status by demonstrating to Musharraf that he is much better at damage control in comparison with his asinine successor to the post of Minister for Propaganda, Mohammad Ali Durrani.

Whatever the case maybe, Rashid has blown apart the government’s persistent contention that the Chief Justice is not under house arrest.

The idea of making Shaukat Aziz the scapegoat for the disaster may just appeal to Musharraf. It would not be the first time that he has tried to pass the buck for his own failures. After his self created Kargill disaster, it should be recalled that Musharraf attempted to heap all the blame for the fiasco onto the dippy prime minister of the day, Nawaz Sharif.

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The CJ (contd.) - A Day of Shame and Loathing

Now to our nation’s shame we learn that not only has our Chief Justice been incarcerated illegally but he and his wife have been physically roughed up by Musharraf’s security personnel. (for more details on this click here)

Today’s Dawn Editorial (‘Spectacle of shame’) laments:

YESTERDAY’S brutal manhandling by the Islamabad police of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, whose clothes were torn as he was forced into a car by the police for taking him to the Supreme Court, casts the government in a terrible light. Never before has a chief justice been treated in such a callous and disrespectful manner, with little regard for his position, exposing the full extent of the government’s muddling of the whole affair since Friday. Restrictions placed on the Chief Justice who, together with his family, was virtually kept under house arrest shattered all illusions about any democratic credentials that anyone expected this government to have. Since the CJ’s illegal, virtual confinement, lawyers, politicians and senior media persons who wanted to meet him were turned away by the security personnel.

After the so-called ‘plane hijacking’ case in 1999 Musharraf publicly whinged that Nawaz Sharif had treated him, the Army Chief, worse than a chaprasi.

According to our constitution the office of the Chief Justice of Pakistan is much more senior than the office of an Army Chief (who in theory is junior to the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff,who is meant to report to the Minister of Defence who then reports to the Prime Minister).

Taking note of the treatment meted out to the Chief Justice of Pakistan by Musharraf, all one can say is that the General’s hypocrisy is quite unparalleled.
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And yes, the Press has been under considerable pressure not to report the reality and instead simply publish/transmit Islamabad’s shameless fabrications to the general public.

Early on the regime forced off two TV news channels off the air. As BBC reported:

Pakistan's Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) on Monday reprimanded TV channels for showing live footage of protests by lawyers' supporting Mr Chaudhry.

Two channels, Aaj and Geo, were forced off air for some time. When their signals were restored, they did not show any of the same footage again.

At one stage the pressure from PEMRA was so immense that Hamid Mir, who anchors the popular Capital Talk programme on Geo TV, told PTI.

"I am mentally prepared that today is the last day of my show as I am personally aware of the pressure being exhorted on my management.”
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I have seen many barefaced liars in my life but Mohammad Ali Durrani, the regime Minister for Propaganda, takes the cake. Last night millions of Pakistanis witnessed him on TV invoking the name of God and asking the All-mighty to punish all liars with ‘burning fires of hell’ while simultaneously feeding us cock-and-bull stories which blatantly contradicted everything we had all previously seen with our own eyes live on TV.

Then there is that coarse lout Wasi Zafar who yells abuse at the drop of a hat and is publicly known to physically assault low-ranking employees, such as restaurant waiters. Unlike the slick Durrani he drowns out contrary opinion by aggressively braying out falsehoods at the top of his voice. Last Monday Wasi once more took leave of his senses by abusing journalist Ansar Abbasi during a live interview on VOA and even threatening to do harm to the journalist's family.

As the same Dawn editorial commented:

The sheer deception indulged in by the federal information and law ministers, who kept denying that any restrictions had been placed on the freedom of movement or of speech of the Chief Justice, is a matter of further shame.

It is a pathetic reflection on Musharraf that he requires the services of such undisguised reprobates.
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The goofiest (but decidedly accurate) statement recently made belongs to the head of PML(Q) Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain who refused to comment on the presidential reference against Chief Justice, by saying:

That it is an internal matter between the army and the judiciary.

Pray tell us Chaudhry under the laws of Pakistan what right does the Army possess to take away the authority of the Chief Justice of Pakistan?.


pakistan

Is It Just Wishful Thinking?

Along with many other Pakistanis your Blogger has read Mark Mazzetti’s piece in the New York Times which appeared last Sunday. It appears that even the Bush White House might now be undergoing a serious rethink about their pal Musharraf.




Here are two pertinent quotes from the article:

The fear within Washington that Islamic extremism has become a dominant force in Pakistan has been stoked in part by Mr. Musharraf himself. Some analysts say his warnings are used to maintain a steady flow of American aid and keep at bay demands from Washington for democratic reforms. He often invokes the dangers of Islamic radicalism when meeting American officials in Washington and Islamabad..

.. If Mr. Musharraf were to fall to an assassin’s bullet, American diplomatic and intelligence officials say, it is unlikely that there would be mass uprisings in Lahore and Karachi, or that a religious leader in the Taliban mold would rise to power.

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On the basis of this article and in view of recent events the South Asian correspondent for an Australian paper has this to say today:

US LOOKS AT PLAN TO OUST MUSHARRAF

THE US has indicated for the first time that it might be willing to back plans by elite echelons of the military in Islamabad to oust Pervez Musharraf from power, as the Pakistani President was beset by major new difficulties over his attempts to sack the country's chief justice.

Reports yesterday quoting highly placed US diplomatic and intelligence officials - previously rusted on to the view that General Musharraf was an indispensable Western ally in the battle against terrorism - outlined a succession plan to replace him.

US officials told The New York Times the plan would see the Vice-Chief of the Army, Ahsan Saleem Hyat, take over from General Musharraf as head of the military and former banker Mohammedmian Soomro installed as president, with General Hyat wielding most of the power.

The report adds another dimension to the range of challenges bearing down on the embattled military ruler following his weekend sacking of chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, whom he appointed just over a year ago.

