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Pressure increases on Pakistani president

Thursday, November 8th, 2007

Musharraf urged to lift state of emergency within a week as police continue crackdown
The Toronto Star, November 08, 2007
Sonya Fatah

LAHORE, Pakistan–Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto toughened her stance against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf yesterday, giving the military ruler a week to end the state of emergency in Pakistan.

Bhutto rallied her supporters yesterday, as U.S. President George W. Bush applied his own pressure, saying he talked to Musharraf, a key ally in his war on terror, and urged him to hold elections and quit as army chief. It was the first time Bush had spoken directly to Musharraf since the leader of nuclear-armed Pakistan declared the state of emergency Saturday.

Pakistan government officials have said January elections will be held on time. A member of Musharraf’s inner circle said emergency rule was likely to be lifted within two or three weeks. But Musharraf, who is to be sworn in a week from today for a new presidential term, has not personally confirmed this.

Bhutto urged her supporters to defy Musharraf’s ban on demonstrations and attend a rally tomorrow in Rawalpindi. After that, she said, opponents of emergency rule would begin a 320-kilometre march Tuesday from the eastern city of Lahore to the capital, Islamabad.

“Gen. Musharraf can open the door for negotiations only if he revives the constitution, retires as chief of army staff and sticks to the schedule of holding elections,” Bhutto told reporters at a news conference in Islamabad.

Police fired tear gas shells and beat about 400 of Bhutto’s party workers when they tried to break through police barriers outside parliament in Islamabad after the news conference.

The demonstrators pulled back through the choking gas, chanting “Benazir! Benazir!” and “Down with the emergency!”

Her supporters should expect the same type of reception tomorrow at the planned rally. Police would be out in force to prevent anyone reaching the park where Bhutto hoped to address supporters, said Rawalpindi Mayor Javed Akhlas.

There was also a “strong threat” of another suicide attack against Bhutto, said Akhlas. Bhutto said she would take the risk, and renewed her charge that elements in the government and security forces were in cahoots with Islamist extremists trying to kill her. Militants were widely blamed for last month’s failed attempt on her life, which killed about 140 people.

Bhutto said religious militants feared her as “the only leader in Pakistan who has a national base who can confront them.”

Bhutto’s strong words signal a change in party strategy, setting up a confrontation with Musharraf, not long after the two were engaged in power-sharing talks.

Insiders say Bhutto is torn between representing the people’s voice and negotiating for power with the president. She stepped up her criticism of Musharraf’s government yesterday, insisting her demands be met if there is to be any transition to democracy.

Most of Pakistan’s military comes from the Punjab, a province in which the armed forces have been careful to avoid ugly confrontations with residents.

By leading a march from Lahore to Islamabad, both in the rich land of the Punjab, Bhutto is challenging Musharraf’s strength. Any unrest in the province as a result of Bhutto’s “long march” could turn Musharraf’s military leaders against him, analysts say.

Sources close to Bhutto and the government revealed she and Musharraf were exchanging memos in a bid to keep a much-weakened negotiation process afloat. In a communication to Bhutto yesterday, Musharraf is alleged to have offered Nov. 30 as the date for ending the emergency.

Arrests continued in the country’s main cities of Lahore and Karachi, where small groups of lawyers and human rights activists kept up protests. Virtually all of the government’s vocal critics have been rounded up and jailed.

In Washington, Bush brushed off criticism he was taking a softer line on Pakistan than he did, for instance, against Burma where military rulers cracked down on pro-democracy protesters in late September.

Bush defended his response to both situations.

“Look, our objective is the same in Burma as it is in Pakistan, and that is to promote democracy,” he said. “There is a difference, however. Pakistan has been on the path to democracy. Burma hadn’t been on the path to democracy. And it requires different tactics to achieve the common objective.”

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Bhutto calls for tighter controls on spy agencies

Monday, October 29th, 2007

The Toronto Star, October 29, 2007
Sonya Fatah

KARACHI–Food, clothing, housing. It’s still the slogan of Benazir Bhutto’s party. But if she hopes to succeed as prime minister of Pakistan, Bhutto will also have to triumph over the country’s free-wheeling intelligence agencies and root out their rogue elements.

Amid the increasing threat of terror attacks, Bhutto, a former prime minister and the country’s most popular political leader, is setting herself up for a battle against Pakistan’s most powerful institutions.

“I have long held that there is an unfortunate relationship between the former Afghan mujahideen that were formed by the then (Inter-Services Intelligence), and some of their supporters who have infiltrated our security services and administration,” Bhutto said in an interview at her Karachi home.

The frontal attack on the country’s shadowy Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), known as a “state within the state,” on the eve of negotiating a power-sharing agreement with President Pervez Musharraf signals Bhutto’s readiness to tackle extremism in Pakistan.

In the 1 1/2 weeks since she returned from an eight-year self-imposed exile, Bhutto has insisted that addressing Pakistan’s myriad problems requires cleansing the ISI, the security service’s external branch of pro-Islamist forces, and preventing the internal branch, the Intelligence Bureau, from interfering in the political process.

But the task isn’t going to be easy.

“There is extreme reluctance to move against the extremist entities within the agencies particularly the Taliban who helped the ISI out in Afghanistan,” said Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist. “There is a lack of neutral and effective intelligence because the intelligence was skewed by sympathizers within the agencies.”

