Chief Justice Responds to Musharraf

His Excellency
The President of the European Parliament,
Brussels.

His Excellency
The President of France,
Paris.

His Excellency
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,
London.

Her Excellency
Ms. Condaleeza Rice,
Secretary of State,
United States of America,
Washington D.C.

Professor Klaus Schwab,
World Economic Forum,
Geneva.

All through their respective Ambassadors, High Commissioners and representatives.

Excellency,

I am the Chief Justice of Pakistan presently detained in my residence since November 3, 2007 pursuant to some verbal, and unspecified, order passed by General Musharraf.

I have found it necessary to write to you, and others, because during his recent visits to Brussels, Paris, Davos and London General Musharraf has slandered me, and my colleagues, with impunity in press conferences and other addresses and meetings. In addition he has widely distributed, among those whom he has met, a slanderous document (hereinafter the Document) entitled: “PROFILE OF THE FORMER CHIEF JUSTICE OF PAKISTAN”. I might have let this go unresponded but the Document, unfortunately, is such an outrage that, with respect, it is surprising that a person claiming to be head of state should fall to such depths as to circulate such calumny against the Chief Justice of his own country.

In view of these circumstances I have no option but to join issue with General Musharraf and to put the record straight. Since he has voiced his views on several public occasions so as to reach out to the public at large, I also am constrained to address your excellencies in an Open Letter to rebut the allegations against me.

At the outset you may be wondering why I have used the words “claiming to be the head of state”. That is quite deliberate. General Musharraf’s constitutional term ended on November 15, 2007. His claim to a further term thereafter is the subject of active controversy before the Supreme Court of Pakistan. It was while this claim was under adjudication before a Bench of eleven learned judges of the Supreme Court that the General arrested a majority of those judges in addition to me on November 3, 2007. He thus himself subverted the judicial process which remains frozen at that point. Besides arresting the Chief Justice and judges (can there have been a greater outrage?) he also purported to suspend the Constitution and to purge the entire judiciary (even the High Courts) of all independent judges. Now only his hand-picked and compliant judges remain willing to “validate” whatever he demands. And all this is also contrary to an express and earlier order passed by the Supreme Court on November 3, 2007.

Meantime I and my colleagues remain in illegal detention. With me are also detained my wife and three of my young children, all school-going and one a special child. Such are the conditions of our detention that we cannot even step out on to the lawn for the winter sun because that space is occupied by police pickets. Barbed wire barricades surround the residence and all phone lines are cut. Even the water connection to my residence has been periodically turned off. I am being persuaded to resign and to forego my office, which is what I am not prepared to do.

I request you to seek first hand information of the barricades and of my detention, as that of my children, from your Ambassador/High Commissioner/representative in Pakistan. You will get a report of such circumstances as have never prevailed even in medieval times. And these are conditions put in place, in the twenty-first century, by a Government that you support.

Needless to say that the Constitution of Pakistan contains no provision for its suspension, and certainly not by the Chief of Army Staff. Nor can it be amended except in accordance with Articles 238 and 239 which is by Parliament and not an executive or military order. As such all actions taken by General Musharraf on and after November 3 are illegal and ultra vires the Constitution. That is why it is no illusion when I describe myself as the Chief Justice even though I am physically and forcibly incapacitated by the state apparatus under the command of the General. I am confident that as a consequence of the brave and unrelenting struggle continued by the lawyers and the civil society, the Constitution will prevail.

However, in the meantime, General Musharraf has launched upon a vigorous initiative to defame and slander me. Failing to obtain my willing abdication he has become desperate. The eight-page Document is the latest in this feverish drive.

Before I take up the Document itself let me recall that the General first ousted me from the Supreme Court on March 9 last year while filing an indictment (in the form of a Reference under Article 209 of the Constitution) against me. According to the General the Reference had been prepared after a thorough investigation and comprehensively contained all the charges against me. I had challenged that Reference and my ouster before the Supreme Court. On July 20 a thirteen member Bench unanimously struck down the action of the General as illegal and unconstitutional. I was honourably reinstated.

The Reference was thus wholly shattered and all the charges contained therein trashed. These cannot now be regurgitated except in contempt of the Supreme Court. Any way, since the Document has been circulated by no less a person than him I am constrained to submit the following for your kind consideration in rebuttal thereof:

The Document is divided into several heads but the allegations contained in it can essentially be divided into two categories: those allegations that were contained in the Reference and those that were not.

Quite obviously, those that are a repeat from the Reference hold no water as these have already been held by the Supreme Court to not be worth the ink they were written in. In fact, the Supreme Court found that the evidence submitted against me by the Government was so obviously fabricated and incorrect, that the bench took the unprecedented step of fining the Government Rs. 100,000 (a relatively small amount in dollar terms, but an unheard of sum with respect to Court Sanction in Pakistan) for filing clearly false and malicious documents, as well as revoking the license to practice of the Advocate on Record for filing false documents. Indeed, faced with the prospect of having filed clearly falsified documents against me, the Government’s attorneys, including the Attorney General, took a most dishonorable but telling approach. Each one, in turn, stood before the Supreme Court and disowned the Government’s Reference, and stated they had not reviewed the evidence against me before filing it with Court. They then filed a formal request to the Court to withdraw the purported evidence, and tendered an unconditional apology for filing such a scandalous and false documents. So baseless and egregious were the claims made by General Musharraf that on July 20th, 2007, the full Supreme Court for the first time in Pakistan’s history, ruled unanimously against a sitting military ruler and reinstated me honorably to my post.

Despite having faced these charges in open court, must I now be slandered with those same charges by General Musharraf in world capitals, while I remain a prisoner and unable to speak in my defense?

There are, of course, a second set of charges. These were not contained in the Reference and are now being bandied around by the General at every opportunity.

I forcefully and vigorously deny every single one of them. The truth of these “new” allegations can be judged from the fact that they all ostensibly date to the period before the reference was filed against me last March, yet none of them was listed in the already bogus charge sheet.

If there were any truth to these manufactured charges, the Government should have included them in the reference against me. God knows they threw in everything including the kitchen sink into that scurrilous 450 page document, only to have it thrown out by the entire Supreme Court after a 3 month open trial.

The charges against me are so transparently baseless that General Musharraf’s regime has banned the discussion of my situation and the charges in the broadcast media. This is because the ridiculous and flimsy nature of the charges is self-evident whenever an opportunity is provided to actually refute them.

Instead, the General only likes to recite his libel list from a rostrum or in gathering where there is no opportunity for anyone to respond. Incidentally, the General maligns me in the worst possible way at every opportunity. That is the basis for the Document he has distributed. But he has not just deposed me from the Judiciary. He has also fired more than half of the Superior Judiciary of Pakistan – nearly 50 judges in all — together with me. They have also been arrested and detained.

What are the charges against them? Why should they be fired and arrested if I am the corrupt judge? Moreover even my attorneys Aitzaz Ahsan, Munir Malik, Tariq Mahmood and Ali Ahmed Kurd were also arrested on November 3. Malik alone has been released but only because both his kidneys collapsed as a result of prison torture.

