Nine Pakistani census takers killed near Afghan border

(May 6) Pakistani security officials claim that at least nine people have been killed and 33 wounded when they came under fire from Afghan forces. Those attacked were conducting a census near the Afghan border. Casualty accounts vary.

The attack Friday was near the Chaman border crossing into Pakistan's Balochistan province. The attack prompted security forces to ask people on the border to evacuate. The incident resulted in the Chaman border crossing being closed. Pakistani military spokesperson, Asif Ghafoor, said that firing was still going on. Chaman is one of only two main border crossings from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Ghafoor added: "Since April 30, Afghan Border Police had been creating hurdles in conduct of census in divided villages of Killi Luqman and Killi Jahangir in Chaman area, on Pakistani side of the border."

Ghurzang Afridi, an Afghan spokesperson claimed that the Pakistani census team had been working on the Afghan side of the border. Pakistan is in the second phase of its first door-to-door census in 19 years. There are more than 100,000 enumerators plus double that number of troops taking part in the census.. There has been political debate as to how the census may change electoral constituencies. The 2,500 kilometer-long border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is largely unpoliced and passes through much mountainous terrain.

Pakistan has recently tried to put fences and border posts along the border in an attempt to curtail the movement of Taliban fighters into Pakistan. However Afghans have resisted the move and dispute the location of the border. Earlier, in February Pakistan closed off all border crossings with Pakistan after more than 100 were killed in a wave of attacks. AL Jazeera reported:"Pakistan's decision to close two border crossings with Afghanistan following a wave of deadly attacks has forced cross-border trade to grind to a halt.Pakistan closed the Torkham and Chaman borders after Thursday's suicide attack at a sufi shrine in the southern Sindh province which killed at least 88 people.The attack at the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sehwan was the worst attack on Pakistan soil since 2014 and the latest in a wave of violence last week that claimed more than 100 lives.The closing caused chaos at the border as many trucks loaded with perishable goods were stopped.There were frequent clashed between the Pakistani Taliban and Pakistani military forces in several districts. In March 20, Nawaz Sharif; Pakistani PM ordered the crossing to be reopened. Since the census began in March, some teams have been attacked by Pakistani Taliban fighters.

Residents in the area where the attack took place said that Pakistani and Afghan forces used both light and heavy weapons in an exchange of fire. Akhgar Mohammad a doctor at the state-run hospital in CHaman said “So far, we have received nine bodies. These civilians were killed as a result of the Afghan shelling.” He reported at least 42 wounded on the Pakistani side alone including women and children. Some of the wounded he said were in critical condition.

Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif in a statement called the Afghan firing "unfortunate" and he urged Afghanistan to end cross-border attacks that threatened the peace between the two countries. Nafeez Zakaria Pakistani foreign minister claimed that the census workers were on the Pakistani side when attacked, General Abdul Raziq, police chief in Kandahar province said that the census was being used to conceal crossing of militants from Pakistan to Afghanistan. He claimed that 4 Afghan policemen and 2 civilians were killed and 37 wounded by fire from Pakistan forces. Raziq claimed: “Pakistani forces were trying to infiltrate Afghan territory but Afghan forces stopped them; that’s when the fight started,”

Pakistan to pass a law banning "honor killing"

After the "honor killing" of an outspoken media star Qandeel Baloch by her brother, Pakistan's ruling party is making moves to pass long-delayed legislation to ban honor killings.

The daughter of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Sharif, made the announcement on July 20. She said the bill will go before the legislature very soon. The present law allows family members to pardon a killer in cases where the killing is considered to be defending the honor of the family. The brother said that he was incensed by Baloch's often risqué posts on social media. Qandeel Baloch had become a household name for her posts of bold, sometimes raunchy, photographs, video and comments, in one case with a Muslim cleric. In Pakistani society where many hold conservative values, opinions are divided on this case. The brother strangled Baloch. In an unusual move, the government itself is a complainant in the case. The killing was designated as a crime against the state, and this blocked Baloch's family from forgiving the son for the crime.

Some 500 Pakistani women die from "honor killings" each year. Honor killings are a problem globally. Most of the victims are women but not all. According to Wikipedia: In 2000, the United Nations estimated that 5,000 women were victims of honor killings each year.[18] According to BBC, "Women's advocacy groups, however, suspect that more than 20,000 women are killed worldwide each year."[19] Murder is not the only form of honor crime, other crimes such as acid attacks, abduction, mutilations, beatings occur; in 2010 the UK police recorded at least 2,823 such crimes.[20]

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said his government wants to pass the law unanimously and has been negotiating with religious parties. In the past, the two main religious parties have opposed banning honor killings but this time Jamaat-e-Islami said it would not oppose the bill. Maryam Sharif said: "We have finalised the draft law in the light of negotiations. The final draft will be presented to a committee of joint session of parliament on July 21 for consideration and approval." The upper house of parliament had passed the bill in 2014 but the government failed to put it up for a vote apparently because it was more concerned with legislation dealing with security and economic reforms. However, now a senior government official claimed that all major parties were in support of the bill and it was likely to be passed by a joint session of parliament within a few weeks.

Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif faces murder charges

Protesters in Pakistan are trying to force the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. A Lahore court ordered murder charges be brought against both Sharif and his brother after a crackdown on a protest by preacher Muhammad Qadri last June.

Muhammad Qadri is a popular anti-Taliban anti-terror preacher. However, he has also made speeches critical of the Sharifs and their associates for corruption. He is a dual Canadian, Pakistani citizen who lived in Toronto for a number of years before returning to Pakistan. The Lahore Sessions Court gave the order: A Pakistani court on Saturday ordered framing of murder charges against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz and 19 others over the June violence near Canada-based cleric Tahirul Qadri's headquarters that killed 14 of his supporters.

The Punjab government will challenge the court's decision according to an official of the ruling party. Protesters arrived in Islamabad after a Long March in which there were clashes with government supporters along the way. Along with Qadri, leader of an opposition party PTI, Imran Khan, led the protests in Islamabad. Even before the murder charges were laid the protesters were calling for the resignation of Sharif and fresh elections accusing him of corruption and the last elections as rigged. Together Khan and Qadri issued an ultimatum for Sharif to resign or face growing disobedience including not paying taxes. Later Khan announced that his entire PTI party the third largest in parliament would quit the parliament. The party holds about 10 per cent of the seats but also have significant positions in three provincial parliaments as well. The ruling PML-N party insists they are not about to resign in face of the protests. Should the situation further destabilize their is always a chance that the armed forces will take over power.

Pakistan government of Zardari fighting with Pakistan Judiciary.

It seems that the Zardari government is always in hot water. Zardari is continuing his dispute with the court a court that has always fought for its rights even against the military govt. of Musharraf.Zardari obviously wants to pack the court with his own supporters just as the military government had done. Little attention is being paid to this issue in the mainstream western press.

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Opposition Sees Shades of 2007 in Pakistan’s Judiciary Crisis

Posted By Jason Ditz

Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif today termed President Asif Ali Zardari the gravest threat to democracy in the nation’s history, an incredible statement in a nation rife with coups d’etat, including one that ousted Sharif from his former role as prime minister.

Sharif’s comments come amid a growing crisis of confidence over what has come to be known as the “judges issue” in Pakistan, stemming from a dispute between the Supreme Court and the Zardari government over judicial appointments.

The constitution in Pakistan requires the president to consult the judiciary over the appointment of judges, but instead President Zardari ignored the recommendations and appointed two key judges seen as favorable to his administration. The Supreme Court declared the appointments illegal and struck them down yesterday.