Formed in 1948, the ISI was initially consumed by external threats from India and Afghanistan. But the agency’s mandate grew under the 11-year military dictatorship of Gen. Zia ul-Haq that ran through most of the 1980s. During that period, the agency became the executive arm of the pro-U.S. proxy war against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. The ISI developed strong ties with the mujahideen and later exploited those ties to further their own policy of strategic depth in the region.

Following a recruitment drive to hire agents sympathetic to the cause of the mujahideen, the agency had no shortage of officers who believed that a pro-Islamist agenda should be the key component of a long-term goal. That goal – which led to financing and training the Taliban – is backfiring on Pakistan as extremists target high-ranking officials within the country.

Within the ISI, the problem is not just with Zia’s protégés. Analysts believe the post 9/11 environment has created its own breed of pro-Islamists in the region.

“Jihadis are unlikely to have contacts at the highest level of intelligence. Those connections are more of a liability,” says Kamran Bokhari, with U.S.-based intelligence gathering company, Stratfor. “They need people at the lowest levels.”

The ISI isn’t Bhutto’s only headache. The country’s domestic wing comes with its own problems.

The Intelligence Bureau, which was part of British India’s espionage agency, is notorious for illegal wire-tapping, harassment of political leaders and orchestrating the rigging of elections.

Immediately after the Oct. 18 suicide attack on Bhutto’s cavalcade that left some 140 people dead, her husband, Asif Zardari named the bureau’s chief, Brig. Ejaz Shah, as a potential mastermind behind an assassination plot.

Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party has toned down its allegations since then and demanded an international inquiry to determine who was responsible for the attacks.

“The PPP has a history with Ejaz Shah,” said a senior party member and former government official.

“In 2002, as home secretary, he was responsible for rigging the elections in Punjab. This is the point Benazir is trying to make.”

During her second term as prime minister, Bhutto, in an attempt to erode the military influence of the ISI, strengthened the domestic agency. But the effort only increased the problem by creating tensions between the two intelligence branches.

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Rock anthem sends message of peace

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

Eight Pakistani singers join forces to try to root out misconceptions that most Muslims support terror

The Toronto Star, Oct 11, 2007
SONYA FATAH

ISLAMABAD–An anti-terrorist anthem by rock stars in Pakistan is reaching out across the web, echoing the music-with-a-message efforts of Bob Geldof and Bono.

But instead of a Christmas appeal for famine relief, or an environmental plea, Pakistan’s latest musical collaboration by eight top stars takes aim at popular misconceptions of Muslims that stereotype them as terrorists despite Islam’s legacy of peace.

Their song – “Yeh Hum Naheen” (This is Not Us) – is a video collage showing images of average Pakistani youth voicing opposition to the terror label. Its aim? To send a message of unity to Pakistani youth and to root out the impression that most Pakistanis support terror.

It’s up against seemingly non-stop media coverage of suicide bombings, sectarian killings and tribal strife across Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

“This is not us, not us, not us,” the song begins. “The stories that are being spread in our names are lies.”

The idea for an Islamic rock video with global appeal took root quickly among Pakistan’s music elite, but the musical wave is travelling relatively slowly by the standards of the Web. Downloads are in the tens of thousands, far from the millions of record sales and donations for Ethiopian famine relief attracted by Irish rocker Geldof’s “Do They Know it’s Christmas.”

It’s hard to gauge the impact of “Yeh Hum Naheen” on listeners in Pakistan or overseas. Accurate sales records are not available in Pakistan although the song played constantly on MTV Pakistan for four weeks when it was released in February. Then there was enough demand for a July release in Britain. In Pakistan, a nation of more than 160 million, the numbers are small. Since its release, there have been about 73,000 hits on YouTube and the “Yeh Hum Naheen” website has been visited 26,000 times.

But it’s a start. Musical collaborations are rare in Pakistan, so getting eight stars to record a single together was no simple feat – akin to persuading Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé and Shakira to make music together.

“So many people approach us with their causes,” Ali Zafar, 27, Pakistan’s hottest young singer, said in an interview. “But I was interested in this cause from the start.”

Zafar, who sang before 10,000 fans at Canada’s Wonderland in Vaughan last summer, says he wanted to make a difference.

“I thought about it – what do I really want to do with my music? If I could somehow use my music to connect the world, why not? I think the media are providing a certain kind of awareness to the public. We see one colour of Pakistan being splashed all over the place. Where are the 20,000 different colours in our palette?”

Pakistanis in the diaspora feel that frustration as much as anyone. For them the song is a visual way of rounding out Pakistan’s public face.

“I like the video in that it’s good to see Pakistanis uniting and taking a political stand,” says Nadya Habib, 28, an elementary school teacher in Toronto who watched the video on YouTube. “I feel that people have begun to internalize the negative images they have been bombarded with, and it’s definitely affecting the younger generation a lot.”

She’s skeptical of whether it will bring change unless there is a stronger response from the larger Pakistani public.

The song’s inspiration emerged from the experiences of two brothers in Birmingham, England. Khurrum and Khaiyyam Mahmood, 20 and 18 respectively, who asked their father to do something about the image of Islam being propagated by young Muslims in Britain.

“Some children came to my children and told them they were bad Muslims because they ate pasta,” says Waseem Mahmood, 45, their father, a media consultant and a former BBC producer, who says “Yeh Hum Naheen” is his way of bridging a perception gap between the West and Islam.

