Compilation of Articles on the Military Takeover in Pakistan

To further clarify my point about the army backtracking on GST is that I`m in favour of GST imposition. The country needs more revenue. The total collection of CBR is around 300 bilion when the budget is more than 600 billion. Nawaz tried to rationalize the tax structure by imposing GST and abolishing silly direct taxes like wealth tax which no one pays but the traders refused to accept. The chungi system had already been abolished. His self assessment scheme was increasing revenues.

Let`s face it .... taxes are always unpopular. The lower taxes you have the more people will pay. Nawaz was following a policy of cutting taxes and broadening the tax base.

When you cut taxes it also increases disposable income and that`s good for the economy!

Further, I will pay tax if it`s 15% but I will not pay if it`s 45 % without free healthcare and education like UK.

The army couldn`t even take this essential step of imposing GST. They were scared shitless. Many more scenarios to come. It`s just the beginning.

Ref Yahmla Jat post#563

I hope you realize the post put up by you only reflects your own depraved mentality and upbringing.

I pray for your mothers soul if deceased(as she quite obviously would need these),and that, God give her the fortitude to bear with patience the indignity you have caused her family image(if she is alive).

AN-OTHER CONQUEST OF PAK-ARMY - CELEBRATE MY COUNTRY-MEN

I am reproducing the NEWS item published in the Nov. 3 internet NEWS UPDATE of the DAILY NEWS.

QUOTE:

Wednesday, November 03, 1999 -- Rajab 24, 1420 A.H.

Army raids Senate Chairman`s office

(Updated at 1230 PST)

ISLAMABAD: The military forces, on Wednesday, raided the office of the Senate Chairman Waseem Sajjad, apparently for the latter`s refusal to hand over certain confidential documents to the forces, it was reported.

UN-QUOTE

What are you and your people looking for, Mr. general Mutterraf. Most likely it is an attempt to prevent the Senate Chairman from proceeding to SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN, preventing him from challenge your illegal rule our our homeland, in the court of law. Or an attempt to destroy the evidence of conspiracy that general Musharraf and others had hatched against the elected government and the people of Pakistan, known as a video cassette and audio tape of general Mutterraf and general Aziz conversation. Clelebrate my country-men, your army has once again conquered their own country without any opposition. Get rid of these fanatics, military people. Pakistan Zindabad.

Rahat

Sinking into the sand - Get out while the sun still shines

Dear friends of Chowk,

Here is something for you to read, understand and ponder about.

Quote:

THIS was supposed to be a blitzkrieg, carrying everything before it, smashing the pillars of corruption and turning the waters of the five rivers red with the blood of accountability. It is acquiring instead all the hallmarks of a classic battle of attrition reminiscent of the trench warfare of 1914-18.

Nothing so strikingly illustrates this as the first batch of names chosen for the National Security Council (NSC) and the cabinet. After 15 days of frenzied consultations, is this what the army has to show for its pains? It does not say much for the skill employed in the search or indeed for the abundance of talent available in the Islamic Republic.

Sharifuddin Pirzada as the principal adviser to the Chief Executive? The mind boggles. Pirzada has been adviser, legal counsel, eminence grise to every tinpot dictator since Field Marshal Ayub Khan. What are the generals hoping to get from him? If they want the status quo defended, he is their man. But if this takeover is about changing the nation`s destiny, as the Chief Executive insists it is, what will be Pirzada`s role who is already saying that his inclusion in the new set-up is not a full-time job? Interestingly, as in the deal he swung with General Zia whose legal adviser he also was, membership in the highest councils of government will not debar Pirzada from his private practice.

The finance commissar of the revolution unfolding before our eyes is Dr Yaqub who in his extended term as State Bank Governor may not have done much to turn the economy around but who has definitely set a record of survival which most politicians would envy. Although a clutch of scandals and scams have hit the banking sector during his stewardship of the State Bank - the Mehran Bank scandal, the travails of Bankers Equity Ltd, Nawaz Sharif`s various yellow schemes, the Mera Ghar programme - the reputation for probity and financial brilliance of Pakistan`s very own Alan Greenspan remains intact.

