Hypocrisy of Musharraf Lovers

Mukhlis at # 57:

Thumbs up.

:-)

Mukhlis makes some very accurate observations here BUT...

Mush must stay around to clean up a mess that the Khakis themselves have created

with the help of their benefactors (who have decided to finally change their tune).

The argument goes like this: Will the uniforms listen to a civilian to change course?

On 9-12-2001 had there been a Politician at the helm in Pakistan (BB or Nawaz)

would the 180 on the Taliban have been possible?

The future will be dictated by the benefactor, that is certain.

Let us prepare for the ride....

stuka #72 ``Saala, discussion board kee bhund maar dee hai. ``

Agreed. nakhok beta, soon liya?

Abey yaar, cut and paste links instead of articles. If we are interested we will go and read. Saala, discussion board kee bhund maar dee hai.

The Friday Times, Lahore, Pakistan
August 15-21, 2003

EDITORIAL
Okara peasants, military and national interest
by Najam Sethi

THERE IS A NEW TWIST IN THE unending and sordid saga of the plight of the tenants of Okara Military Farms (OMF) in Punjab: General Pervez Musharraf has taken it upon himself to defend the army`s honour and conduct which has been denounced by human rights organisations at home and abroad. ..... by rushing to premeditated judgment in favour of his own boys, he is guilty of putting the army`s corporate interests above the national interest. (Incidentally, it doesn`t always occur to stupid civilians that the army`s interest = the national interest.) .....

..... the arrogance of the OMF (Okara Military Farms) can be gauged from the text of some letters written by senior officials to relatives of the allegedly offending tenants threatening them in clearly unlawful terms. We are in possession of two letters sent to the OMF ``employees``, dated Aug 26, 2002, and Jan 24, 2003, by the farm officer, a major. These show the mindset of the military authorities towards the Okara tenancy issue in particular and civil-military relations in general. In one of the letters, the major writes in English: ``It has come to our notice that your parents/relatives living in chaks of Mil Farms are involved in anti-state activities. You are directed to motivate your parents/relatives to desist from anti-state activities and to co-op with the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Rangers. If you will not do this for the state, appropriate disciplinary action will be taken against you.`` .....

..... With Okara still under some sort of military siege, and several resisting tenants killed during protests against paramilitary forces in the last two years since the dispute has been brewing, what sort of ``disciplinary action`` is the OMF thinking of taking against its hapless ``employees`` and their relatives/parents? .....

..... in the case of the tenants of the OMF, there is a history of organised peasant resistance to displacement and there is a military force that wants to speedily claim its capitalist ``rights``. Hence the violence and the negative publicity attached to the case. In fact, if a multinational corporate enterprise had been in the shoes of the OMF, we dare say that the judiciary, far from studiously dragging its feet on the issue, might even have come out in support of the tenants! .....

..... the employment of feudals as junior partners under martial law regimes has introduced a feudal streak into the military mind as well. How about it, General Musharraf? Can you be bigger than the chief of the army?

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm

DAWN, Karachi, Pakistan
25 July 2003 Friday 24 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1424

..... Did anyone hear the Karachi corps commander, Lt Gen Wasim Ghazi, declaiming on Geo TV about the wonders of the Defence Housing Authority`s new beach-side development?

I have heard hyperbole in my time but this one really went over the top. For a moment I thought the excited general was talking of some new blitzkrieg technique or a new howitzer invented by the army. But here, instead of anything to do with his duties as corps commander, he was waxing lyrical about a housing estate by the sea.And then senior army officers get red in the face, their military honour touched to the quick, if you tell them that far from anything to do with the profession of arms their true vocation seems to lie in the setting up of newer and more lavish housing estates.

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http://jang.com.pk/thenews/aug2003-daily/09-08-2003/oped/o4.htm

The News, Karachi, Pakistan
Saturday August 09, 2003-- Jamadi-us-Sani 10, 1424 A.H

A candid talk
by Mir Jamilur Rahman
mirjrahman@hotmail.com

..... President Musharraf expressed his deep concern over the anti-armed forces propaganda in the national media. He detailed the misperceptions created by the negative reporting. President Musharraf should not get unduly perturbed on this trend. It is the natural and logical outcome of overexposure of the armed forces in the public affairs. Never before in the history of Pakistan the military personnel have occupied so many public offices. Its omnipresence in every sphere of public life and its omniscient attitude has not endeared it to the people. It has replaced the bureaucrat as the perennial target of public scorn. It has forgotten the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt. It is now the armed forces personnel who run the public utilities, supervise the sports, regulate the utility tariffs, and catch the thieves under NAB, head the postal department, the universities and research institutes. With a public exposure of this magnitude the criticism would not only continue to flow but become intense too.