So Mahmood decided he’d turn to music and Pakistan’s pop sensations to influence Pakistani youth at home and in the diaspora.

“It was such a worthy cause that all of us just jumped on board,” Haroon Rashid, one of the eight singers, told the BBC.

“There’s a lot of misunderstanding, mistrust. There’s a lot of fear of what’s different, of the unknown, and I guess this is an attempt to help bridge that.”

Mahmood says he’s been overwhelmed by the response he’s received since the single was aired. He’s also a proud dad since his sons shot and filmed the video.

He’s not, however, removed from the debate on home turf. The few negative voices, he says, disagree with his approach. “They believe this should be aimed at the real terrorists who are in Downing Street or in the White House.”

Now Mahmood is on a mission. “Yeh Hum Naheen” cost $60,000 but Mahmood feels this is just the beginning. The song hasn’t been released in North America yet but Mahmood has plans. He’s also planning a Band Aid or Live 8 style concert to continue his journey.

Popularity: 3% [?]

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Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

Failed suicide bombers talk about the choices they made

SONYA FATAH
Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Farmanullah Guljaan, 17 sits behind bars in Poli Charkhi prison, some 15 kilometres east of Kabul. He would have been home in Lodhikhel village in the tribal areas, finishing up his high school degree if he hadn’t been taken in by Taliban evangelists showing up every day at his school and weaving heroic tales of martyrdom, passports to heaven and countless virgins to tend to his every need.

But Mr. Guljaan, who says his village is not a Taliban stronghold, found himself intoxicated by the thought of early entry past heaven’s gates. He dropped out of Kamaruddin School, where he was in eighth grade and began attending classes at a camp some distance away. Every time he went away to the camp, he told his parents who had eight other children to tend to, that he was going to visit relatives in Peshawar. They had no reason to be suspicious.

Mr. Guljaan’s ‘relatives’ turned out to be trainers at a local camp not too far away. After two years of being brainwashed with anti-American propaganda, Mr. Guljaan was given an assignment – he was to kill the governor of Jalalabad. The weapon of choice: explosives attached to his body.

Mr. Guljaan, however, failed to complete his mission. Afghanistan’s intelligence agency received word about his mission, and foiled the attack. The day Mr. Guljaan and his partner, Abdul Qudoos, also 17 arrived in Jalalabad, the two were detained. They have since spent the last few months in the lock-up, after a series of investigations have revealed the manner in which they were recruited, taught and sent on missions.

Their stories are not unusual. Their confessions are part of a growing file documenting the experiences of other young, impressionable teenagers easily groomed for revolution and brainwashed with anti-western propaganda. Of the many men sent on suicide missions few are caught before the deed is done. But Mr. Guljaan joins a group of 15 young men who have been arrested in Kabul by Afghan intelligence authorities since 2005. Most of the young men pulled out to commit attacks end up successful. Among those caught, few find themselves in Afghan jails. If caught before their mission is carried out, they usually detonate themselves to avoid capture.

“According to our information most of the young men who commit suicide bombs are between 13 and 20 years in age,” says Saeed Ansari a spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, or NDS, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency. “They are indoctrinated with religious views.” In some cases, Mr. Ansari said, those assigned to a mission were informed of their specific role through a hand-written letter, a veritable passport to heaven.

The training camps, Afghan authorities say, are all in Pakistan, although those who carry out the attacks can be Pakistani, Afghani, Chechen, Arab or Kazakh. Despite President Musharraf’s public offer to give absolute assistance to jointly work to root out the camps, NDS officers say cooperation with the Inter Services Intelligence, or the ISI, is non-existent.

Earlier this year, Afghan president Hamid Karzai pardoned failed suicide bomber, Rafiqullah, 15, who was from Shamen Qile in Mateen District in southern Waziristan. Mr. Rafiquallah’s mission had been to kill the governor of Khost province. His parents had no idea that he had been recruited by a madrassa in their village. After their son was returned to his home village with the president’s pardon and $2000 USD, his parents withdrew him from that madrassa. A host of other parents followed suit. The villagers of Rafiqullah’s area were so opposed to the madrassa’s activities that they came together and fought against Baitullah Masood, the 37-year old Taliban commander from Waziristan. Eventually, Mr. Masood withdrew.

Mr. Guljaan hopes that the president will be so kind to him. He is lodged, at present, at Poli Charkhi prison, set against the landscape of barren land and dusty mountainside. Built in the mid-1970s during the time of then-president Mohammed Daoud Khan, it is legendary for nighttime executions of political prisoners by communist forces in the country. Thousands of peoples were shot and killed, and a mass graves bearing their remains was unearthed in December 2006. Today there are about 1,300 prisoners here, about 350 of who have links with the Taliban.

Mr. Guljaan says he is well looked after here. There is even a madrassa that he attends to get increase his knowledge of Islam. Prior to going on his mission for the Taliban, Mr. Guljaan didn’t know much about Islam. He had read the Quran only in Arabic, a language he can read but not understand. His inspiration came from other sources.

“I saw a video on my cell phone. A video of American soldiers storming peoples houses, killing little children, and stamping on the Quran,” he says. That angered him but he was also excited at the prospect of being fast tracked to heaven. His father, who was a labourer, is currently unemployed he says.

