Death of the ‘Imam’

By Shemrez Nauman Afzal
ZoneAsia-Pk

Amir Sultan Tarar AKA Colonel Imam

Brigadier Retired Amir Sultan Tarar is suspected to have died in Taliban captivity, presumably because of cardiac arrest, but suspicions and conspiracy theories indicate that his captors, the Taliban, may have murdered him because of non-payment of ransom by his family. However, the official quarters including Military sources as well as the Frontier Corps are finding it hard to verify the reports saying they have no confirmed information in this regard.

“We have been told that his dead body has been seen near Danday Darpa Khel area in North Waziristan Agency, but the news could not be confirmed nor could we get any picture of the dead body of Colonel Imam”, a senior Army official told this scribe when contacted. Similar remarks were offered by the FC sources.

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The War of the Words

Ammar Siddiqi

Parvez Musharaff, the former President and Army Chief of Pakistan, has been busy spilling the beans and ratting on former colleagues. This is a follow up to the launching of his new political party from London because the threats to his security and the clamor for his trial for violating the Constitution ‘prevent’ him from returning to Pakistan. Among other things he called the leader of a major political party whom he had exiled to a friendly Muslim State ‘brainless’ and ‘ugly’, a former scientist was called ‘characterless’ and he freely blamed his former political partners as ‘betrayers’ and responsible for most of the ham handed actions and hare brained decisions that led to his disgrace and departure. After a lukewarm apology, he absolved himself of any wrong doing and, after asking for a ‘constitutional role for the military’, backtracked when a leading newspaper called him “Crazy Mush”.

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This Is How US Agents Sneak Into Pakistan

For a few hundred dollars, low-paid border guards are allowing entry into Pakistan to spies and agents of multiple foreign intelligence agencies operating in Afghanistan. In this story and video, see how a US lady entered Pakistan through Torkham on Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010, without visa and without the knowledge of Pakistani intelligence officers posted there. This happens in a country that faces terrorism exported by both US-controlled Afghanistan and its Indian ally.

BY SYED FAWAD ALI SHAH:

TORKHAM, Pakistan-Rampant corruption and a weak Pakistani state are helping the entry into Pakistan of spies and terrorists from multiple foreign intelligence agencies operating in Afghanistan. Almost all terror in Pakistan is coming from Afghanistan.

This American woman tried to sneak into Pakistan through Torkham on Afghan border today, Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010, around early afternoon. She was wearing an Afghan woman’s burqa and apparently spoke local dialects. She would have successfully crossed into Pakistan safely hidden among a group of Afghan women but something about her demeanor raised the suspicion of a Pakistani border guard.

However, the border guards, known as Khasadars, made sure that Pakistani intelligence officers posted in the area are not told about this arrest. Torkham is considered a hot station within Kasadar tribal force circles. With salaries that go less than PKR 10,000 per month [less than US$ 130], major checkpoints such as Torkham provide an extra source of income for the Khasadars through bribes from travelers.

The guards kept the woman in a room for about thirty minutes and then let her enter Pakistan in her burqa. She paid the Khasadar guards a handsome amount of money as bribe. According a source in the Khasadar Force who witnessed the whole thing, the woman didn’t panic. She appeared composed and familiar with the ways of the border guards. She knew what to do in such a situation.

Thanks to my contacts in the border force, I was able to make a cell phone video of her passport while the Khasadar chief at the checkpoint talked to her.

Her name on the passport was Zohra Rehmati, which makes her an American from either Iranian or Tajik-Afghan extract.

Over the past four years, a large number of US agents have entered Pakistan through Afghanistan. Several have been arrested in different parts of the country disguised as Afghan men, complete with beards and Turbans and fluent in Pashto, Dari and Urdu. Unfortunately, much of this covert American activity was sanctioned first by the Musharraf government and now by the pro-US Zardari-Haqqani combine in the incumbent government.

