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The paramount question that has been intriguing the discerning students of history is that why an iconic, revolutionary and charismatic leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto met with a tragic end. He took the political citadel of Pakistan by storm and assailed the minds and hearts of people within a short span of time. He soared to the political horizon of Pakistan like a meteorite yet plummeted with the same speed and intensity.
The charm and magic of Bhutto’s personality and his rhetorical style and revolutionary mandate bewitched the people of Pakistan who looked up to him as a redeemer and the architect of a new Pakistan that he vowed to “built from ashes” and by “picking the pieces” of the a colossally mauled left-over Pakistan.
It would not be in vain to adjudge him a leader who touched the zenith of people’s love and approbation after the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Had he not committed egregious blunders due to his personal weaknesses he could have been equated with Kamal Ataturk of Turkey and Jamal Abdul Nasir of Egypt and similar iconic leaders? Yet despite a dazzling and unprecedented popularity, he was desperately fighting’ within five years, for his political as well as personal survival.
A flurry of reforms including land reforms forbade a new era of hope and progress. The journey towards a new promising destiny began with a nation rejuvenated after country’s truncation. Although the release of Pakistan’s prisoners of war and retaking captured territory by India were considered as Bhutto’s spectacular achievements through Simla Accord, yet I am of the opinion that India could not keep such a huge captured army for long, nor could she hold on to the captured territory indefinitely.
Bhutto’s overwhelming weakness was that he was loyal to no one not even to his lofty ideals. He possessed a voracious obsession for power. What I want to point out that Bhutto would go to any extent for retaining power. He ruled like a dictator in the grab of a civilian head of government. During his dwindling fortunes after 1977 elections, he sacrificed his cosmopolitan and secular principles by lobbying with ultra conservative forces and courting discredited feudal classes in order to stick to power.
His letter written in April 1958 to the then president of Pakistan general Iskander Mirza extolling him as more exalted that the founder of Pakistan was a sordid display of rank flattery. His exploitation of Tashkent Pact (10 January 1966) was a smart tactical move that swept away a powerful military dictator with a bruised and demonized image.
Bhutto was genetically averse to anyone’s popularity. His companions, who stood with him through thick and thin and faced extreme persecution and oppression during Ayub Khan’s time, were disgraced and sacked one after another on such flimsy grounds as someone getting popular in public view or opposing some of his policies. Alas his weaknesses overshadowed his watershed achievements and that resulted in his tragic end.
Presently, in order to highlight Bhutto suspicious nature and his morbid proclivity to tame and frighten his ministers and party leaders, I have to refer to some of the observations made by Baloch leader Sher Baz Mazari in his book, “The Journey to Disillusionment”
“If any of his subordinates showed even a modicum of independence, he would be swiftly punished…“Even Bhutto’s close associates and cabinet ministers now lived in dread and fear of the unpredictability of their master’s temper”…”Bhutto would not brook any criticism…”Bhutto’s obsession with maintaining a aura of invincibility was so strong that he would spare no one, not even those who had done him valuable and devoted service over the years”.
About Bhutto’s devious machinations that were part of his politicking style, Mr Mazari wrote, “I had known Bhutto for some 23 years. To him lying, double-dealing and deceit were normal means of attaining and keeping power”
His FSF was a Gestapo type dreaded outfit that was created to terrorize and tyrannize both his colleagues and political rivals. In his book, Mr Mazari provides an account of many erstwhile colleagues of PPP who suffered enormously at the hands of Bhutto’s FSF that brooked no mercy for anyone if ordered by Bhutto to be fixed and brutalized.
But let us thrash out the events then took place prior to the Bhutto’s ascension to power first as the president and then as prime minister of Pakistan. The foremost question is that who was primarily responsible for the historic blunder of igniting a civil war in formerly East Pakistan? A political leader of the genius of Bhutto could never support use of military in East Pakistan knowing well it would entrap Pakistan army.
Yet by a clever ruse not only did he refuse to sit with a majority party but convinced debauched Yahya Khan to take the fatal army action in East Pakistan. Pakistan army was not only defeated but earned a lasting ignominy of surrender. There was a tacit or studied collusion between the then president Yahya Khan and Mr. Bhutto for an army operation in East Pakistan for the reason no one can justify.
If the democratic process was to be honored then why was it necessary for Mr. Bhutto to warn the elected parliament members going to East Pakistan would have his legs broken? That was a blatant denial of a majority party’s right to form government. Were the army top brass and Mr. Bhutto not cognizant that sending of army to subdue a whole province on immoral, unconscionable and illegal grounds was suicidal? Were they not aware of a yawning reality that in-between was a perennially hostile country and the resumption of supplies both of army personnel and ration and medicines by air nor by sea could not be carried on.
Bhutto’s tenure could be portrayed as a kind of façade of democracy that cloaked his authoritarianism and that was the most dominant reason for his downfall. As already stated that all his aides and colleagues who remained with him through thick and thin and were ideological bulwark of his revolution, were forced to leave through gross intimidation, witch-hunting, physical tortures, humiliation and through every brutal means carried out through the FSF and personally by Mr. Bhutto by foul mouthing and abusing. So when the army intervened on July 5, 1977, the PPP was depleted from committed and loyal cadres to stand by him. He fought a lonely legal war in front of the prosecutors who were his enemies for other reasons.
Bhutto’s penchant for power was so chronic and deep-rooted that contrary to his lofty ideals of making Pakistan a democratic, modern, secular, liberal country with civil society, shamelessly abandoned his cherished value and principles and dashed these on the rock of expediency. During the earth shaking countryside agitation spear-headed by Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) he frantically tried to win the support of the religious right to stay in power. One Such party was Jamaat Islami that opposed the creation of Pakistan and wanted the new state an Islamic emirate. He compromised his treasured credentials of an enlightened leader by downgrading himself to the level of a religious preacher or cleric.
