The greatest beneficiary

Pakistan’s new civilian president, retired General Pervez Musharraf has announced a parcel of measures to lift the state of emergency he decreed on 3 November, just in time to ensure that next month’s general election will be seen as ‘free and fair’. The five presidential orders, according to Dawn’s Nasir Iqbal, are:

Revocation of Proclamation of Emergency Order 2007, Repeal of Provisional Constitution Order, Revival of Constitutional Order, Establishment of Islamabad High Court and grant of pension benefits to judges who had either refused or had not been invited by the government to take the oath under the PCO.

Talking to media personnel at the Supreme Court, he [Musharraf] said that with the lifting of the emergency and the repeal of the PCO, all fundamental rights would stand restored and the media would be the greatest beneficiary.

What Musharraf doesn’t mention is that, as Keith Jones reports on WSWS,

On Tuesday, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) issued a warning to the country’s private television stations, most of which only recently resumed broadcasting, threatening them with heavy fines and their personnel, including journalists, with jail sentences of up to three years if they violate a ban on live broadcasts or violate new regulations imposed during the emergency that forbid airing “anything which defames or brings into ridicule the head of state.”…The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists called the Pemra order “an attempt to silence the free media” and emasculate coverage of the election campaign.

With a Damoclean sword dangling precariously above them like that, Pakistani journalists will doutless derive great benefit from the sense of responsibility it imparts.

Although ‘deposed judges, including Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, would be granted pension benefits’,

“All judges of the superior courts who were not invited by the government to take oath under the PCO, or those who had declined to do so, will not be restored at all,” the attorney general said.

So there is no further danger of unruly activist judges finding that Musharraf was in fact not eligible to stand for election while in the employ of the state as the constitution provides. Under the circumstances, you can understand why

Pakistanis also do not accept Musharraf’s stated rationale for the state of emergency declaration. When given a choice between two options, 25 percent said that they thought Musharraf declared the emergency in order to better fight terrorists, while 66 percent said that it was to prevent the Supreme Court from overturning his re-election to another term as president.

Those figures come from a survey of ‘3,520 adult men and women from 223 rural and 127 urban locations in 51 districts in all four provinces of Pakistan’ conducted 19-28 November by the International Republican Institute (IRI), ‘A nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing democracy worldwide’. In reality, the IRI is the Republican Party’s branch of the US National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US government to advance its global war on democracy. Ordinarily, I am sceptical of surveys that don’t publish the questions asked and the other metadata that make the numbers intelligible. But in this case, the report of results seems fairly explicit and more importantly, the IRI favours the Musharraf regime, so I would expect any bias they might introduce to minimise opposition to Musharraf. And yet, they also found

When asked if they supported the recent re-election of Musharraf to another term as president, voters were overwhelmingly opposed; 26 percent said they supported his reelection and 72 percent said that they did not; 61 percent said that they strongly opposed Musharraf’s re-election.

A majority of Pakistanis want Musharraf to resign from office, with 67 percent wanting his resignation and 25 percent opposed.

To recap, the reason Musharraf could be elected with 72% opposed is that in Pakistan, it is not the electorate at large, but the National and Provincial Assemblies, who elect the president. Since Musharraf scheduled the presidential election before the parliamentary elections, and since the opposition boycotted the election and Benazir Bhutto’s PPP abstained, it was his tame legislators who voted for him.

Just to make sure that everything is aboveboard, Attorney-General

Mr [Mohammad] Qayyum said former prime minister Nawaz Sharif stood disqualified for the January 8 election. Shahbaz Sharif, he added, had not appealed against the rejection of his candidature during the stipulated time, so he also stood disqualified.

Furthermore, ‘The constitutional bar on a person to become prime minister for the third time would stay, he said.’ If correct, that means that in the unlikely case that the PPP should win enough seats to form government, Benazir will not be eligible to be PM. True to form, she and Nawaz have decided not to boycott the parliamentary election, even though

74 percent of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, voters said they would support the boycott, as did the same percentage of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) voters, the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

So, while six weeks of martial law may not have succeeded in eradicating terrorism in Pakistan, it has certainly served Musharraf’s interests very well indeed. Maybe two thirds of Pakistanis were right about that.