Ms. Rehmati, if that is her real name, may or may not be a CIA operative, or one of its private contractors associated with either DynCorp or Xe International. But such lax security in a country that is a target of terrorism, DynCorp managed to create quite a covert network in Pakistan before being busted by Pakistani security last year. DynCorp remains in Pakistan, thanks to backing from both the US Embassy in Islamabad and the pro-US government, despite repeated attempts by the country’s security officials to force the US defense contractor to wrap up its operations here. Xe International, formerly known as Blackwater, also operated in Pakistan until 2005 before being moved to Afghanistan, according to an earlier report in the New York Times. But going by the number of incidents in Pakistan over the past couple of years where US private agents were seen operating in major Pakistani cities, it is safe to say that both contractors continue to quietly operate in Pakistan in one

Private contractors help give CIA the benefit of deniability if an agent is arrested on foreign territory.

CIA has been known to send US citizens of foreign descent to their home countries for espionage.

The most recent example is Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American who was busted in Tehran carrying sensitive documents handed to her by an informant. Ms. Saberi was sent to Iran posing as a journalist. CIA even managed to get her newspaper accreditation from a major American newspaper. The US government was embarrassed at the arrest because Ms. Saberi was arrested red handed receiving official documents from a contact.

In Pakistan, a State that is falling apart at the seams, with no central figure or department to control the rot, is providing the perfect environment for meddling in the country not only by the United States, UK, India and other established powers based in Afghanistan, but also by a puppet regime like that of Mr. Hamid Karzai and his spymasters, who in eight years are in a good position today to wreak mayhem inside Pakistan while the politicians in Islamabad and the military in Rawaplpindi have little recourse beyond words of appeasement or caution during closed-door meetings with foreign powers in Afghanistan that are never translated into action to reestablish Pakistan’s writ domestically and in the region.

Mr. Shah is an independent journalist based in Peshawar.

ROAD TO SELF RESTRUCTION

Pakistan Views Online

There seems to be no end to unpleasant surprises. This is an excerpt from an article in The News today by Mr. Asif Ezdi:

“———- the question of repealing the 17th Amendment, on which there is a broad agreement, has become inter-linked with the issues of wider provincial autonomy and the renaming of NWFP, on which a difference of opinion persists.

“The deliberations of this committee, which are held behind closed doors, have been marked by total opaqueness. ———- Such information about proceedings in the committee, as has trickled out, hardly inspires confidence.

“It has been reported that in a major breakthrough, the committee agreed on November 6 to recommend the abolition of the concurrent list. According to one newspaper, there was also an agreement to transfer to the provinces all subjects on the federal list, except foreign affairs, finance, defence, currency and communications. ——- the result would be the dismantling of the federal government.”

Even a cursory glance at history of the sub-continent will reveal that devolution of this kind will result in breaking up of the country in a very short space of time. It has always happened in the past when the centre was weakened. That is why Nehru and Patel opted for a unitary form of government for India.

There is no proof that greater autonomy will improve the lot of the people in any of the provinces or satisfy the politicians for long. Their main complaints are in fact in areas that lie under provincial jurisdiction already like law and order, education, agriculture, transport, health, etc.

The reason they don’t function properly has little to do with the centre or the Constitution. It is due directly to inability on the part of the provinces to provide effective management and proper administration. Extending autonomy still further will only mean adding further burden to the already inadequate provincial management resources and more misery for the people, not less.

It is also a misconception that greater autonomy will mean less bickering. You don’t need much excuse to pick a quarrel to divert the attention and angst of the people. The blame for any failure is bound to be externalized as in the past. A weakened centre will find it that much more difficult to remedy any new situation.

The call for greater autonomy, at least within the country, is motivated by ethnic considerations. It is a veritable minefield. Take Baluchistan for instance; it is not only the Baluchis who live there. What will be the future of minorities like the Pakhtoons who inhabit the northern half of the province? Will they accept increased Baluch domination? The Baluchis themselves are riven with tribal divisions. Who will keep the peace between them if the centre’s role is diminished? It will be much the same in Sind.