What a volte-face that he sold his lofty status of the architect of a new modern Pakistan and auctioned his revolutionary mandate for the sake of power. Now such perfunctory measures as declaring Friday as holiday, declaring Ahmadis as non Muslims, banning liquor and horse races would not make Pakistan an Islamic state. But in order to deflate the hurricane of commotion for his ouster, he bargained his secular credentials, his conscience and political integrity. From that moment Pakistan has been irredeemably sinking into the abyss of religious fanaticism, lethal sectarianism and unremitting bigotry. But even that historic betrayal couldn’t keep him in the power saddle.
The outcome was irretrievably disastrous for his future. The religious lot got their piece of pie and then hastened to move for his downfall. The anti Bhutto outburst was mounted by all sections of society, betrayed and disillusioned people, friend and foes, bureaucracy, army, rival politicians, traders, students took part. Bhutto looked a desolate and forlorn person “fluttering his luminous wings in vain”. The whole scene seemed to be the replay of what Bhutto did against Ayub Khan.
Now there is very little logic in maligning or hating Ziaul Haq who seized power from Mr. Bhutto.Zaiul Haq was not a politician. He was outright a dictator. He was a rigid religious practicing Muslim. He was an army chief and the country was drifting towards a total chaos and breakdown. Ziaul-haq enjoyed the full support of the Islamic parties, Imams of mosques, religious seminaries and madrasas, besides the army and a host of politicians and perhaps external abettors.
In his twilight days of power, Mr. Bhutto prolonged the process of holding talks for a rapprochement. When he finally agreed on the contentious issues between him and opposition, it was too late and much water had flown down the political rivers. It clearly means that he lacked a kind of political acumen and discerning ability to see the direction of the wind. Thus Ziaul haq took the reins of the government and ruled with an iron had till he met his tragic fate also.
Now I would not apportion much of blame to Ziaul Haq because he was not an ideal moralist although he was a practicing Muslim. He did not amass wealth, nor made mansions but decidedly lived simple and austere life. This is for his person character. But in politics and in power all is fair. All the more when the religious sections of all hue and cries were behind him and the power fell in his lap like the ripened fruit.
Let us give credit to Ziaul Haq for a proxy war, although at the behest of America that forced Soviet Union to leave Afghanistan with an historic disgrace. As a result of Soviet Union defeat in Afghanistan, the Muslim caucuses that the czars of Russia had forcibly annexed became independent. In a brief conversation with journalists including this scribe, Ziaul Haq obliquely made statement to the effect that a miracle was about to happen in Afghanistan. By that he meant the Soviet defeat and liberation of Afghanistan for the communist stranglehold.
I am not an admirer of president Ziaul haq but I believe that he was more prudent, crafty and skilful than Mr. Bhutto. He never claimed that he was a political wizard or that he favored democracy and fundamental rights. He crushed the freedom of expression, independence of media, and maimed the organs of civil society like judiciary and parliament. But he did these things because he near thought these were wrong or in simple words it was not his mandate. The dictators around the world have been doing obnoxious things and oppressed their people to stay in power corridors.
Ziaul was not a lone dictator who suppressed the social freedom and further Islamized the society by more stringent Islamic injunctions. But he was never hypocritical, apologetic about what he was doing. He was the votary and spokesperson of a rigid, orthodox Islamic regime that he served well even employing extreme tyranny. Bhutto was people’s chosen representative yet he used the same coercive methods and intrigues that bring them at par.
Ziaul Haq and of late, General Musharraf assumed power by default and because of the peculiar conditions that surfaced by the wrong doings and inept policies of their predecessors. Bhutto’s grave mistakes of curbing Baluchistan insurgency by use of brute military force, his amendments in the constitution for accumulation of more powers, his maltreatment of the opposition leaders, the massive rigging of 1977 elections, behaving as a merciless and intolerant lord to his peers and devoted colleagues, betrayal of his revolutionary mandate and finally using excessive force before and after 1977 elections to curb the agitations whipped up by PNA and other groups, were all catalysts for his downfall.
Similarly the previous conduct of Nawaz Sharif as lording over Pakistan as a fiefdom, muzzling dissent and adopting confrontational postures with state institutions, fomenting political vendettas and finally the clumsy way of removing the COAS were the dynamics that culminated in his own ouster and taking over the reins of the government by General Musharraf.
The writer is a senior journalist, former editor of Diplomatic Times and a former diplomat
This and other articles can also be read at www.uprightopinion.com
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Posted by admin in Nawaz "Badami Lassi Kim Barker Thurke" Sharif, Nawaz Dangerous, Nawaz Sharif & Kashmiri Biradari, Nawaz Sharif Dangerous Man, NAWAZ SHARIF DICTATOR, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, NAWAZ SHARIF SAGA OF ABSOLUTE & CHRONIC CORRUPTION, NAWAZ SHARIF US & SAUDI AGENT, NAWAZ SHARIF US CIA ASSET IN PAKISTAN, Nawaz Sharif Womanizer, Nawaz Sharif-The Prime Minister from Hell, ZARDAR'S CORRUPTION on August 31st, 2013
Musharaf should be hanged because of the following
reasons :1.Pakistan was ranked third in world
banking profitability.
2. Separist terrorist BLA Akbar Bugti eliminated.
3. The IT industry was valued at around $2
billion, including $1 billion in exports and
employed around 90,000 professionals.
4. The CNG sector attracted over $70
billion in investment in the past five years
and created 45,000 jobs.
5. The telecommunications sector
attracted around $10 billion in investments
and created over 1.3 million jobs.
6. Industrial parks were set up throughout
the country for the first time.
7. Mega projects such as the Saindak,
Rekodiq, marble production, coal
production, mining and quarrying were
pursued.
8. Foreign reserves increased from $700
million to $17 billion.
9. The Karachi stock market went from 700
points to 15,000 points.
10. The literacy rate improved by 11 per
cent.
11. Poverty decreased by 10 per cent.
12. Four dams were built: Mirani, Subakzai,
Gomalzam, Khurram, and Tangi,
13. Seven motorways were completed or
were under construction,
14. Gwadar, an advanced sea port, was
developed,
15. 650 kilometres of coastal highways
were constructed.
16. A historic 100% increase in tax
collection (amounting to Rs1 trillion) was
observed.
17. Large scale manufacturing was at a 30-
year high, and construction at a 17-year
high.