Perhaps Mr. Guljaan’s less than convincing reasons for joining the movement also worried his Taliban commanders. Unlike most other suicide bombers, Mr. Guljaan was sent on his mission with a partner. The two were introduced to one another a day they set off for Afghanistan. The partner, Abdul Qudoos, was to egg Mr. Guljaan on, and set off the bomb by pressing a button on the remote control as Mr. Guljaan approached his target. He was then to return with news of their success.

But Mr. Qudoos and Mr. Guljaan were caught the night they entered Jalalabad, hours before they could complete their mission.

As he sits in jail contemplating his situation, Mr. Guljaan wonders what better fortunes awaited him if he hadn’t made what he describes today as a ‘big mistake.’ “I could’ve become a teacher, or gone into construction industry like my father,” he pauses. “I don’t know. How could I know?”

Some say the young failed suicide bombers reflect the tragic lack of proper guidance from community leaders, parents and the state.

“At that age your capacity to think is not developed,” said a senior NDS official who did not want to be named. “You are more a receiver of information or knowledge and haven’t shaped your own way of thinking yet.”

It’s difficult to know much about those who take their lives in suicide attacks but the testimony of youth like Mr. Guljaan, Mr. Qudoos, and Mr. Rafiqullah weave a tale of youth easily misled by fantastical visions, doctored videos and promises of passports to heaven.

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Musharraf’s push to talk with rebels frustrating exercise

Monday, September 24th, 2007

LESSON FROM PAKISTAN

Analysts are skeptical Afghan leader’s overture will alter Taliban policy

Sonya Fatah
THE TORONTO STAR, September 24, 2007

ISLAMABAD–As Canadian policymakers debate the possibility of a negotiated settlement to the Afghanistan conflict, the experience of neighbouring Pakistan in dealing with the Taliban offers a lesson in political realities.

When Afghan President Hamid Karzai summoned Canadian journalists to his palace in Kabul last week, he made a point of stressing the need to talk to the Taliban. Despite contradictory comments by purported Taliban members quoted in the media – such as preconditions that all foreign troops must first depart – Karzai insisted that reliable communication channels are opening up.

But in Pakistan, analysts remain skeptical that Karzai’s overtures are anything more than routine rhetoric, or that the Taliban are in a position to speak with one voice at a time when the battlefield remains in a state of flux.

Indeed, the Pakistani experience in negotiating with Afghan players along the border – diehard Taliban or ethnic Pashtun – has been an exercise in frustration.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been pushing direct negotiations for the past few years but with no concrete results to show for his efforts. A Pakistan-Afghanistan peace jirga (conference) held in Kabul over four days in early August was meant to decrease tensions on either side of the border.

That such a jirga was organized has been seen as a positive development, but critics say such efforts are superficial. Moreover, Karzai’s talks suggestion seems difficult to orchestrate given the response from Taliban representatives. Any dialogue is dependent upon the withdrawal of foreign armies, including 2,500 Canadian troops, Taliban elements have told the media. Such a withdrawal appears highly unlikely in the current setting.

“There is a lot of unnecessary excitement about Karzai’s comments,” said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a veteran journalist, who heads the Peshawar bureau of the English daily, The News. “There is nothing new in these proclamations.”

A month after the Kabul jirga, little has been done to push the bilateral peace process. A 50-member joint committee remains unformed. Neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan has nominated the 25 representatives that were to be a part of the reconciliation process.

“There is no change in Taliban policy,” said Yusufzai. “There is no change in Karzai’s policy. The peace jirga was just a political gathering with no real outcome.”

Moreover, critics say the meeting was something of a sham. A real jirga, they note, is a democratic process that can take anywhere from 15 to 30 days to conclude.

In Afghanistan, the meeting was seen as a positive step but many criticized the overtly Pashtun nature of the jirga, which excluded other ethnic groups.

“I think the jirga shows that everyone has realized that the best way to solve the current problem is through negotiations,” said Misbahullah Abdul Baqi, associate professor at International Islamic University, Islamabad. “Even the Pashtun nationalists who were at the table were saying they were for talks.”

One reason for Karzai’s interest in discussions has been tied to his Pashtun ethnicity. He is under considerable pressure to address the issue and to be seen as more than just Kabul’s ruler. And while Afghanistan deals with a more resilient insurgency, Pakistan is facing its own problems as recruits from the tribal areas head east into the country to set off suicide bombs.

In both countries now, the targets are government officials who are seen to be pro-Western.

“It’s not just the Taliban,” said Misbahullah. “If you look at Pakistan – the entire tribal region from Darra Adam Khel onwards is filled with Taliban sympathizers. They have used military solutions in Waziristan (tribal area) but that has not worked. So, I feel there is a change in mentality because all other options have been exercised and have failed.”

What that means in terms of real concrete steps is difficult to ascertain. Long-time insiders say that Pakistan’s hands are tied because of its allegiance to the United States.

“There is no independent Pakistan policy on Afghanistan at the moment,” says retired Gen. Hameed Gul, former chief of the Inter Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s top spy agency that has been credited for creating and encouraging the Taliban to further Pakistan’s policy of strategic depth in the region.

A combination of military solutions and negotiations have served to swell the rising tide of extremism within Pakistan, increasing the number of suicide attacks and anger towards the Pakistani government, says Gul, who believes the Taliban have been alienated as a result of Musharraf’s policies.

