Haqeeqat.Org Face it…

by Fatima Tassaduq

Mustafa Kamal, Altaf Hussain and other MQM leaders never told us a lie. They, from the onset, told us that Mustafa Kamal was a “2 number″ mayor, and that was also vetted by a world body, though now the world body is stunned at the whole episode.

According to their website, the FOREIGN POLICY Magazine is the premier, award-winning magazine of global politics, economics, and ideas.

What You WON’T Find in FP

- Cliché sound bites masquerading as reportage

- Predictable, read-them-a-hundred-times analyses of examined-to-death global stories

- Polite essays that fail to challenge your assumptions, excite your passions, or raise your ire

All hell broke loose some days ago, when Karachiite woke up to find their city littered with banners congratulating the city Nazim of his receiving the title of No. 2 Mayor in the world by the Foreign Policy. Mayor not only received the facilitations, but also thanked his Quaid Altaf Hussain and the whole MQM machine started parading the mayor in the load-shedding.

Then Joshua Keating of FP publishes this:

At issue is a sidebar from FP’s recent Global Cities Index that names Kamal, Berlin’s Klaus Wowereit, and Chongqing’s Wang Hongju as “mayors of the moment” who have found innovative ways to globalize their cities. The mayors are not ranked, nor are we implying that they are objectively “better” than any other mayors, but that didn’t stop the Karachi City Government from issuing a press release on its Website (they’ve changed the text since being contacted by FP) congratulating Kamal for being the No. 2 mayor in the world. For the record, the three names are not listed in any particular order.

By Saleem Khan

On one side, military is snatching lands from poor farmers at very low rate for building Military empire and on other hand, the same military Generals are using it for their housing societies and paying as bribe. One reason for the anger of Balochis is also the same, when our last President announced Cantonment in Gawadar, regardless of fact that Pakistan don’t need cantonment in an area where there is no external threat. Every body knows that what is the reason of building cantonment at lucrative places of Pakistan. Supreme court remarks against such steps are now an open secret for Pakistanis.

Anyway, please read the report pasted below for your information and discussion. Now a days Army is trying to build confidence so they get an other chance after few years to come back in government. We have to realise that no body is there to work for common man. We have to select right people for right positions.

Report from The News: The mystery behind General Pervez Musharraf’s success in convincing Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the JUI in 2004 not to oppose his uniform has been partially solved — the general had doled out hundreds of acres of military land worth millions of rupees to the near and dear ones of the Maulana.

Documents of these land allotments obtained by The News explain why the Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA) always remained a friendly opposition to General Pervez Musharraf, bailed him out at critical times and why its JUI-led provincial government was able to complete a five-year term in the NWFP.

The scale of the buyout price of the JUI, which has now been confirmed, is massive in terms of state land and money paid to the JUI leaders and their relatives.

It is not clear whether the Pakistan Army could actually cancel these allotments of its lands to relatives of a politician even if it wanted to.

Musharraf’s dubious promise of taking off his uniform by December 2004 was first quietly accepted by the MMA and then when he went back on his promise the JUI-led MMA never created any problem, except for low-level noises made off and on for public consumption.

This was done all because JUI’s Maulana Fazlur Rehman had been allotted hundreds of acres of state land, mostly in the name of his relatives, staff and employees. Documents of these allotted lands, now in the possession of The News, reveal the blatant corruption of the JUI leaders, who use Islam to fool the people but never stop from compromising themselves and their principles for material and monetary gains.

The ousted dictator is now known to have secretly allotted 1,200 Kanals of military land in D I Khan to his opposition leader in the last National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his chief minister in the NWFP Akram Khan Durrani in 2004.

Though the military land was transferred in the names of those who are either closely related to these two JUI-F leaders or are their relatives, the Revenue Department in DI Khan confirmed that both these leaders had at least 600 Kanals each in their personal possession.

A senior member Board of Revenue in the Frontier government was also allotted 400 Kanals of the same land for his role in this highly controversial allotment from the land earmarked for soldiers, who are given this land for their services and in line with the policy derived by the GHQ.