Let sanity prevail

The 8 October marked two years since the Richter 7.6 earthquake that ravaged Pakistani occupied Kashmir and adjacent areas of Indian ‘held’ Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Official estimates put the immediate death toll at over 70,000, but I have heard no less (and no more) credible estimates ranging as high as 200,000. The quake also left some 3 million to face the bitter Himalayan winter without shelter. There was an inspiring surge of individuals and small groups collecting and delivering clothing, food, blankets, tents, etc. Unfortunately, much of the clothing was inappropriate to both the climate and the cultural sensitivities of the victims and was seen strewn over the side of the road. A donors conference in Islamabad garnered about US$6 billion, most of it in the form of hard loans, the balance in ‘soft loans’. I have seen nothing indicating how much of this eventuated. Of particular note were the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay), which provided some 90 medical personnel, and Cuba, which sent 1400 doctors and hundreds of other health workers. Despite their generosity and that of the tent manufacturers (Pakistan is the world's foremost exporter of tents), NGOs, overseas groups, and the best efforts of the UN and the Pakistani military, many thousands spent weeks before seeing the first sign of relief. Roads into the Kaghan and adjacent valleys, subject to closure by landslides at the best of times, took a long time to clear. This MapAction map dated 22 October 2005 shows at least 15 impassable blockages on the Kaghan Valley road between Balakot and Naran.

Last week, Lt-Gen Nadeem Ahmed, deputy chairman of Erra, the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, told Dawn 'that the reconstruction and rehabilitation programme of the earthquake-affected areas is on track', boasting that

92,000 quake-resistant houses had been completed and another 250,000 were in various stages of completion. He said every family in the affected areas would have a house in six months.

Mr Ahmed said master plans for reconstruction of four severely destroyed cities -- Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Rawalakot in the AJK and Balakot in the NWFP -- had been prepared and were in initial stages of implementation.

Two full years after the disaster, initial stages is good enough for the hundreds of thousands who couldn't manage to squeeze into those 92,000 houses. But not everyopne is as complacent as Lt-Gen Ahmed. In the very same issue of Dawn, Raja Asghar reports,

problems abounded about the reconstruction of the region’s two most devastated towns – the Azad Kashmir’s capital of Muzaffarabad and Balakot in the NWFP.

...Many people in the region blame both military and civilian authorities for their housing problems, such as delays in the disbursement of even a paltry compensation of a maximum of Rs175,000 for a totally destroyed house and complained of widespread corruption such as bribes allegedly received by officials of joint teams for approving construction of homes of approved designs.

Such complaints were more widespread in the quake-ravaged villages but were heard on Sunday also in Muzaffarabad town, where some quake sufferers spoke of bribes ranging from Rs5,000 to Rs10,000 taken by petty officials such as patwaris or other members of local overseeing joint teams to approve payment of compensation.

.. former [Muzaffarabad] mayor Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed...said: “Corruption permeates through their blood. There is no sphere left where these is no corruption.”

Nor are the problems restricted to Muzaffarabad and Balakot. Khaleeq Kiani reports from Bagh in the Jhelum Valley

People in the urban areas of Bagh – a district of Azad Kashmir that ranked third in terms of devastation after Muzaffarabad and Balakot – are struggling to survive. The official slogan of “build, back better” seems to be a far cry in this district headquarters of Bagh, named so because its scenic beauty.

...A major portion of the town has now been declared a ‘red zone’, but in the absence of a master plan no construction could take place.

The National Engineering Services of Pakistan, which had been awarded the contract about 18 months ago to prepare the master plan, is yet to open its office in Bagh...

Bagh has been divided into four zones -- highly hazardous, hazardous, highly dangerous and moderately dangerous. No part of it falls in the low-danger or safe categories...“The situation remains as it was a year ago,” Dr Atiq [Zahid, a former medical superintendent of the district headquarters hospital] told Dawn on Sunday.

Khwaja Javed Iqbal, chairman of the Anjuman-i-Shehryan, says that residents of Bagh want President Pervez Musharraf to visit Bagh again to see for himself what happened to the promises he had made to the people on his first visit soon after the earthquake. The president had announced that he would convert this challenge into opportunity and said that a new Bagh would emerge from the ashes. “Bagh continues to be in ashes and has in fact turned into filthy debris,” says Mr Iqbal.

The president, General Pervez Musharraf, does not appear to be embarrassed about his complete failure to meet the challenge, exploit the opportunity, or provide desperately needed relief any more than he is about the poverty most of Pakistanis endure or the humiliating bombings his great benefactor, the decider, has been carrying out in Waziristan at a cost of at least 100 madrassa students. Nor is he embarrassed about his attempt to dismiss Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, which aroused a storm of protest and was ultimately reversed by the court itself. Nor about his inability to rein in his acid wielding, DVD burning allies or his hamfisted and murderous handling of the Lal Masjid crisis. And now, after much of the parliamentary opposition had conveniently resigned, and his new mate, Benazir Bhutto's, Pakistan People's Party abstaining, he is not embarrassed to exult in his stunning electoral success.