President Musharraf assured his audience of newsmen that every penny of the defence budget is spent with great care and there are several tiers of checks on all spending. True, that defence budget is only 17 percent of the federal budget and yet at the GDP ratio of 6 percent it is nearly the highest in the world. Despite all the checks Admiral Mansoorul Haq could manage a hefty commission on the deal of Augusta submarines. It was a newspaper of Karachi that exposed the Admiral and not some vigilant committee of the government. The defence budget and spending cannot attain full transparency until it was opened to the public debate. .....

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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-6-2003_pg3_3

Land allotments and the military
by Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi

[The author, Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi, is a renowned political and
defence analyst. He holds PhD in International Relations and Political
Science from the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He has taught at
Columbia University, New York, Heidelberg University, Germany, and the
University of the Punjab,Lahore]

Land allotments to military personnel are not viewed in Pakistani
society as an isolated development. These represent a broader
phenomenon of the military gradually overwhelming most sectors of
state and society

Some of Pakistan`s national dailies carried a news item on June
24 that the Punjab Board of Revenue informed the Lahore High Court
that 62 senior and 56 junior Army officers were allotted agricultural
lands in Cholistan and other district of the Punjab under various
schemes in 1981, 1982, 1994, 1999 and 2000. These allotments were made
under instructions of the Army headquarters and the details of these
allotments could be made public only by the Army headquarters.

The allotment of agricultural land to serving and retired military
personnel is an old and well established practice going back to the
period of British rule in India. No detailed data is available on such
allotments since the establishment of Pakistan because the military
authorities are not willing to release the names of the beneficiaries
of this policy and the civilian governments (when in power) do not
want to alienate the military by making detailed data available to
public. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Punjab Board of
Revenue did not provide the list of officers who were allotted
agricultural land in Cholistan and other districts of the Punjab in
the specified years.

However, limited data is released from time to time by the government,
mainly to answer questions in various assemblies. The available data
shows clearly that the military personnel (in many cases the
bureaucrats as well) were accommodated liberally whenever agricultural
land became available under various land development schemes. At
times, newspapers and weeklies have published unauthenticated list of
civil servants and military officers who were allotted agricultural
land in Sindh and the Punjab. Several political parties and citizens
groups have periodically taken exception to this policy but their
protests are not known to have produced any significant impact on the
land allotment policy for military personnel.

The British adopted the policy of granting agricultural land to
military personnel in the Punjab in order to encourage recruitment to
the Army. This helped to improve the socio-economic status of army
personnel in an agricultural society. Some influential people were
granted land for helping the British in army recruitment or for
pursuing Army-related assignments, i.e. ``ghori pal``
scheme.

The British could adopt this policy because large tracts of
agricultural land became available as they started building canals in
the Punjab from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The land
in these ``canal colonies`` was distributed mainly to build
support for the British government and for rewarding Army personnel
which encouraged army recruitment in the Punjab. A detailed study of
how the British used the land in the canal colonies in the Punjab for
popularising Army service can be found in Imran Ali`s book
``The Punjab Under Imperialism, 1885-1947`` (Princeton
University Press, 1988).

In the post-independence period, land in the Thal desert was assigned
to the military for settling ex-service personnel. Land was also
allotted to ex-service personnel in various schemes in different
barrage areas in Sindh and the Punjab. These barrages included Ghulam
Muhammad, Gudu and Taunsa. Local servicemen were given land in
Campbellpur, Jhelum, Kohat, Rawalpindi and Hazara districts which was
developed with the help of the Army. Agricultural land was allotted to
service personnel on the Pakistan-India border in the Punjab.

Initially, agricultural land was also granted with gallantry awards.
Later, cash rewards replaced land allocations. Some useful historical
data on the policy of land allotments to the military in the early
years of independence can be found in Major General (retd) Fazal
Muqeem`s book ``The Story of the Pakistan Army``
(Oxford University Press, 1963); for the later period see Hasan Askari
Rizvi`s book ``Military, State and Society in
Pakistan`` (St Martin`s Press, New York, 2000).

