Posts
What don’t we know?
By Kamran Shafi
WHAT is it that Gen (retd) Musharraf knows that we don’t? There must be something, lots of something actually, considering his actions and that of his junta of the past few weeks. Consider:
It’s been a full fifty-three days since His Lordship the Chief Justice of Pakistan and sixty other judges of the Supreme and High Courts were thrown out of office by the chief of the army staff using emergency powers bestowed upon himself by abrogating whatever we had left of the Constitution.
Fifty-three days later, with the exception of a few judges, the majority of them including the CJ continue to remain under house arrest. The arrest is so all-encompassing that even their children — the CJ has a young family — are not allowed out of the house lest they indulge in nefarious activities such as going to school, taking exams, etcetera.
Fifty-three days later, Islamabad the Beautiful still gives the look of a city under siege: there are barricades everywhere you look, manned by rude and offensive and loutish personnel of some ‘agency’ or the other.
Fifty-three days later, Aitzaz Ahsan, Justice Tariq Mahmood and Ali Ahmad Kurd are under arrest in their own homes, Munir Malik only getting his release when his health deteriorated to such an extent that the junta had to get him off their hands lest it be charged with murder. The latest on Aitzaz is that he was manhandled and re-arrested on the motorway while on his way to Islamabad the Beautiful with the approval of the authorities.
The worst moments during the re-arrest of this eminent barrister, former many-time member of both houses of parliament; former interior minister; presently president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, came when the goons in civvies pointed a cocked weapon at his young son’s midriff. Way to go, Gen (retd) Musharraf!
It’s been 53 days since he ‘sorted out’ the CJ, and yet Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf does not tire of saying the nastiest things about him, his latest tirade coming at a dinner thrown by PAK-PAC, going to the extent of accusing the CJ of common theft and repeating the ludicrous charges that were laughed at by most of the country when the reference was being heard.
For example about the CJ summoning “senior officials” of the government to appear before him for little infringements. The retired general little realises that for a populace that has been kicked about by government officials for well on 60 years it is sweet revenge to see someone, in the instant case the CJ, kick the “senior officials” about for a change.
He has also carped again about how the CJ was conspiring against him. The facts of the matter are that the CJ recused himself from the bench hearing the petitions against Gen (retd) Musharraf and appointed a judge considered ‘friendly’ to him and who has now, by the by, been appointed Chairman of the Press Council or whatever it is called, with salary and perks commensurate with that of a judge of the Supreme Court. So let’s get off that one!
Gen (retd) Musharraf should take a quick course in the judicial history of Pakistan. He will find that judges have sat on benches despite the accused declaring no confidence in them as in Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s case before Maulvi Mushtaq.
When Mr Bhutto complained about Maulvi’s partiality, Maulvi addressed the former president and prime minister of this luckless country in words to the effect: “Shut up, you are an accused” and when Bhutto protested: “I can even have you whipped in jail.” “Remove his chair,” Maulvi thundered to the court staff. He then made Mr Bhutto stand for two days during his hearings before the LHC bench which subsequently sentenced him to hang. This is what Pakistani justice is about, General Sahib (retd). My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry proved his impartiality as a judge by removing himself voluntarily from all the cases to do with you.
May I, in passing, make a suggestion? Since the CJ has so got under Gen (retd) Musharraf’s skin, why doesn’t he challenge the CJ to a TV debate, no holds barred, on any TV channel, even PTV? Why, even a foreign channel, say CNN, could be requested to host it (which any of them would give their right arm for!).
Gen (retd) Musharraf is very well spoken; he looks extremely well-presented and handsome in his designer suits as Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain has always assured us. Let him then level any accusation he might, and let the CJ defend himself. Most people including my readers and I are simply up to here with hearing the same, tired allegations over and over again.
This reminds me. Whenever I refer to Mushahid Hussain as ‘Mandela’ I get a huge number of emails castigating me for even taking the man’s name in the same breath as the great Nelson Mandela’s. Every time that happens I explain that it has nothing to do with the man sharing any of Nelson Mandela’s great attributes of head and heart.
The reason I refer to our own ‘Mandela’ now and again is because he had the temerity to compare his own three-month imprisonment after Nawaz Sharif’s government was overthrown, in what could only be an Army Officers Mess, with Nelson Mandela’s long incarceration. In his own words:
“About a year earlier, I had been assigned as minister-in-waiting to Nelson Mandela … I had asked him, as the 20th century’s most celebrated political prisoner (Mushahid being the second-most?), what were the most difficult moments of his 27 years in detention. Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied, ‘solitary imprisonment’.
