Corrupt Tyrant Mush Must Resign Immediately

By MUHAMMAD NAWAZ SHARIF

(InformPress.com) - There is no law and certainly no order in my country. What happened this past week has shaken every Pakistani. Ms. Benazir Bhutto was no ordinary person. She served as Prime Minister twice and had returned to Pakistan in an effort to restore our country to the path of democracy. With her assassination I have lost a friend and a partner in democracy.

It is not too early to blame anybody for her death. One thing, however, is beyond any doubt: The country is paying a very heavy price for the many unpardonable actions of only one tyrant - Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf alone is responsible for the chaos in Pakistan. Over the past eight years he has assiduously worked at demolishing institutions, subverting the Constitution, dismantling the judiciary and gagging the media. Pakistan today is a tyrannical military-police state in which a former Prime Minister can be gunned down in broad daylight. One of my own political rallies was fired upon by PML-Q terrorists on Thursday, 27 December 2007, the day PPP Chairwoman Ms. Benazir Bhutto was killed in Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi, near the Pakistan Army GHQ.

These are the darkest days in Pakistan's history and such are the wages of dictatorship. There is widespread disillusionment. At all the election rallies I have addressed, people have asked a simple question: Criminals are punished for breaking laws, so why should those who subvert the Constitution not be punished? Those who killed Ms. Benazir Bhutto are the evil forces of darkness and authoritarianism. They are the ones who prefer rifles to reason.

Ms. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and my own Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) have traditionally been political rivals. We fought each other through elections. We won some. We lost some. That is what democracy is all about. Whoever has the majority rules. Ms. Bhutto and I both realized while in exile that rivalry among democrats has made the task of manipulation easier for undemocratic forces. We therefore decided not to allow such nefarious games by the Establishment.

I fondly remember meeting with Ms. Benazir Bhutto in February 2005. She was kind enough to visit me in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where I lived after Musharraf forced me into exile. We realized that we were fighting for the same thing: Real Civil Democracy. She, too, believed in the rule of law and rule of the people. A key point of the Charter of Democracy that we signed in May 2006 was that everyone should respect the mandate of the people and not allow the Establishment to play dirty politics and subvert the will of the people. After the Jeddah meeting we regularly consulted each other on issues of national and international importance. On many occasions we tried tosynchronize our strategies. We had agreements and disagreements, but we both wanted to pull Pakistan back from the brink of disaster.

While the PPP may have been our traditional rival, it is a national asset whose leadership has inspired many Pakistanis. Political parties form part of the basis on which the entire edifice of democracy rests. If our country is to move forward, we need an independent judiciary, a sovereign Parliament and strong political parties that are accountable to the people. Without political parties, there will be hopelessness and authoritarianism will thrive. Dictators fear the power of the
people. That is why they pit parties against each other and then try to destroy those parties - to further their own agenda. This is what has happened in Pakistan in recent years.

So, what is the way out of the depths to which Pakistan has been plunged? First, Musharraf should go immediately. He is the primary and principal source of discord. Second, an interim, broad-based, national unity government should be immediately installed to heal the wounds of this bruised nation. Third, the Constitution should be restored to what it was in 1973. The judiciary should be restored to its condition before 3 November 2007 - countering the boneheaded steps Musharraf took under the garb of illegal "Emergency" rule. All curbs on the media-press should be removed. Finally, free, fair and impartial elections should be held in a friendly and peaceful environment under such a national government so that the people are able to choose their representatives for a Parliament and government that can be trusted to rebuild the country rather than serve the agenda of a dictator.

These are the only steps that will give the country a semblance of stability. If Musharraf continues to illegally rule as he has for the past eight years (1999-2008), then we are doing nothing but waiting for another doomsday.

The world must realize that Musharraf's policies have neither limited nor curbed terrorism. In fact, terrorism is stronger than ever, with far more sinister aspects, and as long as Musharraf remains, there remains the threat of more terror. The people of Pakistan should not be antagonized any further for the sake of only one dictator. It is time for the international community to join hands in support of true civilian democracy, human rights, civil liberties, freedom, equal justice and the rule of just & fair laws in Pakistan. The answer to my country's problems is a democratic process that promotes justice, peace, harmony and tolerance, and hence can play an effective role in promoting moderation. Under the ruling corrupt tyranny, there is no future for economic development, family prosperity and business progress in Pakistan.

[Mr. Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, a former twice-elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, is Chief of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) based in Lahore, Pakistan. PML-N Website: http://www.pmln.org.pk ]

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Japanese Prime Minister Becomes YouTuber

First, the American presidential candidates, then (reportedly) the outgoing Australian Prime Minister. Then the Queen of British Empire. Now the Japanese Prime Minister. It seems now anyone who is anyone is posting videos to YouTube.

