The Emergency Times 38

The Emergency Times Feb 4th, 2007 1
Please Photocopy and Distribute Issue 38
The Emergency Times
Quote of the Day

“The moral arc of the Universe bends at the elbow of Justice.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Suicide Bomb in Rawalpindi kills six

(Courtesy DAWN)
RAWALPINDI, Feb 4 (Agencies): A suicide bomber on a motorcycle rammed into a bus carrying defence forces personnel, detonating
a blast Monday that killed six people and wounded 30 others in Rawalpindi's R.A.Bazar area, police said. The bomb went off during
the morning rush hour outside the army's National Logistics Cell, where the army has its headquarters. The bus was destroyed and
several people wounded in the explosion, police official Abdul Waheed said. Several vehicles were badly damaged. An eye witness
said a bus carrying army medical trainees had been targeted. He said about 25 people had been injured. Television footage showed the
mangled wreckage of the vehicle, which troops later covered with a white tent.
Kurd re-arrested in Quetta

Ali Ahmed Kurd, a leading figure in the lawyers’ movement, was re-arrested on Monday after being freed from 3 months of
detainment without charge. He was arrested as he attempted to leave Quetta to address lawyers in Lahore. “The rulers are scared that I
will create problems for them and under this fear they have again detained me. This detention is illegal,” Kurd said. “Our struggle for
the independence of judiciary will continue and such steps cannot deter us,” he said.
Punjab College doles out meager apology to SAC