At Attiya Enayatullah`s inclusion in the NSC the mind does not only boggle, it goes into a bewildered sleep. She is a charming lady and a great lobbyist of the causes she espouses (population control, her own career, and not necessarily in that order), but as far as having a measure of Pakistan`s problems is concerned, she is simply out of her depth.

The fourth person to have been inducted into the NSC is Imtiaz Sahibzada. He is a nice person (every one seems to be a nice person around here) and a Gallian (alumnus of Lawrence College) to boot. But, pray, what in heaven`s name is he expected to achieve?

Foreign minister is Abdus Sattar. As foreign secretary he was taken seriously. Ever since he takes himself seriously, a sense of humour seemingly alien to the man. To plumb his depths further read the longish dissertation on nuclear matters which he recently co-authored with Mr Agha Shahi and Air Chief Marshal Zulfiqar Ali Khan although I suspect most of it was written by him. That a single document should bristle with so many contradictions and half-baked generalizations is quite amazing.

Finance minister is a New York import (Citibank), Shaukat Aziz. Why this country must remain dependent upon such fly-by-night reformers will remain a mystery till the cows finally come home.

Fifteen days if not more of anguished cogitation, and 140 million people to choose from, and this is what we get. Obviously, there is no escaping the glitter of mediocrity in this country.

General Jahangir Karamat has a lot to answer for: for the weakness he showed at several turnings when a bit of firmness was demanded and for this idea of a national security council (the reason for his quarrel with Nawaz Sharif) which his successors have picked up from him. What good will it do? Apart from the other service chiefs who are in it as of right, its other members are creatures of the Chief Executive. Will they be able to advise him in the real sense of the word and check him should the need so arise? If not, and they simply sing to his tune, or pander to the shibboleths which become the received wisdom of the moment, what useful purpose will they serve?

As a check on a democratically-elected government, an NSC can make sense from the military`s point of view (I repeat from the military`s point of view). But in a military set-up it is not only a contradiction in terms but also an exercise in redundancy. There will be the corps commanders calling the shots from the wings. There will be the cabinet advising the Chief Executive and helping him implement policy (or whatever passes for policy in Pakistan). How many more layers of advice does the country need?

All this amounts to running on the same spot. What does it betoken? To most people it would look like confusion. If something looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, in all probability it is a duck. In the same way, something smelling so strongly of confusion is probably confusion.Most of this confusion stems from a lack of clarity about aim and objectives, a serious failing in any endeavour but absolutely fatal in a military undertaking where decisiveness of action is lost if the mission is not defined with clarity and precision.

Reviving the economy, carrying out accountability, strengthening national cohesion are objectives which have tested the collective wisdom of the Pakistani nation for the last 52 years. How much time does the Chief Executive want for fulfilling this agenda? In Saudi Arabia he said it could take anything from six months to three years or even longer.

A six months` limit we can safely discard for if it took 15 days to pick Sharifuddin Pirzada and his team, it gives us an idea of the speed at which this dispensation is likely to work. As it is, the economy is being revived since Zulfikar Ali Bhutto`s time. Accountability became a catchword under Zia, a good 22 years ago. Strengthening national cohesion is an open-ended exercise. Free elections will follow not precede the fulfilment of these aims. We are talking therefore of a flexible time-frame made finite or infinite depending upon the convenience of the time-keepers.

The trouble is that whenever the army has ridden into the political arena it has done so on the back of iron certainties, convinced that to every problem there is a black and white solution. It has usually not tended to understand (1) that life is a complex affair, often a messy one, with little of the beguiling simplicity of the parade ground; (2) that politics is not a search for perfection, because perfection we will find only in heaven, but an undertaking in which a choice all the time has to be made between lesser and greater evils; and (3) that given its make-up and ethos, its conservative background and the intellectual limitations of its higher echelons, the Pakistan army can never be a wholly satisfactory or ideal instrument of lasting reform.