Thousands of lawyers clashed with baton-wielding riot police yesterday during a nationwide day of action against the sacking of the top judge. About 3000 lawyers wearing smart black suits and chanting "Down with Musharraf" dismantled barriers in an attempt to stage a sit-in outside the Lahore High Court building.

More than 40 lawyers and 15 police were injured in the clashes. Police repeatedly baton-charged the demonstrators, some of them senior members of the bar, arresting 25 people.

In Islamabad, police barricaded the Supreme Court where the Supreme Judicial Council was meeting in camera to consider as-yet unspecified charges against the chief justice involving alleged misuse of his authority.

There was chaos and confusion as the council began its hearings last night. Having been held virtually under siege and incommunicado in his residence, the chief justice refused to get into a government car sent to convey him to the Supreme Court.

Instead, he stunned officials by starting to walk, surrounded by supporters, and told reporters he rejected any suggestion he had abused his office. Police soon intervened, however, and he was forced into a car and taken to another building before being transferred to the Supreme Court.

As courts across the country remained paralysed in protest, motives for the sacking emerged when it was disclosed that last month Justice Iftikhar said in a speech that General Musharraf could not continue as army chief beyond the expiry of his term as President later this year.

General Musharraf has a highly controversial plan that would have him elected to another five-year term as President by existing federal and provincial legislatures - before general elections are held.

But he also wants to continue as Army Chief of Staff, something that is bitterly opposed by political leaders as well as the international community. The plan would be challenged in the courts, and the chief justice's strong words on the issue may have forced the President to take pre-emptive action to remove him.

The bitter wrangling lends weight to those in the US diplomatic and intelligence community who believe it is time to consider the post-Musharraf era.

The US report suggests a growing disenchantment towards General Musharraf in Washington and indicates that the longstanding view that the alternative to his regime would be chaos and a takeover by extremist Islamic mullahs is no longer ascendant.

The US officials say hardline Islamists have usually not done well in elections in Pakistan and that if General Musharraf were removed, a doomsday scenario would not necessarily follow.

The report could be an attempt by Washington to pressure General Musharraf to take stronger action against militants in Pakistan's border areas near Afghanistan, where the Taliban and al-Qa'ida are operating. But it might also indicate the President's allies in Washington are about to pull the rug from under him.

pakistan

Why is the CJ in Trouble?

Chief Justice Iftikar Muhammad Chaudhry, despite his good works (see my previous blog: The Chief Justice of Pakistan) managed to infuriate a large group of powerful people.
The Military
In December 2005 the CJ took a suo moto action on the illegal abduction of scores of Pakistani citizens. Many of the detentions were related to the anti-Musharraf insurgency in Balochistan, where a secret agency was accused of abducting hundreds of youths.

Previously relatives of the missing people would file writs of habeas corpus in the courts. The judges would then formally request the Interior Ministry for information. Characteristically, the ministry would reply that the secret agencies had no clue as to the person's whereabouts, and the matter would end there.

The Chief Justice changed all this by diligently following up these cases and compelling the authorities to trace the missing citizens. As a result, many missing people suddenly reappeared in the strangest of circumstances; many of them accusing the secret agencies of incarcerating and torturing them. The CJ then put the cat among the pigeons by ordering these agencies to appear in court in front of him.

It was perhaps the first time that the powers of these near omnipotent military agencies had been challenged in Pakistan and obviously they and their masters would not have at all been pleased.

The Bureaucracy and Government Politicians
In December 2006 the Supreme Court declared a land grab in Gwadar of 1000s of acres illegal. It ruled that the Islamabad’s handpicked Balochistan government was not at all competent to allocate quota for allotment of Gwadar lands to politicians, ministers, MNAs, MPAs, Senators, higher civil bureaucracy and provincial Judiciary without having a proper legislation.

The court also concluded that in view of the glaring illegalities in allotment of land in Gwadar all similar petitions would be given an early date of hearing upon the consent of the Chief Justice.

In another case of public interest, the Supreme Court took the unusual step of blocking bureaucratic shenanigans by citing the fundamental rights of the public enshrined in the Constitution. In this particular case the court cancelled a lucrative lease of a public park in Islamabad owned by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) which was to be converted into a mini golf club. One can imagine the distress of the bureaucrats to discover that there was such thing as ‘fundamental rights of the public’ and that it could be used against them in all their future dealings.

Shaukat Aziz and his Corpocrats
Late last year the Chief Justice cancelled the much publicized privatization of Pakistan Steel Mills which was being sold to Arif Habib and his associates. The billionaire stock market operator Habib is believed to be close acquaintance of Shaukat Aziz. The detailed judgement exposed a number of legal violations, lapses, omissions and commissions committed by the Privatisation Commission and the Cabinet Committee of Privatisation contrary to the law promulgated by the regime itself. Shaukat Aziz is believed to have been furious at this Supreme Court decision because he headed the Cabinet Committee of Privatisation which had attempted to rush through the sale of the steel mill.

Two days before his house arrest the Chief Justice had directed that the chairman of the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) and the Secretary for Finance be made respondents to a case against inflated prices of petroleum products, along with the Secretary for Petroleum, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority chairman, the Oil Companies Advisory Committee and eight heads of the major oil companies in Pakistan.


And now to the most important part.

Musharraf

A few days after Musharraf’s publicly expressed his wish to allow kite flying during Basant the CJ defied him by upholding a decision to ban kite-flying because of the large number of deaths that were caused annually as a result of the razor-sharp kite flying strings.

This act of open judicial defiance, taken together with the ‘Missing Persons’ case, must have caused loud alarm bells to ring in the General’s head.


2007 is a vital year for Musharraf. He has not only to get ‘re-elected’ as President but general elections also have to be held.

Right now Musharraf probably has a Plan A, a Plan B and a fallback Plan C for the coming general elections.

