Open Letter to General Musharraf

Tibor!

Army is our sacred Cow. Let us deal with it.

Why have you let your cow loose in Kashmir.

Military keeps coming back because it you Paki holy cow. It won`t follow civilian order. Even when civilian government was in charge real power that really matter in Pak rested with the Military. And when military intrests were superceded, like in Kargil situation, military looked for an excuse to take away power.

Pak did better in the 1980 becuase of billions of dollars coming in for Afghans not because military was better at governance.

Dear Umairr #32

``The only interests I have in India is on issues that relate to Pakistan, and the creation of Bangladesh is one of them.``

Stop fooling yourself. This article is about Mussharaf and Pakistan. What are you gaining by your very ``cho chweet`` innocent attempt to start a parallel discussion about ``general Bangladeshi`s opinion`` as narrated by Sigalph? If you are really interested in improving Pakistan (or yourself) you should ask Sigalph for feedback about your country or yourself rather than asking him how he feels about India, Russia or America or Bill Clinton.

This is your paranoia that forces you to always drag India in any debate and doesn`t allow you to objectively view yourself.

I can repharse your question to Sigalph, perhaps that will give you much better & useful information:

[[ Assume that it is from Umair ]]

``Dear Sigalph,

What is opinion of general Bangladeshi about Pakistani army, way they conducted themselves. Do you think their real aim was to plunder Bangladesh. How will they compare the treatment given to Biharis by Pakistani government with treament given to Sindhis, Baluchis and Mohajirs? Does an average Bengali feels that people of Baltistan have democracy?``

[[ Umair`s portion ends ]]

A very good letter, wonder if General Musharraf will get to see it?

Though the writer has pointed out the shortfalls he has not made any positive suggestions on what could be done by the General to improve the situation in Pakistan?

Democracy has not worked and neither has previous military regimes.

The question is: Why does military keeps coming back and take over the contry?

Answer: Democracy kept producing corrupt governments.

Asfand Siddiqui

Sacramento CA

One would love to see what the addressee can say, if at all anything intelligible, in reply to this letter.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/381174.asp

Andrew Hill

Diplomats believe Clinton’s five-day visit to India conferred regional superpower status on New Delhi, which wants a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and access to U.S. markets. A five-hour Clinton stopover in Islamabad followed, signaling Washington’s disapproval of the coup that ended Pakistan’s stop-go democracy and gave Musharraf power.

Clinton warned Islamabad that Washington would not mediate over Kashmir nor help douse the flames of war if they were being stoked by either side. He also told Musharraf to concentrate on the sickly economy, not the 52-year Kashmir dispute.



“Musharraf needs World Bank, Asian Development Bank aid and has a host of domestic problems. Another Kargil would be a disaster for him,” said a Western envoy in Islamabad.

An Indian offer to talk to the Kashmiri umbrella group the All-Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference (APHC) has caught Pakistan off guard and revealed splits in the movement, which says its Muslim people are the target of brutal repression. But there are no signs that the militants, who have battled Indian rule of Kashmir for a decade, feel compelled to exercise restraint. With the winter snows melting, they are crossing into Indian Kashmir, just as they have for the past 10 years.

Schooled in the Muslim creed of “jihad” (holy war), they think they are God’s vanguard for a military solution to Kashmir, 45 percent of which is controlled by India, one-third by Pakistan and the rest by China.

India says they are terrorists, while Pakistan calls them freedom fighters. Whatever the label, analysts believe their hit-and-run raids are the key threat to an uneasy regional peace.

“I don’t see a fresh flare-up but I also don’t see much chance of a resumption of dialogue either,” said Kuldip Nayar, a political commentator and member of India’s upper house of parliament. “In that sense the Kargil mountains have become higher.”

friend #26: Actually if you read the lines that sigaph235 quoted, it had a reference to India.

``You don`t see your beloved ``East Pakistan`` as part of India, do you?`` (sigalph235 #2).

The third last word is, ``India`` I believe. That is why I wanted to find out his views on how Bengalis view India and Pakistan. He is a Bengali, and would thus be able to give more accurate answers than Pakistanis or Indians, I assume.

