Blind Ray

Desktop War

2008-06-03T22:22:00.000-07:00

Growing Fury

2007-12-31T05:20:00.000-08:00

By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV in Karachi, Pakistan, PETER WONACOTT in Peshawar and JAY SOLOMON in Washington
December 31, 2007

Pakistan's political crisis escalated as the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said it would run in next week's parliamentary elections and urged supporters to channel outrage over her death into opposition to President Pervez Musharraf's regime.

Following its dynastic tradition, the Pakistan People's Party also filled the leadership void created by Ms. Bhutto's death by naming as party co-chairmen her husband, Asif Ali Zardari -- who faced corruption and murder charges and spent several years in jail -- and her 19-year-old son. "My mother always said: Democracy is the best revenge," the son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, said at an emotionally charged news conference in the family's ancestral village.

Before the Dec. 27 suicide attack on Ms. Bhutto, her secular, relatively pro-Western party was seen as a potential ally of Mr. Musharraf, who recently was elected to another five-year term as president and who has vowed to restore democracy to Pakistan and to fight the spread of Islamist extremism.

But the PPP's new leadership indicated yesterday that the party, seared by the tragedy, has now become a formidable enemy to the embattled Mr. Musharraf. "Cooperation with him is out of the question now," said Taj Haider, a senior PPP official and former senator. "What we are doing is accusing Gen. Musharraf of murdering Benazir Bhutto."

Ms. Bhutto's husband, Mr. Zardari, yesterday repeatedly referred to the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), a party affiliated with Mr. Musharraf that controlled the outgoing government, as the "murderers' league." He also demanded a United Nations commission of inquiry into his wife's death that would be modeled after the U.N. investigation into the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. That commission had the power to interrogate senior government officials in Lebanon and Syria.

The Pakistani government has angrily rejected such calls for an international inquiry. Its Interior Ministry spokesman said that foreign investigators wouldn't understand the Pakistani mentality and aren't needed in solving a "common criminal case."

The government says Ms. Bhutto was killed by an al Qaeda-linked group led by Baitullah Mehsud, a tribal leader from the Waziristan region on the Afghan frontier. Through a spokesman, Mr. Mehsud denied any involvement.

U.S. officials said they have held regular discussions with Ms. Bhutto's aides, as well as the Pakistani government, on providing assistance to the investigation into the attack. The U.S. stands ready, these officials said, to allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to provide any forensic or investigative help requested by the Pakistani government.

"Given the suspicions involved, having some sort of international component could help in quieting" Pakistan's political environment, said Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman. He added, though, that such a move could only go forward if there were "consensus" among the various Pakistani political factions.

The Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said that future U.S. aid to Pakistan could be conditional on Islamabad supporting an international probe and that the White House must "ensure that the coming election is free and fair."

As conspiracy theories abounded in Pakistan, even the exact manner of Ms. Bhutto's death has become the subject of heated controversy between the PPP and the government. The Interior Ministry maintains that a shockwave from Thursday's blast knocked Ms. Bhutto's head against a lever on her car's sunroof, inflicting a fatal skull fracture. But Mr. Zardari and other PPP officials insisted that she was killed by the assassin's bullets before the explosion, as she left a campaign rally in Rawalpindi, a city near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

Harnessing suspicions of government involvement has become the key campaign plank of the PPP ahead of the national election Jan. 8 that is set to install a new prime minister to share power with Mr. Musharraf. The issue of Islamist extremism has virtually disappeared from the public debate.

Meanwhile, the prospect that a massive sympathy vote would give the PPP a landslide election victory has caused an abrupt about-turn in other Pakistani parties' positions on the election, a centerpiece of Mr. Musharraf's plan for transition to civilian democracy after eight years of military rule.

The party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif -- which just two days ago declared it would boycott the election -- indicated yesterday that it will take part in the vote if PPP also participates.

In contrast, Mr. Musharraf's allies -- until now the most vocal backers of the Jan. 8 election -- have started to call for a delay. Tariq Azim, information secretary of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), told reporters that his party has already suspended campaigning, and that he expects the Central Electoral Commission to postpone the vote by "up to three or four months." The commission, which has said that voter rolls in many areas were destroyed amid looting in the days after Ms. Bhutto's death, is scheduled to meet on the issue today.

PPP officials yesterday cautioned against any moves to prevent the Jan. 8 vote from occurring on schedule. "If they postpone it once, then they can keep postponing again and again," said Mr. Haider, the former senator. Should the government embark on this path, he added, the PPP will respond "on the streets," with massive unrest.

Even some supporters of Mr. Musharraf agreed, saying that a national vote could help defuse tensions and end the continuing violence. "Preparations are made. Everything is ready," said Muhammad Intikhab Khan, a senior official in the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) and a candidate for provincial legislature in the Northwest Frontier Province. "Everything will cool down afterward. We shouldn't give suicide bombers a victory."

Many candidates have pumped personal fortunes into plastering their faces on billboards and leaflets around the country, and few have the desire to bear those expenses once again if the election is postponed.

While Pakistan's military has repeatedly intervened in Pakistani politics in the past -- including the 1999 coup that brought Mr. Musharraf to power -- it has shown no signs of flexing its muscles as the current political drama has unfolded.

Ms. Bhutto's only son, the new PPP chairman, is too young to run in the election himself: Under Pakistani law, a candidate must be at least 25 years of age. He is likely to be little more than figurehead leader for the foreseeable future. A first-year student at Oxford University -- his mother's alma mater -- he said that he intends to remain in Britain and complete his studies. "When I return, I promise to lead the party, as my mother wanted me to do," he said in reply to a reporter's question at yesterday's news conference.

Visibly irritated, Mr. Zardari interrupted, asking journalists to abstain from questioning Bilawal: "He may be the chairman, but he is my son, and he is at a tender age."

Mr. Zardari said he won't be running in the elections himself, and won't be a candidate for prime minister. That job, he said, is likely to be occupied in the case of a PPP victory by Amin Fahim, the party's most senior official in Pakistan before Ms. Bhutto's return from self-imposed exile in October.

Like the Bhuttos, Mr. Fahim hails from an aristocratic landholding family in Pakistan's southern Sindh province. He is known for writing poetry inspired by the mystical Sufi current of Islam. While serving as PPP faction leader in the outgoing parliament, he forged consensus with Mr. Musharraf on some key legislative initiatives, such as the women's rights protection bill.

Real authority over the party, and over any PPP-dominated government, however, is expected to lie with Mr. Zardari. Known as "Mr. 10 Percent" for allegedly demanding kickbacks on public contracts while Ms. Bhutto served as prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Zardari is a divisive figure in Pakistan, and has little of his wife's broad popular support or charisma.

Mr. Zardari has always maintained his innocence, and Ms. Bhutto herself, in an interview last month, rejected accusations against her husband of illicit business dealings. She has said that those who didn't want to side with extremists in trying to tarnish her image used the corruption card instead.

But some former officials in Ms. Bhutto's government say her husband was, to an uncommon degree, involved in detailed business decisions while holding political office. While serving as a cabinet minister for his wife, he had a diverse portfolio that included appointing heads of utilities and negotiating purchases of commercial aircraft, these officials say.

The charges against him included masterminding the murder of Ms. Bhutto's brother, and tying a bomb to a Pakistani businessman's leg as part of an extortion scheme. He was never convicted of these charges, and has always maintained they were politically motivated.

In choosing its new leadership, the PPP had to fall back on Ms. Bhutto's closest relatives, says political analyst Abdul Khalique Junejo, because she had run the party throughout the years as a family fiefdom. "The party has no institutions -- it was a one-woman show," he said. As for Mr. Zardari, he added: "Before marrying her, he had no political standing. He is known just as her husband."

Before Ms. Bhutto's own ascent to party leadership, the PPP was led by her father, former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. After being removed from office, he was hanged by the country's military rulers in 1979 in the city of Rawalpindi -- the same place where Ms. Bhutto died last week.

The hallowed family name is such a key electoral asset that Ms. Bhutto's son, previously known just as Bilawal Zardari, added "Bhutto" to his surname as he assumed the party's chairmanship yesterday. Raised mostly in Dubai and Britain, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari spoke only in English at yesterday's news conference -- unlike his father, who dominated the proceedings and used passionate Urdu throughout.

"If you think of [the PPP] as a political party, it would be a surprise," said Frank Anderson, who served as the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Near East division chief in 1991-94. "But if you think of it as a feudal manor, the huge Bhutto family business, then, yeah, the son is the next in line. If they did anything else, it would smack of democracy."

Indeed, such a dynastic succession is common among political parties on the Indian subcontinent. In Bangladesh, a country that seceded from Pakistan in 1971, the two main opposition chiefs are respectively the daughter and the widow of the country's two main independence leaders. In India, when Indian National Congress leader and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was gunned down in 1984, her position was assumed by her son Rajiv. Ms. Gandhi herself was the daughter of India's first prime minister. After her son was assassinated in 1991, the party's leadership eventually passed to his Italian-born wife, Sonia.

Such precedents were very much on the mind of mourning PPP activists in the Karachi suburb of Sachalgoth, as they gathered cross-legged on a rug around a TV set to watch the latest developments yesterday. "So what that Bilawal is so young? Rajiv Gandhi was also politically inexperienced when his mother was killed," said the suburb's PPP leader Taj Muhammad Wasan. "He will be surrounded by some very senior advisers."

A Bhutto Successor?

2007-12-29T21:43:00.000-08:00

A senior official of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) told TIME late Saturday that the slain former prime minister's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, will likely be named as her political heir and the new party leader on Sunday. PPP members are due to meet to discuss the party's future and to give Bilawal, a student at Oxford, a chance to read his mother's last will and testament.

A Pakistani television news channel also carried reports that Bilawal will be made the new leader, which the channel said accorded with Benazir Bhutto's wishes. If confirmed, the teenager will become the third leader of the 40-year-old center-left party, one of Pakistan's most powerful. Bilawal will follow his grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who founded the PPP in 1967, led Pakistan as Prime Minister for four years in the mid 1970s and was hanged in 1979 by a military government, and Benazir, who took over from her father and was killed in a shooting and suicide bomb attack two days ago.

The quick anointment of a Bhutto to head the PPP will help rally party members devastated by the assassination of their tough but beloved leader. The party hopes to ride a wave of sympathy in parliamentary elections that are set for Jan. 8 but may yet be postponed in the face of widespread violence around the country. Rival opposition parties have called for a boycott of the polls but PPP officials say their party intends to participate.

Bilawal was born in September 1988, nearly three months before his mother was elected Prime Minister for the first time. After Benazir and her children went into self-imposed exile in the late 1990s, the family split their time between London and Dubai, where Bilawal attended the Rashid School for Boys, serving as vice president of the school's student council. In Fall 2007 he enrolled at Oxford, where both his grandfather and his mother studied. A 2004 profile of Bilawal in the respected Pakistani daily newspaper Dawn said the teenager liked target-shooting, swimming, horseback riding and squash, and regretted being away from Pakistan in part because it meant he played less cricket. His grandfather, he said, "was a very courageous man and I consider myself very lucky because I have three powerful role models that will obviously influence my career choices when I am older."

As PPP members have begun to contemplate who should take over as party leader, a consensus has emerged that the person needs to be a Bhutto, a name that retains incredible power and vote-winning influence in secular Pakistan despite — or perhaps because of — the tragedies and controversies the family has faced. It is not the first time a young Bhutto has taken over from a dead parent. "This was also the situation when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was murdered," says Babar Awan, a PPP Senator and close ally of Benazir. "Benazir was a teenager, she was a student at Harvard in 1979 [when Zulfikar Ali was hanged]. It is basically the hard core of the PPP that rallies around their great hope and that they attach to the House of Bhutto."