What was done by Musharraf in FATA and Baluchistan is unpardonable but we cannot atone for it by giving in to people who took up arms against their own country. They did so knowingly and worse still joined hands with the country’s enemies. It cannot be condoned. These elements are no longer free nor are they acceptable as partners in any negotiations. It will set a terrible precedence.

The media in Pakistan has played a highly dubious role in presenting only one side of the issue by exclusively patronizing the likes of Selig Harrison. Any contrary point of view was scrupulously excluded. It may be difficult to assign any motives; suffice it to say that it is not the only time it has happened. It is most worrisome and reprehensible.

Constitution of the country is a sacred document. It is not to be taken lightly simply because some tinpot dictators made it their plaything in the past. It is there to provide the basis for running the country and cannot be amended at the whim and fancy of some individuals who lack the vision and experience to deal with problems that are basically of an administrative nature. If the nation can be likened to a tree, it is like digging at its roots and that will kill it.

Israel’s Role In Destabilizing Pakistan

By Jeff Gates

When waging war “by way of deception,” the motto of the Israeli Mossad, well-timed crises play a critical agenda-setting role by displacing facts with what a target population can be deceived to believe. Thus the force-multiplier effect when staged crises are reinforced with pre-staged intelligence. In combination, the two often prove persuasive.

That duplicity was on display when U.S. lawmakers were induced to invade Iraq in response to the mass murder of 9-11. That crisis alone, however, was insufficient. Military mobilization required a “consensus” belief in Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons, Iraqi meetings in Prague, and so forth. Though all were false, those “facts” proved sufficient to induce an invasion of Iraq.

Such agent provocateur operations typically include collateral incidents as pre-staging for the intended main event. Ongoing incidents suggest a follow-on operation is underway. Recent history suggests we’ll see an orgy of evidence that plausibly indicts a pre-staged Evil Doer. Though Iran is an obvious candidate, Pakistan is also a possibility where outside forces have been destabilizing this nuclear Islamic nation with a series of violent incidents.

Will it be coincidence if the next war-like the last-is consistent with the expansive goals of Jewish nationalists?

The Indo-Israel Alliance

December 2007 saw the murder of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mark Siegel, her Ashkenazim biographer and lobbyist, assured U.S. diplomats that her return was “the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact.”

President Pervez Musharraf had announced that resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict was essential to the resolution of conflicts in Iraq and neighboring Afghanistan. That comment made him a target for Tel Aviv.
During Bhutto’s two terms as prime minister, Pakistani support for the Taliban-then celebrated as the freedom-fighting Mujahadin-enabled her to wield influence in Afghanistan while also catalyzing conflicts in Kashmir. By fueling tension with India, she also fueled an Indo-Israel alliance as Tel Aviv provided New Delhi an emergency shipment of artillery shells during a conflict over the Kirpal region of Kashmir.

In January 2009, Israel delivered to India the first of three Phalcon Airborne Warning & Control Systems (AWACS) shifting the balance of conventional weapons in the region. That sale confirmed what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier announced: “Our ties with India don’t have any limitation….” That became apparent in April when Israel signed a $1.1 billion agreement to provide India an advanced tactical air defense system developed by Raytheon, a U.S. defense contractor.

In August 2008, Ashkenazim General David Kezerashvili returned to Georgia from Tel Aviv to lead an assault on separatists in South Ossetia with the support of Israeli arms and training. That crisis ignited Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Russia, key members of the Quartet (along with the EU and the UN) pledged to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Little was said about the Israeli interest in a pipeline across Georgia meant to move Caspian oil through Turkey and on to Eurasia, using Israel as an intermediary while undermining Russia’s oil industry.

More Game Theory Warfare?

Bhutto’s murder ensured a crisis that replaced Musharaff with Asif Ali Zardari, her notoriously corrupt husband. By Washington’s alliance with Zardari, the U.S. could be portrayed as extending its corrupting influence in the region.

On August 7, 2008, the Zadari-led ruling coalition called for a no-confidence vote in Parliament against Musharraf just as he was departing for the Summer Olympics in Beijing. On August 8, heavy fighting erupted overnight in South Ossetia. As with many of the recent incidents in Pakistan, this violent event involved armed separatists.

