Posts
By Kamran Shafi
THAILAND is one of the most pleasurable places in the whole wide world to visit — now before any of you start sniggering, I am here with my twelve-year-old daughter, so there — everybody smiles at you, the food is great, the shopping affordable, and even the weather is cooler than that in the Land of the Pure at this time of year.
If you are travelling Thai Airlines, the feeling that you are in friendly and caring hands washes over you the moment you step on to the airplane. The attendants are exceedingly polite and helpful and nobody growls at you as they most times do on PIA, the exception being a good PIA flight now and again.
Our hotel in Siam Square, the Novotel, a 4-star establishment (it is at least 7-star when compared to most of the kitsch hostelries in the Fatherland almost all of which are actually shadi-ghars or marriage halls now), is a great hotel with excellent services. It is located right by the best eating places, cinemas, and spanking new shopping malls and department stores.
The comfortable and squeaky clean Sky-Train is a one-minute walk away and once on it you have the freedom of the city of Bangkok where one of the most helpful and hospitable and delightful people that I know, Prapa Smutkojon, lives. What a pleasure it is being with him and discussing the world with him.
But by God was it difficult to get a tourist visa to visit this great and gentle Kingdom this time around! I have been here tens of times (the first time in 1979), and there were at least three previous visas, one as recent as February this year, in the passport presented to the embassy, but what a palaver it was to get one. It was so difficult and embarrassing and demeaning that had it not been for Zainab whose holiday this was, I would have withdrawn my passport and not come at all.
And what was the problem after completing ALL the formalities such as attaching bank statements and air tickets (as if we might have swum to Thailand otherwise!), attaching a letter introducing myself AND naming Prapa as my contact in Bangkok complete with his address and telephone numbers? That since I had written in the column ‘Profession’ the word ‘Columnist’, there was not a letter from my editor saying that I was, indeed, a columnist with his newspaper!
I thought the Thai embassy had a press section that actually scanned the Pakistani papers! And who might have known that there was a columnist called Kamran Shafi in the English press in Pakistan who had been writing for not one or two or three years, but for 25! I mean, puhlease!
It was not as if I had asked the Thai embassy to pay my airfare, or my hotel expenses, that my editor’s certificate was necessary. I mean all I was doing was applying for a tourist visa so I could bring my little daughter to this beautiful country for a short holiday. That is all.
But wait. When I told Prapa about my tribulations at the hands of the Thai embassy in Islamabad, he told me of his friend’s at the hands of our embassy in Bangkok. Apparently some typically typical bureaucrat, and by golly do we have more than our fair share of them, had asked for a ‘FAXED’ copy of something or other document.
When Prapa and his friend went with an ‘EMAILED’ copy of the document, the Pakistani bureaucrat rejected it, insisting on a ‘FAX’. So, there it is, tit for bloody tat! One bureaucrat outdoing another. But, seriously, Thailand is a far better run, better organised country than the Citadel of Islam in every single way. Why, even the electricity doesn’t go off, not for a single minute, ever.
Its visa procedures, therefore, need to be made more efficient too. The Thai embassy in Islamabad is the only embassy that has asked me for a letter from my editor. And I travel rather a lot.Elsewhere now and there are reports that the Americans are ‘winning’ in Iraq. One million or so killed and maimed-for-life Iraqis; fully 15 per cent of the country’s population refugees; several trillion $s down the tube; Iraq’s infrastructure in ruins; the Turks bombing the daylights out of the Kurds; and America with many more enemies than before the assault on Iraq is winning, is it?
If it is, then why not an all-out assault on Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas? Indeed, why not nuke ’em out of existence? It will cost less and if there are no more Afghans and Pakistani tribals there will not be any problem, what?
Meanwhile, news from home is, as usual, bad and bad news follows you wherever you go, even in beautiful Thailand. The latest shenanigans of Rehman Malik aka The One Man Wrecking Crew and the evidently not-very-bright Yousuf Raza Gilani have delivered another kick in the nation’s teeth, sending it reeling another time.
I am no friend of a rampant ISI, let me say straight away, but to place it under an unelected person, particularly one whose name is Rehman Malik who has already distinguished himself not once, not twice, but three times putting both his feet in the government’s collective mouth?
Instead of trying to cut the ISI to size in several other ways, one being posting out the incumbent directors general, all of them, and reducing the ranks of their successors, these nincompoops go and issue a silly order as if Musharraf and his handmaidens who still hold positions of great authority would let them get away with it.
NOW does Zardari understand just WHY it was/is imperative that the Commando be got rid off at the earliest opportunity? NOW does he understand that the judges should have been restored to the pre-Nov 3 position months ago? NOW does he understand that Naek, Khosa, Awan and Company were/are exactly the wrong people to listen to?
I am still plumping for democracy; I am still hopeful that we will transform from an army-dominated dictatorship to a true democracy; I am still hopeful that the great coalition will stay and prosper. But will Asif Zardari do the right thing, even now? If he doesn’t it is his neck first on the block — he should know that much.
PS. More good news: Thailand beat Pakistan 29-0 in the Under-15 Asian School Football Championships in Bangkok this last Saturday. However, we are a nuclear power and have not one, but several bums.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Go for it, Gents
By Kamran Shafi
WHY in God’s name should Asif Zardari go to the White House to beg Dubya’s indulgence to impeach Musharraf?
And why in heaven’s name should Nawaz Sharif accompany him so that Dubya is moved enough to allow the elected government of Pakistan to impeach Musharraf?
If Asif Zardari’s ‘aides’ are to be believed — they leaked such stories to the press two days running last week — Asif had asked Nawaz Sharif to accompany him to DC so that they could, the both of them, stand in The Presence of possibly the most inept, most dangerous leader the US has ever had, and ask his permission to impeach Musharraf.