Many people had tipped Benazir's husband Asif Ali Zardari for the top spot, and in the unpredictable world of Pakistani politics that could still happen. An experienced politician, Zardari served as Environment Minister in his wife's second administration. But he is also a controversial figure in Pakistan, and has spent a total of 11 years in prison on various charges including blackmail and corruption, for which he earned the nickname "Mr. 10%." Supporters dismiss these charges, most of which have been thrown out of Pakistani courts (a few are still pending), as politically related mischief. "He's a strong man," says PPP Senator Awan. "All of us are controversial. Wasn't Benazir Bhutto? Wasn't Zulfikar Ali Bhutto? All those who don't accept the military role in politics are controversial. The charges are 100% unfounded and fake."

Other possible runners include Benazir's sister Sanam, though she seems incredibly reluctant to join the family firm, or Fatima Bhutto, the daughter of Zulfikar Ali's eldest son Murtaza. Fatima, however, had split with her aunt Benazir, whom she once described as "the most dangerous woman in Pakistan." The decision to go with Bilawal appears to have come after his father turned down the job in deference to the slain Benazir's expressed wishes. The senior PPP official, who requested anonymity to allow him to speak more openly, told TIME that Bilawal will head the party, and that the party's deputy leader and longtime Benazir loyalist, Mukhdoom Amin Fahim, is likely to become the prime minister, assuming the party wins a majority in parliament. Bilawal would take over as the parliamentary leader once he finishes his studies and once he has more experience, the official said. Earlier in the day PPP Senator Awan told TIME that Bilawal was a natural future leader. "Yes, of course," he said. "he has to be groomed and trained but that will happen."

The young Bhutto, Benazir's only son, knows the dangers of the job he might be about to take on. Last year Benazir told a reporter that she hoped her three children would choose a different career. "My children have told me they are very worried about my safety," she said. "I understand those fears. But they are Bhuttos and we have to face the future with courage, whatever it brings."

Source : TIme

—With reporting by Jumana Farouky/London and Khuda Yar Khan/Islamabad

Bhutto's Mourning over the Benazir's grave

2007-12-29T08:22:00.000-08:00

Source : BBC

U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan

2007-12-29T05:11:00.000-08:00

Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counter terrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning.

These Pakistan-centric operations will mark a shift for the U.S. military and for U.S. Pakistan relations. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the U.S. used Pakistani bases to stage movements into Afghanistan

Yet once the U.S. deposed the Taliban government and established its main operating base at Bagram, north of Kabul, U.S. forces left Pakistan almost entirely. Since then, Pakistan has restricted U.S. involvement in cross-border military operations as well as paramilitary operations on its soil.

But the Pentagon has been frustrated by the inability of Pakistani national forces to control the borders or the frontier area. And Pakistan's political instability has heightened U.S. concern about Islamic extremists there.

According to Pentagon sources, reaching a different agreement with Pakistan became a priority for the new head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. Eric T. Olson. Olson visited Pakistan in August, November and again this month, meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen. Tariq Majid and Lt. Gen. Muhammad Masood Aslam, commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan. Olson also visited the headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a separate paramilitary force recruited from Pakistan's border tribes.

Now, a new agreement, reported when it was still being negotiated last month, has been finalized. And the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year, according to Pentagon sources.

U.S. Central Command Commander Adm. William Fallon alluded to the agreement and spoke approvingly of Pakistan's recent counterterrorism efforts in an interview with Voice of America last week.

"What we've seen in the last several months is more of a willingness to use their regular army units," along the Afghan border, Fallon said. "And this is where, I think, we can help a lot from the U.S. in providing the kind of training and assistance and mentoring based on our experience with insurgencies recently and with the terrorist problem in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think we share a lot with them, and we'll look forward to doing that."

If Pakistan actually follows through, perhaps 2008 will be a better year.

Source : Washington Post

Benazir Killed Latest last moment

2007-12-29T03:30:00.000-08:00

BB Burail Video

2007-12-28T20:05:00.000-08:00

BB's Burial Video
Click here to watch the video

(To download video, right click and choose save target as)

Source : BBCURDU

Pondering Pakistan's Next Move

2007-12-28T20:01:00.000-08:00

After Bhutto's death, those who could sway the country's future range from its military and students to the U.S. Whose influence will prevail?

by Manjeet Kripalani

As Pakistan succumbs to turmoil after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, everyone is asking: What will become of the country?

For now, there is a massive public outpouring of grief and anger. There are riots and deaths in Karachi, Rawalpindi, and Islamabad, and the mayhem is expected to spread.

The impact of Bhutto's death on Pakistan will have serious consequences for the region. A quick decision is needed to staunch the bleeding and grief, and quarantine the radicals before Pakistan disintegrates into anarchy. But who or what will be that decision-maker is still unclear.

There are several lead roles in the unfolding drama of Pakistan at the moment. President Pervez Musharraf, still in charge, though largely absent in the last 36 hours, can compel some calm. There is Benazir's ghost, in the form of the Pakistan People's Party, which can elect and field a candidate in time for the Jan. 8 elections, forcing the democratic opening that she died for. The 600-lb. gorilla in the game is the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, which could step forward in the chaos and once again take the country back into the dubious embrace of military rule. And there is Washington, which could make or break Pakistan by deciding to support Musharraf, the military establishment, or the country's fragile but fierce civil-society movement.

Musharraf's Support

Ideally, Washington should pressure Musharraf into reinstating the judiciary he dismissed in November, and allow Pakistan's civil institutions to appoint a caretaker government for a few months before calling for elections again. This would be in the interest of both the U.S. and Pakistan. Thus empowered, these institutions would bring the country back under civilian rule and work to diffuse the radicalism that has attacked Pakistan from within. But Washington continues to support the flailing and increasingly ineffective Musharraf, who is more likely to fall victim to the powerful military machine he once commanded and which sees itself as the natural caretaker of Pakistan.

So, officially, does neighboring India. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, after expressing the usual shock, came out weakly in support of Musharraf, the man least likely to stand for India's interest. On the streets, however, opinions are different and concern is grave. "India should be supporting democracy in Pakistan, or the region's security will be destabilized over the long term," says M.D. Nalapat, professor of geopolitics at Manipal University in India. The Indian media is blanketed by news of Bhutto's death; fears of a radical takeover in the power vacuum of a nuclear-armed neighbor are high.

Prospect of Wider Civil Strife

Already, South Asia is smoldering, and Pakistan could set it on fire. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and now Pakistan are in the throes of civil strife or radicalized, unstable military rule. Beyond the Bay of Bengal, Burma is simmering with discontent. All these surround India, a country on a path of strong economic growth, intent on attracting foreign direct investment and afraid of the encroachment of socioreligious radicalism. "The ozone layer in the region is fragile, and if it is punctured…South Asia has large numbers of people who can be driven into a frenzy, especially after a leader's assassination," says Uday Bhaskar, a security expert in New Delhi.

The ultimate nightmare scenario? A disintegrating Pakistan, with the states of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, Northwest Frontier Province, and Kashmir going their separate ways. "We could see the Afghanistanization of Pakistan, and an Afghanistan that becomes more unstable," predicts Sundeep Waslekar, president of Mumbai think tank Strategic Foresight Group. That would create a large and turbulent land mass between South Asia and the Middle East—the most terrifying threat yet. A disintegrated Pakistan would also probably ruin the country's surprising economic strength: Gross domestic product should expand 7% for 2007, and the Karachi Stock Exchange is up 45% for the year.
Students' Clout

But there is one more actor on the Pakistani stage, which has not yet emerged after Bhutto's death—Pakistan's students. This group of 4 million 16- to 23-year-olds made an appearance in an underground resistance movement in November when Musharraf declared a state of emergency and gagged the press. They organized protests and supported civil-society groups inside and outside their institutions, refusing to be intimidated by the police.

In previous years, Pakistan's students have taken to the streets in protest—against General Ayub Khan in the 1960s and General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s—and provided valuable support to democracy supporters like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father. Now, their participation may help decide their country's future. "They are the wild card at this time," says security expert Bhaskar. "It's a volatile demography, and no one knows which way they will pull." If they emerge again, hopefully they will help pull Pakistan—and the region—away from the brink.

Source : Business Week

Rest in peace

2007-12-28T08:01:00.000-08:00

Daughter of east, Goodbye!!

Bhutto's death takes Pakistan to brink of abyss

2007-12-28T06:41:00.000-08:00

An assault on idea of moderate democracy

Peter Goodspeed, National Post Published: Friday, December 28, 2007

It was a slow, rhythmic chant that may soon plunge Pakistan into chaos and civil war.

During a typical Benazir Bhutto election rally, a shouting, surging crowd of 30,000 to 40,000 men would scream: "One God, One Prophet the Rising Sun is Benazir."

In three Pakistan elections I covered in the 1990s, euphoric mobs filled with mountain tribesmen, landless peasants and unemployed youths would spend hours working themselves into a frenzy, reciting a political litany that anointed Pakistan's former prime minister as their "Daughter of Destiny."

"Benazir -- leader of the poor," they shouted.

"Benazir -- leader of the dispossessed."

"Daughter of Democracy --Benazir! Benazir!"

For the last 21 years no one in Pakistan could lay claim to Ms. Bhutto's populist credentials -- a powerful secular politician who, despite a reputation for corruption, remained a symbol of modernity and democracy.

Now, her assassination threatens to plunge a nuclear-armed Pakistan into civil war.

Pakistani politics, already mired in ethnic strife, will become more polarized and deadlocked.

The shock of sudden death and the horror of the suicide bomb attack that killed Ms. Bhutto at a political rally in the garrison town of Rawalpindi yesterday have plunged Pakistan into mayhem and uncertainty.

Her murder came less than two weeks after President Pervez Musharraf lifted a state of emergency ahead of general elections scheduled for Jan. 8.

It raises the possibility that those elections, which opposition politicians including Ms. Bhutto claimed would be rigged, will be postponed. The spasm of violence that greeted her death, with riots all over Pakistan, could lead to an immediate reimposition of martial law.

More than an act of political violence, Ms. Bhutto's murder is an assault on the very idea of a moderate, pro-Western, secular democracy in Pakistan.

As Pakistan wallows in its political rivalries, ethnic hatreds, poverty and religious intolerance, the U.S.-led "war on terror," which saw Ms. Bhutto as a moderate, democratic ally, has been staggered.

Militancy and extremism will thrive in the vacuum created by her murder.

Pakistan's politics will likely revert to an explosive mixture of feudal landlords, feuding ethnic groups, greedy businessmen, Islamic radicals, cash-rich drug lords and politically assertive generals.

At worst, the terror of Ms. Bhutto's assassination could signal Pakistan's sudden descent into the abyss of a failed state.

It could mark a turning point in Pakistan's bloodstained history -- a prelude to a conflict uglier and more violent than that now convulsing Iraq.

"The crisis of governance currently seen in Pakistan's Pashtun areas could spread to other parts of the country and lead to clashes between groups," Kamran Bokhari, an analyst with Strategic Forecasting, Inc. warned yesterday.

"This situation benefits the Taliban and al-Qaeda and their supporters who would want Pakistan's security forces to be busy containing political unrest and violence rather than performing counterjihadist operations focused on northwestern Pakistan."

Just as ominously, Ms. Bhutto's murder leaves President Musharraf dangerously isolated.

Already targeted by Islamic militants for his alliance with the United States, Pakistan's President alienated most of the country's middle class with his assault on the Supreme Court and his use of martial law to ensure his own hold on Pakistan's presidency.