It is not a question of individuals being good or bad. General Musharraf may be a very nice person but that is not the issue. The issue is that power, especially untrammelled power, encourages arbitrary and whimsical behaviour. This has been the sub-continental norm throughout history. This has been the Pakistani norm since 1947. Ghulam Muhammad, Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan, Yahya, Bhutto, Zia, Benazir, Nawaz Sharif: all of them, regardless of whether they were elected or not, have exercised power in the manner of mediaeval despots, treating the state as their personal estate, the state`s servants as their personal retainers. This is the Pakistani problem and from it flow the other symptoms which so agitate us and form part of our national discourse: corruption, misuse of authority, the looting of banks, the squandering of national resources, etc.

How can the army solve this problem when its first and last resource in the political arena is the untrammelled exercise of authority?

Wherein lies the answer then? At the risk of sounding anti-climactic, it lies in creating an ethos in which institutions are developed and laws respected. If this task requires time and hard work it begins with a crucial step: ensuring that in all seasons the state`s functionaries are chosen for their merit and talent and not their political usefulness. If the army can provide just this, if it can leave in place constitutionally-protected checks which ensure, firstly, that in the judiciary and bureaucracy the best available people are appointed and, secondly, that the administration of justice and the maintenance of law and order are insulated from the influence of politics, sifarish and money, it will have done its job and earned the nation`s gratitude. Addressing the other problems facing the country can then proceed in an institutional rather than an ad-hoc manner.

The army`s own self-interest is tied to this approach. More than most countries in the same league, Pakistan needs a professionally competent and politically neutral military, qualities put at risk when generals, admirals and air marshals acquire a taste for power. The choice, accordingly, is simple: to be distracted by an open-ended agenda and sink, inevitably, deeper into the mire or concentrate on essentials and get out while the sun still shines?

Un-quote:

The author of above article is Mr. Ayaz Mir a very learned and well known journalist of Pakistan, who writes for the daily Dawn. I strongly share his views and fears. When will we learn our lessons from the history.

Rahat

Sinking into the sand - Get out while the sun still shines

Dear friends of Chowk,

Here is something for you to read, understand and ponder about.

Quote:

THIS was supposed to be a blitzkrieg, carrying everything before it, smashing the pillars of corruption and turning the waters of the five rivers red with the blood of accountability. It is acquiring instead all the hallmarks of a classic battle of attrition reminiscent of the trench warfare of 1914-18.

Nothing so strikingly illustrates this as the first batch of names chosen for the National Security Council (NSC) and the cabinet. After 15 days of frenzied consultations, is this what the army has to show for its pains? It does not say much for the skill employed in the search or indeed for the abundance of talent available in the Islamic Republic.

Sharifuddin Pirzada as the principal adviser to the Chief Executive? The mind boggles. Pirzada has been adviser, legal counsel, eminence grise to every tinpot dictator since Field Marshal Ayub Khan. What are the generals hoping to get from him? If they want the status quo defended, he is their man. But if this takeover is about changing the nation`s destiny, as the Chief Executive insists it is, what will be Pirzada`s role who is already saying that his inclusion in the new set-up is not a full-time job? Interestingly, as in the deal he swung with General Zia whose legal adviser he also was, membership in the highest councils of government will not debar Pirzada from his private practice.

The finance commissar of the revolution unfolding before our eyes is Dr Yaqub who in his extended term as State Bank Governor may not have done much to turn the economy around but who has definitely set a record of survival which most politicians would envy. Although a clutch of scandals and scams have hit the banking sector during his stewardship of the State Bank - the Mehran Bank scandal, the travails of Bankers Equity Ltd, Nawaz Sharif`s various yellow schemes, the Mera Ghar programme - the reputation for probity and financial brilliance of Pakistan`s very own Alan Greenspan remains intact.

At Attiya Enayatullah`s inclusion in the NSC the mind does not only boggle, it goes into a bewildered sleep. She is a charming lady and a great lobbyist of the causes she espouses (population control, her own career, and not necessarily in that order), but as far as having a measure of Pakistan`s problems is concerned, she is simply out of her depth.

The fourth person to have been inducted into the NSC is Imtiaz Sahibzada. He is a nice person (every one seems to be a nice person around here) and a Gallian (alumnus of Lawrence College) to boot. But, pray, what in heaven`s name is he expected to achieve?

