| Islam and Politics | |
| 17 Mar 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com | |
| Pakistan: Long March - A Long View | |
The restoration of deposed Chief Justice (CJ) of the Supreme Court Iftikhar Chaudhry as the CJ may not settle the legal imbroglio in totality as many issues remain unresolved. His restoration, however, proves again the power of at least the two 'As': Army and America. The third 'A' is watching in total amazement. -- Anees Jillani
... decades of misrule and exploitation of religion for political purposes. The Pakistani establishment, at Washington's behest, strengthened armed militancy, exploiting religious sentiments to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan during the 1980s. In the process they created 'Jihad International', as the late scholar Dr Eqbal Ahmad termed it.
This may now be the biggest threat facing Pakistan - and the world - since the attack on the World Trade Center on Sep. 11 2001. Since then Washington has pushed Islamabad to fight the very forces of militant Islam that both together had fostered and strengthened. ...
Lurking on the sidelines is an army unused to civilian command even as religious militants create havoc around the country. -- Beena Sarwar URL for this page: http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1252 ---------------------
Dial A for crisis
Anees Jillani March 16, 2009
Excitement never ends in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Lameduck Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani announced on March 16, 2009, to a sleeping nation, that his government — with the concurrence of President Asif Ali Zardari — is reinstating the deposed Chief Justice (CJ) of the Supreme Court Iftikhar Chaudhry, effective from March 22. Current CJ, Abdul Hameed Dogar, retires a day earlier.
Almost everybody in Pakistan is delighted with the outcome of this long-drawn struggle to reinstate Chaudhry, with the exception of a few staunch jiyalas (a term popularly used to describe PPP supporters), Pervez Musharraf and some judiciary members. The lawyers achieved what they had been struggling for since the imposition of the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) on November 3, 2007. Everyone else — the business and trading community, the police, who reluctantly had to control the demonstrators, and the relatives of hundreds of missing people allegedly picked up by the intelligence agencies — is heaving a sigh of relief .
Not much may change for the better. But the people of this unfortunate country desperately need a break. Chaudhry is a Punjabi-speaking judge settled in Balochistan. He was brought to the Supreme Court by Musharraf and later elevated to the post of CJ. He was part of the bench that validated the suspension of the Constitution, and its replacement by the PCO. The Supreme Court was boycotted by all the opposition forces, including some lawyers, for taking a pro-Musharraf stance for many years — until Chaudhry started taking suo motu actions on various issues, most notably in cases related to missing persons and misuse of farming plots for residential purposes by generals, including Musharraf and former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. He became a hero after cancelling privatisation of the Steel Mills, the biggest State-owned concern.
On March 9, 2007, Musharraf suspended him extra-constitutionally. This was not the first time in Pakistan's history that a judge had been removed by a military ruler. However, Chaudhry again became a hero as he had earlier refused to resign despite being pressured by Musharraf, Aziz, the ISI and the Military Intelligence in a joint meeting at Musharraf's army house. The rest is history.
Chaudhry challenged the proceedings of the Supreme Judicial Council, and was restored by the full bench of the court in a unanimous judgement. No one actually knows why Musharraf removed him. He remained the CJ until November 3, 2008, but was dropped again by Musharraf who replaced the Constitution by a PCO, under which many judges, including the CJ, refused to take oath.
Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, once political foes, had become allies while living in exile, and had signed a Charter of Democracy in 2006. Sharif was distressed when Bhutto negotiated her return behind his back but tolerated it. The bonhomie, however, was short-lived as Bhutto was assassinated. Zardari became her successor, and agreed in writing, with Sharif, to restore the CJ once his party came to power. Zardari, however, made some deals himself, including with Musharraf and the current CJ Abdul Hameed Dogar, and refused to lift the PCO. Instead, he invited all the deposed judges, including Chaudhry, to take a fresh oath, and refused to replace Dogar with Chaudhry. This impasse led to Sharif withdrawing from the federal cabinet and ultimately governor's rule was imposed in Punjab.
Sharif subsequently decided to opt for a street agitation, culminating in the Long March that he led after violating his house arrest in Lahore. The Gilani government agreed to restore Chaudhry as the CJ within 12 hours. The government wouldn't have succumbed to the pressure had it not been for the constant intervention by the Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Kayani and the American Ambassador to Islamabad. Also, Hillary Clinton telephoned both Sharif and Zardari, and the special envoy for Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, was in constant touch with all the parties concerned.
The restoration of Chaudhry as the CJ may not settle the legal imbroglio in totality as many issues remain unresolved. His restoration, however, proves again the power of at least the two 'As': Army and America. The third 'A' is watching in total amazement.
Anees Jillani is an advocate, Supreme Court of Pakistan. --- PAKISTAN: Long March - A Long View Analysis by Beena Sarwar
Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46083 KARACHI, Mar 12 (IPS) - Barely a year after being elected, the Pakistan government faces a political storm involving a street agitation spearheaded by lawyers and opposition political parties allied with religious parties.
Lurking on the sidelines is an army unused to civilian command even as religious militants create havoc around the country.
None of this is new to Pakistan but many find it all the more painful given the hopes built up by last year's general elections. On Feb 18, 2008, Pakistani voters overwhelmingly supported non-religious parties and rejected those that had been propped up by the army.
The electorate's rejection of the religious parties and the joining hands of the late Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and her former rival Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) raised expectations of an end to political confrontation and religion-based politics - and the army moving away from politics.