Finally, as to the Document, it also contains some further allegations described as “Post-Reference Conduct” that is attributed to me under various heads. This would mean only those allegedly ‘illegal’ actions claimed to have been taken by me after March 9, 2007. These are under the heads given below and replied to as under:

1. “Participation in SJC (Supreme Judicial Council) Proceedings”:

(a) Retaining ‘political lawyers’: Aitzaz Ahsan and Zammurrad Khan:
It is alleged that I gave a political colour to my defence by engaging political lawyers Aitzaz Ahsan and Zamurrad Khan both Pakistan Peoples’ Party Members of the National Assembly. The answer is simple.

I sought to engage the best legal team in the country. Mr. Ahsan is of course an MNA (MP), but he is also the top lawyer in Pakistan. For that reference may be made simply to the ranking of Chambers and Partners Global. Such is his respect in Pakistan’s legal landscape that he was elected President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan by one of the widest margins in the Association’s history.

All high profile personalities have placed their trust in his talents. He has thus been the attorney for Prime Ministers Bhutto and Sharif, (even though he was an opponent of the latter) Presidential candidate (against Musharraf) Justice Wajihuddin, sports star and politician Imran Khan, former Speakers, Ministers, Governors, victims of political vendetta, and also the internationally acclaimed gang-rape victim Mukhtar Mai, to mention only a few.

Equally important, Barrister Ahsan is a man of integrity who is known to withstand all pressures and enticements. That is a crucial factor in enaging an attorney when one’s prosecutor is the sitting military ruler, with enourmous monetary and coercive resources at his disposal.

Mr. Zamurrad Khan is also a recognized professional lawyer, a former Secretary of the District Bar Rawalpindi, and was retained by Mr. Aitzaz Ahsan to assist him in the case. Mr. Khan has been a leading light of the Lawyers’ Movement for the restoration of the deposed judiciary and has bravely faced all threats and vilification.

Finally, surely I am entitled to my choice of lawyers and not that of the General.

(b) “Riding in Mr. Zafarullah Jamali (former Prime Minister)’s car”:
How much the Document tries to deceive is apparent from the allegation that I willingly rode in Mr. Jamali’s car for the first hearing of the case against me on March 13 (as if that alone is an offence). Actually the Government should have been ashamed of itself for creating the circumstances that forced me to take that ride.

Having been stripped of official transport on the 9th March (my vehicles were removed from my house by the use of fork lifters), I decided to walk the one-mile to the Supreme Court. Along the way I was molested and manhandled, my hair was pulled and neck craned in the full blaze of the media, by a posse of policemen under the supervision of the Inspector General of Police. (A judicial inquiry, while I was still deposed, established this fact). In order to escape the physical assault I took refuge with Mr. Jamali and went the rest of the journey on his car. Instead of taking action against the police officials for manhandling the Chief Justice it is complained that I was on the wrong!

(c) “Creating a political atmosphere”:

Never did I instigate or invite any “political atmosphere”. I never addressed the press or any political rally. I kept my lips sealed even under extreme provocation from the General and his ministers who were reviling me on a daily basis. I maintained a strict judicial silence. I petitioned the Supreme Court and won. That was my vindication.

2. “Country wide touring and Politicising the Issue”:

The Constitution guarantees to all citizens free movement throughout Pakistan. How can this then be a complaint?

By orders dated March 9 and 15 (both of which were found to be without lawful authority by the Court) I had been sent of “forced leave”. I could neither perform any judicial or administrative functions as the Chief Justice of Pakistan. I was prevented not only from sitting in court but also from access to my own chamber by the force of arms under orders of the General. (All my papers were removed, even private documents).

The only function as ‘a judge on forced leave’ that I could perform was to address and deliver lectures to various Bar Associations. I accepted their invitations. They are peppered all over Pakistan. I had to drive to these towns as all these are not linked by air. On the way the people of Pakistan did, indeed, turn out in their millions, often waiting from dawn to dusk or from dusk to dawn, to greet me. But I never addressed them even when they insisted that I do. I never spoke to the press. I sat quietly in my vehicle without uttering a word. All this is on the record as most journeys were covered by the media live and throughout.

I spoke only to deliver lectures on professional and constitutional issues to the Bar Associations. Transcripts of every single one of my addresses are available. Every single word uttered by me in those addresses conforms to the stature, conduct and non-political nature of the office of the Chief Justice. There was no politics in these whatsoever. I did not even mention my present status or the controversy or the proceedings before the Council or the Court, not even the Reference. Not even once.

All the persons named in the Document under this head are lawyers and were members of the reception committees in various towns and Bar Associations.

3. Political Leaders Calling on CJP residence:

It is alleged that I received political leaders while I was deposed. It is on the record of the Supreme Judicial Council itself that I was detained after being deposed on March 9. The only persons allowed to meet me were those cleared by the Government. One was a senior political leader. None else was allowed to see me, initially not even my lawyers. How can I be blamed for whomsoever comes to my residence?

Had I wanted to politicize the issue I would have gone to the Press or invited the media. I did not. I had recourse to the judicial process for my reinstatement and won. The General lost miserably in a fair and straight contest. That is my only fault.

4. “Conclusion”:

Hence the conclusion drawn by the General that charges had been proved against me ‘beyond doubt’ is absolutely contrary to the facts and wide off the mark. It is a self-serving justification of the eminently illegal action of firing and arresting judges of superior courts under the garb of an Emergency (read Martial Law) when the Constitution was ‘suspended’ and then ‘restored’ later with drastic and illegal ‘amendments’ grafted into it.

The Constitution cannot be amended except by the two Houses of Parliament and by a two-thirds majority in each House. That is the letter of the law. How can one man presume or arrogate to himself that power?

Unfortunately the General is grievously economical with the truth (I refrain from using the word ‘lies’) when he says that the charges against me were ‘investigated and verified beyond doubt’. As explained above, these had in fact been rubbished by the Full Court Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan against which judgment the government filed no application for review.

What the General has done has serious implications for Pakistan and the world. In squashing the judiciary for his own personal advantage and nothing else he has usurped the space of civil and civilized society. If civilized norms of justice will not be allowed to operate then that space will, inevitably, be occupied by those who believe in more brutal and instant justice: the extremists in the wings. Those are the very elements the world seems to be pitted against. Those are the very elements the actions of the General are making way for.

Some western governments are emphasizing the unfolding of the democratic process in Pakistan. That is welcome, if it will be fair. But, and in any case, can there be democracy if there is no independent judiciary?

Remember, independent judges and judicial processes preceded full franchise by several hundred years. Moreover, which judge in Pakistan today can be independent who has before his eyes the fate and example of his own Chief Justice: detained for three months along with his young children. What is the children’s crime, after all?

There can be no democracy without an independent judiciary, and there can be no independent judge in Pakistan until the action of November 3 is reversed. Whatever the will of some desperate men the struggle of the valiant lawyers and civil society of Pakistan will bear fruit. They are not giving up.