Foreign minister is Abdus Sattar. As foreign secretary he was taken seriously. Ever since he takes himself seriously, a sense of humour seemingly alien to the man. To plumb his depths further read the longish dissertation on nuclear matters which he recently co-authored with Mr Agha Shahi and Air Chief Marshal Zulfiqar Ali Khan although I suspect most of it was written by him. That a single document should bristle with so many contradictions and half-baked generalizations is quite amazing.

Finance minister is a New York import (Citibank), Shaukat Aziz. Why this country must remain dependent upon such fly-by-night reformers will remain a mystery till the cows finally come home.

Fifteen days if not more of anguished cogitation, and 140 million people to choose from, and this is what we get. Obviously, there is no escaping the glitter of mediocrity in this country.

General Jahangir Karamat has a lot to answer for: for the weakness he showed at several turnings when a bit of firmness was demanded and for this idea of a national security council (the reason for his quarrel with Nawaz Sharif) which his successors have picked up from him. What good will it do? Apart from the other service chiefs who are in it as of right, its other members are creatures of the Chief Executive. Will they be able to advise him in the real sense of the word and check him should the need so arise? If not, and they simply sing to his tune, or pander to the shibboleths which become the received wisdom of the moment, what useful purpose will they serve?

As a check on a democratically-elected government, an NSC can make sense from the military`s point of view (I repeat from the military`s point of view). But in a military set-up it is not only a contradiction in terms but also an exercise in redundancy. There will be the corps commanders calling the shots from the wings. There will be the cabinet advising the Chief Executive and helping him implement policy (or whatever passes for policy in Pakistan). How many more layers of advice does the country need?

All this amounts to running on the same spot. What does it betoken? To most people it would look like confusion. If something looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, in all probability it is a duck. In the same way, something smelling so strongly of confusion is probably confusion.Most of this confusion stems from a lack of clarity about aim and objectives, a serious failing in any endeavour but absolutely fatal in a military undertaking where decisiveness of action is lost if the mission is not defined with clarity and precision.

Reviving the economy, carrying out accountability, strengthening national cohesion are objectives which have tested the collective wisdom of the Pakistani nation for the last 52 years. How much time does the Chief Executive want for fulfilling this agenda? In Saudi Arabia he said it could take anything from six months to three years or even longer.

A six months` limit we can safely discard for if it took 15 days to pick Sharifuddin Pirzada and his team, it gives us an idea of the speed at which this dispensation is likely to work. As it is, the economy is being revived since Zulfikar Ali Bhutto`s time. Accountability became a catchword under Zia, a good 22 years ago. Strengthening national cohesion is an open-ended exercise. Free elections will follow not precede the fulfilment of these aims. We are talking therefore of a flexible time-frame made finite or infinite depending upon the convenience of the time-keepers.

The trouble is that whenever the army has ridden into the political arena it has done so on the back of iron certainties, convinced that to every problem there is a black and white solution. It has usually not tended to understand (1) that life is a complex affair, often a messy one, with little of the beguiling simplicity of the parade ground; (2) that politics is not a search for perfection, because perfection we will find only in heaven, but an undertaking in which a choice all the time has to be made between lesser and greater evils; and (3) that given its make-up and ethos, its conservative background and the intellectual limitations of its higher echelons, the Pakistan army can never be a wholly satisfactory or ideal instrument of lasting reform.

It is not a question of individuals being good or bad. General Musharraf may be a very nice person but that is not the issue. The issue is that power, especially untrammelled power, encourages arbitrary and whimsical behaviour. This has been the sub-continental norm throughout history. This has been the Pakistani norm since 1947. Ghulam Muhammad, Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan, Yahya, Bhutto, Zia, Benazir, Nawaz Sharif: all of them, regardless of whether they were elected or not, have exercised power in the manner of mediaeval despots, treating the state as their personal estate, the state`s servants as their personal retainers. This is the Pakistani problem and from it flow the other symptoms which so agitate us and form part of our national discourse: corruption, misuse of authority, the looting of banks, the squandering of national resources, etc.

How can the army solve this problem when its first and last resource in the political arena is the untrammelled exercise of authority?

