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Exclusive: Martial law in Pakistan

Musharraf’s Step Back



imageIn a sharp political analysis published in India on September 5, 2007, Hamid Mir, one of the top Pakistani journalists (and also a CFP columnist) predicted the imposition of martial law in his country. His article, entitled "Pakistan and the 'minus two' formula" suggested: "Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's top advisers have seriously suggested applying Bangladesh's 'minus two formula' in Pakistani politics (...) The army-backed interim government in Bangladesh suspended general elections for one year and imposed emergency in early 2007. The Bangladeshi army also attempted to banish two former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina from politics (hence 'minus two')."

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I remember having read Hamid's article in September, but the later development of events suggested that General Musharraf did not need to ban neither Mrs. Benazir Bhutto nor Mr. Sharif Nawaz (both former prime ministers). On the contrary, Mrs. Bhutto struck a deal with the ruling President and came back to Pakistan from exile, while Mr. Sharif tried to land and was deported. The return of the former prime minister, the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's brave daughter accused of "corruption" and pardoned by the President, provoked riots in Karachi, wherein nearly 140 persons lost their lives. The situation in Pakistan, following the presidential elections and the re-election of Pervez Musharraf, became very complicated but not critical. The President-elect, who had broken his solemn promise not to run in uniform and as the Army chief, was elected but a court ruling was to decide about the constitutional legality of his election at the beginning of November. The judicial power in the country becoming more influential, one could expect that the Supreme Court could prevent Musharraf from ruling the country as a military man. In fear of loosing his grip over the Army and Special Services, the President-elect introduced "emergency" rule in Pakistan, in the evening of Saturday, November 3. As usual with dictators trying to perpetuate their rule, Musharraf cited other pretexts to motivate his decision and to make himself a "savior" of the country in the time of "chaos."

Pinochet, Jaruzelski, Musharraf and...Lincoln

Incidentally, President Musharraf suspended the 1973 Constitution in Pakistan in November 2007 and introduced, in fact, a martial law in the country, like Augusto Pinochet did thirty-four years ago (1973) in Chile. General Wojciech Jaruzelski took the same decision on December 13, 1981 in Poland, twenty-six years ago. The leitmotiv of Pinochet was to "save" the country from Communists, while the main motive of Jaruzelski was to save the Communist rule in Poland, opposing a call for democracy led by Lech Walesa and his Solidarity Free Trade Union. Pinochet's pretext was a Communist threat, and Jaruzelski's was a threat of democracy to Communism. In 1973, Chile was not to be invaded from outside but was ruled by a legally elected socialist, President Allende. In 1981, Poland was under strong Soviet pressure, a threat of invasion, and Jaruzelski used this pressure to motivate his "state of war" (a synonym of martial law). What were the motives of General Musharraf? Hamid Mir pointed out in an interview to Indian Rediff.com, on November 3 (before his GEO TV was banned and the phone and e-mail links were cut off) that: "In Pakistan, emergency can be declared only under Article 232 [of the Constitution], but today President Musharraf has suspended the country's Constitution. So where is the question of having emergency? This is martial law. Pakistan is now ruled by real military men." Mir also said that this was the fourth time that the military rule was imposed in Pakistan in the last 60 years (and lasted 32 years all together). I had the patience to listen to Musharraf's Saturday midnight (Nov.3/4) speech on the PTV, transmitted by the CNN live with a simultaneous translation form Urdu to "Pak-English." At the end of his address, the President switched to correct English and explained the motive of his decision for the international public. The General, dressed in civilian clothes, quoted from Abraham Lincoln and cited the former president's suspension of some rights during the American Civil War as justification for his own state of emergency: "I would at this time venture to read out an excerpt of President Abraham Lincoln, specially to all my listeners in the United States. As an idealist, Abraham Lincoln had one consuming passion during that time of crisis, and this was to preserve the Union... towards that end, he broke laws, he violated the Constitution, he usurped arbitrary power, he trampled individual liberties. His justification was necessity and explaining his sweeping violation of Constitutional limits he wrote in a letter in 1864, and I quote, 'My oath to preserve the Constitution imposed on me the duty of preserving by every indispensable means that government, that Nation of which the Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the Nation and yet preserve the Constitution?'" Nice justification of the martial law in Pakistan, neither Pinochet nor Jaruzelski could think about that.