Let me also assure you that I would not have written this letter without the General’s unbecoming onslaught. That has compelled me to clarify although, as my past will testify, I am not given into entering into public, even private, disputes. But the allegations against me have been so wild, so wrong and so contrary to judicial record, that I have been left with no option but to put the record straight. After all, a prisoner must also have his say. And if the General’s hand-picked judges, some living next door to my prison home, have not had the courage to invoke the power of ‘habeas corpus’ these last three months, what other option do I have? Many leaders of the world and the media may choose to brush the situation under the carpet out of love of the General. But that will not be.

Nevertheless, let me also reassure you that I continue in my resolve not to preside any Bench which will be seized of matters pertaining to the personal interests of General Musharraf after the restoration of the Constitution and the judges, which, God willing, will be soon.

Finally, I leave you with the question: Is there a precedent in history, all history, of 60 judges, including three Chief Justices (of the Supreme Court and two of Pakistan’s four High Courts), being dismissed, arrested and detained at the whim of one man? I have failed to discover any such even in medieval times under any emperor, king, or sultan, or even when a dictator has had full military sway over any country in more recent times. But this incredible outrage has happened in the 21st century at the hands of an extremist General out on a ‘charm offensive’ of western capitals and one whom the west supports.

I am grateful for your attention. I have no other purpose than to clear my name and to save the country (and perhaps others as well) from the calamity that stares us in the face. We can still rescue it from all kinds of extremism: praetorian and dogmatic. After all, the edifice of an independent judicial system alone stands on the middle ground between these two extremes. If the edifice is destroyed by the one, the ground may be taken over by the other. That is what is happening in Pakistan. Practitioners of rough and brutal justice will be welcomed in spaces from where the practitioners of more refined norms of justice and balance have been made to abdicate.

I have enormous faith that the Constitution and justice will soon prevail.

Yours truly,

Iftikhar Mohammad Choudhry,
Chief Justice of Pakistan,
Presently:
Imprisoned in the Chief Justice’s House,
Islamabad.

(Courtesy PKPOLITCS.COM)

Q's Agenda

Most popular President of Pakistan...

A man’s character is his fate

Retired General (imposed) President Musharraf has been going places and asserting that the coming elections are going to be held as scheduled and the possibility of rigging in the elections has been minimized.

He has been busy convincing the West that he is committed to hold free and fair elections. Let me ask those who patronize Musharraf especially the western states that aren't their judiciaries and the election commissions independent and impartial? Do they not know that only independent election commissions and impartial judiciaries can only guarantee free and fair elections? If yes, why don’t they question Musharraf on giving Pakistan back its impartial judiciary and an independent Election Commission? Perhaps they also don’t want free and fair elections in Pakistan.

Musharraf’s commitment to hold free and fair elections would only be serious if coming elections are held by an impartial Election Commission which is accountable to an independent judiciary. He will only pass his test of character if the elections are held under impartial Election Commission and independent judiciary.

Can he do this for his beloved country? A person who has twice breached the oaths he has taken under the Constitution of Pakistan, who has abrogated the Constitution twice, who has deposed and seized the judges of our apex court for not validating an invalid election and who has installed marionettes in the Election Commission, claiming the above sounds like a joke of highest order.

Sorry, Mr. President your actions have been inconsistent with your claims since you have been in power.

Asim H. Akhund

Hatred breeds hatred

Musharraf lost temper and bashed Dawn UK correspondent Ziauddin on the question of escaping of Rashid Rauf from the hands of law enforcement agencies.

Later while addressing Pakistani community in Hilton, Musharraf further expressed his anger on the Journalist.

Audio Interview of Ziauddin
Audio of Musharraf’s Insulting Speech

Link to Articles: Musharraf Bashes Journalist | Doh Teen Tika Dein

(Courtesy PKPOLITICS.COM)

A man's character is his fate

The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. [Eleanor Holmes Norton]

Rashidabad: A Model Home

Mehroz Sadruddin January 21, 2008

Several hundred kilometres away from Karachi near Tando Allahyar, there exists a major complex spread over an area of more than a hundred acres which includes schools, hospitals, housing and recreational facilities and goes by the name of Rashidabad. The people of Karachi may not know much about it but it is a facility that any Pakistani would be proud of.

Built across the Rashidabad train station, a six to eight hour traveling distance from Karachi, the project has been undertaken with the aim of catering to the needs of the under-privileged and disadvantaged children, particularly orphans.

Construction officially started in December 1998. The chief mentor and operating head of the board of trustees, Rashidabad, Air Commodore (retd) Shabbir A. Khan first disclosed the idea of the project during a discussion with a former general manager of the Pakistan Railways and long-time friend, Iqbal Samad Khan.

Commodore Shabbir, fought in the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars and feels that “Rashidabad is a miracle of God.” He calls this a miracle because according to him, not all the orphans of the world or of this country get a chance to live, study and socialise in such a healthy environment. Foster mothers are also being employed so that children as young as four or five years can get personal attention.

Irrespective of race, religion, language and ethnic background, all children in the hostel and the orphanage are provided equal opportunity to prosper. This, according to the management, helps in creating a pluralist mentality as they also learn the core values of intellectual diversity and tolerance for those who think and act differently.

The provision of quality health care, education, accommodation and recreation facilities is the hallmark of Rashidabad. All these can usually be availed free of cost. The monthly expenses of Rashidabad are completely funded from charity money and donations made by individuals, families and charitable institutions within the country.

The Rashid Memorial Welfare Organisation (RMWO), the main organisation behind Rashidabad, has also been working with other welfare trusts and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on various projects such as schools, hospitals and accommodation facilities that have been and are being erected within the premises.

The Citizens’ Foundation (TCF), an NGO, has a school inside Rashidabad. The Mustafa Benevolent Trust (MBT) has been involved in the construction and maintenance of the orphanage as well as the main water purification plant that has been put up there.

The orphanage is named Amzi home. It is a five-storey building that can accommodate nearly 288 people, including 32 senior citizens. It is being built at a cost of more than $1 million.

Elevators will be running on all the five floors. This will ease mobility for the senior citizens who are to be accommodated here. Each room at the Amzi home can accommodate up to 12 children. Also, this new orphanage will enable the board of directors at the RMWO to increase their school capacities, as the rooms on the top two floors of the Khawaja Yaqub House, one of the school buildings, will now be available for conducting classes. The current occupants of those rooms will be shifted to this new accommodation facility to be completed in 2008.

Iqbal Samad Khan, a former general manager of the Pakistan Railways and chief volunteer at Rashidabad, told The News about the involvements of the Shehnaz A. Ghani Trust and the Layton Rahimtoola Benevolent Trust (LRBT). The main hospital of the premises that has been under construction for more than a year will be given to the Shehnaz A. Ghani Trust for the day to day running and maintenance. The hospital plans to include state-of-the-art medical facilities.