Wherein lies the answer then? At the risk of sounding anti-climactic, it lies in creating an ethos in which institutions are developed and laws respected. If this task requires time and hard work it begins with a crucial step: ensuring that in all seasons the state`s functionaries are chosen for their merit and talent and not their political usefulness. If the army can provide just this, if it can leave in place constitutionally-protected checks which ensure, firstly, that in the judiciary and bureaucracy the best available people are appointed and, secondly, that the administration of justice and the maintenance of law and order are insulated from the influence of politics, sifarish and money, it will have done its job and earned the nation`s gratitude. Addressing the other problems facing the country can then proceed in an institutional rather than an ad-hoc manner.

The army`s own self-interest is tied to this approach. More than most countries in the same league, Pakistan needs a professionally competent and politically neutral military, qualities put at risk when generals, admirals and air marshals acquire a taste for power. The choice, accordingly, is simple: to be distracted by an open-ended agenda and sink, inevitably, deeper into the mire or concentrate on essentials and get out while the sun still shines?

Un-quote:

The author of above article is Mr. Ayaz Mir a very learned and well known journalist of Pakistan, who writes for the daily Dawn. I strongly share his views and fears. When will we learn our lessons from the history.

Rahat

SLEEPING PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN AND MUSHARRAF, THE COWARD HYPOCRITE

Dismissed general Musharraf`s constant refusal to let any one see Nawaz Sharif has created doubts and restlessness in Pakistan masses recently. What is going on. If Nawaz was so un-popular. Let him free, what are you sacred of. Well the truth is something else. Nawaz is still a popular public leader who knows a lot about your intents and links of Musharraf, that`s what scares Musharraf. There is a graet possibility that army is trying to brainwash Mian Nawaz Sharif... This general also knows that he cannot deliver for simple reasons (1) the poor state of affair of the Pakistan economy is because of the heavy defense spending and corrupt army generals. For example, general Mirza Aslam Baig accepted heavy kick-backs in defense deals and even in deals in the oil and gas ministry through his planted team of Dr Gulfaraz and Arif Kemal in Oil and Gas development corp`n. Dr Gulfaraz continues to serve the cause of army, sitting on this gold mine, generals share kick-backs in the oil import deals, oil and gas lease deals, and Gulfaraz makes it happen. (2) With political government in the country, these generals faced difficulty in carrying out their sacred mission of eyewash and looting the nation, and then blame on political government, i.e. assigning retired army-men of their confidence at key posts, who could help them earn; (3) and also recent steps taken by political government of elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to root out retired army generals from civil posts made it worst for the hawks at general head quaters. So when Musharraf was dissmissed, it made a good excuse for GHQ to take over. And their political touts and some bureacrates are potraying this forced change as popular. Let the dust settle and we shall see that the traitors are traitors, nothing but traitors, and shall not be spared. You Musharraf cannot repair the economy of my country because you yourself are the Looter,Boozer. Can`t army present someone better than Musharraf, personality wise, character wise... ALLAH HAVE MERCY ON THE SLEEPING PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN.

Roohi A.Ditta

ARMY IS ACCOUNTABLE TOO, AS SO ARE GENERALS

For a fair and across the board accountability, the institution of army should also be included in the process of accountability. If accountability is to be carried out then accountability should be of all the institutions including the army. We are witness to the fact that many generals, who have passed away and their children are very much present before us and they also contest elections. They do not work and are millionaires. The nation will like to know how come they amass such wealth, and Pakistani’s demand for their accountability first. Defense expenditure in our budget is never debated in the assemblies. The Nation had just taken a short step in the direction of democracy and we had to go quite further. But the way in which a dictatorial rule came in, we cannot expect that an open and formal debate can be held on anything...........Now, who would carry out accountability? Accountability can be done only if we have independent institutions, if there is need of anything in the country then it is to make the law and justice institutions independent and also strengthen them. The way in which slogans of accountability are being chanted it is ridiculous because what has been known, seen and now read, the people who embezzled the most are raising the slogans of accountability in the highest tone. As a matter of fact it is difficult to talk about human rights because in a country where there is no constitution, no law and no institution then apparently the trampling of human rights is inevitable. Dismissed general Musharraf may be a very nice person but he has not come into power with the support of people`s vote and a military government is a military government, no matter who runs it. The top priority of the new administration should be the restoration of the democratic process at its earliest.Any government which does not come into power with the opinion of the people and has no links with the people cannot discharge its obligations a popular fashion. Dismissed general Musharraf has seized power in vengeance, which is a treason as per the constitution of Pakistan, a crime punishable by death penalty.