“My time in solitary imprisonment would be much shorter, my experience far less harrowing. But I was to learn something of what he meant … I scheduled my day. I would study the Quran with concentration for a stretch of two hours, take a break, walk the 22 paces I had marked out in my room, do some stretching and then resume my Quranic reading”. Twenty-two paces marked out in his “room”? I ask you!
What effrontery is the man’s! For 20 years, the over-six-foot Nelson Mandela was kept imprisoned in a six-foot by seven-foot cell on Robben Island with barely enough space to lie down. He was supplied just one bucket in which he defecated, and after cleaning it out, in which he had to wash too. All day, every day, he was put to work in a rock quarry breaking rocks. And Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain “marked out” 22 paces in his “room”? By golly the man has brass.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.
Mushism of the Week: “We issued a code of conduct and asked them to sign it. It’s as good as you have in your own country.” And when told that there was no ‘code of conduct’ for the media in the US, “No, the code of conduct is there in most countries of the world. Why should we compare the United States to Pakistan?” — Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf; Washington Post, Dec 16, 2007
P.S. Musharraf has even held on to Army House — what does he know that we don’t?
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Boycott, that’s what
Boycott, that’s what
By Kamran Shafi
WEDNESDAY, Nov 7, 2007: “I only want that the arrested judiciary should decide the cases,” (when asked if she would accept a decision by PCO judges on important cases like then General Musharraf’s eligibility and the NRO); “When we talk about revival of [the] Constitution, we talk about restoration of [sacked] judges.” — Benazir Bhutto; at Naheed Khan’s farmhouse, Islamabad.
Sunday, Nov 11, 2007: “Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and all other judges who refused to take oath under the PCO should be reinstated and orders for their house arrest lifted.” — Benazir Bhutto; outside the Judges Enclave, Islamabad.
Friday, Nov 16, 2007: The frightening John Negroponte, who made quite a name for himself when he was US ambassador to Honduras and the Nicaraguan Contra insurgents were training guerrillas on Honduran soil, arrives in Islamabad the Beautiful. Instead of calling on Benazir personally as scheduled — she even came hotfoot to Islamabad the Beautiful for the occasion — he merely calls her on the telephone on the 17th.
Thursday, Dec 13, 2007: “Judges come and go just like Justices Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui and Nasir Aslam Zahid who refused to take oath under the PCO. If any judge wants to do politics he should set up a political party.” — Benazir Bhutto; Bilawal House, Karachi.
What in God’s name did Negroponte say to Benazir Bhutto to make this woman, known far and wide for her raw courage, this daughter of a fearless father, take that rather abrupt U-turn? What did Negroponte say that has struck the fear of God in her?
Or is it further fine-tuning of the Mother of All Deals (MAD) that has been husbanded by the American administration, between her and Dubya’s ‘tight’ buddy Gen (retd) Musharraf? Is this why Benazir’s latest statement is to the effect that she can work with Musharraf if he holds free elections?
Of course, the stand of the PPP thus far has been that the elections will be rigged and that it is taking part in them only to expose that rigging! One’s heart goes out to the spokespersons of the party when they appear on television and in the print media, trying to explain away this quite inexplicable stand and falling flat on their faces every single time.
When, by the way, did Their Lordships ever show the slightest inclination that they wanted to set up a political party? Have we become so niggardly that we will not even appreciate Their Lordships for standing up to an Army dictator? And for their fight for judicial independence?
If your head is spinning by now, reader, not to worry — I have got me a migraine wading through the web of right turns and left turns and U-turns, and statements and more statements, and, suddenly, another U-turn!
So then, the emergency has been lifted; the old judges have been pensioned off; the brand-new ones are in place; the major political parties are dancing to the tune composed by the Great Powers and played quite tunelessly by the junta; and according to some newspapers it is ready, steady go towards ‘elections’. Everything hunky-dory, what?
There is more hunky-dory to come. PILDAT is circulating a statement by The Citizens Group on Electoral Process, which is headed by the eminent Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui and boasts several respected people as members, recommending that lawyers and members of civil society who have boycotted the election should closely monitor the elections despite the fact that The Citizens Group itself recognises that free and fair elections are not possible under the present set-up.
Why? Why should they observe the elections which have largely been rigged already? Where is the big secret in all of this? Who doesn’t know what is going on? Readers will have seen photographs in the press of a policeman in Lahore carrying an election placard and a police mobile full of more placards waiting to be put up. They will have seen reports regarding the free display of placards and posters of the Chaudhries on The Mall in Lahore.
They will also have seen reports of members of the cabinet using government vehicles and funds for their election campaigns, and have noted that the superior judiciary is now so free that it has validated the emergency which even Gen (retd) Musharraf says was illegal and unconstitutional.