The incident didn’t occur in a vacuum, of course. The Zardari government has been clashing with the judiciary for nearly a year, and over the past few months has been in open battle with them over the loss of legal immunity for key members of the Zardari government, which could ultimately force the government from office and land several high profile ministers in prison for corruption.

Several opposition members, including Sharif, have suggested that the current dispute has shades of a November 2007 dispute in which then-President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and had much of the court arrested by the military. Zardari insists that he has no plans to annouce another state of emergency.

Though Zardari has repudiated the actions of Musharraf, in March of last year he ended up in open clash with much of the nation over his refusal to restore the judges ousted by Musharraf in 2007. Zardari placed portions of the country under emergency rule, temporarily ousted the provincial government of Punjab, and attempted to use the military to stop a public protest led by Sharif. Ultimately the protests were so massive and the military so reluctant to crush them that Zardari was forced to restore the judiciary, setting the stage for the battles with the restored judiciary over the balance of power which continues today.

At this point, most acknowledge that there is no working relationship between the executive and the judiciary, and while the ruling PPP organizes pro-Zardari rallies, most of the opposition seems to be squaring up firmly on the opposite side. Pakistan’s polity seems to be growing more polarized by the minute.


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Pakistanis see US as biggest threat..

UPDATED ON:Monday, August 10, 2009 05:42 Mecca time, 02:42 GMT

AL JAZEERA EXCLUSIVE GALLUP PAKISTAN POLL
Pakistanis see US as biggest threat
By Owen Fay
About 43 per cent of Pakistanis support dialogue with the Taliban, the survey said [AFP]A survey commissioned by Al Jazeera in Pakistan has revealed a widespread disenchantment with the United States for interfering with what most people consider internal Pakistani affairs.
The polling was conducted by Gallup Pakistan, an affiliate of the Gallup International polling group, and more than 2,600 people took part.
Interviews were conducted across the political spectrum in all four of the country's provinces, and represented men and women of every economic and ethnic background.When respondents were asked what they consider to be the biggest threat to the nation of Pakistan, 11 per cent of the population identified the Taliban fighters, who have been blamed for scores of deadly bomb attacks across the country in recent years.Another 18 per cent said that they believe that the greatest threat came from neighbouring India, which has fought three wars with Pakistan since partition in 1947.But an overwhelming number, 59 per cent of respondents, said the greatest threat to Pakistan right now is, in fact, the US, a donor of considerable amounts of military and development aid.Tackling the TalibanThe resentment was made clearer when residents were asked about the Pakistan's military efforts to tackle the Taliban.
Keeping with recent trends a growing number of people, now 41 per cent, supported the campaign.
About 24 per cent of people remained opposed, while another 22 per cent of Pakistanis remained neutral on the question..............When people were asked if they would support government-sanctioned dialogue with Taliban fighters if it were a viable option the numbers change significantly.Although the same 41 per cent said they would still support the military offensive, the number of those supporting dialogue leaps up to 43 per cent.
So clearly, Pakistanis are, right now, fairly evenly split on how to deal with the Taliban threat.
Drone anger
However, when asked if they support or oppose the US military's drone attacks against what Washington claims are Taliban and al-Qaeda targets, only nine per cent of respondents reacted favourably.
A massive 67 per cent say they oppose US military operations on Pakistani soil.
Forty-one per cent of Pakistanis say they support the offensive against the Taliban
"This is a fact that the hatred against the US is growing very quickly, mainly because of these drone attacks," Makhdoom Babar, the editor-in-chief of Pakistan's The Daily Mail newspaper, said.
"Maybe the intelligence channels, the military channels consider it productive, but for the general public it is controversial ... the drone attacks are causing collateral damage," he told Al Jazeera.........................Lieutenant-General Hamid Nawaz Khan, a former caretaker interior minister of Pakistan, told Al Jazeera that US pressure on Pakistan to take on the Taliban was one reason for the backlash.
"Americans have forced us to fight this 'war on terror'... whatever Americans wanted they have been able to get because this government was too weak to resist any of the American vultures and they have been actually committing themselves on the side of America much more than what even [former president] Pervez Musharraf did," he said.
Pakistani leadership
The consensus of opinion in opposition to US military involvement in Pakistan is notable given the fact that on a raft of internal issues there is a clear level of disagreement, something which would be expected in a country of this size.
When asked for their opinions on Asif Ali Zardari, the current Pakistani president, 42 per cent of respondents said they believed he was doing a bad job. Around 11 per cent approved of his leadership, and another 34 per cent had no strong opinion either way.That pattern was reflected in a question about Zardari's Pakistan People's party (PPP).Respondents were asked if they thought the PPP was good or bad for the country.
About 38 per cent said the PPP was bad for the country, 20 per cent believed it was good for the country and another 30 per cent said they had no strong opinion.
Respondents were even more fractured when asked for their views on how the country should be led.
By far, the largest percentage would opt for Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister and leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) party, as leader. At least 38 per cent backed him to run Pakistan.Last month, the Pakistani supreme court quashed Sharif's conviction on charges of hijacking, opening the way for him to run for political office again. Zardari 'unpopular'
Zardari, the widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, received only nine per cent support, while Reza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, had the backing of 13 per cent.
The survey suggests Sharif is Pakistan's most popular politician by some distance [AFP]But from there, opinions vary greatly. Eight per cent of the population would support a military government, 11 per cent back a political coalition of the PPP and the PML-N party.
Another six per cent would throw their support behind religious parties and the remaining 15 per cent would either back smaller groups or simply do not have an opinion.Babar told Al Jazeera that Zardari's unpopularity was understandable given the challenges that the country had faced since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.
"Any president in Pakistan would be having the same popularity that President Zardari is having, because under this situation the president of Pakistan has to take a lot of unpopular decisions," he said.
"He is in no position to not take unpopular decisions that are actually in the wider interests of the country, but for common people these are very unpopular decisions."
For the complete poll results, click here.

US Courts Leader of the Opposition.

This is from the NYTimes.

The US never tires of trying to manipulate Pakistani politics to ensure that a US friendly regime is in power. In the case of Sharif the US move is rather surprising since he has reasonably good relations with militants and certainly will be difficult to persuade to go on the offensive against them. The US would probably prefer a power sharing agreement with Zardari and Sharif a coalition but that did not work before. However, with Pakistan politics one never knows. The US always can threaten to withold funds but then Pakistan might seek help in quarters that inimical to US interests.



