Pakistán (Continuación)

MundoAméricaMundoOriente Próximo,

One of us chairs a House of Representatives subcommittee tasked with oversight of U.S. foreign policy, and one of us languishes under house arrest after transfer from a Pakistani jail for the "heinous" and "seditious" crime of representing, in legal proceedings, the sacked chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court.

As members of the political opposition in our respective countries and as lawyers firmly committed to the rule of law, we have a few questions for our heads of state:

¿ How will you address the increasing anti-Americanism in Pakistan in light of the growing, and not unjustified, perception among Pakistan's democratic moderates that the United States is not willing to stand with the people of Pakistan against an increasingly authoritarian and anti-democratic government in Islamabad?…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

When Benazir Bhutto returned from exile in October, she was disturbed by the growing strength of the Taliban and Islamic extremists inside Pakistan. Last week she sat down with Newsweek-The Post's Lally Weymouth in Islamabad. Excerpts:

Q: How do see your prospects in the upcoming election?

A: We all worried that the elections are going to be rigged in favor of the ruling party -- the military's party, the Muslim League. . . . There are 148 seats in the Punjab, the government has been told to give 108 seats [to] them. That means we'll only be fighting over 40 seats.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad could hardly believe what President Bush said to anchor Charles Gibson on ABC's "World News" on Nov. 20. He described Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, as "somebody who believes in democracy" and declared: "I understand how important he is in fighting extremists and radicals." Was the president of the United States issuing Musharraf a free pass to rig next month's elections in Pakistan?

That was not Bush's intention. But his lavishing such praise on the general who had ruled Pakistan through military force led to assumptions that the United States would blink at election-rigging. Plotters in Islamabad seeking to undermine Benazir Bhutto's effort to become prime minister a third time can claim that U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

The other day, as we made our way through the clogged arteries of this seaside metropolis, I asked my driver why he and so many others here were ecstatic about the return of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister. Surprisingly, he didn’t say anything about the civil rights abuses of the government of President Pervez Musharraf, or about fears of militant Islam and the Taliban. Rather, he cited his wallet; he, and many like him, have an inexplicable nostalgia for the (failed) socialist economic policies of our ineffective elected governments of the 1970s and ’90s.

This economic imperative wasn’t something that had occurred to me on that fateful Saturday four weeks earlier.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente PróximoInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional, ,

In the early 1900s, a crusty British general, Andrew Skeen, wrote a guide to military operations in the Pashtun tribal belt, in what is now Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. His first piece of advice: “When planning a military expedition into Pashtun tribal areas, the first thing you must plan is your retreat. All expeditions into this area sooner or later end in retreat under fire.” This was written decades before the advent of suicide bombers, when the Pashtuns had little but rifles yet nevertheless managed to give their British overlords fits.

These same tribal areas are now focus of Pakistan’s struggle with the Pakistani Taliban, particularly the North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal areas on the Afghan border and the Swat region further north.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

General Pervez Musharraf's plan to retain power as Pakistan's civilian president is still intact, despite weeks of jaw-dropping blunders. But insiders say he will not last long, once a new government is elected and his army ties fade. They predict the general's final posting, following a trail into exile blazed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, will be duke of Knightsbridge or king of Dubai.

Musharraf's decision to call an election on January 8, his imminent resignation as army chief, his acquiescence in Sharif's weekend return, and gradual release of political prisoners have all helped put his pre-crisis plan back on track.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

La crisis que convulsiona Pakistán se gestó en Estados Unidos. Es la consecuencia directa e inevitable de las enormes inyecciones de material militar y de las gigantescas subvenciones económicas norteamericanas en el Ejército paquistaní durante los últimos cincuenta años. Estas inyecciones y subvenciones le han convertido en un coloso abotargado pero con un arsenal y una capacidad financiera tan abrumadores como ajenos al control civil.