I bow my head in front of God Almighty for having given me such a great victory.

To put it in perspective, what the media have reported by and large is that he won '252 of 257 votes cast' in the National Assembly and the Senate, seemingly an astounding 98% majority. In reality, those 252 votes comprise just 57% of the sum of 342 members of the Assembly and the 100 Senators. In total, 1,170 national and provincial legislators were entitled to vote, of whom 685, about 59%, voted for Musharraf. Some media are also reporting that he 'ended up with a total of 384 electoral college votes out of 702'. The discrepancy arises because the way the electoral system works is that each Provincial Assembly has 65 electoral votes in the the presidential election, even though only the Balochistan Assembly actually has 65 members. So a vote by a member of the Punjab Assembly, with 371 members, would only be worth about one sixth as much as Balochi member.

When I first got to Pakistan, the received wisdom as I understood it was that this was precisely what Musharraf had in mind - to have himself reelected for another five year term by legislatures controlled by his party before the looming general election, due in a few weeks' time. I confess I was dubious that even Musharraf would be quite so shameless as to resort to such a transparently underhanded subterfuge. Even Turkey's soft Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) didn't manage to pull that one off when they had the opportunity a few months back. Even after Dubya's August pronouncement that his 'focus' was on a 'free and fair election', the General is not embarrassed to claim reelection.

I have appealed to the nation towards a conciliatory approach, and I have appealed to the -- first of all, the nation, the people of Pakistan, not to join or reject any calls for strikes and agitational activity. I have appealed to the lawyers to have -- let sanity prevail. They are all educated people, and I hope, in the -- for justice and for peace, they adopt an approach of Pakistan comes first. On the media, I have asked the media to give the positives, to adopt a balanced approach. I’m the greatest supporter of their independence and give a confidence -- a feeling of confidence, a feeling of feeling good attitude to be developed, mindset to be developed, within the people of Pakistan. And I’ve also extended a conciliatory approach to all the opposition parties. This is what I’ve done. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

After all, it would be insane to protest a military dictator pretending to have won a presidential election, again. In the absence of sanity, however, he refuses to eschew declaring a state of emergency should the Supreme Court rule when it convenes next week that he is ineligible to stand - Article 63 of the Constitution prohibits state employees from standing for office. This is, by the way, the same President General Pervez Musharraf, the same great supporter of media independence, who issued an edict not so many months ago banning live reports of demonstrations, among other things. The same guy who had the studios of Geo TV ransacked. Credit where credit's due - the guy's got balls.

Of course, the General is not alone in his immunity to embarrassment. The only reason the election could take place at all was the deal that he reached with Bhutto. Apparently as a quid pro quo for dropping the well evidenced corruption charges against her, she had agreed that the PPP's members in the National Assembly would abstain, but attend the election session, rendering it quorate. Tariq Ali told Democracy Now! presenter Amy Goodman Wednesday

the second time she came to power, her government was incredibly corrupt, and the military then, when Musharraf came to power, charged her with corruption. The evidence is there; it’s irrefutable. And as part of the deal now, this corruption is being ignored, which is making people incredibly cynical.

Without a thought for W's August demand for a free and fair election, White House National Security Council spokesperson Gordon Johndroe sent felicitations.

"Pakistan is an important partner and ally to the United States and we congratulate them for today's election. We look forward to the electoral commission's announcement and to working with all of Pakistan's leaders on important bilateral, regional and counterterrorism issues,"

As I always say, ‘embarrassing a politician with accusations of hypocrisy is like embarrassing a dog with accusations he licks his own balls’.

It's not perfect

On Wednesday, US President George W Bush, the leader of the free world, and champion of freedom for the unfree world, addressed a press roundtable at the Kempinski Grand Hotel in Heiligendamm, Germany. In answer to the question, ‘But if you think democracy is the best way to confront radicals and terrorists, shouldn't we be pushing hard for democracy to really get established in Pakistan?’ he replied

Well, democracy is -- it's a lot more established in Pakistan than some of the other nations I mentioned. And there's upcoming elections. And what you're seeing is a lot of posturing about the election process, and it's not perfect. Either was our democracy perfect for 100 years when we enslaved people.