In the hours following Ms. Bhutto's death, President Musharraf and military intelligence agents with links to Pakistan's Islamists were accused of masterminding the assassination.

Before Ms. Bhutto's death was even announced, dist raught party workers smashed windows outside the hospital in Rawalpindi where she was taken and shouted slogans against Gen. Musharraf.

Rioting members of Ms. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in Sindh and Punjab provinces attacked and burned government offices and cars.

After a failed assassination attempt on her when she returned to Karachi from eight years in self-imposed exile on Oct. 18, Ms. Bhutto herself blamed elements of Pakistan's military and intelligence establishments, which executed her father, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

"I know exactly who wants to kill me," she told reporters travelling with her immediately after the suicide bomb attack that killed 134 people. "It is dignitaries of the former regime who are today behind the extremism and fanaticism.

"It is not done by militants -- it is done by that intelligence agency," she said.

Ms. Bhutto never trusted Pakistan's military, blaming its leaders for staging a coup against her father in 1977 and for executing him in 1979.

She always thought Pakistan's military had a hand in the mysterious shooting death of her brother in 1996. During her two terms as prime minister, she clashed constantly with leaders of Pakistan's armed forces.

Her Pakistan People's Party accused the military of tampering with election results that pushed her from power in 1990 and in 1996. On both occasions, she was dismissed from office for alleged corruption by a president with close ties to the military.

Before she returned to Pakistan last fall, Ms. Bhutto was said to have sent President Musharraf a letter in which she demanded that in the event of her death, three senior figures in the security services should be investigated.

Before she returned to Pakistan, a pro-Taliban leader, Baitullah Masood, had threatened to deploy squads of suicide bombers against Ms. Bhutto. Yesterday an al-Qaeda spokesman in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, claimed responsibility for Ms. Bhutto's murder.

"We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat mujahadeen," the al-Qaeda commander declared.

A graduate of Harvard and Oxford universities, Ms. Bhutto had the backing of Western leaders who saw her as a moderate and secular stabilizing force in a country riddled with division and threatened by violence.

A professed democrat, she wasn't opposed to secret back-room deal-making with President Musharraf and the Pakistani military.

But her real power lay in the special bond she had with ordinary Pakistanis.

It's unlikely anyone in Pakistan can match that today.

When Ms. Bhutto campaigned in the countryside, peasants would thrust slips of paper containing scribbled prayers into her hands.

"May God be with you. May God protect you," the notes said.

She wrapped them on the back of her right hand with an elastic band and wore them like a magic charm.

Yesterday, Ms. Bhutto's magic and Pakistan's came to an abrupt end.

pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com

Bhutto Is Buried

2007-12-28T06:28:00.000-08:00

The body of Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest in her ancestral village, as violence erupted in cities across Pakistan on Friday, a day after the former prime minister was assassinated at an election campaign rally.

Hundreds of thousands of emotional mourners joined a chaotic funeral procession in Garhi Khuda Baksh, her ancestral village in southern Sindh province Friday afternoon. Her body, which was accompanied to the village by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and her three children, was buried there beside her father in the family mausoleum.

Supporters of Ms. Bhutto went on rampages in several cities, torching cars and stores and ransacking banks in street violence that claimed at least 10 lives, news wires reported. The government ordered paramilitary forces in Ms. Bhutto’s southern home province of Sindh to shoot rioters on sight.

The death of Ms. Bhutto, who had been the leader of Pakistan’s largest political party, throws Pakistan’s politics into chaos less than two weeks before parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8. However, a senior government official said there were no immediate plans to postpone next month’s parliamentary election, intended to restore democracy after eight years of military dictatorship — a vote in which Ms. Bhutto would have been a front runner.

Muhammad Mian Soomro, the caretaker prime minister, told reporters in Islamabad that the government would hold talks with all political parties to chart a plan of action, but that “Right now, the elections stand as they were announced.”

Mr. Soomro called for calm and said a judicial commission will be set up to probe Ms. Bhutto’s death. He refused to speculate on who might have been behind the combined shooting and suicide bombing, which also killed some 20 security guards and bystanders in the garrison town of Rawalpindi on Thursday.

Rioting continued across Pakistan on Friday as angry crowds protested Ms. Bhutto’s death from the eastern city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border, to the parched province of Sindh. An angry mob looted banks in Karachi, capital of Sindh and Pakistan’s largest city, and rioters burned 10 railway stations and several trains across the region, the Associated Press reported. Officials suspended train service between Karachi and the Punjab province to the east.

Thousands of people rioted in the central city of Multan, ransacking banks and gas stations and throwing stones at police, the Associated Press reported. In the generally peaceful capital, Islamabad, a crowd of about 100 protesters set fire to tires.

In Peshawar, an estimated 4,000 supporters of Ms. Bhutto’s People’s Party chanted “Bhutto was alive yesterday, Bhutto is alive today” and cried “Musharraf dog,” an insult to the country’s leader and political rival, President Pervez Musharraf.

Hamid Nawaz Khan, Pakistan’s caretaker interior minister, defended the government’s efforts to protect Ms. Bhutto Friday and dismissed reports that she had been shot to death from a police van.

“We had received information of a possible attack on her on 21 Dec. We then notified Rehman Malik, the security advisor of Ms. Bhutto, in writing of the threat she faced,” he said. “We asked them to be discrete and be cautious.”

Mr. Khan said authorities provided Ms. Bhutto with a 24-hour guard and jammers, referring to gadgets that prevent bombs being ignited by remote control.

“Against a suicide bomber, jammers are not effective,” he said.

Source : NY TIMES

Benazir's Death Announcement - Video

2007-12-27T23:15:00.000-08:00

Death Announcement of Muhtarma outside the hospital by Sen. Babur Awan

Click here to watch Video

Source : BBC

Bhutto's body flown to home province

2007-12-27T22:50:00.000-08:00

By Nadeem Soomro

NAUDERO, Pakistan (Reuters) - The body of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was taken to her family village for burial on Friday, a day after her assassination plunged the nuclear-armed country into one of the worst crises in its 60-year history.

Her killing after an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi triggered a wave of violence, especially in her native Sindh province, and stoked fears a January 8 election meant to return Pakistan to civilian-led democracy could be put off.

World leaders urged Pakistan not to be deflected from a course toward democracy, as fears of further instability in a region racked by Islamist militancy roiled markets on Friday and triggered a flight to less risky assets such as bonds and gold.

Thousands of mourners thronged Bhutto's ancestral home as her body arrived in a military aircraft, accompanied by her husband Asif Ali Zardari and their three children.

People began crying and wailing as Bhutto's coffin was brought to her family home in an ambulance.

"Show patience. Give us courage to bear this loss," Zardari urged the mourners as the coffin was carried into the house.

Bhutto, 54, had hoped the huge popular following she enjoyed among the Pakistani poor would propel her to power for the third time as prime minister in an election meant to stabilize a country struggling to contain Islamist violence.

But as she left the election rally, where she spoke of threats to her life, she stood up to wave to supporters from the sun-roof of her bullet-proof vehicle. An attacker fired shots at her before blowing himself up, police and witnesses said.

She was pronounced dead in hospital in Rawalpindi, the home of the Pakistan army and the same city where her father, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in 1979 after being deposed by a military coup.

"It is the act of those who want Pakistan to disintegrate," said Farzana Raja, a senior official from Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party. "They have finished the Bhutto family."

Across Pakistan, a country used to political violence and ruled by the military for more than half of its life, friends and foes alike were stunned by the death of a woman many had once criticized as a feudal leader buoyed by popular support while enjoying the riches of the family dynasty.

"People are very angry. They attacked banks and government offices. There were no police anywhere. Two shops selling weapons were also looted," said Maula Baksh, a journalist based in Larkana.

At least four people were killed in Karachi in hours of violence that initially erupted following her killing, and on Friday unidentified gunmen shot dead a police constable in the city.

Former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, Bhutto's old political rival, said his party would boycott the January election.

He blamed President Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in 1999 but has since stepped down from the army, for creating instability. "Free elections are not possible ... Musharraf is the root cause of all problems," he said.

Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in November in what was seen as an attempt to stop the judiciary from vetoing his re-election as president. He lifted emergency rule this month.

In Karachi, the volatile capital of Bhutto's home province of Sindh, thousands poured on to the streets on Friday night to protest. Violence eased towards midnight after dozens of vehicles and several buildings were torched.

However, a Reuters reporter traveling through Sindh province said he had seen hundreds of burnt-out vehicles, and people were coming out on Friday morning and setting fire to more and trying to block roads.

The central bank and all schools were to be closed for three days of mourning.

The United States, which relies on Pakistan as an ally against al Qaeda and the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan, had championed the Oxford- and Harvard-educated Bhutto, seeing in her the best hope of a return to democracy.

"The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," President George W. Bush said in a statement.

Bush telephoned Musharraf and urged Pakistanis to honor Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process.

Analysts said Bhutto's death, which followed a wave of suicide attacks and the worsening of an Islamist insurgency, could make it impossible to go ahead with the election.

"I think there is a very real possibility that Musharraf will decide that the situation has got out of control and that he needs to impose emergency rule again," said Farzana Shaikh from the Chatham House analysis group in London.

Musharraf condemned the attack and called for calm.

"We will not sit and rest until we get rid of these terrorists, root them out," he said. He declared three days of mourning, but made no mention of the election.

Police said 16 people had been killed in the attack.

Bhutto became the first democratically elected female prime minister in the Muslim world in 1988 at the age of 35. She was deposed in 1990, re-elected in 1993, and ousted again in 1996 amid charges of corruption she said were politically motivated.

Along with her husband, she is survived by a son Bilawal, 19, and two daughters, Bakhtawar, 17 and Aseefa, 14.

Bhutto's husband said the government should step down.

"We demand the immediate resignation of the government. Those who were responsible for the attack on October 18 are also responsible for this attack," he told Reuters by telephone.

He did not elaborate but referred to a letter Bhutto wrote to Musharraf before she returned to Pakistan in which she said if she were attacked, some of Musharraf's allies and a security agency would be responsible.

(Additional reporting by Kamran Haider and Zeeshan Haider; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani and Robert Birsel; Editing by Jerry Norton)

Benazir's Last speech

2007-12-27T22:30:00.000-08:00

Click here to listen to Benazir's Last speech
(Audio Real Media)

Source : BBC

Aftermath 2

2007-12-27T20:50:00.000-08:00

Source : Express

Aftermath 1

2007-12-27T20:45:00.000-08:00

Cry the beloved country Benazir assassinated

2007-12-27T20:39:00.000-08:00

By Shakeel Anjum

RAWALPINDI: Former prime minister and chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a gun and suicide attack minutes after she addressed a huge election rally here on Thursday.

Shots were fired at her before a suicide bomber blew himself up near her bullet-proof jeep as it pulled out of the Liaquat Bagh gate. Bullets pierced her neck and damaged her trachea, which proved fatal.

The attacker blew himself up as guards attempted to overpower him. More than 28 people were killed and some 100 injured, including Benazir’s political secretary Naheed Khan and Sherry Rehman in the attack.

Benazir Bhutto was rushed to the nearby Rawalpindi General Hospital (RGH) where she passed away during surgery. Professor Dr Musaddaq conducted the resuscitation but she could not survive due to loss of blood and lack of oxygen to the vital organs.

Hundreds of PPP workers and leaders reached the hospital and waited anxiously as doctors made an unsuccessful attempt to save Benazir’s life. All of them burst into tears and began wailing when doctors pronounced Benazir dead. The number of PPP workers swelled as the news of Benazir’s death spread like a jungle fire.

PPP activists and supporters throughout the country went on rampage to express indignation over Benazir’s tragic death. They burnt tyres, blocked roads and damaged buildings and vehicles. The tragedy shocked all and sundry in Pakistan and left every one speechless.

