Adil Najam
Pictures on the television show Karachi burning. The city is at war. Morchas everywhere. Clashes, violence, firing, deaths.
The Chief Justice is holed up at the airport and the streets are ruled by mobs. Aaj TV is being fired at and Talat Hussain reports that the police and rangers are unable to get their to help because the roads are blocked (to stop the Chief Justice). Of course, these road blocks have not stopped the killers who are firing at the TV station. As of now 15 are reported dead. Over 100 seriously injured. Hospitals in Karachi have declared an emergency. The Prime Minister has called an emergency meeting of his own to respond to what the government is calling a ‘security situation’ but which sounds, smells, looks and feels like the beginning of a war on the streets of Karachi. Flights in and out of the city are stalled. Train traffic is stopped. The city seems to have descended back to its darkest days of street violence.
Meanwhile, the petty blame game continues. But things are changing too fast for one to analyze them. But one thing is certain. Things have gone out of control. Totally out of control. Totally out of everyone’s control. It is a sad sad day for all of us.
I wish I had something more profound to say. All I can hink of right now is what someone wrote on our comments section recently: Khuda Khair Karray!
(Picture credits BBC and The News and pictorial story at Bilal Zuberi’s blog; great blog coverage at Karachi Metroblog).
[quote post=”701″]The MQM’s most senior leader in Pakistan, Farooq Sattar, said: “The opposition wants to show that Karachi does not belong to the MQM. We have accepted the challenge.’’[/quote]
says all.
could you provide the URL?
14 May 2007
The Daily Telegraph
001
English
(c) 2007 Telegraph Group Limited, London
THE MAN in charge of Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, was at his usual command-and-control post at the weekend: a sofa in north London.
As his fiefdom descended into brutal violence, with the deaths of at least 40 people reported amid the worst political bloodshed Pakistan has witnessed in years, Altaf Hussain directed his followers by telephone from a safe place more than 5,000 miles away.
His headquarters, or “international secretariat”, is not in the Pakistani port city but housed in a red-brick office block opposite a supermarket on Edgware High Street.
Followers of Mr Hussain, 53, whose Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) is allied to President Pervez Musharraf’s government, were accused yesterday of playing a bloody part in the clashes with opposition supporters.
But in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Hussain insisted that they held a “completely peaceful gathering” and that it was opposition supporters who provoked the violence, in which at least nine MQM activists were killed. When reports of the killings
reached Edgware on Saturday morning, Mr Hussain was preparing to address the party by telephone. Three hours later, he defied what he called “agitators” by leaning over the loudspeaker of his phone to speak to his supporters.
Opposition activists loyal to Benazir Bhutto were staging their own anti-government rally when the violence began.
But Mr Hussain said: “It was a completely peaceful gathering by MQM supporters that was targeted by a collaboration of three other parties.”
He said he had called for peace. But as tens of thousands of his followers sat cross-legged in reverential silence as they listened to their leader’s telephonic address relayed by loudspeakers, in another street armed MQM activists fired directly into the crowds of opposition protesters.
Mr Hussain, who founded the MQM in 1984 specifically to represent the Mohajirs – Muslim refugees from India – has lived in Britian since arriving in 1992 for a kidney operation. He has since become a British citizen, while his party governs five cities and the populous Sindh province.
He claimed yesterday that his party is the only force to stand up for secular values in Pakistan. “MQM is the only party against all sorts of religious fanaticism in Pakistan,” he said. “It is these groups and their influence, which is all around, that is stopping me coming home. A sizeable majority of the army even have been brainwashed to supporting what the Taliban wants to impose.”
Mr Hussain, who spent part of yesterday speaking on the telephone to Gen Musharraf, warned Pakistan’s leader not to make any deals with exiled leaders, such as his rival Miss Bhutto, that would see the military ruler resign from the army.
Pakistan faces a referendum on Gen Musharraf’s rule before the end of the year and he has promised to abandon his uniform before the poll.
“The situation in South Asia does not allow Pervez Musharraf to take off his uniform, for without it he will have no power at all. Because of activities next door in Afghanistan as well as our own country, the Taliban is growing very strong,” Mr Hussain said.
“He is doing his level best to fight these groups. Musharraf is a very brave man. Only he can prevent the Talibanisation of Pakistan.”
Unlike the former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Miss Bhutto, Mr Hussain is an exile whose party has consolidated its grip. But Karachi remains tense.
The MQM’s most senior leader in Pakistan, Farooq Sattar, said: “The opposition wants to show that Karachi does not belong to the MQM. We have accepted the challenge.”
