This Pyre Will Burn…!

#31 Posted by ahmedmadani,

Great post, Sir.

Re: # 33 Zeemax sahib...I am little scared of you and your special French chopping machine.

Re: # 34 Again HP has done great work of putting pain of his people. I personally know the pathos of poor oppressed people. This thing really happened and when I think it brings tears to my eyes.

While visting Thatta for work came across poor fisherman a local sindhi. We talked little. Then he said what you do , I said work in big hotel. He asked me if I make food or what I do. I said look overall at all things and see it works 24 hours. Then he said honestly people from Karachi have spoiled sindh and sindhis have no good jobs there.He told me you should move back to Punjab or India.I asked him what his father did , he said catch fish. What your grand father did , again same think. Then I said look, you are right , but can you do my job he said no, he is not educated and does not know english. Then I told him look I did not take your job , or fathers or grandfathers job. When your child becomes educated ready to take my job we will depart. I told him , understand anguish.
There is extreme resentment of native Sindhis and haatred aginst Punjabis. There are one most backward and oppressed people of pakistan. There is belief outsiders are taking advantage of sindh and they are left out like red Indians. I will not comment if I agree but illusions real or false are more powerful and motivationg than truth. But with PPP sindhileadership there is no salvation and to achieve at least parity they will have to wait till they get proper leadership with vision. ( present sindhi leadership survives he will suffer)

HP Saeen,

Can you kindly define Sindhi. Speaking the language is the only criteria or do you have to determine hereditary roots? Would Sindhis of Baloch origin be considered Sindhi? How about those of Arab, Pathan, Punjabi, Greek, Turkish, Persian, Maurya, Dravidian and Aryan?

Eagerly waiting for your reply.

Sincerely yours

#34 Posted by ahmedmadani,

Sir, I just renounced extreme measures on UP.

These are very sad times for the Pakistan. To quote one of Pakistan's poet Tegh Allahabadi

Is naye desh ke ajnabi rastay,
Kitne tareeq, kitne pur-asraar hain.

Aaj to jaise vehshi qabeelay yahan,
Kissi naye admi ke lahoo ke liye,
Apne jismo pe raakh,
Mal kar nikal aye hain.

Chubh raha hai ankhon me, Kaseela dhuan,
Choo rahi hain, jism ko kunaq-sooyian
Har taraf teergi, teergi, teergi
Jindagi aaj tun kis taraf aa gayee

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Dear HP and Friends,
Happy New Year!
Yes I agree that the pyre will burn, but not only in Sindh but entire Pakistan. This cursed garrison city has eaten up three prime ministers and there is lots of empericism here. But also know that the site of her death is crowded by candle and incense vigils day in day out. For every pyre that smoulders, there is also a candle that burns.

Benazir though Sindhi was by all accounts a patriotic Pakistani and a true representative of the federation. That was her strenght on which, she has a solid following in all parts of Pakistan. If there is a transformation, then the fear is that the rudderless PPP may reduce itself to become an ethnic party and that will be the end. Already men like Aitezaz who did not want to hob nob with the government are proved right. Like any individual, Benazir found it hard to break away from the fuedal mind set, even at the cost of losing her mother and Murtaza's family.I had wished against hope that her will would spell some accomodation for the other Bhuttos too, but ungracefully, that was not to be.

Since perceptions count more than reality, yes some may try playing the Sindh Card. I believe, this card belongs to a small educated elite. As for haris and peasants, they are still in the strong grips of fuedals like Mehars, Pagaras, Jhkaranis etc. They dont understand a hang about nationalism.

As for Punjabies etc dying for Benazir? Well they did in Karachi as well as Rawalpindi. These eyes saw men pouncing the clean shaved assasin and getting blown up. The scene is also clearly visible in the second and third picture in my gallery.

As to what comes next, I commented on another board as under: -
"The day Bhutto died was a rejoinder that Pakistan cannot be run by independant minded Pakistanis.It was also a reminder that those who helped create it, will also charter our course in future".
Cheerios



As for Sindies in the armed forces/ There are many now.

Zeemax,
I will upload a photo of a sindhi soldier who died at Kargil on the gallery of BB. Please paste it here if possible.

Benazir or musharraf...just a different leash for the same raggedy old dog...


‘Benazir distanced herself from deal’


By Our Correspondent


WASHINGTON, Dec 31: Before her death, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had distanced herself from a US-brokered power-sharing deal between her and President Pervez Musharraf, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

According to veteran Post journalist Robert D. Novak, Ms Bhutto had sent a written complaint to a senior State Department official saying that her camp no longer viewed the backstage US move as a good-faith effort towards democracy.

