Pakistanpolitics.net gets its first media mention, via Tehelka of India. Check out the interesting article about social networking websites and the internet in the time of emergency.
Imran Khan’s Odd Op-Ed
While the pro-democracy sentiments are wonderful, what is with the effusive Pashtun romanticism? Link.
Pentagon Begins Training Paramilitary Pakistani Force
Following up on the O’Hanlon/Kagan op-ed in the NYTimes arguing for a special forces operation in Pakistan, news comes that the Pentagon will begin training a paramilitary force in Pakistan. The project is being called the frontier corps expansion:
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon plans to train and equip an expanded paramilitary force in Pakistan’s tribal areas in a major effort to counter the growing strength of Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces, officials said Monday.
US Army troops will be used to train the Pakistani Frontier Corps at a new center in the tribal areas that border Afghanistan, said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.
The efforts come amid political instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan under President Pervez Musharraf and mounting US concerns over the spread of Islamic militancy.
It was unclear how many military trainers will be required, but any increase would significantly boost the US military presence in Pakistan, which currently numbers only about 50 military personnel, including embassy guards.
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US Think Tanks Advise Pre-Emptive Action on Pakistan
The “fountainhead of terrible ideas”– Kagan of American Enterprise Institute and Michael O Hanlon of Brookings — offer two ideas for pre-emptive action on Pakistan in the NYT.
The first is a limited one:
One possible plan would be a Special Forces operation with the limited goal of preventing Pakistan’s nuclear materials and warheads from getting into the wrong hands. Given the degree to which Pakistani nationalists cherish these assets, it is unlikely the United States would get permission to destroy them. Somehow, American forces would have to team with Pakistanis to secure critical sites and possibly to move the material to a safer place.
The second one is a “broader option” which will require a “sizable combat force.” Read: invasion.
A second, broader option would involve supporting the core of the Pakistani armed forces as they sought to hold the country together in the face of an ineffective government, seceding border regions and Al Qaeda and Taliban assassination attempts against the leadership. This would require a sizable combat force — not only from the United States, but ideally also other Western powers and moderate Muslim nations.
Daniel Koffler at Jewcy’s The Cabal completely eviscerates this stupidity.
I think I get it; despite the fact that we can’t rely on special forces to destroy the Pakistani arsenal, we can secure and move it to a location where it’s safer, presumably meaning the US will have control it; what’s more, the selfsame Pakistani nationalists who would prevent our special forces from destroying the Pakistani weapons would cooperate in a campaign to transfer them to American control; and we can do all this without intransigent elements in the Pakistani military and intelligence services noticing. How can we accomplish this? You mean you didn’t see the answer in black and white in the O’Kaganlon op-ed? We can do it somehow. It’s that kind of out-of-the-box strategic thinking what gets you a fellowship at AEI or Brookings. Got a policy objective that seems impossible to achieve? No problem, you can always do it somehow.
Govt Notifies Newspapers Not to Discuss Geo TV Shut Down
As already noted, the news and talk show parts of Dubai based Geo TV were shut down earlier yesterday because the private TV stations had become a thorn in Musharraf’s side (and because Musharraf is friendly with the Arab emirs with whom he just inked a $5 billion dollar oil deal). Now, Musharraf is making sure that the local newspapers do not even make mention of the matter in print.
I just heard from a journalist from the Jang network (which owns Geo TV). The Jang journalists received a notification from the government not to publish anything about Geo TV’s closure in the local newspaper.
The notification ignited a protest from the journalists and staff of Jang and The News who went to Chundrigar Road in Karachi to gather in front of Geo TV’s office. Immediately the police arrived, wielding laathis (batons), and made a charge, prompting the journalists “to run away” and disperse.
This is totalitarianism.
United Arab Emirates to Effectively Shut Down Pakistan’s Geo TV
The long arm of Musharraf reaches across the Gulf to his friends in Arab monarchies.
This is breaking and shocking news. Geo TV, Pakistan’s version of CNN, which is based in Dubai, has been ordered shut down by the UAE government.
