http://www.moonofalabama.org/2007/11/whats-the-word-.html
What's the word for catfight in Urdu? Today two remarkable op-eds were published in the U.S. by Pakistani women named Bhutto. Some excerpts of these from the <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR200711130 1832.html> Washington Post and the <http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bhutto14nov14,0,2482408.story?col l=la-opinion-center> Los Angeles Times: (BOTH BELOW) --WaPo-- I am under house arrest in Lahore, barricaded in by Pakistani police with bayonets. --LAT-- While she was supposedly under house arrest at her Islamabad residence last week, 50 or so of her party members were comfortably allowed to join her. She addressed the media twice from her garden, protected by police given to her by the state, and was not reprimanded for holding a news conference. --WaPo-- Despite Gen. Pervez Musharraf's announcement of a date for parliamentary elections, I doubt that we are in for a change. --LAT-- Her negotiations with the military and her unseemly willingness until just a few days ago to take part in Musharraf's regime have signaled once and for all to the growing legions of fundamentalists across South Asia that democracy is just a guise for dictatorship. --WaPo-- I cautioned the general earlier this year that his election as president by the present parliament was illegal. --LAT-- It was particularly unappealing of Ms. Bhutto to ask Musharraf to bypass the courts and drop the many corruption cases that still face her in Pakistan. He agreed, creating the odiously titled National Reconciliation Ordinance in order to do so. --WaPo-- Musharraf knows how to crack down against pro-democracy forces. He is, however, unwilling or unable to track down and arrest Osama bin Laden or contain the extremists. --LAT-- Ms. Bhutto's repeated promises to end fundamentalism and terrorism in Pakistan strain credulity because, after all, the Taliban government that ran Afghanistan was recognized by Pakistan under her last government -- making Pakistan one of only three governments in the world to do so. --WaPo-- On top of a litany of assaults on the rule of law, the general has unilaterally amended the Army Act of 1952 to grant the army the power to try civilians in military courts. Courts-martial will operate by military rules in secret, and defendants are not allowed legal representation. No attempt has been made to differentiate between average citizens and terrorism suspects associated with militant groups. Many believe that these laws were passed to intimidate pro-democracy forces, not to try terrorism suspects. This is the "democracy" that Musharraf envisages. --LAT-- My father was a member of Parliament and a vocal critic of his sister's politics. He was killed outside our home in 1996 in a carefully planned police assassination while she was prime minister. There were 70 to 100 policemen at the scene, all the streetlights had been shut off and the roads were cordoned off. Six men were killed with my father. They were shot at point-blank range, suffered multiple bullet wounds and were left to bleed on the streets. My father was Benazir's younger brother. To this day, her role in his assassination has never been adequately answered, although the tribunal convened after his death under the leadership of three respected judges concluded that it could not have taken place without approval from a "much higher" political authority. --WaPo-- Benazir Bhutto, head of the Pakistan People's Party, was twice elected prime minister of Pakistan. She is under house arrest in Lahore. --LAT-- Fatima Bhutto is a Pakistani poet and writer. She is the daughter of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, who was killed in 1996 in Karachi when his sister, Benazir, was prime minister. Quite a farce to watch. Pass the popcorn please. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111301 832.html Musharraf's Electoral Farce By Benazir Bhutto Wednesday, November 14, 2007; A19 LAHORE, Pakistan -- All through the years of the Soviet empire, its Politburo held "elections." Of course, calling something an election and actually having it be an election are different things. I am under house arrest in Lahore <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Lahore?tid=informline> , barricaded in by Pakistani police with bayonets. Despite Gen. Pervez Musharraf <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Pervez+Musharraf?tid=inform line> 's announcement of a date for parliamentary elections, I doubt that we are in for a change. I cautioned the general earlier this year that his election as president by the present parliament was illegal. He insisted otherwise. We agreed to disagree and decided that we both would accept a ruling by the Supreme Court regarding eligibility. Yet when the court was on the brink of deciding, Musharraf imposed martial law by suspending the constitution, and he removed several of the Supreme Court justices. Today the nation is paying for his mistake. We are witnessing a farce in Pakistan <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Pakistan?tid=informline> : While