May 2, 2009
In Pakistan, U.S. Courts Leader of Opposition
By HELENE COOPER and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — As American confidence in the Pakistani government wanes, the Obama administration is reaching out more directly than before to Nawaz Sharif, the chief rival of Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, administration officials said Friday.
American officials have long held Mr. Sharif at arm’s length because of his close ties to Islamists in Pakistan, but some Obama administration officials now say those ties could be useful in helping Mr. Zardari’s government to confront the stiffening challenge by Taliban insurgents.
The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, has said in private meetings in Washington that Pakistan’s government is increasingly vulnerable, according to administration officials.
General Petraeus is among those expected to attend an all-day meeting on Saturday with senior administration officials to discuss the next steps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in advance of high-level sessions next week in Washington, when Mr. Zardari and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan will meet with President Obama at the White House.
Washington has a bad history of trying to engineer domestic Pakistani politics, and no one in the administration is trying to broker an actual power-sharing agreement between Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif, administration officials say. But they say that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, have both urged Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif to look for ways to work together, seeking to capitalize on Mr. Sharif’s appeal among the country’s Islamist groups.
That could be a tall order, given the intense animosity between the men, not to mention the ambivalence that many American officials still have toward Mr. Sharif, a former prime minister who was overthrown in a military coup in 1999.
Some Pakistani officials said that members of Mr. Zardari’s government already were reaching out to Mr. Sharif and that officials in Washington were exaggerating their influence over Pakistani politics. According to one Pakistani official, the government in Islamabad recently asked Mr. Sharif to rejoin the governing coalition. The two tried power-sharing last year, and that dissolved in acrimony only a week after Mr. Sharif and Mr. Zardari had banded together to force the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf.
Obama administration officials have been up front in expressing dissatisfaction with the response shown by Mr. Zardari’s government to increasing attacks by Taliban fighters and insurgents with Al Qaeda in the country’s tribal areas, and along its western border with Afghanistan. During a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Obama said he was “gravely concerned” about the stability of the Pakistani government; on Friday, a Defense Department official described Mr. Zardari as “very, very weak.”
The official said the administration wanted to broker an agreement not so much to buoy Mr. Zardari personally, but to accomplish what the administration believes Pakistan must do. “The idea here is to tie Sharif’s popularity to things we think need to be done, like dealing with the militancy,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity to speak more candidly about American differences with Pakistan’s government.
Mr. Sharif, 59, represents the Pakistan Muslim League-N, a coalition that includes a number of Islamist groups. He was prime minister twice during the 1990s, and received hero status in Pakistan for ordering nuclear weapons tests in 1998.
Both Mr. Holbrooke and Mrs. Clinton have spoken with Mr. Sharif by telephone in the past month, and have urged Mr. Zardari’s increasingly unpopular government to work closely with Mr. Sharif, administration officials said. “We told them they’re facing a national challenge, and for that, you need bipartisanship,” a senior administration official said. “The president’s popularity is in the low double digits. Nawaz Sharif is at 83 percent. They need to band together against the militants.”
Sir Mark Lyall Grant, director of political affairs at the British Foreign Office, was in Washington on Monday for talks with Mr. Holbrooke and Mrs. Clinton on Pakistan, according to American and European officials. The three discussed Mr. Sharif, but no conclusions were reached, a European official said. “There’s certainly no agreement that Nawaz should become Zardari’s prime minister,” the official said, speaking on grounds of anonymity. He said the enmity between the two would make such a situation impossible. But he added: “We need people who have influence over the militancy in Pakistan to calm it down. Who’s got influence? The army, yes. And Nawaz, yes.”
The Obama administration’s contemplation of a closer alliance with Mr. Sharif was first reported in The Wall Street Journal last week. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said that Mr. Zardari was open to talking to Mr. Sharif. “The president and prime minister of Pakistan have been striving for national consensus and continue to be in close contact with the leadership of all political parties,” Mr. Haqqani said.
The Bush administration struggled in 2007 to find a way to keep Mr. Musharraf in power amid a political crisis. The administration prodded him to share authority with his longtime rival, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, but those efforts ended after Mrs. Bhutto — the wife of Mr. Zardari — was shot and killed. The situation in Pakistan has become so dire, with the fragile government battling Taliban insurgents who have gotten close to Islamabad, that both American and Pakistani officials are looking hard to bring stability to the nuclear-armed nation.
“For the United States, there’s no ambiguity about where the danger lies; it’s in the people who are attacking the state,” said Teresita C. Schaffer, a Pakistan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. She said Mr. Sharif could broaden the appeal of the Zardari government, and his ties to Islamist militants give him added heft right now. “So the U.S. would dearly love to see both of those parties on the same page.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

Nawaz Sharif asks Obama to part ways with Bush policy

This is from thenews (Pakistan). Sharif obviously has gained considerable political capital with his successful demonstrations that forced that government to re-instate the chief justice and many judges. Now Sharif may be able to have the decision not to allow his candidacy overturned. As can be seen from the article Sharif is hostile to the US mode of attacking terrorism especially the use of drones and is also for negotiation with the Taliban rather than direct confrontation.
Obama seems to be even more aggressive in his stance towards Pakistan than was Bush.


Nawaz asks Obama to part ways with Bush policy

Wednesday, April 08, 2009Calls for support to democracy, development, respect of Pak sovereignty; to appear before SCBy Muhammad AnisISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Quaid Muhammad Nawaz Sharif has urged US President Barack Obama to part ways with the Bush administration policy to fight terrorism.“Diplomacy and development should be given priority,” Nawaz Sharif said while talking to US Special Representative Richard Holbrooke and Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen during a meeting at the residence of US Ambassador Anne W Patterson at a luncheon meeting here on Tuesday.Sharif said fight against terrorism requires consensus at all levels and Pakistan’s sovereignty must be respected. The former prime minister reminded the senior US officials that drone attacks were counter productive.Later, talking to reporters at the Punjab House after meeting with the US special representative, Nawaz Sharif said he shared his stance with the US officials. Nawaz said he told the visiting officials that President Obama will have to change the US policy regarding drone attacks.He urged the nation to get united to deal with the prevailing challenges. To a question, Nawaz said he has no intention to rejoin the federal cabinet, saying it was the party’s decision to part ways with the federal government.The PML-N Quaid said the Charter of Democracy (CoD) should be implemented now. He stressed the need for stabilising the country on economic and political fronts. “I have complete confidence in judiciary following the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry,” he added. He said now they would appear before the Supreme Court in their case.Nawaz said he had nothing personal against President Asif Ali Zardari, adding his differences were based on principles.Online adds: The PML-N Quaid said he had no personal grudge with President Asif Ali Zardari. “Our dispute was based on principles. The whole nation rejoiced the restoration of judiciary. The need is to implement the Charter of Democracy like the reinstatement of the judges, he said.Nawaz said judiciary would provide justice to the nation in real sense following the restoration of the deposed judges.

Sharif calls off long march.

This is from Reuters.

Although the chief justice is to be reinstated there is no word about the dozens of other senior judges who were also sacked by Musharraf being re-instated. This seems more of a clever ruse to defuse the situation.


Pakistan's Sharif calls off "Long March" protest
Sun Mar 15, 2009 10:39pm EDT
GUJRANWALA, Pakistan, March 16 (Reuters) - Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif on Monday called off a "Long March" protest after the government decided to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice.

"I hope after this, we'll implement the charter of democracy and true democracy in Pakistan. We'll make the judiciary stronger and parliament supreme," Sharif told supporters in Gujranwala, a town north of Lahore, where the protest procession stopped on its way to Islamabad when news came through of the government's backdown.

"We have got the fruit of our two-year struggle. Now the destiny of this country will change. This development will lead to a revolution in Pakistan," the former prime minister said. (Reporting by Zeeshan Haider; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Editing by Dean Yates)



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Pakistan in Turmoil over Sharif Bans

This is from antiwar.com.

This is totally bizarre. Just read the incident upon which the decision was made. It was associated with an attempt by Sharif to stop Musharraf's coup! Of course Sharif left a coalition with Zardari''s govt. because of their refusal to re-instate judges kicked out by Musharraf!
This is the worst sort of political manipulation and it remains to be seen whether the Zardari govt. will even survive.






Pakistan in Turmoil Over Sharif Bans
Protests in Pakistan, Stock Market Tumbles Over Political Confrontation
Posted February 25, 2009
Protests were sparked across Pakistan today when the Supreme Court decided that Nawaz Sharif, former prime minister and opposition leader, as well as his younger brother Shahbaz were ineligible to hold public offices. The ruling brought down the Punjabi Provincial government, which Shahbaz was chief minister of, and placed the province under direct national control.
Enraged supporters of the Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) burned tires in the streets, and the stock market plummeted over 5% in a single trading session as the ban on some of the most influential opposition figures in the nation.
Sharif’s PML-N was part of a coalition government briefly after the 2008 election, but left in August when the ruling Pakistani Peoples Party (PPP) reneged on a promise to reinstate judges ousted by former President Pervez Musharraf. PML-N officials slammed the ruling as a political move by President Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the PPP.
Zardari spokesman Farhatullah Babar claimed that the PML-N was exploiting the decision to derail national unity, and urged the Sharif brothers to “control their supporters in the interest of democracy.” The ban was connected to an incident during the 1999 coup that brought Gen. Musharraf to power: then Prime Minister Sharif attempted to foil the coup by ordering Musharraf’s aircraft diverted. After Musharraf seized power, he had Sharif convicted of “hijacking” over the incident.