Now, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda posted a New Years greeting both in English and Japanese. In the version I could understand, the Asian PM commemorated the 100th anniversary to the end of the Japanese-Russo war, but pointed to a number of problems facing the Japanese that he intends to face: descending birthrate, economic disparity, the global war on terror, diseases like AIDS and malaria, and global human rights issues.

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He’s carrying the torch of opposition in Pakistan

Source: Los Angeles Times

RAIWIND, PAKISTAN — As this country’s political opposition looks for a leader after last week’s assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif may be the last man standing. And his eyes are fixed upon a single goal: to get rid of his archenemy, the man who kicked him out of office in a military coup more than eight years ago, President Pervez Musharraf.

Only a few months ago, Sharif was languishing abroad, a deposed two-time prime minister relegated to fanning the embers of his career in bitter exile. Now, he’s back with a vengeance, campaigning for his party in upcoming elections and assuming his role as the only politician left with a credible national profile after Bhutto’s slaying, which transformed the political landscape in Pakistan.

Sharif’s heightened stature is good news for his supporters, especially here in populous Punjab province, his longtime power base. But it raises hackles elsewhere, including Washington, where the White House regards him as too friendly with Islamic extremists and too hostile toward Musharraf, a close ally in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism.

Sharif is also a controversial figure at home, where he faces ongoing corruption charges and is barred from running for parliament or becoming prime minister, for now, because of a separate case. But he has been busy consolidating support for his party and playing the senior statesman.

Even his critics acknowledge that he has acted with grace and dignity in the aftermath of the attack on Bhutto, with whom he once carried on a venomous rivalry.

“I think we have buried the bitterness of the past. We buried it five years ago, maybe a little bit more than that,” Sharif said Thursday in an interview at his estate in Raiwind, outside the eastern city of Lahore.

In a dark suit and red tie, he sat in a cavernous living room whose entrance was flanked by two stuffed lions, in homage to his nickname, the “lion of Punjab.” A massive crystal chandelier hung overhead, sending light refracting through a collection of cut-glass bowls and vases.

“We became friends, Benazir Bhutto and myself,” he said. “And we both jointly decided to launch a struggle against dictatorship.” A wealthy industrialist, Sharif, 58, is trying to make common cause with Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, in restoring democratic rule to his homeland. Part of that makes pragmatic sense: His Pakistan Muslim League-N hopes to ride the coattails of the PPP, which is expected to garner a significant sympathy vote in parliamentary polls Feb. 18.

Working together, the two parties might be able to challenge Musharraf or, with a two-thirds majority, attempt to impeach the president. There is no doubt that Sharif is on a single-minded campaign to rid Pakistan of Musharraf, whose autocratic regime he blames for plunging the nation into turmoil. During his second term as prime minister, from 1997 to 1999, Sharif picked Musharraf as chief of the army, only to see the then-general usurp him, toss him in jail and banish him to Saudi Arabia.

“This one man is playing havoc with the state. This one man is guilty of abrogating the constitution. This one man is guilty of reducing the parliament to a rubber stamp. . . . It is a great shame for me as a Pakistani to see these things happening,” Sharif said.

“I stand for democracy; I stand for the rule of law; I stand for independence of judiciary; I stand for freedom of press and the media; I stand for the fundamental rights of the 160 million people of Pakistan,” he said. “I think it’s a very good stand, a very noble cause.”

For some, such ringing liberal democratic rhetoric from Sharif, which he has repeatedly sounded since being allowed to return to Pakistan in November, is laden with irony. From the time he was chief minister of Punjab in 1985, almost until his ouster from the prime minister’s office 14 years later, Sharif owed much of his position to the ties he cultivated with the ruling establishment, including the all-powerful military.

His government was accused of routinely threatening journalists. The police once abducted a well-known editor, allegedly on Sharif’s orders, because the publication displeased him. Pakistan’s biggest Urdu-language daily, Jang, was at times reduced to publishing single-page editions because of harassment.

Pro-Sharif activists also stormed and ransacked the Supreme Court, whose chief justice, a Sharif foe, eventually felt forced to resign from the bench. “When he says, ‘We stand for freedom of the judiciary; we stand for nonintervention of the military in the government,’ he is standing against everything that he himself did,” said Muhammad Badar Alam, a political writer.

And the comeback leader who says he supports the rights of fellow Pakistanis maintains a lifestyle to which only the tiniest handful of them can relate. Sharif is a multimillionaire who many think amassed some of his riches through shady deals. His spacious living room comfortably fits seven sofas and could house as many poor families. Surrounding his mansion are grounds so expansive that his two stuffed lions could conceivably have been shot on-site. (They are from Africa.)

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