Today as a disappointing conclusion to the battle for justice between the Students Action Committee (Lahore) representatives and the
Punjab College establishment, a negotiation was held at the Muslim Town police station.
Mediated by SP Mansoor Haq, the two sides had a face off with five on each panel. The victims were represented by Azhar Siddique,
Punjab Bar Council Media Advisor; Firdous Butt, Vice President High court Bar; Advocate Irshad, VP Lahore Bar; Saeeda Diep and
Usman Gill, the latter two involved with the earlier altercations.
Punjab College had on their panel: Principal Agha Tahir, Vice President Naveed, Prof. Jameel, Prof. Farooq (Advocate), and Prof.
Rasheed. According to the SAC representatives who had been assaulted earlier, all five of the Punjab College personnel present in the
panel had been present at the time of the beating and some had been physically involved in the assault itself.
Without pushing for the filing of an FIR on the behalf of the teachers and students calculatedly beaten up, the SP focused for a low
key, almost negligible result of a verbal apology.
For the SAC, settling for such a trifling recourse is not a matter of few resources but the futility of pursuing the matter in courts where
justice is hard to find, where justices are behind bars with the support of the present judicial system.
When District Nazims and caretaker cabinet Ministers have the might to unleash brute directives, the authenticity of the current
regime and its components is obviously brought into question.
The question is, if the current judicial system was impartial or non partisan, would SAC representatives, only armed with words, have
to walk away with mere apologies instead of just legal recourse?
Disclaimer: This publication is not affiliated with or does not endorse any political party or social group.
It is a humble effort to inspire and make aware- for we together can make a difference in these
troubled times.
Write to us at theemergencytimes@gmail.com. Our online version is on
pakistanmartiallaw.blogspot.com
Pakistan’s Forgotten Man
Aitzaz Ahsan
(Courtesy Newsweek)
If we lock up our judges and subvert the law, those who believe in a more brutal kind of justice will triumph.
In the past months, as the crisis in Pakistan has worsened, key figures in the Bush administration, including Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, have spoken out about the need for free and fair elections and have condemned extremism. Yet they've continued
through-out to support the man who poll after poll show to be the least popular public figure in Pakistan, less so even than Osama bin
Laden: President Pervez Musharraf. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte went so far as to call Musharraf an "indispensable
ally" just days after the general declared de facto martial law and suspended Pakistan's Constitution.
All the while, U.S. officials have ignored a man who lives a mere stone's throw from Musharraf. This man's exclusion might seem
understandable: barbed wire surrounds his home, the phone lines are cut and the gate is padlocked from the outside. Yet he is no
dangerous criminal. Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is the chief justice of Pakistan. He's also one of the most popular figures in the
country, according to recent polls, and its best hope for returning to a democratic path.
Chaudhry was an unlikely figure to become public enemy No. 1. He was appointed chief justice in June 2005 by Musharraf himself.
Once on the bench, though Chaudhry proved independent, he was no iconoclast. Yet he acted in ways that made Pakistan's powerful
elites nervous. He expanded the jurisdiction of his court in the domain of human rights, refusing to tolerate police abuses. He reached
out to victims of forced marriages and Pakistan's unjust rape laws. He blocked a number of land developments that would have
harmed the environment. And in the process, he made some powerful enemies: many of the developers he stymied were Musharraf
cronies or Army officers.
The chief justice made himself even more unpopular in 2006 when he began to probe into a growing scandal over missing persons. In
the years since September 11, Pakistan had suffered a disturbing number of forced disappearances, as individuals were yanked off the
streets, allegedly by security personnel. As the number of victims grew, mothers, wives and daughters of the disappeared began to
picket the Supreme Court. Finally the justices took notice and in 2006, after several hearings and much prodding by the court, some
200 missing people were released from custody. Musharraf was reportedly angry with the move and told the Americans that Chaudhry
had ordered the release of 60 terrorists arrested during the Red Mosque crackdown. In fact, it was three other justices, none of whom
were fired, who had released those captives; Chaudhry wasn't even involved in that decision.
It was probably the matter of Musharraf's own future that sealed Chaudhry's fate. Late last year Musharraf began to worry that if the
chief justice insisted on following the letter of the law, Musharraf would be barred from running for another term as president (since
the Constitution disqualifies anyone in uniform from standing for the office, and Musharraf was still head of the Army). To prevent
any objections, on Nov. 3 Musharraf fired the Supreme Court judges, had them arrested and also detained the attorney pleading the
case against him: me.
This was not the first time Musharraf had moved against the chief justice. He had first ordered him to resign in March 2007, and when
Chaudhry refused, had removed and detained him, though the justice was unanimously reinstated by 13 members of his own bench in
July.It was Chaudhry's campaign to get back onto the court that turned him into a national hero. After he was sacked, bar associations
across the country invited him to speak. As he traveled the country, millions came out to receive him. Wherever he went, men, women
and children poured out to cheer him on for having defied the increasingly unpopular general. Showing solidarity became a way to
denounce the president. Ordinary citizens cheered Chaudhry with defiance in their eyes. I know—for I was his driver during this tour.
Chaudhry's brave stance soon won him accolades around the world: Harvard Law School gave him its highest award, the Medal of
Freedom, and the New York City Bar Association made him a rare honorary member.
troubled times.
Yet U.S. officials remain unmoved, despite a letter Chaudhry sent to Western leaders last week protesting his treatment. Blind to the
overwhelming support Chaudhry enjoys at home and abroad, Washington continues to pay lip service to the need for an independent
judiciary in Pakistan while doing nothing to support one. This strategy is dangerously shortsighted. The United States has every reason
to worry about terrorism and instability in Pakistan. But allowing Musharraf to continue arresting judges and peaceful protesters will
only strengthen the terrorists' hand. If we lock up our judges and subvert the legal process, then those who believe in a more brutal
kind of justice will triumph. It's therefore high time to take a stand. From now on no dignitary should visit the president on his hill