Here is a three part discussion (in Urdu) about the matter: 1, 2, 3. They are saying that they were asked to sign certain papers which would have led their programs to be edited, but they refused. In Part III there is an interview of Nawaz Sharif, the exiled former prime minister. Geo points out that with Nawaz’ corruption, at least everyone had the right to discuss it. He asks “are we a criminal nation that we are being treated like this?”
All of Geo is not being shut down, just the news and informative parts.
As it stands Geo news is not available in Pakistan, even on satellite. Internationally: available without news and views and opinion programmes. Geo entertainment, Geo super are available in Pakistan on satellite. Basically, no more news.
Pakistan Policy, on top of this issue, has more on which parts of the channel will be shut down and which will be allowed to run:
At the behest of the Pakistani government, the United Arab Emirates has ordered the GEO News channel to shut down at 3PM EST. The GEO Network’s other channels (e.g. the GEO sports channel) will continue to broadcast, but are forbidden from airing its popular public affairs programs and breaking news. GEO, Pakistan’s most popular news channel, transmits out of Dubai’s Media City. Along with ARY One World, GEO has resisted governmental pressure to accept censorship.
Senior officials with the Jang Group, which owns GEO, received threats last week from individuals claiming to be from the Taliban — strange, since the president of Pakistan has described the country’s independent media as abetting militants.
By the way, this is a few days after UAE and Pakistan signed a $5 billion oil refinery deal.
Looks as if Musharraf has a new model for governance; from enlightened moderation to Arab emir.
Geo TV is currently showing cricket news. At the bottom there is a scroll which says that the party is over.
By the way, this probably means that Pakistani internet is next.
Teeth Maestro has more.
Background on Hardline Islamists Who Beat Up Imran Khan
As most people are now aware, Imran Khan was not only turned in to the police by hardline Islamist’s student wing, but also beaten up by them.
The reason for Imran Khan drawing their ire has to do with the fact that he criticized the hardliners for collusing with Musharraf. I discussed this in my Post-Islamism piece at the Guardian (direct Urdu link to Khan’s criticism here).
Here is more background on the hardliner student groups in Pakistan.
LAHORE, PAKISTAN — Religious hardliners dominate public universities across Pakistan.
In the 1960s and ’70s, students in Pakistan were at the forefront of politics, as elsewhere in the world, and played a leading role in protests against alleged vote-rigging by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977.
However, seeing the potential for rebellion by the students, the fundamentalist military regime of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq crushed critical political activity on campuses in the 1980s.
It banned student unions and rooted out socialists and other student political organizations, leaving Gen. Zia’s ally, the Jamiat, with a monopoly on campus.
The 25,000-student Punjab University, founded in the 19th century, is known as a stronghold of the Jamiat, who have a reputation for violence and intimidation, also targeting women whom they consider as not dressed in an Islamic manner.
They tolerate no rival organizations on campus and even forced Punjab university authorities to cancel a book fair earlier this year.
“It’s very simple, they [the Jamiat] have guns, goons and they have blood,” said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, professor of politics at the private Lahore University of Management Sciences.
“They have been terrorizing faculty and students for the last 30 years.”
It is alleged that the Mafia-like Jamiat also runs money-making rackets on campus, including extortion and forcing university authorities to award contracts to companies it owns.
Letter From Activist Lawyer in Karachi
I received this courtesy of a (female) politician of some repute in Pakistan. I am including the introduction from the political leader:
The following was written by a Karachi based lawyer, Omar. Throughout his legal career he has been active in social causes - including prisoner’s rights and causes and the issue of forced evictions carried out by the state. Omar is a dear friend of ours and we’ve been incredibly worried for his safety as he continues to be outspoken and active in resisting the draconian measures passed to put down the judiciary and the lawyers in Pakistan. The following is his account of living as a lawyer under this increasingly brutal emergency:
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Imran Khan Gets Arrested
Imran Khan, the cricketer turned politician, has been arrested. There is analysis of the situation by Asma Jehangir, on Democracy Now Radio:
Yes, I only have secondhand information through media here and through my own daughter, who keeps coming in and out of the house. But apparently he did want to lead a student demonstration, where he was not really welcomed very much.
Imran Khan is a critic of General Musharraf. He has very little following in his own party, and sometimes he appears to, you know, not understand that religious extremism can be very destructive for this country. So he is a bit confused there. He is also a bit confused whether extremism and democracy can go together or not.
