The American Bear

Sunshine/Lollipops

thepeoplesrecord:

Hundreds of complaints reporting rigging and irregularities in the May 11 Pakistan parliamentary elections confirmed by EU election monitors have Pakistan youth outraged
May 17, 2013

Pakistan’s May 11 parliamentary elections have been hailed by the national and international observers as landmark and historic, but there have also been complaints of rigging and irregularities in the polls. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party defeated both the former ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and cricket star turned politician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the polls, and Sharif looks poised to form the new government in Islamabad.

Though the PPP has conceded defeat without any major complaints, Khan’s PTI has accused Sharif and some other parties of rigging the elections. Earlier this week, Michael Gahler, the chief observer of the European Union’s elections observation mission (EOM), confirmed “serious problems in polling.”

On Thursday, May 16, the Pakistani election commission said in a statement that it received 110 complaints about voting irregularities. The commission ordered recounting of votes in nine constituencies in various parts of the country. It also set up 14 election tribunals which will look into the complaints. The tribunals are headed by retired judges and will have the authority to declare the results null and void if rigging complaints are proven to be correct. “The tribunals will be able to address the complaints to an extent only. There will always be people who won’t accept their decisions,” Amir Zia of the daily The News in Karachi told DW. Zia said that there were certain irregularities in the polls but the elections were generally quite free and fair.

Khan’s supporters do not agree. They have launched a campaign against “rigging” on the social media and have also taken to the streets in big cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. The PTI supporters are posting evidence in the form of videos and photographs on Facebook and Twitter to highlight what they call massive rigging.

The PTI has particularly criticized the Karachi-based liberal Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) for allegedly rigging the elections in several areas of Karachi. The PTI has held several protest rallies against the MQM in Karachi, which has been the MQM stronghold for more than two decades.

Analysts say that the use of social media to report irregularities and express anger against alleged rigging should be seen as a sign of civil society, but it will also be misleading to think that the evolving social media in Pakistan is a mirror to the whole country. “It is a positive sign that in the cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, rigging and mismanagement are reported and highlighted on the social media. But we must keep in mind that the social media in Pakistan is not used by most Pakistanis and is limited to the rich and the urban middle-class youth,” Jahanzaib Haque of the Express Tribune newspaper’s online edition told DW.

Many analysts in Pakistan believe that the perseverance of the Pakistani youth to make their politicians more accountable to the people is commendable and is a proof that democracy in Pakistan is evolving.

Source

› Everyone has to buy bread | Muhammad Idrees Ahmad | LRB

For most of the world’s media, Pakistan’s general election was about terrorism. Candidates were identified according to their attitude towards the Taliban, and labelled as ‘secular’ or ‘conservative’. Little was said about party platforms. Circumstances appeared to justify the focus. There was a savage campaign of intimidation by domestic extremists in the run-up to the vote. More than a hundred people died, most of them members of the outgoing ruling coalition parties. The Awami National Party (ANP) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said they were targeted because of their uncompromising attitude towards the Taliban and avowedly secular views. There is some truth to this; but their enthusiastic embrace of the ‘global war on terror’ was a more immediate cause.

Despite the violence, turnout was nearly 60 per cent, the highest in Pakistan’s history. Youth participation was unprecedented. Critics of the ‘war on terror’ roundly defeated its supporters. Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which has taken a consistent antiwar position, crushed the ANP in the north-west. The PTI did particularly well in Swat, Dir and the Federally Adminstered Tribal Areas, where most of Pakistan’s counterinsurgency operations and US drone attacks are carried out. Also leery of the war, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) evicted the PPP from Punjab, Pakistan’s richest, most populous and developed province. Terrorism may be foremost in the minds of Western observers; Pakistanis are more worried about the economy, education and corruption. Opinion polls showed that people’s biggest concerns are inflation and unemployment, as well as power outages and high energy costs, which have stunted economic growth and caused much misery: 20-hour blackouts are not unknown. Not all Pakistanis are exposed to terrorist violence; everyone has to buy bread.

The PML and the PPP, the two dynastic parties with feudal roots that until now dominated Pakistani politics, are both notoriously corrupt. But where the PPP relied on cheap populism and the loyalty of jiyalas (‘die-hards’), the PML, a party of merchants and industrialists, has at least spent money on infrastructure projects. When he was prime minister in the 1990s Sharif built the Lahore-Islamabad motorway which has since been extended to Peshawar. His brother, Shahbaz, transformed Lahore.

Most voters appear to have endorsed Sharif as a more capable manager of the economy. Stock markets have signalled their approval with a record surge in share prices. Sharif, a pragmatist, is eager to open trade with India. This might help boost the economy and also reduce military confrontation. Sharif is shielded against charges of compromising national security by his impeccable right-wing credentials.