Plan A- a heavily rigged election in which PML(Q) emerges as a majority party. This will undoubtedly lead to dozens of legal challenges to the Supreme Court

Plan B – a deal with Benazir Bhutto and her PPP. However to date despite ‘on and off’ negotiations such a compromise is still up in the air.

Plan C- declaring a national emergency and postponing elections for a year. This can also be challenged in the Supreme Court.

As far as his plans for ‘re-elections’ go they are just as dependent on a pliable Supreme Court.

Plan E – Get re-elected by the existing parliament. Once again this will keep the Supreme Court busy interpreting its constitutional validity.

Plan D – Getting re-elected after the general election as part of a deal with Benazir Bhutto.

Even so there will always be the sticky issue about the uniform, which has to constitutionally come off by the end of 2007.

So Musharraf will remain largely hostage to any number of decisions that can emanate from the Supreme Court. This has never really worried previous military dictators as they ensured that the judges of the constitutional court remain malleable. However this does not appear to be the case when you happen to have an activist Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

So CJ Iftikar Muhammad Chaudhry simply had to go!

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Musharraf Keeps to His 7 Point Pledge

Remember Musharraf’s famous seven point pledged commitment to the nation in 1999.

Well here is an update (and amazingly it appears that he has kept to his word).

1. Rebuild National confidence and morale
My secret agencies have ensured that I continue to retain high morale and remain nationally confident of staying in power for long as I want (just like my idol General Hosni Mubarik of Egypt).

2. Strengthen Federation, remove Inter-Provincial disharmony and restore National cohesion
I am planning to cleanse Balochistan of all troublesome Baloch as an example to all others what real national cohesion is all about.

3. Devolution of power to the grass root level
After getting rid of some of the old political ‘grass’ I manured the left over grass (weeds and all) to whom I devolved just enough power to enable them make money for themselves, rig referendums and elections in my favour, and nothing else.


4. Revive Economy and restore Investor Confidence
Nothing like a few property and share market deals to keep the ‘true’ investors happy. As the poor have no money to invest unfortunately I have had little choice but to let them wallow in their misery.


5. Ensure law and order and dispense speedy justice
Any one who has opposed me has received swift and speedy justice. Remember Akbar Bugti?

6. Depoliticize State institutions
Why, just the other day I depoliticised the Chief Justice by placing him under house arrest.


7. Ensure swift and across the board accountability
I’ve kept my word on this. All those who are corrupt and stupid enough to oppose me are in either jail, Dubai or London.

The Chief Justice of Pakistan

It is time to examine the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s record as the head of Pakistan’s judiciary.

During CJ’s 20-month tenure the backlog of pending cases in Supreme Court of Pakistan was reduced from 38,000 cases to around 10,000

Free legal aid was provided to the unrepresented jail petitioners, who could not afford to hire the services of a lawyer.

Additional posts of research officers were created with the aim of improving the efficiency and performance of the courts

Steps were taken to curtail corruption among the court staff by banning the entry of munshies/clerks into offices.

The CJ established a Human Rights Cell within the Supreme Court premises to process citizen complaints. This forum soon became known for providing expeditious and inexpensive relief to members of the general public.

To his credit the CJ worked on a large number of human rights violations - from complaints and letters which he received from aggrieved persons and from press reports – by ordering the relevant authorities concerned to obey the law of the land. These suo moto actions resulted in provision of quick relief to the common man.

His only weaknesses it is believed was a heightened degree of haughtiness and a weakness for fancy official cars, but then these are very common failings among officialdom in Pakistan, a country where every general is driven in a Mercedes.

In the CJ’s defence it ought to be said that the post of Chief Justice is comparable to that of his constitutional associates - the prime minister and president. And for my part I would not begrudge any chief justice a fleet of Rolls Royces if in return he improved the rule of law and the quality of justice in Pakistan.

There is also now a Musharraf-orchestrated complaint that the CJ’s son Dr Arsalan Iftikhar was appointed to a government post that he was unqualified to hold. But then as The News points out:

there is no evidence of any formal request from the deposed CJ seeking any favours from the government for his son or that Justice Iftikhar in any way had pressurized the authorities to do the ‘undoables’ for his son-Dr Arsalan Iftikhar… If Arsalan’s case is probed, it gives a much more serious charge sheet against the government authorities than the already charge sheeted Justice Iftikhar.

Now to the amazement of most Pakistani citizens we discover that our Chief Justice was summoned to and later confined in the Army House, Rawlapindi, like some recalcitrant schoolboy and browbeaten for over five hours by Musharraf and his minions - including Shaukat Aziz and ‘two senior PML(Q) party members’ – who all badgered him to tender his resignation. The CJ resisted these bullyboy tactics and refused to bow to this pressure.

Some seven hours later the CJ, it appears, was reluctantly released, but when he tried to return to his office at the Supreme Court, he was stopped on the road by a police superintendent and forcibly escorted by an official posse which drove him directly to his residence. By doing so, the regime unwittingly revealed to all that a police superintendent can have more legal powers in Musharraf’s Pakistan than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

And so to the present. While there has been no official order of ‘arrest’ or ‘detention’, the CJ continues to be detained in his residence, which remains surrounded by police. His phones have been cut and he has been prevented from communicating with anyone, including members of his family.

In the meantime Musharraf and his underlings continue to blather on about the unquestioned legality of his action. As the lawyer Anees Jillani points out in today’s Dawn that under articles 209 (4) and 209 (6) of our much tampered Constitution:

The president, if he comes to know about a judge’s alleged misconduct through information received from the SJC or from any other source, can ask the Council to “inquire into the matter” to determine whether the judge is guilty of the charge…After inquiring into the matter, the Council shall report to the president as to whether the judge has been found to be guilty of misconduct, and it shall be the Council that will advise the president as to whether the judge should be removed from office. If so advised, the president may remove the judge.

Opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has stated that the detained CJ is now under tremendous pressure of intelligence agency officials who are demanding his resignation.

According to told Dawn:

[Nisar Ali Khan] said the Chief Justice House was swarming with intelligence officials and the CJP, along with his family members, were confined to one room. He said even his house in Quetta had also been sealed.

In your Blogger’s view Musharraf arrogantly believed that he would have no difficulty in getting the CJ’s resignation. Sadly for him the CJ has proved to be man of sturdier character.
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Having failed to get the CJ to resign the dictator has sailed into uncharted constitutional waters by sending a reference against the CJ to the Supreme Judicial Council after having unlawfully detained him.

Unfortunately the judges of the Supreme Court have a poor track record of standing by beleaguered colleagues. We will soon see what stuff the present lot of judges are made of, particular those currently sitting on the Supreme Judicial Council

If Musharraf can brutalise and unlawfully detain the constitutional head of Pakistan’s judicial system just imagine what he can do any ordinary citizen of the country.

God help us!


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My next Blog will be about Musharraf's possible motives for trying to sack the CJ



Pakistan

The Sacking Of The CJ & A Writer's Block

Over the past few weeks your Blogger has suffered from a writer’s block – a difficulty usually associated with an absence of inspiration. In my case it was compounded with a palpable feeling of disillusionment with the present circumstances.

Many people tell me that this infernal general is here to stay. Personally I don’t subscribe to this view - I'm convinced that he will be gone within a year - but the widespread apathy among the country's ruling elite can be, at times, disheartening. Odds are that Musharraf will be replaced by another Khaki-clad 'Savior of Pakistan', and that is also a depressing thought.

My view of current realities tells me that Pakistan has reached a critical juncture in its 60-year history and the future appears increasingly bleak.

Why?

We face the twin grave problems of a continuing population explosion and a looming water shortage. With the shrinking of the Himalayan glaciers the volume of water in our rivers is sharply decreasing. Unless we urgently begin addressing this problem, my apprehension is that by 2025 we will have grossly insufficient irrigation resources to feed an anticipated population of 275 million people.

I fear famine and water wars could be just around the corner for us. Conflict over water supplies will not just involve India and Pakistan, but also lead to inter-provincial bloodshed within Pakistan. Compared to this frightening scenario the present quarrel over the Kalabagh Dam looks like mere child’s play.

Associated with this dilemma of the ever burgeoning population is the complete and utter collapse our educational system. We are now producing and will continue to produce millions of citizens who will grow up espousing a bleak, simplistic black and white, good vs. evil outlook to most aspects of life.

If the philosophy of extremist ‘Jihadism’ is allowed to extend to even a mere 0.4 % of Pakistan’s future population, it will result in an enraged horde of a million people.

My fear is that the ‘oxygen’ and ‘breathing space’ traditionally provided to extremist religious views under military dictatorships (Zia’s and Musharraf’s) now not only threatens the future integrity of Pakistan but has the potential to wreak havoc on the West. One only has to recall that the world’s first computer virus (the 1986 ‘brain virus’) was created in Lahore – the future development of ‘dirty bombs’ and other deadly devices by sophisticated Pakistani fanatics is not such a farfetched idea after all.


And what have seven long years of Musharraf’s dictatorship achieved in addressing any of these problems?

In my book absolutely nothing – nada, zilch!

All we have seen is the economic, social and political aggrandizement by the military in every sphere of activity in Pakistan. This coupled with its mule headed and dogmatic approach to resolving differences by the use of overwhelming force – i.e. in East Pakistan and now in Balochistan – which helps create national catastrophes

While regime supporters will continue to insist that there has been economic growth in recent years, the reality is that most of these financial figures have been cleverly doctored. If one bothers to scrutinize the government’s economic data carefully these ‘growth’ figures soon turn out to be pure bunkum. Yes, huge fortunes have been made by those ‘investing’ in the property and share market scams and while national assets such as PTCL have been privatized and sold to overseas buyers let us not delude ourselves and call these purchases ‘overseas investments’. The glaring fact remains that there has been no overseas investment in our industry or export sector in past seven years, no many times our smooth talking Shaukat Aziz asserts to the contrary.

Simply put, as any honest economist will confirm, whatever economic growth Pakistan has experienced in the last five years is due solely to 9/11 and not to any genius on the part of Musharraf, Shaukat Aziz or for that matter any other Maula Jat.

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So we now come to yesterday’s sacking of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, by Musharraf.

This mockery of law and constitutionalism by the military dictator has had the effect of unclogging my writer’s block .

More about the CJ’s sacking tomorrow.



Pakistan

If I was an Iranian….

Part I – The Problem

These days I often come across people who seem apprehensive about the possibility of war between the US and Iran. Your Blogger, being a habitual optimist, likes to believe that what we are witnessing is no more than another example of the Bush Administration’s predilection for sabre-rattling.

Sorely wounded in Iraq the US is currently militarily overstretched and is unlikely to hold any delusions about possible victories in Iran. But then - as your Blogger has often been known to get things wrong - perhaps one should not ignore the possible stratagems of that 60 year-old fly in the Middle East ointment – Israel.

Unlike Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, which are all targeting India (and vice-versa), Irani nukes will destabilize the Middle East and its strategically vital oil-producing areas. While the fabulously wealthy Saudi royalty might end up with jellied knees, the Irani nukes will most likely be aimed at Tel Aviv. And therein lies the problem.

For the sake of self-preservation the Israelis will not allow Iran to possess nuclear weapons and, even if it leads to a breakout of World War III, Israel will make every attempt to destroy Irani nuclear facilities before they get to the bomb-developing stage.

Whatever one might think of the Israel’s leadership, no one can accuse them of stupidity. Rather than attack Iran all by themselves, the Israelis will inveigle Washington to do the job alongside them. At the very least the Israeli bombers will need the US military for mid-air refuelling for a return trip to Iran.

