Pakistani Woes

International Herald Tribune Editorial: In Pakistan, a good first step
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: March 17, 2009
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/17/opinion/edpakistan.php


President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan made the right choice on Monday when he agreed to reinstate the independent-minded former Supreme Court justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

Unfortunately, it took huge street protests and the threat of chaos to persuade him to do the right thing. Mr. Zardari will have to do a lot more to calm the political turmoil and confront the extremists who threaten Pakistan.

Mr. Zardari made a major concession in agreeing to Mr. Chaudhry’s return and is weaker as a result. Nawaz Sharif, the opposition leader, was already the country’s most popular politician, and he gained even more by championing the cause of the chief justice, who was ousted by Pervez Musharraf, the former president.

Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif led a coalition government after Mr. Musharraf was pushed out last year but broke up ostensibly over the Chaudhry issue. With that resolved, they should try again to put aside their corrosive rivalry and work to combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda and address Pakistan’s many other urgent problems.

We are relieved that the protests led by Mr. Sharif and a vigorous lawyers’ movement ended without significant bloodshed. Pakistanis successfully demanding change from their leaders is an unpredictable new factor in the country’s politics. Yet the process was flawed. It was unsettling to watch police officers in Lahore, Mr. Sharif’s power base, allow Mr. Sharif to escape house arrest. Pakistan’s coup-prone Army did not try to seize power. Instead, the chief of staff prodded Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif to compromise. That is certainly an improvement over the past. But it is also a reminder of the weakness of Pakistan’s democratic institutions.

One of the biggest questions is how Mr. Chaudhry, now a national symbol of the rule of law, will use his influence and his restored powers. Mr. Zardari supposedly opposed his return out of fear that the jurist would revive a corruption charge against him. We hope Mr. Chaudhry opts to advance the cause of impartial justice, not political retribution. Pakistan’s leaders have walked the country back from the brink. They must go much further before it reaches solid ground.






Zardari to reinstate law chief
By Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad and Daniel Dombey in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: 16:22 | Last updated: 02:24
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e1a8abaa-1179-11de-87b1-0000779fd2ac.html


Pakistan’s president will reinstate Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary as chief justice of the supreme court, in an attempt to quash a direct challenge to his rule.

Yusuf Raza Gilani, prime minster, said early Monday in a pre-sunrise speech on national television: “Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary will take charge as chief justice of the supreme court after the retirement of Abdul Hameed Dogar (the present chief justice of the supreme court) when he retires on March 21.”

Mr Gilani also ordered the release of all those arrested in a government crackdown since last Wednesday ahead of protests planned for Monday

The prime minister called on Nawaz Sharif, the opposition leader and former prime minister, to immediately begin discussions to restore democracy in Pakistan. “We are committed to democracy and we will take all steps to promote democracy in our country,” he said.

Ahead of Mr Gilani’s speech, the police in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, began removing barricades placed on entrances to the city, which were raised on Saturday, mainly to stop protestors from coming in to Islamabad.

Mr Chaudhary’s return follows Sunday’s widespread violence in Lahore, Pakistan’s second biggest city, where Mr Sharif led a large number of opposition party protesters.

A large demonstration for Mr Chaudhary’s reinstatement planned in Islamabad on Monday finally “forced the president to back away from his hardline stand”, said a government official.

Sunday’s clashes came after Mr Sharif had been placed under house arrest in an effort to prevent him attending the Islamabad protest, which was seen as an open challenge to Mr Zardari. The authorities last week detained scores of opposition leaders, political activists and anti-government lawyers.

Western diplomats said Mr Zardari had come under increasing pressure to reinstate Mr Chaudhary from the US as well as Pakistan’s army generals, who were convinced escalating protests would further destabilise the government.

US officials are keen to see stability in a key partner in Washington’s “war on terror”.

Richard Holbrooke, US special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said: ”We applaud the statesmanlike act by President Zardari and hope that it will help defuse a dangerous confrontation so that Pakistan, with the help of its many friends, can address the nation’s pressing and urgent needs.”

Mr Zardari’s decision to reinstate Mr Chaudhary came after Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, called both Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif over the weekend to urge reconcilation.

US officials depicted the stand off between the two political leaders over the independence of the judiciary as a confrontation full of risk for Pakistan. They hailed the apparent resolution of the issue as an important step towards reconcilation within the country’s strife-torn political class.

”Now is the time for all Pakistani’s and their political representatives to work together, with the support of their friends and allies, to peacefully strengthen their democracy,” said the US embassy in the country.

Late on Sunday, opposition activists gathered outside Mr Chaudhary’s residence in Islamabad to celebrate.

“This will be a new beginning for Pakistan, a new dawn,” said Athar Minallah, a leading lawyer and Mr Chaudhary’s de facto spokesman. “This will be a great moment.”







Mass Demonstration Defies Pakistani Government
By JANE PERLEZ
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: March 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/world/asia/16pstan.html?hp


LAHORE, Pakistan — A crackdown by the Pakistani government to prevent a national demonstration and detain the country’s leading opposition figure collapsed on Sunday, and what had been a clash between the police and protesters transformed into a huge antigovernment rally.

In what analysts here called an unprecedented reversal by security forces, phalanxes of riot policemen here in Lahore melted away rather than continue to confront protesters who had rallied around the opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, when he defied a house arrest order early Sunday.