The practice of agricultural land grants continued on a limited scale
in the eighties and the nineties. The Punjab Provincial Assembly was
informed in January 1988 that the Punjab Government allotted about
450,000 acres of land to 5,538 military personnel during 1977-85. Land
was also allotted to military personnel, bureaucrats and influential
people in other provinces, especially in Sindh, but the government did
not release the data about these allotments.

The practice of granting plots of land to military personnel in
various housing schemes in cantonments and other urban centres is by
now well-established. Most service personnel can get more than one
residential or commercial plot in different housing schemes at a price
less than the market rate and then sell their extra plots, mostly to
civilians, at exorbitant market rates.

A reference may also be made to the ongoing controversy about the
Okara Military Farms. This farm involves about 20,156 acres of land
spread over 22 villages which is controlled and managed by the Army
under a renewable 20 year lease agreement with the Punjab Government
going back to 1912-13. The lease agreement allows the Army to acquire
its proprietary rights. This has not happened and the Army continues
with the lease arrangement. The dispute with the tenants of three or
four out of 22 villages started when the Army decided to change the
original arrangement for sharing the produce of this land.

The demand of the tenants for ownership of the land has no legal basis
because no Pakistani law permits the tenants to become owners of the
land by virtue of having been tenants over a long period of time. The
coercion used by state agencies against these tenants has provoked
some NGOs and human rights groups to take up the cause of the tenants.
Furthermore, civil society groups want to highlight the broader issue
of the military`s expanding role in all sectors of state and
society.

Land allotments to military personnel are not viewed in Pakistani
society as an isolated development. These represent a broader
phenomenon of the military gradually overwhelming most sectors of
state and society. The related developments that add to concern about
the nature and direction of the society include the induction of
military personnel into the top posts in the government and
semi-government institutions and organisations, and the fast expanding
commercial, business and industrial interests of the military being
pursued through four welfare foundation.

On top of all this is the military exercises power directly from time
to time, and, when it is not in power, its top brass use their pivotal
position to assert their role in the decision making process at the
highest level. Politicisation of the role of the military and its
penetration into most sectors of state and society is leading to
political controversies.

A person or an institution cannot engage in politics without being
questioned by competing political and societal interests. The military
may justify its position on land allotments, material rewards to its
personnel, its economic interests, and the control of the Okara farms
on purely legal grounds. However, it will continue to be questioned on
political grounds and with reference to the attempts of civil society
groups to protect the autonomy of civilian institutions and processes.

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Mukhlis,

Sorry for taking up your space.

To those interested: Please go to the `publish and discuss articles on social and cultural issues` board for further details on Hudood Laws.

Thank you.
Umer M.

The Pakistan military has been claiming that Pakistan will self-destruct if the military has to operate under democratically elected civilian authority. Needless to say, this is a blatantly self-serving argument.

While respected journalists have been writing about army corruption for quite some time, so have been foreign journalists even after General Pervez Musharraf reversed the military`s policy on the Taliban in the wake of 9/11 (more for self-preservation than for any genuine change in philosophy on terrorism).

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A recent article in Washington Post (Pakistanis Question Perks of Power, Many Say Military Confuses National Interest With Its Own By John Lancaster) is a good example. See the following URL for the article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23614-2002Nov21.html

The article was published in Washington Post of 21 November, 2002.
Here are some excerpts:

.....

``Some critics go a step further, accusing the military of deliberately stoking tensions with India, particularly over Kashmir, to justify its hold on resources and power. ``Peace would be a disaster for the military,`` said Pervez Hoodbhoy, an anti-nuclear activist and MIT-trained physicist who teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.``

.....

``There is no denying the military`s dominant role in Pakistan. The military owns the best farmland and several of the largest industrial conglomerates. Retired or active-duty military officers run the ports, postal service, electric utilities, sports federations, telecommunications authority, culture ministry, mineral development agency, anti-drug police, railroads, civil aviation authority, national shipping company and Pakistan`s biggest steel mill. They hold top administrative posts at the best universities. Many ambassadors are retired officers.``

.....

``Under an arcane point-based system that dates to the British Raj, the military also rewards its senior officers by allowing them to purchase agricultural and urban land from the army`s vast inventory of real estate at prices far below market value. A number of these properties are grouped into ``defense societies`` in tony suburbs of Karachi and other major cities. The societies are administered by the Defense Housing Authority, which ensures the provision of municipal services. Officers who acquire such land often develop it as rental property or sell it for hefty profits.``

......