So while Bush shakes a belligerent fist at Iran, he may soon be duped into doing something much more lethal.

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Part II – Why are many Iranis such ardent nationalists?


I’m not Irani but I do know something about the history about this neighbouring country. For instance, given my predilection for free-thinking, had I been an Irani in the early 80s there is a chance that I might have been tortured and perhaps even executed by Khomeini’s zealots in the revolutionary guards.

Nonetheless, my aversion to religious extremism would not have stopped me from becoming an enthusiastic Irani nationalist.

Why?

Well for the simple reason that Iran has an extremely ancient and proud heritage (much older, for instance, than India’s). Its roots began as early as 728 BC when the Deioces founded the Median kingdom at Ecbatana (modern Hamadan). The Medians were eventually replaced in 550 BC by their cousin tribe the Persians, led by the mighty Cyrus. It was under Cyrus that Iran took the route to global splendour.

While the West is enamoured by the Greeks and the Romans and doomed to read the prejudiced histories written by them, the Persians flourished with religious tolerance and superb competence in administration over an area stretching from Egypt in the west to Sind (modern Pakistan) in the east and all the way north to Macedonia and the Aral Sea. Ancient Empires didn’t get much mightier than this.

The 330 year reign of the Persians was followed by a 140 year rule under Alexander’s Greek Seleucids who soon became wholly Persianised anyway. The Seleucids were replaced by the Rome-beating Parthians, who then gave way in 224 AD to the Sassanians. The fate of the Sassanian dynasty was sealed four hundred years later at the battle of Qadisiyya in 636/637 AD by a victorious Muslim Arab army.

While modern day Muslims glorify the scientific and artistic pinnacles achieved under the Abbasids, few realise that over 75% of the scientists, scholars and artists at the apex of Islam’s historical past were in fact Persians who had embraced Arab/Islamic names.

One should also bring to mind that Farsi literature resounds with such celebrated names as Ferdousi, Rumi, Hafiz, Jami and Sa’di.

So it should not come as a surprise that as inheritors of the unique Persian heritage the Iranis are an unusually proud race of people.
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Part III – If I was an Iranian why would I distrust Washington?

Now we come to the tricky issue of the distrust of Washington that seems to pervade modern Iran.

The US was a relative international innocent during the heyday of Imperialist power. However soon after WWII it took on the role of a global superpower and it was not long before the US began interfering in other countries’ affairs in a bid to assert its dominance throughout the world.

The watershed moment for Iran took place in 1953 when CIA’s Kermit Roosevelt (President Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson) successfully arranged for the overthrow Iran’s first and only democratically elected Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadeq. In Mossadeq’s place the US securely planted the temperamentally weak and insecure Muhammad Reza as the monarchical dictator of the country.

For the next 26 years the people of Iran suffered under the grip of the Shah’s Sazman-i-Etelaat va Amjiniat-I Keshvar or Savak, which soon became, in Robert Fisk’s words, ‘the most notorious and the most murderous, its torture chambers among the Middle East’s most terrible institutions.’ The noted journalist also maintains that possibly ‘a third of the male population of Iran were in some way involved with Savak, either directly or as occasional paid or blackmailed informants.’

All through the Shah’s reign Savak remained under the tutelage of the CIA. Savak agents were regularly flown to the US for lessons in interrogation techniques. It is therefore understandable that many Iranis who suffered brutally during those near three decades have little love lost for the US.

The 444-day Tehran Embassy crisis was the price that US, the ‘Great Satan’, was made to pay for its 25-year involvement in Iran’s affairs. After the embassy takeover some students laboriously glued together 2,300 shredded US diplomatic papers, some of which deeply incriminated the US in its role of helping perpetuate Shah’s vicious regime.

The subsequent eight year long war, instigated by Saddam Hussain, cost Iran over a million lives, while millions of others were left permanently maimed by bullets, artillery shells, aerial bombs and Saddam’s infamous poisonous gas.

While the US claimed to be impartial during the Iran-Iraq war, from Iran’s perspective it was anything but. For those unfamiliar with what the US actually did during that period, here are some salient examples:

Throughout the war the Americans provided satellite imagery and other battlefield intelligence to the Iraqis to help them beat Iran.

The US turned a blind eye to Iraq use of banned chemical weapons. (When Saddam killed 5000 of Iraqi Kurds in Halabja, the CIA is on record for sending a briefing note to US embassies deceitfully blaming the Iranis of this war crime).

Twenty-four American warships were sent to the Gulf to protect Iraqi oil shipments from Irani attacks while the Iraqis were given a free hand to destroy any or all of Iran shipments.

Angered by Iran’s mine laying activities in the Gulf US naval ships attacked an Irani minelayer. This was followed by the complete destruction of two Irani oil platforms by four US guided missile destroyers.

These were hardly the acts of a neutral bystander.

The ultimate act of hostility was when the US missile cruiser Vincennes, while assertively sailing within Iran’s territorial waters, shot down an Iran Air Airbus carrying 290 passengers heading for Dubai.

Rather apologize for the tragic mistake the US tried to dissemble its way out of the quagmire. George H. Bush, then Vice President, arrogantly announced: "I will never apologize for the United States, ever. I don't care what the facts are."

This and further acts of callousness by the Americans left most Iranis stunned. When the Vincennes returned to its home base of San Diego the ship was given a hero’s welcome and its men were all awarded combat action ribbons. The ship’s air warfare coordinator won a naval medal for ‘heroic achievement’. And to top it all the citizens of its namesake town of Vincennes in Indiana raised money to build a monument – not to the 290 dead Irani civilians – but to the ship that had destroyed them.

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While your Blogger can hardly be accused of being sympathetic to the Mullah regime of Tehran, he will stress that Iran as a country and Iranis as a people are worthy of respect.

After years of trying interfere with the destiny of millions of Iranis, I find it difficult to perceive how the US can expect any warmth from them.

