Please join the “Save democracy, stop conspiracy” rally in Lahore
The ongoing media campaign to malign President Asif Ali Zardari is an unwelcome and indeed dangerous blow to Pakistan’s democracy. One does not have to be a PPP or Asif Zardari supporter to realize the folly in this onslaught.
Of course we want accountability, and condemn corruption. What we should be asking for is more democracy and transparency within the party.
Anti-Zardari propaganda in the media seems to serve no purpose other than mud-slinging at a democratically-elected government. What is the alternative they are offering? A military dictatorship?
Give democracy a chance. Let Zardari finish his innings. Have faith in the Pakistani people to elect a better, more credible President the next time around. Pakistan is faced with multiple crises and what we need in these troubled times is some semblance of normalcy.
The only way we can achieve that is by working along democratic lines. It was a long and hard struggle to get rid of the last dictatorship. Let’s make sure that no General ever again takes the reigns of this country in his hands. We must continue to raise our voice against corruption and injustice, but remember that democracy is the only way forward.
Please join us in a peaceful rally
Save democracy stop conspiracy
On 30th December, Wednesday
2pm at GPO Chowk, The Mall
Please spread this message.
Thank you
Diep
Institute for peace and Secular studies
91-G Johar Town, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Ph: 042-5219862/ 042-5219863
Mobile 0321-844-5072,0300-844-5072
www.peaceandsecularstudies.org
—
Best Regards,
Ale Natiq
Secret files show British caution over Bhutto execution Tuesday, 29 Dec, 2009
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/06-secret-files-show-british-caution-over-bhutto-execution-rs-04
LONDON: Britain was wary of exerting heavy pressure on Pakistan not to execute Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the father of late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, in 1979, secret files released Wednesday showed.
Then British premier James Callaghan remained on warm, personal terms with General Zia ul Haq, whose regime hanged Bhutto two years after a 1977 coup.
Although Callaghan did warn Zia against executing Bhutto, other documents reveal that British officials earlier saw it as an internal matter, and for a while, did not even believe it would happen.
Bhutto, founder of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was hanged in Rawalpindi jail on April 4, 1979 for the murder of a political opponent.
The former premier’s trial was condemned by some observers as unfair and was subject to a lengthy appeal process.
When Bhutto was first sentenced to death in March 1978, a senior British diplomat in Islamabad wrote in a telegram to London that life imprisonment, not the death sentence, seems “the most likely outcome”.
Meanwhile, Foreign Office diplomats appeared to be focusing on commercial deals between the two countries, including for buses and tractor production.
Callaghan seemed more worried than officials, on top of a document about one such deal, he wrote: “What does FCO (Foreign Office) propose to do about Bhutto?”His foreign secretary David Owen met Zia’s foreign affairs advisor Agha Shahi two days after the death sentence was passed on Bhutto.
Owen told him: “This was an internal matter for the Pakistan government and my concern was with the effect on Anglo/Pakistan relations as a result of public reaction amongst the many here who might feel offended,” according to a note he sent to Islamabad afterwards.
In April 1978, Zia handwrote in green ink a personal letter to Callaghan which showed his confidence that, whatever happened to Bhutto, ties between Britain and Pakistan would not be affected.
“I feel convinced, that the abiding nature of our ties, and friendship will withstand the stress of an agonising moment,” Zia wrote.
That friendship was in evidence when, in September that year, Callghan sent Zia a congratulatory message as he took over as Pakistani president, having previously been chief martial law administrator.
But in February 1979, Britain believed an execution was imminent and sent a telegram from Callaghan to Zia urging clemency.
In it, Callaghan recognised the “many and grave difficulties” Zia faced “with which, if I may say so, you have the sympathy and good wishes of many of your friends in this country as well as elsewhere in the world.”
But he warned that executing Bhutto would be “a grave shock to Pakistan’s many friends here”.
“As a soldier yourself you will, I know, remember the truth of the old saying that the grass grows swiftly over a battlefield, but never over a scaffold,” he added.
That same month, Foreign Office minister Evan Luard met Bhutto’s son Mir Murtazar Bhutto, who asked if Britain could do anything more to prevent his father’s execution, such as suspending aid.
Luard “did not see there was much else we could do”, adding that “blatant pressure” could be “counter-productive”, an official record said.
“We would have to wait and hope for good news during the next few days,” he added.