These expectations followed decades of misrule and exploitation of religion for political purposes. The Pakistani establishment, at Washington's behest, strengthened armed militancy, exploiting religious sentiments to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan during the 1980s. In the process they created 'Jihad International', as the late scholar Dr Eqbal Ahmad termed it.
This may now be the biggest threat facing Pakistan - and the world - since the attack on the World Trade Center on Sep. 11 2001. Since then Washington has pushed Islamabad to fight the very forces of militant Islam that both together had fostered and strengthened.
Resultantly, this country has, as Pakistanis point out, suffered the most from militant attacks.
In this situation, political instability is distracting at best and dangerous at worst. The 'long march' demanding the reinstatement of chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Choudhry, spearheaded by the legal fraternity and sections of civil society, has ready allies among the right-wing political opposition.
This includes Sharif's PML-N and the Jamaat-e-Islami, a mainstream religious party sympathetic to militant Islam, as well as others sympathetic to the Taliban, like ex-chief Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and anti-India hawk Gen. (retd.) Hamid Gul, retired bureaucrat Roedad Khan who brutally quashed political opposition during the Zia years, and cricket hero-turned politician Imran Khan, chief of the Tehrik-e-Insaaf (Movement for Justice).
All these forces boycotted the 2008 polls, except Sharif who rescinded his boycott decision after Bhutto convinced him that elections were the only way forward.
Long-festering tensions between the PPP and PML-N came to a head with a Supreme Court ruling of Feb 25 barring Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif from holding elected office. Bhutto's widower, President Asif Ali Zardari is widely believed to be behind this controversial ruling.
The disgruntled Sharifs, already pushing for the reinstatement of Choudhry, have flung themselves wholeheartedly into the long march - a move that observers do not see as entirely altruistic since their stated aims include effecting regime change.
"Sharif's attempts to paint himself as a radical, grassroots activist are at odds with his political origins," commented former lawyer and Australia-based analyst Mustafa Qadri, writing about the opportunity Pakistan's politicians of all hues have wasted in their "refusal to look beyond personal power games and provincialism to develop the nation's still embryonic democracy".
The Sharifs gained prominence as businessmen patronised by Gen. Zia -ul-Haq who was behind Pakistan's "transformation from majority-Muslim nation to Islamic state with more conservative religious seminaries per capita than any other country in the world," as Qadri put it ('Long march to nowhere', The Guardian, Mar 10, 2009).
The current imbroglio comes on the heels of loaded statements by Gen.(retd) Pervez Musharraf who during a visit to India last week, gave several talks and interviews in which he hinted at a possible political comeback.
Curiously Musharraf, who stepped down as president in August 2008, urged New Delhi to stop 'bashing' the Pakistan army and the shadowy ISI since, according to him, they were the best defence against the growth of the Taliban and militancy in Pakistan.
President Zardari has invited comparisons to Musharraf because of his government's use of police force and mass arrests to prevent the long march, as Musharraf did after suspending Choudhry in March 2007 and imposing Emergency rule in Nov 2007.
The irony is illustrated by the recent three-hour detention of the firebrand women's rights and political activist, Tahira Abdullah, who has been mobilising the lawyers' movement from her home in Islamabad.
She faced police batons and tear gas in the Zia and Musharraf eras. A day before the long march began, a police contingent arrived at her house and virtually broke down her kitchen door.
However, her arrest attracted media attention, embarrassing the government into quickly ordering her release. An undeterred Abdullah immediately resumed mobilising for the agitation.
"It is sad and ironic that the PPP government has come to this," she told IPS. "They said it was preventive detention. They can't catch people like (Taliban leaders) Baitullah Mehsud and Maulvi Fazlullah but they send police after me, a very ordinary person."
There is also irony in progressive, secular activists like Abdullah joining hands with the emerging right-wing coalition to achieve a shared goal, the restoration of Choudhry.
Civil society activists privately admit that otherwise their numbers are too small to reach the critical mass needed to effect political change.
"There are only a handful of us," one of them told IPS. "And there are no more than 100,000 lawyers in the country. So we have to join hands with political forces who agree with us on this matter even if we don't agree on other matters. We know they are using us, but we are also using them."
Observers like the political economist and former student activist S.M. Naseem fear that this kind of mutual 'using' could push Pakistan further towards right-wing forces.
Disappointed by the performance of the government as well as the opposition, he holds that the lawyers' movement has missed the opportunity of creating a new polity in the country. "They should have broadened the agenda to create a new political system," he told IPS. "Two years for the restoration of one person (Choudhry), however, honest and bold, is a bit too much."
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani has said that he cannot, in all conscience, oppose the long march. "We have also participated in street agitations and long marches," he said. "How can we stop anyone else from exercising their democratic right to do so?"
This stand appears to pit him against President Zardari, holding an office strengthened by past military dictators. The President's powers include being able to dismiss the prime minister and dissolve government - as several presidents before him have done. This is unlikely to happen now. For Zardari to take such a step would mean dismissing his own government.
Having recently obtained a majority in the Senate, the PPP can conceivably push through the constitutional amendments it proposed in May 2008 for which a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly and the Senate is required. These amendments include the removal of the 17th amendment that allows the President to dismiss government.
Moves towards reconciliation between the PPP and the PML-N continue behind the scenes, even as the long march kicks off with lawyers and political activists from various cities heading towards Islamabad to converge by Mar. 16 for a dharna (or sit-in) 'until the Chief Justice is restored'.
Observers fear a breakout of violence even though the long march leaders have promised to keep matters peaceful.
Beena Sarwar is a senior Pakistani journalist and documentary film-maker. --- URL for this page: http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1252
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