Benazir Bhutto had returned to Pakistan on October 18 this year, ending nearly eight years in exile, to lead her PPP into the January 8 parliamentary elections. Two suicide bombers struck her homecoming rally, killing 150 people. She was aware of the dangers to her life but said this would not deter her from bringing democracy to Pakistan.

“An invader suddenly came in front of her Land Cruiser and started firing at her,” a guard of Benazir Bhutto said, adding that she quickly sat down but a bullet pierced into her neck and damaged her trachea.

A surgeon at the hospital, who was one of the doctors who carried out surgery, told ‘The News’ that Benazir sustained two bullet injuries — one in her neck and the other in the skull. He said, “Tempiral bone and skull bone were fractured”.

The surgeon claimed that Benazir’s brain death had occurred on the spot. However, the doctors tried their best to save her life but failed. The security agencies have found the head of the suicide bomber lying about 90 feet away from the scene. “The face, partly disfigured, can be reshaped by surgery”, the sources said.

The blast was so severe that it was heard several kilometres away from the scene. Three vehicles of Benazir’s motorcade were damaged and windowpanes of dozens of adjacent buildings were broken and tens of cars were damaged.

Body parts of the suicide bomber spread out around the area of about 100 yards from the scene of explosion, while parts of bodies and flesh were scattered at the site of the blast.

Police high-ups and experts of investigation and intelligence agencies including special investigation group (SIG) of the FIA reached the scene soon after the blast and collected evidence from the site.

The sources told The News that civil armed forces have been summoned in aid of the law-enforcement agencies to maintain law and order, adding the security around sensitive installations and government personalities has been beefed up.

Source : The News

Bhutto's supporters take anger to the streets

2007-12-27T09:26:00.000-08:00

ISLAMABAD, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Pakistan put its paramilitary forces on "red alert" across the country on Thursday after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto sparked violent protests by her supporters.

President Pervez Musharraf denounced what he called a terrorist attack and appealed for calm after angry backers of the slain former prime minister took to the streets across Pakistan, from the Himalayas to the southern coast.

The unrest was predictably fiercest in her native Sindh province and its capital, Karachi.

"Police in Sindh have been put on red alert," said a senior police official. "We have increased deployment and are patrolling in all the towns and cities, as there is trouble almost everywhere."

Reports said security was deteriorating in Karachi, where thousands poured on to the streets to protest. At least three banks, a government office and a post office were set on fire, a witness said.

Tyres were set on fire on many roads, and shooting and stone-throwing was reported in many places. Most shops and markets in the city shut down.

At least 20 vehicles were torched in the central Sindh town of Hyderabad.

There were also small protests in Rawalpindi and the nearby capital, Islamabad.

Protesters blocked roads with burning tyres and chanted slogans against President Pervez Musharraf in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir in the mountainous north.

Police said they had been ordered to block the main road between Punjab province and Sindh province, apparently to stop the movement of protesters.

Disturbances were also reported in the southeastern city of Multan, although details were sketchy. In the eastern city of Lahore, Bhutto party workers burnt three buses and damaged several other vehicles, police said.

Trouble was reported from the interior of Sindh province, including the Bhutto ancestral home at Larkana, police said.

"The situation is not good in the interior of Sindh. A large number of people have come out on the roads in many cities to protest," said senior police official Fayyaz Leghari.

Precious Last Moments - BB's last day photographs

2007-12-27T09:02:00.000-08:00

Source : BBC Urdu

Bomb Blast's Video

2007-12-27T08:08:00.000-08:00

Benazir's Last Moments Video
Exclusive : DOWNLOAD HERE

Source : JANG

PML Q's terrorists killed 4 people in Nawaz Sharif's Rally

2007-12-27T08:03:00.001-08:00

At least four people have been killed ahead of an election rally that Pakistan's former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was preparing to attend.

Members of Mr Sharif's PML-N party say they came under attack from supporters of the rival PML-Q party which backs President Pervez Musharraf.

The shooting took place near Pakistan's main garrison town, Rawalpindi.

Correspondents say it is the worst election-related violence ahead of polls due on 8 January.

The elections are for national and provincial assemblies. They come weeks after President Pervez Musharraf resigned as head of the army and was sworn in for another term as president, this time as a civilian.

'Sharif safe'

Some reports say that supporters of Mr Sharif were trying to hang election banners close to the houses of PML-Q supporters when they came under fire.

Mr Sharif was some about two kilometres away when the shooting started, a spokesman for his party, Sadiq ul-Farooq said, the Associated Press news agency reports.

"Nawaz Sharif and his procession are safe," Mr ul-Farooq said.

The PML-Q party was formed by defectors from Mr Sharif's PML party after he was deposed by the then General Musharraf in a coup in 1999.

The main power contest between the PML-Q and PML-N is in Punjab province, which accounts for more than half of the country's total votes.

Another former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, is also due to address an election rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday.

She has became martyred - Benazir Killed

2007-12-27T07:33:00.000-08:00

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — The Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated near the capital, Islamabad, on Thursday. Witnesses said Ms. Bhutto, who was appearing at a political rally, was fired upon by a gunman at close range, quickly followed by a blast that the government said was caused by a suicide attacker.

Ms. Bhutto, a former prime minister of Pakistan, was declared dead by doctors at a hospital in Rawalpindi at 6:16 p.m. At least a dozen more people were killed in the attack.

Dr. Abbas Hayat, professor of pathology at Rawalpindi General Hospital where Ms. Bhutto was taken, said doctors tried to revive her for 35 minutes, but that she had shrapnel wounds and head injuries and was in heart failure. He said he could not confirm whether she had bullet injuries.

A close aide to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf blamed Islamic militants for the assassination, and said it was carried out by a suicide bomber. Ms. Bhutto’s death is the latest blow to Pakistan’s treacherous political situation, and leaves her party leaderless in the short term and unable to effectively compete in hotly contested parliamentary elections that are two weeks away, according to Hasan Askari Rizvi, a leading Pakistani political and military analyst.

The assassination also adds to the enormous pressure on the Bush administration over Pakistan, which has sunk billions in aid into the country without accomplishing its main goals of finding Osama bin Laden or ending the activities of Islamic militants and Taliban in border areas with Afghanistan.

Hundreds of supporters had gathered at the political rally, which was being held at Liaqut Bagh, a park that is a common venue for rallies and speeches, in Rawalpindi.

Amid the confusion after the explosion, the site was littered with pools of blood. Shoes and caps of party workers were lying on the asphalt, and shards of glass were strewn about the ground. Pakistani television cameras captured images of ambulances pushing through crowds of dazed and injured people at the scene of the assassination.

CNN reported that witnesses at the scene described the assassin as opening fire on Ms. Bhutto and her entourage, hitting her at least once in the neck and once in the chest, before blowing himself up.

Farah Ispahani, a party official from Ms. Bhutto’s party, said: “It is too soon to confirm the number of dead from the party’s side. Private television channels are reporting twenty dead.” Television channels were also quoting police sources as saying that at least 14 people were dead.

At the hospital where Ms. Bhutto was taken, a large number of police began to cordon off the area as angry party workers smashed windows. Many protesters shouted “Musharraf Dog”. One man was crying hysterically, saying, “O my sister has been killed.” Amid the crowd, dozens of people beat their chests, and chanted slogans against Mr. Musharraf.

Nahid Khan, a close aide to Ms. Bhutto, was crying with swollen eyes in a room next to the operating theater, and the corridors of the hospital swarmed with mourners.

Ms. Bhutto had been warned by the government before her return to Pakistan that she faced threats to her security. In October, Ms. Bhutto survived another deadly suicide attack in the southern city of Karachi on the day she returned from years of self-imposed exile abroad to contest the parliamentary elections. Ms. Bhutto blamed extremist Islamic groups who she said wanted to take over the country for that attack, which narrowly missed her but killed 134 people.

The assassination comes just days after Mr. Musharraf lifted a state of emergency in the country, which he had used to suspend the Constitution and arrest thousands of political opponents, and which he said he had imposed in part because of terrorist threats by extremists in Pakistan.

With frustration in Washington growing over Mr. Musharraf’s shortcomings, and his delays in returning the country to civilian rule, Ms. Bhutto had become an appealing solution. She was openly critical of Mr. Musharraf’s ineffectiveness at dealing with Islamic militants and welcomed American involvement, unlike another Musharraf rival and former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.

Bush administration officials began working behind the scenes over the summer to help Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Musharraf create a power-sharing deal to orchestrate a transition to democracy that would leave Mr. Musharraf in the presidency, while not making a mockery of President Bush’s attempts to push democracy in the Muslim world.

Ms. Bhutto’s assassination immediately raised questions about whether the parliamentary elections scheduled for January will now go ahead or be postponed. Mr. Musharraf was carrying out an emergency meeting with top government officials Thursday following Ms. Bhutto’s death, the aide to Mr. Musharraf said. He said no decision had been made on whether to delay the national elections.

The aide dismissed complaints from members of Ms. Bhutto’s party that the government failed to provide adequate security for Ms. Bhutto. Ms. Bhutto herself had complained that the government’s security measures for her Karachi parade were inadequate. The government maintained that she ignored their warnings against such public gatherings and that holding them placed herself and her followers in unnecessary danger.

Asked of the bombing was planned in the country’s lawless tribal areas — where Mr. bin Laden and other Qaeda members are thought to be hiding — the aide said “must be, must be.” Militants based in the country’s tribal areas have carried out a record number of suicide bombings in Pakistani this year.

Ms. Bhutto, 54, returned to Pakistan this year to present herself as the answer to the nation’s troubles: a tribune of democracy in a state that has been under military rule for eight years, and the leader of the country’s largest opposition political party, founded by her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, one of Pakistan’s most flamboyant and democratically inclined prime ministers.

Salman Masood reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Graham Bowley and David Rohde from New York.

Pakistan refuses visas to Common wealth observers

2007-12-26T21:18:00.000-08:00

SHAIQ HUSSAIN

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has issued visas to 200 international observers to monitor the general elections scheduled for January 8 but a request from Commonwealth in this regard has not be accepted.

Foreign Office Spokesman, Muhammad Sadiq, while addressing his weekly press briefing here on Wednesday did not reply in “yes” or “no” when asked whether the observers from 53-nation group would be allowed to monitor the polls.
However, he said that the Commonwealth itself had stated that it would review its policy towards Pakistan after the January 2008 election.

