Pakistán (Continuación)

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The power grab last weekend by Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, cleverly timed to stall the Western reaction for 48 hours, was essentially a coup against himself. Faced with increasing demands to give up his position as military chief and confront the complexities of civilian rule, General Musharraf decided to topple President Musharraf.

In an interview a couple of months ago, General Musharraf said that his army uniform was his second skin: “How can I possibly take it off?” His comment was dismissed at the time as old-school dictator-talk.

But a few weeks ago he submitted an affidavit in Pakistan’s Supreme Court stating that if his election as president was not validated, he’d continue to work as the army chief — indefinitely.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Nov. 3, 2007, will be remembered as the blackest day in the history of Pakistan. Let us be perfectly clear: Pakistan is a military dictatorship. Last Saturday, Gen. Pervez Musharraf removed all pretense of a transition to democracy by conducting what was in effect yet another extraconstitutional coup.

In doing so he endangered the viability of Pakistan as an independent state. He presented the country’s democratic forces with a tough decision — acquiesce to the brutality of the dictatorship or take over the streets and show the world where the people of Pakistan really stand.

General Musharraf also presented the democratic world — and especially the countries of the West — with a question.…  Seguir leyendo »

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President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule this weekend will only encourage further civil strife, nationwide protests and greater territorial gains by the extremist Pakistani Taliban. Never before in Pakistan's sad history of military rule has a general so reviled invoked martial law to ensure his own survival.

Musharraf and his coterie of advisers -- which includes military officers; Inter-Services Intelligence; Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz; and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League's doyen, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain -- decided on this plan days ago but waited until the weekend so the Supreme Court would not be in session and Western officials would be out of the office.…  Seguir leyendo »

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When, last year, America's heavyweight Foreign Policy magazine moved Pakistan into its top 10 of failed states - at No 9, just ahead of Afghanistan - assorted Islamabad ministers clambered on to the highest of horses. The charge was insulting, ludicrous ... But, baby, try it again now.Here is a huge Islamic nation, nuclear bombs primed not promised, plunged once more under full monty martial law. The army chief of staff who doubles as president has just sacked his supreme court and turned off TV stations. Taliban supporters are launching ever more vicious suicide attacks. There is scant prospect of holding elections.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Benazir Bhutto, back in Pakistan following eight years in exile, had plans to tour the country seeking voter support. But she is holed up in Karachi after the near-miss attempt on her life. The government has declined to provide the former prime minister minimal security against renewed assassination attempts. That points up the difficulty of a shadowy new partnership between Bhutto and Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who was reelected president by Pakistan's electoral college on Oct. 6.

Arbab Rahim, chief minister of Sindh province, which includes Karachi, has refused Bhutto special police protection, cars with tinted windows and bomb-jamming equipment. For weeks before her return, Bhutto was denied jammers against improvised explosive devices and additional armor on her vehicles.…  Seguir leyendo »

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This has been a shatteringly bleak week for Pakistan, but not one that condemns it to being a failed state. The return of Benazir Bhutto, overshadowed by the bomb that killed 140, is a step forward. But although she has been championed in Europe and the US, she is a long way from being the solution to her country’s savage problems.

Pakistan dominates Britain’s foreign worries, officials say, and they are right. It is not just that terrorism is on the increase – as well as the capacity of extremists, in this age of eight-hour direct flights and the internet, to cause mischief in the Pakistani community in Britain.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente PróximoInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional

Events in Pakistan have taken yet another dreadful turn for the worse with the suicide bomb attacks on Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming rally. Ms Bhutto has been quick to accuse supporters of the late military ruler Mohammad Zia ul-Haq of complicity. Others suspect al-Qaeda.

For any Pakistani politician the equation seems unappealingly simple. Attacking the terror fastnesses in Waziristan and the other border regions along the old North West Frontier courts personal danger, while appeasing these mountain territories risks national catastrophe.

