The USA says tells Musharraf to “Restore Democracy or else?“
by Tapan Kumar Bose [5 Nov 2007]
On Last Friday, General Musharraf the chief of the Army in Pakistan threw out the government of President Musharraf and put the tattered 1973 Constitution of Pakistan in abeyance. One must thank the General for sparing the poor constitution of Pakistan from being further mauled out of shape. Thank the General for small mercies.
The Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO- not to be confused with public call offices) that the General issues was declared “illegal and unconstitutional” by the eight judges of Pakistan’s Supreme Court. But then we already knew that Ifthiqar Chaudhury and his cronies in Pakistan’s Supreme Court were “bad” people. The General apparently took this extreme step to save Pakistan from “committing suicide”, which was being aided and abetted by the judiciary, the lawyers, human rights activists, journalists, democrats, liberals, left wing political groups, women’s rights activists and the gay rights activists and other similar riffraff and deviants. He cracked down on all these “enemies” of Pakistan without delay. During the week by various accounts more than a thousand lawyers, human rights activists, political party workers, intellectuals and others were arrested. The “former” chief Justice, chairperson of the Bar council, two former chairpersons of the bar council, several journalists, outspoken members of the human rights community and few political leaders including a handful of retired army generals are among them. Some are under house arrest. The less fortunate are inside police stations and jails. After arresting these enemies of Pakistan, the General has released several supporters of Taliban and other fundamentalist Jihadi organisation in exchange of the release of about 200 Pakistani soldiers being held hostage by the Taliban supported militants in North Wajiristan.
After terming General Musharraf’s action as “highly regrettable” and threatening to stop all military aid, the USA has started balancing its support for “democracy in Pakistan” with Pakistan’s significant role in the “war against terror” and particularly its role in saving lives of American citizens. In spite of her denials, Benajir Bhutto is yet to convince any one that she has not made a deal with the USA and General Musharraf. Before she returned to Pakistan she had four meetings with Condoleezza Rice in Washington. Considering that the USA was cold shouldering her for the past few years, four meeting with the Secretary of State within a span of seven weeks sounds like the proverbial fish falling from the sky for the hungry cat. Did she cut a deal with Ms. Rice? We do not know. However after these meetings, Benajir indicated that after becoming the PM of Pakistan, she would reward the USA with direct military access to North Waziristan and other so-called areas on the Afghan-Pakistan border for operations against the Taliban and the Al Qaeda. She also promised to deliver Mr. A. Q. Khan to the IAEA for interrogation. A request that was denied by the Musharraf regime. This may also be a cover for US gaining covert access to Iran’s border with Pakistan. This is a Baluch inhabited area, and as the Baluch people in Iran and in Pakistan have been at loggerheads with the governments of Iran and Pakistan, it will certainly provide the USA a great handle to beat Iran from a different front.
MQM is supporting the Generals latest move. The leader of MQM has said that the judges of Pakistan’s Supreme Court were “feudal” in their outlook. While the combination of the religious parties the MMA has claimed that 400 of the cadres have been arrested over the weekend, we are not sure what they will do as they are still in alliance with the PML (Q) government in Islamabad. We have to wait and see whether they walk out of the government and the parliament. Also there question is will they dissolve the assemblies in Baluchistan and NWFP where they are in power? If all these happen, there is a chance that Musharraf will have to go. But this will also mean a protracted struggle, a long period of political instability, a lot of repression and bloodshed. The USA cannot afford the emergence of an independent, progressive democratic government in Pakistan. It has too much invested in Afghanistan and they certainly need the Turkmenistan-Pakistan oil/gas pipeline through Afghanistan for which they have done all this. Pakistan is a Muslim country with the nuclear weapons. If this state is not under the control of the USA, it has the potential of becoming a serious threat to the US designs in West Asia.
As I see it, General Musharraf may have become a bad boy for the USA just now. But he is their bad boy and they will correct him. If that does not happen they will find some one else to replace him. The army are the scourge of Pakistan. They have been so since the days of Ayub Khan. Pakistan army has served the USA and themselves. They have trampled upon every aspiration of the people of Pakistan and filled their pockets. Why blame the army alone. Let us not forget the marriage between the CIA and the Jamat-e-Islami of Pakistan and its later day child the JUI through the period of the cold war to fight Soviet Socialist republic. The JI and the JUI were handsomely rewarded for their anti-communist campaign in Pakistan and the political subversion that they carried out in the Soviet republics in Central Asia. JI and JUI were also collaborators of the CIA and the ISI in the fight against Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. JUI had a big role in the creation of the Taliban. They also made a lot of money by brain washing poor boys from the NWFP, Baluchistan, and Punjab to go for Jihad and die in Afghanistan. Kazi Sahib and Mulana Rahman have been good partners of the USA and the ISI.
The newfound love for democracy of some of the retired generals who until recently were heading various wings of Pakistan army and its all-powerful ISI is interesting to say the least. As they say, “sao chuhey khaake Billi Haz ho Chhalee”. I believe that these generals who after retirement are taking rebirth as democrats are actually jockeying themselves in position for being picked up by the USA as the next ruler of Pakistan. Who will it be this time - a retired general, a former chief of ISI turned democrat, a former employee of the World Bank or a former Prime Minister who robbed the country of billions of rupees ˆ the murkier is the past the better is the chance of becoming Washington’s good boy or the good girl. Powerless as we have become in these days of Bunker-Buster Bomb diplomacy, we can only take solace from history - as the past shows - all these good boys and good girls of the USA have a tendency to go bad on them like Osama, Milosevic, Saddam, Suharto and so many others..
Tapan Kumar Bose
Email: tbose@safhr.com, buboo_1946@yahoo.co, bose.tapan@gmail.com
South Asia Forum for Human Rights 3/23 Shree Darbar Tole, Patan Dhoka,
(Near Lalitpur Zila Hulak Office),
Lalitpur, Nepal