18. Copper and gold deposits were found
in Chagai, worth about $600 million
annually if sold.
19. A new oil refinery with the UAE that
could process 300,000 oil barrels a day was
established.
20. The industrial sector registered 26 per
cent growth.21. The economy was the third fastest
growing economy after China and India .
22. The Institute of Space Technology was
established.
23. Sardar Bahadur Khan Women
University Quetta was established.
24. The University of Science and
Technology, Bannu, was established.
25. The University of Hazara was founded.
26. The Malakand University in Chakdara
was established.
27. The University of Gujrat was
established
28. The Virtual University of Pakistan was
established
29. Sarhad University of IT in Peshawar
was established
30. The National Law University in
Islamabad was established
31. The Media University in Islamabad was
established
32. University of Education in Lahore was
established
33. Lasbela University of Marine Sciences,
Baluchistan, was established
34. Baluchistan University of IT &
Management, Quetta (2002)
35. The Pakistan economy was worth $
160 billion in 2007
36. GDP Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)
was $ 475.5 billion in 2007
37. The GDP per Capita in 2007 was $
1000
38. Revenue collection in 2007/08 was
Rs1.002 billion
39. Exports in 2007were worth $18.5
billion
40. Textile exports in 2007 were worth
$11.2 billion
41. Foreign direct investment in 2007 was
$8.5 billion
42. Debt servicing in 2007 was 26 per cent
of the GDP
43. The poverty level in 2007 was 24 per
cent
44. The literacy rate in 2007 was 53 per
cent
45. Pakistan development programs in
2007 were valued at Rs520 billion
46. The Karachi stock exchange in 2007
was $70 billion at 15,000 points
47. Exports in 2007: $18.5 billion
48. Pakistan now has a total of 245,682
educational institutions in all categories,
including 164,579 in the public sector and
81,103 in the private sector, according to
the National Education Census (NEC-2005).
49. There are now more than 5,000
Pakistanis doing PhDs in foreign countries
on scholarship. 300 Pakistanis receive PhD
degrees every year, in 1999, the number
was just 20….!And Most Importantly!
50.Gen.Musharraf Kept Crooked Politicians like Asif Zardari, Psychedelic Pugreewallah Mulla Fazlur Rehman Fazlu, Asfandyar Wali, Altaf Hussain, & Nawaz Sharif from Pakistan Government
What a shameless creature , for power she had her brother killed in cold blood on the gate of 70 clifton , Bhutto’s house , and than was assassinated by her own. Comment by PTT Contributor: k.d.
The life and times of the Bhuttos is seen afresh in a passionately partisan but well-constructed memoir. William Dalrymplereviews it in context.
The Bhuttos’ acrimonious family squabbles have long resembled one of the bloody succession disputes that habitually plagued South Asia during the time of the Great Mughals. In the case of the Bhuttos, they date back to the moment when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was arrested on July 5, 1977.Unsure how to defend their father and his legacy, his children had reacted in different ways. Benazir believed the struggle should be peaceful and political. Her brothers initially tried the same approach, forming al-Nusrat, the Save Bhutto committee; but after two futile years they decided in 1979 to turn to the armed struggle.
Murtaza was 23 and had just left Harvard where he got a top first, and where he was taught by, among others, Samuel Huntington. Forbidden by his father from returning to Zia’s Pakistan, he flew from the US first to London, then on to Beirut, where he and his younger brother Shahnawaz were adopted by Yasser Arafat. Under his guidance they received the arms and training necessary to form the Pakistan Liberation Army, later renamed Al-Zulfiquar or The Sword.
Just before his daughter Fatima was born, Murtaza and his brother had found shelter in Kabul as guests of the pro-Soviet government. There the boys had married a pair of Afghan sisters, Fauzia and Rehana Fasihudin, the beautiful daughters of a senior Afghan official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs mother was Fauzia.
For all its PLO training in camps in Syria, Afghanistan and Libya, Al-Zulfiquar achieved little except for two failed assassination attempts on Zia and the hijacking of a Pakistan International Airways flight in 1981. This was diverted from Karachi to Kabul and secured the release of some 55 political prisoners; but it also resulted in the death of an innocent passenger, a young army officer. Zia used the hijacking as a means of cracking down on the Pakistan Peoples Party, and got the two boys placed on the Federal Investigation Agency’s most-wanted list. Benazir was forced to distance herself from her two brothers even though they subsequently denied sanctioning the hijack, and claimed only to have acted as negotiators once the plane landed in Kabul. While much about the details of the hijacking remains mysterious, Murtaza was posthumously acquitted of hijacking in 2003.
I first encountered the family in 1994 when, as a young foreign correspondent on assignment for the Sunday Times, I was sent to Pakistan to write a long magazine piece on the Bhutto dynasty. I met Benazir in the giddy pseudo-Mexican Prime Minister’s House that she had built in the middle of Islamabad.
It was the beginning of Benazir’s second term as Prime Minister, and she was at her most imperial. She both walked and talked in a deliberately measured and regal manner, and frequently used the royal “we”. During my interview, she took a full three minutes to float down the hundred yards of lawns separating the Prime Minister’s House from the chairs where I had been told to wait for her. There followed an interlude when Benazir found the sun was not shining in quite the way she wanted it to: “The sun is in the wrong direction,” she announced. Her hair was arranged in a sort of baroque beehive topped by white gauze dupatta like one of those Roman princesses inCaligula or Rome.
A couple of days later in Karachi, I met Benazir’s brother Murtaza in very different circumstances. Murtaza was on trial in Karachi for his alleged terrorist offences. A one hundred rupee bribe got me through the police cordon, and I soon found Murtaza with his mother — Begum Bhutto — in an annexe beside the courtroom. Murtaza looked strikingly like his father, Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto. He was handsome, very tall — well over six feet — with a deep voice and, like his father, exuded an air of self-confidence, bonhomie and charisma. He invited me to sit down: “Benazir doesn’t care what the local press says about her,” he said, “but she’s very sensitive to what her friends in London and New York get to read about her.”