If I remember correctly India was in someway or the other involved in the 1971 war. So any discussion involving the creation of Bangladesh, and the loss of E. Pakistan from W. Pakistan will have to involve India. If you are not happy with that, you should accuse Indira Gandhi, and the Indian leadership which got India involved in that situation. There is no point in taking it out on me. I have much better things to do then unnecessarily discuss India. I don`t live in India, so it doesn`t really make any difference to me what happens there. The only interests I have in India is on issues that relate to Pakistan, and the creation of Bangladesh is one of them.

So there is no need to be paranoid.

LETTER TO THE CEO:

This dravidian Ataturk wants to fix up the system. His only option is to cut the size of his own army and curtail its expenses. Whatever is saved goes to pay for education, health and housing.

Fuzair:

Read the article on CHOWK and it`s replies (more than 300 responses). There are many documents, URL`s to the 1971 Genocide in Bangladesh in which nearly 3.6 millions were killed.

Balkan Tragedy: A Re-enactment of the 1971 Genocide in Bangladesh

by Jamal Hasan

http://www.chowk.com/bin/showa.cgi?jhasan_apr0799

http://www.virtualbangladesh.com/history/overview_akram.html

http://sg.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/asia/afp/article.html

Victim of 1971 Bangladeshi war finds `great joy` in the truth

DHAKA, March 26 (AFP) - As Bangladesh celebrated the 29th anniversary of its independence on Sunday, the first woman to go public about the torture she suffered at the hands of the Pakistani army says she has found ``great joy`` in facing the truth.

``There is a great joy in coming to terms with the truth, but the pain and sorrow would never go away,`` Ferdousy Priyabhashini, a celebrated sculptor who was among the at least 250,000 women raped during the war, told AFP in an interview on Saturday.

Priyabhashini explained she had reconciled herself to the fact she was a ``victim of circumstance`` and needed to tell a new generation about the bad months.

Collaborators and Islamic fundamentalists who helped the Pakistani army now want to downplay those events, she said.

``I want to be alone when the melancholic winds of March (the month of independence) start blowing, which at one time made me romantic and now takes me back to those horrific days of pain and anguish,`` she said.

``I can only say I was trapped to my fate.``

Priyabhashini, a mother of six, said that when she decided to go public in Bangladesh`s conservative Muslim society she told her husband she was ``responsible for everything and I have nothing to lose whether the society accepts or rejects me.``

A mere 22-years-old in 1971, she went public in November 10, 1999, when her story was published in ``Tormenting `71,`` a book by prominent anti-fundamentalist Ekkaturer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee.

At least three million Bengalis were killed in Bangladesh`s 1971 independence war against Pakistan, and 250,000 women were raped during those nine months, according to official estimates.

Priyabhashini, then a divorced mother of three, fell into a trap set by Urdu-speaking Pakistani collaborators in May of that year after failing to run away and returning to her job at the privately owned Crescent Jute Mills in southwestern Khulna district.

She was alone as the Pakistani army launched its military crackdown code-named ``Operation Searchlight`` to silence the independence movement.

``I can never say or give the real picture of my horrific days in captivity and the killings I saw at that time,`` she said, suddenly becoming silent.

Priyabhashini came face-to-face with her first horror as soon as she stepped into the place she thought would be her ``shelter`` -- the home of her Urdu-speaking boss.

She fell victim to the man, who she said once treated her as a younger sister, immediately on entering the house. Between May and Bangladesh`s Victory Day on December 16 she was tortured and raped by Pakistani army officers based in Khulna and Jessore.

``In that house, owned by the jute mill owners, I saw whisky on the table and I still wondered why was this man who I saw always as my elder brother behaving like that with me ... I was so naive I did not even understand that a war of such great magnitude had broken out,`` she said.

``My boss made me a prisoner and before going to inform his military officers he told me `don`t go anywhere, army officers will come here`,`` she said, still seething with bitterness.

``I was supposed to be killed and often wonder why I am alive. Maybe I feared death and learned to survive during those tormenting days.

``I saw truckloads of Bengalis being brought to the mill and beheaded by a machine at the factory before being thrown into the adjacent river.``

Asked about her experiences after going public, Priyabhashini said ``it was my life`s greatest gift when my fried, and now my husband, accepted me along with my children despite my tragedy.``

``I never want any sympathy from anyone.``

Her husband Ahsan Ullah Ahmed, employed in a private company, said his wife`s decision to publicize her case ``has not changed our life.``

``I think how helpless one can be in her own country and I could not help her, besides there are so many more women who even suffered more than my wife,`` he said.

