President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on Saturday. It has now been announced at PTV. The emergency decision comes ahead of a crucial Supreme Court decision on whether to overturn his recent election win.
The news caster at PTV didn’t give any reasons for emergency but read the following text:
The chief of army staff has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued a provisional constitutional order.
Earlier, Pakistan’s private TV channels had suddenly gone off-air amid speculations that emergency was going to be imposed.
An earlier Reuters report which was among the first to break the news read:
Private television channels Geo News and Dawn News both ran reports quoting unnamed sources as saying the government had made its decision. Speculation has been rife that Musharraf, who is awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on whether he was eligible to run for re-election last month while still army chief, might impose emergency rule or martial law
This has not been the first time that government thought about imposing emergency. The idea has been flirted with from time to time. Rumors kept appearing from time to time from as early as August 8, 2007. We also had a post on this topic then.
According to CNN:
The Supreme Court has declared the state of emergency illegal, claiming Musharraf had no power to suspend the constitution, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry told CNN.
People were already sensing something was about to happen when Benazir suddenly left the country two days ago without even going to other provinces of the country except Sindh. It may be true that she indeed left Pakistan to be with her ailing mother but it never stops people from speculating. Also the earlier news where Government circles were advising Benazir not to come to Pakistan before Supreme Court decision now seem to put missing links to a continuum.
According to Washington Post news:
The United States had tried to pressure Musharraf on Friday to avoid declaring emergency rule or martial law. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday sent a warning to Musharraf not to take authoritarian measures to hold on to power. “I think it would be quite obvious that the United States would not be supportive of extra-constitutional means,” Rice said. “Pakistan needs to prepare for and hold free and fair elections.” That message was followed by a previously scheduled meeting between Musharraf and Adm. William J. Fallon, chief of the U.S. Central Command.
Complete text of emergency declaration can be read here
Editorial, The News, Nov. 6, 2007
US role & reaction
The United States is in a real soup after the second Musharraf coup against his own self. Statements of top US leaders betray a sense of helplessness in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has come out strongly demanding that Musharraf should quit his army post and Pakistan should move towards elections under the constitution. She also said America would review its aid package to Pakistan and implicitly, but belatedly, also admitted to a serious US policy flaw in relying too much on Musharraf which Washington has been doing for the past six years. Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Monday asked Musharraf to return his country to a law-based, constitutional and democratic rule as soon as possible saying that the state of emergency and suspension of the constitution was a disturbing development. A White House spokesman chipped in, saying that the move was unfortunate. The defence secretary further said that the US was reviewing all assistance programmes and the Pentagon also later said that it was suspending its annual defence talks in Islamabad scheduled to begin today. Influential US senators have been talking even tougher. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Senator Joe Biden, has been severely critical of the Bush administration’s “Musharraf policy” saying that this is why Washington’s options are now limited. He also said that he would be pushing the US president for a review of the relationship to make it focus on channelling aid to help moderates in Pakistan.
Another influential member of the US Senate, Republican Senator Arlen Specter said he would not support American aid to Pakistan with the new development since these were against the cause of democracy. The senator said that America needed to get “very tough with the dictator”. It should be remembered that these are not empty words, because those who have spoken them do have the power to influence policymaking in America. Many US think-tanks and analysts had been for days cautioning the Bush administration of the consequences of a policy that relied too much on a dictator who was fast losing popularity and his grip on power — and their warnings have now become reality. A change in US policy is thus very much on the cards, especially when one considers that both houses of Congress are controlled by the Democrats, who have been at odds with President Bush over his handling of the war on terror and specifically Pakistan. Besides, many Americans will question the sending of billions of taxpayer dollars to prop a military dictator who has ravaged the constitution and trampled on human rights and the press in his own country. It would be fair to say that Washington’s continued display of support for General Musharraf is crucial to his survival. The nature of the emergency — which is nothing more nor less than a severe martial law — is such that this support may well be coming to an end.
The US is only worried about the war on terror and the 24,000 US troops next to the troubled Pakistani tribal areas. If Washington gets assurances from Pakistani power brokers and stakeholders that its interests will be watched, personalities may no longer be of interest to it. Right or wrong, the US has acquired a balancing role in Pakistan’s domestic power games. It is time now that it stood on the side of democracy and stopped working with an autocrat whose only objective seems to be to preserve his own rule at any cost, regardless of what happens to his country and its people.
Editorial, The News, Nov 6, 2007
Filling the jails
The country’s jails are fast filling up as ever greater numbers of miscreants and extremists, dangerous men and women all, arrive at their gates. They come by the van-load, bumped and bruised, battered and beaten, having been detained after being caught red-handed in the act of committing a felony — a felony usually taking the form of standing in the road and waving a banner or, at the more serious end of the spectrum, shouting a slogan. This includes hundreds of lawyers who have been brutally beaten and arrested nationwide as well as members of civil society voicing their protest against the whims of one man bent on pushing the country to ruin. Some of those newly sampling life in jail have clearly crossed the boundary into out-and-out terrorism — they have declared themselves to be politicians, no less, and have been duly carried off to await an uncertain fate.
Curiously, none of these dangers to the security of the nation appear to have been — at the time of their arrest or detention — in possession of anything more lethal than a fine legal mind, a couple of ball-pens and some hastily scribbled notes. Some of them come equipped with the kind of intellect that can stop a man dead in his tracks at a hundred meters. Others possess yet more dangerous weaponry — they have the ability to string half-a-dozen words together coherently whilst at the same time holding several conflicting ideas in their head at the same time — self-evidently, they are all individuals likely to shake the pillars of society to their foundations. Which is why they are being locked up
Hear CJP addressign lawyers’ rally:
http://free-pakistan.blogspot.com/2007/11/chief-ju stice-iftikhar-muhammad.html
if emergency is really such a horrible thing, why dont people just move out into the street and take on the establishment. i know it is not as simple as it sounds. for the common, poor and the powerless even ‘normalcy’ is indeed an emergency. and this holds true for any country in south Asia. if anything, imposing emergency only shows that the balancing act of keeping the vested interests satisfied has gone wrong. after all the tradition of dictatorship has been far more stronger than democracy.
sorry to say but sentiments like “Can we find a single Gentleman to lead this nation out of chaos, into a stable, better future ?” ,only serve to strengthen the cult of dictators. unless people take up the task of cultivating democratic culture within the society itself, the scourge of dictatorship would never go. we the people of south Asia tend to indulge more in hero-worship than nourish institutions.
off course, i feel sorry for the people of Pakistan.
Bush admin asking Musy to take off his wardi,
The Americans have no shame asking a Gentleman
General to take off his clothes, as if he would be hidding
AMD under his………. and thats too, asked by a Lady
spokeswoman, For God’s sake have some respect, are
you Americans so frustrated ? Striptease is really your
CULTURE.