Khan further went on to talk about the new special eye hospital, which is the brainchild of the LRBT. This will be completed by March 2008. The eye hospital has a capacity of giving medical treatment to about 300 patients a day, including 50 operations. All this will be done mostly free of cost. Volunteer workers including Khan told The News that Adeeb-ul-Hassan Rizvi of the Sindh Institute of Urology Transplant (SIUT) will be making a visit to Tando Allahyar in order to meet the authorities at Rashidabad to finalise the costing.

So far, three schools have been built. These include the Yaqub Khawaja (YK) Academy, TCF School and the Sargodhian Spirit Trust (SST) Public School. Collectively, these schools have the strength of 950 students.

In all the three schools, “reasonable stress is laid on the learning of the English language,” according to Commodore Shabbir. According to Samad Khan, a volunteer at Rashidabad, “there is no concept of tuitions.”

The overall success of Rashidabad is basically based on two broad fundamentals. First is the provision of a home-like environment to the orphans who come from all over the country and belong to different cultures and backgrounds. Second is the fact that as Commodore Shabbir puts it, the workers and the management of Rashidabad have studied the various education schemes announced by the outgoing government and its predecessors and learnt from their mistakes. According to Commodore Shabbir, “All these past projects were politically motivated and therefore had many shortcomings.” One major problem as outlined by the retired Commodore is the unavailability of basic amenities like clean food, water, clothing, accommodation, quality health care and infrastructure and sanitation facilities, along with the imparting of off-the-cuff education that has seemingly no practical or intellectual importance today.

The vision of the RMWO is clear and their commitment is strong. The achievement of all the pre-set goals and objectives certainly bodes well for those whose life is attached with Rashidabad.

Syed Maaz Mansur, an A-level student who visited Rashidabad last year, told The News, “A few more schools such as this will help in decreasing the poverty levels (in Pakistan) and will give the country a better future.” It is institutions like these that can ensure that children from poor families, orphans or not, rather than being sexually or commercially exploited in the society go through proper schooling and attain the quality education that is their right.

Published in The News International on January 14 2007
Rashidabad on the net -- http://rashidabad.org

No need to fear dissent

By Afiya Shehrbano
STUCK in mythology, symbolism and romantic nostalgia, we seem to continuously look for liberation through these ethereal and allegorical paths. This unwillingness to break out of oppressive historical, religious and political moulds then allows the very real state to control and deny people their agency.

For eight years now, marginalised political dissent has been building a critical momentum through a combination of subversive writings, individual and collective protest, judicial activism, street power and other methods of challenging an anti-people, non-democratic state.

Yet when it comes to converting the power of these people into a meaningful expression of democratic desires, we resort to playing by the rules even if those are unfair, illegitimate and formulated by a dictatorial regime.

Why do we fear dissent and anarchy when we have already lived and experienced an illegal and bloody history for most of our 60 years? Why do we insist on unity, faith and discipline when we know that all three nouns don’t apply and perhaps shouldn’t anymore? Economically we have experienced the most speculative period under the Wizard of US and never questioned the lack of ‘unity’ or ‘discipline’ of a free-wheeling economy, let alone the ‘faith’ in the sinking US dollar we continue to worship.

We cannot question the lack of ‘unified’ command within the army which is splitting at the seams with regard to religious identity and a confusion of loyalty between national or universal jihad.

We also refuse to disengage and move beyond the symbolic value of patriarchal norms and insist on accepting the ‘unifying’ force of entrenched feudal politics, and rationalise it by giving it a different name. The trouble with ‘unity, faith and discipline’ is that it does not recognise the reality of class difference; nor tolerates abstinence from faith; and glosses over the potential of ethnic anarchy.

This spurious nationalism instead allows us a choice of mosques within the community but not of marriage amongst its members; of different political parties but not of the leadership within them; of ‘progressive’ thinking but not of criticism emerging from it because that would break the unity, question the faith and allow disorder. Hence, there can never be change.

So we mimic and duplicate the nationalist discourse in the name of ‘rule of law’, without questioning whose rule and which law. We get stuck in choosing sides rather than defining them. Funnily enough, we also seem prepared to give dictators and oppressive leaders a chance, depending on which side of the faith or ideology they personally represent. Thus the Jamaat-i-Islami breathed life into Gen Zia’s dictatorial rule and is directly responsible for the repercussions that those years yield today and in the future. It doesn’t matter how much the religious parties reinvent themselves, their opportunist role in rooting dictatorship is legendary now.

But unfortunately, so is the liberal class guilty of this sin. By choosing to play the ‘insider’ game, they too trusted Gen Musharraf’s anti-terrorist and pro-capitalist governance. That both generals exploited faith and a ruthless disciplinary method of preventing citizens from expressing dissent, as well as divisionary politics that privileged one class over the rest, is a burden that will be shared by those who supported them in any form.

Fear of losing privilege or compromising for an opportunity to gain it, is despicable but understandable. The other side of the equation, that of agency as a quality that is a potential tool for liberating us from a controlled and vicious cycle, is one we undermine repeatedly. The possibility of our own power, the fear our numbers instil even when it is limited to 10 people holding a peaceful vigil outside a deposed judge’s residence, demonstrates how agency can invert power relations.

Consequentially, the state can fear our intervention rather than the other way around. It is the only means and only moment when we can exert and influence change directly rather than seeking saviours, dealers or misadventurists. So we need to pursue our own brand of liberation. For now we have identified this to lie in the restoration of the Nov 2 judiciary, a restored 1973 Constitution and the removal of a president who was instituted through coercive and therefore unlawful means.

These are not ends, but the means that will tip the balance of power towards the people and which will give us the confidence to play a role in a democratic process in the future. Democracy is not about vengeance through the ballot alone, but by the process that gets us there.

For those who would question the ‘rejectionism’ that is implicit in such demands, we need to return the query unapologetically; why not put the energy spent on converting and saving a crumbling edifice and failed civil-military experiment instead into a redefined, independently representative and self-imaginative one? It is not that those seeking these demands are deniers of any reality. In fact, these arise from a recognition of the agency of all those who were pitted in a struggle against an oppressive state, regardless of their vision or ideology.

While we may not agree with the retrogressive tribal agenda of those who are fighting the state, we also recognise the failure of understanding, vision or tactics of the state in overcoming these forces. We understand that the nature of transition is merely an eyewash that gives cover to a state grasping for legitimacy and which has only created unprecedented mistrust between the state and the people.

If we continue to adhere to the musical chair power arrangements that dominated 2007 we can expect to be in a permanent state of transition. In weighing all the options, the institutions worth saving and protecting should not be in the interest of individual power or personal lifestyle liberties — instead, these must represent the process by which people’s agency is recognised.

This means acknowledging their participation, interventions and demands much, much before they get to the ballot. There are legitimate means outside and in the margins of the power game that we should not fear to use. We do not need to hope that army generals exert self-restraint from political intervention in the future. Instead, we should make it our demand by demonstrating that we can in fact symbolically, practically and democratically remove unlawful leadership now — even without the assistance of compromised parties.