“Has your sister got in touch with you since you returned to Pakistan?” I asked. “No. Nothing. Not one note.”“Did you expect her to intervene and get you off the hook?” I asked. “What kind of reception did you hope she would lay on for you when you returned from Damascus?”
“I didn’t want any favours,” replied Murtaza. “I just wanted her to let justice take its course, and for her not to interfere in the legal process. As it is, she has instructed the prosecution to use delaying tactics to keep me in confinement as long as possible. This trial has been going on for three months now and they still haven’t finished examining the first witness. She’s become paranoid and is convinced I’m trying to topple her.”
Murtaza went on to describe an incident the previous week when the police had opened fire on Begum Bhutto as she left her house to visit her husband’s grave. When the Begum ordered the gates of the compound to be opened and made ready to set off, the police opened fire. One person was killed immediately and two others succumbed to their injuries after the police refused to let the ambulances through. That night as three family retainers lay bleeding to death, 15 kilometres away in her new farmhouse, Benazir celebrated her father’s birthday with singing and dancing:“After three deaths, she and her husband danced!” said the Begum now near to tears. “They must have known the police were firing at Al-Murtaza. Would all this have happened if she didn’t order it? But the worst crime was that they refused to let the ambulances through. If only they had let the ambulances through those two boys would be alive now: those two boys who used to love Benazir, who used to run in front of her car.”
The Begum was weeping now. “I kept ringing Benazir saying ‘for God sake stop the siege’, but her people just repeated: ‘Madam is not available’. She wouldn’t even take my call. One call from her walkie-talkie would have got the wounded through. Even General Zia…” The sentence trailed away. “What’s that saying in England?” asked the Begum: “Power corrupts, more power corrupts even more. Is that it?”Two years later, to no one’s great surprise, Murtaza was himself shot dead in similar and equally suspicious circumstances.
Murtaza had been campaigning with his bodyguards in a remote suburb of Karachi. As his convoy neared his home at 70 Clifton, the street lights were abruptly turned off.
It was September 20, 1996, and Murtaza’s decision to take on Benazir had put him into direct conflict not only with his sister, but also with her husband Asif Ali Zardari. Murtaza had an animus against Zardari, who he believed was not just a nakedly and riotously corrupt polo-playing playboy, but had pushed Benazir to abandon the PPP’s once-radical agenda — fighting for social justice. Few believed the rivalry was likely to end peacefully. Both men had reputations for being trigger-happy. Murtaza’s bodyguards were notoriously rough, and Murtaza was alleged to have sentenced to death several former associates, including his future biographer, Raja Anwar, author of an unflattering portrait, The Terrorist Prince.Zardari’s reputation was worse still.So insistent had the rumours become that Zardari had ordered the killing of Murtaza at 3 pm that afternoon, that Murtaza had given a press conference saying he had learnt that an assassination attempt on him was being planned, and he named some of the police officers he claimed were involved in the plot. Several of the officers were among those now waiting, guns cocked, outside his house. According to witnesses, when the leading car drew up at the roadblock, there was a single shot from the police, followed by two more shots, one of which hit the foremost of Murtaza’s armed bodyguards. Murtaza immediately got out of his car and urged his men to hold their fire. As he stood there with his hands raised above his head, urging calm, the police opened fire on the whole party with automatic weapons. The firing went on for nearly 10 minutes..
Two hundred yards down the road, inside the compound of 70 Clifton, the house where Benazir Bhutto had spent her childhood, was Murtaza’s wife Ghinwa, his daughter, the 12-year-old Fatima, and the couple’s young son Zulfikar, then aged six. When the first shot rang out, Fatima was in Zulfikar’s bedroom, helping put him to bed. She immediately ran with him into his windowless dressing room, and threw him onto the floor, protecting him by covering his body with her own.
After 45 minutes, Fatima called the Prime Minister’s House and asked to speak to her aunt. Zardari took her call:
Fatima: “I wish to speak to my aunt, please.”
Zardari: “It’s not possible.”
Fatima: “Why?” [At this point, Fatima says, she heard loud, stagy-sounding wailing.]
Zardari: “She’s hysterical, can’t you hear?”
Fatima: “Why?”
Zardari: “Don’t you know? Your father’s been shot.”
Fatima and Ghinwa immediately left the house and demanded to be taken to see Murtaza. By now there were no bodies in the street. It had all been swept and cleaned up: there was no blood, no glass, or indeed any sign of any violence at all. Each of the seven wounded had been taken to a different location, though none was taken to emergency units of any the different Karachi hospitals. The street was completely empty.“They had taken my father to the Mideast, a dispensary,” says Fatima. “It wasn’t an emergency facility and had no facilities for treating a wounded man. We climbed the stairs, and there was my father lying hooked up to a drip. He was covered in blood and unconscious. You could see he had been shot several times. One of those shots had blown away part of his face. I kissed him and moved aside. He never recovered consciousness. We lost him just after midnight.”
The two bereaved women went straight to a police station to register a report, but the police refused to take it down. Benazir Bhutto was then the Prime Minister, and one might have expected the assassins would have faced the most extreme measures of the state for killing the Prime Minister’s brother. Instead, it was the witnesses and survivors who were arrested. They were kept incommunicado and intimidated. Two died soon afterwards in police custody.
“There were never any criminal proceedings,” says Fatima. “Benazir claimed in the West to be the queen of democracy, but at that time there were so many like us who had lost family to premeditated police killings. We were just one among thousands.”Benazir always protested her innocence in the death of Murtaza, and claimed that the killing was an attempt to frame her by the army’s intelligence services: “Kill a Bhutto to get a Bhutto,” as she used to put it. But Murtaza was, after all, clearly a direct threat to Benazir’s future, and she gained the most from the murder. For this reason her complicity was widely suspected well beyond the immediate family: when Benazir and Zardari attempted to attend Murtaza’s funeral, their car was stoned by villagers who believed them responsible.