Bomb a warning to end Pakistan-US co-operation

The US seems not to care that it is escalating the conflict in Pakistan and may cause civil war. Perhaps the war is already beginning. The plan may be to have the embattled Pakistani government ask for U.S. or NATO aid in battling its opposition. Of course the opposition involves many more than the Taliban. Zardari refused to re-instate all of the justices fired by Musharraf and this resulted in the breakup of his coalition with Sharif. Who knows how many CIA chiefs were in the hotel during this blast. We will probably never know nor know what there fate was.
One thing is sure and that is that there will be more instability and bloodshed in Pakistan.

Bomb a warning to end Pakistan-US cooperation
Marriott bomb seen as warning to Pakistan to end cooperation with US on fighting militants
KATHY GANNONAP News
Sep 20, 2008 19:13 EST
The brazen truck-bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad Saturday is a warning from Islamic militants to Pakistan's new civilian leadership that it should end already-strained cooperation with the United States to pursue al-Qaida and the Taliban, analysts said.


The massive bomb targeting an American hotel chain killed at least 40 people and wounded hundreds, setting a fire that blazed for hours and gutted most of the five-story luxury hotel.
"The attack on the hotel is a message to the Pakistani leadership: End all cooperation with the Americans or pay the price," said Brian Glyn Williams, associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts. "Both sides see Pakistan as a vital battlefield in their global struggle and clearly Pakistani civilians are paying the price for being in the middle of this struggle," he told The Associated Press.
The U.S. has angered Pakistanis with increasing cross-border raids by its forces from Afghanistan to root out Islamic militants entrenched in the lawless and rugged tribal regions along the border.
Local newspapers are filled with outrage from columnists who accuse the United States of treating Pakistan as a surrogate, flaunting its sovereignty and killing innocents. Civilian casualties from the U.S. assaults have prompted tribesmen in the volatile frontier to threaten revolt.
Williams said the country's new leaders are caught between pressure from the U.S. to crack down on the militants and al-Qaida demands that they cut all ties with America.
Officials have harshly criticized U.S. incursions into Pakistani airspace and last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Pakistan to try to calm the anger.
At the same time, the government is also talking tough to the other side.
Just hours before the suicide bombing, Pakistan's newly elected President Asif Zardari vowed to wage war against extremists who have been battling government troops in the violent northwest. Osama bin Laden and his top deputies are believed to be hiding in the border region and the U.S. claims al-Qaida and the Taliban have found a safe haven to regroup there.
Zardari has received several threats from al Qaida and the Taliban, who are suspected of assassinating his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in December.
Last month al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri accused Pakistan's new leaders of acting on behalf of the United States and called on his followers to rise up against them.
"Let there be no doubt in your minds that the dominant political forces at work in Pakistan today are competing to appease and please the modern day crusaders in the White House and are working to destabilize this nuclear-capable nation under the aegis of America," said an audio message purported to be from al-Zawahri.
The militant groups that operate in Pakistan's northwest are a ferocious and disparate group.
The Pakistani Taliban operate under the umbrella group, Tehrik-e-Taliban, which was established last December. It used a tried and tested strategy to gain control of the area — promising to restore law and order.
Within months of taking control, the Pakistani Taliban then terrorizes the local population with public beheadings. Occasionally men accused of spying for the United States are taken to the center of the village and publicly beheaded. Taliban fighters often make videos of the gruesome beheadings that circulate in the markets in northwest Pakistan.
Daniel Markey, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former State Department official, questioned the government's ability to wage a successful battle without overhauling Pakistan's intelligence service, which is often accused of aiding and abetting the militants.
"They are able to fight but not able to win without a lot of changes," he said. "Most will have to be done by the Pakistani army and (intelligence), some by civilian government, and some that would need outside assistance," Markey added.

Eric Margolis: Zardari is the New Musharraf

Zardari probably will not last long. Pakistan may even face civil war. Margolis does not mention that even the US intelligence community warned against these raids. Zardari is corrupt as can be and did not keep his promise to restore all the justices resulting in the departure of Shariz from the coalition government. By signing a nuclear deal with India the U.S. is also alienating Pakistan. Should the U.S. further show its displeasure with Pakistan by cutting off aid no doubt China, Iran, and Russia are waiting in the wings to establish better ties with Pakistan. Discussion of what is happening in the U.S. seems almost nil.


Zardari is the New MusharrafBy Eric S. Margolis 15/09/08 "Khaleej Times" -- - The US has been in a bizarre state of semi-war against its ‘ally’ Pakistan for months, launching covert ground and air raids into its territory while claiming to be a close ally of Islamabad in the so-called war on terror.This week, it was revealed that President George Bush has given the Pentagon the green light to launch major ground attacks inside Pakistan’s tribal territory.Pakistan, first under the US-backed dictator Pervez Musharraf, and now the new, US-backed president, Asif Zardari, has been put in the impossible position of waging a small war at the behest of Washington against its own pro-Taleban Pashtun tribesmen in the frontier zones known as FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) that is bitterly opposed by most Pakistanis and regarded by many as treasonous.Zardari, the widower of the late Benazir Bhutto, is inheriting this dangerous problem and a host of other ones. Pakistan is almost bankrupt, with less than eight weeks of hard currency reserves to pay for vital imports of food and fuel. Half of Pakistan’s 165 million people live on less than $2 daily.Financial and political support from Washington helped engineer Zardari into power. He has been put in charge of the millions a month in overt and secret cash flow from Washington — $11.2 billion officially since 2001 — that Musharraf used to buy influence. Contrary to Washington’s claims it was neutral in the race between Zardari and his rival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Washington spent a great deal of money and energy trying to sideline Nawaz, who has long been unpopular in Washington as insufficiently responsive to US interests. Zardari became notorious as ‘Mr. 10 per cent’ when he was minister of public contracts during his wife’s tenure as prime minister. Zardari claims all the corruption charges against him were politically motivated and denies any wrongdoing. But many Pakistanis, particularly in the powerful armed forces, are not happy seeing as their new prime minister a man of dubious reputation and a penchant for personal excess. Even so, Zardari has apparently assumed all of the sweeping powers held by former president Musharraf. Now that Zardari is seen as Washington’s new Musharraf, these charges against him will redouble. Few outside his People’s Party see Zardari as an ideal choice for Pakistan’s leader in a time of growing crisis, but he may yet rise to the occasion. He has certainly pleased Washington by vowing to prosecute the internal war against pro-Taleban tribesmen and aid the US-led war in Afghanistan. Rising violence along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border threatens a far wider crisis. There have been frequent clashes between Pakistan paramilitary units and US forces attacking inside FATA. A major overt US commando raid against a Pashtun village inside Pakistan killed up to 20 civilians last week and brought threats from Pakistan’s chief of staff, Gen. Afshaq Kayani, the 650,000-man armed forces would fight to defend the nation’s territory.Deeply frustrated by the failure of its war in Afghanistan and inability to defeat Taleban, the Bush administration wants to expand the war into Pakistan tribal areas which are supposedly serving as a base for the Afghan resistance to western occupation. The Pentagon’s influential Special Operations Command, whose senior ranks hold a number of militant Christian fundamentalists, leads the effort to expand the war into Pakistan. Once again, arrogance and ignorance are misleading the US into another misfortune. Increased US incursions into FATA will almost certainly arouse most of the Pashtun tribes to resist the attackers and eventually involve units of the regular Pakistani armed forces. Pashtuns, 20 per cent of Pakistan’s population, are heavily represented in the higher ranks of the military and intelligence service, ISI.US attacks will inevitably produce ‘mission creep,’ as American forces are sucked ever deeper into Pakistan. Worse, continuing US attacks on FATA could provoke a major Pashtun tribal uprising and re-ignite a simmering secessionist movement for an independent ‘Pashtunistan’ in the strategic northwest frontier that could tear always fragile Pakistan apart and invite Indian intervention as occurred in East Pakistan in 1971. This explosive issue is barely understood in Washington. Meanwhile, Pakistan is a ticking time bomb and the new Zardari government appears headed into a storm of instability and growing opposition. Eric S Margolis is a veteran American journalist who reported from the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the ‘80s and ‘90s