To underscore how robust the establishment of democracy in Pakistan really is, Dawn reports

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that a man handed over to the Military Intelligence by Faisalabad police in 2004 be produced in court. The Faisalabad police deputy inspector-general had admitted before the court that Hafiz Abdul Basit had been arrested by police in January 2004 but after recording his statement he was handed over to Capt Amir of the MI.

A Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Falak Sher has taken up petitions of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP)…

Mr Basit’s uncle Hafiz Abdul Nasir claimed that when he himself was abducted by the military to pressure his nephew, he was in critical condition.

However, National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) Director Col Javed Iqbal Lodhi insisted that the cell had no information about Mr Basit.

Mr Basit is only one of hundreds who have disappeared into the bowels of Pakistan’s democratic security establishment. It was largely thanks to his demands for the release of disappeared persons that General Musharraf relieved Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry of his post, the principal catalyst for the current imbroglio. Justices Javed, Abdul, and Falak might need to take care how they pursue these cases, lest they find themselves on the receiving end of Pakistani freedom.

Also on Wednesday, civil rights campaigner

Syed Mohammed Iqbal Kazmi, who recently filed petitions on the May 12 mayhem in Karachi and the new Pemra ordinance, went missing after he dropped his 12-year-old son at the house of his mother-in-law in Gulistan-i-Jauhar.

Just yesterday, Pakistan again evidenced its profound respect for freedom when, Raja Asghar reports

…another first in Pakistan’s parliamentary history as Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain was quoted to have ordered his staff not to let journalists enter the parliament building to cover Thursday’s sitting of the National Assembly in what seemed to be a reprisal for a previous day’s unprecedented incident when they chanting slogans from the press gallery had scuffles with non-journalists who allegedly tried to undermine their protest walkout by occupying reporters’ seats.

Only members of the state media — the Pakistan Television, Radio Pakistan and the Associated Press of Pakistan -- were allowed entry to cover the…newly-promulgated Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) (Amendment) Ordinance providing for easier and harder punishments for perceived violations of the original Pemra law.

All journalists from newspapers, private television channels and other domestic and foreign news organisations were not allowed entry when they arrived at the parliament building for the scheduled 10am start of the National Assembly sitting. But they stayed on outside under a scorching sun [yesterday’s high temperature was 41C/105F], often chanting slogans such as “we want freedom” and “Pemra Ordinance na-manzoor (unacceptable)” whenever a government minister or other assembly members would come and drive into the parliament premises.

To further demonstrate how freedom flourishes in the ‘Land of the pure’, Dawn reported Wednesday that

Scores of journalists, civil society representatives, lawyers and politicians, who staged a torch-bearing protest against new curbs on the media here on Monday, were booked by police on multiple charges, including...chanting anti- government slogans.

…the case had been registered on the directive of the government who had ordered the police to take strict action against the protesters.

Among those named were 250 journalists, including Rawalpindi-Islamabad Press Club president Mushtaq Minhas.

Former federal minister Julius Salik, Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) information secretary Ahsan Iqbal and a representative of civil society, Jehangir Akhter, were booked on the charge of provoking the journalists during the procession.

Besides, the police also booked several lawyers and representatives of civil society.

At the same time, according to Carlotta Gall, writing in the NY Times on Wednesday,

The provincial home secretary of Punjab, Khusro Fazal Khan, told the independent channel GEO Television that the police had arrested 312 political party local leaders and workers throughout the province. They were detained under an article of law in force since Friday that bans gatherings of more than 5 people.

Opposition parties say hundreds of their workers have been rounded up in house raids in the last few days in the Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province. Legislators protested the arrests at the opening of a new session of Parliament, called after a three-week recess, but the speaker refused them time.

In the time honoured tradition of freedom loving leaders, the Times reports the Pakistani daily The News quoted General Musharraf at a Wednesday meeting with senior members of the governing party, the Pakistan Muslim League, which gives him his base of support in Parliament, “If I myself have to do everything, then you are for what purpose?”

As President Bush said on Wednesday, ‘The process and progress move at different paces and different places…in the long run, the best way to secure your society is through liberty. In the short run, let's work collaboratively to protect ourselves.’ Either the Pakistanis have all the liberty they deserve, or they can wait until the Americans feel adequately protected.

Your lips are sealed

With the world’s attention diverted to Venezuela, whose democratically elected ‘dictator’, Hugo Chavez, has not renewed the license of a broadcaster implicated in the 2002 coup that briefly overthrew the elected government and replaced it with a ‘democratic’ junta more to Washington’s liking, Pakistan’s actual military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, yesterday provided new powers to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA).