The day before Bhutto’s execution, Callaghan contacted Zia as he made a final decision on the prisoner’s fate.
“To decide on the life and death of a human being is a heavy burden to add to the heavy cares of office and I pray that you will be given wisdom in your task,” Callaghan wrote.
“I cannot believe that an execution will encourage that underlying sense of duty which every country needs”.
But he added that he wrote in a “spirit of friendship and mutual respect”.
The documents were released by the National Archives in London under laws which allow the disclosure of classified files to the public after 30 years. -AFP
Read the dark pages from the Recent History of Pakistan when Jamat-e-Islami and Mawdudi’s Perverted Breed “Prof Ghafoor and Professor Khursheed were in General Zia’s Martial Law Cabinet: 2nd Presidential Cabinet under President/CMLA General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
from 23-8-1978 to 21-4-1979
1 – Professor Ghafoor Ahmad – Minister for Production and Industries.
2 – Professor Khurshid Ahmad – Statistics, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission
You may find many names in the post/link below who also served in General Musharraf’s Martial Law. High Treason Cases against Pakistani Military Dictators & Collaborators/Abettors http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2009/08/high-treason-cases-against-pakistani.html
Henry Kissinger: A Friend of General Zia and Jamat-e-Islami!
“QUOTE”
First, for the nuclear policy that he framed and tried to relentlessly pursue and secondly, from apprehensions that ZAB was influencing the countries. He posed a serious challenge to the US interests in the region.“Tally-ho. Kill Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, “ yelled the self-proclaimed policemen of the world. During August 1976, Amercian Secretary of States, Dr. Henry Kissinger had warned Bhutto, “We will make a horrible example of you,” adding menacingly, “When the railroad is coming, you get out of the way.” [Ref: PROFILES OF INTELLIGENCE by Brigadier Syed I. A. Tirmizi, SI (M) – Former Addl Dir ISI Directorate]
“UNQUOTE”
BBC took serial on ZAB hanging off air under FO pressure
Monday, January 08, 2007 Rauf Klasra
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=5130
LONDON: Pakistani dictator General Zia in 1985 had used his influence over Margaret Thatcher government to stop BBC from airing a serial on the circumstances leading to the overthrow, trial and execution of Zulifkar Ali Bhutto in 1977. The serial was part of BBC TV’s “The Assassination Quartet” which dealt with the deaths of Solomon Bandarnaike, ZA Bhutto, Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman.
Bhutto and Zia…BBC Urdu Interview part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiYNuxQLiTg
Bhutto and Zia…BBC Urdu Interview part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL1PfNJyNMI&feature=related
BBC dumped TV serial on Bhutto’s execution in 80s: author M. Ziauddin January 18, 2007
http://www.dawn.com/2007/01/18/nat3.htm
Bhutto was murdered under Carter Administration and ground work was started under Kissinger [Ford Administration] – United States National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski [a known War Monger] was at the helm of affairs in Carter Regime regarding Pakistan and General Zia
“QUOTE”
It should by now be generally accepted that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on Christmas Eve 1979 was deliberately provoked by the United States. In his memoir published in 1996, the former CIA director Robert Gates made it clear that the American intelligence services began to aid the mujahidin guerrillas not after the Soviet invasion, but six months before it. In an interview two years later with Le Nouvel Observateur, President Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski proudly confirmed Gates’s assertion. “According to the official version of history,” Brzezinski said, “CIA aid to the mujahidin began during 1980, that’s to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan. But the reality, kept secret until now, is completely different: on 3 July 1979 President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And on the same day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained that in my opinion this aid would lead to a Soviet military intervention.”
Asked whether he in any way regretted these actions, Brzezinski replied:
Regret what? The secret operation was an excellent idea. It drew the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? On the day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, saying, in essence: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War.’
Nouvel Observateur: “And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists?”
Brzezinski: “What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”
Are We to Blame for Afghanistan? By Chalmers Johnson 11-22-04 http://hnn.us/articles/8438.html
Ayub’s secularism as part of the military culture of British Indian Army was like an open book without any fine print. Even the prefix Islamic attaching to the Republic of Pakistan was dropped until restored under the writ of superior judiciary.
That continued to be the case until the fateful day of 1965 when India attacked Pakistan along the international border, with Lahore as its principal target. Even in his first address to the nation within hours of the Indian invasion, Ayub went on to recite the ‘Kalama-i-Tayyaba’ in a stirring, emotion-choked voice.
