Zardari to Nawaz – Stop criticising the army

By Abdul Manan

The political positions of the two leading parties in the country have come full circle since the 1990s. In a letter written to the eponymous leader of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, President Asif Ali Zardari asked Nawaz Sharif not to criticise the army or the government.

In reply to Nawaz Sharif’s address against govt, president urges all parties to help instead of pointing fingers.

The letter, which was highly critical of the PML-N leadership in polite but pointed language, was made public through a press release by the Punjab government’s information department.

Using references to the highly divisive politics of the 1990s, the president appeared to be playing the role of an elder statesman, asking the leader of the country’s largest opposition party to focus on helping the people of the one province that the PML-N governs rather than concerning themselves with criticising the federal government’s every move.

“The nation does not need provocative speeches, but rather a treatment for dengue fever,” the president’s letter was quoted as saying, in a reference to the dengue epidemic that has plagued Punjab over the past few days.

(Read: Alarming proportions – ‘Dengue out of Punjab government’s control’)

Teaching hospitals in Lahore, the provincial capital, report receiving as many as 600 dengue fever patients a day. A Pakistan Peoples Party spokesperson in Punjab claimed that 10,000 people had been affected by the disease so far.

The president also asked Sharif to spare a thought for the flood victims in Sindh, Zardari’s home province.

“If you do not want to visit Sindh because of me, visit it for the sake of the poor, marooned people of the province,” the president was quoted as having written.

The president even offered Sharif his personal residence in Nawabshah for his stay in Sindh and implied that his hospitality would be a repayment in kind for Zardari’s stay in Kholi (a prison), a reference to the time that Zardari was imprisoned on corruption charges (that were never proven) during the Sharif administration in the 1990s.

“Let’s come together to support the nation and get her out from the clutches of natural calamities,” the press release quoted the president as having said.

(Read: President visits flood hit areas, ensures relief and rehabilitation for affectees)

Allusions to plots

Yet the main thrust of the president’s letter appeared to be to convince Sharif of the need to support democracy in the country and not take any actions to destabilise it. In veiled terms, the president appeared to be referring to reports that have emerged in recent months that the PML-N is planning to seek early parliamentary polls before the March 2012 Senate elections.

Zardari reminded Sharif that the ouster of the PPP government in 1996 by then-President Farooq Leghari gave the PML-N a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly but did not secure democracy in the country, leading ultimately to the military coup by General Pervez Musharraf.

“Democracy requires a hundred years to take hold in a nation but it can be destroyed in an instant,” the president was quoted as saying. “Come out of the world of imagination, idealism and adventurism or else there will come a time when neither you will be able to call me in Kholi nor will I be able to call you.”

That veiled reference to the possibility of another military coup was accompanied with the request to Sharif to stop criticising the army, something that the PML-N leader has been doing very frequently and publicly since the May 2 US raid on Abbottabad.

(Read: ‘Zardari conspiring to create Nawaz-Army rift’)

Zardari asked Sharif to remember what the president considered to be the achievements of the PPP-led government, including the restoration of the 1973 constitution, freedom of expression, and the institutionalisation of the supremacy of parliament and the independence of the judiciary.

Punjabi Taliban

IT is difficult to say who is guilty of hurting the Punjabi sensibility and compromising Punjab`s security more. Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has warned Interior Minister Rehman Malik against using the term `Punjabi Taliban`. The federal minister initially gave the impression that he was ready to take on Mr Sharif over the issue, going so far as to declare he was not a subordinate of the chief minister. But then he capitulated in the manner his party, the PPP, seems to have perfected. Mr Malik has promised Mr Sharif an explanation; however, others may not share the interior minister`s compulsion and would be more tempted to raise the critical question of what is so irritating about the term `Punjabi Taliban` that has made the chief minister livid. His angry response – time and again – to the `Punjabi` tagging of terrorists betrays a lack of understanding that does not quite suit the head of a provincial government. There is no insinuation that the Taliban enjoy the active support of the entire population of a province. It is only Mr Sharif`s interpretation that appears to give that sinister, all-encompassing meaning to a term a set of terrorists – many of whom have received training in Waziristan – have boasted of in recent times.

Rather than taking it as an attack meant to be countered forcefully, the mention of the Punjabi Taliban should lead to a bit of searching of the soul and territory at Mr Sharif`s command. There have been far too many allegations for him to continue to ignore the issue. The pamphlet left at the site of Minister Shahbaz Bhatti`s murder in Islamabad recently had the Taliban from Punjab claiming responsibility for the dastardly act.