Instead, it was seen as an attempt to preserve the politically endangered Mr Musharraf as US President George W. Bush’s man in Islamabad, she wrote.

Since her return to Pakistan on Oct 18, Ms Bhutto sent several urgent pleas to the State Department, seeking US assistance for better protection.

The US reaction was that she was worried over nothing, expressing assurance that President Musharraf would not let anything happen to her.

Distraught by the lack of US interests in her protection, Ms Bhutto began to distance herself from the US-backed power-sharing arrangement, the Post said.

The US decision to arrange a Bhutto-Musharraf alliance was based on Pakistan’s strategic importance as a sanctuary for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

“Bush was in a quandary. Bhutto was much tougher than Musharraf on Islamist extremists, but Bush had invested heavily in the general,” the Post observed.

Ms Bhutto was further disillusioned when President Musharraf imposed a state of emergency on Nov 3, but US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned and urged her to go along with that process in return for concessions from Mr Musharraf.

“Bhutto agreed, but she got nothing in return,” the Post noted.

The report said that the unsuccessful Oct. 18 attempt on Ms Bhutto’s life followed Islamabad’s rejection of her requested security protection when she returned from eight years in exile. The Pakistani government vetoed FBI assistance in investigating the attack.

On Oct 26, Ms Bhutto sent an email to Mark Siegel, her friend and Washington spokesman, to be made public only in the event of her death.

“I would hold Musharraf responsible,” Ms Bhutto said in the message. “I have been made to feel insecure by his minions.”

In early December, a former Pakistani government official supporting Ms Bhutto visited a senior US government official to renew her security requests.

“He got a brush off, a mindset reflected Dec 6 at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing,” the report said.Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, was asked to respond to fears by non-partisan American observers of a rigged election.

His reply: “I do think they can have a good election. They can have a credible election. They can have a transparent and a fair election. It’s not going to be a perfect election.”

“Boucher’s words echoed through corridors of power in Islamabad,” the Post noted.

“Neither her shooting on Thursday nor the attempt on her life Oct 18 bore the trademarks of Al Qaeda,” the report said, urging the US administration to send an FBI to probe the murder.

whoa...I totally didn't expect this from the paki government..why would they do something like this? it just gives people who hate the land of the pure and hate islam question their motives.

Doctors Cite Pressure to Keep Silent On Bhutto

By Emily Wax and Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 1, 2008; Page A01

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, Dec. 31 -- Pakistani authorities have pressured the medical personnel who tried to save Benazir Bhutto's life to remain silent about what happened in her final hour and have removed records of her treatment from the facility, according to doctors.

In interviews, doctors who were at Bhutto's side at Rawalpindi General Hospital said they were under extreme pressure not to share details about the nature of the injuries that the opposition leader suffered in an attack here Dec. 27.

"The government took all the medical records right after Ms. Bhutto's time of death was read out," said a visibly shaken doctor who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Sweating and putting his head in his hands, he said: "Look, we have been told by the government to stop talking. And a lot of us feel this is a disgrace."

The doctors now find themselves at the center of a political firestorm over the circumstances of Bhutto's death. The government has said Bhutto, 54, was killed after the force of a suicide bombing caused her head to slam against the lever of her vehicle's sunroof. Bhutto's supporters have pointed to video footage, including a new amateur video released Monday, as proof that she was killed by gunfire.

The truth about what happened has serious implications in Pakistan. The ability of a gunman to fire at Bhutto from close range, as alleged by her supporters, would suggest that an assassin was able to breach government security in a city that serves as headquarters of the Pakistani military, bolstering her supporters' claims that the government failed to provide her with adequate protection.

If a gunman were to blame, it would also raise questions as to why the government has for days insisted otherwise. Bhutto's supporters have called for an international investigation.
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The government has repeatedly dismissed allegations of a coverup, and some U.S. medical experts, when asked Monday to review an official hospital description of her wounds, speculated that a skull fracture and not a bullet wound killed Bhutto.

The medical personnel in Rawalpindi, meanwhile, have mostly remained quiet.

"Our doctors have become caught up in this very emotional and political issue," said Fayyaz Ahmed Khan, the doctors' supervisor at Rawalpindi General. "It's a terrible position for our medical professions to be in."