The basic lesson to be taken from the arrest of Imran Khan — who was turned in by the hardline Islamists — is that there is an alliance between the military and the mullahs. New York Times nails that point today.
Students affiliated with the radical Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami were also at the rally, chanting slogans against President Bush and the United States.
Mr. Khan, a style icon and symbol of defiance for youth here, was expected to “make a speech to the students to rally them against Musharraf,” said Saloni Bokhari, the president of the women’s wing of Mr. Khan’s political party
At around noon, to the delight of his student supporters, Mr. Khan suddenly appeared. Several students hoisted the opposition leader triumphantly into the air. Mr. Khan, visibly pleased by the reception, was making a victory sign when he was seized by students belonging to Islami Jamiat-e-Talba, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami.
The students hustled Mr. Khan into a nearby building and detained him there for about an hour.
“We have taken him inside to prevent him from arrest and to make sure he joins the protest in an organized manner,” said one of the Islami Jamiat-e-Talba students.
Fatima Bhutto Lashes Out Against Benazir
This will go down as one of the classic op-eds penned in Pakistani politics. And, it shows up in the LA Times. It is entitled Aunt Benazir’s false promises. I love how in her bio, Fatima accuses Benazir of killing Fatima’s father Murtaza. So subtle (and Fatima has every intention of joining politics):
KARACHI — We Pakistanis live in uncertain times. Emergency rule has been imposed for the 13th time in our short 60-year history. Thousands of lawyers have been arrested, some charged with sedition and treason; the chief justice has been deposed; and a draconian media law — shutting down all private news channels — has been drafted.
Perhaps the most bizarre part of this circus has been the hijacking of the democratic cause by my aunt, the twice-disgraced former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. While she was hashing out a deal to share power with Gen. Pervez Musharraf last month, she repeatedly insisted that without her, democracy in Pakistan would be a lost cause. Now that the situation has changed, she’s saying that she wants Musharraf to step down and that she’d like to make a deal with his opponents — but still, she says, she’s the savior of democracy.
The reality, however, is that there is no one better placed to benefit from emergency rule than she is. Along with the leaders of prominent Islamic parties, she has been spared the violent retributions of emergency law. Yes, she now appears to be facing seven days of house arrest, but what does that really mean? While she was supposedly under house arrest at her Islamabad residence last week, 50 or so of her party members were comfortably allowed to join her. She addressed the media twice from her garden, protected by police given to her by the state, and was not reprimanded for holding a news conference. (By contrast, the very suggestion that they might hold a news conference has placed hundreds of other political activists under real arrest, in real jails.)
Ms. Bhutto’s political posturing is sheer pantomime. Her negotiations with the military and her unseemly willingness until just a few days ago to take part in Musharraf’s regime have signaled once and for all to the growing legions of fundamentalists across South Asia that democracy is just a guise for dictatorship.
It is widely believed that Ms. Bhutto lost both her governments on grounds of massive corruption. She and her husband, a man who came to be known in Pakistan as “Mr. 10%,” have been accused of stealing more than $1 billion from Pakistan’s treasury. She is appealing a money-laundering conviction by the Swiss courts involving about $11 million. Corruption cases in Britain and Spain are ongoing.
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What Happened at Musharraf’s Military Meeting?
Recently, General Musharraf convened at meeting of the Corps Commanders in Islamabad. Here is what happened at that meeting. This is a report prepared by a private intelligence group in India that I received in the mail. The main thrust is that the commanders oppose deal with Benazir. There is also a very interesting connection between Musharraf right hand man Chaudhary Shujaat, and his vendetta against Benazir’s Bhutto dead brother:
According to reliable ex-military sources in Pakistan, at the meeting of the Corps Commanders of the Pakistani Army convened by President General Pervez Musharraf on November 10, 2007, there was an unanimous endorsement of his decision to impose an Emergency, suspend the Constitution and sack Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury of the Pakistan Supreme Court.