How, then, is anything right with this exercise orchestrated by the Americans and supported to the hilt by the British? As an aside, while President Sarkozy of France is Dubya’s new poodle (after Tony Blair’s retirement from that august station) according to my favourite cartoonist, Steve Bell of The Guardian, it is heartening to see that French diplomats are not making faux pas upon faux pas like the Yanks and the Brits re. this ‘election’. The Quai d’Orsay’s high reputation is not for nothing.
But back to business and first to the Citizens Group recommendation. What good will it do to look for rigging on the so-called ‘election day’? (I use the word ‘so-called’ because I do not recognise these ‘elections’ as anything of the sort.) Suppose three of us see massive rigging in, say, a polling station in Sheikh Rashid Tulli’s constituency? What do we do? Register a complaint before the Returning Officer who works under an Election Commission that is already compromised? We do remember its shenanigans at the time of Gen (retd) Musharraf’s election-in-uniform, don’t we?
And if the EC doesn’t give us the time of day, what do we do then? Go to the judiciary that was born under the PCO, despite the fact that the same PCO kicked out fully 60 per cent of its own brother judges?
If they couldn’t care a jot for their own because of their own sinecures, will they rule against a close associate of Gen (retd) Musharraf and risk losing their jobs?
No sirs, no. Members of civil society and lawyers who stand against the so-called election should stand against it all the way. And if it is rigged further on the so-called election day, serve the political parties right for lending support to a discredited dictator and his henchmen.
Bushism of the Week: “The decisions we make in Washington have a direct impact on the people in our country, obviously” — President George W. Bush; New Albany, Indiana, Nov 13, 2007.
PS: Ms Bhutto sounds just like Dubya when she says that Aitzaz Ahsan must decide if he is with the PPP or with the CJ when it comes to the boycott. In the first place, what does the CJ have to do with the boycott? Secondly, can there be no plurality in the party, especially where an eminent member like Aitzaz is concerned?
Is there no distinction between horses and donkeys?
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
By Kamran Shafi
WEDNESDAY, Nov 7, 2007: “I only want that the arrested judiciary should decide the cases,” (when asked if she would accept a decision by PCO judges on important cases like then General Musharraf’s eligibility and the NRO); “When we talk about revival of [the] Constitution, we talk about restoration of [sacked] judges.” — Benazir Bhutto; at Naheed Khan’s farmhouse, Islamabad.
Sunday, Nov 11, 2007: “Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and all other judges who refused to take oath under the PCO should be reinstated and orders for their house arrest lifted.” — Benazir Bhutto; outside the Judges Enclave, Islamabad.
Friday, Nov 16, 2007: The frightening John Negroponte, who made quite a name for himself when he was US ambassador to Honduras and the Nicaraguan Contra insurgents were training guerrillas on Honduran soil, arrives in Islamabad the Beautiful. Instead of calling on Benazir personally as scheduled — she even came hotfoot to Islamabad the Beautiful for the occasion — he merely calls her on the telephone on the 17th.
Thursday, Dec 13, 2007: “Judges come and go just like Justices Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui and Nasir Aslam Zahid who refused to take oath under the PCO. If any judge wants to do politics he should set up a political party.” — Benazir Bhutto; Bilawal House, Karachi.
What in God’s name did Negroponte say to Benazir Bhutto to make this woman, known far and wide for her raw courage, this daughter of a fearless father, take that rather abrupt U-turn? What did Negroponte say that has struck the fear of God in her?
Or is it further fine-tuning of the Mother of All Deals (MAD) that has been husbanded by the American administration, between her and Dubya’s ‘tight’ buddy Gen (retd) Musharraf? Is this why Benazir’s latest statement is to the effect that she can work with Musharraf if he holds free elections?
Of course, the stand of the PPP thus far has been that the elections will be rigged and that it is taking part in them only to expose that rigging! One’s heart goes out to the spokespersons of the party when they appear on television and in the print media, trying to explain away this quite inexplicable stand and falling flat on their faces every single time.
When, by the way, did Their Lordships ever show the slightest inclination that they wanted to set up a political party? Have we become so niggardly that we will not even appreciate Their Lordships for standing up to an Army dictator? And for their fight for judicial independence?
If your head is spinning by now, reader, not to worry — I have got me a migraine wading through the web of right turns and left turns and U-turns, and statements and more statements, and, suddenly, another U-turn!
So then, the emergency has been lifted; the old judges have been pensioned off; the brand-new ones are in place; the major political parties are dancing to the tune composed by the Great Powers and played quite tunelessly by the junta; and according to some newspapers it is ready, steady go towards ‘elections’. Everything hunky-dory, what?