an election schedule has been announced, the problem lies in what has not been announced. No indication has been given as to whether Musharraf will keep his previous commitment to retire as army chief on Thursday. No date has been given for the lifting of emergency rule; the reconstitution of the election commission; the implementation of fair election practices; the removal of biased officials; or the suspension of the mayors, who control the guns and the funds -- that is, police and government resources -- to adversely influence elections. Moreover, judges, lawyers, human rights activists and students across the country are in prison or under house arrest. The independent media have been shut down, television stations stopped from broadcasting news. Several foreign journalists have been expelled. Thousands of political activists, a majority from my Pakistan People's Party <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Pakistan+Peoples+Party?tid= informline> , have been arrested. Police have erected barricades and deployed armored personnel carriers and trucks filled with sand to cut off access to my house and to prevent people from going from one city to another. Musharraf knows how to crack down against pro-democracy forces. He is, however, unwilling or unable to track down and arrest Osama bin Laden <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Osama+bin+Laden?tid=informl ine> or contain the extremists. This is the reality of Pakistan in November 2007. The only terror that Musharraf's regime seems able to confront is the terror of his own illegitimacy. This is the second time Musharraf has imposed martial law and the second time he has sacked judges since taking over the country in a coup in 1999. It was then that he first promised "to bring true democracy." The election commission has promulgated election rolls judged illegitimate by Pakistan's Supreme Court and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs <http://www.ndi.org/> . Some polling sites have been kept secret. Musharraf's political opposition is banned from campaigning or organizing and has been denied access to state-controlled media. We cannot meet, we cannot rally, and when we try to bring the people to the streets they are gassed, beaten and shot at with rubber bullets. This is not only a military dictatorship, it is a classic police state. On top of a litany of assaults on the rule of law, the general has unilaterally amended the Army Act of 1952 to grant the army the power to try civilians in military courts. Courts-martial will operate by military rules in secret, and defendants are not allowed legal representation. No attempt has been made to differentiate between average citizens and terrorism suspects associated with militant groups. Many believe that these laws were passed to intimidate pro-democracy forces, not to try terrorism suspects. This is the "democracy" that Musharraf envisages. While living in America when I attended Harvard <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Harvard+University?tid=info rmline> in the early 1970s, I saw for myself the awesome, almost miraculous, power of a people to change policy through democratic means. Today I am seeing the power of the people coalescing once again. Journalists, judges, and political and civil activists have joined together against Musharraf's second declaration of martial law. They see him as the obstacle to the democratization of Pakistan. This is why I have called upon Gen. Musharraf to resign as president and chief of army staff, and to pave the way for the composition of an interim government of national consensus that will oversee the transfer of power to duly elected representatives of the people. The people of the Soviet Union <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.S.R.?tid=informline> knew that "elections" for the Politburo were fraudulent. The people of Pakistan know that elections under martial law are a similar sham. Benazir Bhutto, head of the Pakistan People's Party, was twice elected prime minister of Pakistan. She is under house arrest in Lahore. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bhutto14nov14,0,2482408.story?coll =la-opinion-center Aunt Benazir's false promises Bhutto's return bodes poorly for Pakistan -- and for democracy there. By Fatima Bhutto November 14, 2007 KARACHI -- We Pakistanis live in uncertain times. Emergency rule has been imposed for the 13th time in our short 60-year history. Thousands of lawyers have been arrested, some charged with sedition and treason; the chief justice has been deposed; and a draconian media law -- shutting down all private news channels -- has been drafted. Perhaps the most bizarre part of this circus has been the hijacking of the democratic cause by my aunt, the twice-disgraced former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. While she was hashing out a deal to share power with Gen. Pervez Musharraf last month, she repeatedly insisted that without her, democracy in Pakistan would be a lost cause. Now that the situation has