The judiciary took the same view, and the tribunal set up to investigate the killing concluded that Benazir’s administration was “probably complicit” in the assassination.. Six weeks later, when Benazir fell from power, partly as a result of public outrage at the killings, Zardari was charged with Murtaza’s murder.Fourteen years on, however, the situation is rather different. Benazir is dead, assassinated, maybe by the military, but equally possibly by some splinter group of the Taliban. Fatima is now a strikingly beautiful 28-year-old, fresh from a university education in New York and London. She has a razor-sharp mind and a forceful, determined personality. Meanwhile, the man Fatima Bhutto holds responsible for her father’s death is not only out of prison, but President of the country. The bravery of writing a memoir taking on such a man is self-evident, but Fatima seems remarkably calm about the dangers she has taken on..
As for the book itself, Songs of Blood and Sword is moving, witty and well-written. It is also passionately partisan: this is not, and does not pretend to be, an objective account of Murtaza Bhutto so much as a love letter from a grieving daughter and an act of literary vengeance and account-settling by a niece who believed her aunt had her father murdered.Future historians will decide whether Murtaza really does deserve to be vindicated for the hijacking in Kabul and will weigh up whether or not Murtaza, who even Fatima describes as “impulsive” and “honourable and foolish”, would have made a better leader than his deeply flawed sister; or indeed whether the equally inconsistent Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto deserves the adulation heaped on him by his granddaughter. But where the book is unquestionably important is the reminder it gives the world as to Benazir’s flaws. Since her death, Benazir has come to be regarded, especially in the US, as something of a martyr for democracy. Yet the brutality of Benazir’s untimely end should not blind anyone to her as astonishingly weak record as a politician. Benazir was no Aung San Suu Kyi, and it is misleading as well as simplistic to depict her as having died for freedom; in reality, Benazir’s instincts were not so much democratic as highly autocratic.
Within her own party, she declared herself the lifetime president of the PPP, and refused to let her brother Murtaza challenge her for its leadership; his death was an extreme version of the fate of many who opposed her. Benazir also colluded in wider human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings, and during her tenure government death squads murdered hundreds of her opponents. Amnesty International accused her government of having one of the world’s worst records of custodial deaths, abductions, killings and torture.
Far from reforming herself in exile, Benazir kept a studied distance from the pioneering lawyers’ movement which led the civil protests against President Musharraf’s unconstitutional attempts to manipulate the Supreme Court. She also sidelined those in her party who did support the lawyers. Later she said nothing to stop President Musharraf ordering the US-brokered “rendition” of her rival Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia, so removing from the election her most formidable democratic opponent. Many of her supporters regarded her deal with Musharraf as a betrayal of all that her party stood for. Her final act in her will was to hand the inappropriately named Pakistan People’s Party over to her teenage son as if it were her personal family fiefdom.
Worse still, Benazir was a notably inept administrator. During her first 20-month-long premiership, she failed to pass a single piece of major legislation, and during her two periods in power she did almost nothing to help the liberal causes she espoused so enthusiastically to the Western media. Instead, it was under her watch that Pakistan’s secret service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), helped install the Taliban in Pakistan, and she did nothing to rein in the agency’s disastrous policy of training up Islamist jihadis from the country’s madrasas to do the ISI’s dirty work in Kashmir and Afghanistan. As a young correspondent covering the conflict in Kashmir in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I saw how during her premiership, Pakistan sidelined the Kashmiris’ own secular resistance movement, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, and instead gave aid and training to the brutal Islamist outfits it created and controlled, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba and Harkat ul-Mujahedin. Benazir’s administration, in other words, helped train the very assassins who are most likely to have shot her.
Benazir was, above all, a feudal landowner, whose family owned great tracts of Sindh, and with the sense of entitlement this produced. Democracy has never thrived in Pakistan in part because landowning remains the base from which politicians emerge. In this sense, Pakistani democracy in Pakistan is really a form of “elective feudalism”: the Bhuttos’ feudal friends and allies were nominated for seats by Benazir, and these landowners made sure their peasants voted them in.
Behind Pakistan’s swings between military government.
Posted by admin in Pakistanis Spies Working For Foreign Govts, PRISONERS WITHOUT DUE PROCESS, ZARDAR'S CORRUPTION, ZARDARI:Killers Mastermind on June 14th, 2013
Before independence, the security forces of British India were primarily concerned with the maintenance of law and order but were also called on to perform duties in support of the political interests of the government. The duties of the police officer in a formal sense were those of police the world over: executing orders and warrants; collecting and communicating upward intelligence concerning public order; preventing crime; and detecting, apprehending, and arresting criminals. These duties were specified in Article 23 of the Indian Police Act of 1861, which (together with revisions dating from 1888 and the Police Rules of 1934), is still the basic document for police activity in Pakistan.
The overall organization of the police forces remained much the same after partition. Except for centrally administered territories and tribal territories in the north and northwest, basic law and order responsibilities have been carried out by the four provincial governments. The central government has controlled a series of specialized police agencies, including the Federal Investigative Agency, railroad and airport police forces, an anticorruption task force, and various paramilitary organizations such as the Rangers, constabulary forces, and the Frontier Corps.
Benazir Bhutto appointed Rehman Malik as chief of the Federal Investigation Agency which then launched a secret war against the Islamists, which amounted to a direct attack on the ISI. The Pakistani military was equally dismayed by reports of FIA contacts with the Israeli secret service, the MOSSAD, to investigate Islamist terrorists. The FIA leadership under Bhutto also angered Islamist elements because they allowed the extradited Ramzi Yousaf to the US for trial on the New York Trade Centre Bombing. One of the first acts of President Leghari after dismissing Benazir Bhutto on 05 November 1996 was to imprison the Ghulam Asghar, head of FIA, suspended on non specified corruption charges, and Rehman Malik, Addl. Director General FIA, was also arrested.
The Federal Investigation Agency conducts the investigations on receiving reports of corruption, either through the P.M.’s Accountability and Coordination Cell or directly from the public. After the investigations, the cases are referred to the Chief Ehtesab Commissioner for trial by the Ehtesab courts. However, the Chief Ehtesab Commissioner, Mr Mujaddad Ali Mirza, has complained that the Federal Investigation Authority and the Anti-Corruption Police have failed to cooperate with the Commission.