If the ‘aides’ are to be believed, NS has refused to go. Well, bully for him. What does Dubya have to do with this matter anyway? The ‘aides’ also let slip that Asif Zardari is upset that Nawaz Sharif let him down in the past too: that when Asif Zardari asked him to accompany him to Saudi Arabia to plead for oil on deferred payment, Nawaz Sharif said he would go but refused at the last minute.
Hang on a minute though. A source extremely close to Raiwind told me a month ago that whilst Asif Zardari had mentioned to Nawaz Sharif that they would go to Saudi Arabia together, when the time came Asif Zardari marched off on his own. I believe this version of events because my source is more than impeccable.
This is not the way to do business, sirs, it just is not. The coalition will simply not be able to take the pressures being put on it by irresponsible ‘leaks’ to the press by ‘aides’. As it is, the coalition that most Pakistanis including I fervently hope will stay together and defeat the dictatorship once and for all is already under huge pressure, especially, you guessed it, because of the PPP’s one step forward, five back approach to the impeachment and the judges issue.
Critically, this wishy-washy, neither here nor there, approach by the PPP is hurting itself far more than it is hurting the coalition. A little anecdote: walking three days ago in the Bagh-i-Jinnah, even now known to most Lahoris as Lawrence Gardens, a group of walkers stopped me and asked if I was I.
When told that it was indeed, one of them suggested a live DawnNews show about what they called the ‘retired hurt’ members of the PPP — a group of middle-aged and ageing gentlemen sitting under one of the gazebos in the gardens cooling off after their walk. I walked across to them and talked of this and that and it wasn’t long before it all came spilling out.
It broke my heart to see these 60- and 70-year-old men literally cry tears for what they thought was entirely the wrong path their party was taking. Their anguish was heightened by the publication just that day of the survey by the IRI that told us that fully 86 per cent of Pakistanis thought the country was headed in the wrong direction; 85 per cent demanded the ouster of Pervez Musharraf and 83 per cent wanted the restoration of the judiciary.
“Why can’t Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto’s party do what the people of Pakistan want it to do and move the country forward,” they asked almost in unison. They were a forlorn lot, those good men, but the one positive that came out was that they still had time for democracy and said so too. There was another: a grudging respect for Nawaz Sharif and his sticking by his word. For those who remember that the PPP and the PML-N were daggers drawn in the past this is a refreshing change.
But back to Yousuf Raza Gilani’s trip to the mecca of all Pakistani ‘leaders’, Washington DC (wasn’t China always the first port of call for ‘new’ occupants of our highest offices in the past?): why is Asif Zardari tagging along? Well, if he is going, it will be Gilani who will be tagging along.
But why? After all Yousuf Raza Gilani is the purported prime minister of this luckless country. Is there no thought at all that because Asif is the real power behind Gilani’s chair, Gilani might be completely overshadowed? Also, governments work with governments, not with political party leaders.
Look at India where whilst Sardar Manmohan Singh sits where he does only because Sonia Gandhi wants him to sit there, Sonia Gandhi does not sit in on meetings of Mr Singh with the representatives of foreign governments. Neither does she accompany the prime minister on his foreign tours.
Critically, the Americans have shown their teeth, as it were, where the Commando is concerned. They want him right where he is, if only they can cajole and wheedle Nawaz Sharif from his firm stand that the man be impeached and tried in a court of law. So what is the point of genuflecting to them on this count? Shouldn’t the PPP do the right thing and be done with it?
If the PPP knows what is good for the country and for itself, it will immediately do what the people of Pakistan want it to do. The bells are tolling for democracy one more time, which by the way is fine and dandy as far as I am concerned because that will be the last foray of the Pakistan Army-led venal Establishment into politics.
So go on, Gents, go for it. An important aside: my pal, the good Tahira Abdullah, berated me just last evening, despite the fact that she knows me so well, for using the term ‘Sirs’ — indeed ‘Gents’ — when I refer to the Establishment. She says this is “sexist” of me.
No, not at all. I use the terms with extreme prejudice, because it is men who have brought the country to near ruin, not women. Which woman heads a corps of the Pakistan Army, Tahira? Which woman was ever military dictator of Pakistan?
So, Gents, go for it.
Bushism of the Week: “Throughout our history, the words of the Declaration have inspired immigrants from around the world to set sail to our shores. These immigrants have helped transform 13 small colonies into a great and growing nation of more than 300 people” — President George W. Bush; Charlottesville, Virginia, July 4, 2008
P.S. And, Sirs, be hugely ashamed at what My Lord Ramday said about you on live TV two nights ago.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
WHY in God’s name should Asif Zardari go to the White House to beg Dubya’s indulgence to impeach Musharraf?
And why in heaven’s name should Nawaz Sharif accompany him so that Dubya is moved enough to allow the elected government of Pakistan to impeach Musharraf?
If Asif Zardari’s ‘aides’ are to be believed — they leaked such stories to the press two days running last week — Asif had asked Nawaz Sharif to accompany him to DC so that they could, the both of them, stand in The Presence of possibly the most inept, most dangerous leader the US has ever had, and ask his permission to impeach Musharraf.
If the ‘aides’ are to be believed, NS has refused to go. Well, bully for him. What does Dubya have to do with this matter anyway? The ‘aides’ also let slip that Asif Zardari is upset that Nawaz Sharif let him down in the past too: that when Asif Zardari asked him to accompany him to Saudi Arabia to plead for oil on deferred payment, Nawaz Sharif said he would go but refused at the last minute.
Hang on a minute though. A source extremely close to Raiwind told me a month ago that whilst Asif Zardari had mentioned to Nawaz Sharif that they would go to Saudi Arabia together, when the time came Asif Zardari marched off on his own. I believe this version of events because my source is more than impeccable.