The allotment letters, relating to 1200 Kanals, were issued by the Army’s General Headquarters Adjutant General (Welfare and Rehabilitation Directorate), Rawalpindi under the signatures of Lt-Col Muhammad Zafar on behalf of the adjutant general and countersigned by Brigadier DWR-I Zafar Iqbal Shah on Oct 23rd 2004 — a little over two months prior to the deadline set for Musharraf’s stepping down as Army chief.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman could not be reached for comments despite all efforts. However, his party spokesman categorically said that there was no truth in this and that it was a vilification campaign launched against the party and its leader.

The spokesman said that the land was neither allotted in the name of the two leaders nor in the names of their close associates or relatives.

Former JUI chief minister Akram Khan Durrani, however, admitted that some of his close associates/relatives were allotted lands but he said he had nothing to do with those.

But the documents, available with The News, confirm that six men connected with Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Akram Durrani were allotted 200 Kanals each whereas a senior Revenue officer, serving in DI Khan, also acknowledged that the said land was actually in the possession of these two leaders.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s main ally in the MMA at that time Qazi Hussain Ahmad of the Jamaat-e-Islami, when approached, said that he and his party did not have the hint of this wheeling and dealing.

The documents show that whole of this land was allotted in Rakh Ghass, Tehsil and district Dera Imail Khan where the provincial government had allotted almost 136,000 Kanals of land to the Pakistan Army for its scheme under which the officers and JCOs and their families are allotted agriculture land of different sizes on the basis of their performance, seniority, sacrifice etc under a well determined formula.

Adjutant General’s Branch, W&R Directorate, in its six separate letters dated Oct 23, 2004 and clearly tagged as “restricted”, allotted 200 Kanals of agriculture land in Rakh Ghass D I Khan to each of the following beneficiaries:

1. Abrar Ahmad Khan son of Muhammad Ismail Khan, street 41 Sector I-9/4 Jamia Masjid Farooq-e-Azam, Islamabad.

Generally known as Mufti Abrar, this allottee is the personal assistant of Maulana Fazlur Rehman. He has been allotted land in Khasra No 717, 716 and 715, the document shows;

2. Sharifullah son of Mr Rahmatullah, Mohallah Mehmood Khel, village Abdul Khel, district D I Khan. He is attached with the brother of the Maulana, Maulana Lutfur Rehman, and is considered as their family member. He has been allotted land in Khasra No 718, 719 and 720;

3. Muhammad Ramzan son of Mr Feroz Khan, Mohallah Mehmood Khel, village Abdul Khel district D I Khan. He is closely related to Sharifullah and is also close with the Maulanas. He was allotted land in Khasras No 715 and 714;

4. Ibrar Ali Shah son of Asghar Ali Shah, Mewa Khel, Fazal Haq Malwana, Bannu. He is cousin of Durrani, who admitted the same and asserted that his father is a retired soldier so the son got the land. He was allotted land in Khasra No 718, 719 and 720;

5. Muhammad Ashraf Ali Khan son of Muhammad Shahzad Khan, village Khutti, Tehsil and dist D I Khan. He is included in the personal staff of Maulana Fazlís brother Maulana Lutfur Rehman. He was allotted land in Khasra No 717, 716 and 715; and

6. Muhammad Shahzad Khan son of Alam Sher Khan, Hibak Sharzah Khan P/O Sikandar Khel Bannu. He is the uncle of Durrani as admitted by the former chief minister. Durrani said that his uncle was a retired soldier so was given land by the GHQ. Shahzad Khan was allotted land in Khasra No 715 and 714.

Following these allotment letters issued by the GHQ, the land was formally transferred by the concerned Revenue officer to the above mentioned on 26 January, 2005.

After the issuance of the allotment letters, the provincial government referred the case of Reayat Khan, the then senior member Board of Revenue, to the GHQ for the allotment of 400 Kanals of land in the same Moza for the officer, who had reportedly played an important role in getting 1200 Kanals transferred in favour of the men of JUI-Fís top leaders.