Only those institutions and leadership that have proven to be conducive to the people’s agency should be supported — at the moment, these are only the pre-Nov 3 judiciary, deposed judges and lawyers who stand against the PCO.

Losing Benazir...

Think!!...

Oath of the President of Pakistan

[Article 42 of the Constitution of Pakistan]

(In the name of Allah, the most Beneficent, the most Merciful.)
I, ____________, do solemnly swear that I am a Muslim and believe in the Unity and Oneness of Almighty Allah, the Books of Allah, the Holy Quran being the last of them, the Prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him) as the last of the Prophets and that there can be no Prophet after him, the Day of Judgment, and all the requirements and teachings of the Holy Quran and Sunnah:

That I will bear true faith and allegiance to Pakistan:

That, as President of Pakistan, I will discharge my duties, and perform my functions, honestly, to the best of my ability, faithfully in accordance with the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the law, and always in the interest of the sovereignty, integrity, solidarity, well- being and prosperity of Pakistan:

That I will not allow my personal interest to influence my official conduct or my official decisions:

That I will preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan:

That, in all circumstances, I will do right to all manner of people, according to law, without fear or favor, affection or ill- will:

And that I will not directly or indirectly communicate or reveal to any person any matter which shall be brought under my consideration or shall become known to me as President of Pakistan, except as may be required for the due discharge of my duties as President.

May Allah Almighty help and guide me (A'meen).

Oaths by the members of the Armed Forces

[Article 244 of the Constitution of Pakistan]

(In the name of Allah, the most Beneficent, the most Merciful.)
I, ____________, do solemnly swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance to Pakistan and uphold the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which embodies the will of the people, that I will not engage myself in any political activities whatsoever and that I will honestly and faithfully serve Pakistan in the Pakistan Army (or Navy or Air Force) as required by and under the law.

May Allah Almighty help and guide me (A'meen).

How much is too much...

People of Pakistan (amongst others) have had it! They are clearly of the view that Musharraf ought to exit the big stage. The latter, being perceived as a ‘Musharraf-syndrome’, seems to be the raison d’etre of the mental agitations persistent amongst the masses, not only in Pakistan, but beyond that. Not only Musharraf, his so-called beloved army personnel (should accompany him as well).

Pakistan Army (by means of the respective Generals during their tenure) has been directly in power (usurped over and over again) under the guise of martial law for almost 30 years and in clear disregard of the principles and viewpoints of its founders and to utter dismay of the public and world at large.

The list of tragedies suffered by this country and its inhabitants is non-exhaustive. Pakistan lost its two former premiers through unnatural deaths. Sindhis and Urdu speaking Sindhis (some like to call them Mohajirs) were divided ethnically forever with the apparent and commonly perceived notion that the same was done so that Sindh never stands united for its basic rights.

Zulifkar Ali Bhutto, as a leader, endeavoured to uplift the image and integrity of Pakistan at the expense of his life. He was hanged because his pro-active stances gave birth to the ‘fiction’ that the power should lie in the hands of the people; i.e., attainment of democracy, as understood in civilized nations.

Our nuclear program is subjected to concerns like falling into unsafe hands and should be rolled back or secured by the West, raising serious question marks over the control and safety of our nukes.

Widespread violation and abuse of human rights from Mukhtaran Mai case to house arresting more than 200 hundred judges and lawyers tells a tale to all those who are willing to comprehend the graveness of the persisting unrest in Pakistan.

Every time the Generals’ have taken control they have violated and abrogated the Constitution so much so that the country has been exposed to risks like disintegrating, which are reminiscence of the Dhaka fall in 1971.

Unwittingly and unintentionally, our Army jawans are being used as mercenaries and the Americans have payed 10 billion dollars during a span of six years for fighting their proxy war on our land. Our own soldiers, who are duty bound to protect us are killing our innocent children, women and men, inadvertently or otherwise, with the purpose of winning the hearts of the Americans.

Three out of four provinces are aggrieved to the extent that they are openly challenging the genuineness of the bond between the provinces and there appears to be no desire to stay united; depicting similar discontent as was seen in the people of East Pakistan.

Few amongst us are aware of the contents of the Hamood Ur Rehman Commission report or even its existence. Such report never got published. All the 12 copies of the report were destroyed except the one that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had, which too, by design, was not published.

Political and constitutional crisis in the country is deepening by the day and none of it is likely to be resolved/addressed by parliamentary elections (if held) scheduled for February 18.

Pakistan has been repeatedly termed as a failed, corrupt dangerous and a terrorist state but no remorse was / is forthcoming from our government on branding Pakistan with such derogatory remarks.

Suicide bombings are frequent as ever and scores of innocent people have been killed in such bombings. Everything has been tried and tested by the government to mute the critics; from lashing people to assassinating them.

Private media was silenced through promulgating laws against them. All the past elections were rigged and the coming elections would also be rigged to the extent that there should not be any one in majority so that the imposed President (by the Army) could not be impeached.

Judiciary has been repeatedly used as a tool to perpetuate the terms of Musharraf but recently all those judges who defied the so called ‘King’ are under house arrest and threatened to be eliminated if they do not accept the PCO, which indeed, shall remain a mockery of any legislation and by any standard.

The manner in which Benazir’s murder investigations were handled, led the common man to think that the same was not undertaken with the requisite conviction and seriousness; leading to doubts and rumours apropos the possibility of the involvement of the government in this heinous act.

Eight years of Musharraf’s power has given people sugar debacle, wheat crisis, poisonous water in certain parts of the country, cement crisis, stock exchange scams and acute gas and electricity shortages. With the aforementioned status quo, buying a vote for a meager Rs.500 would not be difficult at all in the upcoming election campaign.

The new Army HQ to be built on 2500 acres of Islamabad’s prime land, which includes lakes, schools, hospitals and housing projects, is estimated to cost the exchequer more than Rs.120 billion. Can a third world nation like ours afford such an infrastructure? Musharraf should question himself: isn’t this divide and injustice enough to indoctrinate the destitute to take steps like suicide bombings?

Insurgency in NWFP has claimed more than 80 lives. Has anyone given a thought about them? As to who will feed their families? Who is responsible for such ghastly acts? Those injured in the attacks will have to live with their disabilities for life. Seems like we are also waiting for a promised Messiah.

All the Army generals who seized power had to leave unceremoniously and had to step down unwillingly; one of them even lost his life. Does that mean anything? I would leave that to your imagination! .

I quote Asma Jehangir: “If a civilian president had done what Musharraf has done, he would have been dragged by his hair to the sea.” If he were to contest the elections, he wouldn’t even win a seat for himself and same goes for his Q league. They are aware that people are not going to vote for them and that is why the postponement of the election seems a looming possibility.

There is a lot of discontent among people; feelings are running so high that the Army officers have been advised not to venture in public places in their uniforms to avoid retaliation of people. Time has come for the establishment to realize that power should only rest in the hands of people and usurping power with force is most detrimental to all concerned.

In view of the preceding observations it seems to be a fair comment to make that Pakistan will have to bear the brunt of the inhumane attitudes. To me the imposed President should bear the brunt; not Pakistan.