To my mind the only sensible course of action for Washington is to accept current realities. Pushing Iran into a hostile corner has only made Tehran more determinedly stubborn.

Pakistan’s Musharraf crumbled after a single call post-9/11 telephone call from the US secretary of state. Dictator’s have a tendency of doing just that. While Iran is by no means a democracy, its leadership has to carry the will of its people to some extent. Bullying and browbeating Iran will get their back up.

So instead of routinely vilifying Iran, a wiser course of action is to accord Iran the respect due to a nation state And, to recognize that US actions over the past five decades have directly led to the bitter cultural chasm that exists between the two countries.

It is time to build bridges rather than keep burning them.

us-iran
iran

Finally at Loggerheads?

After two months of public utterings from his minions, the man has finally spoken for himself. Musharraf has at long last officially confirmed what had already become common knowledge.

As the Daily Times reported this Tuesday (20th February, 2007)

President General Pervez Musharraf finally told a TV channel yesterday that he would seek re-election by the current assemblies and not by the new assemblies after the 2007 general elections.

One can surmise that the talks between Musharraf’s intelligence agents and Benazir Bhutto have reached a stalemate.

Browbeating her with the Swiss money laundering case, Musharraf evidently believed that he would eventually get his way. Sadly Benazir would have quite likely conceded on the General’s ‘Uniform Issue’ but the idea of a surrogate prime minister from the PPP proved a bridge too far – the idea is an obvious anathema to her.

Military rulers traditionally exploit the weaknesses of the political forces and attempt to divide and fragment them. Not surprisingly therefore one of the conditions believed to have been imposed on Benazir for the continuance of these secret parleys was that she would abstain from participating in any opposition roundtable meeting.

Consequently it does not come as a surprise that for weeks Benazir had been prevaricating on the subject of attending the Nawaz Sharif organized opposition summit in London. Suddenly all this has changed.

As your Blogger adamantly maintains, there is no such thing as a coincidence in the murky world of Pakistani power shenanigans.

So the day that Musharraf finally came clean about his re-election plans on TV was the very same day it was announced that Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif would co-chair the March 24-25 all-party conference in London.

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In common with all military rulers Musharraf has come to enjoy the trappings of power and has no intention of letting go. Rumour has it that the grisly model of Hosni Mubarik, who has reigned over Egypt since 1982, is one that he wishes to emulate. Sadly for Musharraf, your Blogger stoutly contends that the Pakistanis will not prove to be as compliant as the poor downtrodden Egyptians.

As Dr. Hasan-Askari Rizvi noted nearly a month ago in the Daily Times:

If President Pervez Musharraf opts for this strategy, in total disregard of constitutional and ethical considerations, Pakistan will be faced with a head-on collision between the pro-and anti-Musharraf elements.

Such a confrontation will undermine the political interests of both General Pervez Musharraf and the opposition. It will also have negative ramifications for Pakistan’s political credibility at the global level.

Five years ago, Musharraf orchestrated a farcical referendum to prolong his self-imposed presidency. Now he is insisting on another ludicrous scenario whereby the present outgoing national and provincial assemblies ‘will re-elect’ him to a new five-year term as president

To my mind seven years of military rule has created a pressure-cooker environment. What Pakistanis (with the exception of the profiteering elite) require is a safety valve. If it is not given to them via the ballot box, there is a looming prospect of violent urban disturbances.

Pakistan

Another Conundrum

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to converse with several former foreign secretaries and senior ambassadors and during these conversations (some lengthy, some brief) I have habitually made it a point of asking each of them one simple question: Who has dictated Pakistan’s foreign policy over the past few decades?

The answer, without fail, has always been the same: The GHQ.

The last civilian to have controlled the country’s foreign policy was clearly Z.A. Bhutto. So ever since his ouster Pakistan’s foreign policy has been largely dictated by a handful of generals.

From cadet school onwards the thinking of the Pakistan military mind remains sharply focussed on one country: India – our ‘perpetual enemy’. It therefore doesn’t take much to figure that any foreign policy devised by the GHQ would have to be entirely India-centric.
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In his latest Friday Times editorial Two Options for Pak Military Najam Sethi quite pithily summed up the army’s national security doctrine pertaining to Afghanistan.

Not surprisingly, he insists, that “the root of its Afghanistan policies on its western border…is the Pakistan military’s obsession with India on its eastern border.”

According to Sethi the GHQ’s doctrine on Afghanistan is as follows:

(1) Afghanistan must not be allowed to fall into the hands of pro-India elements, like the Northern Alliance Uzbek-Tajik ethnic combine
(2) It should therefore be dominated by pro-Pakistan Pakhtuns who have historically straddled both Pakistan and Afghanistan
(3) These Pakhtuns should not be secular, or pro-Russia or pro-India like earlier Pakhtun regimes until 1990 and the current Karzai regime
(4) The Islamic Pakhtun Taliban should be supported as the least objectionable option.

He then points out:

It is this doctrine that has spawned sectarian violence and fundamentalism in Pakistan and enabled Al Qaeda to take root in Afghanistan.

…Until now, the price of this doctrine was paid by Pakistanis because the military is all powerful and unaccountable. But the Al-Qaeda-Taliban nexus has sucked the US into the region and pitted the Pakistani military’s regional interests against the American military-industrial complex’s global ambitions.

And while the military had to take a step backwards when a bigger armed force threatened to ‘bomb it back to the Stone Age’, their thinking apparently essentially remains the same. As Sethi remarks:

The Pakistani military’s assessment is that the Americans have no long term staying power in the region, as demonstrated by their impending retreat from Iraq, and that Pakistan is sure to rebound as the key player in Afghanistan, hence the need to retain its Taliban assets.

But now tribulations appear to be on the way.