The tentativeness has been such that Pakistan’s Army did not venture into the Tirah Valley until 2002, 55 years after its absorption into Pakistan.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Generally speaking, there is no upside to a suicide bombing, especially one as pitiless, as treacherous, and as costly of human life as that which hit home in Karachi yesterday.

The slaughter came at the very moment when hope of a better, more prosperous and more democratic future had at last returned to the hearts of millions of impoverished, disillusioned and effectively disenfranchised Pakistanis.

But if, as now seems likely, the mass murder pushes Pakistan's odd couple, General-President Pervez Musharraf and the People's party leader, Benazir Bhutto, into a closer political embrace, the attack will be seen to have backfired. Analysts say that instead of furthering their aims of chaos and disintegration, the violent Islamists who were most probably responsible may unwittingly have boosted the reconciliation process and the cause of national unity.…  Seguir leyendo »

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There is a sense that the heat from Pakistan’s immediate crisis is evaporating. But not because the country is on course for democracy - more because President Musharraf has half-stitched together a formula for his own survival, and with it, for a kind of short-term stability.

Nawaz Sharif, the former Prime Minister, who is now under an ambiguous form of detention in Saudi Arabia after his attempt to return last month lasted only a humiliating five hours, symbolises the democratic failings of the plan. His future may even depend on Benazir Bhutto, his one-time ally and now bitter rival - in which case it is a fair bet she will keep him out in the cold.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Cómo han cambiado los tiempos al C hombre. El acosado presidente de Pakistán, Pervez Musharraf, declaró una vez: "No soy para nada un político, no creo estar hecho para la política". Ocho años después de llegar al poder y exiliar a sus principales opositores civiles, el general está moviendo cielo y tierra para aferrarse a su cargo político.

Si bien se hizo con el poder mediante un golpe sin sangre, había pocas dudas acerca de su popularidad en esos días. La gente estaba cansada de un régimen civil marcado por la corrupción y el caos económico. La franqueza e integridad que demostraba Musharraf resultaron atractivas para el hombre de la calle y le significaron una legitimidad de facto.…  Seguir leyendo »

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It was the turban that caught my eye first. I could hardly miss it – a magnificent pile of white cloth standing more than a foot high on a Pakistani gentleman at a party in the capital, Islamabad. Then I spotted the equally outrageous moustache, curling so extravagantly at the ends that it covered almost half of his face.

“May I present His Highness, Prince Malik,” my host announced as I tried hard not to stare. Surely this was someone in fancy dress?

But no, I soon discovered that the man was for real – Prince Malik Ata, the hereditary lord of Fateh Jang, a region just outside Islamabad.…  Seguir leyendo »

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I am returning to Pakistan on Oct. 18 to bring change to my country. Pakistan's future viability, stability and security lie in empowering its people and building political institutions. My goal is to prove that the fundamental battle for the hearts and minds of a generation can be accomplished only under democracy.

The central issue facing Pakistan is moderation vs. extremism. The resolution of this issue will affect the world, particularly South and Central Asia and all Muslim nations. Extremism can flourish only in an environment where basic governmental social responsibility for the welfare of the people is neglected. Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Se dice que el poder político en Pakistán tiene esta triple procedencia: Alá, el ejército y el apoyo de Estados Unidos. De los tres, la cúpula del ejército es la que tiene los medios más claros para liberar el país de Pervez Musharraf, el uniformado presidente del Pakistán, y ésa es la razón principal por la que no es probable que un pacto para compartir el poder con la ex primera ministra Benazir Bhutto ponga fin a la agitación política en Pakistán. Musharraf abrigaba la esperanza de prorrogar su presidencia sin ceder a la exigencia de la oposición de que renuncie a su posición militar y vuelva a nombrar a un rival civil para el cargo de primer ministro, pero pocos dirigentes internacionales afrontan tamaña diversidad de enemigos jurados en su país.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Not far from the ruins of the ancient city of Mohenjo-Daro, lies Benazir Bhutto's feudal estate of Larkhana. In this backward and arid region amid the dry salt flats of the Indus plain, Bhutto's family have long been the most prominent land owners, and the area is witness to many of the Borgia-like feuds that distinguish the lives of Pakistan's feudal elite.The last time I visited the estate, in 1994, a convoy from the house of Begum Bhutto - Benazir's mother - to her husband's grave had just been shot at by police, leading to the deaths of three of the family's retainers.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Benazir Bhutto arrived in New York three weeks ago, shortly after meeting secretly in Abu Dhabi with Gen. Pervez Musharraf. She leaves this week without having heard again from Pakistan's military ruler. More than merely deciding who rules Pakistan, global conflict against radical Islam may be at risk.