“Therefore, so far the international body has not sent any observer to Pakistan for these elections,” he said.
An official source, nonetheless, confided to The Nation that a decision had already been taken not to allow any observer from Commonwealth to monitor the polls despite a request sent to Islamabad by it few days ago.
The group comprising mostly of former British colonies had suspended Pakistan’s membership after the imposition of emergency by President Pervez Musharraf on November 3.
The Foreign Office spokesman described that the government was committed to ensure that the upcoming polls were free, fair and transparent.
He said, “The cases of over 200 observers, including journalists, members of the NGOs and officials have been completed and visas issued for the elections scheduled for January 8.”
He said that nearly 60 representatives from different countries had applied through International Republic Institute (IRI), an American organization to visit Pakistan for observing the electoral process and their cases had been finalized and visas issued to them.
Answering a query, he said the observers would be issued special passes and they would also be allowed to visit any part of the country and go to any polling station to observe the polls.
“The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has issued Code of Conduct for the international observers,” he said.
In his comments on the report published in New York Times on squandering of US aid for the FATA development, Sadiq said there were misleading speculations being gathered in the US press on that matter.
“FATA is very important area of Pakistan and the government needs funds for its development as without providing jobs and improving the living standard, the fight against terrorism and extremism could not be ended successfully,” he said.
The spokesman said Pakistan was using its resources but needed international support and cooperation for the development in tribal areas.
On recent missile tests by India, he said Pakistan was always against the introduction of new weapon system and was of the view that maximum resources should be allocated for the welfare of people.
Nonetheless, he said Pakistan was fully aware of its needs regarding its defense and security.
To a query, he said there were 450 Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails while 500 Indians were in the Pakistani jails. He said out of 500 Indians, 450 were fishermen.
He said that a committee of judges with four members each from India and Pakistan would meet in India very soon to review the process of releasing those detainees.
He said that the next round of Indo-Pak composite dialog process would commence early next year when the foreign secretaries of the two countries would hold their meeting.
On the visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Pakistan, the spokesman said it was a hallmark of the bilateral relations between the two countries.
He said besides, a meeting with President Musharraf and Prime Minister Muhammadmian Soomro, the Afghan President would also interact with members of Pakistani business community to promote trade relations between the neighboring states.
When asked about the latest development on the front of Pak-Afghan Jirga Commission, Sadiq said the two countries were in touch with each other on vital issue and the names of 25 members from each side were being finalized for the body.
Source : The Nation

Quaid's vision forgotten: CJP Iftikhar Ch.

2007-12-25T21:42:00.000-08:00

By Nasir Iqbal

ISLAMABAD, Dec 25: The deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, has said that after 60 years of its existence the country has drifted away from the ideals, principles and vision of the Quaid-i-Azam.

“Today as a nation, we find ourselves at a crossroads. It is a defining moment,” he said in a statement released by Advocate Athar Minallah here on Tuesday on the birth anniversary of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Christmas.

Justice Iftikhar said the vision of the Quaid was to see Pakistan prosper as a democratic state embodying principles of the rule of law, freedom of speech and expression, equality, tolerance, justice and fair play for all, protection of human rights and civil liberties.

He said it was the Quaid’s dream to see all citizens freely practising their religious beliefs and achieving political and economic independence.

The statement quoted the Quaid as having said: “Minorities to whichever community they may belong will be safeguarded. Their religion or faith or belief will be secure. There will be no interference of any kind with their freedom of worship. They will have their protection with regard to their religion, faith, their life, their culture. They will be, in all respects, the citizens of Pakistan without any distinction of caste or creed.”

Justice Iftikhar said the Quaid envisaged for Pakistan an independent judiciary which would protect the fundamental rights of all citizens, uphold the Constitution and the rule of law.

“Today I join the Pakistani nation in their prayers and struggle to achieve the ideals of the Quaid’s vision for bringing back the country under the rule of law and the Constitution and to reverse the effects of this current darkest period of our constitutional and political history. It is our resolve and commitment to make the country, the Quaid’s Pakistan where there is supremacy of the constitution and rule of law rather than one-man rule,” the statement said.
Source : DAWN

Re-emergence of Nawaz Sharif

2007-12-25T21:33:00.000-08:00

The United States is watching with anxiety Pakistan’s painful march towards democracy, and it does not like the look of it. The return of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan has completely altered the political calculus and taken Washington by surprise.

By insisting on Sharif’s return to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia took matters into its own hands. Washington should have read the signal that something was stirring in Riyadh when, a fortnightearlier, the Saudi ambassador to Pakistan made an characteristic public display of intervening with President General Pervez Musharraf for the release of the former Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Hamid Gul, from detention under the draconian state of Emergency provisions imposed on November 3.

Gul is no ordinary mortal. He has an impeccable record—both as a serving Corps Commander and as a retired General—of campaigning for Pakistan’s destiny within an arc of Islamic countries stretching from Afghanistan to Turkey. He has consistently advocated strategic defiance of the United States. Twenty years ago, he co-authored a strategic rethink (“regional strategic consensus paper”) while serving as the ISI chief under President Zia ul-Haq, preparing Pakistan for its post-Afghan jihad phase when the US was set to drop it as an ally.

Gul is a staunch believer in the “Islamic bomb”. Of course, that was also the time in the late 1980s when Pakistan was considering the outright “sale” of a nuclear bomb to Saudi Arabia to rid itself altogether of the irksome dependence on American aid, apart from arranging the supply of Chinese long-range CSS-II nuclear-capable missiles to Saudi Arabia. Gul is an untiring believer in the jihad. Some say he once personally took Osama bin Laden to meet Nawaz Sharif.

Rise of Islamist Nationalism

Yet, Washington didn’t take note when Musharraf acceded to the Saudi request for Gul’s freedom. The promptness with which the Saudi wish was accommodated by the Pakistani establishment should have alerted the US.

Unsurprisingly, the spectre that is haunting the George W. Bush Administration is whether the baton of the democratic transformation of Pakistan will pass into the hands of conservative nationalist Islamic forces instead of the “moderate liberals” (read Benazir Bhutto) chosen by Washington. Bush admitted his personal sense of frustration when he told the Associated Press: “I don’t know him [Sharif] well enough.” Regarding Sharif’s links with Islamic parties in Pakistan, Bush added: “I would be very concerned if there is any leader in Pakistan that did not understand the nature of the world in which we live today.”

Sharif, on his part, point-blank refuses to acknowledge Bush’s recent efforts to bring about Pakistan’s democratic transformation. He would recall his association with President Bill Clinton and stress he didn’t know Bush. On November 28, Sharif touched on Bush’s “war on terror”. Referring to the military crackdown in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, Sharif said Islamabad ought to think before complying with the demands of foreign powers. He caustically added: “This is our country, and we know better how to solve our problems.”

Sharif estimated his remark would find good resonance in Pakistani opinion. Senior unnamed US officials, in turn, have leaked to the American mainstream newspapers—including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle—the Bush administration’s disquiet that Sharif might spoil the “war on terror”.

They paint Sharif as a conservative politician who connived with Abdul Qadeer Khan’s nuclear proliferation and hobnobbed with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and argue that he stands in the way of the emancipation of Pakistani women. They cherry-pick from Sharif’s tumultuous political life and find fault with him for just about everything that went wrong in Pakistan in the recent two-to- three decades. But that is grossly unfair. There is almost nothing that Sharif did while in power at which Bhutto didn’t try her hand.

The Bush Administration squirms that its techniques of political management failed to work with the formidable Pakistani establishment. The rapidity of the unfolding of political events in Islamabad has left Bush with no option but to keep eulogising Musharraf’s leadership qualities—even as the General systematically rubbished Bhutto’s political prospects. Maybe an apocalyptic vision of a Sharif-led Pakistan may help justify the Bush Administration’s continued support of Musharraf.

Washington’s demands today have virtually narrowed down to a lifting of the Emergency rule in Pakistan—something that Musharraf is in any case getting ready to do. In fact, Musharraf has no more use for the Emergency rule now that he has overcome the judicial challenges that threatened to prevent him from becoming a civilian President. He remains obstinate only in his refusal to restore the pre-November 3 judiciary that he sacked. But that is understandable. The political parties themselves are divided on the issue.

Sharif’s Options

SECTIONS of the Pakistani establishment keenly expect Sharif to unify the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) factions to thwart any residual chances of Bhutto’s bid for power. They seek a repetition of the broad alliance on the pattern of the IJI (Islami Jamhuriat Itehad, or Islamic Democratic Alliance) of 1988, which was an alliance of the PML and Islamic parties with the help of the military and the ISI. The point is: even though Sharif may have a bitter feud with Musharraf, that doesn’t diminish his acceptability to the Pakistani establishment, for whom he still remains a former ally.

Arguably, Sharif’s natural inclination ought to be to settle for a deal with the military-intelligence establishment. But these are early days. Sharif is probing. He is grandstanding. He is reconnecting with his support base in Punjab. He is weighing what is there in the elections for him. Will his candidacy be accepted since he stands condemned by court judgement? The Constitution debars him from becoming the Prime Minister for a third time.

Meanwhile, some elements have been clarified. First, Sharif may not resort to agitational politics. He could easily be a rabble-rouser, but the Saudis wouldn’t want him to do anything by way of stirring up things that threatened to destabilise the existing political order in Islamabad. The Saudi interest lies not in undermining nuclear-armed Pakistan but to be able to navigate it if the gyre of Shi’ite Iran’s influence continues to widen in the region.

Again, Sharif continues to view Bhutto with distrust. Sharif is keen on the PML functioning within a united front under the banner of the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), but he can’t ensure the alliance’s cohesion, especially the Islamic parties. The ISI used to handle such matters for him previously. He also rejects an outright merger of his party (PML-N) with the ruling party (PML-Q) but isn’t averse to defectors from the “King’s party” joining his ranks. The APDM on November 29 announced a boycott in principle of January’s parliamentary polls (Bhutto did not), but that is not necessarily the end of the matter.

Within this code of conduct, it is not surprising Musharraf has concluded he could learn to live with Sharif’s hot words as long as the elections go ahead as scheduled. Musharraf reiterated on November 29 soon after being sworn in as the civilian President that he is determined to hold the elections on January 8, “come hell or high water”. The big question is: whether the main political parties will participate. The legitimacy of the polls would ease pressure on Musharraf from the international community.

The powerful head of the PML-Q, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, and his cousin and Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi (who was until recently perceived to be the next Prime Minister) have hinted that a post-election understanding with Sharif cannot be ruled out. Sheikh Rashid, who is close to Musharraf, said: “You cannot rule out anything in Pakistan. If Musharraf can meet Benazir and if Nawaz Sharif can return to Pakistan before the elections, then everything is possible.”

Musharraf himself hinted at the horse-trading that lies ahead when he hoped politicians wouldn’t repeat the 1990s’ political culture. He held out a sort of olive branch when he expressed the hope on November 29 in front of a distinguished audience in Islamabad that he “personally” thought that Sharif’s return to Pakistan would “prove good” for the country.

Musharraf vs Kiani

MUSHARRAF also announced on the same day that Phase 3 of his programme of democratic transition has commenced. Clearly, the speculation hogging the current discourses over Pakistan—as regards the inevitability of a clash of personalities involving Musharraf and the newly appointed Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani—completely overlooks the obvious reality that these two protagonists are virtually joined at the hip in the post-election scenario in Pakistan.

Their core interests are inextricably intertwined. The Pakistani Army can never hope to get a President anywhere as deeply committed as Musharraf for safeguarding its corporate interests. As for Musharraf, who lacks an independent political base, he would be intelligent enough to know the limits to his presidential authority.

At any rate, the last thing a quintessential soldier like Musharraf would do would be to bypass the military’s interests in favour of “civilian supremacy”. Historically, the nearest that the military could manage to reach by way of an entente cordiale with the presidency within the framework of Pakistan’s ruling troika—comprising the President, the Prime Minister and the Army Chief—was when the bureaucrat par excellence, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, took over in the dramatic circumstances following Zia ul-Haq’s death in a plane crash in August 1988. But Khan still needed to ingratiate himself with the then Army Chief, General Aslam Beg.

Musharraf and Kiani go back a long way. That is to say, the extent to which the military has gone to ensure that Bhutto doesn’t become part of the troika in Islamabad, as was the case 19 years ago, must be put in its proper perspective. Musharraf and Kiani pursued a common agenda after determining what is best for Pakistan’s political stability. The military has successfully thwarted Washington from imposing Bhutto on the regime. An IJI-type ruling alliance would serve the military perfectly well at this juncture.

Regional Implications

THE regional and international implications are going to be far-reaching. If the US strategy, under the garb of creating a “truly democratic” regime in Pakistan, was to create a troika in Islamabad that would be amenable to its manipulation, things haven’t quite worked as expected. Pakistan’s Army will remain the dominant force in the country’s national life. But the US would have to continue to renegotiate Pakistan’s cooperation for the “war on terror”.