Six years later, Pakistan has little power to negotiate with the Taliban, who now view its government as an extension of the American war on terror. “The Taliban simply don’t trust Pakistan anymore,” says Gul. “They are looking less and less towards Pakistan, and instead developing some kind of a relationship with Iran.”

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Bhutto plans her return to Karachi

Saturday, September 15th, 2007

Political sources say exiled former PM expected to face slew of corruption charges

SONYA FATAH
THE TORONTO STAR, Sep 15, 2007

ISLAMABAD–With one former prime minister put on a plane and whisked off to Saudi Arabia, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has one popular opponent out of the way.
But Benazir Bhutto is a tougher candidate, and the leader of the Pakistan People’s Party plans to return to Karachi on Oct. 18, ending her self-imposed exile.
Bhutto’s announcement yesterday comes at the end of a sobering week for the country’s president.
Bhutto, 56, said Pakistan needs to return to civilian rule as it prepares for parliamentary elections that must be held by January.
“This will strengthen our efforts for democracy,” Bhutto, who lives in exile in Dubai and London, told Pakistan’s Geo television. “Democracy should be restored completely and the army removed from the scene.”
Nawaz Sharif, leader of one of the largest opposition parties, was exiled for a second time on Monday.
Protests followed and a series of petitions charging the government with contempt of court were filed in the country’s top court.
An alleged suicide attack this week left 26 dead at one of the military’s best-guarded bases, home to an elite commando unit, stirring speculation of disgruntlement within the barracks or in the intelligence agencies.
Meanwhile, the nine-member bench of the Supreme Court is scheduled to decide Monday whether Gen. Musharraf, also head of Pakistan’s military, has the constitutional right to keep his uniform. The ruling party PML-Q has also announced that Sehba Musharraf, the president’s wife who has no political experience, is being considered a favourite “covering candidate” for the position of president, a practice that is not uncommon in South Asia.
The move to push Sehba Musharraf into the presidency could allow Musharraf to keep his uniform for a fresh 5-year term and is being widely seen as an attempt by ruling party members to keep Bhutto out of contention.
“It’s a sham but it’s completely legal,” says Tariq Rahim, a lawyer in the former government of Lahore and a staunch supporter of the PPP.
The government has said Bhutto is free to return to Pakistan but that charges of corruption that have been levied against her and her husband will not be dropped. Bhutto, who left Pakistan eight years ago amid the corruption allegations, has been negotiating with Musharraf on the possibility of combining their political forces to share power after elections.
In the battle of political rivals, however, Bhutto has emerged the winner. Unlike Sharif, she has long experience with political oppression. She watched her father hanged, has spent years in jail and has seen many members of her party tried and tested for their anti-establishment views.
But she has many serious hurdles to overcome including a dubious political track record, the corruption charges and a constitutional amendment preventing a twice-before prime minister from returning to the top job.

Popularity: 3% [?]

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Sharif’s next battle to be played out in court

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

Backers demand former PM’s return to Pakistan
September 12, 2007

Sonya Fatah

ISLAMABAD–When former prime minister Nawaz Sharif declared his intention to return to Pakistan, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf had two options: allow the leader to enter the country and stoke the passion of popular opinion, or deport him and come up against the judiciary again.

He chose the latter.

What happens as a result of that decision will play itself out in Pakistan’s courts over the next few days and help the country’s other exiled former leader, Benazir Bhutto, chart her own return journey.

Supporters of the twice-exiled Sharif and of his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, filed a petition in the country’s top court yesterday demanding he be allowed to return home. Three weeks ago, the court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry, ruled Sharif, 57, had a constitutional right to return to Pakistan, and ordered that no pressure be applied to prevent him from entering the country.

But Pakistan’s military government moved harshly against Sharif on Monday, deporting him within hours of his arrival in Islamabad and arresting almost the entire leadership of his party as they tried to travel to the airport to greet him.

Speculation is rampant over whether the Supreme Court will carry on its activist stance and take the U.S.-backed government of Musharraf to task.

A verdict in Sharif’s favour won’t bring the now-exiled leader back from Saudi Arabia, where he has spent most of the last seven years. Any decision about his return would require the Supreme Court to confront Saudi Arabia, a country that has enjoyed a special relationship with Pakistan.

Chaudhury Aitzaz Ahsan, a lawyer and member of the opposition Pakistani People’s Party, believes the government can he accused and tried for abduction.

If convicted, he says, Musharraf could be jailed for seven years.

The Supreme Court can take the government to task by ruling that it is in contempt of court. That would spark a serious confrontation between the judiciary and Musharraf, who also heads the army.

There is a strong expectation that the court will rule against the government. But there are also signs of cleavage within the judiciary. Many lawyers and retired judges spoke out against the treatment meted out to Sharif.

But Pakistani Attorney General Malik Qayyum said the government followed the Supreme Court’s orders when it allowed Sharif to enter the country. Sharif, he said, left of his own will.

“There will be very serious repercussions if the Supreme Court decided to rule against the government and take Saudi Arabia to task,” said an influential lawyer.

Meanwhile, Bhutto is in London watching the drama unfold in her homeland. The paltry public support demonstrated for Sharif has boosted Bhutto’s recently weakened bid for a power-sharing agreement with Musharraf.