Asim H. Akhund

What a disgrace!!!

WEST first

Musharraf’s lifting of ban the on GEO television channel just before he embarked on his uninvited visits to EU heads of states make his claims, of liberating the media, baseless. Musharraf never freed the media for the love of the country, had that been the case he would not have ever banned them. Now the question arises why did he lift the ban. For obvious reasons he lifted the ban to appease his EU and US counterparts and to have their support and blessings in another round of rigged elections. That clearly shows Musharraf’s motives.

Asim H. Akhund

Musharraf’s Last Stand

By clinging to power, the president is making Pakistan fight the wrong battle—against him, rather than the extremists destabilizing the nuclear-armed nation.

By Fareed Zakaria

NEWSWEEK

Updated: 2:22 PM ET Jan 12, 2008

This was supposed to be a foreign-policy election. Iraq, Iran, North Korea were going to be prominent on the campaign agenda in 2008. In fact, over the past few months, the wider world has been receding. Violence in Iraq is down. The threat from Iran seems less urgent. We're negotiating with North Korea. But one country has been all over the news and is being debated on the campaign trail—Pakistan. Pakistan worries everyone. Commentators talk of rising instability and national peril. Proliferation experts like Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warn that the country's nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands. Presidential contenders threaten to get tough with Islamabad. And to add urgency to these discussions come periodic terror attacks, including one last Thursday, outside the Lahore High Court, that killed 19 policemen and bystanders.

I watched this debate from Pakistan, leaving Lahore one day before the bombing. Pakistanis—somewhat dazed in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto's assassination—are not quite sure how to take in all the attention. Most are intrigued by their newfound prominence, defensive about the gloomy picture painted of their country and hopeful that their problems will lead to international help. But all are genuinely worried. Things have rarely looked as bad.

In the past year Pakistan has suffered its worst violence since the riots that followed its founding in 1947. And in the past six months it has careered from one political and constitutional crisis to another, none of which has been resolved, or is likely to be resolved by parliamentary elections scheduled for Feb. 18. "We have all these problems coming together at the same time," says Jehangir Karamat, the former chief of staff of the armed forces. "The suicide bombings in our cities and towns, the insurgency in the western regions, the lawyers' protests, the challenge to the regime's legitimacy." In fact, Pakistan is facing two crises—one political and the other security-related. It might have been more convenient to tackle them sequentially, but that is no longer an option. The country will face them simultaneously over the next few months, and how well it does will determine whether this nuclear-armed nation veers badly off course.

Pakistan is a messy place, with only unpalatable choices, which is why many believe that in this land of the blind, Pervez Musharraf is king. George W. Bush, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy—all have bet on Musharraf. He's not perfect, in their view, but he is a bold leader who fights terrorism and has the competence to move this complex country in a modern direction. Until recently it was a good bet. When Musharraf took control of the government in 1999, Pakistan was spiraling downward, its economy a shambles, its military intertwined with jihadists in Afghanistan and Kashmir, and its politics deeply corrupt. Musharraf was forced to make a choice after 9/11 and acted decisively. Once the principal sponsor of the Taliban government, Pakistan quickly helped the United States topple it. Over the next two years, Musharraf weakened support for something much closer to his military's heart— the jihad in Kashmir, which kept a third of the Indian Army tied down in that state. To understand the magnitude of these shifts, bear in mind that the Pakistani military has had only two policy successes over the past three decades—installing a friendly regime in Afghanistan and bleeding India at low cost over Kashmir.

In a wide-ranging conversation at his Camp Office in Rawalpindi on Jan. 7, Musharraf came across, as always, as smart and thoroughly modern. In the past he has spoken admiringly of Turkey's founder, Kemal Ataturk, and denounced Islamic extremism. He's instituted economic reforms, and embraced science and secular education. By all accounts, he has not been tarred by the personal corruption that had become routine for Pakistani leaders, though of course he is part of a broader structure of military power and privilege that is massive, arbitrary and accountable only to itself.

One year ago, if Pervez Musharraf had ceded power (there were many different ways to do so) and allowed for a transition to democratic rule, he would, over time, have been remembered as Pakistan's most significant leader since Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, perhaps even since its founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. There are many caveats and qualifications to this characterization—I can hear the shrieks from Pakistan's urban liberals—but on balance, I believe that it holds. While intellectuals and activists in Lahore and Islamabad had many complaints, in September 2006—after Musharraf had been in office seven years—average income had risen 55 percent, TV and print media were flourishing, and his approval rating hovered above 60 percent.

But over the past year, Musharraf has embarked on a series of moves that have destroyed his claims to being a modernizer, his reputation as a statesman and his popularity with his own people. Many outside Pakistan do not quite realize the sea change that has taken place. Musharraf is now deeply unpopular; significant majorities distrust anything he says. He is routinely accused of masterminding Bhutto's death, rigging the elections in advance and being in cahoots with terrorists. His approval rating was 30 percent in November 2007, in the latest of five national surveys conducted by the International Republican Institute over the previous 18 months. It has almost certainly gone down significantly since then, in the wake of Bhutto's assassination. When asked what they thought of his (engineered) re-election as president in October 2007, a stunning 61 percent said that they "strongly disagreed," and an additional 11 percent said they "disagreed." And polls in Pakistan are likely to overstate the level of support for a military ruler.

Why has this happened? Musharraf realized last year that Pakistan's laws and courts were obstacles to his central aspiration—to remain in power—and he responded by cutting them down. When it became clear that the Supreme Court stood in his way, he fired its chief justice. When the charges he brought against the chief justice were unanimously dismissed by a 13-judge panel (including five hand-picked ones), he declared an emergency and fired the chief justice and 60 other judges of various superior courts, placing most of them under house arrest. When lawyers protested, he arrested their leaders, including the highly respected head of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Aitzaz Ahsan. Musharraf shut down TV stations, then reopened some after they were forced to sign a "code of conduct."

Musharraf has explained his actions—all wildly unpopular—as necessary to fight terror, and banked on foreign reporters' not checking the details of a complex saga. For example, Musharraf claims the judges had gone soft on terror, releasing jihadists arrested during the siege of Islamabad's Red Mosque last year. It's true that three judges had acquitted the Islamists, but Musharraf has retained all three. "The principle by which he fired judges is clear," says Asma Jahangir, the courageous chair of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and a respected lawyer. "Those who were relatively independent were sacked. Only the scum remain."

Musharraf's struggle to stay in power has also reinforced his alliance with thoroughly illiberal forces. Having packed the courts, amended the Constitution, muzzled the media and battled with the major political parties, Musharraf has alienated all the modern, secular and liberal forces in Pakistan, with the exception of some businessmen and his own community of "mohajirs" (refugees from India) in Sindh. He now relies for his support on the military, an assortment of feudal politicians and some friendly fundamentalists. In Rawalpindi he spoke of other politicians, including the late Benazir, with undisguised hostility. Although he is an intelligent, well-meaning man whose vision for Pakistan remains moderate and secular, he has become a deeply polarizing force in Pakistan. Musharraf's selling point has always been that even though he was not elected, he has been a liberalizing dictator. Over the past year, he has lost claim to the adjective.