The new Army Chief shares Musharraf’s basic outlook and, more important, shares Musharraf’s limitations in partnering with the US against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Washington cannot afford to damage its equations with the Pakistani military by threatening to cut off aid. Don’t even threaten violation of Pakistan’s territorial integrity by the US Special Forces. The US would do well not to push the military unwillingly into clashes with their own tribesmen, either.

The US will be compelled to factor in with greater sensitivity the Pakistani military’s adversarial stance with regard to India, which also includes its widespread resentment about the inconstancy of American friendship and, more recently, the perceived US tilt toward India as its preferred strategic partner in the region. At some point, Washington might well be compelled to review its refusal to enter into nuclear cooperation with Pakistan on the pattern of its proposed deal with India.

India on Guard

ANY diminution of Washington’s ability to influence Pakistan’s Kashmir policy or its covert trans-border activities aimed at bleeding India would cause uneasiness in Delhi. In recent years, Delhi drew comfort imagining Washington effectively kept the Musharraf regime in check from raising tensions with India. There is even a body of opinion among security analysts in Delhi that continued, open-ended American military presence in Afghanistan is a good thing as it makes Musharraf more forthcoming in dealing with India. To them, the “war on terror” in Afghanistan is of importance as the Americans shackle the Pakistani military.

Delhi would also take note that for the first time, a former chief of the ISI, the agency that calibrates tensions with India, has risen to the top of the military. Kiani has had extensive experience in dealing with India in various capacities—as Director General of Military Operations during the standoff with its neighbour following the December 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi, as the General Officer Commanding having under him the Pakistani Army’s 12 divisions based in Muzaffarabad, which is the staging ground for the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, and as the ISI chief.

The Taliban Will Gain

To be sure, the hardening of the power structure in Islamabad is taking place at a time when some sort of a power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban is on the cards in Afghanistan.

One could disregard the international policy think-tank Senlis Council’s latest assessment that the Taliban have a permanent presence in 54 per cent of Afghanistan, controlling “vast swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural ones, some district centres, and important road arteries”; or its assertion that the insurgency is exercising “a significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people”. Even then, it is difficult to quarrel with the assertion by the reputed London-based group that “the question now appears to be not if the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when … and in what form. The oft-stated aim of reaching the city in 2008 appears more viable than ever.”

Therefore, if a democratically elected IJI-type representative government assumes power in Islamabad at the present juncture, that would work greatly in the Taliban’s favour. Such a government would include political leaders who have had extensive dealings with the Taliban in the 1990s. Equally, such a government might not see eye-to-eye with the US’s way of conducting the “war on terror” in Afghanistan or with the overall American approach that “there is almost no problem across the region that can’t be resolved by bombing” (to quote a British commentator).

The shift in Islamabad may prove particularly crucial at a time when there are signs that President Hamid Karzai himself might be beginning to wonder in his own way if there could be an Afghan solution to the war. Karzai must surely begin to weigh the high probability that the next government in Islamabad would be rooted in Islamic nationalism. The US (or the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) would lack the capacity to block any political accommodation that such a representative civilian government in Islamabad might seek with the Taliban, be it at the local or at the national level. In sum, the political developments in Islamabad in the coming weeks could well accelerate the return of the Taliban to Kabul. Karzai would be sensing that already.

Saudi Motivation

CONCEIVABLY, Saudi Arabia’s insistence on Sharif’s return was at least partly motivated by its skepticism over the efficacy of the democracy project choreographed by the George W. Bush administration for Pakistan. The Saudis, with their prodigious memory, would recollect what another democracy project by the Jimmy Carter Administration led to in neighbouring Iran—the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Besides, Saudi Arabia feels disillusioned by the bloody mess that the Bush Administration’s “war on terror” has created in the region. The criticality of the Afghan situation is worrisome as Saudi national-security concerns are directly affected. Riyadh estimates that the time may have come to seek an Islamic solution to the crisis. (Turkey’s Islamist President Abdullah Gul was in Islamabad on December 1 within a few weeks of Saudi King Abdullah’s visit to Ankara.)

Saudi influence will be predominant on any IJI-type government in Islamabad. The Saudi calculation would be to work toward a political accommodation of the Taliban as a step in the direction of isolating the radical elements, which have gained ascendancy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions.

US Must Rethink Strategy

IN sum, the Bush Administration’s ill-conceived scheme to bring about a transitional partnership between the Pakistani military and the “political centre” has floundered. The US pursued its partnership project even when it became apparent that the military wouldn’t cohabit with Bhutto. The result was a near impasse.

The Saudis stepped in at that point and a new transition strategy attuned to Pakistani realities has begun to unfold. Much as the Pakistani military understands the strategic imperative of keeping a working relationship with the US and realises that anything else would be catastrophic for Pakistan’s interests, it is also incumbent on Washington to reconcile that there are limits beyond which it cannot push the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Equally, Washington must accept that Islamic nationalism is a permanent feature of Pakistani national life. The West cannot impose its clones on Pakistan’s democratic life. There is a high probability that Nawaz Sharif may turn out to be the future of Pakistan.

Indeed, there were past occasions when Washington was much less than fair in its attitude toward Sharif. Washington’s weakness for Bhutto is legion. Allright, Sharif’s entire university education might have been restricted to Lahore and he might not be networking with highflying think-tankers in Washington; he might not have shared his toothbrush with Peter Galbraith or wasn’t on first-name terms with Zalmay Khalilzad, the high-profile US ambassador.

Sharif might not have thought it important enough to hire talented public relations firms to burnish his “image” in the US media. But, even then, the Bush Administration should not remain sulking that Sharif wasn’t its choice for leading Pakistan’s democratic transition. Life must move on. Besides, it is the Pakistani people’s choice that should matter.

Robert Oakley, who served in the Ronald Reagan Administration as the National Security Council’s Pakistan hand during the Afghan jihad in the 1980s and subsequently served as ambassador in Islamabad, wrote that Washington must prepare to come to terms with Sharif’s leadership of Pakistan. “He [Sharif] commands a strong following and, most important, has traditionally been strongly supported by the Pakistani military and intelligence services,” Oakley concluded.

Oakley suggested that Washington should facilitate discussions between the military and civilian leaders on appointing a senior civilian to serve as the interim President, replacing Musharraf. “An interim President could then prepare for truly free and fair elections and a return to the rule of law.” In essence, he advocates an alibi for Washington to reconcile with Sharif. But unfortunately, that would also be an alibi for continued American intervention in Pakistan’s internal affairs.

(Courtesy : Asia Times)
Source : MainStream

Parayshankun Rujhanaat - Dr. Shahid Siddique (Urdu Article)

2007-12-25T08:44:00.000-08:00

Source : Jang

Nawaz vows PML-N to end poverty, unemployment

2007-12-25T08:22:00.000-08:00

RAHIM YAR KHAN, Pakistan, Dec 25 (PPI): Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif Tuesday said he was ready to render more sacrifices for the country. Addressing an election meeting here he said that national exchequer had been looted ruthlessly by corrupt politicians and rulers compelling the poor to commit suicides.

My government was toppled without any justification, he said adding present rulers had illegally changed the constitution and for the first time in the history of the country Supreme Court Judges were put under house arrest, fundamental rights were suspended and curbs imposed on media. “An individual sacrificed national interests for his personal gains,” he said. Nawaz Sharif said his government made Pakistan an atomic power and softened its image worldwide. He said that price hike and unemployment had jumped to an alarming level and prices of petrol, diesel, electricity and essential commodities were skyrocketing. We are fighting for the integrity and sovereignty of the country, he said and vowed to alleviate poverty, unemployment and price hike and restore glory of the country after coming into power. (Posted @ 18:38 PST)
Source : Dawn

UNICEF Photo of the Year 2007

2007-12-24T22:19:00.000-08:00

1st Prize for Stephanie Sinclair: Child brides
The American photographer Stephanie Sinclair is the winner of the international photo competition "UNICEF Photo of the Year". Her photo shows a wedding couple in Afghanistan who could not be more opposite. The groom, Mohammed, looks much older than his 40 years

the bride, Ghulam, is still a child; she just turned 11. "The UNICEF Photo of the Year 2007 raises awareness about a worldwide problem. Millions of girls are married while they are still under age. Most of theses child brides are forever denied a self-determined life", says UNICEF Patroness Eva Luise Köhler at the award ceremony in Berlin. According to UNICEF, there are about 60 million young women worldwide who were married before they came of age, half of them in South Asia.

Amnesty USA Letter To Secretary Rice, On Pakistan

2007-12-24T21:55:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, 25 December 2007, 6:48 am
Press Release: Amnesty Internationa
Amnesty USA Letter To Secretary Condoleezza Rice
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Secretary Rice:
Thank you for meeting with the Human Rights Leadership Coalition on December 10. We would like to follow up on the conversation we had on Pakistan and respond to Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher's recent reply to our November 13 letter.

We remain deeply concerned that you and President Bush have not yet called unequivocally for the restoration of an independent judiciary and the lifting of restrictions on the media, particularly television. Pakistan's judiciary supervises the nomination and polling process at every level, while High Court and Supreme Court judges hear appeals regarding qualifications and fraud. The Election Commission is composed of retired and serving judges. The removal of independent-minded judges has rendered free and fair elections impossible, while strict curbs on media further impede accurate reporting on the political and electoral processes. It does not make sense to call for free and fair elections without addressing these concerns.
Assistant Secretary Boucher's letter notes that the U.S. government has called for the end of martial law and the release of detainees. But the letter's language lacks urgency when discussing judicial independence, stating only that the U.S. "encourages an independent judiciary as a significant part of any democracy." Our organizations have heard consistently from colleagues in Pakistan that they cannot understand the silence of the U.S. government on the necessity of an independent judiciary and an unwavering commitment to the rule of law.
Since our meeting, President Musharraf has formally lifted martial law, as the United States had called on him to do. However, in his revocation order and another order issued the day before, President Musharraf renewed his attacks on the judicial system, permanently replacing the dismissed judges and barring judicial review of his actions. Orders and amendments imposed during martial law, fundamentally changing the constitution and people's access to basic rights, remain in place and outside judicial review. Such provisions allow for military trials of civilians and suppression of the media by imposing harsh prison sentences and fines for "anything which...brings into ridicule" the head of state or other government officials.
We urge the United States government to call on the Government of Pakistan to restore the judges to their positions and to lift media restrictions prior to the January 8 elections. Furthermore, the Pakistani government must return the power to license or disbar lawyers to the independent Bar Council. Without such steps, some of the most dangerous aspects of martial law will become enshrined in the Pakistani legal and political system, and neither free elections nor long term stability will be possible.
Sincerely,
Mr. Larry Cox, Executive Director
Amnesty International USA
Ms. Karin Ryan, Director
Human Rights Program
The Carter Center
Ms. Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director
Freedom House
Mr. Salih Booker, Executive Director
Global Rights
Ms. Maureen Byrnes, Executive Director
Human Rights First
Mr. Kenneth Roth, Executive Director
Human Rights Watch
Mr. Gary Haugen, President
International Justice Mission
Mr. Robert Arsenault, President
International League for Human Rights
Ms. Felice D. Gaer, Director
Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights
Ms. Robin Phillips, Executive Director
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Mr. Frank Donaghue, Chief Executive Officer
Physicians for Human Rights
Ms. Monika Kalra Varma, Director
Robert F Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights
ENDS
Source : SCOOP

prices of daily use items rose by 9.51%

2007-12-24T08:30:00.000-08:00

ISLAMABAD: The prices of daily use items rose by 9.51 per cent in the third week of December.