Though Maulana Fazlur Rehman was not accessible, party spokesman Maulana Amjad told this correspondent that this was all disinformation and aimed at maligning the name of the Maulana. He said that neither the land was transferred to the two top JUI leaders nor to any of their front men. Maulana Amjad said that they did not believe in the politics of opportunism.

Akram Durrani clarified that the land was actually allocated to the Pakistan Army before he took over as the chief minister of the province. He said that during his rule, he tried his level best to get the decision reversed but in vain. He denied that the land allotted in 2004 to his close men belonged to him.

He argued that his uncle was allotted plot because he was a retired soldier whereas his other relative was gifted 200 Kanals because his father was in the Army.

“I have nothing to do with all this,” he said. Durrani, when asked about Maulana, said that he would not respond on behalf of his party head.

The former chief minister of the Frontier province suggested to this correspondent that the media should focus on what is going on in Islamabad. When asked if he was the beneficiary of the four Agro-plots that the CDA was recently pressurized to allot, he said that it was just media gossip.

A senior district Revenue official, serving in the D I Khan, however, said that the land in question was in possession of the Maulana and Durrani. He said he did not know under what law the then Army chief had made this allotment because such a military land was only allotted to army officers and NCOs or to the families of the martyred.

Source: Ansar Abbasi (Hundreds of acres of Army land given as bribe to JUI)

GEO Television famed Anchor, Ex-Minister from MQM Dr. Amir Liaquat Exposed humiliating, cursing and literally abusing Sahaba (Companions of Prophet Muhammad(PbuH) and Khulfa-é-Rashideen (Caliphs) in a Shia Majlis held at Karachi (venue unknown) at the event of Hazrat Ali (Karam-ullah waj’ha)’s birth anniversary!

This two year old video has been brought to public mysteriously and also has been promoted a lot over internet and other mediums.

Though Dr. Amir Liaquat Hussain- upon this video’s being public and upon being cursed a lot by his very fans on LIVE television- has apologized (GEO TV; this ramadan; 2007) for his abusive language and though some of the Scholars have issued a ruling for his apology being valid, I must say that the demon-like attitude, evil enthusiasm on his bloody worth-vomit rotten face tell a lot clear story…

WATCH it yourself:

 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5073591411491211092&hl=en

Also check the following:

When Dictators Serve US Interests
by Sir. Imran Khan
July 13, 2007

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Over recent days, news from Pakistan has been dominated by the siege at the Red Mosque, which ended late yesterday. Scarcely a mile from the seat of power in Islamabad, the madrasa students and their two leading clerics inside the mosque first claimed attention with kidnappings, threats of suicide bombings and demands for the imposition of sharia law. The Musharraf regime mounted a military operation against the militants which led to the loss of numerous lives, among them one of the clerics, Abdul Rashid Ghaz. A number of questions arise. Why was action not taken immediately? How were militants and arms able to get in under the gaze of the police and intelligence services? And why were other measures, including shutting off electricity at the mosque, not exhausted earlier?

The episode appears to have been drawn out deliberately by President Musharraf. Since he sacked the chief justice in March, a movement led by lawyers, journalists and opposition parties has been clamouring for democracy on Pakistan’s streets. As Musharraf faces his biggest crisis, he is desperate to prove his indispensability to the west in the war on terror.

But this use of force is likely to produce unintended and dangerous consequences, as it has in Baluchistan, Waziristan and Bajaur. It may be salutary to recall how Indira Gandhi’s order for troops to attack the Golden Temple, where Sikh militants were holed up, not only failed to subdue the militants but triggered a wave of violence, including her assassination. While few Sikhs may have sympathised with the militants, many came to deeply resent the government’s high-handedness.