``One of Pakistan`s most coveted addresses, for example, is the blandly named Army Housing Scheme II, which is built on the site of an old antiaircraft battery in the upscale Karachi suburb of Clifton. A gated community protected by paramilitary troops, the development consists of spacious, Mediterranean-style villas grouped around a playground and an elaborately landscaped Japanese-style garden. Nearby are clothing boutiques, jewelry stores, restaurants and a yoga studio.``

.....

``Installing men in uniform in civilian businesses and institutions did not begin with Musharraf. In 1980, Zia established a 10 percent quota for military personnel in civilian government jobs. But Musharraf, by all accounts, has taken the process further than his uniformed predecessors, dispatching military ``monitoring teams`` to key civilian agencies and replacing top officials with senior officers.``

.....

The military has been milking the civilian sector with impunity. Readers will find the following reference book to be very informative & educational:

Military, State and Society in Pakistan
by Hasan Askari Rizvi
St.Martin`s Press, New York

The author, Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi, is a renowned political and defence analyst. He holds PhD in International Relations and Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He has taught at Columbia University, New York, Heidelberg University, Germany, and the University of the Punjab,Lahore.

Dr. Hasan Rizvi has pointed out that the induction of military personnel to civilian jobs has been institutionalized in a manner that led to what British Professor S E Finer describes as the ``military colonisation of other institutions`` whereby ``the military acts as a reservoir or core of personnel for the sensitive institutions of the state``.

In fact, even the universities haven`t been able to resist this colonisation! I am not surprised that General Pervez Musharraf has been commenting with authority and impunity on the educational qualifications of Benazir Bhutto even as he spreads the word on his own educational qualifications thru his minions. Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, has pointed out:

``Six civilian universities had retired Army officers as their Vice Chancellors. The University of Balochistan was headed by a retired Brigadier in the eighties. In 2001, a retired Brigadier was appointed Pro-Vice Chancellor of Balochistan University. A Major General served as Vice Chancellor of Peshawar University for a brief period in 1993. A Lt General worked as Vice Chancellor of the Punjab University in 1993-97. The government`s plan to appoint another Lt General as his successor was scuttled by the boycott threat of the faculty and negative editorials in some newspapers. However, in September 1999, the Punjab`s civilian government appointed a retired Lt General as Vice Chancellor of the Punjab University.

The PU faculty went on strike as protest against this appointment. However, after the military assumed power by dislodging the civilian government in October 12, 1999, the PU faculty had to call off the strike. Several key administrative posts of the Punjab University are also held by retired Army officers. A Lt. General was appointed Vice Chancellor of the Engineering University, Lahore, in 1998. The Vice Chancellor of Engineering University Peshawar, is also a retired senior military officer. The Vice Chancellor of Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, is both retired Army officer and former senior bureaucrat. Some Brigadiers were given academic appointments in Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, in the eighties by changing the university rules.``

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Military has been calling the shots in Pakistan for much of its history. General Pervez Musharraf`s goal has been to do everything possible to perpetuate the military`s primacy in every sector of Pakistan.

The military is trained to defend the country`s frontiers, and even extend them. But Pakistan`s military has extended its reach far beyond what it receives training for. Needless to say, Pakistan is the loser.

Pakistan`s military has been the defacto rulers of the country for most of its history. It has established itself as the mafia that decides who gets to steal in Pakistan and how much. And needless to say, it is the Kakul kleptocrats that are the biggest beneficiaries of the institutionalized stealing.

Readers will find the following book very fascinating:

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DRUGS IN SOUTH ASIA: FROM THE OPIUM TRADE TO THE PRESENT DAY by M. Emdad-ul-Haq; MacMillan Press; Distributed by Vanguard Books Lahore; Pp319; Price UKP45

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The author is a professor of political science at Chittagong University.

The book chronicles how the military caused Pakistan`s ruination in its single-minded zeal to line its own pocket. It is the military that has held a monopoly over the drug trade and gun running in Pakistan. When General Ziaul Haq came to power there were practically no heroin addicts in Pakistan. By the time he died, the heroin addicts in Pakistan numbered over a million. Today`s secterian killings and Kalashnikov culture are a direct byproduct of the military`s gun running.