Al margen de lo que termine ocurriéndole al general Pervez Musharraf, será difícil que Islamabad se libre de la tenaza que los generales suponen para la vida económica y política de Pakistán. Vamos a asistir a un creciente enfrentamiento entre las Fuerzas Armadas y unas masas políticamente muy estimuladas, de explosivas connotaciones en un Estado que, en un peligroso entorno geográfico, posee armas nucleares.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

President Bush's democracy agenda, the argument goes, is radical, hopeless, failed, dangerous and destabilizing. And he is a hypocrite for not applying it vigorously enough in Pakistan; the administration, it seems, should be more principled and energetic in pursuing a discredited foreign policy. But perhaps the need for freedom is not so discredited after all.

Pakistan has always been among the hardest of the hard cases when it comes to democracy -- with its volatile combination of military rule, borderland terrorist havens and the Bomb. In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, few questioned the need for cooperation with President Pervez Musharraf in the Afghan campaign or the fight against al-Qaeda.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

As Pakistan descends into political chaos, much attention has been given to two leaders competing for power -- the current dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and the media-savvy former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. The White House appears to be backing Musharraf as its best bet in the "war on terror," while much of the world's media and Western liberal elite see Bhutto as a democratic savior for a country mired in Islamic fundamentalism.

Both fail to recognize the core problem plaguing Pakistani society: Without a strong and independent judiciary, Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state, will forever be at the mercy of dictators and power-hungry politicians.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

As the government of Pakistan totters, we must face a fact: the United States simply could not stand by as a nuclear-armed Pakistan descended into the abyss. Nor would it be strategically prudent to withdraw our forces from an improving situation in Iraq to cope with a deteriorating one in Pakistan. We need to think — now — about our feasible military options in Pakistan, should it really come to that.

We do not intend to be fear mongers. Pakistan’s officer corps and ruling elites remain largely moderate and more interested in building a strong, modern state than in exporting terrorism or nuclear weapons to the highest bidder.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

My country is in flames. There is no constitution. Judges have been sacked on a whim and arrested, political leaders locked up, television stations taken off the air. Human rights activists, lawyers and other members of civil society are bearing the brunt of a crackdown by a brutal regime. Extremism has assumed enormous and grave proportions.

All of this is the doing of one man: Pervez Musharraf. He first struck at the core of democracy on Oct. 12, 1999, when he dismissed my government at gunpoint. My government was chosen by the people of Pakistan in free and fair elections. But Musharraf so feared my popularity that he banished me from the country and won't allow me to return.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Durante los últimos sesenta años, los gobernantes militares que ha tenido Pakistán en este tiempo han encarcelado de manera selectiva a políticos, periodistas y manifestantes contrarios a ellos, pero nunca jamás un gobernante militar había ordenado a las fuerzas de seguridad que dieran palizas a miles de abogados, periodistas, mujeres y miembros de la sociedad civil en las calles, que los llevaran a rastras hasta las cárceles y que acto seguido los acusaran de traición. Eso es exactamente lo que el presidente Pervez Musharraf ha hecho con el fin de seguir gobernando en Pakistán después de ocho años en el poder.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

The return of Benazir Bhutto from the political dead has been wondrous to behold. Ten years ago, her name was mud around the world: she had been sacked as prime minister; her brother had been gunned down by her own police force; her husband was in prison on corruption charges; and her Swiss bank accounts had been frozen at the request of the Pakistani government. When the heroine of the struggle against the dictatorship of Zia ul-Haq visited Britain, government ministers failed to return her calls.

A decade on, she is the darling of the western media once more, leading the opposition to another US-backed military ruler and somehow, at the same time, the last hope of the US and British governments of keeping a grip on the upheaval now engulfing Pakistan.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

All through the years of the Soviet empire, its Politburo held "elections." Of course, calling something an election and actually having it be an election are different things.

I am under house arrest in Lahore, barricaded in by Pakistani police with bayonets. Despite Gen. Pervez Musharraf's announcement of a date for parliamentary elections, I doubt that we are in for a change.