There is more hunky-dory to come. PILDAT is circulating a statement by The Citizens Group on Electoral Process, which is headed by the eminent Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui and boasts several respected people as members, recommending that lawyers and members of civil society who have boycotted the election should closely monitor the elections despite the fact that The Citizens Group itself recognises that free and fair elections are not possible under the present set-up.
Why? Why should they observe the elections which have largely been rigged already? Where is the big secret in all of this? Who doesn’t know what is going on? Readers will have seen photographs in the press of a policeman in Lahore carrying an election placard and a police mobile full of more placards waiting to be put up. They will have seen reports regarding the free display of placards and posters of the Chaudhries on The Mall in Lahore.
They will also have seen reports of members of the cabinet using government vehicles and funds for their election campaigns, and have noted that the superior judiciary is now so free that it has validated the emergency which even Gen (retd) Musharraf says was illegal and unconstitutional.
How, then, is anything right with this exercise orchestrated by the Americans and supported to the hilt by the British? As an aside, while President Sarkozy of France is Dubya’s new poodle (after Tony Blair’s retirement from that august station) according to my favourite cartoonist, Steve Bell of The Guardian, it is heartening to see that French diplomats are not making faux pas upon faux pas like the Yanks and the Brits re. this ‘election’. The Quai d’Orsay’s high reputation is not for nothing.
But back to business and first to the Citizens Group recommendation. What good will it do to look for rigging on the so-called ‘election day’? (I use the word ‘so-called’ because I do not recognise these ‘elections’ as anything of the sort.) Suppose three of us see massive rigging in, say, a polling station in Sheikh Rashid Tulli’s constituency? What do we do? Register a complaint before the Returning Officer who works under an Election Commission that is already compromised? We do remember its shenanigans at the time of Gen (retd) Musharraf’s election-in-uniform, don’t we?
And if the EC doesn’t give us the time of day, what do we do then? Go to the judiciary that was born under the PCO, despite the fact that the same PCO kicked out fully 60 per cent of its own brother judges?
If they couldn’t care a jot for their own because of their own sinecures, will they rule against a close associate of Gen (retd) Musharraf and risk losing their jobs?
No sirs, no. Members of civil society and lawyers who stand against the so-called election should stand against it all the way. And if it is rigged further on the so-called election day, serve the political parties right for lending support to a discredited dictator and his henchmen.
Bushism of the Week: “The decisions we make in Washington have a direct impact on the people in our country, obviously” — President George W. Bush; New Albany, Indiana, Nov 13, 2007.
PS: Ms Bhutto sounds just like Dubya when she says that Aitzaz Ahsan must decide if he is with the PPP or with the CJ when it comes to the boycott. In the first place, what does the CJ have to do with the boycott? Secondly, can there be no plurality in the party, especially where an eminent member like Aitzaz is concerned?
Is there no distinction between horses and donkeys?
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
OTT Excellencies, very OTT
OTT Excellencies, very OTT
By Kamran Shafi
YOUR Excellencies the American and Saudi Ambassadors and Your Excellency the High Commissioner for the United Kingdom, you did go rather over the top didn’t you now?
I refer to the American and the Brit running hither and yon asking Pakistan’s political leaders to take part in the elections, pretty please; and to the Saudi for so obviously coming to the aid of the junta that rules us by trying to cajole, nay entice My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry to accept the Saudi Royal Family’s invite to his second Haj in as many years.
We shall go there later, however, a matter of great import and critical significance is exercising my mind at this time. And that is the decision of the major political parties to participate in what Gen (Retired) Musharraf has often referred to as the Mother of All Elections. What I, and all of my friends, refer to as the Grandma of All Rigging.
I was much incensed when I heard the news on the 9th evening that Nawaz Sharif who showed so much promise after the years spent in exile did not remain adamant at boycotting the election. I tossed and turned all night thinking about how wrong I had been about him.
But the very next morning it became clear to me that the PPP’s going into the election with the King’s Party and Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s JUI left Sharif very little choice and had made it very difficult for him to keep his party out. Specially when he had to try to expose the Chaudhries for what they are: Musharraf’s handmaidens.
Whilst Sharif should have boycotted regardless for it is imperative that the dictator is isolated, his was a political decision taken in light of the situation on the ground, as presented to him after the PPP’s acquiescence to the US administration/Musharraf plan. It is the PPP that should come in for more stick. For it just follows American dictates and simply does not appreciate the mountain of iniquity it is up against.
Whilst Gen (Retired) Musharraf is now saying he will not influence the election, the fact of the matter is that the election is already influenced; it has already been rigged, for he has spoken strongly in the past about his preference for the PML-Q candidates. Which should not have been lost on the already compromised Election Commission.