[BBC photo]

Just months after parliament had legislated on the relevant issues after years of consultation the new ordinance empowers PEMRA to act against media outlets independent of the committee established for the purpose. Dawn reports

The ordinance authorises the Pemra to confiscate the equipment of broadcasters and seal the premises without consulting a council of complaints.

The council was envisaged in the amendments passed in February. The amendment increased the fine for violators to Rs10 million from the existing Rs1 million.

Some 10 amendments were made in the Pemra (Amendment) Act passed in February this year. An amended sub-section (5) of Section 29 reads: “Provided further that the Authority or the chairman may seize a broadcast or distribution service equipment or seal the premises which is operating illegally or (in) contravention of orders passed under Section 30.”

Freedom of expression as understood in Pakistan precludes criticism of the military or the judiciary, so that is the context in which to construe the expression ‘operating illegally’. Two privately owned television stations, Aaj [‘today’] and ARY One World, had already been denied permission to do live broadcasts under existing rules.

A new provision -- Section 39 (A) -- even authorised the Pemra to make rules and regulations on its own from time to time by simply issuing notifications. It says: “The Authority may, by notification in the official gazette, make regulations, not inconsistent with the ordinance and the rules made thereunder, to provide for all matters for which provision is necessary or expedient for carrying out the purposes of this ordinance.”

As soon as the new ordinance was announced, journalists took to the streets of Islamabad.

[Dawn photo]

Meanwhile, the National Security Council ‘agreed to draw up a multi-pronged strategy to deal with terrorism and extremism and create employment opportunities for the youth, especially in Fata [Federally Administered Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan] and the NWFP [Northwest Frontier Province].’

In a move that would be derided as populist opportunism if President General Musharraf were not such a good friend of the Free World and such a close ally in the war of terrorism, he asserted

…that the new federal budget would be a catalyst in bringing about a qualitative change in the life of the poor and ensuring fast economic development. He said poverty would be brought down and job opportunities created through a record Public Sector Development Programme. He said massive economic development activities would be generated as a result of massive allocations for various development projects.

President Musharraf said the country had achieved record economic growth. He underlined the need for transferring the benefits of development to people at the grass-root level. He said measures would be taken to ensure the availability of essential items at subsidised rates. He said steps were being taken to check price hike, especially of items of daily use. He said measures would be taken to check inflation.

He said salaries and pensions of government employees would be increased.

Doubtless such vacuous promises are very welcome in a country where 65.6% of the population live on less than US$2 per day and 13.4% under $1. A full 26% are under Pakistan’s own poverty line. Which is not really surprising when cops get Rs3000 (US$50) per month and a primary school teacher can earn as little as Rs1200 ($20) a month.

In an apparent rebuff to General Musharraf, Dawn reported that yesterday, the Supreme Court ‘turned down federal government’s request for initiating contempt of the court proceedings against the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) for defaming the judiciary and military at a seminar’.

What censorship?

Further to Friday’s post, the BBC reports that the threat to the media was not idle.

On Thursday Pakistan's information minister warned that the government would strictly enforce media laws forbidding criticism of the army and the judiciary.

Two private TV channels have now been prevented from live broadcasting after making alleged criticisms of the army and judiciary.

Aaj [‘today’] and ARY One World rely on cable operators who have said that the country's broadcasting regulator has ordered them to cut the feeds for the two channels.

President Musharraf has blamed the broadcast media for stoking the crisis triggered by the suspension of the chief justice [Iftikhar Chaudhry].

Moreover, the top military commanders issued a statement after their meeting with Musharraf Friday threatening they

"took serious note of the malicious campaign against Institutions of State, launched by vested interests and opportunists who were acting as obstructionist forces to serve their personal interests and agenda even at the cost of flouting the rule of law…Any attempt by a small minority to obstruct the aspirations of vast majority would only derail the nation from its path of progress and prosperity."

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra), Dawn’s Amir Wasim reports, has written to the private TV channels banning coverage of the chief justice affair and that it ‘expects maturity and a sense of responsibility from the broadcasters’. Furthermore,

“No programme shall be aired which (i) is likely to encourage and incite violence or contains anything against maintenance of law and order or which promotes anti-national and anti-state attitude; (ii) contains anyRAand integrity of the armed forces of Pakistan; (iv) maligns or slander any individual in person or certain groups, segments of social, public and moral life of the country; and is against basic cultural values, morality and good manner.”