If this is not the right time and the right sign for Punjab to act, there never will be. A lack of action on the part of the provincial government will only add to the impression that it, or some of its members, had a soft corner for terrorists on a killing spree. Their victims include people from all ethnic groups and a number of politicians and political activists belonging mainly to the PPP and the Awami National Party. During his attacks on Mr Malik, the chief minister has once again, and rightly so, pointed out that it was irrelevant as to which ethnic group a terrorist belonged to. He would be doing Punjab, and coincidentally Pakistan, a great service if he could move beyond simply cleaning up the Pathan areas in Lahore in his attempt to pre-empt terror strikes. He must look deeper and must not discriminate.

PML-N threatens PPP with ‘other options’

By Zia Khan

ISLAMABAD: Two days after expelling the PPP from its Punjab government, the PML-N Sunday said it would go for ‘other options’ if President Asif Zardari could not take firm measures to curb the unbridled corruption.

“The PML-N will continue to monitor Zardari administration’s performance very closely” – PML-N Spokesperson Ahsan Iqbal.

A spokesperson for the party, however, did not specify in a statement the ‘options’ the PML-N believed were available to it.

“The PML-N will continue to monitor the Zardari administration’s performance very closely,” said Ahsan Iqbal, the party spokesperson and a member of the National Assembly. “It will play its democratic role to check massive corruption prevalent in the government if no concrete steps are taken (to eradicate it).”

Though Iqbal did not mention it explicitly, in recent months the party has been alluding to the possibility that it might call for fresh parliamentary elections this year.

Iqbal said that the party would not have expelled the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) from the Punjab government had President Zardari lived up to his promises of eradicating corruption and improving governance.

“The Zardari administration’s broken promises and poor performance made it inevitable for the PML-N to part ways with the PPP in Punjab,” the spokesperson said.

Corruption, inflation, unemployment and poverty had crossed all limits and were the outcome of the politics of patronage and bad governance pursued by the federal government, Iqbal added. He said that the PML-N went out of the way to help the federal government in implementing the reforms agenda which the country needed desperately but the Zardari administration exhibited no seriousness and concern.

“As a result there was no option left with the PML-N but to disengage with PPP in order to clearly demonstrate that it is not a party to the Zardari administration’s politics of plunder and loot,” said Iqbal.

Iqbal said that the Charter of Democracy (CoD) – an agreement two parties signed back in 2006 – made it binding on both the groups follow politics of good governance and to fight corruption.

“Zardari should have done that, if he wanted us to continue to support him,” the spokesperson explained.

Article 63-A was originally introduced as part of the 14th Amendment to the constitution in the 1990s, during the second term of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister, largely to help prevent the kind of changes in party loyalty that had made coalition politics so volatile during the so-called “decade of democracy.” It was hoped that by making crossing party lines illegal, coalitions would be more stable.

Who killed Benazir Bhutto?

President Asif Ali Zardari, who is also co-chairman of the PPP, spoke in Naudero on the third anniversary of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007 and did not make any major revelation about her killers. He had been saying that he knew who had killed her and people on both sides of the political divide wanted to hear him reveal names. The PPP supporters wanted him to finally nail the killers; the PPP-haters wanted to see him get into trouble by naming anyone without proper conviction.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari (R) places visits his mother’s grave in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh on the third anniversary of her death.

TV channels actually let their not-so-literate newscasters use sarcastic sentences, as they looked back at President Zardari’s decision to approach the UN to get at the truth, and then, not being satisfied with it, descend into a curious silence before getting a joint investigation team (JIT) to move afresh on the case. During this process, opponents like Mumtaz Bhutto have been hinting broadly that Ms Bhutto was killed by those whom she was close to, making it quite clear that he, Mumtaz, held her husband responsible for her death (without providing any proof whatsoever). Unfortunately, a split within the PPP, headed by Naheed Khan and Safdar Abbasi, swelled the chorus, asking for ‘full investigation’ into the conduct of ‘all present’ at the place of the murder.