Take another example, that of members of the former cabinets using the machinery of the state: the former chief minister of Punjab travelling with escorts and route-lining as if he were still the CM; Sheikh Rashid ‘Tulli’ who I myself saw just the other day with three police escort cars and jeeps accompanying his official SUV. These are vote-winners, these shows of power, because they tell the voter this particular candidate is the darling of the powers that be and will therefore find his way to office once more.
While this is palpably unfair to the other candidates, the junta has found a novel way of explaining it away: by saying that it is quite alright for these people to have their escorts etcetera because the government of Punjab and the federal government have issued notifications that the two individuals face threats etcetera! One should like to ask what will happen to them should they lose their seats or, indeed, if Pervez Musharraf decides to hang up his designer suit sometime soon.
‘Designer suit’ reminds me, just because he mentioned nauseatingly repeatedly how handsome Musharraf would look in one: where in the world is Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain? One hasn’t seen hide nor hair of him ever since he (sort of) came out against the emergency. No good is it, to merely mouth some words and then not follow them up with, say, one’s resignation from the party that has supported the daylight massacre of the country’s independent-at-last judiciary? Pity.
Going back to the elections, those participating in this sham will rue the day they decided to take part, mark my words. The junta is going to rig them from under their feet, just watch. Given Gen (Retired) Musharraf’s paranoia, do they think they will get even a half-level playing field? Not a chance. Welcome ‘Prime Minister’ Chaudhry Pervez Elahi! Goodbye whatever respect we had left.
And now for Your Excellencies. Bad show Madam and Sirs, very bad show indeed, to so openly and brazenly interfere in this country’s affairs. This micro-management is not going to get anyone very far, not you, not the retired general, not the hapless country.
And mark, when the elections are rigged, the blame will fall primarily on you and after you on Gen (Retired) Musharraf. Which will give your governments a worse name than they have already acquired. Needless, Excellencies, needless.
And another thing, High Commissioner: if you did not have anything helpful to say about our most honourable judiciary which has been dismissed by an army dictator, you should not have said anything at all. It is up to us Pakistanis whether we want to ‘move forward’ or go back. Might I suggest the following words the next time you are asked to comment on something that you should not comment on: ‘No comment’.
And yes, our Saudi friend should never have done what he did either, the perception despite denials by our own FO and the Saudi Embassy being that it was a brash effort to remove His Lordship from Pakistan to make life a little easier for the retired general. I should have thought the Saudis should have learnt a lesson after the very sordid Nawaz Sharif affair.
In the end, I am in receipt of a rude, almost abusive email from someone called, I kid you not, ‘Yasmeen Ali, Educationist and Lawyer’, who lives in Lahore. Enquiries tell me she has recently written to some other of my friends who write in the papers too. We and our wives hereby invite Yasmeen Ali, Educationist and Lawyer, to lunch at the Gymkhana Club soon after Eid. Dates later. I trust she will accept and mayhap turn us to her point of view by persuasive argument. (Of course if she comes to Islamabad to appear in the Supreme Court we will gladly host her in the Islamabad Club — she only has to inform us).
Mushism of the Week: “Now that we have done everything and we have even gone for elections, they are talking of rigging and everything. This is a clear indication of their preparation for defeat. Now when they lose, they will have a good rationale that it is all rigged, it is all fraud.” — Gen (Retired) Pervez Musharraf (Dec 10, 2007). (Kindly note the words “WHEN they lose”!)
P.S. Well done, Imran, for doing what you said you would do: Boycott!
kamranshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
By Kamran Shafi
YOUR Excellencies the American and Saudi Ambassadors and Your Excellency the High Commissioner for the United Kingdom, you did go rather over the top didn’t you now?
I refer to the American and the Brit running hither and yon asking Pakistan’s political leaders to take part in the elections, pretty please; and to the Saudi for so obviously coming to the aid of the junta that rules us by trying to cajole, nay entice My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry to accept the Saudi Royal Family’s invite to his second Haj in as many years.
We shall go there later, however, a matter of great import and critical significance is exercising my mind at this time. And that is the decision of the major political parties to participate in what Gen (Retired) Musharraf has often referred to as the Mother of All Elections. What I, and all of my friends, refer to as the Grandma of All Rigging.
I was much incensed when I heard the news on the 9th evening that Nawaz Sharif who showed so much promise after the years spent in exile did not remain adamant at boycotting the election. I tossed and turned all night thinking about how wrong I had been about him.
But the very next morning it became clear to me that the PPP’s going into the election with the King’s Party and Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s JUI left Sharif very little choice and had made it very difficult for him to keep his party out. Specially when he had to try to expose the Chaudhries for what they are: Musharraf’s handmaidens.