Mr Hussain is one of the Indian subcontinent’s more unusual leaders. His political addresses by telephone have been known to last up to four hours, while a Western diplomat in Pakistan described the MQM as “something out of Chicago – nobody leaves the party”.
While Mr Hussain promotes the party as a secular cause and courts the middle-class vote, some of his supporters are known to extort a goonda, or thug, tax from Karachi businesses.
Mr Hussain, who once drove a taxi in Chicago for a living, micro-manages the MQM with acute attention to detail.
The movement runs on Greenwich Mean Time with some of his ministers in Pakistan fielding hour-long telephone calls into the early hours.
Mr Sattar admitted that his party’s image had been tarnished by “accusations of fascism and terrorism” but said this was a “misperception”.
Some observers argue that in the tough city of Karachi the MQM has given a vulnerable group protection and a voice.
After Mr Hussain left Pakistan, an army operation was launched against his party during which hundreds of its workers were either killed by police or were arrested on charges of terrorism. He has no plans to return to Pakistan.
When asked why Mr Hussain was not deported to Pakistan before he was granted citizenship, a British diplomat said: “He has not committed a crime on British soil.”
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More Like This
LONDON LEADER: DON’T BLAME ME FOR PAKISTAN DEATHS; AMAR SINGH
190 words
14 May 2007
The Evening Standard
22
English
(c) 2007 Associated Newspapers. All rights reserved
THE London-based leader of a Pakistani political party today denied his group had provoked violence in Karachi in which 40 people died.
Altaf Hussain, 53, founder of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, spoke as shops in Pakistan’s biggest city were closed and streets empty in the wake of this weekend’s violence, which also left about 150 wounded.
The unrest was triggered by the suspension of Pakistan’s most senior judge, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, by the president, General Pervez Musharraf, who is facing a referendum on his rule.
The sacking became a focus for protesters trying to end military rule, and the judge had been due in Karachi as opposition groups organised rallies. The MQM backs General Mu-sharraf and the opposition ac-cuses it of starting the violence.
But Mr Hussain, who runs the party from Edgware High Street, said: ‘It was a completely peaceful gathering by MQM supporters targeted by a collaboration of three other parties.’ Mr Hussain, whose party runs Sind province, has lived in Britain since 1992 and is now a UK citizen.
News: International:
Musharraf’s power is fading as violent gangs roam the streets
By Isambard Wilkinson in Karachi
448 words
14 May 2007
The Daily Telegraph
016
English
(c) 2007 Telegraph Group Limited, London
PAKISTAN’S president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, was facing a political crisis last night after violence claimed the lives of at least 40 people when pro-government militants opened fire on an opposition rally at the weekend.
Running gun-battles erupted on the streets of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, on Saturday when armed activists from the city’s ruling party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a coalition ally of Gen Musharraf, blocked an anti-government rally.
Pro-government and opposition groups blamed each other yesterday for the worst political violence in Pakistan for years as at least three more people were killed and riots and looting spread.
Troop reinforcements were despatched to Karachi and the provincial governor ordered paramilitary forces to shoot any “miscreants” on sight.
It was the bloodiest episode in a two-month-long challenge by lawyers and opposition parties to an attempt by the military ruler to sack Pakistan’s chief justice.
The MQM, on the orders of its leader Altaf Hussain, staged a “counter rally” to coincide with a visit to Karachi by the suspended chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who has defied the president’s demands for his resignation.
As several opposition rallies got under way, armed activists from the MQM opened fire on protesters.
Dead bodies were left where they fell for hours in Karachi’s humid streets.
In the city’s Jinnah Hospital yesterday, Adil Bashir, 23, was recovering from three bullet wounds after narrowly escaping a street execution.
He said he had not taken part in the rally but was rounded up by armed, teenage MQM activists along with four others. He alleged that he and others were lined up against a wall before being sprayed with automatic gunfire. He and one other survived.
Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for the opposition Pakistan Peoples’ Party, said: “We condemn this mayhem and we believe that the MQM could not have done it without the active support of General Pervez Musharraf.”
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch accused the Pakistan government of “fomenting the violence”.
The actions of the MQM may have been not so much a sign of support for the eight-year rule Gen Musharraf, but a demonstration of its own power in what could be the first round of a new turf war in Karachi.
Gen Musharraf’s options are becoming more and more limited as he struggles to have himself re-elected and to continue as army chief.
His bargaining position for striking a possible power-sharing deal with the PPP leader, Benazir Bhutto, appears to be growing weaker.