“You are, therefore, advised to refrain/desist from relaying programmes which deviate (from) Pemra laws and Code of Conduct. Non-implementation of the directives in this respect shall invoke legal action under Pemra Ordinance 2002 and rules/regulations made there under,” says the letter carrying the signature of Pemra director-general (enforcement) Rana Altaf Majid.

Meanwhile, Dawn further reports, in response to threats and alleging subscriber complaints, the Cable Operators Association of Pakistan (CAP) at a Karachi press conference yesterday threatened to take offending satellite TV channels off the air

“We have decided that we’ll not become part of any campaign which goes against the armed forces, judiciary and integrity of Pakistan and will virtually boycott the channels, which indulge in such acts.”

In response to the military commanders’ statement released by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) about the meeting endorsing President General Musharraf’s unconstitutional dual role, Dawn reports that opposition parties

The MMA [Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal] and Tehrik-i-Insaaf [PTI] leadership demanded the immediate resignation of General Musharraf from the posts of president and army chief, and said that leaders in exile should return to participate in the election process. They said that a neutral interim national government should immediately conduct free, fair and transparent elections, and that the election commission should be reconstituted in consultation with the country’s major parliamentary parties. They also demanded the complete independence of the judiciary.

Also,

At a Saturday press conference in Islamabad, acting parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan accused General Musharraf of presenting the army as a political party and warned that this could lead to a civil war.

The MMA leadership had discussed their response with representatives of the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM) and Awami National Party (ANP). In Lahore, MMA president Qazi Hussain Ahmed and PTI chief Imran Khan (yes, that Imran Khan!) told the press the ISPR statement was “unconstitutional and unethical.”

They said that the corps commanders’ meeting constituted an effort to involve the army leadership in the political survival of a ruler who has lost all legitimacy.

The MMA and PTI statement accused General Musharraf of using the armed forces for his own survival and asserted that…it points to a fundamental departure from the role of the armed forces as laid down in the Constitution and the Army Act.

The essence of democracy

At a joint press conference with the Leader of the Free World on 4 March last year, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said,

… we have introduced the essence of democracy now in Pakistan. It has… never existed before…we have liberated the media and the press…the result of my democratization of Pakistan, opening the Pakistan society of the media -- the print media and the electronic media, both. And they're totally liberated…Sustainable democracy has been introduced in Pakistan and will prevail in Pakistan…

It turns out, however, that Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani may not entirely agree. As today’s Dawn reports,

“The events of the past two months have brought into sharp focus the issue of freedom with responsibility and a matter of concern for everyone within the government or outside it,” the information minister said.

He said that the judicial issue, which required a judicial verdict, had been politicised to the extent that the Supreme Court’s own directives were also not adhered to…

“The armed forces of Pakistan have … embraced martyrdom whenever the country faced any threat. Be it an ordinary soldier or a general, the commitment to the defence of Pakistan is immeasurable.

“We cannot, therefore, let the defenders of our frontiers be maligned and defamed,” the minister said.

“An element clearly violated the limits that the Constitution and the law of the land put on every citizen about protecting the honour and respect of the judiciary and the armed forces,” he said, indicating that such moves warranted action.

Information ministry officials said the government, while using some Pemra [Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority] laws, was planning to make it mandatory for televisions channels to seek prior permission for live coverage of outdoor events. If applied strictly, the government may restrict all live coverage, particularly of events like opposition rallies or events relating to the judicial crisis.

Also in today’s Dawn, Raja Asghar reports that the Pakistani governmetn’s commitment to freedom of expression didn’t preclude putting the kibosh on the launch of military analyst Dr Ayesha Siddiqa’s new book, Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy.

She had arranged its launch at the exclusive Islamabad Club.

But the author told a surprised audience that not only the club cancelled the booking of its auditorium, “all hotels in Islamabad were also told” by unspecified authorities not to allow the use of their halls for this, forcing the organisers to find a sanctuary at a third-floor room provided by a non-governmental organisation.

Declan Walsh wrote in yesterday’s Guardian, that the pioneering study valued the Pakistani military’s business interests at nearly US$20 billion, as well as 4.8m hectares of public land.

Five giant conglomerates, known as "welfare foundations", run thousands of businesses, ranging from street corner petrol pumps to sprawling industrial plants. The main street of any Pakistani town bears testament to their economic power, with military-owned bakeries, banks, insurance companies and universities, usually fronted by civilian employees. Ms Siddiqa estimates that the military controls one-third of all heavy manufacturing and up to 7% of private assets.

Profits are supposed to be pumped back into schools, hospitals and other welfare facilities - the military claims it has 9 million beneficiaries - but there is little transparency. "There is little evidence that pensioners are benefiting from these welfare facilities," she said.