Whilst Sharif should have boycotted regardless for it is imperative that the dictator is isolated, his was a political decision taken in light of the situation on the ground, as presented to him after the PPP’s acquiescence to the US administration/Musharraf plan. It is the PPP that should come in for more stick. For it just follows American dictates and simply does not appreciate the mountain of iniquity it is up against.
Whilst Gen (Retired) Musharraf is now saying he will not influence the election, the fact of the matter is that the election is already influenced; it has already been rigged, for he has spoken strongly in the past about his preference for the PML-Q candidates. Which should not have been lost on the already compromised Election Commission.
Take another example, that of members of the former cabinets using the machinery of the state: the former chief minister of Punjab travelling with escorts and route-lining as if he were still the CM; Sheikh Rashid ‘Tulli’ who I myself saw just the other day with three police escort cars and jeeps accompanying his official SUV. These are vote-winners, these shows of power, because they tell the voter this particular candidate is the darling of the powers that be and will therefore find his way to office once more.
While this is palpably unfair to the other candidates, the junta has found a novel way of explaining it away: by saying that it is quite alright for these people to have their escorts etcetera because the government of Punjab and the federal government have issued notifications that the two individuals face threats etcetera! One should like to ask what will happen to them should they lose their seats or, indeed, if Pervez Musharraf decides to hang up his designer suit sometime soon.
‘Designer suit’ reminds me, just because he mentioned nauseatingly repeatedly how handsome Musharraf would look in one: where in the world is Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain? One hasn’t seen hide nor hair of him ever since he (sort of) came out against the emergency. No good is it, to merely mouth some words and then not follow them up with, say, one’s resignation from the party that has supported the daylight massacre of the country’s independent-at-last judiciary? Pity.
Going back to the elections, those participating in this sham will rue the day they decided to take part, mark my words. The junta is going to rig them from under their feet, just watch. Given Gen (Retired) Musharraf’s paranoia, do they think they will get even a half-level playing field? Not a chance. Welcome ‘Prime Minister’ Chaudhry Pervez Elahi! Goodbye whatever respect we had left.
And now for Your Excellencies. Bad show Madam and Sirs, very bad show indeed, to so openly and brazenly interfere in this country’s affairs. This micro-management is not going to get anyone very far, not you, not the retired general, not the hapless country.
And mark, when the elections are rigged, the blame will fall primarily on you and after you on Gen (Retired) Musharraf. Which will give your governments a worse name than they have already acquired. Needless, Excellencies, needless.
And another thing, High Commissioner: if you did not have anything helpful to say about our most honourable judiciary which has been dismissed by an army dictator, you should not have said anything at all. It is up to us Pakistanis whether we want to ‘move forward’ or go back. Might I suggest the following words the next time you are asked to comment on something that you should not comment on: ‘No comment’.
And yes, our Saudi friend should never have done what he did either, the perception despite denials by our own FO and the Saudi Embassy being that it was a brash effort to remove His Lordship from Pakistan to make life a little easier for the retired general. I should have thought the Saudis should have learnt a lesson after the very sordid Nawaz Sharif affair.
In the end, I am in receipt of a rude, almost abusive email from someone called, I kid you not, ‘Yasmeen Ali, Educationist and Lawyer’, who lives in Lahore. Enquiries tell me she has recently written to some other of my friends who write in the papers too. We and our wives hereby invite Yasmeen Ali, Educationist and Lawyer, to lunch at the Gymkhana Club soon after Eid. Dates later. I trust she will accept and mayhap turn us to her point of view by persuasive argument. (Of course if she comes to Islamabad to appear in the Supreme Court we will gladly host her in the Islamabad Club — she only has to inform us).
Mushism of the Week: “Now that we have done everything and we have even gone for elections, they are talking of rigging and everything. This is a clear indication of their preparation for defeat. Now when they lose, they will have a good rationale that it is all rigged, it is all fraud.” — Gen (Retired) Pervez Musharraf (Dec 10, 2007). (Kindly note the words “WHEN they lose”!)
P.S. Well done, Imran, for doing what you said you would do: Boycott!
kamranshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Farce after farce after farce …
Farce after farce after farce …
By Kamran Shafi
THIS is how the Es of the Five-E-Manifesto of the Peoples Party are placed presently: Employment, Education, Energy, Environment, Equality. Er, should the E denoting Equality not have been the first?
I mean, it was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s espousal of the rights of the poor and the dispossessed (read EQUALITY) that 30 years after his judicial murder they are still propelled towards the PPP’s ballot boxes, innit?
I am a soldier too: to put it in perspective, six courses junior to Musharraf and twenty-something senior to the new COAS. I hang my head in shame at the farce that the nation was subjected to in the name of the ‘handing over of command’ of the Pakistan Army.