Purge of Bhutto Allies Raises Further Questions about Zardari

It looks as if Pakistan could be in for more political unrest. Zardari seems to be a rather dubious character and quite corrupt. He promised Sharif that he would re-instate all the lawyers Musharraf had fired but did not do so. This is part of the reason Sharif left the coalition govt. I wonder where the U.S. fits into all this. Apparently there have been recent meetings between U.S. and army brass.

Purge of Bhutto Allies Raises Further Questions About Zardari
Posted August 30, 2008
Updated 8/30 8:45 PM EST
Less than a week after losing their largest coalition partner the Pakistani Peoples Party’s internal stability has been called into question, amid reports that acting party leader and presumptive future President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari has purged many of assassinated former leader Benazir Bhutto’s closest allies from the upper ranks of the party.
Close Zardari ally Zulfiqar Mirza reportedly blamed Naheed Khan, one of Bhutto’s most loyal allies, for the assassination, claiming she was in charge of security and had declined an offer of volunteer guards at the incident. Khan denied the charge, and insisted that Mirza and Interior Minister Rehman Malik were actually in charge of security during the incident. Last year, Pakistani police raided Mirza’s home in a failed attempt to arrest him for his connection to the murder of Sajjad Hussain, who was killed three days before he was scheduled to testify against Zardari on corruption charges.
The Times quoted Khan and other Bhutto loyalists as saying Zardari had wasted the past six months, and she also warned that party workers were growing increasingly disillusioned at their lack of access to him.
Though Bhutto’s son Bilawal was named as her successor, Zardari has emerged as the de facto party leader while Bilawal is in Britain finishing college. The PPP won a plurality in the February election, and formed a coalition government with Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N party. That coalition was shattered earlier this week when Zardari refused to reinstate 60 ousted judges before Sharif’s Monday deadline, despite an earlier signed promise to do so.
Though the PPP was expected to retain its control over the Pakistani government even without the PML-N, the incidents have added yet more doubts among Pakistanis of Zardari’s suitability for the office of President. He is still widely referred to as “Mr. 10 Percent” in Pakistan because of allegations that he stole millions of dollars during his tenure as Minister of Investment. The Swiss Government had kept some $60 million in Zardari’s assets frozen since 1997 in connection to the allegations, which it released after Zardari’s government informed them that the incident was no longer under investigation. Zardari spent 11 years in prison in connection with corruption charges, and doctors report that he has suffered from severe depression, dementia, and PTSD in connection with his incarceration.
Still, Zardari is expected to prevail in Pakistan’s Presidential election, to be held a week from today. He is one of three candidates for the position, as Sharif’s party is fielding former Supreme Court Chief Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui, while the PML-Q, the ruling party during Musharraf’s tenure, is running Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed.
Still, with his coalition in tatters, his party increasingly divided, and even his own family attacking him publicly, it is unclear how effective a leader he will be, or how long he can maintain his grip on power.

Pakistan coalition breaks apart..

This is not surprising. As the article notes Zardari has broken several key parts of the agreement that formed the coalition. He chose the presential candidate without consultation and has not agreed upon re-instatement of the lawyers and chief justice who were dismissed by Mussharaf. While Zardari may be able to govern as a minority or obtain enough support to survive from smaller parties the political situation seems to be becoming more unstable. This is from the NY Times.


August 26, 2008
Fractious Coalition in Pakistan Breaks Apart
By JANE PERLEZ
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The five-month-old coalition government in Pakistan collapsed Monday when the head of the minority party, Nawaz Sharif, announced his members would leave the fractious alliance, citing broken promises by Asif Ali Zardari, the leader of the majority party.
“We have been forced to leave the coalition,” Mr. Sharif said in Islamabad. “We joined the coalition with full sincerity for the restoration of democracy. Unfortunately all the promises were not honored.”
The exit by Mr. Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, had been expected in the last few days, and was finally spurred by the decision of Mr. Zardari to run for president, in an electoral college vote set for Sept. 6. President Pervez Musharraf resigned last week under threat of impeachment.
The departure of Mr. Sharif, whose party sat uneasily with Mr. Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party, is unlikely to result in immediate elections. Mr. Sharif said his members would sit in the opposition in the Parliament and try to play a “constructive” role.
The Pakistan Peoples Party holds the most seats in the Parliament, but not a majority. Political analysts said they expected it would be able to cobble together a new parliamentary coalition with smaller parties.
Still, Pakistan faces continued political instability that may distract from serious governance and serious efforts to turn back the growing strength of the Taliban in the northwestern parts of the nation.
The main problem between Mr. Sharif and Mr. Zardari was a profound disagreement over the future of the former chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who was fired by President Musharraf in March 2007, reinstated by the court in July, and placed under house arrest in November. He was finally freed in March of this year, but has yet to be restored to the bench.
Mr. Sharif has insisted that Mr. Chaudhry along with some 60 other judges, who were also fired in November, when Mr. Musharraf declared emergency rule, should be restored to the bench.
To drive home the point about broken promises, Mr. Sharif, a former two-time prime minister, released an accord signed by the two men on Aug. 7.
The document shows that Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif agreed that all the judges would be restored by an executive order one day after Mr. Musharraf’s impeachment or resignation. But Mr. Zardari stalled.
In an interview with the BBC Urdu-language radio service on Saturday, Mr. Zardari defended his position, saying agreements with the Pakistan Muslim League-N were not “holy like the holy Koran.”
The Aug. 7 accord, signed as the two parties maneuvered to force Mr. Musharraf out, also said the two men would agree on a presidential candidate.
Instead, according to Mr. Sharif’s aides, Mr. Zardari went ahead to plan his own candidacy for the presidency, and arranged for the election to be held on Sept. 6 without consulting Mr. Sharif.
At the news conference in Islamabad, Mr. Sharif introduced his party’s candidate for president, Saeed-uz-zaman Siddiqui, a former chief justice. Mr. Siddiqui refused to take the oath of office to remain as chief justice after Mr. Musharraf took power from Mr. Sharif in a bloodless coup in 1999.
The presidential vote polls the national Parliament and four provincial assemblies. It is expected that Mr. Zardari will prevail.
There was no immediate official reaction from the Pakistan Peoples Party on the collapse of the coalition.
But a member of Parliament from the party, Fauzia Wahab, said the party would “conveniently and easily survive” without the support of the Pakistan Muslim League-N. She criticized Mr. Sharif for “holding the system hostage of one man,” meaning Mr. Chaudhry.
Mr. Zardari, the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December, has consistently opposed the reappointment of Mr. Chaudhry since the coalition came together after Feb. 18 parliamentary elections.
The basis of Mr. Zardari’s objection appears grounded in a fear that the judge would undo the amnesty granted to Mr. Zardari on corruption charges when he returned to Pakistan on the death of his wife after years in exile.
Mr. Zardari served in government in the 1990s, when Ms. Bhutto was twice prime minister in the 1990s. He spent more than eight years in jail on various corruption charges that were dropped on his return and which he says were politically motivated.
In the week since Mr. Musharraf resigned, Mr. Zardari has emerged as the chief political force in Pakistan, and he appears to have the backing of the Bush administration as he drives forward toward the presidency.
In the past two days, Mr. Zardari’s statements have increasingly coincided with Washington’s policies, particularly on the campaign against terror, the United States’ central concern here.
In the BBC radio interview, Mr. Zardari used unusually strong words against the Taliban, whose presence in Pakistan’s tribal areas has gathered steam in the last year. “The world is losing the war,” he said of the fight against the Taliban. “I think at the moment they definitely have the upper hand.”
Mr. Zardari said in the interview the Tehrik-i-Taliban, an umbrella group of the Taliban in Pakistan, should be banned. On Monday, the Interior Ministry announced the group would be added to the list of banned organizations. Other Islamic extremist groups are on the Interior Ministry’s list, but the listing appears to have had little effect.
Several months ago, the government in the North-West Frontier Province, which is allied with Mr. Zardari’s party, signed a peace agreement with an Islamic extremist group, in the province’s Swat Valley. That accord is now broken and the Pakistani Army has been fighting the group for the last several weeks.
Salman Masood contributed reporting.