2. However, the majority of the Corps Commanders expressed their reservations over the wisdom of his attempts, under US pressure, to reach a power-sharing agreement with Mrs. Benazir Bhutto. Their reservations were based on the following grounds:
Before 1988, Al Zulfiquar, the organisation headed by her brother, the late Murtaza Bhutto, was responsible for the killing of Punjabi political leaders perceived by it as close to the Army. They recalled in particular its alleged role in the assassination of Chaudhury Zehur Elahi, who was very close to Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and related to Chaudhury Shujjat Hussain, the present leader of the pro-Army Pakistan Muslim League (Qaide Azam) and Pervez Elahi, the present Chief Minister of Punjab.
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Supreme Court To Hear Petitions About Emergency
The Musharraf Court will convene to hear petitions about the legality of the Emergency. Their (inevitably pro-Musharraf ruling) will give the PCO a legal imprimatur.
Meanwhile, two retired judges got promoted to the Supreme Court.
Political Accountability in Pakistani Politics
When it comes to politics, Pakistanis have very short histories. This is not because they don’t remember the evils and corruption of their previous leaders, but that they do not have resources that document the incompetence of the establishment.
This is one of the major goals of this website. Without political accountability, democracy can neither arrive, nor thrive.
Religious Perspective on Pakistan Situation
Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, one of the leading religious scholars in Pakistan, weighs in on the emergency, coming on hard against the government, saying that the suspension of the constitution is a major sin:
Renowned Islamic scholar Javed Ahmed Ghamdi has said basic human rights had been guaranteed by God Almighty to all human beings and no one could usurp or suspend these rights under any circumstances.
In a statement, Prof Ghamdi said these basic rights could not be taken away even in a state of war.
He said the Constitution of Pakistan was a national charter and to abrogate, suspend or violate it was a cardinal sin, which could not be forgiven easily.
Prof Ghamdi said it was the basic right of every citizen to criticise wrong decisions of any government and protest against such actions. But these protests must be peaceful and should not endanger the life, property or dignity of any citizen.
He said both the government and the protesters must respect the rights of others and this principle must not be forgotten at any time.
The second view comes from a Sufi, Ayeda Naqvi, critical of the mullahs:
And so it is not surprising to see our religious establishment manipulating our doubting selves, instilling fear and guilt into insecure minds already plagued with self-doubts. Take the literalist version of religion being exported to Pakistan and being taught in our madrassas (as well as by a very popular ladies religious group). That version sells because it ends all doubts and answers all questions. The fact that it answers them wrongly is irrelevant to those plagued with doubts. The fact that it labels everyone as a sinner who is damned to hell until or unless he/she follows a narrow minded interpretation of religion is irrelevant. All the Nafs al Awamma wants is certainty. And it will follow anyone who provides it.
Religion has been a destructive force in Pakistan. Will these voices of sanity win over their zealous competitors?
Former ISI General Blogs
Pakistan’s ISI, its equivalent of the CIA, is a shadowy and powerful organization. The Insider Brief blog has got a former ISI general — Lt. Gen Shahid Aziz — guest blogging. Check out his first post, on Afghanistan:
Today, there are over 40,000 NATO soldiers in Afghanistan and none of them are involved in what you could qualify as either “hunting Osama” or “wrapping up global terrorism.” All the “terrorism” that is spreading in the region is because of the presence of these troops. Any country, what to talk of one with Afghan history and mores, would fight a foreign occupation army. And the Afghan Pashtun has been trained, at great cost, to struggle. All the operations of these NATO troops as well as the Afghan security forces are directed towards these “terrorists,” or should I say “freedom fighters.” But I don’t, because of the ugly things they end up doing. Will not conflict bring forth the best and the worst in us? Nevertheless, one is the cause for the existence of the other. They will coexist indefinitely - at a phenomenal cost for all those involved, and achieve neither of these objectives. But if the objective is to find cause to stay here, then let chaos prevail; and it will creep up to your door.
Musharraf’s Achievements
I was sent this documentation comparing Musharraf’s achievements vis a vis the democratic parties in the 1990’s. I am putting it here in the interest of being fair and balanced. This is from the Musharraf Supporter blog:
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Musharraf Releases Highest Ranking Taliban Ever Captured
Parvez Musharraf needs more militants to militate against in order to affirm the presence of his totalitarian military in Pakistan’s civilian sphere. As I noted in my article Pakistan, Prince of Denmark, this means that Musharraf will ally with pro-Taliban parties, appease militants by offering them the freedom to implement Sharia, kill those tribal leaders who held the Taliban at bay (links all in the article), and now, it appears, he will release the HIGHEST RANKING TALIBAN EVER CAPTURED.