Roohi

MUSLIMS OF ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN HAVE A BOOZER TO RULE ``EM.

What a pitty, of all the people in Pakistan, the miltary of Pakistan is potraying a ``boozer`` as their leader. Musharraf is reported to be a moderate muslim, who listens to western music, dances and boozes in his islamic Pakistan. This is what is reported in the international press. Musharraf has started to please India by withdrawing the troops from border. Oh my God, what a muslim (MOMIN) ruler of Pakistan. We cannot find a better person than him in the population of 143 millions. God have mercy on us, one boozer general Yayaha Khan lost half Pakisatn, here is an other to destroy us.

GENERAL PLANS TO PLAY ATA TURK?

Well miltary has another valid excuse to rule the country. This time an urdu speaking general is being potrayed as a popular person. Beaware the mullahs have learnt about your intents general, they know you plan to play Ata Turk. Will it be successful... may be not but might give the general a winnig shot in the West.

In response to maliku (Reply # 5):

Dear Umair Malik:

Your statement: ``Many looters and plunderers of the Pakistani exchequer have been provided with an ‘open door` policy to make a dash for safe havens (at the mere mention of accountability), such as USA, UK and other European countries. The Nawaz Sharifs and Benazirs of the Pakistani elite maintain lavish properties and extravagant bank balances in the very countries shouting the loudest about the ‘death of democracy`.``

Comment: I sent the following letter to be posted/published in the Talking Point (BBC), and then to Fronteir Post (Peshawar), and News (Karachi). Only Frontier Post decided to publish it with slight modification due the timing (October 21, 1999). May be my English grammar and composition is not up to the standard of the BBC and the News? What other reason could there be?

From London with Love

According to the BBC, Pakistan is likely to be suspended from the Commonwealth. The secretary-general of the Commonwealth organization, Emeka Anyaoku, said that the heads of the 54 member nations would send ``a clear signal to Pakistan that undemocratic behaviour was unacceptable.``

It is indeed mind boggling why the Commonwealth organization failed to send ``a clear signal`` to Nawaz Sharif when he was violating all possible rights of the Pakistani citizens and using the coercive state apparatus for the consolidation of his dictatorial regime. Perhaps boneless and corrupt leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, two champions of a sham democracy, are more acceptable to the British government (which covertly controls the Commonwealth organization), since they create a better environment for the uninterrupted transfer of wealth to the Western world.

Messrs. Anyaoku and Robin Cook: Is it really democracy that you care about? If yes, would you like to impose a Pakistani style of democracy in the United Kingdom?

Bilal Ahmad

USA

In light of the recent events and subsequent comments on the possible remedies. I think you will find the following interesting. Another point to bear in mind when reading this is:- We are at the gates of the 21st century and yet what have we changed!

The Quaid`s, Presidential address at the 30th session of the All-India Muslim League, held at Delhi on April 20, 1943

`Here I should like to give a warning to the landlords and the capitalists who have flourished at our expense by a system which is so wicked and which makes them so selfish that it is difficult to reason with them. The exploitation of the masses has gone into their blood. They have forgotten the lessons of Islam. Greed and selfishness have made these people subordinate the interests of others in order to fatten themselves. It is true, we are not in power today. You go anywhere to the countryside. I have visited villages. There are millions and millions of our people who hardly get one meal a day. Is this civilisation? Do you visualise that millions have been exploited and cannot get one meal a day? If they are wise, they will have to adjust themselves to the modern conditions of life. If they don`t, God help them, we shall not help them`

The saddest part of what is happening today is that despite Quaid`s optimism, the down trodden masses have not vented their anger. We have not demanded our rights.

