Cowasjee on Hammad Raza's murder by the government, Musharraf's rambling, nonsensical interview with Talat Hussain on AAJ where he revealed his ridiculous view of May 12th.
in essence, he said Karachi is MQM's and if you take out a rally in an MQM area, they will resort to violence. so the president of Pakistan's prescription for upholding law and order - don't offend the delicate sensibilities of MQM. this is brilliant - arrest the murder victim because he had the gall to offend the murderer and therefore, be murdered. and this man heads our country and is perceived to be the last hope by many!!!
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The centre of gravity
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
link:
http://dawn.com/weekly/cowas/20070527.htm
“I, Shabana Hammad Raza, widow of Syed Hammad Raza, do hereby state that on 14-5-07 at about 4:15 a.m. I, along with my husband and three kids, were sleeping in the bedroom situated in the upper storey of our official residence.
I and my husband woke up hearing banging on the door of the bedroom. I thought that my father-in-law was in need of some medical attention and was knocking at the door. My husband opened the door.
“As soon as he opened the door, I saw four people armed, standing at the door. One of them fired directly at my husband which hit him on his head. He fell down on the floor. The intruders ran downstairs and rushed out of the residence. During this incident, neither my husband offered any resistance to the intruders nor did the intruders demand anything from myself or my husband. I can recognise the criminals.”
This is a statement, written by the young widow in her own hand, given to the Lahore police shortly after her husband’s body had been taken to that city to be buried.
Young Hammad was shot at point blank range, shot to kill, the killer and his companions obviously having no other motive for their visit than to kill.
Judicial inquiries, police inquiries and any other sort of inquiries can be held, ad nauseam, but as with all such matters, we will never know the identity of the man who pulled the trigger or those who ordered him to do so, or the reason for which this young bureaucrat had his life taken away. (Acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas has ordered that Hammad’s family be given suitable compensation, monetary and otherwise. This is fair and just, but then no amount of money can compensate for a life.)
The murder of a prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, over half a century ago, remains unsolved, as does the assassination of Hayat Sherpao, of Murtaza Bhutto and many other Pakistanis who have paid with their lives for the selfish and wicked aims of their contemporaries in power.
However, in all cases, as in this particular one, it must be the man (or woman) at the top, who holds the national reins, at whose door the buck stops, who must bear the responsibility for the loss of life, limb and property, whether he or she be privy to the actual plan and action or not.
President General Pervez Musharraf, now being the holder of ultimate power in this Republic of Pakistan, is responsible for Hammad’s untimely and useless death.
As he is responsible for the general state of the nation today, for the judicial-legal crisis, for the happenings in Karachi on May 12, for not being able or willing to follow the diktat of a man he professes to admire and ensure that what Mohammad Ali Jinnah desired for the country he created came to pass – that religion would not be the business of the state.
Had he done so, it may be that we would have had far less bloodshed, that there would have been far less ethnic and sectarian strife, and that millions of innocents would not still be subjected to the iniquities of the Hadood and Blasphemy laws, and such other laws that are made on the premise of false religious practices.
The general, now more than ever before in his lengthy stewardship of this country, needs to sit back and calmly take stock of how and why it is that he finds himself in the bind in which he now is,
rather than rushing in, commando-style, and making statements which are found to be so outlandish as to merit multiple comments in our press and electronic media (the channels available grow by the day – and congratulations to the Dawn group on the emergence of their news channel).
Musharraf has been a soldier for most of his life. He joined the Pakistan Military Academy in 1961(PMA-29), graduating in 1964 (PA-6920), and has worn his uniform for 46 long years. So there is no reason not to believe him when he said the other day that his uniform was like a second skin to him. It should be, but then, chameleon-like, he must have no doubt that one day – perhaps one day soon – circumstances will force him to shed it, leaving him with but his one original skin.
One positive sign came in his recent interview with The Globe and Mail (Canada) which was published in our press last week. When asked if he believed that extremism and terrorism could only be defeated with him at the helm of affairs,
he admitted that nobody was indispensable. According to him, parliament is functioning and “there is an automatic system of throwing up leaders.”
He was disappointing on the question of Karachi and May 12.
It is his rather strange view that the MQM has some sort of monopoly on our city. Why should anyone (meaning the Chief Justice of Pakistan and his legal team) he asked, go to Karachi “to fan trouble” when there was “a show of force by the MQM” who are able to get hundreds and thousands of people out on the streets? Secondly, he seemed puzzled as to why Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was reluctant to accept the government hospitality offered to him – that should have been perfectly understandable.
As to his involvement in the day’s disaster, he pleaded complete innocence. “I don’t know who initiated the firing. Who did the firing is the question…. But the political response was a natural one. If they [the MQM] had not done it, these people [the CJP and lawyers] with all their supporters were going to go all over Karachi…. So therefore a reaction by the MQM…. to cast aspersions, this is exactly what the opposition wants to do…. And I would like to blame the opposition for politicising this whole dispute and I would like to blame these people who went in spite of the fact that Karachi is the stronghold of the MQM....”.
This is not good enough, it makes no sense, he is wrong. Is this a democracy only in name – we have according to the general, “the essence of democracy”? As such, there can be no such thing as no-go areas, no cities which are strongholds into which political rivals or others may not tread.
One complaint made by Gen Musharraf to his interviewer was that “they” think he is “the centre of gravity” and that by destabilising him “they” think they can achieve their goals. The fact is that he is the centre of gravity, but the problem is that if he is destabilized, none of us may achieve our goals as what may follow him is unknown and could be dangerous as far as achieving any goals are concerned.
With the destabilisation that continues in the country since early this year – what with the NWFP, Balochistan after Bugti, the Lal Masjid scenario in the heart of the capital city, the lawyers on the rampage, the judicial system preoccupied, the Karachi situation volatile and prone to implosion again with the MQM-Pathan stand-off. Our international well-wishers and supporters are agonizingly examining a post-Musharraf Pakistan. Though undoubtedly the sole superpower has a Plan B stashed away for us.
However, all is not lost. It is doubtful that this present imbroglio, as complicated as it may be, will be the downfall of our president general, and after all we could have done much worse than have him arranging or disarranging our lives.
To quote from The Economist of May 17, and its lengthy article on Pakistan aptly titled ‘A general state of disarray’ :
“Such has been the political cycle in Pakistan: bad democratic government, yielding to unpopular military government and then to democratic messiness again. It is unclear whether the wheel is about to turn on General Musharraf's rule. But it is a good moment to judge it.
“Many of the general's prescriptions have been excellent. In the management of the economy he has trusted sensible technocrats, including Mr Aziz. They have been blessed with an inheritance of liberal reforms and, above all, by booming capital inflows, not only from America. Yet they can take credit for strong economic growth, predicted to be seven per cent this year.
“In foreign relations, too, right-minded policies have borne fruit. In the past three years Pakistan's relations with India have been transformed from semi-war to almost-peace. A final settlement of the two countries' problems, and above all, the divided region of Kashmir, remains elusive; the rivals' demands are simply incompatible. Yet General Musharraf has perhaps done more than any leader in either country to nudge them into line.”