Suicide bombing and other noxious forms of terrorism were once alien to Pakistan. After eight years of military dictatorship, radicalism and fundamentalism are in the ascendant everywhere. Musharraf is perceived among radical elements as the west’s instrument in a “war on Islam”–there could be no greater failure in the battle for hearts and minds.

Terrorism requires a political solution. Extremists can be marginalised through debate and political dialogue in a democracy. Military dictatorship, as we are now seeing, only exacerbates the problem. It has become obvious to every Pakistani that, far from presiding over a transition to genuine democracy in the country, Musharraf is intent on dismantling every democratic institution in his way. Over recent months he has assaulted the judiciary, restricted freedom of the press, and put hundreds of members of the opposition behind bars.

The roots of the most shocking incident so far, however, can be found in north London, where the chairman of the Musharraf-allied Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Altaf Hussain, resides. When Pakistan’s chief justice decided to address the bar in Karachi, a vast welcome was expected in the city. This worried Musharraf and his MQM allies, who control the Sindh government–and especially Karachi, the provincial capital. They decided to organise a rival rally the same day, despite protests by the opposition. What followed on the blood-soaked May 12 could be described in two words: state terrorism.

While the police stood aside, the terrorist arm of the MQM sprayed bullets into a peaceful procession of the opposition parties. Some 48 people lost their lives and 200 sustained bullet wounds. Among them were 10 members of my party. Most callously, Musharraf later that evening triumphantly claimed that the people had shown their “force”. None of the opposition parties believe MQM’s denials that they were involved in turning this peaceful protest violent. It was then I decided to launch legal proceedings against Altaf Hussain, who has been living in exile in London since 1992 and became a British citizen in 1999.

The MQM came into existence in the mid-1980s as a genuine people’s movement in Karachi, representing the immigrant community that had arrived from India shortly after the creation of Pakistan. This community had serious grievances, the most significant being that educated young muhajirs could not get jobs because of imposed quotas. But within a few years it had degenerated into a thuggish mafia outfit, controlled by one man, Altaf Hussain.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even the US state department and the European Union have issued reports about the MQM’s terrorist activities. The only independent provincial assembly in Pakistan recently denounced the party as a “terrorist organisation”, and last weekend the conference of opposition parties jointly resolved to support the legal proceedings against Hussain.

While Musharraf maintains that he is at the frontline of the war on terror–in which thousands of Pakistani soldiers and citizens have lost their lives–he has allied himself with the country’s number one terrorist. And Tony Blair’s government, which was at the fore of this war, gave Pakistan’s number one terrorist citizenship.

It is impossible to embark on any quest for the hearts and minds of Pakistanis when these blatant double standards exist. Are dictators somehow fine when they exist to serve US interests, even if they destroy hopes of democracy in the process? And are terrorists only a problem when it is western blood that is shed?

Imran Khan is the leader of the Pakistan Movement for Justice and a member of parliament.

http://www.counterpunch.com/khan07132007.html

Vilani Peiris and Keith Jones
May 22, 2007

The Bush administration has reiterated its support for Pakistan’s military strongman, General Pervez Musharraf, in the wake of bloody, government-orchestrated attacks on opposition protesters in Karachi, May 12 and 13, that left more than forty people dead.

The violence, which was perpetrated by armed thugs of the pro-Musharraf Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), was aimed at stamping out a mounting wave of anti-government protests. But on Monday, May 14, most of Pakistan’s major cities, including Lahore, Peshwar, Quetta, and especially Karachi, were paralyzed by a general strike called by the opposition parties to protest the previous weekend’s violence. There is a “complete strike in Karachi,” conceded the police chief Azhar Faruqi to the Guardian. The next day large numbers of teachers demonstrated in Lahore against government plans to privatize the education system.

Musharraf’s attempt to sack the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has served as the trigger for the anti-government protests. But the protests are the product of deep-rooted popular opposition to Musharraf’s authoritarian rule, support for and complicity in the US’s wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq, and his implementation of neo-liberal economic policies, which have increased economic insecurity and social inequality.