The UN inquiry was perhaps the wrong thing to do because the UN could never have fingered the killers. Yet there were things in its report that constituted good pointers. Like the Scotland Yard inquiry, it too reposed credence in the nexus between the Pakistani establishment and the terrorists in Fata. It took seriously the tape that had Tehreek-i-Taliban (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud discussing his assassination plot to get rid of Ms Bhutto for al Qaeda, whose spokesman had already warned that she was to be eliminated since she was deemed to be an ‘American asset’. You have to be from outside Pakistan to believe that Baitullah was no saint when he swore that “Taliban do not kill women”. Pakistanis simply refuse to see that a phone call from Islamabad can get anyone killed at the hands of the Taliban, even when it happens again and again in front of them.

The JIT, in November of this year, issued its 48-page inquiry report which said that the TTP had carried out the assassination. It stayed clear of the army personnel and other important members of the establishment but did say that the military “did not allow the team to get statements” from the military hierarchy. But it did something else which would scare off any TV channel know-all anchor: it indicted Baitullah Mehsud, and accused Ibadur Rehman, Abdullah and Faiz Muhammad (former students of Madrassa Haqqania, Akora Khattak in Nowshera), Ikramullah (suicide bomber), Aitzaz Shah, Sher Zaman, Hasnain Gul, Muhammad Rafaqat, Rasheed Ahmed, Nasrullah and Nadir of “carrying out, facilitating and financing the attack”.

Picking up cues from the UN report, the JIT also charged Syed Saud Aziz, a former Rawalpindi police chief, and Khurram Shahzad, a former superintendent of police, with criminal negligence of duty and “hosing down the crime scene”. The electronic media revisited the scene on the third anniversary of the assassination and found eyewitnesses who gave accounts, adding more details to the dossier. The local PPP leader who was in charge of managing the Liaquat Bagh meeting where Ms Bhutto spoke stated that the armoured vehicle which carried her away from the scene had one of its rear tyres flattened and was blocked by a crowd that did not belong to the PPP but could have been organised by persons from within the establishment. This crowd blocked the vehicle and allowed a man to fire at Benazir and a suicide bomber to emerge from Liaquat Bagh to blow himself up near the first assassin. Names have been named and they belong in the list presented to Pervez Musharraf by Ms Bhutto in a letter when he was in power. In this letter, she said that she had been told that the establishment would try to get rid of her. And this establishment contained elements who exercised policy control even after retirement. The JIT report demands action. Will the government be allowed to start action against the well-known “nursery” of jihad named in the report? Or will the trail fade like that of Pakistan’s earlier assassinations?

Zardari plotting against Pak Army?

By: Fatima Rizvi

On Monday, September 27, 2010, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, and the Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani, met with President Asif Ali Zardari to discuss issues pertaining to “political and economic stability, law and order situation”, national and regional security, among others. In the meeting, the President, Prime Minister and Army Chief “resolved to defend the “resolved to defend and protect the democratic processand to resolve all issues in accordance with the Constitution”. Crucially so, “the Army chief also gave his input to the government for improving governance… [and] Action would also be taken against the corrupt who are a part of the government; however, the country would under no circumstances be allowed to be politically destabilized”. The meeting lasted for 90 minutes, and according to Pakistani media sources, the meeting of this “troika” raised more questions than it answered. True to his vigilante style, Ansar Abbasi of The News International tries to connect a lot of dots as regards this meeting; while covering the aspects of the Supreme Court’s activism, the NRO beneficiaries, the corruption allegations besmirching the present political dispensation at the highest echelons of government, and even whether there could be collusion between the Army Chief and the President, he fails to ask – and answer – one of the most critical questions in Pakistan’s present political scenario.

Read Complete Article: http://fatima-rizvi.livejournal.com/72085.html

Film on Benazir Bhutto leaves all spellbound

Karachi: It was on the eve of Benazir Bhutto’s 57th birthday, when a special screening of the Duane Baughman’s recently released film “Bhutto”, pulled in the who’s who of Pakistan to the theatre. From the bigwigs of Karachi to the representatives of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), all attended this much awaited screening with immense anticipation.

Shehla Raza, DeputySpeaker, Sindh Assembly said, “As we watched the film, we saw how a dictator ruined a country and a family.”

The one-and-a-half hour long documentary was first premiered at the 26th Sundance Film festival early this year. On June 11, the documentary hit all theatres across Pakistan generating much public interest.

“The film has received good response. A lot of people are watching this film. The film is presently in English. It should be translated into Urdu and local languages as well,” said Kaiser Rafiq,Director,Universe Cineplex Karachi.