The Bush administration is the silent matchmaker for an unlikely political marriage of bitter opponents: Pakistan's president, Musharraf, and former prime minister Bhutto. The unstated U.S. goal is a democratic Pakistan, with the unpopular Musharraf retaining his presidency and the popular Bhutto returned to the prime minister's office, from which she was twice ousted by the military.…  Seguir leyendo »

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I first met Benazir Bhutto when she was in her last year at Oxford. Wearing a tweed suit and silk headscarf, she looked the perfect Sloane Ranger. When I last saw her she was the prime minister in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. She still wore a headscarf, but the suit had been replaced by a shalwar kameez.The change of style seemed symbolic. Between our first and last meeting, I came to the firm conclusion that - whatever the truth of the allegations that her enemies have made against her - she represents Pakistan's best hope of taking its place among the democratic nations of the free world.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaMundoOriente Próximo,

India celebrated its 60th birthday last week with a raucous parliamentary debate over nuclear energy and its new strategic relationship with the United States. New Delhi had the air of the capital of an emerging world power looking ahead into a promising, if complicated, future.

Pakistan marked the same occasion by sinking deeper into the past. The corrupt backroom dealing between military rulers and politicians that has produced a cycle of disasters for the Pakistani nation resumed -- aided by the hidden hand of U.S. diplomacy working to preserve President Pervez Musharraf's dwindling power in Islamabad.

The anniversary of the partition of the Asian subcontinent six decades ago showed the region's two contrasting faces: a giant, open democracy and a sclerotic but nuclear-armed garrison state.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaMundoOriente Próximo,

The crisis now rocking Pakistan springs directly from the disaster of Partition 60 years ago. The cards that it scooped up, in the rush to carve out a separate Muslim state, were not just inferior to India’s; they were inadequate to build any kind of stable nation.

In this week’s commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the independence of India and Pakistan from British rule, Pakistan’s desperate struggles have often been treated merely as a foil with which better to display the shining performance of its giant neighbour. India, revelling in its status as the world’s largest democracy, has arrived at the memorial date at the crest of a glittering boom, while Pakistan is a military dictatorship on the brink of emergency rule.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Sixty years ago, British India was granted independence and partitioned into Hindu-majority India and my native nation, Muslim-majority Pakistan. It was a birth of exceptional pain.

Handed down to me through the generations is the story of my namesake, my Kashmir-born great-grandfather. He was stabbed by a Muslim as he went for his daily stroll in Lahore’s Lawrence Gardens. Independence was only a few months away, and the communal violence that would accompany the partition was beginning to simmer.

My great-grandfather was attacked because he was mistaken for a Hindu. This was not surprising; as a lawyer, most of his colleagues were Hindus, as were many of his friends.…  Seguir leyendo »

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President Pervez Musharraf was on the verge of imposing a state of emergency in Pakistan last week before being stopped by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and civilian advisers. It is clear to all in this extremely tense country that power is rapidly flowing away from Musharraf, even as he desperately tries to find a way out of an impossible political impasse.

Declaring a state of emergency would have suspended fundamental rights, placed restrictions on the Supreme Court and delayed this year's elections. It is unlikely that an already angry and mobilized public would have accepted new restrictions, even those imposed by the army, which Musharraf heads.…  Seguir leyendo »