According to Federal Bureau of Statistics the rate of inflation for low income group rose by 12.24 per cent as compared to the previous year.

It said out of 53 essential items prices of 17 registered advance while those of 11 declined and rates of 25 remained stable.

Increase was seen in the prices of tomatoes, ginger, LPG, Kerosine oil, eggs, wheat, edible oil, bananas, red chillies and lawn.

Source : GEO TV

Pakistan election campaign intensifies as Musharraf accused of wanting docile premier

2007-12-24T05:26:00.000-08:00

Pakistan's election campaign intensified Monday with the three top political leaders rallying supporters across the country just two weeks before a parliamentary election decides the future of this key U.S. ally.
Meanwhile, a newly formed umbrella group of Islamic militants claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on a military convoy Sunday that killed nine people and said it would carry out more attacks if the government did not end its offensive against them.
The Jan. 8 polls, demanded by Pakistan's Western allies, are seen as a crucial step in restoring democracy here after Musharraf's Nov. 3 declaration of emergency rule and his crackdown on the judiciary, political opponents and the independent media. Musharraf lifted the state of emergency after six weeks
AFormer Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who both returned from exile for the campaign, scheduled rallies in their opponents' home districts Monday in an effort to poach voters. Both candidates, pledging to work together against Musharraf, were hoping to win enough seats to loosen the former army chief's grip on power.
Speaking to 3,000 people in the town of Sukkur, in Bhutto's home province of Sindh, Sharif accused Musharraf ofpresiding over a worsening economy and sparking violent confrontations across the country.
"The country is soaked in blood and fire from Khyber to Karachi," said Sharif, who has been banned from running for office himself, but was addressing voters on behalf of his party's candidates.
He also accused Musharraf of fealty to the United States, and said the president's dismissal of top judges turned the country into an international laughingstock.
Sadiq ul-Farooq, a leader of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N party, said Musharraf "would prefer a docile prime minister to legitimize all of the actions he had taken after imposing emergency rule," ul-Farooq said.
"Only people like Pervez Elahi can serve in this job," he said, referring to the candidate of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q.
Elahi campaigned Monday in the city of Jehlum, near his home district.
Bhutto told a rally in the southern city of Rahim Yar Khan in Sharif's eastern Punjab province that she would create more jobs, provide loans, alleviate poverty and allot land to homeless people.
"I am fighting this war for the rights of the masses," she said.
Speaking to AP Television News, Bhutto said her agenda was "to empower the people, to educate the people, to provide employment opportunity to the people, to end the energy shortage that we have in the country."
On Sunday, Bhutto accused Musharraf's government of failing to crush Islamic militants.
Hours after Bhutto spoke, a suicide bomb attack on a military convoy killed five civilians and four soldiers in Pakistan's troubled northwestern Swat region, an army statement said.
On Monday, the newly formed Tehrik-i-Taliban, a coalition of Islamic militants committed to waging holy war against the government, said it was behind the bombing.
"That was just a warning shot ... the government should expect more if our demands are not met," Maulana Mohammed Umer, a spokesman for the group, said in a telephone interview from an unknown location.
The group demanded the military end its operations against militants in the Swat valley, remove checkpoints in the volatile tribal areas of northwest Pakistan and fully withdraw from the region, he said.
The army claims to have killed about 300 militants in operations in Swat since last month.
Though Pakistan is a key U.S. ally in the war on terror, Taliban and al-Qaida fighters have extended their influence over parts of the northwest in the past two years, and have launched numerous suicide attacks in recent months.
Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz told reporters in the capital, Islamabad on Monday that Musharraf still faced death threats from al-Qaida, although he did not give any evidence to back up his claim. Musharraf has survived at least three attacks in recent years, most blamed on al-Qaida.
The government was providing security during the election campaign to top opposition leaders, he said.
On Friday a suicide bomber, apparently targeting former Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao, blew himself up in a village mosque. Sherpao said the blast killed 56 people. As interior minister, Sherpao — now a candidate in the election — helped lead the government's fight against militants.
____
Associated Press reporter Ishtiaq Mehsud contributed to this report from Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, and AP reporter Khalid Tanveer contributed to this report from Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan

Source : IHT

U.S. Officials See Waste in Billions Sent to Pakistan

2007-12-24T01:47:00.000-08:00

By DAVID ROHDE, CARLOTTA GALL, ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: December 24, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After the United States has spent more than $5 billion in a largely failed effort to bolster the Pakistani military effort against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, some American officials now acknowledge that there were too few controls over the money. The strategy to improve the Pakistani military, they said, needs to be completely revamped.

In interviews in Islamabad and Washington, Bush administration and military officials said they believed that much of the American money was not making its way to frontline Pakistani units. Money has been diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India, not Al Qaeda or the Taliban, the officials said, adding that the United States has paid tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs.
“I personally believe there is exaggeration and inflation,” said a senior American military official who has reviewed the program, referring to Pakistani requests for reimbursement. “Then, I point back to the United States and say we didn’t have to give them money this way.”
Pakistani officials say they are incensed at what they see as American ingratitude for Pakistani counterterrorism efforts that have left about 1,000 Pakistani soldiers and police officers dead. They deny that any overcharging has occurred.
The $5 billion was provided through a program known as Coalition Support Funds, which reimburses Pakistan for conducting military operations to fight terrorism. Under a separate program, Pakistan receives $300 million per year in traditional American military financing that pays for equipment and training.
Civilian opponents of President Pervez Musharraf say he used the reimbursements to prop up his government. One European diplomat in Islamabad said the United States should have been more cautious with its aid.
“I wonder if the Americans have not been taken for a ride,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Lawmakers in Washington voted Thursday to put restrictions on the $300 million in military financing, and withheld $50 million of that money until Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice certifies that Islamabad has been restoring democratic rights since Mr. Musharraf lifted a state of emergency on Dec. 16. The measure had little effect on the far larger Coalition Support Funds reimbursements.
While it was a modest first step, any new conditions in aid could have a major effect on relations between the United States and Pakistan. Pakistan’s military relies on Washington for roughly a quarter of its entire $4 billion budget.
In interviews, American and Pakistani officials acknowledged that they had never agreed on the strategic goals that should drive how the money was spent, or how the Pakistanis would prove that they were performing up to American expectations.
After Six Years, a Plan
Early last week, six years after President Bush first began pouring billions of dollars into Pakistan’s military after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon completed a review that produced a classified plan to help the Pakistani military build an effective counterinsurgency force.
The plan, which now goes to the United States Embassy in Islamabad to carry out, seeks to focus American military aid toward specific equipment and training for Pakistani forces operating in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas where Qaeda leaders and local militants hold sway.
For their part, Pakistani officials angrily accused the United States of refusing to sell Pakistan the advanced helicopters, reconnaissance aircraft, radios and night-vision equipment it needs.
“There have been many aspects of equipment that we’ve been keen on getting,” said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the Pakistani military’s chief spokesman. “There have been many delays which have hampered this war against extremists.”
United States military officials said the American military was so overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan that it had no advanced helicopters to give to Pakistan. American law also restricts the export of sophisticated drones, night-vision goggles and other equipment for security reasons.
There is at least one area of agreement. Both sides say the reimbursements have failed substantially to increase the ability of Pakistani forces to mount comprehensive counterinsurgency operations.
For years, how money from the Coalition Support Funds was disbursed to the Pakistani government was veiled in secrecy. The size and scope of the payments to Pakistan was held so closely that one senior American military officer in Afghanistan said that he did not know that the administration was spending $1 billion a year until he attended a meeting in Islamabad in 2006.
“I was astounded,” said the officer, who would not speak for attribution because he now holds another senior military post. “On one side of the border we were paying a billion to get very little done. On the other side of the border — the Afghan side — we were scrambling to find the funds to train an army that actually wanted to get something done.”
But by mid-2007, the $1 billion-a-year figure became public, largely because of the objections of some military officials and defense experts who said that during an ill-fated peace treaty between the military and militants in the tribal areas in 2005 and 2006, the money kept flowing. Pakistan continued to submit receipts for reimbursement, even though Pakistani troops had stopped fighting.
Even then, however, American officials said there was little effort to rethink the purposes of the aid, or impose stricter controls.
Defense Department officials in the United States Embassy in Islamabad check the claims and ensure the receipts are well substantiated, officials said. The Pentagon’s comptroller and State Department then also certify the claims.
Dov Zakheim, who served as the Pentagon’s top financial officer until 2004 and helped set up the program in late 2001, said in a telephone interview that while he was at the department, the military carefully checked whether Pakistan carried out the operations it claimed and typically approved only 80 to 90 percent of each invoice.
But by July 2006, the Pentagon comptroller and Central Command were concerned enough about insufficient accountability to dispatch a team to Pakistan to lay out new requirements for more detailed invoices, a Pentagon spokesman said.
And by that fall, senior military officials at the embassy in Islamabad were telling visiting American lawmakers that the support fund program needed to be revamped to pay for specific objectives.
Inflated Invoices
Today, American officials say they believe that some of the invoices are inflated by as much as 30 percent.
“The claims that they submit are probably in some cases exaggerated and the amounts inflated,” said the senior American military official who had reviewed the program. “When it comes to reimbursement for the cost of food, bunker material, barbed wire fences, those are much more susceptible to inflation.”
Even the efforts to send Pakistan the refurbished Cobra helicopters, for instance, have cost more than expected and have fallen behind schedule. Pakistani forces have received only 12 of the 20 aircraft promised, and have been dissatisfied with the quality of them, a senior Pentagon official said.
One retired Pakistani military official said the American system of paying reimbursements did not allow for any forward planning. He expressed irritation that the Americans offered help, but not advanced American attack helicopters and drones, which are vital for counterinsurgency in the inaccessible tribal areas.
Praising Pakistan’s new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who took command after Mr. Musharraf resigned as the head of the army last month, American military officials called for a complete restructuring of American military aid to Pakistan. They said that the United States should supply the same amount of overall military assistance to Pakistan, but also require that it be supplied under traditional military aid programs with tighter controls.
But they fear that members of Congress will react to the troubled reimbursement program by slashing military aid to Pakistan.
“It’s not all or nothing,” the senior American military official said. “You need to regulate and manage it for more benefit both to Pakistan and the United States.”
Source: NYTIMES

Images 24-12-07

2007-12-23T21:26:00.000-08:00

نواز: ججوں کی بحالی اشد ضروری

2007-12-23T21:16:00.000-08:00

پاکستان مسلم لیگ کے سربراہ نواز شریف نے کہا ہے معزول ججوں کی بحالی اتنی ہی ضروری ہے جتنا پاکستان کا وجود اور یہ کہ عدلیہ کی آزادی اس وقت تک نہیں ہوسکتی جب تک ان ججوں کو بحال نہیں کیا جاتا ۔

نواز شریف آٹھ سالہ جلاوطنی سے ملک واپسی کے بعد اتوار کی دوپہر پہلی مرتبہ کراچی کے دورے پر پہنچے ہیں، جہاں انہوں نے پاکستان کے بانی قائد اعظم محمد علی جناح کے مزار پر حاضری دینے کے بعد معزول ججوں کے گھر جاکر ان سے یکجہتی کا اظہار کیا

اتوار کی شاہم ایک پریس کانفرنس کرتے ہوئے نواز شریف نے کہا کہ پوری دنیا میں ایسا کہیں نہیں ہوتا کہ ججوں کو معطل کرکے گرفتار کیا جائے۔ آج پوری دنیا پاکستان پر ہنس رہی ہے۔