This is not the way to do business, sirs, it just is not. The coalition will simply not be able to take the pressures being put on it by irresponsible ‘leaks’ to the press by ‘aides’. As it is, the coalition that most Pakistanis including I fervently hope will stay together and defeat the dictatorship once and for all is already under huge pressure, especially, you guessed it, because of the PPP’s one step forward, five back approach to the impeachment and the judges issue.
Critically, this wishy-washy, neither here nor there, approach by the PPP is hurting itself far more than it is hurting the coalition. A little anecdote: walking three days ago in the Bagh-i-Jinnah, even now known to most Lahoris as Lawrence Gardens, a group of walkers stopped me and asked if I was I.
When told that it was indeed, one of them suggested a live DawnNews show about what they called the ‘retired hurt’ members of the PPP — a group of middle-aged and ageing gentlemen sitting under one of the gazebos in the gardens cooling off after their walk. I walked across to them and talked of this and that and it wasn’t long before it all came spilling out.
It broke my heart to see these 60- and 70-year-old men literally cry tears for what they thought was entirely the wrong path their party was taking. Their anguish was heightened by the publication just that day of the survey by the IRI that told us that fully 86 per cent of Pakistanis thought the country was headed in the wrong direction; 85 per cent demanded the ouster of Pervez Musharraf and 83 per cent wanted the restoration of the judiciary.
“Why can’t Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto’s party do what the people of Pakistan want it to do and move the country forward,” they asked almost in unison. They were a forlorn lot, those good men, but the one positive that came out was that they still had time for democracy and said so too. There was another: a grudging respect for Nawaz Sharif and his sticking by his word. For those who remember that the PPP and the PML-N were daggers drawn in the past this is a refreshing change.
But back to Yousuf Raza Gilani’s trip to the mecca of all Pakistani ‘leaders’, Washington DC (wasn’t China always the first port of call for ‘new’ occupants of our highest offices in the past?): why is Asif Zardari tagging along? Well, if he is going, it will be Gilani who will be tagging along.
But why? After all Yousuf Raza Gilani is the purported prime minister of this luckless country. Is there no thought at all that because Asif is the real power behind Gilani’s chair, Gilani might be completely overshadowed? Also, governments work with governments, not with political party leaders.
Look at India where whilst Sardar Manmohan Singh sits where he does only because Sonia Gandhi wants him to sit there, Sonia Gandhi does not sit in on meetings of Mr Singh with the representatives of foreign governments. Neither does she accompany the prime minister on his foreign tours.
Critically, the Americans have shown their teeth, as it were, where the Commando is concerned. They want him right where he is, if only they can cajole and wheedle Nawaz Sharif from his firm stand that the man be impeached and tried in a court of law. So what is the point of genuflecting to them on this count? Shouldn’t the PPP do the right thing and be done with it?
If the PPP knows what is good for the country and for itself, it will immediately do what the people of Pakistan want it to do. The bells are tolling for democracy one more time, which by the way is fine and dandy as far as I am concerned because that will be the last foray of the Pakistan Army-led venal Establishment into politics.
So go on, Gents, go for it. An important aside: my pal, the good Tahira Abdullah, berated me just last evening, despite the fact that she knows me so well, for using the term ‘Sirs’ — indeed ‘Gents’ — when I refer to the Establishment. She says this is “sexist” of me.
No, not at all. I use the terms with extreme prejudice, because it is men who have brought the country to near ruin, not women. Which woman heads a corps of the Pakistan Army, Tahira? Which woman was ever military dictator of Pakistan?
So, Gents, go for it.
Bushism of the Week: “Throughout our history, the words of the Declaration have inspired immigrants from around the world to set sail to our shores. These immigrants have helped transform 13 small colonies into a great and growing nation of more than 300 people” — President George W. Bush; Charlottesville, Virginia, July 4, 2008
P.S. And, Sirs, be hugely ashamed at what My Lord Ramday said about you on live TV two nights ago.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
There it is, friends
By Kamran Shafi
SO then, friends, here we are up to our necks in rather hot soup, to use a polite term to describe our predicament. It is a concoction really, neither this nor that, part mulligatawny and part clear beef broth, part potato and leak, part tomato and basil leaf.
Meaning of course that you can make neither head nor tail of the situation, that barring a few needed and very laudatory actions which the government took at the very beginning of its tenure, nothing seems to have changed.You only have to look at the ongoing efforts of super adviser, some say de facto prime minister, Rehman Malik, to get a hang of how things are going. Not a day passes when the man does not put his foot in it — the latest being his loud statement that the most stringent action needs to be taken in Khyber Agency. This, mark, during the efforts of the jirga to bring peace to the area!
A mere two days before this gem, he goes and says that demonstrations and protests in Islamabad will be limited to just one spot which will soon be chosen by the police and notified. How can the government possibly take away a citizen’s right to congregate with his or her fellows at a place of HIS or HER choosing?
Where else in the world are you prohibited from demonstrating where you will? Will this be a new First for the Land of the Pure? Does the present elected government want to surpass dictatorships in enacting this silly rule that even infringes the most basic human right of its citizens: to go where they will, in their own country? Can no one put a halter on the man?
You only had to go to the camp set up by the families of the disappeared at Aabpara Chowk on Friday afternoon to see the same faces of the old and feeble parents; the very same worn faces of the wives; the very same sad faces of the children of the disappeared that one saw at every protest demonstration that one attended.
The very same tears came welling up when you went up to them to say salaam and to assure them that the Almighty would listen to their anguished prayers — one day. “Why don’t they tell me where my son is,” an old lady asked me for the tenth time. “Where is my father,” said a twelve-year-old boy? “Is he alive; is he dead; where he is he?” “Why don’t they tell me?”