Pakistan coalition breaks up over deposed judges issue.

This is from the Washington Post.
It seems that Zardari is not that anxious to restore the ousted judges and demote those promoted by Musharraf. Of course Zardari might come under legal scrutiny again if Chaudry were restored as chief justice. Who knows maybe there will be a deal with Musharraf and the PPP after all! Sharif has been a consistent supporter of the ousted justices.


Pakistani Party Quits Cabinet Over JusticesSharif Pulls Out After Talks Break Down
By Pamela ConstableWashington Post Foreign ServiceTuesday, May 13, 2008; A10
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 12 -- Pakistan's fragile governing coalition cracked open Monday as one of its major parties withdrew from the cabinet, less than three months after elections that had united rival factions opposed to President Pervez Musharraf.
Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, announced that his party would leave all federal posts after talks broke down with the Pakistan People's Party over how to restore the country's former chief justice and 60 other judges who had been fired in November by Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler at the time.
Sharif, a former prime minister, said his party would remain in Parliament and had no desire to damage the government or the country. Looking grim and exhausted after days of negotiations, he told journalists that his decision was a "bitter pill, but we had to do it . . . we do not want to destabilize the democratic process."
The split was seen by analysts as a significant blow to Pakistan's progress toward mature democratic rule and a deep disappointment to the public, which ousted Musharraf's party at the polls in February and had demanded the restoration of the judges during months of unprecedented civic protests.
Analysts also said the judicial dispute -- and by extension, the question of Musharraf's future -- would now likely drag on, distracting the new government from addressing more important national problems, especially battling radical Islamist fighters and rebuilding the badly ailing economy.
"This is a huge setback for the government," said Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistani security analyst based in Washington. He noted that Sharif's pullout may give Musharraf a chance to reassert his political strength. "This crisis will distract attention from critical issues, and the real losers will be the people of Pakistan," he said.
For the past month, Pakistanis watched with sinking hopes while Sharif and his archrival, Pakistan People's Party leader Asif Ali Zardari, held three rounds of negotiations over the judicial dispute.
Sharif set Monday as a final deadline for Zardari to agree on a plan to restore the dismissed judges and bring the matter to Parliament. But Zardari, who took his post after the December assassination of his wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, has been more ambivalent about the judges. He has said that the courts had failed to help him when he spent a decade in jail on unproven corruption charges.
A final round of talks between the two in London broke off with no agreement over the weekend, even after the top U.S. regional diplomat met there separately with both men and privately urged them to reconcile. Sharif, who was overthrown by Musharraf in 1999, insisted on a plan to bring back the ousted judges and demote those who took the oath of office under Musharraf's rule; Zardari, who benefited politically and legally from Musharraf's court purge, insisted that the president's appointed judges keep their full powers.
Public opinion here has tended to blame Zardari for being intransigent. Sharif, despite the potential damage from his cabinet pullout, is widely seen as having taken the moral high ground on an issue that drew an unprecedented public outcry here last year and quickly became a first major test for Pakistan's new government.
"This is a defining moment for Pakistan," said Ehsan Iqbal, a top aide to Sharif and one of nine cabinet members from the Muslim League who will leave his post Tuesday. "Without the rule of law, without an independent judiciary, the country cannot move ahead democratically or constitutionally."
In Washington, the State Department said the makeup of the Pakistani government would not affect bilateral cooperation. "How they arrange themselves politically, the platform of the government, those are going to be decisions for the Pakistani government to make," spokesman Sean McCormack said.
But diplomatic sources here said there was frustration among Pakistan's Western allies that the civilian leadership had failed to resolve the judicial issue at a time of pressing national problems.
Leaders of the People's Party took pains to say they would continue to work with others to prevent any systemic breakdown. Sherry Rehman, federal information minister, said Monday that there was no danger of a government collapse and that her party would not retaliate against Sharif by walking out of the politically powerful Punjab provincial government.
"Our aim is to soften the fallout from all this," Rehman said in an interview. "We regret that they are leaving the coalition, but we will continue our working relationship. We can't afford a constitutional crisis."
The rift between Zardari and Sharif leaves unresolved a second, more significant power struggle between Musharraf and the former chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. Chaudhry, an iconoclastic figure, challenged Musharraf in a society where judges have traditionally deferred to the military. Musharraf tried to fire him twice and declared a state of emergency last November while the high court was preparing to rule on the legality of his presidency.
Although Musharraf doffed his uniform in December and had been seen as wielding less power in recent months, Monday's political breakdown could give him more room to reassert himself as a power broker, analysts said. As a civilian president, he has the authority to dissolve Parliament and appoint military commanders.
Ultimately, the greatest threat to Pakistan's political evolution is the possibility of military intervention. So far, the new army chief has shown no interest in politics. But if renewed protests should erupt over the judicial dispute, food and fuel prices should continue to rise, or civilian authorities should fail to address the rising threat of violent extremism, some fear the army could be tempted to take over, as it has done before.
"At the end of the day, what's at stake here is the civil-military balance," said Babar Sattar, a lawyer and columnist who has written extensively about the judicial issue. "Does the army have an intervention streak, or does it step in because nothing else works? This infighting between politicians, so soon after eight years of military dictatorship, is a very big mistake."
Staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.

Pakistan's President Swears in New Prime Minister

This is from VOAnews.
Musharrif may face insuperable problems if the ruling coalition should re-instate the ousted justices as seems likely. The People's Party coalition can hardly make a deal with Musharraf without alienating its partner in the coalition. Sharif's party was consistent in supporting the justices whereas Bhutto's party waffled. U.S. policy may face resistance from Sharif.

Pakistan's President Swears in New Prime Minister
By Steve Herman
Islamabad
25 March 2008


Pakistan's president has sworn in a political enemy as prime minister. Meanwhile, two top U.S. State Department officials have arrived in the country for talks with the embattled president and the new government leaders. VOA Correspondent Steve Herman reports from Islamabad.


President Pervez Musharraf greets newly-elected Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani after swearing-in ceremony, 25 Mar 2008
At exactly noon, stone-faced President Pervez Musharraf, administered the oath of office to a the new prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, who spent more than four years in jail under Mr. Musharraf's rule.