Posted by ansarmukhtar in ZARDAR'S CORRUPTION on May 10th, 2013
POSTED BY FTS INTERN ON MAY 11, 2011
Free the Slaves’ U.K. partner Anti-Slavery International estimates there are over 1.8 million people living in slavery in Pakistan. Canadian NGOSOS Children’s Villages recently sited an Asian Human Rights Commission report highlighting the enslavement of Pakistani children: “a possible 20,000″ disabled children forced to work as beggars; children trafficked to the United Arab Emirates.
Free the Slaves has seen slavery in Pakistan first-hand, when we honored Veero, a survivor of bonded labor, with the Frederick Douglass Freedom Award in 2009.
Last month, a breakthrough of sorts happened in Pakistan, when the country’s Minister for the Interior,Rehman Malik “admitted” to the National Assembly that the government remains “unable to fully control the menace of human trafficking” within its borders.
Since 2009, thousands of people have been arrested in Pakistan for human trafficking. But an estimated 40,000 people pass through the Torkham border, leading into Afghanistan, without “logging in and out.”
In neighboring India, it is estimated that millions of people live in slavery. Bonded labor is rampant in many parts of the sub-continent. Recently, CNN covered the groundbreaking anti-slavery work of Free the Slaves and our frontline partners in India. (FTS’ Free a Village Build a Movement campaign creates sustainable, generational change by eradicating the root causes of slavery—and helping survivors become economically self-sufficient, and vigilant against traffickers.)
In response to CNN’s coverage of FTS’ anti-slavery work, India’s Labor Minister Prabhat Chaturvedi gave an interview saying that there was no slavery in India. He refused to use the term “slavery” to describe the phenomena of millions of men, women and children laboring—sometimes for generations—to pay off debts.
Watch: Debate Swirls Around the “S” World
Despite Chaturvedi’s denial, debt bondage is recognized as a form of slavery by the United Nations. As with all kinds of slavery, it comes with violence—the threat of it, and the actualization of it. The aforementioned Veero, a survivor of bonded labor, told Free the Slaves:
“We were treated like animals. Anyone who refused [to work] was beaten up. The slaveholders hired men armed with guns and axes, and they guarded us the entire day.”
Veero’s courage to walk away from her enslavement was sparked when the slaveholder wanted to use her daughter for sex. She escaped, and walked in the dead of night to the nearest town. The police would not help her at first. So she staged a three-day sit-in. Eventually, the police relented, and helped free her entire family.
Arabs from Saudi Arabia and UAE are the main exploiters and customers of the sex slaves from Pakistan. Pakistan’s corrupt government and immigration and border controls look the other way. Asif Zardari, PPP & ANP Jiyalas are involved as touts and procurers in Women’s enslavement to please the Saudi, Bahrain, Dubai, Sharjah,Qatar, Manama, and Sultan of Brunei monarchs and Sheikhs is a hidden policy of Asif Zardari, PPP, and ANP.
Muslims are instructed to abide by the laws of the land they live in, according to the Quran. They are encouraged to serve the nation and its citizens whether or not the country they live in is a Muslim country. However blind patriotism, supporting the country with no consideration of right or wrong is unacceptable. A true Muslim citizen loves his country and fellow citizens and residents, and at the same time, whenever he sees that any injustice is being committed, he raises the voice. Speaking out against injustice is one of the most important dictates of Islam;“O you who have believed, persistently stand firm in justice, witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives. Whether one is rich or poor, Allah is more worthy of both. So follow not [personal] inclination, lest you not be just. And if you distort [your testimony] or refuse [to give it], then indeed Allah is Ever-Acquainted with what you do.” (Quran 4:135)
“Whoever among you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand [bytaking action]; if he cannot, then with his tongue [by speaking out]; and if he cannot, then with his heart [by hating it and feeling that it is wrong] – and that is the weakest of faith” (Narrated by Muslim, 49)
Activism is defined as a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action. A study of the Quran or the biography (Seera) of the Prophet Muhammad demonstrates that Islam is a religion that requires activism from its followers. The Quran repeatedly exhorts its readers to be proactive in establishing good and preventing evil (Amr bil maruf wa nahi anul munkar)
Trafficking has become a lucrative industry and is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. Globally, it is tied with the illegal trade, as the second largest criminal activity, followed by the drug trade. Human trafficking usually affects women and children more than it affects men. Sex trafficking is nothing less than slavery because when an offender takes a woman or girl against her will and forces her to engage in prostitution, he not only sells her body but also her freedom and dignity. Much sex trafficking is international, with victims being taken from places such as South and Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union, Central and South America, and other less-developed areas to more developed places including Asia, the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America. Those who profit from victimizing children and adults in the sex trade are only one half of the problem. The other half is those who patronize this industry.
The total annual revenue for trafficking in persons is estimated to be between USD$5 billion and $9 billion. The Council of Europe states, “People trafficking have reached epidemic proportions over the past decade, with a global annual market of about $42.5 billion,” and The United Nations estimates nearly 2.5 million people from 127 different countries are being trafficked around the world.
Human trafficking differs from people smuggling. As for smuggling, people voluntarily request or hire an individual, known as a smuggler, to transport them from one country to another, where legal entry would be denied upon arrival at the international border. After entry into the country and arrival at their destination, the smuggled person is free to find their own way, while smuggling requires travel, trafficking does not. Victims of human trafficking are not permitted to leave upon arrival at their destination, they are held against their will through acts of coercion and forced to work or provide services to the trafficker or others. The work includes anything from bonded or forced labor to commercialized sexual exploitation.
1. How Does Human Trafficking Take Place?
Traffickers find their victims from developing countries where poverty is widespread, commonly through force or deception. The victims are typically very young, from 8 to 18 years old and some as young as 4 or 5 years old. A common scenario involves a poor Asian or Eastern European girl who is offered a “better life” as a housemaid, restaurant server or dancer in a wealthy country such as the United States, Great Britain, or Italy. As she arrives, her passport is taken away, she is physically and sexually abused and forced into prostitution in a country where she neither speaks the language nor have any friends nor relatives. She is forced to service 8-15 clients a day and does not receive any pay as she is told that the money is used to pay off her “debt” to the trafficker and brothel owners for transportation, food, lodging and so on. After some period of time, she will be resold to another brothel owner, often in another country, and the cycle will continue all over again. She is likely to acquire HIV/AIDS, and to pass it on to her clients and their wives, all around the world. She has a greater chance than most of dying early, and is certain to live a horrible existence in whatever short years she has. Even if she is eventually rescued and repatriated to her country and community, she is likely to be ostracized as a result of her involvement in prostitution.
