Mathaba.net
The Bush administration's plan to orchestrate a political transition in Pakistan that would manage to somehow keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power without making a mockery of Bush's promotion of democracy in the Muslim world fell apart spectacularly.
by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Helene Cooper
(NY Times)
WASHINGTON — For more than five months the United States has been trying to orchestrate a political transition in Pakistan that would manage to somehow keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power without making a mockery of President Bush’s promotion of democracy in the Muslim world.
On Saturday, those carefully laid plans fell apart spectacularly. Now the White House is stuck in wait-and-see mode, with limited options and a lack of clarity about the way forward.
General Musharraf’s move to seize emergency powers and abandon the Constitution left Bush administration officials close to their nightmare: an American-backed military dictator who is risking civil instability in a country with nuclear weapons and an increasingly alienated public.
Mr. Bush entered a delicate dance with Pakistan immediately after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, when General Musharraf pledged his cooperation in the fight against Al Qaeda, whose top leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding out in the mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The United States has given Pakistan more than $10 billion in aid, mostly to the military, since 2001. Now, if the state of emergency drags on, the administration will be faced with the difficult decision of whether to cut off that aid and risk undermining Pakistan’s efforts to pursue terrorists — a move the White House believes could endanger the security of the United States.
Adm. William J. Fallon, the senior American military commander in the Middle East, told General Musharraf and his top generals in Islamabad on Friday that he would put that aid at risk if he seized emergency powers.
But after the declaration on Saturday, there was no immediate action by the administration to accompany the tough talk, as officials monitored developments in Pakistan. Inside the White House the hope is that the state of emergency will be short-lived and that General Musharraf will fulfill his promise to abandon his post as Army chief of staff and hold elections by Jan. 15.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveling in the Middle East, called Mr. Musharraf’s move “highly regrettable,” while her spokesman, Sean D. McCormack, said the United States was “deeply disturbed.”
Teresita Schaffer, an expert on Pakistan at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, called General Musharraf’s action “a big embarrassment” for the administration. But she said there was not much the United States could do.
“There’s going to be a lot of visible wringing of hands, and urging Musharraf to declare his intentions,” she said. “But I don’t really see any alternative to continuing to work with him. They can’t just decide they’re going to blow off the whole country of Pakistan, because it sits right next to Afghanistan, where there are some 26,000 U.S. and NATO troops.”
The hand-wringing began even before General Musharraf imposed military rule. Ms. Rice said she has had several conversations with General Musharraf in the past few weeks — the last one two days ago — in which she appealed to him not to declare emergency powers. The American ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, had also been exhorting General Musharraf and his top deputies against making that step, Ms. Rice said.
“We were clear that we did not support it,” Ms. Rice said, speaking to reporters aboard a flight from Istanbul to Israel, where she is traveling for regional talks. “We were clear that we didn’t support it because it would take Pakistan away from the path of democratic rule.”
But even as she criticized General Musharraf’s power grab, Ms. Rice stopped short of outright condemnation of General Musharraf himself, even going so far as to credit him for doing “a lot” — in the past — toward preparing Pakistan for what she called a “path to democratic rule.”
That seeming contradiction highlights the quandary in which the Bush administration now finds itself.
There has long been a deep fear within the administration, particularly among intelligence officials, that an imperfect General Musharraf is better for American interests than an unknown in a volatile country that is central to the administration’s fight against terrorism. In recent months the White House had been hoping that a power-sharing alliance between General Musharraf and Pakistan’s former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, would help the general cling to power while putting a democratic face on his regime.
Now, experts predict that the United States will be watching Pakistan closely in the coming days to see how hard General Musharraf cracks down on his opponents — and whether opposition political leaders, journalists and scholars are imprisoned. Much of the attention will be on Ms. Bhutto, who strongly condemned the emergency declaration and quickly cut short a visit to Dubai to return to Pakistan during the crisis.
Officials will be watching to see whether Pakistan’s fractured opposition, including Ms. Bhutto and her political party can unite and pose a serious challenge to General Musharraf. They will also be watching the reaction of the military, which has been demoralized by a spate of suicide bombings against military targets.
Whatever happens, experts say that General Musharraf’s decision was not good news for the Bush administration Even if Pakistan does get back on the path to democracy, Saturday’s action will likely tarnish the Pakistani leader, as well as the legitimacy of any election organized by his government.
Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the current situation could easily plunge Pakistan into chaos, leading to an increase in violence by Islamic fundamentalists or provoking demonstrations by opposition political parties.