As per American library sources nearly 3.6 million Bengalis were killed by Pakistani forces. I am not sure what Pakistani textbooks say.

Umair #15,

``How does the average Bengali view India? Do the Bengalis feel that India supported them in 1971, becuase it was genuinely intersted in stopping Pakistan`s human rights violations in E. Pakistan, or do they feel India`s main aim was to split Pakistan, i.e. it was not concerned about the Bengalis one way or the other? What is the view of the average Bengali regarding the independence of Pakistan (both E. and W.) in 1947?``

What a pathetic attempt to again drag India in a discussion about Mussharaf and his coup!! Yaar, kabhi to sudhro ..

We seem to have some Bangladeshi supporters and apologists here, who are rehashing the same ol` tired, revisionist propaganda, wraped in inane rhetoric.

I hate the fact that we lost a vast tract of land, which belonged to Pakistan and for which a lot of blood, sweat and tears were shed by the founders of Pakistan. But in hindsight, I am not sorry that we lost custody of the natives living on that land. As the events that unfolded before the 1970 elections and those between April - Dec 1971 proved, that the Bangalis just could not be happy without having Bangla as the national language of Pakistan and enjoying total control of govt. administration from city council up to the seat of the Prime Minister.

Mujib was in India as early as 1965-66, making plans to tear out Bangladesh from the whole. It was well known that he was cultivating contacts in India, to make the transition easier. His six point plan, which he would not budge an inch from in ngotiations with Bhutto, wanted East Pakistan to be a totally autonomous state, only sharing the currency and foreign policy with West Pakistan. It is absurd to suggest that Bhutto should have accepted that loony plan of Mujib`s. The Bangalis forced the hand of the West pakistanis and proudly secceded from us.

During the war, every Bangali child from 6 to 60

was pushing bogged down indian troop vehicles out of the muddy tracts in Bangladesh, so they could hurry up and kill more West Pakistani soldiers. The Bangalis made the best Mukhbir`s, taking all the troop positions and reporting them to their Indian masters laying seige on the pakistani troops. And these brave Pakistani jawans were stationed there, fighting tooth and nails, with an ill-equipped, paltry 3 corps, to Indias well-supplied 12 corps, armed to the teeth. West Pakistanis died, trying to save the homes of these Bangalis who turned around and gave them up to the Indians, all the while jumping with joy.

You know...I am glad we got rid of these Bangalis. Who knows, what other wounds they would have inflicted upon the West, if we had carried them with us ?, maybe lost the WHOLE of Pakistan to India. Bangalis wanted their country, they got it. I hope they are happy with the success they have had, since choosing to seperate from us. They look real pretty clutching those coconut trees in the monsoons, as waters rush under their derrier`s.

Thats probably the sky, pashy.maan and crying, over the innumerable acts of trechery and treason the Bangalis carried out against the West Pakistanis...

Thakur

preceded the 1970 elections, that led to the attitudes cementing in the west against Mujib-ur-Rahman`s

Re: Critiq #14 and Vicky #13?

Critiq, yes you are missing something and that thing is sarcasm. I have been away from Chowk, for a long time, and since I am back, I keep forgetting that Chowkwallahs take these interacts a little too seriously.

If you would read that quote again, you would discovery the irony of what I was suggesting; read between the lines! You obvisiously spotted what the contradiction in that statement was and that was what I was trying to convey; Pakistanis will never learn and they will always hope for the impossible to happen and to believe in the impossible, they will deny the reality to appease their own sense of an utopian paradise.

You have suggested that I am in self-denial about Pakistan. I can assure you I am not, because unlike the rest of my fellow countrymen, I know where Pakistan is heading in the next decade; a mirror repeat of what happened in East Pakistan. I do not expect the world to come and save us, nor do I expect Pakistan to amend its erring ways. That only leaves one possible option and we all know what that option is, because it is staring us in the face day in and day out.

I sincerely wish that you did not read my post as a cry for help, because it was scathingly laced with sarcasm and that was how it was supposed to have been read. What did Roger Waters of the Pink Floyd fame once wrote in his lyrics to The Final Cut,``...behind my sarcasm desperate memories lie...``

To Jay and Sigalph, you are right in more ways than one, because each day in Pakistan is, ``just another brick in the wall`` and we all know who is going to be entombed alive in this ideological grave.

Ciao!