Until now the US has nudged the international media to accuse Pakistan of “hosting” the Taliban. It has also played “good cop” in Islamabad who praises General Musharraf and bad cop in Kabul who clucks sympathetically with President Hamid Karzai when he blasts Pakistan. But that “soft” approach may be changing. Recent statements by top US officials and generals claiming that Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders are holed out in sanctuaries inside Pakistan are meant to signal that if Pakistan doesn’t stop the Taliban then America will conduct pre-emptive strikes against them inside Pakistan.

Islamabad’s ambiguous response lacks credibility. It denies Taliban and Al-Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan but cracks down on foreign or Pakistani journalists who try to verify its claim… Mr Bush wants an outright “victory” over the Taliban while Mr Musharraf means to deny him exactly that… We should therefore expect a chorus of foreign and local calls for “democracy” and taming of the Pak army by Democrats and Republicans alike.

According to Sethi, faced with growing US hostility, Musharraf and his GHQ will have only two options left:

The Pakistan military establishment can continue to play devious “power games” at home and abroad, deepen ethnic and religious fissures in the country, demean and weaken the democratic impulse of the people and lead Pakistan into isolation and despair.

Or it can bury its obsession with India, allow Afghanistan to acquire an autonomous, moderate, pro-West centre of gravity, focus on rolling back the tide of religious extremism and build a stable and sustainable economy.

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In the event of such happenings your Blogger’s guess is that Musharraf will instinctively go for the ‘Kursi’ option – i.e. whichever option that better safeguards his grip on power (his old slogan of 'Pakistan First' doesn't count for much these days).

Pakistan
Afghanistan
Foreign Policy

Bombs Ahoy

Bombs have been exploding in Pakistani cities for four decades now. Invariably the authorities lay the blame on ‘miscreants’ and ‘foreign agents’ for these blasts. However, that does not always appear to be the case.

For instance in the 1970s, soon after the dismissal of Balochistan’s first democratically elected government, a sporadic bombing campaign took place in the urban areas of the province. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto publicly vilified the dismissed NAP politicians for the explosions. Much later it was discovered that it was in fact the Bhutto-created Federal Security Force (FSF) that was secretly behind these outrages. In fact an FSF guard named Taj Muhammad was caught red-handed carrying copious sticks of dynamite by the Quetta police. Subsequent facts revealed that he was ‘liberated’ from police custody on the direction of the Director-General of the FSF.

And then as I blogged earlier (see: The KFC Bomb & 'The Usual Suspects' )

A former colonel of the ISI once proudly told me how he had personally arranged a large bomb blast in a Karachi multi-storey office building in the 1980s. Naturally the blast (and the resultant civilian deaths) would have been blamed on RAW, Al-Zulfikar, MRD fanatics or anyone else deemed worthy of being demonised in those wretched days of Zia’s military rule.

Coming back to the KFC bomb of November 2005, my private suspicions about the explosion were subsequently endorsed by an unusually upright DIG of Police. The senior police officer privately disclosed to your blogger that within minutes of the explosion Karachi police were contacted by an intelligence agency which directed them to proceed against the Baloch Liberation Army for the bomb blast.

And so we now come to an event that took place last month.

On 5th December Peshawar police arrested a man after he was spotted throwing an object into a bin outside the NWFP Chief Minister’s residence. The object was discovered to be an explosive and the culprit was subsequently identified to be a junior official of Intelligence Bureau (IB), Naib-Qasid Mohammad Tufail.

As BBC reported:

According to the arresting policemen, the metal object recovered from the rubbish bin outside Frontier House was seven inches long, one inch thick and labelled "high explosive".

[A]gent Tufail, was taken to a nearby police station and charged under the explosives act.

But within an hour of being taken into custody, agent Tufail was released when Intelligence Bureau (IB) joint director Zafarullah Khan came and took him away, provincial police officials on duty said.

Mr Khan also removed the alleged explosive device and later tried to play down events in an interview with a local paper.

He claimed the incident had been "a misunderstanding" and denied explosives had been involved - suggesting instead that agent Tufail had actually thrown a packet of biscuits into the bin.

The IB Joint Director Zafarullah Khan’s claim about ‘a packet of biscuits’ sounds rather unconvincing in view of the information that the Bomb Disposal Squad arrived at the scene and defused the recovered bomb.

For that matter if it was just ‘a mere packet of biscuits’ why did Zafarullah Khan insist on making off with the evidence?

Given these facts it is not surprising that the IB Joint Director soon opted to change his story and ended up giving it a further ludicrous twist. According to The News:

Joint Director-General Intelligence Bureau (IB) Zafarullah Khan told The News it was just a two-inch discarded piece of dynamite that could not explode because it had no explosives. “It was a sample collected by the agency officials. The Naib Qasid got it from somewhere and even had a bite of it, thinking it is a biscuit.

Soon after the ‘liberation’ of the culprit and the evidence, the angry Chief Minister sent a posse of policemen to raid the local IB office where it appears they were neither given access to the offender nor was the evidentiary explosive returned to them.

In the meantime the Peshawar police had filed criminal charges against both Naib-qasid Mohammed Tufail and Joint Director Zafarullah Khan. Tufail was charged under section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act and section 5 of the Explosive Substance Act. Whereas Zafarullah Khan was charged under three sections of the Pakistan Penal Code – ‘resisting arrest by a person’, ‘resisting arrest of another person’ and for ‘destroying evidence’.

A few days later the Police were made to drop the terrorism charge against Tufail and the two ‘resisting arrest charges’ against Zafarullah Khan.

While the IB Joint Director managed to get pre-arrest bail for his remaining offence, Tufail was handed over to the NWFP Police on the chief minister’s insistence and is currently in detention facing trial under the Explosives Substance Act.

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So the moral of the story is that when you hear next a bomb explosion in Pakistan, you may safely conclude that it has been carried out by religious fanatics or by ethnic nationalists or foreign agents or by representatives of the government itself.