At a press briefing last Wednesday, US State Department spokesman Tom Casey pointedly refused to make any criticism of Musharraf or his political allies for unleashing terror on the streets of Pakistan’s largest city, then reaffirmed Washington’s support for the man who doubles as Pakistan’s president and chief of armed services.

In response to a multi-part question that solicited US reaction to the Karachi violence and suggested there might be “concern” within the administration that Musharraf is “losing the handle on the situation,” Casey began by observing that the violence had abated, without breathing a word as to who had fomented it, and concluded by declaring, “I don’t think our assessment has fundamentally changed about him [Musharraf] or his role in Pakistani society.”

The previous day, US special envoy Ronald Neumann had pressed Pakistani officials during meetings in Islamabad to step up efforts to combat the Taliban in Pakistan and to cooperate more closely with Afghanistan’s US-installed government. Neumann told reporters Musharraf had not reached his “full capacity” in fighting “terrorism and extremism.” But he also made clear that Musharraf remains a pivotal ally of the Bush administration in the “war on terror”—that is in the US drive to gain a strategic stranglehold over the oil supplies of Central Asia and the Middle East. “I don’t think Musharraf has reached the end of the line,” declared Neumann.

A former US ambassador to Kabul, Neumann said Washington would provide additional funding to Pakistan to increase military patrols on its border with Afghanistan.

According to a report in Sunday’s New York Times, the Bush administration has rejected calls from the US military for Washington to tie the payments that it makes to the Pakistani military for logistical support for the Afghan occupation and fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan to “Pakistan’s performance” in the so-called war on terror.

These payments, which are dubbed “coalition support funds,” are said to have averaged $80 million per month since October 2001, or equal to about a fifth of all Pakistani military spending, and to have surpassed a total of $5.6 billion.

The Times linked the White House’s refusal to threaten Islamabad with a cut in “coalition support funds” to its fears for the future of the Musharraf regime: “The administration, according to some current and former officials, is fearful of cutting off the cash or linking it to performance for fear of further destabilizing Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who is facing the biggest challenges to his rule since he took power in 1999.”

Musharraf’s March 9 suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on corruption charges was a transparent attempt to stage-manage his “re-election” as president. Although Chaudhry had given his legal blessing to Musharraf’s 1999 coup and other patently unconstitutional acts, he has authored a number of decisions that cut across the government’s agenda since becoming chief justice. This caused Musharraf to fear he couldn’t count on Justice Chaudhry to provide a judicial fig-leaf for his phony re-election this fall by a presidential college comprised of the legislators elected in military-manipulated elections in 2002.

But the general-president’s attempt to rid himself of the uncooperative judge has backfired, becoming a catalyst for popular protests, while serving to alienate much of the legal-juridical establishment.

Justice Chaudhry has a long, dishonorable record of serving Musharraf and the military and as a judge has upheld the capitalist socio-economic order that has condemned Pakistani’s toilers to abject poverty. If he has emerged as something of a popular figure, it is because his defiance of the general-president and pro-democracy speeches stand in marked contrast with the actions of the various bourgeois opposition parties. While repeatedly promising to launch a “final struggle” against the Musharraf regime the opposition has in fact continued to cooperate with it.

Thus the six-party Islamacist alliance, the MMA, voted in December 2003 for constitutional amendments sanctioning Musharraf’s 1999 coup and his remaining head of the armed forces while president and, to this day, the MMA serves in a coalition government in Baluchistan alongside the principal pro-Musharraf party, the PML (Q).

Meanwhile, Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistani People’s Party (PPP), which poses as a progressive even “socialist” party, has long been involved in negotiations to strike a deal with Musharraf under which the PPP would be given a share of power in return for supporting the general remaining president till 2012.

The Bush administration and the British government have been actively promoting a PPP-Musharraf partnership. Bhutto, for her part, has been courting the Bush administration by promising to be a more effective supporter of the US “war on terror” than the current Pakistani regime.