A newly released video that was obtained by Britain's Channel 4 and broadcast Monday cast doubt on the government's claims and appeared to corroborate witnesses' stories. The footage appeared to show a gunman and a suspected suicide bomber approaching Bhutto's sport-utility vehicle. Seconds later, the video showed gunfire and Bhutto's hair and scarf being blown back just as a bomb explodes.

Government officials identified Baitullah Mehsud, a pro-Taliban commander in the restive South Waziristan region, as the organizer of Bhutto's killing. But some observers said the government has been too quick to blame the attack on the Taliban.

Jameel Yusuf, a lead investigator in the 2002 disappearance of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi, said the Pakistani government had blundered badly by not sealing off the crime scene. Moments after Bhutto was killed, workers hosed down the blood at the blast site before any evidence could be collected.

"When you're dealing with a murder of this nature, you need to have forensics," Yusuf said.

Several witnesses say they had yet to be interviewed by police.

Kamran Nazir, 19, was badly injured by shrapnel at the rally where Bhutto was killed. On Monday, he was at Rawalpindi General, with his father at his bedside. His breathing was labored, and the top layer of skin on his face was singed off. He said he was shocked that police had not questioned him.

"Why is no one asking me what happened? It's important to know the truth," he said as his father's eyes went wet.

"The truth is, there really is no investigation at all," said Babar Awan, a top official in Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party who said he saw Bhutto's body after the attack and identified two clearly defined bullet wounds -- entry and exit points.

He said that the principal professor of surgery at the hospital, Muhammad Mussadiq Khan, was "extremely nervous, but eventually told me that Bhutto had died of a bullet wound."

"Why was this man so nervous?" Awan said. "He told me firsthand he was under pressure not to talk about how she died."

Reached at his home in Islamabad, Khan declined to comment, saying he worked for a government hospital and was trying to "do my duty and remain a doctor." In published reports in the English-language newspaper Dawn, Khan has changed his story on multiple occasions, first speaking about bullet wounds and later backing away from those comments.

Over the weekend, Athar Minallah, a board member at Rawalpindi General, e-mailed journalists Bhutto's medical report. The report, which was separate from documents that doctors say have been confiscated, describes a deep wound in Bhutto's head that was leaking brain matter.
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No "foreign body" was found in the wound, the report says, and no exit wound was recorded. But in an X-ray of Bhutto's skull, the doctors identified "two to three tiny radio-densities." Minallah said in an interview that the report suggested those were bullet fragments.

U.S. medical experts said the "radio-densities" were probably not bullets.

Thomas M. Scalea, physician in chief of the shock trauma center at the University of Maryland Medical Center, said that while there was no evidence of a bullet wound, he was also perplexed by how the blunt force of Bhutto's head against an object could have caused brain damage severe enough to kill her so quickly.

"The whole thing strikes me as very unusual," said Scalea.

Bhutto's widower and the interim leader of her party, Asif Ali Zardari, has requested an investigation into her death by the United Nations.

President Pervez Musharraf's spokesman, retired Gen. Rashid Qureshi, said Musharraf is "considering" an offer from the British government to assist in an investigation. Qureshi said Bhutto's husband bore responsibility for the controversy, because he had denied the government permission to conduct an autopsy immediately after Bhutto's death, on the grounds that it could not be trusted.

"The body can be exhumed now if the family allows," Qureshi said. "There's no problem with that."

Witte reported from Karachi. Special correspondent Imtiaz Ali in Peshawar and staff writer Jason Ukman and staff researcher Robert E. Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.

Here is a part of my ilog.

Sometime in 1988, I read the book, 'Pawn to King Three' written by Mehmood Sipra. Like a Sidney Sheldon thriller, it was set in the background of Pakistani politics. The central character built around a celebrity like Imran meets a tragic end like Benazir.
How prophetic, but for the gender?

the paki rupee is at 61.95 against the greenback..it would be lower if the paki government hadn't intervened.

the indian rupee is 39.41 and would be stronger if the government hadn't intervened.


pureland is not even playing the same game as india, forget about being in the same league..

smart move pal...even pakis are not that stupid..

Caretaker govt apologises for Interior Ministry’s blunder

By Shaheen Sehbai

ISLAMABAD: The caretaker government of Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro on Monday apologised for the highly provocative comment made by the Interior Ministry spokesman that late PPP leader Benazir Bhutto had died because she hit the lever of her bullet-proof Land Cruiser on the fateful evening.