Of the 96 businesses run by the four largest foundations, only nine file public accounts. The generals spurn demands by parliament to account for public monies they spend.

The military's penetration into society has accelerated under President Pervez Musharraf, who has also parachuted 1,200 officers into key positions in public organisations such as universities and training colleges. The military boasts that it can run such organisations better than incompetent and corrupt civilians.

But according to Dr Siddiqa,

the military businesses thrive, thanks to invisible state subsidies in the form of free land, the use of military assets, and loans to bail them out when they run into trouble. "There are gross inefficiencies and the military is mired in crony capitalism…They are not designed for the corporate sector."

"Over the past three years a lot of my friends have advised me not to publish this book. They think I have suicidal tendencies."

While the serving and retired brigadiers enjoy their sinecures, their prestigious university rectorships, and their ill gotten gains, Bakhtawar Mian reported in Monday’s Dawn that

The Asian Development Bank has found serious flaws in the Zakat distribution programme and termed it politicised and vague with poor implementation procedures and no accountability or monitoring system.

The Zakat is an Islamic tithe intended principally to relive poverty that all Pakistani Muslims are required to pay by law.

Political agendas are easily injected into the programme implementation due to excessive discretionary powers conferred on the local committees. Moreover, the programme requires no public disclosure of the final list of beneficiaries and reasons for selecting them, and has no system of appeals or public accountability, the study says.

…“Studies have shown that under the Zakat programme, beneficiaries need to bribe officials to get the money to which they are entitled. This is the result of an organised mechanism of bribery that ensures leakages to the extent that a deserving person might not receive any money at all. Moreover, payments to subsistence recipients are not made regularly, sometimes for months on end,” the report further says.

And that’s why Musharraf can boast, ‘We have empowered the people of Pakistan now -- they were never empowered before…’

[Photos courtesy of Whitehouse website, BBC, and Dawn.]

A depressing evening

My colleague Khadim has asked me to circulate his reminiscences of the night of the Musharraf coup in 1999.

-----------------------------

A depressing evening

The night Musharraf took power

By

Khadim Hussain

Darkness had already enveloped the small provincial town of Mingora.

I was alone in my room reading something, probably Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. The bachelor hostel was the only accommodation for single lecturers at Mingora’s only postgraduate college, where I was teaching English literature at that time. The TV was on but I was not watching. They had not yet introduced the cable networks in that particular corner of the country, so all one had to watch was the drab PTV.

All of a sudden, the TV lost the signal and all I could see on the screen was a black spotted line. The place was unusually silent. This was depressing me. I left my room to look for my colleagues who lived in the same hostel. Not one of them was to be found. Probably they had gone out for a pleasant walk on the banks of River Swat.

Suddenly there was blackout—power shutdown? Regular load shedding? I left the hostel, leaving the lights and TV in my room switched on. I searched for somebody to talk to, but to no avail. I just wandered the streets aimlessly. Depressed and disappointed, I started back to my hostel. The whole town was deeply soaked with darkness.

When I approached the hostel, the power returned and I could hear an unusual sound coming from my room. I entered the room and saw a general on the TV screen speaking to the hapless masses of Pakistan. Martial Law again? Yes, it was Pervez Musharraf justifying his takeover and announcing a six point liberal agenda for his newly installed government. I could hear the crack of Kalashnikovs firing in the air. I could also hear cheering and sloganeering on the street outside my hostel.

I wanted to stop them. I wanted to rebuke them. I knew I should tell them the coup was a cause for shame, not celebration. But I could only look at the thin crowd through a half open window.

Fear, shock, pain—I felt them all but I couldn’t tell which dominated. My mind blanked. I started looking for something to distract me for a while until I came to my senses. Turning the pages of a diverse collection ranging from the history of workers’ revolutions to classical English novels, I felt alienated - extremely lonely, helpless, and unusually tense.

The next morning, I got up a little late and had no desire to attend my classes. Everything seemed so futile. Instead of going to the college, I went straight to the bar near my hostel. I found an old progressive buddy who had been a kind of political mentor throughout our student years together. He went on to become a senior lawyer practicing in Swat.

Assuming that he might be feeling the way I was, I started talking about how to agitate against the new monster. He surprised me by replying, “My dear fellow! You probably want to become another Hasan Nasir (a member of the Communist Party of Pakistan, martyred by General Ayub’s regime) but nobody else wants to”. I was shocked—pain, fear, and doubt surrounded me again.