But there are many obstacles to a deal between Musharraf and Bhutto, including fears within the PPP that support for their party, which already suffered a huge erosion due to its implementation of IMF policies when it led Pakistan’s government in the late 1980s and 1990s, would hemorrhage were it to throw in its lot with Musharraf.

Moreover recent events have caused Bhutto, at least for the moment, to publicly downplay the imminence of a deal with Musharraf. No doubt she calculates that she can extract better terms from a weakened Musharraf, but also that before committing her party to partnering with the general she should first find out whether he will be able to ride out the storm. Speaking with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio service last week, Bhutto said now was not the time to negotiate with Musharraf about “an emerging partnership.” But she could envisage working with him if he “were to make the compromises necessary to respond to the sentiments of the people.”

Bhutto is now urging Musharraf to “call a round-table conference of all political leaders, including the exiled prime ministers, to evolve a consensus for transparent elections.”

Musharraf, meanwhile, has vowed that neither Bhutto, nor Nawaz Sharif, whom he deposed in his 1999 coup, will be allowed back into the country before the elections.

And in what has all the trademarks of a contract-killing, Hammad Raza, a registrar of the Supreme Court was murdered May 14 at his home in the capital of Islamabad. Raza was to be a key witness for suspended Chief Justice Chaudhry. One of Chaudhry’s lawyers, Tariq Mehmood, told Reuters, Raza “was witness to many things, like the chief justice said in his petition that some files were removed from his chamber on the day he was suspended.” Raza’s family is challenging police claims that the murder was the result of a burglary. They report that he was under “much pressure” in the days prior to his murder.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/paki-m22.shtml

By Vilani Peiris
May 14, 2007

Karachi, a city of 10 million and Pakistan’s commercial hub, was convulsed by gun-battles Saturday, as Pakistan’s US-backed military strongman, President Pervez Musharraf, resorted to deadly violence in a bid to quash the growing popular challenge to his rule.

According to press reports, at least 36 people were killed and more than 140 injured when thugs allied with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a pro-Musharraf party, attacked crowds gathering to show support for the country’s “suspended” Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

In March, Musharraf moved to have Chaudhry stripped of his post as head of Pakistan’s Supreme Court on trumped-up corruption charges. Chaudhry, like the rest of Pakistan’s top judges, has a long record of giving a judicial fig-leaf to Musharraf’s anti-democratic and unconstitutional actions, including the 1999 coup in which he seized power. But Chaudhry recently issued a number of rulings, including striking down the privatization of Pakistan Steel Mills, that cut across the government’s agenda and caused Musharraf to conclude he could not rely on Chaudhry to provide a judicial blessing for his stage-managed “re-election” as president later this fall.

On the evening of Friday, May 11, the MQM blockaded the main arteries into Karachi with trucks, buses, and containers. The next morning thousands of MQM activists armed with sticks roamed Karachi’s streets warning lawyers, who had invited Chaudhry to address the Sindh High Court Bar Association, and opposition activists, who were intending to greet the suspended chief justice, to stay in their homes.

But with all the major opposition parties—including the Pakistan People’s Party, the Pakistan Muslim League, the Awami National Party and the six-member alliance of Islamic fundamentalist parties (the MMA)—endorsing the call to greet Chaudhry, thousands took to the streets in defiance of the MQM threats and a massive mobilization of security forces.

An AP reporter says he saw MQM supporters firing at crowds of protesters from buildings in Karachi’s Golden Town district and some among the anti-Musharraf demonstrators firing back. A second major clash, including an exchange of gunfire and the setting ablaze of buses and motor vehicles, occurred at Malir Hal, where Musharraf opponents came face to face with those on the way to an MQM-counter rally.

Although the authorities had mobilized some 16,000 security personnel, they did nothing to stop the MQM attacks. Some newspapers are reporting that the security personnel were specifically ordered not to intervene. A low-ranking policeman told the Daily Times, “There were some orders and our weapons were taken from us. It was as if we were put here just to watch.”