without making it a point to inquire about the prisoner on the hill nearby. Due process and democratic principles demand nothing less.
Ahsan, a former minister for law, justice and the interior in Pakistan, is currently president of the Supreme Court Bar Association. He
has been detained without charge since Nov. 3.
Report on Arif Hasan Talk organized by People’s Resistance
By Qasim A. Moin
(Courtesy DAWN)
KARACHI, Feb 3: Discussing the major changes that have shaped Pakistan since independence, renowned architect and urban planner
Arif Hasan criticised President Musharraf's devolution of power plan, initiated in 2001, saying that it had largely failed and had
handed power back to the old elites.
He was speaking at a lecture titled 'Urbanisation, politics, public and national interests,' held at the office of an NGO here on Sunday.
"Civil society organisations – in their romanticism – had opted for this," he said, referring to the devolution plan in his highly
informative speech, which was punctuated with statistics and interesting personal anecdotes. "But I had my reservations." He claimed
the devolution of power initiative had given too much money and power to the district governments, with no proper checks in place
from the central bureaucracy. "The result is the citizen has to go grovelling to the nazim to get his job done."
Mr Hasan said one of the few good things witnessed during the Ziaul Haq era was the entry of traders and entrepreneurs at the level of
local politics, whereas today power was back in the hands of the feudals and other traditional wielders of authority.
Along with devolution, the six other major factors that he reckoned had shaped the country since partition were the constitution of pre-
partition society, the migration from India, Ayub Khan's 'Green Revolution,' urbanization, the Zia era and globalization.
Mr Hasan intricately wove all the factors together and ably described their inter-connectedness, which was responsible for the present
chaos. He said at the time of partition, the major identifier in society was caste affiliation, while society was managed by panchayats,
though this system was not uniform,
Describing the massive migration from India at partition, he quoted a study which says that in the early 1950s, 48 per cent of the urban
population in Pakistan said that they had come from India. "This caused huge urbanization, whereby the population in some cities
increased by 100 per cent. The Hindu traders left while poor, rural Muslims came in. However in the NWFP and Balochistan, de-
urbanization was witnessed as there was no one to replace the Hindu middle class," said Arif Hasan.
"The old relationship between the caste and the mohalla disappeared and the old values were replaced by a fiercely upwardly mobile
culture. We moved from being a multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society into a uni-religious one trying to become uni-
lingual," he said.
The Green Revolution, which was initiated in the late '50s but it took off and experienced incredible growth in the '60s, changed rural
society, he said. "Before this, the feudal order financed agriculture and also worked with the establishment. With the Green
Revolution, new people came into the scenario, such as salesmen, mechanics, etc. Small farms were bought up by larger farmers. This
changed the position of the feudals, as the banks and informal sector became the financiers. Cash changed everything. However, the
feudals continued to control the politics of the country," observed Mr Hasan.
He said the old system functioned on the basis of clan and tribal affiliations; but the introduction of cash weakened this system. The
panchayat and jirga were challenged for the first time.
"Industrialisation in the Ayub era also increased urbanization. Subsistence fishing was replaced by commercial fishing; traditional
fishermen had to take loans to keep up. The same happened in the carpet industry. We moved towards a capitalist system without the
proper infrastructure," he added.
He said that though there was currently a major construction boom in the country, there was not enough qualified manpower, such as
surveyors or equipment operators, to fill these jobs.
"The institutes to train these people do not exist. They have nearly all learnt through the shagirdi system; the polytechnics have no
troubled times.
money and have obsolete equipment. We have abandoned middle level education, such as technical colleges. Thus, our universities are
castles built on sand," he said.
Changing values
Arif Hasan said that the increase in the number of working women was fuelling immense social change, altering the attitudes of how
the relationship between men and women was viewed. He cited a recent survey, which studied the way young couples use public
spaces as rendezvous, and said that out of 100 couples surveyed, only 28 were married. "There is a need for new societal values; most
people are quite modern but fear tradition," he said.
Coming to the policies of the Zia era and their repercussions today, he said these policies consolidated the religious establishment.
Apart from the growing presence of religion in the public sphere, he said Gen Zia's policies "stifled the universities and killed off the
youths as extra-curricula activities were banned. The custodians of the religious establishment became the guardians of morality."
This was also the time, he said, when the westernised elite stepped out of public life and built their own world, which resulted in
ghettoisation. "People turned to ethnic and clan organisations" due to the political vacuum, he added. "The Zia era coincided with the
period of urban consolidation in Pakistan."
As for globalization, he said we had failed to capitalize on the phenomenon and resultantly, Pakistan had turned into an under-
developed country from once being a mid-level developing country.
The lecture was organised by the People's Resistance and the Green Economics and Globalisation Initiative in the Shirkat Gah's office.
Verging on Delusions: Inside the Mind of a Dictator
Dr Murad Moosa Khan
Delusion: a firm, fixed belief held with great conviction despite evidence to the contrary. Delusion is a symptom of psychosis- mental
disorders in which a person loses contact with reality.
In the last eight years of misrule this country has been subjected to, two pictures stand out for me. In August 1999 soon after the
Nawaz Sharif government was overthrown, Brig. Rashid Qureishi, the spokesman for the military government came on television and
declared 'We don't want sham democracy, we want real democracy. We want a government that is of the people, by the people, for the
people'. I found it surreal for a man in military uniform using Abraham Lincoln's (without even acknowledging him) hallowed words
and having no qualms about it.
The second picture is of an interview a few weeks ago. Mushahid Hussain, secretary general of PML (Q) was asked whether General
Musharraf would give up his uniform. "Yes, he would", he said, adding "General Musharraf looks dashing in uniform and Mr.
Musharraf would look dashing in a designer suit".