Not only were the drill movements of the parading troops out of sync, they were so exaggerated and embellished with silly additions that it seemed as if it was the Martian Army drilling badly, not the one I knew and loved.
Far more than this, where in the world does army command change with such pomp and circumstance, military parades and such like? Where in the world, indeed, does the outgoing army chief ceremonially present his successor with an item that is part of his uniform (the Malacca cane is part of the uniform of General Officers of the Pakistan Army)? Did Musharraf also give Kayani a pair of black woollen socks?
This was just one COAS handing over, albeit after nine long years instead of the usual three in most civilised countries, to his successor. This was hardly an emperor handing over the orb and sceptre to his successor. (Or was it?!)
From what I know and have seen in my many years, change of army command is a simple, graceful, quiet affair: at the end of his last working day the outgoing chief inspects a guard of honour drawn up outside his office in GHQ and is seen into his car by the principal staff officers (PSOs) to drive off home.
The next day, the new chief comes to GHQ, is received by the PSOs, inspects the guard of honour, and goes into his office. End of story.
But, as my readers well know, we are a quite unique people and we do quite unique things, even if they make us look silly to the rest of the world. Which can go hang itself as far as our Commando is concerned, for according to himself during his speech at his ‘swearing-in’ as ‘civilian president’ it took the West centuries to get where they are in respect of better human rights, more civil liberties and democracy, and they want us to get there in a few months or a few years? Idiots, these Westerners.
May I here and now suggest to those of my friends who are demanding the rule of law and constitution, and freedom for the media, to prepare for the worst. While I feel in my very bones that the law will reign supreme in the near future, Musharraf or no Musharraf, I know too that the brutal state will become more brutal still.
What Musharraf said was not without reason – he wants to tell us that even if one of his celebrated skins is off, he is still very much the Commando. (Note please, that this was written on Nov 29; the papers on Dec 1 quoted Musharraf saying he would not allow anti-election protests.)
It was sad, nay pathetic, to yet again see him badmouth My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry, this time on the day of his so-called swearing-in, an occasion that he could and should have used to send a message of reconciliation to the country at large.
But no. Pervez Musharraf, the perennial juvenile (please, please read his book I beg you, to really get an idea of the extent of the trouble we are in) kept to his combative and macho best, casting aside any gentlemanly attributes such as not hitting a man who (and his family) has/have already been pummelled mercilessly using naked and vicious State power.
The “former Chief Justice was derailing democracy as part of a well-planned conspiracy” Musharraf said in his petulant diatribe; and further that if he hadn’t acted decisively “chaos, destruction and break down” would have resulted in the rest of the country as it had in Swat. Really?
The Chief Justice was responsible for the ineptness and the lackadaisical attitude of the government atop which sat/sits Pervez Musharraf during all the time that it did not react to what was happening in Swat? He must really think we are a bunch of idiots!
Which reminds me: judging from the levity writ large on the Frontier Caretaker CM’s visage at Musharraf’s swearing-in everything seems hunky dory in the province. I mean, one could almost hear the man guffawing.
We are up the proverbial creek my friends, in a very leaky boat with you-know-what gushing in by the globule; in which state we shall remain unless our political parties get up off their hands and do something about it. Which is to see the back of Musharraf as soon as possible?
The only way to do this, let me repeat myself, is by isolating him completely by boycotting the elections. With the larger of the parties sitting outside the assemblies the whole edifice will come crashing down under its own weight before you can say “Charlie’s Aunt”!
The politicians must beware that if they don’t stick together the Establishment will neuter them one by one. And that to be seen as furthering Musharraf’s (read Army’s) agenda is pure poison: are you listening Benazir Bhutto? You are the key.
By the way, Ghazala Minallah, daughter of that brave and good judge, Ghulam Safdar Shah, has written you an open letter. I wept when I read it, for I was one of those who saw ZAB’s peerless defence of himself in the Supreme Court and well remember an occasion when Justice Safdar Shah could not control his emotions and actually brushed a tear from his eye. Personalities do matter, Ms. Bhutto! As your good father’s did.
Bushism of the Week: “I’m occasionally reading, I want you to know, in the second term.” – President George W. Bush; Washington D.C., March 16, 2005
P.S. May I once again register my dismay and outrage at Aitzaz Ahsan’s and Justice Tariq Mehmood’s and Ali Ahmed Kurd’s continued detentions? Shame on you, Dubya; shame on you, America!
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
By Kamran Shafi
THIS is how the Es of the Five-E-Manifesto of the Peoples Party are placed presently: Employment, Education, Energy, Environment, Equality. Er, should the E denoting Equality not have been the first?
I mean, it was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s espousal of the rights of the poor and the dispossessed (read EQUALITY) that 30 years after his judicial murder they are still propelled towards the PPP’s ballot boxes, innit?