What could one do but cry with them the tears of a helplessness that breaks one’s heart; tears of a soul-searing agony? And then, when one’s thoughts went back to the way in which these human beings were sold into captivity, at US$5,000 a pop, what could one do but cry the tears that come from a realisation that there are among us people who simply do not deserve to be called human? (Everybody please read Pervez Musharraf’s In the Line of Fire which describes the ‘SALE’ of these poor things — stand up Humayun Gauhar.)
Much more than the shameless bounty-hunting, 90 per cent of those that were sold by us Pakistanis (shame on us; shame on us!) to the American administration have been deemed to be innocent of all charges of terrorism! In one case, an Afghan farmer handed over his neighbour to the Mother of All Pakistani Agencies just because he had a land dispute with him! The usual $5,000 duly changed hands of course. Shame on you sirs; shame on you.
Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, was here recently. HRW has done yeoman service in aid of human rights in general and for the ‘disappeared’ as they refer to those who are in extra-legal confinement wherever. HRW is based in New York, and yet its harshest condemnation is for the United States for so cruelly incarcerating so many innocents just because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
It was such a pleasure to meet this most gentle of persons, but someone with a steely resolve who has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would go to the ends of the earth to point out injustice and cruelty. Wherever there are human rights violations you will find HRW and Kenneth Roth. And of course, people such as the courageous and outspoken Ali Dayan Hasan, HRW’s representative in Pakistan. There are too few like them; would that we had more.
I had Ken Roth on ‘Wide Angle’ on DawnNews a few weeks ago. It was moving in the extreme to hear the stories of the victims of Guantanamo Bay and what HRW was doing for them. He also came down heavily on the Musharraf government for precipitating the judicial and constitutional crises in which we find ourselves mired today.
Which brings me to ask why it is that we are still ‘mired’ where we were a year or more ago. Whilst the American administration and its foolish support to the Commando is basically to blame, why can’t our elected political leaders, basically those of the PPP, not be done with the man and the issues?
They say the Americans have Asif Zardari by the neck because of the ‘deal’, but does he not realise that ‘they’ will get rid of him as soon as it is clear that the PML-N has finally got fed up and has walked away from the coalition? I mean, ‘they’ have already managed to drive a dagger through the heart of the party with the murder of Benazir Bhutto.
Meanwhile, back at the Commando’s ranch, the most incendiary language was used by Karachi’s nazim, Mustafa Kamal, a recent VVVIP visitor to Foggy Bottom and Langley, USA, whilst Musharraf sat on the dais at a recent Karachi gathering.
Not only did Kamal bad-mouth the PPP for being in a coalition with the PML-N, he also told “businessmen” not to take their money out of Pakistan for when they returned “after six months or one year the region and its geography may not be the same” or words to that exact effect.
Musharraf was not moved, choosing only to say, and I kid you not, words to the effect: “I am a commando and know offence”. Now Asif can put whatever connotation he likes on this; I can only advise extreme caution. And immediate action.
And can he please stop grinning? There is nothing to smile about in the Citadel of Islam; not yet anyway.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
SO then, friends, here we are up to our necks in rather hot soup, to use a polite term to describe our predicament. It is a concoction really, neither this nor that, part mulligatawny and part clear beef broth, part potato and leak, part tomato and basil leaf.
Meaning of course that you can make neither head nor tail of the situation, that barring a few needed and very laudatory actions which the government took at the very beginning of its tenure, nothing seems to have changed.You only have to look at the ongoing efforts of super adviser, some say de facto prime minister, Rehman Malik, to get a hang of how things are going. Not a day passes when the man does not put his foot in it — the latest being his loud statement that the most stringent action needs to be taken in Khyber Agency. This, mark, during the efforts of the jirga to bring peace to the area!
A mere two days before this gem, he goes and says that demonstrations and protests in Islamabad will be limited to just one spot which will soon be chosen by the police and notified. How can the government possibly take away a citizen’s right to congregate with his or her fellows at a place of HIS or HER choosing?
Where else in the world are you prohibited from demonstrating where you will? Will this be a new First for the Land of the Pure? Does the present elected government want to surpass dictatorships in enacting this silly rule that even infringes the most basic human right of its citizens: to go where they will, in their own country? Can no one put a halter on the man?
You only had to go to the camp set up by the families of the disappeared at Aabpara Chowk on Friday afternoon to see the same faces of the old and feeble parents; the very same worn faces of the wives; the very same sad faces of the children of the disappeared that one saw at every protest demonstration that one attended.
The very same tears came welling up when you went up to them to say salaam and to assure them that the Almighty would listen to their anguished prayers — one day. “Why don’t they tell me where my son is,” an old lady asked me for the tenth time. “Where is my father,” said a twelve-year-old boy? “Is he alive; is he dead; where he is he?” “Why don’t they tell me?”
What could one do but cry with them the tears of a helplessness that breaks one’s heart; tears of a soul-searing agony? And then, when one’s thoughts went back to the way in which these human beings were sold into captivity, at US$5,000 a pop, what could one do but cry the tears that come from a realisation that there are among us people who simply do not deserve to be called human? (Everybody please read Pervez Musharraf’s In the Line of Fire which describes the ‘SALE’ of these poor things — stand up Humayun Gauhar.)
Much more than the shameless bounty-hunting, 90 per cent of those that were sold by us Pakistanis (shame on us; shame on us!) to the American administration have been deemed to be innocent of all charges of terrorism! In one case, an Afghan farmer handed over his neighbour to the Mother of All Pakistani Agencies just because he had a land dispute with him! The usual $5,000 duly changed hands of course. Shame on you sirs; shame on you.
Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, was here recently. HRW has done yeoman service in aid of human rights in general and for the ‘disappeared’ as they refer to those who are in extra-legal confinement wherever. HRW is based in New York, and yet its harshest condemnation is for the United States for so cruelly incarcerating so many innocents just because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
It was such a pleasure to meet this most gentle of persons, but someone with a steely resolve who has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would go to the ends of the earth to point out injustice and cruelty. Wherever there are human rights violations you will find HRW and Kenneth Roth. And of course, people such as the courageous and outspoken Ali Dayan Hasan, HRW’s representative in Pakistan. There are too few like them; would that we had more.
I had Ken Roth on ‘Wide Angle’ on DawnNews a few weeks ago. It was moving in the extreme to hear the stories of the victims of Guantanamo Bay and what HRW was doing for them. He also came down heavily on the Musharraf government for precipitating the judicial and constitutional crises in which we find ourselves mired today.
Which brings me to ask why it is that we are still ‘mired’ where we were a year or more ago. Whilst the American administration and its foolish support to the Commando is basically to blame, why can’t our elected political leaders, basically those of the PPP, not be done with the man and the issues?
They say the Americans have Asif Zardari by the neck because of the ‘deal’, but does he not realise that ‘they’ will get rid of him as soon as it is clear that the PML-N has finally got fed up and has walked away from the coalition? I mean, ‘they’ have already managed to drive a dagger through the heart of the party with the murder of Benazir Bhutto.
Meanwhile, back at the Commando’s ranch, the most incendiary language was used by Karachi’s nazim, Mustafa Kamal, a recent VVVIP visitor to Foggy Bottom and Langley, USA, whilst Musharraf sat on the dais at a recent Karachi gathering.
Not only did Kamal bad-mouth the PPP for being in a coalition with the PML-N, he also told “businessmen” not to take their money out of Pakistan for when they returned “after six months or one year the region and its geography may not be the same” or words to that exact effect.
Musharraf was not moved, choosing only to say, and I kid you not, words to the effect: “I am a commando and know offence”. Now Asif can put whatever connotation he likes on this; I can only advise extreme caution. And immediate action.
And can he please stop grinning? There is nothing to smile about in the Citadel of Islam; not yet anyway.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
We know, Mr Boucher sir, we know
We know, Mr Boucher sir, we know
By Kamran Shafi
YES, we know; we know exactly what our problems are, thank you very much indeed sir.
We know we have an acute electricity shortage in the country, and who better than those of us who live in the area of Wah (no, not the cantonment which has virtually NO load-shedding at all) and Hasan Abdal where we have load-shedding every hour on the hour? (I am told there are areas in the country that have 18 to 20 hours of it but how should that concern you?)
Note, Mr Boucher sir, that when we do have electricity we have all 150 volts of it, instead of the 220-240 volts that we should have. This too fluctuates violently, up and down, up and down, veering from 120 to 180 and sometimes surging to 270. So don’t tell us we have an electricity shortage problem.
Don’t tell us either, that we have a wheat shortage that has sent its price sky-rocketing. Boy, don’t we know? We know too that because the wheat is smuggled out of the country — to Afghanistan primarily — it is sometimes simply not available to the poor in our village.
And, Mr Boucher sir, we know too that we have a huge problem of terrorism stalking our country. Like the instant bombing in Islamabad that killed upwards of twenty (and growing) poor policemen on duty, to give security to a memorial public meeting at the Lal Masjid to remember the kids who were killed there last year only because your favoured government led so ably by your favourite Commando allowed the matter to fester for so long — six years to be exact.
And then, of course did entirely the wrong thing by making an all-out assault when a siege that allowed everything and everybody out and let nothing in, would have sufficed. This was not a first either, Mr Boucher… give army governments in Pakistan two ways of doing something — one good and the other most ham-handed and they will always choose the latter.
So don’t you lecture us please, sir, on what our problems are. Also, will you kindly desist from telling us to go easy on Musharraf because we have “OTHER” problems to deal with too, and leave to us Pakistanis to decide which of our problems are to be sorted out first?
I mean, if you can dismiss the restoration of the judiciary that was sacked by your ‘tight buddy’ on Nov 3 through an order issued by himself, wearing the hat of the chief of army staff, as a matter “for the Pakistanis to decide”, why can you not leave the matter of your buddy’s sacking to “Pakistanis” too? Why does Musharraf’s future incense you so much that you throw caution to the winds and so brazenly lecture our political leaders to, say, “go easy” on the man? Do you really think you are making more friends in this country by your loud behaviour?
Let me ask you a question, Mr Boucher, sir. How would you like it if Admiral Mike Mullen, disagrees as he does with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on whether to hit Pakistan in an attempt to get Osama bin Laden, were to suddenly get it into his head to kick Dubya and his government, including (sadly) yourself, out of office?
You have some gall to lecture us on how to deal with Musharraf when you should jolly well know that he is the main architect of the travails we face today. By the by, are you up to the blame game going on between him and your other surrogate, the smarmy Shaukat Aziz with the smarmy smile? How much do you really know, Mr Boucher; how much do your representatives in Islamabad the Beautiful tell you? Are you up to speed on the judges issue, sir? Has your mission told you that Shaukat Aziz’s law minister who was supposed to have formed the charge sheet that was the basis of the reference against My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry says he had nothing in the world to do with it?!
And that when Shaukat Aziz is asked, on television, he says ‘someone’ sent it to him so he assumed it was sent by the ministry of law! Do you know any of this, sir? Do you know the half of it, Mr Boucher? Do you understand that by entering the fray on the side of this or that party in a purely domestic matter you are making the great country of the United States of America no friends at all?
Should America, the great democracy that it is, not come down on the side of democrats and politicians and political parties rather than on the side of has-been army dictators and wannabe (again) army dictators, Mr Boucher? Think about it.