Sharif, who was prime minister from 1990 to 1993 and 1997 to 1999, was convicted of corruption and treason and sentenced to 14 years in jail after his 1999 ouster. Musharraf pardoned him in 2000 under a deal by which Sharif was to be exiled in Saudi Arabia for 10 years.

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Sharif sent back to exile

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

Former leader’s return to challenge Musharraf foiled when he’s flown right back to Saudi Arabia

Sonya Fatah
THE TORONTO STAR

September 11, 2007

ISLAMABAD–Military muscle put an end to a former Pakistan prime minister’s game of political hop-scotch, forcing Nawaz Sharif to return to Saudi Arabia, the place of his initial exile more than seven years ago.

Sharif had hoped to return to his homeland yesterday greeted by an adoring, admiring public a few weeks after Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled in favour of his “inalienable right of return.”

Instead, thousands of his supporters were arrested, black-booted commandos formed a perimeter around his aircraft and he was taken into custody and charged with corruption. Sharif was then spirited to another plane and flown back to the Saudi city of Jiddah.

In Islamabad, the government defended its decision to deport Sharif in defiance of the court order, claiming it was in the “supreme interest” of the country, Associated Press reported.

Sharif’s forced exit from the political arena could deepen the growing unpopularity of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, the U.S.-allied general who seized power in 1999, and weaken the Pakistani public’s faith that free and fair general elections will return.

By disregarding the Supreme Court’s right of return ruling, Musharraf also seems to have set up another showdown with the judiciary. His firing earlier this year of Supreme Court Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry triggered upheaval across the country and was overturned by the Supreme Court in July.

Sharif’s ejection could also hasten the return of another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, and cement a power-sharing arrangement between Musharraf and Bhutto.

Yesterday, supporters of Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz group, didn’t raise much of a stink over his hasty deportation.

There were scattered protests in his traditional stronghold, Punjab – the largest and wealthiest of Pakistan’s provinces – but the arrests of key PML-N leaders may account for some of the silence.

Sharif’s supporters called a nationwide strike and demonstrations for today but many supporters in Lahore said they preferred to remain silent for fear of sacrificing their political and financial freedoms.

On the street, the public view was divided.

“We’ve been on duty for over 24 hours,” said one airport security official at Islamabad airport where security was tightened and increased in advance of Sharif’s arrival.

“We wear this uniform so we have no choice but to follow orders. But what they did to Mr. Sharif today was wrong,” he added.

Many Pakistanis feel for Sharif but few are expected to take to the streets of Islamabad or Lahore to call for his return or the restoration of full democracy not seen since Musharraf led a coup that ousted the democratically elected Sharif.

Instead of feeling galvanized, many expressed general frustration with their political leaders at home and in exile.

“Whatever they did to (Sharif) at the airport was unacceptable,” said Mohammad Hafeez, who drives a rental car at Islamabad’s airport and found himself outside the security perimeter in the morning.

“But you know what? They’re all thieves. Musharraf, Bhutto, Nawaz. What do they care for us?”

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Patchwork connections stretch across the divide

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

INDIA: 60th ANNIVERSARY

Six decades after the British partitioned Pakistan from India, families broken by the border struggle to stay in touch

The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, August 15, 2007
SONYA FATAH

Signpost

AMRITSAR, INDIA — For a long time after 1947, Karkar Singh’s mother and aunt sent news to each other through lovingly penned letters. Their homes were hardly 40 kilometres apart by road, but it would be four months, each time, before either received a response by mail. They kept writing, filling each other in on family news for 20 years, until the bonds began to weaken, the connection harder to sustain. Eventually, the letters stopped coming.

Mr. Singh’s mother lived in the village of Majhupura on the western edge of Indian Punjab, about 10 kilometres from the Pakistan border. His aunt and her husband, Karnal Singh, lived 30 kilometres inside what is Pakistan today.

Until 1947, when Pakistan was born, they lived close enough to visit regularly. But Karnal Singh, who worked as a driver at the Bata Shoe Factory, was reluctant to leave his job, his home and his land when the borders were drawn, cutting him off from his family on the other side.

The British exit from India, leaving behind two states – Hindu-dominated India and a Muslim Pakistan – sparked a mass migration of Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan, and Muslims from India, separating thousands of families.

As the two countries celebrate 60 years of independence, some of these long-standing ties endure, despite the odds, to keep India and Pakistan connected.

Mr. Singh, 60, made three arduous journeys to Delhi before securing a visa to visit his aunt and cousins in Pakistan. Eventually, with the purpose of visiting Sikh religious sites, he booked a train to Pakistan.

“I didn’t feel any differences between us,” he says of the reunion with his relatives 12 years ago. “Our language is the same; our feelings for each other were very strong.” The only difference, he said, was of diet. In Muslim-dominated Pakistan, his cousins eat meat. But that, Mr. Singh says, wasn’t a problem. “They cooked separately for me.”

While it has been more than 30 years since the countries last went to war, deep hostilities and suspicions linger. Since India’s then-prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, made peace overtures to Pakistan in 2000, a sometimes-rocky progression has been made toward relaxing the draconian laws that prevent person-to-person interaction.

While there has been an increase in trade and traffic and a greater exchange of ideas, most has happened at a government level or among the upper class. For those of modest means, reaching out has been more difficult.

Gardeep Singh, 55, of Todi Bind, five kilometres from the border, has travelled to Pakistan to visit his maternal uncle, who, like him, is a farmer.