"May Allah Almighty help and guide me, Amen," the president said.

"May Allah Almighty help and guide me, Amen," Mr. Gilani repeated.

Some supporters of the prime minister then began chanting "Long Live Bhutto."

If she had not been assassinated on December 27, it is possible former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto would have been the one taking the oath of office.

Her Pakistan Peoples Party swept to victory on a wave of sympathy in last month's
elections. The runner-up party, led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has joined the party of his rival, the late Ms. Bhutto, to form an anti-Musharraf coalition.

Pakistan's evolving political framework throws into doubt the level of the country's future cooperation with the United States on confronting terrorism. Mr. Musharraf has been a staunch ally of Washington in the global anti-terrorism campaign.

Just hours before Tuesday's midday ceremony, two top envoys of the United States arrived in Pakistan. John Negroponte and Richard Boucher are in the country for meetings with top Pakistani officials. Negroponte is deputy secretary of state. Boucher is assistant secretary for South and Central Asian affairs.

They met Tuesday morning with former Prime Minister Sharif, a key player in the new coalition. The American officials are also expected to talk with the president, as well as the new prime minister.

A showdown is looming between the new government and the president concerning the judiciary. The coalition has pledged to restore to the bench judges removed last year by the president. But the replacement Supreme Court has ruled the dismissals of
their predecessors to be constitutional.

After his selection by parliament, the new prime minister immediately freed the ousted
judges, who had been under house arrest for more than four months.

Bhutto's Rival Blames Death on Government

This is from the New York Times. According to this article the Pakistan People's Party that Bhutto led has not decided whether or not to participate in the January elections if they are held. If the party decides to run then Sharif's party will probably be forced to run as well. Sharif is not favored by the US and he blames the US for supporting Musharraf and he also blamed Bhutto for trying to make deals with Musharraf. Bhutto and the US have said little about the lawyers and supreme court judges who were removed from their posts and jailed for some time. Sharif on the other hand has made restoring the judges one of his prime aims.

Bhutto’s Rival Blames Death on Government
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: December 29, 2007
NAUDERO, Pakistan — A former prime minister of Pakistan came and laid a wreath Saturday on the grave of his former political rival.




There were riots Friday across Pakistan, including the eastern city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border.
But just before he did it, Nawaz Sharif blamed the military government of Pervez Musharraf for pulling Pakistan into the “grave crisis” that resulted in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. His words were terse, his eyes dry.

“His policies are responsible,” Mr. Sharif said in an interview on a specially chartered propeller plane that took him to Ms. Bhutto’s ancestral village. “Whether he is responsible or not, an independent commission will have to investigate. No commission can be independent if Musharraf is in charge of this government.”

Mr. Sharif’s antipathy to Mr. Musharraf runs deep. The former general ousted Mr. Sharif in a 1999 coup, which Mr. Sharif tried to prevent by blocking the landing of Mr. Musharraf’s plane in Karachi. Mr. Sharif was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for that, though the sentence was later modified to exile in Saudi Arabia, from which he returned last month.

On Saturday, Mr. Sharif flew to an airstrip in Mohenjo-Daro, where South Asian civilization was born some 5,000 years ago, and from there to the ancestral village of Ms. Bhutto, Naudero, where senior leaders of both their parties met briefly to give their sympathies and discuss the way forward. Mr. Sharif has already said his party would boycott the polls, scheduled for Jan. 8.

He said on his way to Naudero that he hoped Ms. Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party would join the boycott. “With Musharraf, Pakistan doesn’t have a future,” he said in the interview.

Farha Tullah Babar, a spokesman for the Pakistan People’s Party, said it was too early for his organization to make a decision about whether to go ahead and contest the elections. The party’s executive council is to meet Sunday afternoon to discuss their plans, including “how the party will be led and by whom,” he said.

Mr. Sharif’s journey the day after Ms. Bhutto was buried traveled the road to Naudero still lined with portraits of Ms. Bhutto’s beaming face, where she was embraced as its native daughter and the town being the stronghold of her party. Mr. Sharif met with Ms. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, as well as members of the executive council, inside the Bhutto family home.

In the courtyard, hundreds of party members had gathered to mourn for the last two days. Some sat quietly; others shouted slogans when Mr. Sharif’s entourage came in: “By the name of God and his prophet, Benazir is innocent.”

In one corner of the courtyard, a party member named Kaiser Bengali said that he could not help but be struck by the slogan. “I see more anger than grief,” he said.

There is plenty of bad blood between the two parties. It was Mr. Sharif who initially brought a raft of corruption charges against Ms. Bhutto and her husband and Mr. Sharif became prime minister, after her government was dismissed in 1996, charges that Mr. Musharraf continued to pursue until recently.

Mr Sharif was also making a journey across the divide between his native Punjab, the richest and most populous province of Pakistan, and Sindh, its poorer, harsher neighboring province, one of Pakistan’s three minority provinces.

Even political leaders said they noticed a hardening rage against the Punjabi elite that dominates Pakistan’s military and government institutions. The spokesman Mr Babar, himself a Pashtun, one of Pakistan’s other minorities, described the mood as a “strange kind of resentment against the federation itself.” He and other members of the party have warned that the central government under Mr. Musharraf has alienated the three minority provinces and placed dangerous strains on the unity of the country.

“People were shouting slogans,” he said, “The frightening thing was that the federation had lost meaning for them. Yesterday hundreds of thousands of people gathered, they were angry, they were sad, their eyes were full of fire which is hard to describe,” he said.

Mr. Sharif, in the interview, railed against the Bush administration for its “blind support to the Musharraf government.”

He continued: “Now that a major Pakistani political leader has been assassinated, why is he still supporting this man? The whole nation is asking these questions. Does Mr. Bush consider Musharraf his friend or Pakistan his friend?”

He warned that Mr. Bush’s support of the Musharraf government would only heighten anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and the region.

Asked whether he would do anything differently to counter terrorist groups in his country, Mr. Sharif offered no specific remedy except a return to democratic rule. “Terror cannot be fought by one single man,” he said. “A truly elected sovereign parliament is the only answer. Otherwise, Mr. Musharraf is leading this country into a very grave crisis. We are in that crisis.”

Mr. Sharif ruled out negotiations with Mr. Musharraf. “No negotiations with this man,” he said. “Any negotiations and I will be offending the feelings of a 160 million people in this country.”

Muhammad Mian Soomro, the caretaker prime minister, told reporters in Islamabad on Friday that the government would hold talks with all political parties to chart a plan of action, but that “right now, the elections stand as they were announced.”

The Pakistan Peoples Party has not decided on its election plans, though it could be expected to win an overwhelming sympathy vote, which could give it a majority in Parliament, analysts and politicians said. Other parties could also suffer in the polls from a backlash after the death of a national leader.

Several leading politicians said they did not think the government could go ahead with elections so soon after what is being described as a national tragedy that has dismayed people across the political spectrum.

“Speaking on a personal level, there is no mood or inclination to have an election,” said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, secretary general of the Pakistan Muslim League faction that backs Mr. Musharraf. He said the elections could be postponed until March to allow people time to regroup. “Right now there is so much uncertainty.”

The death toll from continuing violence across the country since Ms Bhutto’s death rose Saturday to 38, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior said. The worst violence has been in Sindh province where protesters have burned buildings and looted shops, but Brigadier Cheema said criminal elements were taking advantage of the situation and Ms. Bhutto’s supporters were not to blame.

He warned anti-government elements of dire consequences if they continued in their destruction. Over 750 shops had been torched and 18 railways stations had been burned, he said.

The controversy over how Ms. Bhutto died has further fueled tension in the country. Three women who washed her body before burial dismissed the government’s version that she had died from hitting her head on a lever in the car roof and said they had seen a bullet wound in the back of Ms Bhutto’s head.