With the PML in power and the PTI in opposition, the US should enjoy less of the obeisance it had come to expect from Musharraf and the PPP. His large electoral mandate puts Sharif in a strong position to renegotiate Pakistan’s relations with the US, though it is not inevitable that he will try. But with thirty PTI gadflies in the National Assembly, servility will not come without a cost in credibility.

Sharif may have been a conventional choice, but this was doubtless a historic moment. It was the first time a democratic government in Pakistan was able to serve out its term. The first time, too, that the dynastic two-party stranglehold on national politics was shaken, with many once safe, hereditary seats passing on to new actors. Little of this would have been possible without Pakistan’s muckraking, rambunctious and irreverent media, and the newly empowered judiciary, serving as checks on politicians and the military.

› Can Musharraf save U.S from liability for drones in Pakistan?

[…] The reality is drones — with or without consent — are a seductive option for the leader of the free world. It is good politics to keep America “safe” by engaging in a war that only lines up body bags on the other side. In this war, the human losses that normally bring an end to war — like those in Vietnam — don’t exist.

Even more seductive is the ability to wage war without oversight. For years, the CIA has refused to tell anyone who it may be killing. We’re supposed to have faith in the CIA’s good nature and their claims that they are only killing bad guys. In fact the claim drone strikes are killing only al Qaeda simply is not true — I personally represent more than 100 civilian victims of strikes and they are absolutely not militants. According to nonpartisan public policy group, the New American Foundation, drones strikes have killed at least 1,990 Pakistanis [The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates at least 2500], including hundreds of civilians.

Obama campaigned and was elected on a platform of change, one that would end the abuses and torture so prevalent during the early years of the so-called war on terror. More than four years later, the “change” Obama has brought to Pakistan through drones has resulted in more needless deaths, daily suicide attacks, and growing instability. For the average Pakistani, whether a murderous, corrupt dictator consented to this brand of change is irrelevant.

› Pak court declares US drone strikes as illegal | The Hindu

A Pakistani court on Thursday declared that US drone strikes in the country’s lawless tribal belt were illegal and directed the Foreign Ministry to move a resolution against the attacks in the United Nations.

The Peshawar High Court issued the verdict against the strikes by CIA-operated spy planes in response to four petitions that contended the attacks killed civilians and caused collateral damage.

Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, who headed a two-judge bench that heard the petitions, ruled the drone strikes were illegal, inhuman and a violation of the UN charter on human rights. The court observed that the strikes must be declared a war crime as they kill innocent people.

“The government of Pakistan must ensure that no drone strike takes place in the future,” the court said. It asked the Foreign Ministry to table a resolution against the American attacks in the UN.

“If the US vetoes the resolution, then the country should think about breaking diplomatic ties with the US,” the judgment said.

US officials have said the drones target Al-Qaeda and Taliban elements in Pakistan’s tribal regions who are blamed for cross-border attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan insists that the US spy planes kill innocent people, damage civilian property and are counter-productive to the war on terror.

The US has rejected Pakistan’s calls for halting drone strikes.

The Peshawar High Court had earlier reserved its verdict after the completion of arguments by lawyers for the federal government and the petitioners, including the Defence of Pakistan Council, an amalgamation of religious groups, tribal elders and rights groups.

The petitioners had asked the court to direct the government to make public any secret deal with the US on drone strikes, stop drone strikes by force, take the issue to the UN Security Council and pay compensation to families of people killed in missile attacks.

› Sad Victory for Pakistan’s Taliban: Child Diagnosed With Polio in Region Where Vaccinations Were Denied | Jim White

While much attention is appropriately focused on the horrific and brutal attacks by Pakistan’s Taliban on secular political parties as the country approaches elections in its first-ever transition from one civilian government to another, we have news today of a sad triumph by the Taliban as a child in North Waziristan has been diagnosed with polio after the Taliban successfully shut down polio immunizations there last summer.

Health workers are on the cusp of making polio the second disease after smallpox to be completely eradicated from the planet. The latest plan forecasts eradication by 2018, but a huge barrier is that conservative Islamic groups view Western vaccination programs as attempts to sterilize Muslims. In addition, the participation by Dr. Shakeel Afridi in a bogus vaccination program set up by the CIA to obtain DNA samples from Osama bin Laden’s compound added fresh fuel to the belief that vaccination programs also are used to spy on Muslims. Just under a month ago, a policeman protecting workers administering polio vaccine was shot and killed:

The latest attack took place in the afternoon in the Par Hoti neighborhood of the Mardan district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. The policemen, Raj Wali and Mohammad Ishfaq, were accompanying two female workers on the second day of a three-day anti-polio drive, said Wajid Ali, a local police official.