A little about the ongoing A.Q. Khan embarrassment. I have over the years written much about how the ‘pardon’, shown so stupidly on television with Musharraf looking stern, class monitor-like, and AQ Khan sitting hands folded looking bad-boy contrite, will simply not help. And that the issue will haunt us for decades because we did not take it head-on. By head-on I mean take it on as a nation, and not make a scapegoat of just one man. I mean can you even begin to believe the following paragraph taken from page 287 of Musharraf’s ludicrous ‘book’ In the Line of Fire: “We were once informed that a chartered aircraft going to North Korea for conventional missiles were (sic) also going to carry some ‘irregular’ cargo on his behalf. The source could not tell us exactly what the cargo was, but we were suspicious. We organised a discreet raid and searched the aircraft before its departure but unfortunately found nothing. Later, we were told that AQ’s people had been tipped off and the suspected cargo had not been loaded.”
I mean, really!! What was Musharraf then? A scout-master instead of the emperor himself, wearing three hats at the time: COAS; CJSC and Chief Executive? And what was AQ Khan? The President of the United States, that Musharraf “organised a discreet raid”, so the sole superpower would not find out?
Humayun Gauhar, STAND UP!
Bushism of the Week: “One of the things important about history is to remember the true history” — President George W Bush; Washington, D.C., June 6, 2008.
PS: It’s been 19 hours since the bombing in Islamabad and no one has hosed down the site. Somebody tripping up somewhere?
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
By Kamran Shafi
YES, we know; we know exactly what our problems are, thank you very much indeed sir.
We know we have an acute electricity shortage in the country, and who better than those of us who live in the area of Wah (no, not the cantonment which has virtually NO load-shedding at all) and Hasan Abdal where we have load-shedding every hour on the hour? (I am told there are areas in the country that have 18 to 20 hours of it but how should that concern you?)
Note, Mr Boucher sir, that when we do have electricity we have all 150 volts of it, instead of the 220-240 volts that we should have. This too fluctuates violently, up and down, up and down, veering from 120 to 180 and sometimes surging to 270. So don’t tell us we have an electricity shortage problem.
Don’t tell us either, that we have a wheat shortage that has sent its price sky-rocketing. Boy, don’t we know? We know too that because the wheat is smuggled out of the country — to Afghanistan primarily — it is sometimes simply not available to the poor in our village.
And, Mr Boucher sir, we know too that we have a huge problem of terrorism stalking our country. Like the instant bombing in Islamabad that killed upwards of twenty (and growing) poor policemen on duty, to give security to a memorial public meeting at the Lal Masjid to remember the kids who were killed there last year only because your favoured government led so ably by your favourite Commando allowed the matter to fester for so long — six years to be exact.
And then, of course did entirely the wrong thing by making an all-out assault when a siege that allowed everything and everybody out and let nothing in, would have sufficed. This was not a first either, Mr Boucher… give army governments in Pakistan two ways of doing something — one good and the other most ham-handed and they will always choose the latter.
So don’t you lecture us please, sir, on what our problems are. Also, will you kindly desist from telling us to go easy on Musharraf because we have “OTHER” problems to deal with too, and leave to us Pakistanis to decide which of our problems are to be sorted out first?
I mean, if you can dismiss the restoration of the judiciary that was sacked by your ‘tight buddy’ on Nov 3 through an order issued by himself, wearing the hat of the chief of army staff, as a matter “for the Pakistanis to decide”, why can you not leave the matter of your buddy’s sacking to “Pakistanis” too? Why does Musharraf’s future incense you so much that you throw caution to the winds and so brazenly lecture our political leaders to, say, “go easy” on the man? Do you really think you are making more friends in this country by your loud behaviour?
Let me ask you a question, Mr Boucher, sir. How would you like it if Admiral Mike Mullen, disagrees as he does with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on whether to hit Pakistan in an attempt to get Osama bin Laden, were to suddenly get it into his head to kick Dubya and his government, including (sadly) yourself, out of office?
You have some gall to lecture us on how to deal with Musharraf when you should jolly well know that he is the main architect of the travails we face today. By the by, are you up to the blame game going on between him and your other surrogate, the smarmy Shaukat Aziz with the smarmy smile? How much do you really know, Mr Boucher; how much do your representatives in Islamabad the Beautiful tell you? Are you up to speed on the judges issue, sir? Has your mission told you that Shaukat Aziz’s law minister who was supposed to have formed the charge sheet that was the basis of the reference against My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry says he had nothing in the world to do with it?!
And that when Shaukat Aziz is asked, on television, he says ‘someone’ sent it to him so he assumed it was sent by the ministry of law! Do you know any of this, sir? Do you know the half of it, Mr Boucher? Do you understand that by entering the fray on the side of this or that party in a purely domestic matter you are making the great country of the United States of America no friends at all?
Should America, the great democracy that it is, not come down on the side of democrats and politicians and political parties rather than on the side of has-been army dictators and wannabe (again) army dictators, Mr Boucher? Think about it.
A little about the ongoing A.Q. Khan embarrassment. I have over the years written much about how the ‘pardon’, shown so stupidly on television with Musharraf looking stern, class monitor-like, and AQ Khan sitting hands folded looking bad-boy contrite, will simply not help. And that the issue will haunt us for decades because we did not take it head-on. By head-on I mean take it on as a nation, and not make a scapegoat of just one man. I mean can you even begin to believe the following paragraph taken from page 287 of Musharraf’s ludicrous ‘book’ In the Line of Fire: “We were once informed that a chartered aircraft going to North Korea for conventional missiles were (sic) also going to carry some ‘irregular’ cargo on his behalf. The source could not tell us exactly what the cargo was, but we were suspicious. We organised a discreet raid and searched the aircraft before its departure but unfortunately found nothing. Later, we were told that AQ’s people had been tipped off and the suspected cargo had not been loaded.”