But for pro-Israeli influence inside the U.S. government, would our State Department have installed in office the corrupt Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, leading to record-level poppy production? Is the heroin epidemic presently eroding Russian society traceable to Israel’s infamous game theory war-planners? [See "How Israel Wages Game Theory Warfare" and "Israel and 9-11" .]

In late November 2008, a terrorist attack in Mumbai, India’s financial center, renewed fears of nuclear tension between India and Pakistan. When the attackers struck a hostel managed by Chabad Lubavitch, an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect from New York, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced from Tel Aviv: “Our world is under attack.” By early December, Israeli journalists urged that we “fortify the security of Jewish institutions worldwide.”

Soon after “India’s 9-11″ was found to include operatives from Pakistan’s western tribal region, Zardari announced an agreement with the Taliban to allow Sharia law to govern a swath of the North West Frontier Province where Al Qaeda members reportedly reside.

Pakistani cooperation with “Islamic extremists” created the impression of enhanced insecurity and vulnerability for the U.S. and its allies. That perceived threat was marketed by mainstream media as proof of the perils of “militant Islam.”

With the Taliban and Al Qaeda portrayed as operating freely in a nuclear-armed Islamic state, Tel Aviv gained traction for its claim that a nuclear Tehran posed an “existential threat” to the Jewish state. Meanwhile Israel’s election of an ultra-nationalist/ultra-orthodox coalition further delayed resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

More delay is destined to evoke more extremism and gain more traction for those marketing the “global war on terrorism.” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni argued after the assault in Mumbai: “Israel, India and the rest of the free world are positioned in the forefront of the battle against terrorists and extremism.”

In announcing that list, Islamabad was indicted by its exclusion even though Pakistan is dominantly Sunni and, unlike Iran’s Shi’a , abhors theocratic rule. The fact patterns suggest that Pakistan, not India, was the target of the murderous terrorism in Mumbai.

Advised by legions of Ashkenazim, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent mission to Islamabad was a diplomatic disaster. Abrasive and arrogant, America’s top diplomat reinforced Pakistani concerns that it is surrounded by hostile forces and that the nation is being set up to fail by Jewish nationalist advisers to a nation it considered an ally.

In a climate of heightened tensions, Clinton undermined U.S. interests, boosted the Israeli case for a global war on “Islamo-fascism” and lent credence to the Clash of Civilizations.

Destabilization as a Prequel to Domination

As Afghanistan and Pakistan join other nations being destabilized by outside forces, key questions must be answered:

Was India’s 9-11 a form of geopolitical misdirection meant to serve both the tactical goals of Muslim extremists and the strategic goals of Jewish nationalists? Who benefits-within Pakistan-from humiliation at the hands of India and the U.S.?

With Bhutto’s murder and Musharraf’s departure, the crisis in Mumbai drew Pakistani forces to the Indian border and away from the western tribal region. Was that the geostrategic goal of these well-timed crises? What role, if any, did Israel play?

Is delay in ending the occupation of Palestine part of an agent provocateur strategy? Was the latest assault on Gaza part of this strategy?

Each of these crises incrementally advanced the expansionist agenda of Colonial Zionists. Do these collateral incidents trace their origin to a common source? Is that source again using serial events to pre-stage a main event?

The public has an intuitive grasp of the source of this oft-recurring behavior. An October 2003 poll of 7,500 respondents in member nations of the European Union found that Israel was considered the greatest threat to world peace.

Is terrorism limited to “Islamo-fascists”? Are mass murders also deployed-from the shadows-as a strategy of geopolitical manipulation by those who Ashkenazim philosopher Hannah Arendt described as “Jewish fascists”?

Author, educator, attorney, merchant banker and adviser to policy-makers worldwide and U.S. Veteran

Jeff was counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (1980-87) working for Democrat Russell Long, son of Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator Huey P. Long. Specialist in employee benefits law-pensions, 401(k) plans, stock options, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), et.al. Tax-qualified employee benefit plans accounted for $17 trillion in assets (April 2007) and more than half the funds in the hands of institutional investors. As of 2007, ESOPs were in place in 11,500 firms nationwide, covering 10% of the U.S. workforce and holding $800 billion in assets. Law practice w/ former Senators Russell Long, Democrat of Louisiana and Paul Laxalt, Republican of Nevada, chairman of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns.