Newsweek reports:
Pakistani lawyers, human-rights activists and opposition-party members can scarcely ignore the irony of their situation: while thousands of them are being beaten and locked up under President Pervez Musharraf’s newly declared state of emergency, his government has just let more than two dozen militant Islamists out of jail. Protesters might be even angrier if Musharraf disclosed the names of some of those freed militants. Taliban sources tell NEWSWEEK that the top man on the list was Mullah Obaidullah Akhund—the highest-ranking Taliban official ever captured by the Pakistanis. As one of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar’s closest confidants and his defense minister until the post 9-11 invasion of Afghanistan, Obaidullah was No. 3 in the group’s hierarchy and a member of its ruling 10-man shura (council).
Apparently Obaidullah was released in a prisoner exchange program. Which means that the Taliban now know that all they have to do to get what they want is capture prisoners. In light of the fact that Pakistani military is at such low morale that in the first set piece against Taliban forces in non-tribal areas, they surrendered WITHOUT offering a shot, this is not just sad to hear, it is downright frightening. Taliban attack, Pakistani military stands down, Musharraf releases Taliban prisoner and meets Taliban demands…
In short: Musharraf is destabilizing Pakistan so that it perpetuates his rule. No wonder the first paragraph of the Emergency Declaration read as follows:
Whereas there is visible ascendancy in the activities of extremists and incidents of terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, IED [improvised explosive device] explosions, rocket firing and bomb explosions and the banding together of some militant groups have taken such activities to an unprecedented level of violent intensity posing a grave threat to the life and property of the citizens of Pakistan;
Seeing this, courtesy of Raza Bhai, we should remember how Allama Iqbal was wary of Mullaism. I bet the Allama couldn’t conceive of a military that promoted the mullah.
As Mehdi Hasan sang: “Jo Dard Mila ApnoN say Mila” The pain we felt was sown by our own.
Nawaz Sharif Pretends to Support Bhutto
This is rich. On November 10, Nawaz Sharif, the exiled Islamist former PM, wrote a public letter to Benazir Bhutto, encouraging her pro-democracy work:
DUBAI, Nov 10: Pakistan Muslim League (N) chief Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif has written a letter to chairperson Pakistan People’s Party Benazir Bhutto on the political situation of the country.
According to reports, Nawaz Sharif has written that he is pleased to see her marching against dictatorship.
This is just ONE DAY after he refused his party to join Benazir Bhutto’s long march to democracy.
LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif refused Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) overtures for his party to participate in the proposed long march from Lahore to Islamabad on November 13, saying that no cooperation would be extended to the PPP till Benazir Bhutto detaches her party from the ruling regime.
Talking out of both sides of his mouth, that’s the Nawaz Sharif way.
Pakistan’s leading newspaper The News ran the story about the letter without pointing out Sharif’s earlier statement.
American Lawyers Protesting for Pakistani Colleagues
A lawyer protesting in Pakistan
As we have noted, two major American legal communities have spoken out against the crackdown on lawyers in Pakistan. Here are some pictures from a protest by a third one, the National Lawyers Guild’s protest in Minnesota. These come courtesy of Jean Binkovitz.
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Emergency To Be Lifted in One Month
Pakistan’s attorney general Malik Mohammed Qayyum told The Associated Press Saturday that the country’s “state of emergency will end within one month.” He provided no further details and would not say when a formal announcement might come, AP reported.
Benazir Free - Proof that “Mubhutto” is Alive and Well
I insisted earlier that Musharraf and Bhutto were becoming General Mubhutto:
International experts can pontificate all they like about an ideal world where Bhutto allies with the lawyers and journalists, but it is against her self-interest to do so, and she will not. Bhutto is part of Musharraf’s junta.
Now I have proof for my assertion.
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In US or UK and Oppose Emergency in Pakistan?
Take action. Here are contacts in the US & UK along with a form letter:
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