نواز شریف نے کہا کہ وہ صدر پرویز مشرف کو کسی صورت میں قبول نہیں کریں گے:’ مشرف کو قبول کرنے کا مطلب تو یہ ہے کہ ان کے سارے اقدامات کو قبول کیا جائے جو انہوں نے انیس سو ننانوے سے اٹھائے ہیں۔ پھر ہم بھی پاکستان کے غداروں میں اپنا نام لکھوالیں۔‘

دہشت گردی کے خلاف امریکہ کی عالمی جنگ کے حوالے سے نواز شریف نے کہا کہ اس جنگ کی تشریح کرنے کی ضرورت ہے کہ یہ دہشت گردی کے خلاف جنگ ہے بھی یا نہیں یا یہ صرف امریکہ کا حکم ہے جو ہمیں آنکھیں بند کرکے ماننا ہے نواز شریف نے کہا کہ وہ ہر قسم کی دہشت گردی کے خلاف ہیں ایک دہشت گردی بموں کے ذریعے کی جارہی ہے اور ایک دہشت گردی وہ ہے جو مشرف کر رہے ہیں۔ ’مشرف نے آئین توڑا، قانون توڑا پارلیمنٹ توڑی یہ بھی دہشت گردی ہے اس کا بھی احتساب ہونا چاہئیے۔‘

انہوں نے چودھری برادران کو شدید تنقید کا نشانہ بناتے ہوئے کہا کہ کنگس پارٹی کے کئی لوگ جو مشرف کے کیمپ میں نظر آتے ہیں وہ ان کے دور حکومت میں وزیر اور مشیر تھے ، ان میں ضمیر نام کی کوئی چیز نہیں۔

سابق وزیر اعظم کا کہنا تھا کہ ملک میں کہیں بھی مسلم لیگ قائد اعظم کا ووٹ بینک نہیں ہے وہ کمروں میں بیٹھے کر الیکشن مہم چلا رہے ہیں اور پس پردہ دھاندلی کی تیاریاں کی جاری رہی ہیں اس سے قبل پاکستان کے بانی محمد علی جناح کے مزار پر کارکنوں کو خطاب کرتے ہوئے نواز شریف نے کہا کہ آٹھ جنوری انتخابات کا نہیں ریفرنڈم کا دن ہے اس روز آمریت ہمیشہ کے لیے دفن ہوجائےگی۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ پاکستان میں ڈکٹیٹر کی نہیں عوام کی حکومت ہوگی اور کسی جرنیل کی نہیں عوام کی منتخب حکومت کو لانا ہے۔

انہوں نے کارکنوں کو مخاطب ہوکر کہا کہ ’ہمیں یہ عہد کرنا ہے کہ یہاں پاکستان کا قانون ہوگا جنگل کا قانون نہیں ہوگا۔‘

نواز شریف نے کہا ہے کہ خیبر سے لیکر کراچی تک پاکستان خون میں ڈوبا ہوا ہے، ہر طرف اصطراب ہے، کہیں بھی امن، سکون اور اطمینان نہیں ہے۔

مزار قائد پر حاضری کے بعد نواز شریف پی سی او کے تحت حلف نہ اٹھانے والے سندھ ہائی کورٹ کے چیف جسٹس صبیح الدین احمد، سرمد جلال جسٹس سعید الزمان صدیقی سے ملاقات کی اور انہیں خراج تحسین پیش کیا۔

بعد میں جسٹس سرمد جلال عثمانی کی بیگم شرمین عثمانی نے نواز شریف کے ساتھ پریس کانفرنس میں مسلم لیگ نواز میں شمولیت کااعلان کیا۔

اتوار کی صبح ایئرپورٹ پر نواز شریف کے استقبال کے لیے آئے ہوئے کارکنوں پر پولیس نے لاٹھی چارج کیا۔

میاں نواز شریف کی آمد کے موقعے پر کئی درجن کارکن قائد اعظم انٹرنیشنل ایئرپورٹ پہنچے گئے تھے اور پولیس کی بھی ایک بھاری نفری تعینات تھی، جنہوں نے کارکنوں کو ٹرمینل کی جانب جانے سے روک رکھا تھا۔

نواز شریف پیر کی صبح سکھر روانہ ہوں گے جہاں ایک جلسہ عام کو خطاب کریں گے۔

Source : BBC.CO.UK

Pakistan’s Tyranny Continues - Aitzaz Ehsan

2007-12-22T21:46:00.000-08:00

By AITZAZ AHSAN

Published: December 23, 2007

Lahore, Pakistan

THE chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and his family have been detained in their house, barricaded in with barbed wire and surrounded by police officers in riot gear since Nov. 3. Phone lines have been cut and jammers have been installed all around the house to disable cellphones. And the United States doesn’t seem to care about any of that.

The chief justice is not the only person who has been detained. All of his colleagues who, having sworn to protect, uphold and defend the Constitution, refused to take a new oath prescribed by President Pervez Musharraf as chief of the army remain confined to their homes with their family members. The chief justice’s lawyers are also in detention, initially in such medieval conditions that two of them were hospitalized, one with renal failure.

As the chief justice’s lead counsel, I, too, was held without charge — first in solitary confinement for three weeks and subsequently under house arrest. Last Thursday morning, I was released to celebrate the Id holidays. But that evening, driving to Islamabad to say prayers at Faisal Mosque, my family and I were surrounded at a rest stop by policemen with guns cocked and I was dragged off and thrown into the back of a police van. After a long and harrowing drive along back roads, I was returned home and to house arrest.

Every day, thousands of lawyers and members of the civil society striving for a liberal and tolerant society in Pakistan demonstrate on the streets. They are bludgeoned by the regime’s brutal police and paramilitary units. Yet they come out again the next day.

People in the United States wonder why extremist militants in Pakistan are winning. What they should ask is why does President Musharraf have so little respect for civil society — and why does he essentially have the backing of American officials?

The White House and State Department briefings on Pakistan ignore the removal of the justices and all these detentions. Meanwhile, lawyers, bar associations and institutes of law around the world have taken note of this brave movement for due process and constitutionalism. They have displayed their solidarity for the lawyers of Pakistan. These include, in the United States alone, the American Bar Association, state and local bars stretching from New York and New Jersey to Louisiana, Ohio and California, and citadels of legal education like Harvard and Yale Law Schools.

The detained chief justice continues to receive enormous recognition and acknowledgment. Harvard Law School has conferred on him its highest award, placing him on the same pedestal as Nelson Mandela and the legal team that argued Brown v. Board of Education. The National Law Journal has anointed him its lawyer of the year. The New York City Bar Association has admitted him as a rare honorary member. Despite all this, the Musharraf regime shows no sign of relenting.

But for how long? How long can the chief justice and his colleagues be kept in confinement? How long can the leaders of the lawyers’ movement be detained? They will all be out one day. And they will neither be silent nor still.

They will recount the brutal treatment meted out to them for seeking the establishment of a tolerant, democratic, liberal and plural political system in Pakistan. They will state how the writ of habeas corpus was denied to them by the arbitrary and unconstitutional firing of Supreme and High Court justices. They will spell out precisely how one man set aside a Constitution under the pretext of an “emergency,” arrested the judges, packed the judiciary, “amended” the Constitution by a personal decree and then “restored” it to the acclaim of London and Washington.

They will, of course, speak then. But others are speaking now. The parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8 have already been rigged, they are saying. The election commission and the caretaker cabinet are overtly partisan. The judiciary is entirely hand-picked. State resources are being spent on preselected candidates. There is a deafening uproar even though the independent news media in Pakistan are completely gagged. Can there even be an election in this environment?

Are they being heard? I’m afraid not.

Courtesy : NY TIMES

مرتا عام شہری ہی ہے

2007-12-22T21:28:00.000-08:00

عبدالحئی کاکڑ

پاکستان میں گزشتہ چار سالوں کے دوران صدرجنرل (ریٹائرڈ) پرویز مشرف اور سابق وزیر اعظم بینظیر بھٹو سمیت چھ اعلیٰ حکومتی، فوجی اور سیاسی شخصیات کو ’ ٹارگٹ‘ بنایاگیا ہے تاہم مبینہ دہشت گردوں کو اپنے’اہداف‘ کو نشانہ بنانے میں ناکامی ہوئی ہے۔ ان حملوں میں مبینہ ٹارگٹ کی بجائے دو سو چون سے زیادہ بےگناہ شہری ہلاک ہوئے ہیں۔

اس عرصے میں صدر جنرل (ریٹائرڈ) پرویز مشرف وہ پہلی اعلیٰ حکومتی شخصیت تھے جن پر چودہ دسمبر دو ہزار تین کو راولپنڈی میں جھنڈا چیچی پل پر ریموٹ کنٹرول بم کے ذریعے حملہ کیا گیا تاہم اس حملے کو ناکام بنایا گیا تھا۔

اس کے گیارہ روز بعد پچیس دسمبر دو ہزار تین کوان پر دوسرا حملہ کیا گیا جس کے نتیجے میں چودہ افراد ہلاک جبکہ چالیس زخمی ہوگئے تھے۔جنرل مشرف اس حملے میں بھی محفوظ رہے تھے۔

دس جون دوہزار چار کو کراچی میں کلفٹن کے علاقے میں کراچی کے کور کمانڈر لیفٹننٹ احسن سلیم حیات ایک حملے میں بال بال بچے تاہم اس حملے کے نتیجے میں دس افراد جان بحق ہوئے تھے۔

تیس جون دوہزار چار کو پاکستان کے سابق وزیر اعظم شوکت عزیز کو ضلع اٹک میں اس وقت ایک خودکش حملے کا نشانہ بنایا گیا جب وہ قومی اسمبلی کےضمنی انتخابات کی مہم میں مصروف تھے۔اس حملے میں وہ محفوظ رہے لیکن دیگر چھ افراد ہلاک ہوگئے تھے۔

پاکستان کے سابق وزیر داخلہ آفتاب احمد خان شیرپاؤ کو اٹھائیس اپریل دو ہزار سات کو چارسدہ میں ایک مبینہ خود کش حملے کا نشانہ بنایاگیا۔اگرچہ اس حملے میں وہ خود معمولی طور پر زخمی ہوئے تھے لیکن حملے کے نتیجے میں ریلی میں شامل تیس سے زائد افراد ہلاک ہوگئے تھے۔

آفتاب شیر پاؤ کو جمعہ اکیس دسمبر دو ہزار سات کو چارسدہ میں دوبارہ ’ٹارگٹ‘ بنایا گیا جس میں وہ خود تو محفوظ رہے البتہ پچاس سے زیادہ افراد ہلاک اور سو کے قریب زخمی ہوگئے
اٹھارہ اکتوبر کو پیپلز پارٹی کی چیئر پرسن بینظیر بھٹو کے استقبالی جلوس کو مبینہ خود کش حملے کا نشانہ بنایا گیا جس میں ایک سو چالیس سے زائد افراد ہلاک ہوگئے تھے۔جبکہ نو نومبر کو پشاور میں پاکستان کے وفاقی وزیر برائے سیاسی امور امیر مقام کی رہائش گاہ پر مبینہ خودکش حملہ کیا گیا جس میں چار افراد ہلاک ہوگئے تھے۔

اگرچہ بظاہر ان حملوں کا نشانہ اعلیٰ حکومتی اہلکار تھے مگر ان کے نتیجے میں ہلاک ہونے والے زیادہ تر بے گناہ شہری تھے جنکی مجموعی تعداد دو سو چون سے زیادہ ہے

Source : BBC

Eid'ul'Adha in Pakistan

2007-12-21T23:52:00.000-08:00

Courtesy: BBC.CO.UK

Flag Ceremony at Wagah

2007-10-05T05:17:00.000-07:00

Flag Ceremony