Does that mean Musharraf's days are numbered? Not exactly. Mushahid Hussain, secretary-general of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party aligned with the president (often described as the "king's party"), says, "He's a cat with nine lives, and he still has two left." It may not be his feline qualities that keep him in office, though, but the support of the armed forces. Whatever happens at the polls, Pakistan's military, allied with elements of the country's traditional, quasi-feudal establishment, will still wield immense power. Its control of the Pakistani state is deep and has actually increased over the past decade, as Musharraf has placed retired generals in key positions of authority.

But Musharraf could also face a powerful political opposition in the National Assembly. Unless the elections are rigged, every independent expert predicts that the king's party will do badly. Opposition leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari (Benazir's widower and the new co-head of her Pakistan Peoples Party) are united in their basic agenda. "Our No. 1 demand is the restoration of the judiciary," Sharif told me. "Nothing is more important than that." Zardari said, "The whole structure of power must change in this country. The military must get out of politics."

At a political and constitutional level, the crisis in Pakistan is actually good news. Civil society has mobilized. The print media have been utterly fearless in its criticism of the president. Musharraf's actions have given the parties an agenda to get passionate about, and so far they have not succumbed to the infighting that often destroyed them in the past. It would be a mistake to romanticize Pakistan's democrats. Many are feudal, corrupt and pliant. But increasingly there are some young and talented ones emerging as well. The polls may be rigged, though there are fewer opportunities than before for massive illegalities. The king's party may be able to buy allegiances after the elections. But it is also possible that Pakistan's political class might surprise us with its maturity.

There is a solution to Pakistan's political crisis, one that will allow Musharraf to leave on a high note. First, he must hold free and fair elections. Musharraf's current plan is to wield power as part of a troika—the Army chief, the prime minister and himself as president. This will work only if he is the weakest leg of that stool. He has already appointed a decent man as head of the Army, and he can allow a stable parliamentary coalition to elect a prime minister who can run the country. Musharraf should recognize that he has become far too controversial to be able to lead his nation and should instead recede from power. The example to follow is Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, now universally feted for bringing democracy to that country. Musharraf is said to be convinced that he is indispensable to Pakistan's future. He should remember the words of another general turned politician, Charles de Gaulle, who, when told he was indispensable to France, is said to have replied, "The graveyards are filled with indispensable people."

That still leaves Pakistan's other, more dangerous, crisis—the new jihad. Once nestled within the tribal areas of Pakistan and in neighboring Afghanistan, groups of militants have now begun to move freely into the settled towns and cities of the east. In the past year there have been 46 suicide bombings, killing more than 1,000 people. Attacks have taken place almost everywhere in the country. Most major political figures have been targeted, as have the police. In the past six months Army cantonments have been repeatedly attacked, and last fall two buses filled with officers from the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency were blown up. And, of course, in December, the country's most popular leader was killed.

The most troubling aspect of this wave of terror is that no one in Pakistan seems to understand why it's happening. Everyone I spoke to, from President Musharraf on down, was taken aback by the violence. When I asked the president about it, he began a long, rambling answer that decried blowback from the Afghan jihad in the late 1980s. But those fighters are now 50 years old. The ones blowing up Pakistanis are a new generation of young jihadists, motivated, networked and competent. If Musharraf has few answers, the political parties have largely ignored the problem, as have most journalists and commentators (with some important exceptions).

Theories abound. The Pakistani military was never fully committed to battling jihadists. Having spent decades training fighters for Kashmir and Afghanistan, the Army withdrew support but would not kill or arrest its former charges. While true at first, things appear to have changed in the past year. The armed forces are taking the battle to the militants, which explains why the jihadists are now targeting the Army in return. There remain some defense experts, like Talat Masood, a retired general, who argue that even now, the Army is softer on Afghan and Kashmiri jihadists, believing that keeping those places somewhat unstable is in Pakistan's long-term interests. (The Army assumes that the United States will eventually tire of the war and leave, and India will benefit from a stronger Afghanistan.) "The idea that a stable Afghanistan and India mean peace and development—that's something that the Pakistani Army doesn't really believe in its heart," says Masood.

Washington itself bears a significant part of the blame. The Taliban were never really defeated after the fall of Kabul. They simply went into hiding and regrouped, and yet the American Army declared victory and left. "You outsourced the most important battlefield of the War on Terror to NATO troops that did not have the mission, training or will to actually fight it," says PML leader Hussain. (The Pentagon is now considering sending an additional 3,000 Marines to southern Afghanistan.) The rise of the Taliban in Pakistan's tribal areas was also ignored. The first military operation there took place in 2004, two and a half years after the jihadists had retreated there, largely because the Pakistani Army didn't want to get bogged down in an area marked by disputed borders and fiercely independent people.

It's easier to diagnose what went wrong than say what should be done to put it right. Some have argued for stronger military measures, but the Pakistani military (with U.S. assistance) has been fighting these forces with mixed success. Others argue for greater political efforts at reconciliation and rehabilitation, a view Musharraf himself shares. But these measures so far have not worked. Musharraf's deal with the tribal leaders in 2005 and 2006 have failed—by his own admission. Some critics argue that these were hasty arrangements, designed out of desperation. What is needed, they say, is a much broader effort to revive the politics of the tribal regions and Baluchistan (the other danger zone) and to integrate them more fully into Pakistan.

Counterinsurgency and nation-building, which is what we're talking about, is a long, hard slog. The Pakistani state has limited capacity, especially in regions that have been "no go" zones for hundreds of years. Even its much-vaunted Army isn't really up to the job, having been designed to fight the Indian Army, not small gangs of Pashtun warriors. But if there is a missing component to the battle against the new jihadists it is that throughout Pakistan, this is seen as America's war, or Musharraf's war, but not as Pakistan's war. No one has been able to enlist the Pakistani people in the effort to marginalize the militants and at the same time provide political and economic development, as well as an ideological alternative to tales of jihad and martyrdom. Right now Pakistan's politics are focused on an entirely different battle—over the president and his illegal power grabs. Very few are willing to join a struggle that he will spearhead. Unless he can find a way to take himself out of the spotlight, Musharraf and his fate will eclipse the serious security issues facing Pakistan.

The American debate has been, as is often the case, largely removed from reality. The two scenarios that obsess Western politicians—loose nukes and empowered mullahs—are overhyped. Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is, by all accounts, firmly embedded in the command-and-control structure of its military, with multiple supervisors and ultimate oversight by the prime minister and president. The second, related worry—that Islamic militants will take over the country—is even less plausible. For better or worse, Pakistan is run by a military that is disciplined and (mostly) secular, especially in its current leadership. The country's politics are dominated by parties that are mainstream and moderate in their interpretation of Islam. Fundamentalists have never done well in Pakistan's elections, gaining just over 11 percent of the vote in the 2002 elections, held in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Public-opinion polls all concur that these parties will be routed in February's elections.