Umair Malik, London UK

Dear Readers,

Much has been said on the merits and demerits of the military ‘take over’ [different interpretation in Pakistan than the standard Western `educated` variety] of a ‘democratically’[ democracy only works when the individual is truly ‘free’ to choose, decide who he/she wants to represent them on their behalf on national/provincial/local platform] elected government.

I feel it is much more important and productive to closely examine the unusual circumstances surrounding these dramatic events and the underlying causes that have been simmering since the creation of Pakistan.

Western ‘knee jerk’ reactions to such events are almost never based on ‘universal principles’ and are almost always based on vested interests. It is imperative to note that the Pakistani public is always last to learn the actual facts about its own government’s misdeeds and disregard for their welfare yet the donor countries have a far detailed understanding of all that goes on and continue to maintain silence.

Many looters and plunderers of the Pakistani exchequer have been provided with an ‘open door’ policy to make a dash for safe havens (at the mere mention of accountability), such as USA, UK and other European countries. The Nawaz Sharifs and Benazirs of the Pakistani elite maintain lavish properties and extravagant bank balances in the very countries shouting the loudest about the ‘death of democracy’. In fact Pakistan is held in such low regard that even ‘most wanted’ terrorists, wanted for multiple murders are being welcomed with open arms.

I urge the common folk, particularly in the west, to question the motives behind rhetorical grand statements your politicians make during trying circumstances.

Umair Malik, London UK

Dear Chowk,

Please correct the error for following articles

1. Pakistan looks ahead by Yusuf A. Khan

2. Who will run Pakistan by Rana Jawad Asghar

it connects to same article ( Things to do: A wish to do list for Gen. Musarraf by

Two-Nations)

cheers,

Moez Momin

YOU GO TO HELL, WE ARE NOT COMING WITH YOU

I find it hard to believe that people some people think that the military`s intervention could be positive. It is not and it could not have been. The first thing that a country like Pakistan needs is democracy. If the

Pakistani people voted the wrong guy then maybe they should stick with him for the whole term in order to be more careful the next time. As for the rest of the world, no one can feel safe when nuclear weapons are controlled by dictators. Unfortunately, from the reaction of the media, it looks like the west is ready to accept whatever solution the military imposes, as long as it can be presentable and that is sad. The events in Pakistan are reflective of the complete lack of honor and respect that the politicians have been able to gain from the people of Pakistan and from its armed forces. That a constitutional government could be thrown out as easily as by occupying a TV station goes to show the moral strength of the leaders and their people. That the nation is not shedding tears on the disgrace of the leader it had convincingly elected a few years back goes to show that the politicians do not have any roots among the people. It’s a no-win situation for Pakistan. Our country has never been a truly democratic country, it`s always been ruled by corrupt feudal politicians and the army. This is absolutely ridiculous: 35 out of 52 years, we have been ruled by the Army! Shame on this country and the people who celebrate a take-over by the army.

Not that Sharif government was good for the country`s economy that has gone to shambles, but then the question is: is this the solution? No way, the actual plunderers of our country’s wealth are these generals. They take away 65% of our national budget in form of salaries, benefits and Defense Housing Societies plots. How can a commando repair Pakistan’s economy by bringing an army coup. Musharraf is consulting people like Ishaq Khan and Farooq Leghari; a former bureaucrat and feudal respectively. Both these are power hungry looters of country’s wealth. One can imagine what advise he is going to get from them, and how fair Musharraf will be in running affairs of the country.

The Army has no right to remove a democratic government. Nawaz Sharif , may be he was

corrupt, but he was elected representative of people, and is a better choice than an even more corrupt Army. Today, democracy in Pakistan is back to square one. And I feel ashamed of being known as a Pakistani. Pakistan has gone back to its dark ages it has reached the point of no return.



The recent act of the army in Pakistan is strongly condemned. This is completely unconstitutional. I think the Nawaz Sharif government should be restored. And Musharraf and his seven generals be hanged by neck till death. ….why because that’s what is their constitutional and lawful fate to be. And same fate should be for the feudal and bureaucrats behind this scene. MUSHARRAF YOU GO TO HELL, WE ARE NOT COMING WITH YOU. LONG LIVE PAKISTAN