Born in India after partition, he has made every effort to maintain ties with his family on the other side.

“We’re all Punjabis. They are one of us. Even though my mother and my uncle passed away two years ago, my heart wants to keep the ties. There is no difference between us,” he says.

His brother, Vasan Singh, 60, has not been to Pakistan. “It’s too much of a hassle,” he says, citing the cost and burden of travelling to Delhi for a visa.

Theoretically, people could maintain contact through phone communication, which has become much more accessible in recent years. But calling Pakistan is not always a good idea.

Mr. Singh says police interrogated his nephew when he called family members in Pakistan after returning from a visit five years ago. “We don’t call because we don’t want to be harassed.”

Some say the reason for police supervision is linked to the significant illegal border trade that takes place. Indian liquor passes into Pakistani hands in exchange for heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Almost everyone in the border area knows someone who has been involved in the smuggling trade. India’s border security force has cracked down, but the black-market trade continues, people say, in part thanks to corrupt officials.

People here say their relatives in Pakistan struggle to get visas to visit.

“Our relatives from Pakistan just don’t get visas to visit Punjab,” says Pacho Kaur, 60, whose brother lives on the other side. “They’ve never been here, they’ve never met our families. We don’t know why.”

Ms. Kaur’s brother lives in Lahore, where he drives a horse-drawn carriage. She has visited him many times, but can only apply for a visa every 15 months.

“It feels like I’m in the Punjab when I’m there. It feels the same,” she said, echoing the feelings of almost everyone else with family across the border. “All his children showed me so much love, my heart stayed there with them.”

After 60 years, a patchwork of letters, photographs and occasional visits has kept a generation of separated families connected. But in these villages – distant from the innovations of the Internet and e-mail – it’s hard to imagine how much longer the connections can hold.

“We’re poor, we have no connections, so we can’t get across and we can’t get visas,” says Kartar Singh, who lives in a small concrete house with baked mud floors and earns 3,000 rupees ($80 Canadian) a month working in a fabric printing factory. “The rich bend all the rules and make it, but we, with our families across the border, are left struggling to connect the past and the present.”

His son, Divender Singh, 25, doesn’t know if that bond is tangible. “We don’t know our cousins. We don’t recognize their faces. When we can’t meet them or talk to them, they are, more or less, dead.”

United they began

1940: India’s Muslim League endorses the idea of a separate Muslim nation.

Early 1947: Britain says it will leave India no later than June, 1948.

Aug. 13, 1947: Sir Cyril Radcliffe submits his partition map, demarcating the hastily drawn border between India and Pakistan that in some places cut villages, and even individual houses, in two along what became known as the Radcliffe Line. Sir Cyril’s justification was that no matter what he did, people would suffer. The division was done in secret, and no Indians were allowed to review it, since disputes likely would have arisen and delayed the partition.

Aug. 15, 1947: At the stroke of midnight, the country of Pakistan comes into being as an independent, largely Muslim state with East and West provinces separated by more than 1,500 km of Indian land. At the same time, India gains its independence as a secular Hindu nation.

1947-48: Many Muslims and Hindus find themselves on the “wrong side” of the border, and as a result, an estimated 14.5 million people cross to the other side. Hundreds of thousands of other people die in widespread communal bloodshed.

1949: The Awami League is established to campaign for East Pakistan’s autonomy from West Pakistan.

1970: The Awami League, under Sheikh Mujib, wins an overwhelming election victory in East Pakistan. The government in West Pakistan refuses to recognize the election results, leading to rioting.

1971: Sheikh Mujib is arrested and taken to West Pakistan. In exile, Awami League leaders proclaim East Pakistan independent on March 26, leading to a civil war. About 10 million people flee to India as troops from West Pakistan are defeated with Indian assistance. The new country is called Bangladesh.

Sources: BBC, Reuters

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Pakistan’s military is all business

Saturday, August 11th, 2007

ANALYSIS: NEW BOOK CHRONICLES GENERALS’ ECONOMIC MIGHT

As the political crisis deepens, a new book reveals just how powerful the generals really are. Sonya Fatah reports

– Trapped between international pressure to combat terrorism and domestic demands that he restore true democracy, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf came very close to declaring a national state of emergency this week.

It was the latest indication that his political fortunes have been in a freefall since a month ago yesterday, when he ordered the military to silence the rebellious radicals at Islamabad’s infamous Red Mosque. That battle left more than 100 people dead, including one of the mosque’s leaders, Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

In a Globe and Mail interview two months earlier, Mr. Ghazi offered an explanation for agitating against the state that went beyond religion. And while they would not endorse his actions, many Pakistanis would agree with his analysis:

“We feel that the system in Pakistan has completely failed. Nothing is working properly. … This system may be fulfilling an elite class of less than 1 per cent, but the majority of the people are suffering.”

The system he was criticizing is the subject of an explosive new book by Pakistani academic Ayesha Siddiqa. Called Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy, it paints a picture of that “elite class” – military officials, retired armed-forces personnel, the civil bureaucracy, feudal landlords, media and business groups. Dr. Siddiqa takes readers into the murky labyrinth of the Pakistani military’s hidden wealth and power.

Imagine you’re a real-estate developer thinking of building a sprawling luxury residential complex in the leafy suburbs of Islamabad. You might get in touch with the Defence Housing Authorities. Need to buy tons of cement to get construction under way? Call Askari Cement Ltd. Need a loan? Insurance? Askari’s sister companies can cover you. Want to build a quality school in your new development? Try the Fauji Foundation.