Pakistan
Peshawar

Narcissism Prevails

Members of Pakistan’s cosseted elite are currently in the midst of their annual winter social revelry. Most of them are preoccupied with the usual overabundance of society balls, weddings, dinners and dance parties which they simply must go to (and are keen to be seen attending).

During this period of extravagant spending and merry festivity very few of these people will spare a thought for 80,000 and more of their countrymen, women and children who happen to be lying out in the open in the freezing January weather lacking food, shelter and warmth. Many of them, particularly the malnourished children, are dying – apparently all due to the actions and misdeeds of our military regime.

In common with most things under the present regime, truth about the plight of these wretched Pakistanis remained concealed until it was thrust into the international media by foreign observers – in this case by officials of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The UN’s new agency IRIN quoting from a UNICEF report revealed last month that thousands of Baloch women and children, who had fled from the areas of army operation, were not only homeless but were suffering from severe malnutrition and were in dire need of urgent assistance.

These UNICEF officials bluntly accused the Musharraf regime of 'crimes against humanity' by actively blocking the delivery of foreign aid to these starving innocents.

As the Christian Science Monitor reported:

Pakistan's military government is preventing aid groups from helping more than 80,000 people - many of them acutely malnourished children - who have been displaced by a widening civil war in remote southern Balochistan, say international aid workers and diplomats.

An internal assessment by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), shown to the Monitor, paints a disturbing portrait.

UNICEF and Pakistan provincial health officials, who surveyed the area in July and August, report that 59,000 of those suffering are women and children and that 28 percent of the children under 5 were "acutely malnourished." Six percent of the children were so underfed that they would die without immediate medical attention.

"I would say this now qualifies as a 'crimes against humanity' situation," says one foreign observer who has interviewed delegates from the region.

For six months, aid agencies and diplomats have been pressing Pakistan authorities to permit them to distribute aid packages, which include emergency rations, tents, and medicine. The UN won't deliver aid without permission from the host nation, says Robert van Dijk, the top UNICEF officer for Pakistan.

He and other aid workers say provincial officials have continued to assist his local staff in monitoring conditions in southern Balochistan, but more senior provincial and federal officials have simply refused his requests or derailed efforts with endless bureaucratic hurdles.

"We have tried everything to get our aid there," says Mr. van Dijk. "I even know of aid groups that tried to deliver relief without permits, but they got turned back on the road."

Meanwhile, reports from the region indicate the situation has grown even more wretched with the onset of winter. Frustrated aid workers and diplomats are increasingly concerned about the widening humanitarian crisis - and furious they are being denied access to the area.

Six months since the UNICEF assessment, a Western diplomat says: "The UN is now desperate. They are literally begging us for help."

Just this week, the government abruptly canceled a planned tour to Balochistan by a visiting delegation from the European Commission.

There are aid-worker reports that military trucks rounded up displaced people and hid them ahead of earlier visits by local aid groups.

… In the isolated districts of Naseerabad and Jafarabad, where the bulk of the displaced villagers have gathered, one eyewitness describes the refugees as "utterly desperate."

"It's very upsetting to see children in this state," says the local resident, who did not want to be named for fear he would be arrested. "They have no shelter, little clothing, and almost no food."

A climate of political oppression, in which more than 150 Baloch activists have been arrested and taken to undisclosed locations, only amplifies the crisis, say human rights workers and opposition politicians.

Some analysts wonder why the UN hasn't pushed Pakistan on the issue more publicly. "It's quite clear that quiet pressure is not working here," says one Pakistani political analyst. "This situation demands a strong, international condemnation."

Ms. Ahmed of the ICG says that, "The UN has a mandate and UN agencies have a responsibility to help people. My concern here is that if agencies don't meet their mandate they lose credibility."

The UN is not alone in being unable to provide aid. Other organizations, such as Oxfam, CARE, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, have also been trying to gain access to the region.

True to type the military spokesman went into his usual state of denial. “This [UNICEF] report is untrue,” said Maj Gen Shaukut Sultan, “Almost all of those people have gone back.”

While van Dijk agrees that some did return home in September, he claims that a recent UN assessment has shown that other villagers have since been displaced.

“When we went back there recently, we found the same numbers of people,” he says, “and even worse conditions - among the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Interestingly, however, soon after the Christian Science Monitor had interviewed Robert van Dijk, the top UNICEF officer for Pakistan, the newspaper noted that:

[van Dijk’s] office suddenly received a letter from the Pakistani government giving permission to deliver some initial packages.

This begs the question: Why wouldn't Pakistani authorities let relief workers in to help the Baloch victims?

Associated Press quotes Asma Jehangir, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, who accuses the regime of deliberately blocking all access to the region with the aim of concealing its ongoing military operations.

It appears that even local relief workers may have been denied access to provide aid to the starving women and children. As The News quoting Kachkol Ali Baloch, the leader of Opposition in the Balochistan Provincial Assembly, reported:

Kachkol Baloch, who claimed to have visited the 12 sites where the displaced people live in Jaffarabad and Naseerabad in April 2006, said that that he has taken up the issue in Balochistan Assembly but nothing has been done so far. "Subsequently, I approached Abdul Sattar Edhi to help the affected people but Edhi has not been allowed to carry out any relief work."

While your Blogger is relieved to learn that aid is finally reaching these poor forgotten Pakistanis he can only but endorse UNICEF’s Robert van Dijk’s poignant comment:

"This should have happened 10 months ago," he says. "If it would have happened then those children who died would still be alive. I don't know how many more have died by now."

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If UNICEF had not stubbornly and publicly persisted in trying to protect our country’s women and children it is highly probable these people would have been left to die in their hundreds.

The less said about our brutal regime the better, but what about our uncaring elite who feasted, partied and danced while thousands of their country’s innocent women and children lay homeless, hungry and dying in the freezing cold?


Pakistan
Balochistan
UNICEF