Riding the Storm

Tarik Jan

To say that Pakistan is in a clutch would still be an understatement. India is raucous at our plight while the United States is all toothy on the mental calibre of an “ally” who has turned out to be a sucker — fighting a war that has consumed about $ 40 billion worth of its assets and more than 22,000 dead since it “became our war.” The U.S. officials now say Mr. Zardari has out performed Musharraf in his services to the United States.

One may rightly blame the extraneous factors for the clutch we in but our politicians, exception allowed, have a tremendous ability to ball up the opportunity afforded to them by the democratic opening. Politics is said to be the noble art of governance, but for our politicians it is an opportunity to be parochial and petty enjoying power for the sake of power. Every day that passes gives people the feeling that the administrative setup is reeling with inefficiency and corruption. In fact, inefficiency and corruption make a perfect marriage. Ironically, a sitting government that came into power through people’s mandate is unwilling to deliver despite the fact that at the end of the run it has to face the people again.

Why would a democratic government replace performance with false posturing and take transition for permanence boggles the mind, inclining one to think that either their electoral win was not real, manufactured by foreign sponsors or that if it was real, it has given them the impression of people being stupid who preferred them over the competent and honest.

In the former case, they may think they can be sponsored again by a foreign power for they have done enough to please it. While in the latter case if their presumption is correct, then rhetoric and not deliverance is enough to deceive the masses again at the polls. In both cases the nation is the loser.

Unfortunate as it may be bureaucracy, which often sustains an administrative setup and makes a state run, is equally guilty. In fact, its guilt far outweighs the politicians’ guilt. As opposed to other power operators, their job is secure outlasting politicians; their perks and privileges which they have garnered for themselves over the years are assured. Common sense says they should deliver. But when they sit smug in their posh offices shuffling papers, indifferent to people’s plight and treating them shabbily and not resolving their problems, they become unconscious partners with the forces that do not want our nation to grow. One may even say that they alienate people from the state which is by definition high treason. Likewise when media, exception allowed, is prevailed by ideologues opposed to the directive principles of the state and manipulate the national scene towards ethno-regional considerations and their larger secular agenda as opposed to the people’s moral essence and oneness, chaos takes over pushing people to uncertainty and despair with nothing to cheer the spirits. Religious values which give courage to people to live in adversity and equip them with gears to survive even against odds are under assault. The situation becomes worse when the administration fails to create jobs, effectuate growth, while the voice for distributive, social, and criminal justice is still a cry in the wilderness. The national scenario despite our faith in us seemingly becomes bleak.

In our attempt to transplant secular values over a Muslim society we forgot that societal structures do not come into being by imposing borrowed ideas. “They are not made,” as John Stuart Mill would say, “but grow … from the nature and life of that people: a product of their habits, instincts, and unconscious wants and desires, scarcely at all of their deliberate purposes.”

Why are we doing this to ourselves especially at a time when the periphery of our state is brewing with distension and mutiny? FATA and Balochistan are partly insurgent giving chance to neighbouring predators to fish in troubled waters. Ungluing the national elements strewn together by Islam is a staggering thought.

The mountainous ranges of FATA and its wilderness can be viewed in geo-strategic terms as the periphery of our state torn by conflict. This may lull us into sleep or throw us into a smug posturing, inclining us to a false belief that it is a distant happening, which will not have its spread to the centre.

True, a periphery is not a substitute for the centre, still it remains vital to a state’s security for it is an extension of the centre and thus any turbulence in the periphery, if not subdued, can gradually eat up the vitality of the state. That is why statecraft calls for firepower, art of governance, and diplomacy. Short of any such combination, the state loses rhythm and falls prey to chaos created by its own inefficiency and power-play of the neighbouring predators.