The policemen were standing guard in the street as the health workers administered drops inside a house when an unidentified gunman, who appeared to be in his early 20s, walked up to them and opened fire. Mr. Wali was killed and Mr. Ishfaq was wounded, Mr. Ali said in a telephone interview. The gunman escaped.

That killing followed the deaths of eight vaccine workers last December and the violence has led to a significant interruption in the distribution of the vaccine:

In December, at least eight people engaged in polio vaccinations were shot dead in Karachi and the north-west, and in January and February two police officers were killed in similar attacks.

The UN said last month that some 240,000 children have missed vaccinations since July in parts of Pakistan’s tribal region, the main sanctuary for Islamic militants, because of security concerns.

And it is from the tribal area of Waziristan where we have today’s sad news of a child being diagnosed with polio:

A child has contracted polio for the first time in Pakistan’s militant-infested tribal belt since the Taliban banned vaccinations a year ago, a UN official said Monday.

“The new case has been detected in North Waziristan where we had been denied access in June last year,” the World Health Organization’s (WHO) senior coordinator for polio eradication in Pakistan, Elias Durry, told AFP.

Durry fears that this case is not likely to be isolated:

“We are worried because this new case comes as an example of a bigger impending outbreak of disease in the region,” the WHO official said.

In addition to making vaccination drives shorter and lower profile while working closely with security, the executive summary (pdf) for the new polio eradication plan has a key step of outreach to religious groups:

4. Religious leaders’ advocacy: markedly step up advocacy by international, national and local Islamic leaders to build ownership and solidarity for polio eradication across the Islamic world, including for the protection ofchildren against polio, the sanctity of health workers and the neutrality of health services.

Unfortunately, I don’t see an open call in the plan for bringing about an end to intelligence agencies undertaking new vaccination ruses, although “the neutrality of health services” would seem to touch on it. Meanwhile, Afridi has started a hunger strike in a desperate attempt to keep his name in the headlines.

› Benazir Bhutto murder case prosecutor shot dead in Islamabad

Two unknown assailants on motorcycle killed The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) special prosecutor in the Benazir Bhutto murder case Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali on Friday, DawnNews reported.

According to the police, state prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar was shot multiple times by gunmen in Islamabad’s G-9 area as he was driving to the next hearing in the murder case of the former prime minister, who was assassinated more than five years ago. Following the attack, he was taken to Islamabad’s main government-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) hospital in a severely injured condition where he succumbed to his injuries.

Doctors said he had been killed with ten bullets targeting his chest and shoulder.

Zulfiqar had been given extra government security last year after police investigators working on the Benazir Bhutto case received threats, which also named him.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the shooting.

This tragic news comes just one week after former President and U.S. puppet Pervez Musharraf was accused of “conspiracy to murder” Bhutto and subsequently banned from politics in Pakistan for life for interfering in the affairs of the judiciary in 2007.

It also comes on the heels of presidential candidate (PTI) Imran Khan’s claim that Bhutto was not killed by the Taliban, contradicting “the investigations done by a UN commission as well as Britain’s Scotland Yard police.”

› Musharraf Banned from Politics for Life As Violence Flairs in Pakistan Ahead of Elections | Jim White

Although he has been under house arrest since shortly after his return to Pakistan while facing trial on charges of arranging the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, former Pakistani Army Chief and President Pervez Musharraf was given a lifetime ban from holding political office by the Peshawar High Court:

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday banned former military ruler Pervez Musharraf from politics for life.

The ruling came in response to an appeal filed by the former army strongman over the rejection of his nomination papers for the National Assembly seat in Chitral.

A four-member larger bench, headed by PHC Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and comprising of Justice Malik Manzoor, Justice Syed Afsar Shah and Justice Ikramullah ruled that since Musharraf had abrogated the Constitution twice, he could not be allowed to contest elections for either the National Assembly or the Senate.

Isn’t that interesting? In Pakistan, violating the country’s constitution as President gets a lifetime ban from politics, while in the US the same offense allows the perpetrator to open a Presidential Lie Bury.

Meanwhile, as the May 11 elections draw nearer, violence [in Pakistan] is escalating. [continue]

› Decoding the Arrest of Musharraf | JP Sottile

The drone war may have just taken out a high value target—former President of Pakistan and Bush Administration partner in the War on Terror, Pervez Musharraf.

No, he didn’t get blown to bits by a Hellfire missile, or die in a “Double-Tap” strike when he rushed to the aid of an unfortunate wedding party supposedly teeming with “suspected militants.”

