Gen. Musharraf Cracks The Whip: “Shut Up You Civilians”!
In declaring martial law, a besieged President General Pervez Musharraf has finally ripped asunder the pretensions of returning his volatile country to some form of democracy.
Obviously, the General has come to believe that his powerful mentor and benefactors in the United States are not really serious when they proclaim that they are “deeply disturbed” that Pakistani President had declared emergency rule, and describe this development as a “sharp step backward for democracy”.
At a time when the world knows that Musharraf dare not take any independent line, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice makes a strange/funny statement to the CNN television: “…Pakistan’s declaration of emergency rule was ‘highly regrettable’ and I hope its intention was to have free and fair elections.” In other words, “it is all right buddy boy, so long you can stage-manage the elections…”
Wow Ms Rice…some diplomacy this!
Meanwhile, shots were heard in several neighbourhoods of the southern Pakistani city of Karachi hours after emergency powers were invoked, says The Irish Times. There is strong backing for opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in Karachi and Sindh province, and the most intense firing was heard in the Lyari neighbourhood, where support for Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party is high, witnesses said.
Pakistan’s constitution was suspended today as President Pervez Musharraf invoked emergency powers, state run Pakistan Television reported.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and eight other judges refused to endorse the provisional constitutional order, and Chaudhry has been told his “services are no longer required”, private news channels said.
ABC News says that “U.S. Told Musharraf Not To, but He Did…” If that’s the case then either the Pakistani military dictator is thumbing his nose at his beloved benefactor in the White House, or has some secret arrangement with his mentor.
If it is the former, then General Musharraf may be getting into what I call a “martyr’s syndrome”. A little more than a fortnight before former Pakistani President General Zia-ul-Haq was killed in a mysterious plane crash, he (Zia) had begun to defy his mentor Ronald Reagan and opted for an independent line…