A party spokeswoman, Sherry Rehman, said she was present when they bathed Ms. Bhutto’s body after her death and said she had seen a wound where a bullet has passed through her neck and exited through the back of her head.

Brigadier Cheema stood by his earlier statement that she died from a fractured skull caused by a fall against a lever of the car.

“What we gave you were facts, absolute facts corroborated by the doctors’ reports,” he said at a news briefing Saturday. The medical report released by the government, signed by six doctors, makes no mention of a bullet wound and describes a single wound “on the right temporoparietal region.” It gave the cause of death as “open head injury with depressed skull fracture, leading to cardiopulmonary arrest.”

Brigadier Cheema ruled out an inquiry by international experts into Ms Bhutto’s death, saying that Pakistan did not need any help in the investigation.

Ex-PM Sharif drops plan to boycott Pakistan elections

This makes sense since Bhutto's decision not to support a boycott would leave him completely out in the cold. In fact Bhutto and Musharraf would have the field to themselves. Bhutto shows that she is still hankering for a deal with Musharraf in effect if not openly. Unlike Sharif I have not heard Bhutto clamoring for the re-instatement of the deposed and jailed justices.

Ex-PM Sharif drops plan to boycott Pakistan elections
Bhutto rejected plea for joint boycott
Last Updated: Sunday, December 9, 2007 | 11:47 PM ET
CBC News
One of the main opposition leaders in Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, has gone back on his plan to boycott January's elections.


Sharif had hoped that rival opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and her Pakistan People's Party would join an alliance seeking to isolate President Pervez Musharraf in protest against his declaration of emergency rule.

Bhutto has said a boycott would leave the field open for a takeover by Musharraf's allies.

Ahzan Iqbal, a spokesman for Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N, offered similar reasons Sunday for taking part in the election.

"It was considered that if we did not now contest elections, the field will be open for those parties which have supported General Musharraf and he will be able to bring about a constitutional-law amendment with two-thirds majority to indemnify his 3rd November action of dismissing the judiciary," Iqbal said.

Sharif and Bhutto, both former prime ministers, met Dec. 3 for the first time since they returned to Pakistan from years in exile. Sharif failed to enlist Bhutto in a joint boycott

Sharif barred from Pakistan Election

This is from NY Times.
It is rather surprising that Musharraf even left Sharif back into Pakistan. Bhutto also had charges against her but those were dropped. No such luck for Sharif. Sharif has been outspoken in his criticism of Musharraf for his treatment of the judiciary. Of course those that remain in the supreme court are all loyal Musharraf supporters. It looks as if Bhutto might not boycott the elections. There could very well be more unrest before this is over.


Sharif Barred From Pakistan Election
By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: December 4, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 3 — Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been barred from running in January’s parliamentary elections because of a prior conviction, Pakistan’s election commission announced today.

A spokesman for Mr. Sharif, Ahsan Iqbal, said the barring of Mr. Sharif was part of a plan by President Pervez Musharraf and his supporters to rig the elections, and that Mr. Sharif’s lawyers would contest the decision.

Mr. Sharif, a leading opposition figure who was overthrown in a military coup in 1999, was allowed to return from exile last week, and filed nomination papers to represent a district of his home city of Lahore in the parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8. But other candidates in the district challenged his nomination on the grounds that he was convicted in 2000 of hijacking a plane carrying Mr. Musharraf, who was then head of the army, an act that precipitated the bloodless coup.

“His nomination papers are rejected because of his convictions,” said the presiding election official in Lahore, Raja Qamaruzaman, Reuters news agency reported.

Mr. Sharif arrived in Islamabad today to meet with another former prime minister and opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, to discuss a joint stance on the elections.

Mr. Sharif had called for a boycott of the elections in protest at the state of emergency imposed by Mr. Musharraf on Nov. 3, when Mr. Musharraf suspended the Constitution and dismissed the Supreme Court.

Yet a boycott without Ms. Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party would be largely ineffective. Ms. Bhutto has said that a boycott would just hand a victory to Mr. Musharraf and his supporters.

The emergency is still in place, but Mr. Musharraf last week announced that he would lift it on Dec. 16.

Mr. Sharif was ousted from power in 1999 when he ordered that Mr. Musharraf, who was returning from a trip to Sri Lanka, be dismissed and refused permission for his plane to land.

However, the army took control of the airports and allowed the plane to land. Mr. Sharif was arrested, imprisoned and convicted on corruption and hijacking charges and sentenced to life imprisonment.

A year later he was allowed to go into exile to Saudi Arabia but his sentences were never quashed.

Mr. Musharraf, who resigned from his military post as chief of the army and became a civilian president last week, allowed Mr. Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif to return in time to contest the parliamentary elections. But both men have now been disqualified because of the outstanding court cases against them.

Both can appeal the election commission’s decision.

“This proves our point that without an independent judiciary there cannot be free and fair elections,” Ahsan Iqbal, Mr. Sharif’s spokesman, said.

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Sharif urges Bhutto to boycott vote

It is surprising that Musharraf let Sharif back into Pakistan. I wonder if he was pressured to do this by the US. I am not sure the US would be happy if Sharif actually won. The US would prefer Bhutto. Perhaps there will still be some understanding between Bhutto and Musharraf. Notice that Sharif is the one calling so strongly for re-instatement of the chief justice and others. He is right that the court is now stacked with Musharraf supporters. As with other leaders Sharif is saddled with corruption charges. Before he can run they must be dropped or ignored so he can probably run only if Musharraf thinks it is a good idea! Sharif is wise enough not to be too principled. If Bhutto decides to run he will also in spite of his denouncing of the election. These chaps sound very much like Western politicians.


Sharif urges Bhutto to boycott vote
(AFP)

27 November 2007



LAHORE, Islamabad - Pakistani ex-premier Nawaz Sharif called on Tuesday on rival opposition leader Benazir Bhutto to join his party in boycotting upcoming general elections.


Sharif, who returned home from exile Sunday, said he had been in telephone contact with Bhutto three or four times in the last few days as they consider their strategy against President Pervez Musharraf.

A Bhutto party aide earlier said the two had not spoken.

‘I shall try to convince Benazir Bhutto to boycott the polls,’ Sharif told reporters in his home city of Lahore, in eastern Pakistan, adding that he had already asked her to take a ‘firm stance’ against the vote.

He said Musharraf wanted to rig the January 8 polls in order to secure a sufficient majority in parliament that would indemnify him over his imposition of emergency rule and his sacking of many of the nation’s top judges.

Bhutto and Sharif, both two-time former premiers and now Pakistan’s main opposition leaders, are jockeying for position as they seek to lead a united front against Musharraf.

Sharif will preside a meeting Thursday of a broad coalition of opposition groups to decide whether they should boycott the polls, senior party leader Raja Zafarul Haq said.

Bhutto’s party, however—the largest opposition party in Pakistan—is not part of the alliance and is widely expected to take part in the vote.

Her spokesman Farhatullah Babar said Bhutto sent flowers to Sharif with a message welcoming him home Sunday.

But he said there had been no telephone contact, and that while Bhutto was ready to meet Sharif, nothing had been planned.

‘If they meet they will discuss how to make the elections free and fair or whether they should boycott the vote,’ Babar told AFP.

However a formal electoral alliance is out of the question, and observers believe neither will want to cede electoral advantage to the other.

Sharif has said he would be ready to boycott the elections if there is a consensus to do so—code for saying that if Bhutto takes part, so will he.

He is a religious conservative while Bhutto, a secular leader, is seen by the United States—anxious to preserve Pakistan’s role in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taleban—as pro-Western.