Bhutto’s assassination has served as a fodder for film makers across the world. Ever since her death, a number of projects were announced and worked out. However, Duane Baughman’s ‘Bhutto’ is the first film about the assassinated former premier to have released so far. Apart from trailing the story of her life and her rise and shine, voices of international leaders like former president Musharraf, former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, journalists Mark Seigal, Christiana Lamb, and Tariq Ali, mapping her political career, keep viewers glued to their seats until the very end of the documentary.

After watching the film with his children,Nadeem Mandiwalla,Managing Director,Mandviwalla Entertainment said, “This is a great film, compared to what we see otherwise in Pakistan, this movie is very different. Something, that talks about the life of leaders in layman terms. An informative film for the new generation that has no idea about, how just a normal woman turned out to become a gritty politician, whereas at the same time she managed her family, her children, and her marital obligations equally well.”

Although, it is over ten days now since the movie’s release, the film is still pulling in the crowds. Critics have praised Baughman’s narration and technique. Baughman has used Bakhtawar and Aseefa, her sister Sanam and even her estranged niece Fatima to bring alive the personal aspect of the Bhutto’s life. The film also features a special tribute to Benazir Bhutto by her daughter Bakhtawar, who has reworked on the PPP’s anthem “Dila Teer Bija” exclusively for the film.

With so many added attractions the film has left all spellbound making it a runaway hit. Distributors can’t stop smiling as they believe that in the coming weeks too, the film will rope in more big bucks.

Bhutto probe: More than enough blame

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has suspended eight police officials following the release of a United Nations report into the assassination of former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, but no action has been taken against any members of the military or intelligence agencies, even though the report implicates the military in the events surrounding Bhutto’s death on December 27, 2007.

“The failure of the police to investigate effectively Ms Bhutto’s assassination was deliberate,” the report found.

There has also been no official response to the report’s suggestion that the Pakistan authorities should investigate the al-Qaeda connection in the assassination plot. The 70-page report, made public by an inquiry commission established by the UN last July, specifically mentions an article by Asia Times Online in making this suggestion. (See Al-Qaeda claims Bhutto killing December 29, 2007.)

Bhutto’s assassination after leaving a campaign rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi two weeks before general elections has been the subject of intense controversy, and while the report does not give any definitive answers it is most likely to intensify divisions between the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the military establishment, both of which are tainted by the report.
Current officials, the report says, were less than helpful. “The investigation was severely hampered by intelligence agencies and other government officials, which impeded the search for the truth,” Heraldo Munoz, chair of the Bhutto Commission of Inquiry and permanent representative of Chile to the UN, said. “These officials, in part fearing intelligence agencies’ involvement, were unsure of how vigorously they ought to pursue actions which they knew, as professionals, they should have taken,” he said.

The commission’s report, based on interviews with 250 people in and outside Pakistan as well as other evidence, says the official investigation focused on “low-level operatives and placed little or no focus on investigating those further up the hierarchy in the planning, financing and execution of the assassination”.

The report says the killing was carried out by one teenage suicide bomber who also fired shots. However, Pakistani investigators have always insisted that at least two people were involved – the bomber and the person who fired.

Bhutto – who had twice been premier (1988-1990 and 1993-1996) – had recently returned to Pakistan after living in exile for about eight years. The three-member commission’s report notes that Bhutto faced threats from a number of sources, including al-Qaeda, the Taliban, local jihadi groups and “potentially from elements in the Pakistani establishment”.

The PPP, which Bhutto led and which is now co-chaired by her widower, President Asif Ali Zardari, has threatened to take action against former military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, who was president when Bhutto was killed. PPP leaders resolved in a statement to expose and bring to justice all those, including Musharraf, “who planned, abetted and indulged in the criminal act, screened off the offenders and destroyed the evidence”.

One of the officials removed includes a senior police officer, Saud Aziz, who ordered the scene of the murder to be hosed down and who the report says destroyed invaluable evidence. The report suggests Aziz was acting under the direction of the then head of the military intelligence agency, Major General Nadeem Ijaz Ahmad, who still has a senior job in the Pakistani army and who was known to be very close to Musharraf.

One of the PPP’s leaders, Senator Rahman Malik, who is Interior minister, comes under fire in the report. Malik has always claimed that at the time he was Bhutto’s national security advisor, not in charge of her physical safety, but the report found evidence that Malik did in fact oversee Bhutto’s entire security arrangements.