Government and police corruption, primarily in under-developed countries, play a large role in the perpetuation of the sex slave industry, with blind-eyes being turned toward openly active brothels and payoffs being accepted by those officials charged with the enforcement of national and international laws prohibiting trafficking, prostitution and child sexual exploitation.
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2. Types of labor work
Bonded labor, or debt bondage, is probably the least known form of labor trafficking today, and yet it is the most widely used method of enslaving people. Victims become bonded laborers when their labor is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan or service in which its terms and conditions have not been defined or in which the value of the victims’ services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation of the debt. The value of their work is greater than the original sum of money “borrowed.”
Forced labor is when victims are forced to work against their own will, under the threat of violence or some other form of punishment, their freedom is restricted and a degree of ownership is exerted. Men are at risk of being trafficked for unskilled work, which globally generates $31bn according to the International Labor Organization. Forms of forced labor can include domestic servitude; agricultural labor; sweatshop factory labor; janitorial, food service and other service industry labor; and begging.
Sex trafficking victims are generally found in poor circumstances and easily targeted by traffickers. These circumstances include homeless individuals, runaway teens, displaced homemakers, refugees, and drug addicts. While it may seem like trafficked people are the most vulnerable and powerless minorities in a region, victims are consistently exploited from any ethnic and social background. Traffickers are known as pimps or madams, offers promises of marriage, employment, education, and/or an overall better life. However, in the end, traffickers force the victims to become prostitutes or work in the sex industry. Various works in the sex industry includes prostitution, dancing in strip clubs, performing in pornographic films and pornography, and other forms of involuntary servitude. Women are lured to accompany traffickers based on promises of lucrative opportunities unachievable in their native country. Most have been told lies regarding the financial arrangements and conditions of their employment and find themselves in coercive or abusive situations from which escape is both difficult and dangerous. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there were 1,229 human trafficking incidents in the United States from January 2007- September 2008. Of these, 83 % were sex trafficking cases.
Child labor is a form of work that is likely to be hazardous to the physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development of children and can interfere with their education. The International Labor Organization estimates worldwide that there are 246 million exploited children aged between 5 and 17 involved in debt bondage, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, the illegal drug trade, the illegal arms trade, and other illicit activities around the world.
3. Trafficking in children
Trafficking of children is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of children for the purpose of exploitation. Trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children can take many forms and include forcing a child into prostitution or other forms of sexual activity or child pornography. Child exploitation can also include forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, the removal of organs, illicit international adoption, trafficking for early marriage, recruitment as child soldiers, for use in begging or as athletes (such as child camel jockeys or football players), or for recruitment for cults.
Thailand and Brazil are considered to have the worst child sex trafficking records. One of the major reasons is the parent’s extreme poverty where they sell their children in order to pay debts or gain income. Some is deceived that the traffickers will give a better life and education for their children. The adoption process, legal or illegal, can sometimes result in cases of trafficking of babies and pregnant women between the West and the developing world. Thousands of children from Asia, Africa, and South America are sold into the global sex trade every year. Often they are kidnapped or orphaned, and sometimes they are actually sold by their own families.
Trafficking victims are also exposed to different psychological problems. They suffer social alienation in the host and home countries. Stigmatization, social exclusion and intolerance make reintegration into local communities difficult. The governments offer little assistance and social services to trafficked victims upon their return.
4. Global nature of the problem
Sex trafficking is global in nature and the victims come from all developing countries and are trafficked into or through virtually all developing and developed countries. It is estimated, for example, that 50,000 people are trafficked into the United States every year, most of who are sold into prostitution. This is not dependent on nationality, race or religion and not on economic or social standing. The one substantial difference is that it is the wealthy countries – through their military, businessmen, tourists, and Internet pornography subscribers, all of whom pay significantly more for the use of a sex slave that keeps this criminal industry extremely profitable for traffickers.
Trafficking does not only occur in poor countries, but in fact in every country. A source country is a country where people are trafficked and these countries are often weakened by poverty, war, corruption, natural disasters or climate. Some examples of source countries are Nepal, Guatemala, and the former Soviet Union, Nigeria, Thailand, China, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and many more. Then there is transit country where the victims are enslaved and the destination country is where the victim ends up. Japan, India, much of Western Europe, and the United States are all destination countries and the most common destinations for victims of human trafficking are Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the US, according to a report by the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime).
Almost every human trafficking prevention organization works to spread public awareness of trafficking. Several methods have been used to achieve public awareness, and while some produce little results, others have succeeded in persuading governments to pass laws and regulations on human trafficking. By pushing the issue of human trafficking into the public eye through the media, organizations work to educate the general public about the dangers of being trafficked and practices of preventing individuals from being trafficked. Television, magazines, newspapers, and radio are all used to warn and educate the public by providing statistics, scenarios, and general information on the subject.
Regardless of the type of human trafficking, nearly 1 in 5 of its victims was children, according to various reports. Their innocence is abused for begging, or exploited for sex as prostitutes, pedophilia or child pornography. Others are sold as child brides or camel jockeys.”
In a 2008 report on human trafficking, the U.S. State Department listed Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as destination countries with widespread trafficking abuses, particularly forced laborers trafficked from Asia and Africa who are subject to restrictions on movement, withholding of passports, threats and physical and sexual abuse. The report found those countries made feeble efforts to rescue victims and prosecute traffickers. The department’s report also says slave labor in developing countries such as Brazil, China and India was fueling part of their huge economic growth. Other countries on the blacklist were Algeria, Cuba, Fiji, Iran, Myanmar, Moldova, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Sudan and Syria.