I cautioned the general earlier this year that his election as president by the present parliament was illegal. He insisted otherwise.

We agreed to disagree and decided that we both would accept a ruling by the Supreme Court regarding eligibility.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Every day that Gen. Pervez Musharraf refuses to reverse his imposition of martial law and restore Pakistan's constitution brings another round of disturbing reports -- lawyers beaten, journalists arrested, mass protests for democracy crushed -- and another day of embarrassment for the military government's foreign backers. The Bush administration's aims of securing support for the "war on terror" and stability for a nuclear power will continue to be right, but as a nation of 160 million people rapidly frays under repression, it will only become more obvious that military dictatorship is not the answer.

This realization is already settling in. Many in the Bush administration and Congress have been sending clear messages of disapproval to Musharraf.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Pakistan is an unusual country -- a nation capable of looking into the abyss, pausing briefly to consider its options and then jumping headfirst into darkness. The willingness to go splat has been the backbone of Pakistan's national survival strategy for its 60-year history.

Whether rattling nuclear rockets at a much more powerful India or allowing terrorist networks to use Pakistani territory to mount plots against Afghan, American and British targets, the country's leaders have raised political blackmail to a national and international art form. Oppose or ignore us at our -- and your -- peril is the unofficial national motto of Islamabad.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

El segundo golpe de Estado del general Pervez Musharraf, el 3 de noviembre, mediante la proclamación de un estado de excepción que suspende la Constitución y derrumba las instituciones democráticas, sonó como un disparo de funestas consecuencias en todas las capitales occidentales y especialmente en Washington y Londres, las dos más afectadas e inquietas por el completo desastre en que se hunde Pakistán, un Estado con armas nucleares descrito por muchos expertos en terrorismo como "el más peligroso del mundo".

El caos anunciado confirma la ineptitud de Occidente para tratar a los uniformados del tercer mundo y esconder la dictadura y los intereses menos confesables bajo el manto de la democracia o la añagaza geopolítica.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

It was close to midnight last Saturday when Gen. Pervez Musharraf finally appeared on state-run television. That's when police vans surrounded my house. I was warned not to leave, and hours later I learned I would be detained for 90 days.

At least I have the luxury of staying at home, though I cannot see anyone. But I can only watch, helpless, as this horror unfolds.

The Musharraf government has declared martial law to settle scores with lawyers and judges. Hundreds of innocent Pakistanis have been rounded up. Human rights activists, including women and senior citizens, have been beaten by police.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaMundoOriente Próximo,

To gauge the impact here of the turmoil next door in Pakistan, Americans would have to imagine their own reaction to a military coup or the imposition of martial law in Canada.

The reaction here when Pakistan's strongman, President Pervez Musharraf, declared a national emergency, cracked down on the political opposition, arrested members of the Supreme Court and suspended the constitution was one of shock.

The border was immediately closed, and military forces were placed on alert. India and Pakistan have fought repeated wars over the years, and suspicions of trouble are always close to the surface.

Beyond that, India, which prides itself on having protected its democracy through several internal crises in its six decades of independence, understandably gets nervous when its closest neighbor loses ground -- even temporarily -- in its struggle for freedom.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

As we struggle to make sense of the current political crisis in Pakistan, it's useful to think back nearly 30 years to the wave of protests that toppled the shah of Iran and culminated in the Islamic Republic -- a revolutionary earthquake whose tremors are still shaking the Middle East.

The shah was America's friend, just like Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He was our staunch ally against the bogeyman of that time, the Soviet Union, just as Musharraf has been America's partner in fighting al-Qaeda. The shah ignored America's admonitions to clean up his undemocratic regime, just as Musharraf has. And as the shah's troubles deepened, the United States hoped that moderate opposition leaders would keep the country safe from Muslim zealots, just as we are now hoping in Pakistan.…  Seguir leyendo »