I mean, really!! What was Musharraf then? A scout-master instead of the emperor himself, wearing three hats at the time: COAS; CJSC and Chief Executive? And what was AQ Khan? The President of the United States, that Musharraf “organised a discreet raid”, so the sole superpower would not find out?
Humayun Gauhar, STAND UP!
Bushism of the Week: “One of the things important about history is to remember the true history” — President George W Bush; Washington, D.C., June 6, 2008.
PS: It’s been 19 hours since the bombing in Islamabad and no one has hosed down the site. Somebody tripping up somewhere?
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Many tails, many dogs
By Kamran Shafi
LAST week I had written about Laat Sahib Bahadur Punjab, HE Salman Taseer’s diabolical plan to take young Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on a political (long) march through the Punjab when the lad comes home for his August break at Oxford.
I have had fifteen emails, the most I have received for any of my pieces for this newspaper, every single one of them agreeing with my fervent plea to the governor to let the boy be; to let him concentrate on his studies (he is only in his first year at Oxford, for God’s sake); and be as care-free a student as his peers and mates.
To Lahore now. One had read about the Doongi Ground scandal in the papers when Their Lordships Khalilur Rehman Ramday and Raja Fayyaz Mahmood of the Honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan (destroyed by the dictator on Nov 3, 2007) issued a status quo order on April 14, 2006, halting further construction of the proposed IMAX theatre.
I visited Lahore recently and was shocked to see the extent of the ugliness that stared me in the face in place of the ground upon which local children and their friends from elsewhere played cricket. My mind went racing back thirty years when my younger boy Kassem, used to visit his great and good friend Mufti who lived very near the Doongi Ground. Whenever I went to bring my son back from visiting Mufti I used to find that the boys had gone to the ground to play cricket with other neighbourhood children.
Well, all it took was a visit to an IMAX theatre in London (or Berlin — the Punjab government is not sure!) by Pervaiz Elahi, in the company of the then secretary of information and culture and the director general (PR) and bingo! Lahore had to have an IMAX theatre too!
Never mind that there are not many films in the IMAX mode or format in the whole wide world; never mind that the tickets for the IMAX would be beyond the reach of the common citizen — the rich as we well know, have home theatres in their basements costing in some cases crores of rupees, I kid you not.
So what was the cunning plan Elahi’s Punjab government came up with? To add a shopping plaza to the theatre complex, which would pay the running expenses of the theatre. I ask you! Talk of the tail wagging the dog! What a dog! What a tail!
To add insult to injury, the Punjab government changed the ‘use’ of the land through several subterfuges, even paying hundreds of millions in consultancy fees/“compensation” to all manner of people, including the Commando’s favourite theatre producer/director Shah Sharabeel who was reportedly paid Rs4.5m to let go his rights over the Doongi Ground, handed over to him by, you guessed it: the Punjab Horticultural Authority, once headed by Kamran Lashari.
Now where did we hear Shah Sharabeel’s name before, in connection with other lucrative government leases? Remember the other ‘Doongi’ Ground, this time in Islamabad’s F-7 Markaz, that was handed over to this person by the CDA to develop a mini-golf thingy on it; a junk food outlet et al? And who was the chairman CDA when this little transaction happened? Er, none other than self-same Kamran Lashari.
Let us go on, leaving the Sharabeels of this world aside with a reminder that this was the man who had the temerity to actually bad-mouth, on live TV, the then sent on eave/dismissed/removed from office Chief Justice of Pakistan, My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry with not a squeak emanating from the sitting judiciary about the unfair abuse heaped upon their brother. The reason was that on the plea of environmentalists the CJ had dared to stop Sharabeel from ‘developing’ the mini-golf thing.
Back to the Lahore IMAX, however. There is much that needs to be exposed by the Punjab government. It simply must tell the nation the extent of the fraud that went on. It must tell the people why Moonis Elahi, the elder scion of the House of Pervaiz sat in on meetings of the Punjab Entertainment Company (Guarantee) Limited (PECL) formed for the purpose? It must tell us why in the world, serving secretaries to the Government of Punjab sat on the board of PECL? And what it is doing towards making sure that public servants never again have the gall, yes that is the word, to follow apparently and evidently illegal orders? It must tell us too, why the Punjab government (I ask you!) issued cheques for the entire amount to the IMAX company in Canada without any performance guarantee, even without the machinery being shipped (to date!!).
A word about the Frontier tragedy. The situation will soon be out of our hands if we do not stop the madness right now. It is clear that the state of affairs there is well beyond the capabilities of the present set-up. How in the world can the Pakistan Army be expected to normalise a situation which it helped create in the first place?
It has been suggested before by others; let me suggest it again with all the force and persuasion at my command. Make an all-powerful committee of seven good men. Call them the ‘Czars of Peace’ in the Frontier. Let them, who know the Frontier and the tribes and their mannerisms and their mores, be responsible for every facet of the operation: from supervising the political wallahs to ordering military action, to granting monies/compensation, to prioritising development work. They should answer only to the parliament.
The situation is far different from when they were in the field, I know, made different by a quite numbing foolishness on the part of army commanders over the last eight years; made different by our very own agencies: Mangal Bagh, Baitullah Mehsud and Mullah Radio did not just fall out of the sky. Still, if anyone can make a difference, these men can.
Surely there are others too, but let me venture to suggest the following: Major General Nasirullah Babar; Mohammad (Lala) Afzal Khan of Swat; Mr Jamil Ahmad CSP, Sahibzada Imtiaz Ahmad CSP, Mr Kunwar Idris CSP, Dr Humayun Khan CSP, and Major General Khurshid Ali Khan. They are sagacious wise men; they have all served in the Frontier; they will know slightly better than nineteen Lt Gen Whatstheirnames.