“You could have chaos in the street, or a situation where it would be suicidal for Bhutto to try to participate in the process,” he said, adding, “Either of those scenarios puts the U.S. in a very difficult position.”
Ginger Thompson contributed reporting.
Showing posts with label bhutto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bhutto. Show all posts
By Abid Ullah Jan
04 November, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The situation in Pakistan has been tense for months for a number of reasons: the illegal steps by General Musharraf to grant amnesty to Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan despite charges of corruption, the decreasing popularity of the military regime, fall of Pakistan’s mercenary forces in the eyes of general public, bloody adventures in Waziristan and lately in Swat in a bid to curry favours with Washington and the battle with Pakistan's judiciary are just some of the headaches that the South Asian country were facing.
On Saturday, those complications came to a head as dictator Musharraf announced that he'd be imposing martial law. Pakistani television and Reuters are reporting that the constitution has been suspended. The move was rejected by members of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Mr. Chaudhry has had a long history of opposing Mr. Musharraf.
The military regime has now removed Mr. Chaudhry and appointed Mr. Dogar as the Chief Justice of Pakistan. In the PCO, the military regime has specifically accused the Supreme Court of becoming a hurdle in the way of the war on terror. These allegations is the only way, it can sell martial law to the outside world. Dr. Shahid Iqbal reported on Geo TV that officials of the military government were already visiting and meeting officials of the Western embassies, telling them that the Supreme Court is undermining the regime's efforts in the "war on terror." It is important to note that just last week the Supreme Court told the military regime to release all the illegally detained persons by the 13th of November 2007.
This shows that the US-led war of terror needs the Supreme Court to submit to the will of a dictatorial regime and let the intelligence agencies detain and torture their fellow citizen’s indefinitely without charging them.
The Musharraf’s declaration of emergency also coincides with the US military exercises in the Gulf and Condoleezza Rice visit to China. May be the US could not afford a civilian government setting in Pakistan when it goes to war on Iran.
So, the imposition of emergency in Pakistan is directed at the Supreme Court in particular and serving the US interests in the region in general.
In his speech to the nation, Musharraf tried to lump judiciary with “extremism” in the country, as if the Supreme Court was responsible for all that was happening in the country. He alleged that the Supreme Court released 61 terrorists. It is interesting that he is lumping these two, totally separate issues together. As far the Supreme Court’s decisions are concerned, the court asked the government if it had any case against people who were detained for the past many years. The regime responded that it has no charges. So the Court had no option for to order them released. Other than that, the court had yet to decide about the fate of the General but an insider informed him that the decision is going to be against his “re-election,” which forced the General into taking this rash decision of teaching the judges a lesson in submission.
In short the dictators told a new round of lies to the nation and expect everyone to accept arrest of the judges, top lawyers, political leaders, dismissal of the superior judges, removal of the Supreme Court Registrar, taking TV channels off air, ransacking Aaaj TV station and confiscating broadcasting equipment – all in the name of democracy through General Pervez Musharraf.
All criticism of Musharraf’s declaring an emergency in the Western circles will be utterly meaningless if Musharraf is left to live with the changes he has made under the cover of emergency declared on Nov 3, 2007.
His removal of the judges of the Supreme Court in particular need not be ignored at any cost. This is what he wanted to avoid a legal decision on his illegitimate and unconstitutional act of "electing" himself to the position of president.
Musharraf might get away with it by holding elections and allowing new assemblies to take oath, removing his uniform and lifting the emergency. However, in the process the Supreme Court judges would be gone, who were going to decide if his actions were constitutional thus far and if he was eligible to rule for another five years. The criminal acts undertaken under the cover of emergency rule must not be considered legitimate.
The Court had already declared the imposition of recent emergency void. It had decided to further discuss it on Monday November the 5th. One dictator must not be allowed to single headedly go against the superior court of the country and toss around the judges and registrar like toys. Pakistan is not his personal property that he should play around with its institutions like this. This abuse of power must not be accepted.
Abid Ullah Jan is the author of seven books on international affairs, including: “The Ultimate Tragedy: Colonialists Rushing to Global War to Save the Crumbling Empire,”“Afghansitan: The Genesis of the Final Crusade,”“The Musharraf Factor: Leading Pakistan to its inevitable demise,”“From BCCI to ISI: The Saga of Entrapment Continues” and “After Fascism: Muslims and the Struggle for Self-Determination.”
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