According to the Report, the most common form of human trafficking (79%) is sexual exploitation. The victims of sexual exploitation are predominantly women and girls. In Central Asia and Eastern Europe, women make up more than 60 percent of those convicted of trafficking. The second most common form of human trafficking is forced labor, or slavery, making up 18 percent of the total, although the writers of the report say it may be underreported. Surprisingly, in 30% of the countries which provided information on the gender of traffickers, women make up the largest proportion of traffickers. The second most common form of human trafficking is forced labour counting 18 %. Worldwide, almost 20% of all trafficking victims are children. However, in some parts of Africa and the Mekong region, children are the majority, up to 100% in parts of West Africa.
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5. War and abuse
Women and girls in war zones are especially touched by the ugly side of war. They are not able to defend themselves and after being abused or sold they are stigmatized in their communities besides ending up pregnant or with HIV/AIDS.
In August 2001, soldiers with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Eritrea were purchasing 10 year old girls for sex in local hotels.
Before the arrival of 15,000 UN troops in Cambodia in 1991, there were an estimated 1,000 prostitutes in the capital. Currently, Cambodia’s illegal sex trade generates $500 million a year. No less than 55,000 women and children are sex slaves in Cambodia, 35 percent of which are younger than 18 years of age.
Over 5,000 women and children have been trafficked from the Philippines, Russia and Eastern Europe and are forced into prostitution in bars servicing the U.S. Military in South Korea.
6. Children – lost innocence
7. Human trafficking and the facts
Click at the picture for a larger image (statistics from 2008-2009)
8. Slavery and sex-trade in the Arab world
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a destination for men and women, mostly from South and Southeast Asia, trafficked for the purposes of labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Migrant workers, who stand for more than 90% of the UAE’s private sector workforce, are recruited from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, China, and the Philippines. Women from some of these countries travel willingly to work as domestic servants or administrative staff, but some are victims of forced labor, including unlawful withholding of passports, restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages, threats, or physical or sexual abuse. Men from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are drawn to the UAE for work in the construction sector, but are often subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude and debt bondage.
For the foreign female domestic workers, it is a life of isolation both physically, psychologically, socially and culturally. Some of these women live in abusive environments but others are able to live a little bit more socially. Under the law, once a foreign female worker enters a employers house, she is under his/her control since the employer is the visa sponsor. The employer bears total responsibility for his/her domestic workers and has total control over them. But during the first 3 months of the contract, both the employer and the employee have the right to contact the recruiting agency in order to report problems or to seek change in the status or employment of the foreign female domestic worker. Most recruiting agencies, however, do not encourage this practice, and often hide information from the foreign female domestic worker about their rights. The immigration regulations governing the status of domestic workers and the social practices towards foreign female domestic worker in the United Arab Emirates enslave them to their employers until the duration of their contract ends. Whether one is placed with a desirable or an undesirable employer is a matter of luck.
Saudi Arabia is a place for men and women from South East Asia and East Africa trafficked for the purpose of labor exploitation and forced begging for children from Yemen and Africa. Hundreds of thousands low skilled workers from India, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya migrate voluntarily to Saudi Arabia to work. Many of these workers meet conditions of physical and sexual abuse, non-payment or delayed payment of wages, withholding of travel documents and restrictions on their freedom of movement.
Unfortunately, the government of Saudi Arabia has done little or almost nothing to eliminate trafficking and has lack of efforts to protect victims and prosecute those who are guilty of abuse. Some victims of abuse, chooses to leave the country rather than to confront their abusers in court and according to the law, they are required to file a complaint first before they can be allowed in any shelter. If a victim chooses to file a complaint, he/she is not allowed to work and the Saudi Government does in fat provide food and shelter for female workers who file report.
9. Iran – High profitable sex-trade
Iran has for 25 years, has enforced humiliating and punishments on women and girls, enslaved them in a system of segregation, forced veiling, second-class status, lashing, and stoning to death. Joining a global trend, in Tehran there has been a 635% increase in the number of teenage girls in prostitution. In Tehran, there are an estimated 84,000 women and girls in prostitution, many of them are on the streets, others are in the 250 brothels that exist in the city. The trade is also international as thousands of Iranian women and girls have been sold into sexual slavery abroad. The head of Iran’s Interpol bureau believes that the sex slave trade is one of the most profitable activities in Iran today and government officials themselves are involved in buying, selling, and sexually abusing women and girls.
Many of the girls come from poor families living in rural areas. Drug addiction has become epidemic throughout Iran, and some addicted parents sell their children to support their habits. There is also a problem with high unemployment, 28% for youth between 15-29 years of age and 43% for women between 15-20 years of age.
Popular destinations for victims of the slave trade are the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf because of the booming tourism and the good economy. According to the head of the Tehran province judiciary, traffickers target girls between 13 and 17 years old, although there are reports of some girls as young as 8. The victims are often physically punished and imprisoned besides being examined if they have engaged in “immoral activity.” Based on the findings, officials can ban them from leaving the country again.
Police have uncovered a number of prostitution and slavery rings operating from Tehran that have sold girls to France, Britain, Turkey, as well. One network based in Turkey bought smuggled Iranian women and girls, made fake passports, and transported them to European and Persian Gulf countries. In one case, a 16-year-old girl was smuggled to Turkey, and then sold to a 58-year-old European national for $20,000.
One factor contributing to the increase in prostitution and the sex slave trade is the number of teen girls who are running away from home for different reasons and 90% of girls who run away from home will end up in prostitution.As a result of runaways, in Tehran alone there are an estimated 25,000 street children, most of them girls. The perpetrators look after street children, runaways, and vulnerable high school girls in city parks and manage to convince them. In large cities, shelters have been set up to provide assistance for runaways but these places are often corrupt and run prostitution rings from the shelters. In one case, a woman was discovered selling Iranian girls to men in Persian Gulf countries; for four years, she had hunted down runaway girls and sold them. She even sold her own daughter for US$11,000.
For further information about the slave and sex trade and the work that is done to prevent, you can click into these links.
http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/
http://www.humantrafficking.org/combat_trafficking/international_initiatives
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