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The ballot or the bullet
Sun, 11 Nov 2007 21:50:24
By Ismail Salami, Press TV, Tehran |
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Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf pledged on Sunday that elections would be held in January but noted that emergency rule will continue to help combat terrorism after a bomb attack targeting his opposition killed over 100 people.
Musharraf says he will step down from his post as head of the army and take oath as President for another round of five years as soon as the Supreme Court determines his eligibility on the case.
The embattled President has accused Pakistan's Chief Justice of trying to hijack the country and betraying his trust in the internal affairs. It seems that using the Justice Chief as a scapegoat in the escalating Pakistan crisis was quite close-by.
Musharraf replaced Chaudhry last week, seven months after he first tried to remove the top judge. He justified the move by saying that Chaudhry was hampering the combat against terrorism.
To the President who sees no point in lifting the martial law, the move was ostensibly meant "to preserve this nation, to safeguard it and to risk myself, or to let go, hoping that the nation may improve later in the turmoil that one leaves."
Musharraf does not lift the state of emergency for the election under the pretext that it countered disturbed environment, the terrorist environment, the bomb blasts, and the suicide bombs.
"It will ensure absolutely fair and transparent elections, because we will not interfere," he said in a press conference on Sunday.
The military regime staged an all-out police operation Friday to stop a Pakistan People's Party (PPP) rally called to protest the imposition of martial law.
Bhutto planned to address supporters Friday at a rally in Rawalpindi. Nearly two dozen police officers were posted there Thursday to keep people out apparently for fear of the suicide bombers.
"We have intelligence reports that suicide bombers have entered Rawalpindi. The situation is very serious," a Pakistani official said.
Most protests have been violently suppressed during the week. Hundreds of people have been arrested and carted off in police vans. Many more have been taken into preventive detention. In order to manipulate international public opinion, the Pakistani authorities lifted a ban on foreign news channels such as BBC, and CNN on Thursday. However, police in Karachi shut down some 50 shops selling satellite TV dishes.
Benazir Bhutto was barred from attending the rally by a second massive security operation in Karachi. She said that some 5,000 PPP activists had been detained and incarcerated between Wednesday and Friday.
On Saturday, US President George W. Bush urged Pervez Musharraf to lift the emergency. Speaking at his ranch in Crawford, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bush told reporters "he knows my position, and he knows the position of the US government."
Not only has the Bush administration helped sustain the Musharraf regime, giving it some $10 billion in military aid since September 2001, it has proclaimed Pakistan a major non-NATO ally of the US.
Bush has constantly praised Mush for standing with the United States against extremism after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, thereby vindicating his acts, which terminated in raping the rights of a downtrodden nation.
The jails in Pakistan are overflowing with political dissidents, freedom fighters and human rights activists. The top echelons of the government have been purged only to be replaced by people who gratify every whim of the dictator and whom Mush can trust.
In a sham election last month, Musharraf brazenly violated the letter of the Pakistani constitution and in order to evade the consequences of his act, he imposed a martial law for fear that the court might annul the elections. No wonder Musharraf indefinitely suspended the constitution on Saturday.
The military in Pakistan is infamous for a large number of brutalities in the past including the murdering of Bhutto's father, the slaughtering of a large multitude of Bangladeshis in the military's unsuccessful attempt to prevent the 1971 secession of what was then East Pakistan. In fact, the military regime has never helped the process of nation-building in Pakistan; rather, it has thwarted every relevant effort. The US has thrown its full support behind Pakistan's military dictators, politically and with guns and money since 1958. Under the auspices of the American support, the military has come to possess high-tech expensive weapons, including nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
The escalating Pakistani crisis is largely supported by the Bush administration. Musharraf can no longer prove to be a loyal ally of Bush in eradicating the so-called rogue elements in the region. They are actually looking for a more efficient person who can help them achieve or come closer to their goals in the region.
A crafty scenario is taking place. Crisis is tacitly fomented in Pakistan by the US administration. Pressure is mounting on the Pakistani President from all corners. His popularity rating is declining terminally. On the other hand, Benazir Bhutto is gaining greater support at the price of Musharraf's waning popularity.
In the final analysis, things are turning to the best interests of Bhutto, the new steed of the West. Musharraf will vanish and Bhutto will take his place.
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