At a high-powered briefing to newspaper editors invited from all over the country, Interior Minister Lt General (retd) Hamid Nawaz asked the media and the people to forgive and ignore the comment made by spokesman Brig (retd) Cheema, which caused a huge uproar, as private TV channels obtained footage, showing the assassin pointing the gun at the PPP leader and shooting it.

The briefing by caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Mian Soomro, was attended by his foreign minister, his interior minister and the information minister besides senior officials.

Editor after editor lambasted the government for its non-serious attitude towards the tragedy, specially the statement that Benazir Bhutto had died by hitting the lever and not by a bullet or a sharpnel.

Soomro first tried to defend the Interior Ministry spokesman, saying he was just relating the facts which had been told to him, specially about the cause of death. “We are conducting an investigation and all TV footage, all evidence, that would be available will help in reaching a definite conclusion,” Soomro said.

Re: # 16 HP

Denial won't make things go away. There was a life in Pakistan before Islamabad School massacre and there is a life after the massacre. The sooner the corrupt, pro-western, ruling elite recognizes that guillotines have already been set up (they are operating and are not going to go away) the sooner they will be able to save their collective behinds (or should I say necks).

HAHAHA...even the jihadi dude is calling for an independent investigation..


Pro-Taliban militants want Bhutto killing probed

By IANS
Monday December 31, 07:49 PM

Islamabad, Dec 31 (DPA) Pro-Taliban militants Monday demanded an independent inquiry into the assassination of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, according to a local media report.

The pro-democracy icon, 54, was killed last Thursday in a gun-and-suicide bomb attack that government officials claim was carried out by the followers of Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the newly formed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) (Taliban Movement Pakistan).

'The government is carrying out a propaganda campaign against Baitullah Mehsud and the Taliban is unfairly being alleged for the attack,' the militant group's spokesman Maulvi Omar told the BBC's Urdu service by telephone from undisclosed location.

He said any independent inquiry that was free from US and British influence would be acceptable for them.

Bhutto's murder was a great national tragedy and therefore an independent inquiry should be held, he added.

Re: Salim Chauhan, HP, AhmadMadani, etc.

A general response to some of your posts.

My mother's family had a city house in Karachi for years before Partition and there were no riots/pogroms against the Hindus (who were virtually the entire Sindhi educated/professional class other than the odd Muslim and a few Parsis) until the Muhjirs came to Karachi and ethnically cleansed the Hindus (with some help from a few Sindhis).

Mobs of Muhajirs almost literally chased the Hindus out of Karachi and took over their homes. My Nana had to hire extra chowkidars when some Muhajirs, who had taken over the neighbours' homes, started eyeing his house. A couple of his neighbors had locked their house and given my Nana the keys for safekeeping but the Muhajir squatters broke the locks and took over the houses. The stupid Hindus, like some stupid Punjabi Muslims such as some of my Father's family, had thought that they could come back when it all blew over.

There were quite a few Hindus in and near my Nana's village and the men came to my Nana and asked him to protect their women and children while the men went to India to make arrangements for them. Most of these men, IIRC--been years since I heard the story from my Nani, were banias (small shopkeepers/slash moneylenders) and some of the local Sindhis wanted to wipe the slate clean of their debts and earn a nice reward by pillaging the homes and jewellery. Nana had to post guards on the houses to protect them.

I have vague memories of my Nana and from his portraits he looks like the epitome of the late Edwardian gentleman; as was shown by his conduct during Partition.

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There are quite a few Sindhis in the Army now; the Sindhi quota in the Sind Regiment is almost fully utilized now (initially would have been lucky to find 10-15% Sindhis) and a couple of years ago, playing golf at the Garrison Golf Club in Lahore, I was surprised to realize that the men of the Baluch battalion doing fatigues there were Sindhi; their battalion was about 25% Sindhi. Its been a long time since I was 'up' on the Army so I can't tell you how many Sindhis there are in the Army and how many in the officer corps but the situation now is NOT what it was in the 1970s. I had several Mamoos in the Army (and one joined the Air Force for a few years) but the Sindhi/Baluchi quota was always unfilled. However, Lt. Gen Balock, former Corp Commander and then Governor of Baluchistan, was an ethnic Baloch.

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Benazir spoke abysmal Urdu and worse Sindhi when she came back to Pakistan in 1986. I heard her press conferences in Urdu and it was very clear that English was her first language. There are some sounds in Sindhi that non-Native speakers find extremely difficult to make (e.g. a nasalized B IIRC) and BB could not manage them properly.