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Pakistan Islamist demands extradition of political leader from UK
527 words
14 May 2007
06:22
BBC Monitoring South Asia
English
(c) 2007 The British Broadcasting Corporation. All Rights Reserved. No material may be reproduced except with the express permission of The British Broadcasting Corporation.
Text of report by Pakistani newspaper The News website on 14 May
[Report by Muhammad Anis: “Qazi demands Altaf’s extradition from UK”]
ISLAMABAD: Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal President Qazi Hussain Ahmad on Sunday demanded extradition of Muttahida chief Altaf Hussain from England.
“The Pakistan government should demand extradition of Altaf Hussain from the UK government for his involvement in killings of innocent people in Karachi,” Qazi said while addressing a public meeting here at Karachi Company (G-9 Markaz) held in connection with observance of a black day against the May 12 Karachi bloodshed.
MNA Mian Muhammad Aslam, MPA Dr Waqas, Jamaat-e-Islami Islamabad chief Syed Muhammad Bilal and other leaders also addressed the public meeting.
The protest programmes, including rallies and demonstrations, were also held in other parts of the country to mark the black day.
Qazi said Pakistan and the UK governments had signed an extradition treaty for extradition of persons wanted in terrorism and heinous crimes from other’s country.
“Altaf Hussain’s extradition should be demanded under the same agreement,” he said, adding that the Muttahida was not a political party; rather, it was a group prospering under the patronage of a dictator.
The MMA president, however, said the Musharraf government would not do so, as both General Musharraf and Altaf Hussain are following the same agenda of making Pakistan a secular country and dividing people on linguistic and sectarian basis.
He said the whole nation was shocked over what had happened in Karachi on Saturday, saying that the blood of dozens of innocent people was shed under a planned conspiracy.
“Both Musharraf and the Muttahida are breathing their last and the nation will soon get rid of them,” Qazi said, adding the policies of the government were taking the country towards anarchy to find a reason for imposition of emergency in the country.
“Any emergency or martial law is not the solution to the crisis in the country; rather, it can be done only with the supremacy of Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan,” he said.
Qazi said the opposition parties would continue their struggle against President Musharraf. He said the whole nation would observe a complete shutter-down today (Monday) against the killing of innocent people in Karachi.
Later, Mian Muhammad Aslam led a rally of MMA activists to all shopping areas of the city to ask traders to fully observe shutter-down today.
Nisar Mahmood adds from Peshawar: MMA President Qazi Hussain Ahmad on Sunday held the federal government and Muttahida Qaumi Movement responsible for the Karachi carnage and called for removal of the regime.
After Karachi bloodshed, there is no justification for the president and federal cabinet to remain in office, he said.
The joint opposition, comprising the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement, Awami National Party, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, had agreed in principle to observe a strike today against the killing of innocent people, Qazi said while addressing a news conference here.
Folks tell me there were times in pre 86 karachi when one could stand in a place like laaloo khait or paaposh nagar at 3 in the morning with friends chatting and not worry about safety. I ask what has MQM given this city in the last 20 years?
Here is an almost classic, pertinent poem from Obaidullah Aleem written for an other dark chapter in our history. It hurts to write that this applies to karachi as well of any day in the last 20 years.
Main ye kis ke naam likhoon jo alamm guzar rahay hain
Mere shehar jal rahay hain,mere log marr rahay hain
Koi guncha ho ke gul ho,koi shaakh ho shajar ho
Wo hawaa-e-gulistaan hai ke sabhi bikhar rahay hain
Kabhi rehmatain thi nazil issi khita-e-zamee’n par
Wohi khitta-e-zamee’n hai ke azaab utar rahay hain
Wohi taairo’n ke jhurmut jo hawa main jhooltay thay
Wo fizaa ko dekhtay hain to ab aah bhar rahay hain
Bari aarzoo thi humko naye khaab dekhnay ki
So ab apni zindagi main naye khaab bhar rahay hain
KOI aur to Nahi hai pass-e-khanjar aazmaai
HAMEE QATAL KAR RAHAY HAIN,HAMEE QATAL HORAHAY HAIN!!!!!!
Prof. Najam, saw your excelent essay on 5/12 posted on Naseeb Vibes, but not here. why?
http://www.naseeb.com/naseebvibes/
How true is Abdul Qadir Hasan!!
tinyurl.com/yuw4z7
If Karachi really belonged to MQM then they would have trust their awam and wouldnt have create Obstacles for Chief. The demonstrtion by MQM clearly shows that they are not popular in Awam. very true!