Khaled Ahmed wrote a review for the book in The Friday Times, Lahore, Pakistan dated 6-13 September, 2001. Here`s a quotation from that book review:

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``Almost all our beloved retired generals who are today busy saving the country from India and the United States in league with the weaponised clergy are named as heroin-dealers in the book. And the author has played safe by constantly referring to published sources in the West, research journals devoted to the elimination of narcotics internationally. What can we say except that we trust our generals more than we trust the West. May Allah inflict palsy on the hands that compile such painful research. Our retired generals are rich beyond
count because of Allah`s barakah.``

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Ahmadzai:

The main reason you support Mush is because Indians don`t like him. So you should be happy that Indians are giving him gaalis. It validates his presidency even more. But I don`t know why you don`t make Hafiz Saaed of leT or the Maulana Massod Azhar Head of Jaish e Mohamad the President. After all, they have given more fingers up our asses then Musharraf ever will.

Right?

#56 by Mukhlis

+++
We let Musharraf get away with an arm & a leg but demand the severest of punishments for the Gawalmandi guy or the Larkana BB.
+++

There is a crucial difference between Musharraf, the Gawalmandi guy (Nawaz) and Larkana BB.

The Gawalmandi guy now owns the largest steel mill in the world. Before he came to power, he had just 6 industrial units. At the end of his first tenure, he had kicked out his cousins from those units and added another 28 to his name. Nawaz Sharif`s crime is that he indulged in corruption at a time when Pakistan was suffering its worst recession since 1947. If he had controlled his greed and been a patient man, he could have ruled for another 15 years and made much more money. But he was in a hurry... at the wrong time.

Nawaz was an average guy so nobody had high expectations from him. But BB was the political heir to ZAB`s legacy and boasted of spectacular skills acquired at Harvard/Oxford. Upon her return from exile in 1986, she received the largest public reception in the history of Pakistan. People never forgot the courageous and dignified manner in which Bhutto had faced his trial and execution. After Benazir`s solitary confinement and assassination of Shahnawaz Bhutto, the common Pakistani identified with the pain of Bhuttos. She was the perfect candidate to champion the cause of the poor and politically oppressed.

How ironic that 10 years later when her second govt was dismissed, even PPP workers refused to mourn her ouster. Instead of delivering justice to the common man, BB played Russian roulette with the Judiciary by appointing ad-hoc judges who were perennially insecure about their future (and hence couldn`t stand up to Zardari). From power contracts to Mirage-2000 deal, her record was chequered with kickbacks.

At the end of the day, the debit side of Benazir`s balance sheet appears even slimmer than that of Nawaz Sharif (who was, by far, a novice in politics/leadership).

Larkana`s BB and Gawalmandi`s Nawaz got not one, but two chances each to turn the country around. They both failed. But failure is a lesser crime than graft in an economic recession.

Musharraf`s failures appear trivial in comparison to those of BB and Nawaz precisely because he improved the economy. As long as he outperforms BB and Nawaz on the economic front, people will ignore his mistakes. However, his failures will not be forgotten. These failures will return to haunt him when he is in a politically fragile position. The very people who are singing praises of him (including myself), will then turn against him.

This is how the beast of Politics treats losers. When you laugh, the world laughs with you. When you weep, you weep alone.

#54 by ahmadzai on October 22, 2003 7:13am PT
...early morning... ...i dont know how early... ....ahmadzai is worshipping Mushi....
... 99% of the remaining time that he is awake!!! he is swearing at the Hawks in India.. and the horrible hindoos!!!.....
and
...talking of fingers... ...politely let me remind you.... ....History speaks...

>>>We have a tendency to become super prejudiced when supporting our favorites and that clouds our judgments

That is true, but in an international context... not on a local context in pakistan, because I seriously dont see a significant number of BB or NW supporters around... if they are, then they are hiding under stones or something because you seriously can NOT support *ANY* leader who ruins the country and loots its citizens so. Mushy hasn`t done so, in fact he has improved our lives and the economy of the people of Pakistan ``in general``. Pun intended!

Now, the point I am trying to make is that the writer`s arguement is absolutely rubbish because he wants an ``equality`` of judgement on nawaz and benazir! Those two quite simply put, are looters and theives. ``bandits``...

You can NOT say that we should judge them the same way we love Musharraf.

Think about it, it is like saying we should judge George Washington the same way we judges Benedict Arnold... this rationale does NOT apply with those two leaders. Quite simply put, those two DID make the country suffer, they DID ruin our economies, they DID loot the people, they WERE and ARE corrupt and therefore they deserve nothing but our distaste and the swift arms of justice clamping down on their slimy hides.