Disappointed, I went to the offices of a few local newspapers. But most of the journalists were busy talking about the golden era just set in. I tried to analyze the situation for them, but they said everybody had supported the coup d’etat. I turned the pages of almost all the national dailies and found everybody of note supporting Martial Law, or probably salivating over the prospect of a share of the pie. Only Afsiab Khatak (the then chairman Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and now the provincial president of a secular political party, the Awami National Party) had issued a statement condemning the coup.

It was afternoon by then. I went to see one of my friends—Ziuddin Yousafzai (a poet and owner of a private school in Mingora), to discuss this new challenge to our cherished ideals. We agreed at least to protest the imposition of Martial Law. We wrote some handouts condemning Martial Law and wrote our names on them and pasted them on the walls of some crowded shops and mosques. For some days, we were completely ostracized.

A few months later, we started to hear some voices coming out to distance themselves from the military rulers. But they were still only a few.

It has taken eight long years for multitudes to come out against the military rulers. Will the professional middles class (lawyers, teachers, doctors, etc.), take up the real issues of the masses? Will the people of Pakistan be able to take matters into their (our?) own hands? Is there a revolution in the offing? Will the people be able to decide about the real owners of this ‘Land of the Pure’? Will the masses be able to head towards a new social contract?

Lawyers take to streets

Lawyers take to streets

Lawyers and others have confronted riot cops and the army on the streets of Islamabad since President General Pervez Musharraf dismissed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry on 9 March on allegations of misconduct and abuse of authority.

But outrage has built up quickly over what some consider a blatant ploy to get rid of a judge whose rulings had embarrassed the government, and to ensure a quiescent judiciary ahead of elections later this year. There is speculation that the Supreme Court, under Chaudhry, might not look favorably on an attempt by Musharraf to seek reelection while hanging on to his post as army chief.

Chaudhry also had angered Pakistan's powerful intelligence agencies by insisting they answer allegations that they had detained more than 100 people listed as missing.

Although Pakistani leaders have a history of using the judiciary for their own ends, the move to oust Chaudhry prompted lawyers and other activists to take to the streets, here in the capital and in other cities such as Lahore. Protests continued to grow as reports came in of Chaudhry being put under virtual house arrest and denied access to his lawyers.

Analysts say the strength of public opposition to Chaudhry's removal has caught Musharraf by surprise.

On Friday, news media broadcast scenes of police violently dispersing the protesters assembled at the Supreme Court in downtown Islamabad, where Chaudhry had gone to defend himself in a hearing before a judicial panel. Afterward, there were signs that Musharraf was beginning to backpedal.

A Supreme Court panel ordered that restrictions on Chaudhry's movements be lifted. The court also acknowledged his complaint of being manhandled by police and ordered the officers to explain their actions.

"General Musharraf and his legal advisors should have realized that a judge who believed that public interest and public welfare could only be gauged and served through representative institutions would be a serious threat to his version of democracy," columnist Khalid Jawed Khan wrote in a scathing opinion piece in Friday's edition of the Dawn newspaper. "The general has never been so vulnerable."

The Washington Post reports, further,

The protests were broadcast live on the independent television station Geo TV, and riot police stormed the station's Islamabad office during the protests in an attempt to shut it down. Geo TV representatives said the police released tear gas in the office, roughed up the station's journalists and trashed furniture.

Musharraf later apologized in a live interview with Geo.

"It was a very sad incident. It should have not happened, and I condemn it," he said, adding, "The culprits responsible for it must be identified, and action against them must be taken."

It remains to be seen whether the General will arrange for his own arrest.

Witnesses at the scene said that police used tear gas, rubber bullets and baton charges in an attempt to disperse the crowd and that they arrested numerous opposition leaders. Dozens of opposition members, as well as lawyers from across the country, had also been detained overnight in advance of the rally.

Among those arrested were Qazi Hussain Ahmad, a leader of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, which is a coalition of far-right Islamic parties, and Rafiq Tarar, a former president of Pakistan who was detained during a rally in Lahore.

Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan defended the arrests, saying that demonstrators were blocking traffic and clashing with police.

"We have to ensure that nobody is above the law," he said. "It doesn't matter if they're political leaders. Anybody who takes the law into their own hands, they have to face the consequences."

Anyone who’s ever been in Islamabad will know that when it comes to obstructing traffic, some people are most assuredly above the law. When Musharraf’s convoy comes into town from his ‘Camp Office’ the other side of Rawalpindi in Chaklala, nothing much moves.