changed, she's saying that she wants Musharraf to step down and that she'd like to make a deal with his opponents -- but still, she says, she's the savior of democracy. The reality, however, is that there is no one better placed to benefit from emergency rule than she is. Along with the leaders of prominent Islamic parties, she has been spared the violent retributions of emergency law. Yes, she now appears to be facing seven days of house arrest, but what does that really mean? While she was supposedly under house arrest at her Islamabad residence last week, 50 or so of her party members were comfortably allowed to join her. She addressed the media twice from her garden, protected by police given to her by the state, and was not reprimanded for holding a news conference. (By contrast, the very suggestion that they might hold a news conference has placed hundreds of other political activists under real arrest, in real jails.) Ms. Bhutto's political posturing is sheer pantomime. Her negotiations with the military and her unseemly willingness until just a few days ago to take part in Musharraf's regime have signaled once and for all to the growing legions of fundamentalists across South Asia that democracy is just a guise for dictatorship. It is widely believed that Ms. Bhutto lost both her governments on grounds of massive corruption. She and her husband, a man who came to be known in Pakistan as "Mr. 10%," have been accused of stealing more than $1 billion from Pakistan's treasury. She is appealing a money-laundering conviction by the Swiss courts involving about $11 million. Corruption cases in Britain and Spain are ongoing. It was particularly unappealing of Ms. Bhutto to ask Musharraf to bypass the courts and drop the many corruption cases that still face her in Pakistan. He agreed, creating the odiously titled National Reconciliation Ordinance in order to do so. Her collaboration with him was so unsubtle that people on the streets are now calling her party, the Pakistan People's Party, the Pervez People's Party. Now she might like to distance herself, but it's too late. Why did Ms. Bhutto and her party cronies demand that her corruption cases be dropped, but not demand that the cases of activists jailed during the brutal regime of dictator Zia ul-Haq (from 1977 to 1988) not be quashed? What about the sanctity of the law? When her brother Mir Murtaza Bhutto -- my father -- returned to Pakistan in 1993, he faced 99 cases against him that had been brought by Zia's military government. The cases all carried the death penalty. Yet even though his sister was serving as prime minister, he did not ask her to drop the cases. He returned, was arrested at the airport and spent the remaining years of his life clearing his name, legally and with confidence, in the courts of Pakistan. Ms. Bhutto's repeated promises to end fundamentalism and terrorism in Pakistan strain credulity because, after all, the Taliban government that ran Afghanistan was recognized by Pakistan under her last government -- making Pakistan one of only three governments in the world to do so. And I am suspicious of her talk of ensuring peace. My father was a member of Parliament and a vocal critic of his sister's politics. He was killed outside our home in 1996 in a carefully planned police assassination while she was prime minister. There were 70 to 100 policemen at the scene, all the streetlights had been shut off and the roads were cordoned off. Six men were killed with my father. They were shot at point-blank range, suffered multiple bullet wounds and were left to bleed on the streets. My father was Benazir's younger brother. To this day, her role in his assassination has never been adequately answered, although the tribunal convened after his death under the leadership of three respected judges concluded that it could not have taken place without approval from a "much higher" political authority. I have personal reasons to fear the danger that Ms. Bhutto's presence in Pakistan brings, but I am not alone. The Islamists are waiting at the gate. They have been waiting for confirmation that the reforms for which the Pakistani people have been struggling have been a farce, propped up by the White House. Since Musharraf seized power in 1999, there has been an earnest grass-roots movement for democratic reform. The last thing we need is to be tied to a neocon agenda through a puppet "democrat" like Ms. Bhutto. By supporting Ms. Bhutto, who talks of democracy while asking to be brought to power by a military dictator, the only thing that will be accomplished is the death of the nascent secular democratic movement in my country. Democratization will forever be de-legitimized, and our progress in enacting true reforms will be quashed. We Pakistanis are certain of this. Fatima Bhutto is a Pakistani poet and writer. She is the daughter of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, who was killed in 1996 in Karachi when his sister, Benazir, was prime minister. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. 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