What do these companies have in common? They’re all businesses built by a military that has insinuated itself in almost every aspect of the Pakistani economy. From cereal companies to major land holdings to cement and construction companies, the military and its civilian cronies have their hands in every pie, as Dr. Siddiqa details. Moreover, its financial affairs – known as “milbus” – are off the record. Pakistan’s defence budget is significantly higher than those of such sectors as education and health, yet it doesn’t even record its pension payments.

But Dr. Siddiqa, a defence analyst, has worked as head of research for the Pakistani navy – she knows the numbers because she had internal access to documents and records. She has detailed the incriminating facts she gleaned there, such as the military ownership of the National Logistics Cell, the country’s biggest freight company, or the four army-run foundations that conduct huge cross-sector projects, own significant assets and employ retired military personnel. Dr. Siddiqa also writes that 12 per cent of Pakistani state land is owned by the military.

Such information about Pakistan’s military economy, she suggests, explains a great deal about its struggling political state. The military is a monopoly with vested interests and searching for power in places such as Afghanistan, Dr. Siddiqa argues.

WHAT DOES A GENERAL

KNOW ABOUT EDUCATION?

The army’s economic empire is not news in Pakistan. It’s virtually impossible to meet someone here who doesn’t have a story about it – the former general who has won the contract to repave all pedestrian walking zones in Karachi, or the militarily connected journalist who just happened to come out ahead in the land “lottery” and came away with a lush, generous swath of property practically for free.

And as Mr. Ghazi pointed out in his interview, the current Minister of Education is a retired general. “What are his qualifications?” Mr. Ghazi demanded. “What does he know about education?”

Military influence extends into key political posts, beginning of course with President Musharaff, formerly General Musharaff. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, the country’s most important and strategic military partner, is a retired general, as is the head of the country’s National Accountability Bureau.

“They have their interests,” Dr. Siddiqa said in an inteview. “I’ve not suggested anywhere that they got into politics because of economic interest. They did because of their political power. Once they have it, now they are not going to leave.”

The subsequent “search for justice and better governance” has led to a mushrooming of alternative ideologies, Dr. Siddiqa said, leaving a door open for Islamists as well as secular critics of the government.

Mr. Ghazi’s father had good relations with Pakistan’s last military ruler, General Zia-ul Haq, and once worked for the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The land occupied by the Red Mosque was given to him by the government. For years, the family’s ties with intelligence services allowed them to pursue their own agenda, which partly explains why Mr. Musharraf took so long to act against them – a fairly typical pattern in the military’s push-and-pull relationship with radical Islamists.

“The Inter-services agency has an overt role in [the Red Mosque],” said Najam Sethi, editor of two English daily newspapers in Pakistan. “They were old buddies. But I think the ISI disowned them some time ago. Basically the ISI led these guys up a garden path and then as [the clerics] became bolder and bolder, they reached the stage where things had to be ended.”

Indeed, in 2004, Mr. Ghazi and his brother were accused of harbouring terrorists in the mosque. A rocket launcher was discovered in his car. The details of these episodes were recorded, but Mr. Ghazi was quietly let off the hook.

“The links with the military organization were clear even then,” said Samina Ahmed, South Asia director for the Belgium-based International Crisis Group.

The military and radical Islamists frequently work together, she said. For example, during the October, 2005, earthquake that devastated northern Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and took more than 80,000 lives, well-organized teams of banned jihadi groups were the first to arrive on the scene and begin rescue efforts.

The Red Mosque’s Islamist leader has taken his extremism to his grave, but there are many more centres of extremism in the country. “We are not interested in personalities,” Mr. Ghazi said. “We are interested in systems. If Musharraf goes, another of his kind will come in his place.”

Indeed, despite the President’s sagging fortunes at the moment, a change in the system seems highly unlikely. Dr. Siddiqa estimates the wealth of the military at $20-billion and says military governments have run Pakistan for half of its 60 years, so the future looks bleak: “The bottom line is, the army doesn’t want any critical analysis, and the military is a very strong institution.”

With the people of Pakistan still out of the decision-making process and a weak leadership in place, the military continues to run the show. “The current leadership is elitist and people have no option. The military makes sure that it keeps the recyclable politicians in politics.”

Sonya Fatah is a New Delhi-based reporter.

The bestseller blues

Ayesha Siddiqa’s Military Inc. is a hit, but the controversy surrounding it has caused problems.

To begin with, a launch party planned for the prestigious Islamabad Club was cancelled abruptly. The publisher hunted for an alternative venue, but no major hotel would provide a home. Finally, a hastily arranged gathering was held at the home of a non-governmental organization.

“I really didn’t expect this kind of a reaction,” Dr. Siddiqa says over coffee in London. “I was expecting a little reaction, but last year Newline [an English-language monthly in Pakistan] ran an entire chapter of my book, and there was no response.”

But the book’s publication comes at a sensitive time, with President Pervez Musharraf under fire and many Pakistanis on the defensive. Dr. Siddiqa says she has lost friends because of what she has written and has even been suspected of treason.

An English-language daily reported that an Indian diplomat’s car was parked in her driveway, sparking a whisper campaign that accused her of being an agent for New Delhi.

Sonya Fatah

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