I am a soldier too: to put it in perspective, six courses junior to Musharraf and twenty-something senior to the new COAS. I hang my head in shame at the farce that the nation was subjected to in the name of the ‘handing over of command’ of the Pakistan Army.
Not only were the drill movements of the parading troops out of sync, they were so exaggerated and embellished with silly additions that it seemed as if it was the Martian Army drilling badly, not the one I knew and loved.
Far more than this, where in the world does army command change with such pomp and circumstance, military parades and such like? Where in the world, indeed, does the outgoing army chief ceremonially present his successor with an item that is part of his uniform (the Malacca cane is part of the uniform of General Officers of the Pakistan Army)? Did Musharraf also give Kayani a pair of black woollen socks?
This was just one COAS handing over, albeit after nine long years instead of the usual three in most civilised countries, to his successor. This was hardly an emperor handing over the orb and sceptre to his successor. (Or was it?!)
From what I know and have seen in my many years, change of army command is a simple, graceful, quiet affair: at the end of his last working day the outgoing chief inspects a guard of honour drawn up outside his office in GHQ and is seen into his car by the principal staff officers (PSOs) to drive off home.
The next day, the new chief comes to GHQ, is received by the PSOs, inspects the guard of honour, and goes into his office. End of story.
But, as my readers well know, we are a quite unique people and we do quite unique things, even if they make us look silly to the rest of the world. Which can go hang itself as far as our Commando is concerned, for according to himself during his speech at his ‘swearing-in’ as ‘civilian president’ it took the West centuries to get where they are in respect of better human rights, more civil liberties and democracy, and they want us to get there in a few months or a few years? Idiots, these Westerners.
May I here and now suggest to those of my friends who are demanding the rule of law and constitution, and freedom for the media, to prepare for the worst. While I feel in my very bones that the law will reign supreme in the near future, Musharraf or no Musharraf, I know too that the brutal state will become more brutal still.
What Musharraf said was not without reason – he wants to tell us that even if one of his celebrated skins is off, he is still very much the Commando. (Note please, that this was written on Nov 29; the papers on Dec 1 quoted Musharraf saying he would not allow anti-election protests.)
It was sad, nay pathetic, to yet again see him badmouth My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry, this time on the day of his so-called swearing-in, an occasion that he could and should have used to send a message of reconciliation to the country at large.
But no. Pervez Musharraf, the perennial juvenile (please, please read his book I beg you, to really get an idea of the extent of the trouble we are in) kept to his combative and macho best, casting aside any gentlemanly attributes such as not hitting a man who (and his family) has/have already been pummelled mercilessly using naked and vicious State power.
The “former Chief Justice was derailing democracy as part of a well-planned conspiracy” Musharraf said in his petulant diatribe; and further that if he hadn’t acted decisively “chaos, destruction and break down” would have resulted in the rest of the country as it had in Swat. Really?
The Chief Justice was responsible for the ineptness and the lackadaisical attitude of the government atop which sat/sits Pervez Musharraf during all the time that it did not react to what was happening in Swat? He must really think we are a bunch of idiots!
Which reminds me: judging from the levity writ large on the Frontier Caretaker CM’s visage at Musharraf’s swearing-in everything seems hunky dory in the province. I mean, one could almost hear the man guffawing.
We are up the proverbial creek my friends, in a very leaky boat with you-know-what gushing in by the globule; in which state we shall remain unless our political parties get up off their hands and do something about it. Which is to see the back of Musharraf as soon as possible?
The only way to do this, let me repeat myself, is by isolating him completely by boycotting the elections. With the larger of the parties sitting outside the assemblies the whole edifice will come crashing down under its own weight before you can say “Charlie’s Aunt”!
The politicians must beware that if they don’t stick together the Establishment will neuter them one by one. And that to be seen as furthering Musharraf’s (read Army’s) agenda is pure poison: are you listening Benazir Bhutto? You are the key.
By the way, Ghazala Minallah, daughter of that brave and good judge, Ghulam Safdar Shah, has written you an open letter. I wept when I read it, for I was one of those who saw ZAB’s peerless defence of himself in the Supreme Court and well remember an occasion when Justice Safdar Shah could not control his emotions and actually brushed a tear from his eye. Personalities do matter, Ms. Bhutto! As your good father’s did.
Bushism of the Week: “I’m occasionally reading, I want you to know, in the second term.” – President George W. Bush; Washington D.C., March 16, 2005
P.S. May I once again register my dismay and outrage at Aitzaz Ahsan’s and Justice Tariq Mehmood’s and Ali Ahmed Kurd’s continued detentions? Shame on you, Dubya; shame on you, America!
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
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