His subsequent meeting with religious parties – mainly the Jamaat-i-Islami under Maulana ‘Abul ‘Ala Maududi – marked the beginning of the military-mullah nexus. Yahya would not have much to do with things spiritual until the induction of retired Maj.-Gen. Sher Ali Khan into his cabinet as minister in-charge of information and national affairs. He initiated Yahya into ideological lore and saddled him with the mission of protecting the ‘ideology of Pakistan and the glory of Islam’.
Yahya’s intelligence chief, Major-(later Lieut.) Gen. Muhammad Akbar Khan made no secret of his close liaison with the Jamaat-i-Islami especially in respect of its pro-active role in East Pakistan. The Jamaat was to go even to the extent of certifying Yahya’s draft constitution as Islamic. The draft was authored by Justice A.R. Cornelius, Yahya’s law minister. As for Zia, he embarked on his Islamization programme even as he assumed his army command.
آصف زرداری ہی کیوں؟
آخری وقت اشاعت: بدھ, 30 دسمبر, 2009, 18:09 GMT 23:09 PST
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/columns/2009/12/091230_zardari_ppp_sen.shtml
انور سِن رائے
بی بی سی اردو ڈاٹ کام، لندن
بینظیر بھٹو کو راستے سے ہٹانا وہ کامیابی تھی جو ضیا الحق کے دور میں بھی حاصل نہیں ہو سکی تھی۔
بہت سے لوگوں نے یہ کہانی بچپن ہی سے سنی ہو گی جس میں ایک جادو نگری ہوتی ہے اور اس جادو نگری کو ختم کرنے کا واحد طریقہ یہ ہوتا ہے کہ اس طوطے تک رسائی حاصل کی جائے جس میں طلسم بنانے والے نے اپنی جان رکھ کر اسے ایک ایسے محفوظ مقام پر رکھا ہوتا ہے جس تک رسائی آسان نہیں ہوتی لیکن اگر مقام تک رسائی حاصل کر کے طوطے کی گردن مروڑنے میں کامیابی حاصل کر لی جائے تو سارا طلسم ختم ہو جاتا ہے۔ یہ کہانی پتہ نہیں کیوں کچھ فرق کے ساتھ، مجھے آج کل پاکستان کی سیاست سے ملتی جلتی دکھائی دیتی ہے۔
حالات نے پیپلز پارٹی کا طلسم آصف زرداری کی ذات میں جمع کر دیا ہے۔ انہوں بینظر بھٹو کو پیش آنے والے سانحے کے بعد نہ صرف پارٹی کو ایک رکھا ہے بلکہ اسے اقتدار میں لانے میں بھی کامیابی بھی حاصل کی ہے۔
یہ بات ان کی بہت بڑی شکست ہے جنہوں نے بینظیر بھٹو کو راستے سے ہٹانے کی وہ کامیابی حاصل کر لی جو ضیا الحق کے دور میں بھی حاصل نہیں ہو سکی تھی۔
اب ان حلقوں کے پاس تین سال اور کچھ ماہ ہیں۔ اس کے بعد الیکشن ہوں گے۔ پیپلز پارٹی دو سال کے لگ بھگ گزار چکی ہے۔
گزرے دو سالوں میں کیا ہوا؟ پیپلز پارٹی نے بہت کچھ کمایا اور گنوایا۔ جن کا ہدف آصف زرداری ہیں انہیں پتہ ہے وزیر اعظم سمیت کسی کے آنے جانے سے کوئی فرق نہیں پڑے گا۔ خاص طور پر اس بات کو ان سیاستدانوں سے زیادہ کون سمجھ سکتا ہے جنہوں نے ضیا الحق جیسے صدر کے سائے میں نمو پائی ہو۔ اسحاق خان جیسے صدر کو دیکھا اور با اختیار صدر کی ہمنوائی کا مزا چکھا ہو اور مخالفت کے زخم بھی کھائے ہوں۔ لیکن میڈیا کے بڑے حصے کا کھلا اور واضح ہدف بھی صدر آصف زرداری ہی ہیں۔