Over the past two months security forces have repeatedly roughed up journalists covering protests against Musharraf’s attempt to oust Chaudhry. On Saturday, MQM thugs assumed this role. The private Aaj television channel showed pictures of its office under fire. Journalist Talat Hussain told BBC, “We are under attack. We have seen no security force. No one has come to help us.”

As intended, the violence forced Chaudhry to abandon his plan to speak before the Sindh High Court Bar Association. After waiting in an airport lounge for nine hours, he returned to Islamabad.

The MQM’s counter-rally, however, went ahead unimpeded.

The MQM, which has a long history of political violence, claims to represent the mohajirs, Urdu-speakers who moved to Pakistan from north India when the subcontinent was divided on communal lines in 1947-48. It controls Karachi’s city government and is part of pro-Musharraf coalition governments nationally and in Sindh, the southern province of which Karachi is the capital.

By contracting out the bloody suppression of Saturday’s protest in Karachi to the MQM, Musharraf hopes to be able to deny responsibility and avoid bringing further public opprobrium on the military.

But this is a transparent ruse.

Speaking from behind a massive bullet-proof enclosure to a government rally in Islamabad Saturday evening, Musharraf laid full blame for the bloody events in Karachi on the opposition, while holding up the MQM’s rally as evidence of the popular support for this regime.

Musharraf claimed to be shocked and grieved by the numbers of dead and wounded, then proclaimed, “But what has happened today in Karachi is because of the chief justice who went there ignoring the advice of the government over the issue.”

The president, who doubles as head of Pakistan’s armed forces, then made a thinly-veiled threat of further violence, saying that the gun-battles in Karachi were the result of the obstinacy of the opposition. “If they think they are powerful, then they should know that the people’s power is with us.”

Musharraf also made an appeal to Pakistan’s lawyers, who have spearheaded the protests over Chaudhry’s suspension. In a reference to the government’s recent reversal of its opposition to the suspended chief justice’s demand that the Supreme Court as a whole hear the corruption allegations against him, Musharraf declared, “Now that the full court will be deciding the issue, the lawyers’ fraternity should stop protesting and stop playing into the hands of some disgruntled and unwise people.”

Musharraf’s speech was also significant in that he confirmed that he intends to have the legislators now sitting in Pakistan’s provincial and national assemblies re-elect him to a five year-term this fall, even though these legislators were chosen in an election in 2002 that was manipulated by the military. Such a procedure is in flagrant violation of the constitution as is Musharraf’s continuing to serve as both president and Chief of Pakistan’s Armed Services.

Musharraf said, “After a few months, I will be contesting for the second term in office and then [i.e. after he has been returned as president] the elections of the national and provincial assemblies will be held.”

Musharraf denied press reports that he will soon declare a state of emergency, claiming that the people are with him. But on Sunday, Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah was reported to have said that the government has authorized paramilitary troops to shoot anyone involved in serious violence. The Sindh government, meanwhile, has invoked an old British colonial statute, Section 144, to ban all political gatherings.

Washington has said nothing about last weekend’s violence in Karachi. But in recent weeks, top Bush administration officials have voiced strong support for Musharraf and lauded him as a staunch US ally in the “war on terror” and a democrat.

The strength of the protests against Musharraf’s attempt to sack the chief justice took the opposition by surprise. While the opposition parties have for years been promising to mount a “final struggle” against the Musharraf regime, they all in fact have an ambivalent relationship with Musharraf and Pakistan’s military. The opposition parties are terrified that a confrontation with Musharraf could provide an opening for the entry of Pakistan’s toiling masses into political struggle.

The MMA remains the government of North West Frontier Province and in a coalition government with the pro-Musharraf PML (Q) in Baluchsitan. Benazir Bhutto, the PPP’s leader for life, has recently publicly admitted that she is involved in backroom talks with the government aimed at reaching an accommodation with the Musharraf. As part of these maneuvers, the PPP leadership had been holding meetings with International Republican Institute, an arm of the US Republican Party.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/pakis-m14.shtml