Writing on the rise and fall of the nations, Ibn Khaldun, the founder of modern sociology, made an astute observation: “When the state,” he says, “becomes senile and weak, it begins to crumble at its extremities. The centre remains intact until God permits the destruction of the whole state. Then the centre is destroyed. But when a state is overrun from the centre, it is of no avail to it that the outlying areas remain intact. It dissolves all at once. Were the heart to be overrun and captured all the extremities would be routed.”

India and its strategic partners have realized the spill over effect of the unimaginative policies of our successive secular governments. They also know it well that the gap between the constitutional proclamation for an Islamic state and the practices of the power apparatus in Pakistan has created rage as well as disenchantment in the masses, which can be utilized to their benefit. Let them fight between themselves and bleed seems to be the Indian policy. The Indians are convinced that the Kashmir eruption can cool down if Pakistan’s armed forces are made to bog down in Waziristan and Balochistan. Added to this, Indians would like to prolong the United States stay in Afghanistan and thus keep Pakistan embroiled in its turbulent domestic situation. Manmohan Singh’s November 6, 2009 appeal to the U.S. not to consider withdrawal from Afghanistan gives support to such an evaluation.

In this scenario our power operators should not forget that India has forged a strategic alliance with the United States, which among others calls for joint plans against what the two conveniently call “the cauldron of terrorism in Pakistan,” “the jihadi-military axis,” and “Islamic fundamentalism.”

Playing on this plank of the strategic alliance, India is continuously projecting Pakistan as “the centre of international jihadi terrorism,” which they urge must be dismantled. Together with the rising crescendo of Pakistan’s nuclear programme being unsafe. For obvious reasons the latter appeals to the U.S.

No matter how insistent is the Indian denial of its involvement in Balochistan and Waziristan, we must not forget what India did in East Pakistan. Indians do not hide it; rather, they boast of sundering East Pakistan from West Pakistan. Major General Sukhwant Singh, deputy director of military operations in 1971, not only reveals the Indian mindset but also the way they humiliated Pakistan. According to him, the Indians applied the German Liddell Hart’s concept of “the expanding torrent.”

This concept implied that the Pakistani army should be drawn out to the borders by keeping the border volatile through unending skirmishes “under cover of Mukti Bahini,” and thus thinning out the Pak army at “the cost of the interior.” Second, India should secure the key communication sectors in the centre to “disrupt the enemy’s command and control.” Third, scatter Pak forces in “penny pockets” to facilitate their “easy to mop up.”

Singh’s book the liberation of Bangladesh explains how India used military force to achieve its political objectives. Balochistan and FATA actions are a repeat of their success in Bangladesh. Similar tensions can be sparked in Sindh and elsewhere.

With odds like these, the power wielders in Pakistan must improve governance. By that I mean synchronize human and material resources for growth; give citizens a sense of belonging by prompt official responses to their needs. Two, wipe out corruption fast. British prime minister Harold Brown’s scathing warning to Hamid Karazi to end corruption or he would not let his soldiers die in Afghanistan is an indicator that the world takes a low view of corruption. A similar message can come to the PPP’s government from Zardari’s Friends of Pakistan forum. Kerry-Lugar bill has already shown the U.S. inclination to micro manage the civil spending. Three, avoid undermining Islam by grafting secular values on the social scene. Four, employ military force where necessary but use negotiation channels to defuse conflict and thus deescalate armed action. Five, move fast on the Baluch scene. Declare the Baluch package now rather than wait for the constitutional package. The constitutional amendment can come later

The author is a research scholar and Member Board of Advisors, Opinion Maker

Pakistan: Sharif for repealing 17th amendment

IANS

Lahore, Pakistan: Flexing his muscles in the wake of the victorious lawyers’ ‘long march’ for reinstating the judges sacked in 2007, opposition leader Nawaz Sharif said Wednesday he had informed the prime minister that the controversial 17th amendment should be repealed.

‘We have talked to the prime minister and now the 17th amendment will be abolished,’ he told reporters here.