One of the most controversial characters to emerge from the report is the former military intelligence chief, Ijaz, who is now Log Area Commander Gujranwala. While the report refers to his close ties to Musharraf, it does not mention that at the time of the assassination Ijaz, by virtue of his designation and the hierarchy of the army, would have had lines of communication that went directly to the chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, who still holds the post.

Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj was at the time of Bhutto’s death the director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, which also came out badly in the report. Taj is now Corps Commander Gujranwala.

The accusations against the military and the intelligence services, that they facilitated security loopholes or that they covered up evidence, reflect badly on these institutions as a whole and can be expected to cause fresh civil-military polarization in Pakistan.

An assassination unfolds
At the time of her death, Bhutto was vigorously campaigning around the country, following the November 20 announcement of general elections to be held on January 8. She had returned to Pakistan from exile in October, after a US-brokered deal with Musharraf gave her immunity from charges of corruption during her previous terms as prime minister. In return, her PPP supported Musharraf’s bid to be re-elected as president.

In election speeches Bhutto lambasted Islamic extremism and asked the people to stand against it. She also regularly spoke against al-Qaeda and had supported Musharraf’s bloody crackdown in July 2007 on the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad that had become a focal point for militants

After the Lal Masjid incident, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden assigned Abu Obaida al-Misiri as Amir-e-Khuruj (commander for revolt) and, when Bhutto started to hit the headlines, Misiri was assigned to take her out.

Among others, he set up a cell in Rawalpindi specifically tasked with killing Bhutto. Among its members were Aitzaz Shah, Hasnain Gul, Rifaqat, Sher Zaman and Abdul Rasheed, all of whom were subsequently arrested.

A senior Pakistani security official who interrogated all five, at least three times, told Asia Times Online that this cell was active in Rawalpindi for several months before Bhutto’s assassination, including an attack on a police check post in Golf Road that leads to military headquarters (GHQ Rawalpindi).

“These young men were a by-product of a time when the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP - Pakistani Taliban, formed in late 2007 and early 2008] was not around. They were zealous for jihad and they joined the [Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin] Haqqani network in North Waziristan [tribal area],” the security official said.

“While there, they interacted with different militant organizations and they finally landed in a group that was a nexus between Pakistani militant organizations [known as Punjabi fighters], al-Qaeda and Baitullah Mehsud [who was to become head of the TTP. They were assigned to go to Rawalpindi to support the cause of al-Qaeda.

"When the two suicide bombers, Ikramullah and Bilal, were sent from South Waziristan [to kill Bhutto], the cell facilitated them. They arranged their residence and helped them in the preparation of the attack. They [the cell members] were the backup of the attackers and if the attackers failed, they would have done so,” the official said.

Although in the narrow sense Baitullah Mehsud supplied the attackers, at the broader level it was an al-Qaeda plan that had been discussed at length by the al-Qaeda shura (council), which decided that there was a religious justification for killing Bhutto and that her death could deal a setback for the interests of the United States in the region.

The National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), which came into effect in October 2007, was a deal brokered by London and Washington as a part of a broader plan to introduce a liberal, secular and democratic government in Pakistan that would faithfully support the “war on terror”.

The NRO, which was overturned this year, granted amnesty to politicians, political workers and bureaucrats who were accused of corruption, embezzlement, money laundering, murder and terrorism. Two of the main beneficiaries were Bhutto and her husband Zardari, who were cleared to return to Pakistan, with Bhutto earmarked to lead the new government.

Bhutto’s killing put an end to that plan, while Musharraf was also a loser as he lost control of the helm and eventually resigned in August 2008, paving the way for Zardari to take over a month later.

While al-Qaeda clearly orchestrated the killing of Bhutto, the UN’s report implies that the security forces did not prevent the attack (the report uses the term malafide) and that after the murder, the report implied, in order to cover this up, the security forces washed away all the evidence from the murder site.

Immediately after Bhutto’s assassination, a Musharraf government spokesperson came out with an intercept of a tape between Baitullah Mehsud and militants that inferred that the attack was carried out on the instructions or with the coordination of Baitullah Mehsud, and therefore everybody pointed a finger at him. The UN report also documents that the Pakistan Military Operations had given an advance warning on December 21 that bin Laden had given an order for Bhutto’s killing.