A green light from the U.S. Embassy

I tried to phone my friend Hamid, in Islamabad on Sunday, November 4, and on Monday but to no avail. A nice woman's voice announced in Urdu that the connection was impossible. Reports from Pakistan came through satellite phones of Western correspondents and probably also could be filed in via direct Internet connections. In many of these reports, I found quotes from Hamid Mir's Saturday interview (video), GEO TV, November 3, 2007: Several media outlets repeated Hamid's views about international backing of the martial law imposed on Pakistan: Rediff.com in India quoted Hamid Mir on Nov.4: "It's unfortunate that amongst Musharraf's strongest supporters, one is America and another is India" and on Nov.4 Tariq Ali reported on Countercurrents.com: "The two institutions targeted by the emergency are the judiciary and the lively network of independent TV stations, many of whose correspondents supply information that can never be gleaned from politicians. Geo TV, the largest of these, continued to broadcast outside the country. "Hamid Mir, one of its sharpest journalists, reported that according to his sources the US Embassy had green-lighted the coup because they regarded the chief justice as a nuisance and 'a Taliban sympathiser'." On Nov.5 Tehran Times wrote: "As Hamid Mir, one of the country's sharpest journalists, revealed Saturday, he believed the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad had green-lighted for the emergency move". I remember once Hamid told me: "The U.S.A. always supported military dictators in Pakistan and always turned against the country's democratically elected governments". But the situation in Pakistan is so complicated and dangerous that the U.S. Government, though condemning the last Musharraf's anti-democratic move from the mouth of Mrs. Condoleezza Rice, gives a clear signal to the military dictator from the U.S. Senate that the military aid to the Pakistani Army will not be suspended. Hamid Mir said: "The people of Pakistan will resist the moves of Musharraf." And the development of the recent events proves that he is right.

The lawyers' rebellion

Thousands of lawyers took to the streets of the main Pakistan's cities to protest against the martial law imposed on the country by its President-elect. Clashes with security forces, mass arrests, siege of the Supreme Court by paratroopers were the response to the people's opposition. Pakistan is a big (over 165 million, the 6th most populated country in the world), multi-ethnic country torn by strife, with "lawless" tribal territories ruled by the Taliban and local Islamists. Suicide bombers explode their charges, soldiers, policemen, ordinary people die in blood-baths and... lawyers lead the protests both against the military dictatorship and the rule of Sharia imposed by Islamist fundamentalists. A strange country, indeed, bound together by the religion of Islam and a sense of patriotism of the middle class and soldiers, educated by British standards of law. A country, where the anniversary of the first successful nuclear blast is a National Holiday, and where women are more emancipated than in other Muslim countries, and one of them, Mrs. Benazir Bhutto, is a national leader. A country, where private enterprise and media flourish and the average level of life is lower than in the neighboring India and Iran. A known British-Pakistani historian, novelist, film-maker, campaigner and commentator, Tariq Ali, 64, observed after the military takeover: "The two institutions targeted by the emergency are the judiciary and the lively network of independent TV stations, many of whose correspondents supply information that can never be gleaned from politicians (...) Global media coverage of Pakistan suggests a country consisting of Generals, corrupt politicians and bearded lunatics. The struggle to reinstate the Chief Justice presented a different snapshot of the country. This movement for constitutional freedoms revived hope at a time when most people are alienated from the system and cynical about their rulers, whose ill-gotten wealth and withered faces consumed by vanity inspire nil confidence." In this Islamic Republic the military leadership has suspended the 1973 Constitution, took thirty-plus private television channels off the air, jammed the mobile phone networks all over the country and imposed severe restrictions on the media. President Pervez Musharraf is not a bloodthirsty Pinochet, maybe a sort of Jaruzelski, the former Polish Communist leader who gradually relaxed the martial law and finally handed the power to the democratic opposition. Let's hope that the "emergency" in Pakistan will not last too long and that this important country will not "sink deeper into the night" as Tariq Ali wrote recently. copywrite David Dastych, 2007


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David M. Dastych -- Bio and Archives

David Dastych passed away Sept.11, 2010.

See:David Dastych Dead at 69


David was a former Polish intelligence operative, who served in the 1960s-1980s and was a double agent for the CIA from 1973 until his arrest in 1987 by then-communist Poland on charges of espionage. Dastych was released from prison in 1990 after the fall of communism and in the years since has voluntarily helped Western intelligence services with tracking the nuclear proliferation black market in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. After a serious injury in 1994 confined him to a wheelchair, Dastych began a second career as an investigative journalist covering terrorism, intelligence and organized crime.

Other articles by David Dastych

 


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