Rather, simply by shooting of his big mouth, the retired general collaterally damaged the tumultuous pact between his former colleagues in both Islamabad and Washington. In fact, he blew another hole in the crumbling wall of obfuscation around Washington’s kill list.

What did Pervez say?

Eager to position himself as an instant frontrunner in Pakistan’s forthcoming elections, Pervez agreed to a bombshell interview with CNN in which he admitted to a “secret deal” between his government and the U.S. to allow drone strikes within his troubled, often drone-attacked country.

This directly contradicts the official position of the Pakistani government and instantly confirms the charges made by critics within Pakistan. It also confirms and highlights revelations now emerging from sharp reporting by Mark Mazzetti in both the New York Times and his new book about the drone war, The Way of the Knife.

Although it got quickly lost in the wall-to-wall coverage of the Boston Bombings, General Musharraf’s candor was a stunning development with geopolitical implications.

And it probably got Musharraf arrested. That’s right. Within a week of the interview, a judge issued an order for his arrest.

General Musharraf, who’d come back to Pakistan with the stated intention to run for the Presidency, quickly stated his intention to run for his life! But there was no escape. Musharraf was arrested on charges related to the summary firing of judges back in 2007 and was ordered held for two weeks. Now those charges have escalated to possible treason and perhaps even the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. He’s also been named as a target for assassination, and someone tried to bomb his home.

The timeline tells the story:

03.24.13: A less-than-triumphant return

04.12.12: Gives the CNN interview

04.16.13: Officially barred from seeking election

04.18.13: Arrest order issued

04.18.13: Flees the Court

04.19.13: Arrested

04.24.13: Bail denied, may be charged with Bhutto assassination

It is quite a turn of events for America’s one-time partner and the Pakistani Army’s most reliable strongman. The timing of the arrest and charges certainly highlight the fluid nature of Pakistani politics, along with the growing problem of the drone war and the fallout it is generating—not only in Pakistan, but around the world.

In this case, timing is everything.

Musharraf’s gambit—perhaps to position himself with the growing popular reaction against the ad hoc bombing of his country—came on the heels of a number of revelations about the conduct and cover-up of the drone war by the Obama Administration.

Not only has Team Obama mischaracterized targets and wildly under-reported civilian casualties, it also inherited a “quid pro quo” policy established in 2004 that traded access to airspace in Pakistan for the assassination of Pakistan’s political opponents.

The policy could best be summed up as: “We’ll kill yours, if you let us kill ours.” [READ]

› Musharraf put on remand over Bhutto killing | Al Jazeera English

A Pakistani court has ordered a three-day house arrest on former military ruler Pervez Musharraf over the murder of ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto more than five years ago, a prosecutor has said.

Musharraf appeared in court on Friday in the garrison city of Rawalpindi for his remand hearing under tight security a day after being formally arrested. He is accused of conspiracy to murder Bhutto, who died in a gun and suicide attack in December 2007.

› Pakistan court orders Musharraf's arrest | Al Jazeera

A Pakistani court has ordered the arrest of former president Pervez Musharraf in connection with charges relating to his clash with the judiciary in 2007 when he was still in power, his spokesperson has said.

Islamabad High Court on Thursday ordered Musharraf be detained in connection with allegations that he committed treason when he sacked senior judges and declared emergency rule as he struggled to hold on to power.

“Islamabad High Court has cancelled Musharraf’s bail and ordered his arrest in the judges’ detention case today,” Mohammad Amjad, secretary-general of Musharraf’s All Pakistan Muslim League party, told Reuters.

Police made no immediate move to enforce the arrest order and Musharraf left the court flanked by his personal bodyguards for his farmhouse on the edge of Islamabad.

Police officer Ali Asghar said security personnel were deployed at the court building, but Musharraf’s security team rushed him out and put him in a car before they could detain him.

› 5 killed, 7 injured in US drone strike | Pakistan Today

April 17th, 2013

At least five people were killed and seven others were injured on Wednesday morning in a US drone strike in South Waziristan Agency.

According to the media reports, the US drone fired two missiles at a house located in the Babar Ghar village in the Wana district of South Waziristan.

The attack destroyed the compound completely and killed five people while leaving seven others injured.

Local people rushed to the site for rescue work, and a rise in causalities was feared as some people were still buried under the debris.

Media reports claimed that the compound was being used by the members of the banned militant organisation Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Wednesday’s strike was the second of its kind in the current month. Earlier on April 14, a US unmanned plane targeted a house in North Waziristan and killed four people inside.

This was the 12th US drone attack in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas this year, killing 72 people in total including [allegedly] two al-Qaeda linked commanders.