The U.S. candidates' policy proposals have been depressing in their lack of seriousness. Does anyone believe that Pakistan would allow Washington and London to secure its nuclear arsenal? Or that it would meekly let the U.S. Army invade its territory to fight terrorists? The real question we face in Pakistan is what to do about the upcoming elections to ensure that they are free and fair. We need to walk Musharraf back from a power struggle in which he is pitted against an independent judiciary and democratically elected politicians. And above all we must find a way to work with the Pakistani people and not a handful of generals. Otherwise the intense anti-Americanism in Pakistan—fast rising because of our support for Musharraf—will produce a new wave of jihadists, born in the mountains of the frontier, tested in battle against the Pakistani Army and thirsting to fight the ultimate enemy, thousands of miles away.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/91662

How can you sleep at night? Why can't you just leave?

Musharraf has really done a lot for Pakistan

Musharraf's gift to Pakistan

Freewill of Bangalis was considered a threat just like it is now for Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP.

In 1966 Mujib announced his controversial six-point political and economic program for East Pakistani provincial autonomy. He demanded: -

1. The government be federal and parliamentary in nature, its members to be elected with legislative representation on the basis of population,
   
2. The federal government have principal responsibility for foreign affairs and defense only,
   
3. Each wing have its own currency and separate fiscal accounts,
   
4. Taxation would occur at the provincial level, with a federal government funded by constitutionally guaranteed grants,
   
5. Each federal unit could control its own earning of foreign exchange; and
   
6. Each unit could raise its own militia or paramilitary forces.
   

Mujib's six points ran directly counter to President Ayub's plan for greater national integration. Mujib was arrested in January 1968.

(Courtesy: http://storyofpakistan.com)

Wish I was part of this march but perhaps I have a dead conscience...

Benazir: no hidden stooge of the government

By Amber Darr

On Dec 27, Benazir Bhutto was brutally and tragically murdered. Her death is a national loss, not because of what she may have delivered as a politician but for what she represented. Her image was that of a highly educated and sufficiently westernised and liberal leader who had the potential to free Pakistan from the yoke of military rule and lead it into democracy. Her image was also that of an eastern woman who despite her fragility had the courage to stand up to military dictators and despite her strength had the gentleness to nurture a family. For a country that is fast becoming synonymous with gun-wielding terrorists, her image was important.

It is the loss of this image that the country is mourning and it is for the memory of this image that the Pakistan People's Party will seek the public vote in the upcoming elections. It is therefore imperative not only for making an educated choice in the upcoming elections, but in order to honour the truth about Benazir, to unravel her persona in the wake of her death and to attempt to understand what she stood for, particularly in the run-up to the 2008 elections.

In the months preceding her death, Benazir's image as a democratic leader had been severely tarnished. Although she had advocated democracy, the manner of her return to Pakistan on Oct 18, 2007--after eight years of self-imposed exile--and her subsequent stance on the issue of the independence of judiciary had led critics to believe that her struggle was not for democracy but for power and personal glory. Her return to Pakistan had been made possible only by the highly discriminatory and entirely undemocratic National Reconciliation Ordinance, 2007, which allowed for the withdrawal of all prosecution proceedings pending against her. After her return, her position towards the illegal removal of judges by the government remained dubious. She claimed that the government's treatment of the judiciary, and indeed of the legal community, was an anathema to the rule of law, but she carefully separated the judicial crisis from the issue of participation in the elections.

Her death, however, has forced her critics to re-examine their earlier judgment because suddenly it seems evident that had she been a stooge of the government, she may not have died at the hands of an assassin. The government's subsequent handling of her murder has lent credence to this initial realisation and raises the question that if she had not been towing the establishment line, why did she return to Pakistan under the auspices of the National Reconciliation Ordinance and why did she remain detached from the issue of the independence of the judiciary?

Benazir perhaps knew something that her critics did not appreciate. She understood that the government had orchestrated corruption cases against her to keep her out of Pakistani politics. It was imperative for her to find a mechanism by which the charges against her could be dropped. The National Reconciliation Ordinance -- which was hurriedly promulgated by General Musharraf a day ahead of his presidential election of Oct 6, 2007, and only after he had realised that he had been irreparably weakened in the course of the judicial crisis--achieved that objective. However, had her objective only been to free herself from the charges of corruption, she would not have returned to Pakistan in the face of death threats and would certainly not have persisted in her agenda after the heinous bomb blast in Karachi within hours of her arrival.

If the National Reconciliation Ordinance was a necessary step in the process of her return to Pakistan her studied silence on the issue of the independence of the judiciary was more controversial. The reason most often cited in her lifetime as an explanation for this silence was that a case challenging the National Reconciliation Ordinance had been pending before the pre-Nov 3 judiciary. Benazir could not risk an adverse outcome in that case because her very presence in Pakistan depended on the National Reconciliation Ordinance. An alternative explanation may however be that Benazir was aware of the establishment's antipathy towards her and had been through the political mill for sufficiently long to realise that nothing could be gained by taking on the establishment. Had she opted to champion the cause of the judiciary at the outset, she may have achieved nothing more than a stalemate, taking advantage of which, the Musharraf government could have prolonged the emergency, indefinitely delayed the elections, retained its stranglehold on power and still not reinstated the deposed judges. Her decision to contest the elections ensured that the electoral process would not be derailed, and although it seemed opportunistic at the time, it appears in hindsight to have been merely pragmatic. .

Benazir had struggled against the Zia regime in the '80s. It was a heroic chapter of her life which she recalls at length in her book Daughter of the East written immediately prior to her election as prime minister for the first time. Re-reading that book in the aftermath of her death, it is difficult to believe that she could have suffered a complete change of heart towards military dictators. The disparity between her passionate outrage against the Zia regime then and her more measured dealings with the Musharraf regime now suggests that while the Benazir of the '80s had promise and potential, the Benazir of 2007 had come of age as an astute politician who understood that patience was her strongest ally in her mission to rid Pakistan of a political army.

Had Benazir secured a majority in the elections, she may, on the sheer strength of her popularity, have succeeded in ensuring that she became prime minister for the third time. Once she had regained her foothold in power she would, in all likelihood, have cast off the appearance of a compromise with the establishment, and particularly with General Musharraf. She may then have reaffirmed her deep-rooted ideological and personal opposition to the army in politics.

The establishment perhaps understood this and mistrusted, her despite her carefully crafted public statements in which she took care not to challenge the status quo. What she may have achieved, had she lived, is ultimately a matter of speculation: it is difficult to ascertain whether she would indeed have led Pakistan into true democracy as she promised or succumbed to the dynastic impulse demonstrated in her bequest of the office of chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party to her husband and 19-year-old son Bilawal. It is certain, however, that in her death, as in her life, she will remain a force for dictators to reckon with and will continue to be honoured by the citizens of Pakistan as a person who dared to reach out to them against all odds.



The writer is a barrister practising in Islamabad. Email: amber.darr@gmail.com