Although eight years apart the two statements give us an insight of how the minds of dictators and those around him, work. It is
important to understand this if we are to break out of this impasse and save the sinking ship of this country.
Today, millions of Pakistanis live in abject poverty teasing out a living for mere existence. Millions are unemployed or
underemployed. Millions remain without health care and education. Millions are subjected to the indignity of being treated in
government hospitals. They have no security. They have no laws to protect them. Where there are laws it is only to protect the rich and
powerful.
In many parts of the country, people are selling their kidneys to pay off their debts. Millions suffer the daily humiliation of hanging
from buses to get to work. Millions live and breathe the air whilst surrounded by filth, garbage and overflowing gutters.
What goes through the mind of dictators and the people who hold the real power in Pakistan, as they see the abysmal state of affairs?
Quite clearly they see the situation very differently from the way the man in street sees it. From their perspective, the existence of the
country is being severely threatened (which everyone sees too) but they feel they are the only ones who know how to save it. They see
the politicians as tried and failed, corrupt, greedy people who only have lust for wealth and power. They have examples of Nawaz
Sharif and Benazir's experiments in front of them and that feeds their way of thinking.
troubled times.
What are we to make of our rulers who tell us that only they know what is good for the country? That the rest of us- academicians,
economists, scholars, lawyers, judges, doctors, engineers, teachers, students, retired senior military officers and other members of the
civil society are ignorant mortals who know nothing about the dangers facing this country or how to tackle them? That democracy is
not good for us? That they know how much the people love them? And that they will know when the time is right for them to step
down?
Or is it that they are suffering from delusions?
A dictator's thinking is severely restricted and he suffers from selective listening. He has a very narrow vision. He cannot live with
dissent. Dictators tend to be liberal as long as you agree with them. Any serious opposition and they crush it, never mind the
democratic intent. They do not trust anyone beyond a small close group of people who feed them only with the information they want
to hear. Their whole perspective is based on this narrow line of information. Hence our (ret) General's reply in the BBC interview
recently, when asked if he would resign, 'I will go when I realize the people don't want me'. When asked how would be know that, he
replied 'I have my sources of information'. These sources of information are his close aides who feed him the information he wants to
hear. He has no idea how unpopular he is and that the vast majority do not want him. But it is important to understand he actually
means it when he says the things he does. He is not making them up.
This type of thinking is verging on a 'delusion'. Many dictators also suffer from paranoia- a feeling (beyond the normal opposition one
encounters) that others are against them and out to get them and must be eliminated. Hitler showed many traits of paranoia, as did
Stalin and Saddam Hussein. It makes them more and more isolated and insular and as they near their demise they become more and
more bizarre- both in their thinking and behavior. We have countless examples in history of such dictators and their strange behaviors-
Idi Amin of Uganda, Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Duvalier of Haiti, Marcos of Philippines.
One can see it in the General's (ret) responses in interviews recently. Hosing down of Benazir's assassination site was 'inefficiency',
Benazir was 'unpopular with the Army', 'I am very popular with the people', the West is 'obsessed with democracy' and the ex-
servicemen opposing me are those 'I threw out of the military'. The latest we hear is the statement against the London based senior
journalist where he had no misgivings in letting him 'have a couple to fix him' because the journalist dared to ask uncomfortable
questions. These are statements of a man whose rational thinking is fast eroding.
A dictator's military background and particularly if he has had commando training makes it difficult for him to think otherwise. It
makes him rigid in his approach with a 'never surrender' attitude. To him every encounter is a battle and the enemy must be
vanquished. The frequent use of terms such as 'tactical', 'strategic' and 'campaign' while discussing issues that have nothing to do with
the military are indicative of this. You can take a man out of the army, you can never take the army out of the man!
Even his physical appearance is important to consider. Observe his walk, with chest out, tummy tucked in, dyed hair, purposeful
stride. He tries to look much younger than his 64 years. This also contributes to his self-image and ego. Imagine if he stopped dyeing
his hair- a white haired General (ret), which he actually is, would look very different and his whole image and persona- both for
himself and others would undergo a drastic change. Mushahid's Hussain statement is a rare glimpse of how the 'yes men' praise the
master, making him even more self-centred and in the process, more reckless.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to change this line of flawed thinking as dictators do not think there is anything wrong with their way
of thinking. Hence most dictators are forcibly removed- either violently or forced out. This is what history teaches us. Let there be no
doubt about it.
The important question is: How much further damage would be inflicted on this hapless country before 'the dashing man' in 'designer
suit' departs?
The author is a Professor of Psychiatry at Aga Khan University. He can be contacted at muradmk@gmail.com.
Amin Fahim for Missing Persons’ Recovery

troubled times.
Senior Vice Chairman of the PPP, Makhdoom Amin Fahim Monday said his party would take steps for the recovery of all missing
persons of the country if voted to power. Talking to newsmen, he said the registration of fake cases against PPP workers and transfer
and postings of government officers on the eve of elections were underway, but the Election Commission seemed to be helpless in this
regard. He said inflation had broken the back of the poor masses and stressed on the importance of an independent judiciary for the
provision of justice to the common man.
troubled times.

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The Emergency Times Feb 4th, 2007 1

Please Photocopy and Distribute Issue 38

The Emergency Times

Quote of the Day

Suicide Bomb in Rawalpindi kills six

Kurd re-arrested in Quetta

Punjab College doles out meager apology to SAC

Pakistan’s Forgotten Man

Report on Arif Hasan Talk organized by People’s Resistance

Verging on Delusions: Inside the Mind of a Dictator

Dr Murad Moosa Khan

Or is it that they are suffering from delusions?

Amin Fahim for Missing Persons’ Recovery

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