As a rule Pakistani politicians with actual power only resign under enormous pressure.
Disappearances and the war on terror
Sheikh Asad Rahman
Since the past two years when the military conflict escalated in Balochistan, people have been disappearing from the province without trace or record. People have also disappeared from Punjab, Sindh and NWFP without trace. Allegedly these persons have been arrested and whisked away to undisclosed locations by operatives of intelligence agencies under the guise of war on terror investigation operations. The distraught families, fearing for the lives of their dear and loved ones, have been running from pillar to post to get some news about their well being, to no avail. They have peacefully agitated and presented their demands to the governors and even at the Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi. This was met by brutal police lathi charges in which even children were humiliated and not spared degrading beatings.
In desperation the families approached the High Courts and Supreme Court to file habeas corpus (production of arrested persons) petitions. Every day the newspapers are reporting that the courts are demanding the production of these persons and charging and trying them under the law but the government continues to stonewall. Some victims have been released under public and legal pressures and lack of any incriminating evidence. Many of them claim to have seen the other still missing persons in the custody of the agencies while alleging mistreatment and torture during their detention. It is pertinent to note that most of the people abducted belong to regional and national political parties opposing the repressive and dictatorial policies of the government and not the so-called Islamic radical groups involved in terrorist activities.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Report for 2006 documents the disappearances of 400 people from Balochistan alone. Most of these persons belong to regional political parties demanding provincial autonomy, which is their constitutional and fundamental right. The report also documents disappearances and violations of every human, civil, fundamental and constitutional right of opposition politicians, activists and workers belonging to other provinces. It came as a shock to me personally when a newly graduated young naïve friend from Britain was similarly abducted in Lahore a couple of months ago. His crime? That he had met Nawaz Sharif twice while in London and had decided to work for the PML (N). He came to me a few times to seek advice on designing an election campaign for the PML (N). He was abducted from his home early one morning and there was no news of him for 10-12 days. His parents and friends desperately tried to locate him, to no avail. Finally when he came home, he had been warned not to disclose the identity of his abductors nor the treatment he received or else he would have to face worse consequences. Badly traumatized, he has isolated himself from the outside world and confined himself to his home.
Incidents of this sort are being reported nearly every day while dacoity and street crime is continuing unabated. A colleague lawyer was held up at gunpoint in Shadman Market on an evening of early January, his mobile phone and substantial amount of money looted. He has unsuccessfully tried to lodge an FIR with the Shadman Police Station, but to no avail. The SHO continues to stonewall saying that this is such a small incident, why don’t you come and I’ll have it settled for you? On a television Police-Citizens seminar with the Additional IG he brought up this attitude of the police for redress but the AIG had nothing positive to give him. Others at the seminar drew the AIG’s attention to similar incidents in which they claimed that the culprits were sitting in the Police Station when they went to report the crime and identified them to the police. But again no action was taken, neither the FIR registered nor the identified culprits booked.
The irrational genocidal military operations in Balochistan and policy of abducting political opponents, deteriorating law and order situation in the country, suicide-bombing attacks are the result of the government’s kowtowing to the so-called US war on terror. Whoever is advising the military high command to enforce these policies is no friend of the people or of Pakistan. Given the fact that the civilian governmental setup is really a rubber stamp for the whims of the General-President, who is adamant on securing the Presidency once again by whatever means necessary, one cannot expect any succour for the people from them. Instead of advising him to adopt pro-people and pro-Pakistan policies, they are supporting these anti-people policies to remain in the good books of the General-President and thus secure their own power positions at the national and provincial level. Every kind of manoeuvring, from the General-President publicly canvassing for re-election, to suppressing opposition parties, abductions and extra-judicial murders are the order of the day.
Obviously what is not being realized is that these policies will never endear the present military-civilian combine to the people at large but only encourage dissent, opposition and outright adversarial reactions. When the government forces kill and bomb opposition leaders, Nawab Akbar Bugti, religious school children and teachers along the Pak-Afghan border, in the name of the war on terror, which is not Pakistan’s war, the affected people will react in whatever manner they can, some by peaceful protest while other more radicalized elements by suicide bombings and attacks wherever possible. This policy can only spell disaster for Pakistan. These events have the potential of culminating in a civil war similar to the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because when you continue to push the people to the point where they have nowhere to go and only see corruption and death by the bullet, bomb or starvation, then their reactions match the repressive and oppressive militarist actions of the government.
President General Pervez Musharraf is on record in an interview on television, where he says that he is in the President’s seat because he is popular with the people. When pressed on when he would step down as the COAS and President, he categorically said, “If I become unpopular with the people, I will step down.” I believe the time has come for him to step down instead of manoeuvring to get re-elected through rigged polls because he has become highly unpopular. In any case the US support that he has enjoyed since 9/11 will come to an end in December this year. I sincerely advise him to execute his exit strategy as soon as possible and save Pakistan from the impending disaster. Then he will be a true patriot.
The writer is a freelance columnist
Well said… Ye latooN ka bhooot baatoN se naheN samajhtay .. 
