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OPINION

Benazir: Gasping for power
SANDHYA JAIN

Former premier Benazir Bhutto merely underlined Pakistan's client status by calling upon America, Britain and other Western nations to give President Musharraf an ultimatum regarding "democracy or dictatorship with isolation." Inadvertently conceding that India's prodigal child lacks viability as an independent state, she pleaded via the New York Times for the US to "promote democracy which is the only way to truly contain extremism and terrorism by telling Gen. Musharraf that it does not accept martial law, and that it expects him to conduct free, fair, impartial and internationally monitored elections within 60 days under a reconstituted election commission."

Ms. Bhutto favours FBI and Scotland Yard help in forensic investigations of the blasts that killed 140 persons in her victory procession last month, and criticized the regime for disallowing this. Imploring Western democracies to demonstrate in their actions "and not just in their rhetoric, which side they are on," she said over $10 billion American aid to Pakistan after September 2001 had abjectly failed to defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden remains free and the opium trade continues.

Clearly Ms. Bhutto still hopes for fruition of the half-baked deal Washington tied up prior to her return home, which won her immunity from corruption cases while Gen. Musharraf got elected as President, though the superseded Supreme Court has not ruled on either action. After five days of damning silence against the General's second coup, she breezed from Karachi to Islamabad to ostensibly plan a strategy with other opposition parties. When even a political lightweight like former cricketer Imran Khan had to go underground to evade arrest, the kid-glove treatment extended to Ms. Bhutto only confirms suspicions of US backdoor engagement with the military dictator.

With her credibility under a cloud, Ms. Bhutto naturally ruled out meeting Gen. Musharraf, who faces a fractured opposition and is now removable only by another coup, bloodless or otherwise. The newly-constituted Supreme Court has set aside the judgment of the deposed Chief Justice-led eight-member bench declaring the emergency illegal and unconstitutional. Pakistani streets are bereft of the kind of popular unrest that forced Iran's Reza Pehlavi or Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos to flee country and office, despite vocal protests by judges, lawyers and human rights activists. Public meetings have been banned on the pretext of terror attacks; Ms. Bhutto's phoney house arrest prior to the PPP's Rawalpindi meet on November 9, 2007 only underlines the American hand in her political destiny.

Not surprisingly, exiled leader Nawaz Sharif has refused to take her attempted leadership of the fledgling opposition movement seriously, asking her to renounce the dictator and work with him. This is a wise move as Pakistan's ruling party chief Shujaat Hussain has, despite ruling out pre-poll arrangements with the PPP, expressed willingness to meet Ms. Bhutto to discuss steps to "improve the political climate and ensure transition to full democracy."

Such talk reinforces public wariness regarding a 'deal.' In response to Ms. Bhutto's plea for free and internationally monitored elections under a new election commission, Islamabad had the unique experience of American envoy Anne Patterson barging into the Commission office and demanding categorical assurances from Chief Election Commissioner, Justice (retd.) Qazi Farooq, that elections would be held as scheduled in January 2008 (now tentatively announced for February 2008).

This strong-arm but sterile gesture has not fooled world capitals that Washington still hopes to keep Gen. Musharraf in power. The Taliban has taken advantage of the turmoil to seize the town of Swat (ancient Udyana), and beleaguered US President George Bush dares not impose Myanmar-style sanctions to force Gen. Musharraf to shed his uniform. After all, sanctions in Yangon aim to bring a pro-West regime to power; harsh action against Islamabad would overthrow a friendly dictator. Double standards, in the circumstances, are par for the course. Still, given the lack of warmth towards UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari in Myanmar, Washington might like to transport him and the eager monks to the Afghan-Pak region, to struggle to regain the lost Buddhist paradise, surely a cause worth dying for (pardon the pun).

The European Union opposed the coup more vocally, but the old 'mother country' merely threatened suspension from the Commonwealth if Islamabad failed to quickly lift the emergency and hold elections in January. Though British High Commissioner Robert Brinkley met Gen. Musharraf, London refused to explain its continuing to prop up the dictator with an estimated £480 million, while lecturing him on the virtues of democracy. Sources suggest London will review aid only in concert with Washington, which means political considerations will transcend moral pretences.

In an astonishing move, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband appealed to UK Pakistanis (British citizens of Pakistani origin, and even residents from Pakistan) to use their native connections to exert pressure on Gen. Musharraf to return his country to constitutional democracy. While exposing the limits of direct official diplomacy with 'rouge' regimes, this direct diplomacy validates the reservations writers like I have long held about Diaspora populations.

It is an open secret that imperial nations like Britain and America have encouraged political and other elites from countries in which they have a strategic interest to live on their soil, offering political havens, economic prosperity, international recognition and even citizenship, in return for absolute loyalty. In previous articles, I have alluded to America's use of Indonesian Diaspora to split the country and create oil-rich East Timor. The Cuban Diaspora clogs Miami streets at the first whistle; recently, Myanmarese Diaspora showed its numbers in UK and US. America's Hindu-baiting Indian-origin leftist Diaspora is well-known, hence new formations of supposedly pro-Hindu Americans are being promoted to 'objectively analyze' Hindu dharma and tell Indian Hindus how to straighten their act, i.e., mould their faith, culture and economy to the wishes of the dollar-euro economies.

Pakistan's UK Diaspora, which has renounced its Pakistani citizenship and has no locus standi in that country's affairs, looked incongruous screeching in distant London at the throttling of democracy in a nation born of blood and genocide (of Hindus). Pakistan Human Rights Commission chief Asma Jahangir's appeal to the West to end support to "the unstable dictator" is ironical as that country owes its origin to the obdurate Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the horrendous civil strife he unleashed on the streets of Kolkata.



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