جن کا ہدف آصف زرداری ہیں انہیں پتہ ہے وزیر اعظم سمیت کسی کے آنے جانے سے کوئی فرق نہیں پڑے گا۔
ایسا لگتا ہے جیسے وہ صدر جنرل مشرف اور صدر آصف زرداری میں کوئی فرق کرنے پر تیار نہیں۔ یا انہیں بھی یہ سمجھا دیا گیا ہے کہ پیپلز پارٹی کی جان آصف زرداری میں ہے، آصف زرداری کی گردن مروڑی جائے گی تو پیپلز پارٹی کی جان خود بخود نکل جائے گی۔ یا ان کا فخر و غرور یہ ہے کہ اگر وہ بے وردی صدر جنرل مشرف ناکوں چنے چبوانے میں کامیاب ہو چکے ہیں تو آصف زرداری کس کھیت کی مولی ہیں۔
لیکن کیا ذرائع ابلاغ میں یہ آزادی، اداروں کے اندر محض پیشہ ورانہ آزادی کا فروغ ہے کیوں کہ اب تک تو ان اداروں میں کام کرنے والے یہ آزادی صرف پیشہ ورانہ آزادی کے طور پر اختیار نہیں کر سکتے۔ انہیں اتنی ہی آزادی ہوتی تھی جتنی انہیں ڈھیل دی جاتی ہے اور یہ ڈھیل اچھے صحافیوں کے رابطوں کو دیکھ دی جاتی تھی۔ جو صحافی ملٹری اور سول اسٹیبلشمنٹ کے لیے جتنا زیادہ قابلِ اعتماد ہوتا تھا اتنا ہی بڑا اور اچھا ہوتا تھا اور اتنی ہی اسے اپنے ادارے میں ڈھیل ملتی تھی۔ کیوں کہ ذرائع ابلاغ کے اداروں کے مالکان سے زیادہ اس بات کو اور کون جان سکتا ہے کہ کس ادارے کے بغیر بقا ممکن نہیں رہے گی۔
اس پس منظر میں پیپلز پارٹی نے جو کچھ گنوایا ہے کر کے گنوایا ہے۔ یہاں تک کہ لوگ جوتوں اور پیاز کی کہانی دہراتے اور ہنستے ہیں اور پیپلز پارٹی کے ہم خیال اور کارکن دکھ بھری آنکھوں سے انہیں دیکھتے رہ جاتے ہیں۔ ان میں سے کچھ تو دباؤ میں آ کر خود بھی اپنے آپ میں کیڑے نکالنے لگتے ہیں۔
جنہیں بھٹو کے بعد بینظیر ہضم نہیں ہو سکیں ان کی یقیناً یہ کوشش ہو گی کہ آصف زدرادی کو پارٹی کا بوجھ بنا دیا جائے
لیکن ان میں سے کچھ ضرور سوچتے ہوں گے: جوہری کمانڈ کنٹرول کی وزیر اعظم کو منتقلی، عرصہ دراز کے بعد این ایف سی ایوارڈ پر اتفاق، بلوچستان پیکیج، جلا وطن بلوچ رہنماؤں کو اعتماد میں لینے کا عزم، شدت پسندوں کے خلاف آپریشن، آپریشن سے اندرون ملک ہونے والی دنیا کی سب سے بڑی نقل مکانی اور اس سے کامیاب نبرد آزمائی کیا یہ سب ایسے کام نہیں جنہیں گنا نہ جائے۔ کیا یہ سب میثاقِ جمہوریت پر عمل نہ ہونے کے شور، بے وفائی کے طعنوں، عدلیہ کی بحالی کی مختلف حکمتِ عملی، آٹے کا بحران، چینی کا بحران، بجلی کا بحران، این آر او کے غوغے میں گم ہوجائے گا۔
اگر آئندہ تین سال میں یہ تاثر بھی پیدا ہوا کہ پیپلز پارٹی نے بہت کچھ کرنے کی کوشش کی ہے یا کیا ہے تو پارٹی سرخرو ہو گی اور سرِ فہرست ہوں گے آصف زرداری اور اس قابل ہوں گے کہ بھٹو خاندان کی سیاسی وراثت اپنی اگلی نسل کو منتقل کر سکیں اور یہی بات انہیں ہضم نہیں ہو سکتی جنہیں بھٹو کے بعد بینظیر ہضم نہیں ہو سکیں۔ شاید اسی لیے ایسی کوششیں ہوتی دکھائی دیتی ہیں کہ زدرادی کو پارٹی کا بوجھ بنا دیا جائے۔