The repeal of the amendment was one of the demands of the protesting lawyers but had got lost in the larger issue of restoring the Supreme Court and high court judges Musharraf had sacked after imposing an emergency Nov 3, 2007.

After initially talking tough, the government buckled in Monday, with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani announcing that sacked Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury and other apex court and high court judges would be restored.

Chaudhury will assume office March 21 when incumbent Abdul Hameed Dogar retires.

Musharraf had pushed through the 17th amendment in 2003, transferring key powers from the prime minister’s office to the presidency.

These included the powers to appoint the service chiefs and the chief justice, as also to dismiss the federal and provincial assemblies.

There is also the possibility of Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) rejoining Gilani’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) coalition in the wake of the judges’ reinstatement.

The PPP and the PML-N had formed the coalition along with two smaller parties after emerging on top after the February 2008 general elections. They had even agreed on a governance agenda that included the restoration of the deposed judges.

The PML-N walked out of the alliance after PPP co-chair and now Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari reneged on the deal.

A happy ending

THE nerve-racking drama that had gone on in the country for nearly two years is finally over with a happy ending expected by few. This should provide a sense of relief to all and sundry. Prime Minister Gilani has restored through an executive order all deposed judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. His government would also file a review petition to seek the reversal of the Supreme Court judgment disqualifying the Sharif brothers from holding public office. To overcome legal difficulties arising out of a Chief Justice still holding office, Chief Justice Chaudhry would take over his responsibilities after March 21 when sitting CJ Dogar is scheduled to retire. Section 144 has been lifted from all over the country and orders issued for the release of those arrested in connection with the march. The move has been hailed by Mian Nawaz Sharif, who called off the march at Gujranwala, which he had reached at the head of a big procession comprising hundreds of vehicles and thousands of people on foot. Earlier on Sunday, he had come out of his Lahore residence in defiance of the government’s orders and was joined on his way by highly charged protesters. The jubilant leadership of the lawyers community has also announced it was calling off the protest.

The two-year-long struggle conducted by Pakistan’s legal community for an independent judiciary has finally been crowned with victory. The defiance of a military ruler by Chief Justice Chaudhry, the first such occurrence in Pakistan, added a bright chapter to its otherwise inglorious judicial history, marked by justifications for military takeovers and subsequent violations of the Constitution. The defiance electrified the nation, which took to the streets in defence of the Chief Justice, another event in Pakistan without a precedent. One High Court judge and numerous subordinate judges resigned in protest, while many refused to take oath under the PCO and were promptly sent home. For two years, the lawyers braved the wrath of the police, went to jail and suffered economic losses. The lawyers movement weakened Musharraf, led Washington to gradually withdraw support given to the dictator and facilitated the return of the exiled leadership. Initially, the lawyers were supported by all major political parties except those who were a part of the Musharraf administration. When the PPP officially withdrew support from the struggle after forming the government, many PPP lawyers continued to actively back the movement, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan being at the forefront as President SCBA. The hitherto dormant civil society made its debut in politics as a part of the movement. Private media threw its weight behind the deposed judiciary, facing the wrath of the government and of the mob in Karachi. For the electronic media, it was virtually a baptism of fire. The recent long march acted as a catalytic agent, breaking the monolithic unity of the PPP. Two federal ministers belonging to the party resigned during the movement. It goes to the credit of Prime Minister Gilani that he persuaded President Zardari to restore the judges. His contribution has been duly recognized by the opposition. That President Zardari finally agreed to soften his stand goes to the PPP Co-Chairman’s credit.

The lawyers, opposition parties and the civil society at large have wrested victory out of the jaws of defeat. This would not have been possible without backdoor attempts by the military establishment and the new US Administration, which had reasons to be wary of increasing polarization in the country. It is now for the government to fulfill the promises it has made in letter and spirit, and work together with the opposition to restore stability which is badly needed for the resolution of the momentous problems facing the country, that include an ailing economy, extremism and terrorism. The opposition in the form of the PML(N) should go an extra mile to reach a consensus on major issues facing the nation today.