By early evening, the sight of exuberant anti-government crowds in Lahore — a mix of Mr. Sharif’s loyalists, supporters of smaller opposition parties and ordinary people with their young children — encouraged people in other cities in the Punjab Province to come out on the streets

Mr. Sharif headed toward Islamabad in a long convoy of cars, with supporters lining up to greet him along the 200 mile route, said Ahsan Iqbal, the information secretary for Mr. Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N. He added that party workers armed with cranes were removing shipping containers placed as roadblocks by the police at junctions along the route to the capital.

Mr. Sharif, speaking to Geo television by phone from his car, said, “This is a prelude to a revolution.”Mr. Sharif began the day under house arrest at his home outside Lahore, hemmed in by barbed wire and security roadblocks. But he denounced the crackdown as illegal and said he would move to address an opposition demonstration at the city center and continue with a national opposition march on the capital planned for Monday. He left his house in a convoy of cars that broke through a ring of police barriers.

Then the convoy reached the main thoroughfare in Lahore, known as The Mall, it was joined by truckloads of supporters, who waved banners and shouted slogans calling for the restoration of an independent judiciary. Apparently with the help of sympathetic police officials, Mr. Sharif’s convoy was able to move slowly toward the area around the General Post Office building, where riot police and protesters began scuffling.

A phalanx of several hundred police officers in riot gear fired shells of tear gas for more than an hour at the protesters. The police then brought in armored vehicles to fire more rounds of tear gas as stones and empty tear gas shells littered the road. Some protesters set tires on fire, and police officers wielding batons chased them.

But by 5 p.m., the police disappeared and huge crowds, on foot and in cars, enveloped the Mall. Green, red and white banners of with portraits of Mr. Sharif were held aloft as other groups, including Jamaat-i-Islami, a right wing Islamist group, joined what turned into the anti-government demonstration that the government had feared all along. The leader of the lawyers’ movement, Aitzaz Ahsan, moved toward the High Court, accompanied by scores of lawyers, to make a speech.

One of the senior officials in the Lahore government, the chief magistrate, Sajjad Bhutta, told reporters he refused to carry out what he called the illegal acts of the police crackdown. He appeared among the crowds on the mall, surrounded by cheers and waving flags.

Mr. Ahsan said that protesters would try to defy the government’s efforts to keep them away from Islamabad and would attempt to converge on the capital from various points around the country on Monday.

“The strategy is simple,” Mr. Ahsan said. “The long march is on for an indefinite period.”

There appeared to have been a decision, either by provincial officials, many of whom support Mr. Sharif, or at the national level, to allow Mr. Sharif to proceed.

A statement by the Home Department in Lahore released shortly after the police fired tear gas said that the police had taken the action only after the protesters turned violent. And in Islamabad, Farahnaz Ispahani, a spokeswoman for President Asif Ali Zardari, said on Sunday that the detention orders for leaders of the PML-N had been issued for the sake of their security.

“The government cannot be responsible for someone inflaming crowds,” she said. “It’s not a mature move. From a security view we don’t think this is a wise move.”

Still, the profound turnaround, from government crackdown to a huge anti-government show, was greeted with amazement by analysts and lawyers in Pakistan. During the eight year military rule of President Pervez Musharraf from 1999 to early last year, there were no similar efforts to crackdown on demonstrators in such a way, they said. For example, the lawyers movement organized large convoys through the countryside in 2007 in protest against the dismissal of chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

But the convoys were allowed to proceed largely untouched by security forces, they said.

This is the first time in the history of Pakistan that the police and civil administration have defied orders by the government to control public demonstrations,” said Ashtar Ali, a corporate lawyer who supports the Pakistan Muslim League-N. “The writ of the government has failed.”

A mirror incident played out in Islamabad earlier on Sunday, when police officers in riot gear arrested Mahdum Javed Hashemi, a senior member of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, plucking him from the passenger seat of a purple Toyota Land Cruiser.

A small crowd of supporters shouted “We disagree!” as Mr. Hashemi was led toward a police truck.

“We’re not running because we’re not afraid of this illegal order,” Mr. Hashemi said. “Even if I’m gone, my party workers and the lawyers will keep on working for the freedom of the judiciary.”

Ms. Ispahani, the spokeswoman for Mr. Zardari, said that Mr. Hashemi had been detained because “we want to keep him home, we want to keep him safe.”

The current battle between Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif, a former prime minister, began on Feb. 25 when the president imposed executive rule on the Punjab Legislature, the stronghold of Mr. Sharif’s party.

Hours earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its ruling disqualifying the Sharifs from holding office. To consolidate their opposition to Mr. Zardari, the brothers joined forces with the lawyers’ movement, which had called for a national protest and sit-in in Islamabad on March 16.

Appeals by the United States to President Asif Ali Zardari and to Nawaz Sharif to cool the political crisis in the past few days appeared to have been rebuffed.

In a last-minute move to mollify the opposition, Mr. Zardari’s spokesman said Saturday night that the government would seek a review of a Supreme Court decision last month that disqualified the Sharif brothers from holding elective office. But Mr. Sharif has said that such a gesture would be insufficient to head off the protests.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif on Saturday evening to discuss the situation before the announcement was made, spokesmen for the two men said. Although Mr. Zardari’s gesture came after she called, it seemed not enough to deter Mr. Sharif.

Mr. Zardari also said in a statement by his spokesman that the government would review how Supreme Court judges, fired two years ago by President Pervez Musharraf, could be restored. This would be done, he said, in accordance with a document signed three years ago by Mr. Sharif and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Carlotta Gall and Sabrina Tavernise contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Waqar Gillani from Lahore.