PS Many in Peshawar say the instant tamasha there is as a sop to the Americans just prior to Boucher’s visit to the Land of the Pure, and Gilani’s to pay homage to Dubya. What a tail; what a dog!
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
LAST week I had written about Laat Sahib Bahadur Punjab, HE Salman Taseer’s diabolical plan to take young Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on a political (long) march through the Punjab when the lad comes home for his August break at Oxford.
I have had fifteen emails, the most I have received for any of my pieces for this newspaper, every single one of them agreeing with my fervent plea to the governor to let the boy be; to let him concentrate on his studies (he is only in his first year at Oxford, for God’s sake); and be as care-free a student as his peers and mates.
To Lahore now. One had read about the Doongi Ground scandal in the papers when Their Lordships Khalilur Rehman Ramday and Raja Fayyaz Mahmood of the Honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan (destroyed by the dictator on Nov 3, 2007) issued a status quo order on April 14, 2006, halting further construction of the proposed IMAX theatre.
I visited Lahore recently and was shocked to see the extent of the ugliness that stared me in the face in place of the ground upon which local children and their friends from elsewhere played cricket. My mind went racing back thirty years when my younger boy Kassem, used to visit his great and good friend Mufti who lived very near the Doongi Ground. Whenever I went to bring my son back from visiting Mufti I used to find that the boys had gone to the ground to play cricket with other neighbourhood children.
Well, all it took was a visit to an IMAX theatre in London (or Berlin — the Punjab government is not sure!) by Pervaiz Elahi, in the company of the then secretary of information and culture and the director general (PR) and bingo! Lahore had to have an IMAX theatre too!
Never mind that there are not many films in the IMAX mode or format in the whole wide world; never mind that the tickets for the IMAX would be beyond the reach of the common citizen — the rich as we well know, have home theatres in their basements costing in some cases crores of rupees, I kid you not.
So what was the cunning plan Elahi’s Punjab government came up with? To add a shopping plaza to the theatre complex, which would pay the running expenses of the theatre. I ask you! Talk of the tail wagging the dog! What a dog! What a tail!
To add insult to injury, the Punjab government changed the ‘use’ of the land through several subterfuges, even paying hundreds of millions in consultancy fees/“compensation” to all manner of people, including the Commando’s favourite theatre producer/director Shah Sharabeel who was reportedly paid Rs4.5m to let go his rights over the Doongi Ground, handed over to him by, you guessed it: the Punjab Horticultural Authority, once headed by Kamran Lashari.
Now where did we hear Shah Sharabeel’s name before, in connection with other lucrative government leases? Remember the other ‘Doongi’ Ground, this time in Islamabad’s F-7 Markaz, that was handed over to this person by the CDA to develop a mini-golf thingy on it; a junk food outlet et al? And who was the chairman CDA when this little transaction happened? Er, none other than self-same Kamran Lashari.
Let us go on, leaving the Sharabeels of this world aside with a reminder that this was the man who had the temerity to actually bad-mouth, on live TV, the then sent on eave/dismissed/removed from office Chief Justice of Pakistan, My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry with not a squeak emanating from the sitting judiciary about the unfair abuse heaped upon their brother. The reason was that on the plea of environmentalists the CJ had dared to stop Sharabeel from ‘developing’ the mini-golf thing.
Back to the Lahore IMAX, however. There is much that needs to be exposed by the Punjab government. It simply must tell the nation the extent of the fraud that went on. It must tell the people why Moonis Elahi, the elder scion of the House of Pervaiz sat in on meetings of the Punjab Entertainment Company (Guarantee) Limited (PECL) formed for the purpose? It must tell us why in the world, serving secretaries to the Government of Punjab sat on the board of PECL? And what it is doing towards making sure that public servants never again have the gall, yes that is the word, to follow apparently and evidently illegal orders? It must tell us too, why the Punjab government (I ask you!) issued cheques for the entire amount to the IMAX company in Canada without any performance guarantee, even without the machinery being shipped (to date!!).
A word about the Frontier tragedy. The situation will soon be out of our hands if we do not stop the madness right now. It is clear that the state of affairs there is well beyond the capabilities of the present set-up. How in the world can the Pakistan Army be expected to normalise a situation which it helped create in the first place?
It has been suggested before by others; let me suggest it again with all the force and persuasion at my command. Make an all-powerful committee of seven good men. Call them the ‘Czars of Peace’ in the Frontier. Let them, who know the Frontier and the tribes and their mannerisms and their mores, be responsible for every facet of the operation: from supervising the political wallahs to ordering military action, to granting monies/compensation, to prioritising development work. They should answer only to the parliament.
The situation is far different from when they were in the field, I know, made different by a quite numbing foolishness on the part of army commanders over the last eight years; made different by our very own agencies: Mangal Bagh, Baitullah Mehsud and Mullah Radio did not just fall out of the sky. Still, if anyone can make a difference, these men can.
Surely there are others too, but let me venture to suggest the following: Major General Nasirullah Babar; Mohammad (Lala) Afzal Khan of Swat; Mr Jamil Ahmad CSP, Sahibzada Imtiaz Ahmad CSP, Mr Kunwar Idris CSP, Dr Humayun Khan CSP, and Major General Khurshid Ali Khan. They are sagacious wise men; they have all served in the Frontier; they will know slightly better than nineteen Lt Gen Whatstheirnames.
PS Many in Peshawar say the instant tamasha there is as a sop to the Americans just prior to Boucher’s visit to the Land of the Pure, and Gilani’s to pay homage to Dubya. What a tail; what a dog!
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
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