D
Dr. Jai Maharaj
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Forwarded message from Richard Moore <rkm@quaylargo.com>
Pakistan: the Washington Post spin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/29/AR2007122900972.html
Pakistan at Standstill as Discord and Unrest Grow Election Delay
Considered In Wake of Bhutto's Killing
By Griff Witte, Washington Post Foreign Service
The Washington Post
Sunday, December 30, 2007; A01
KARACHI, Pakistan, Dec. 29 -- Nationwide rioting brought life in
Pakistan to a standstill Saturday and forced government officials
to consider delaying next month's elections, as discord spread over
the killing of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
The death toll from the violence climbed above 40, with many people
fearfully staying indoors while others ventured out to torch
government buildings or battle with police firing tear gas.
The unrest turned streets in this normally frenetic city, Pakistan's
largest, into empty expanses of asphalt. Dozens of burned-out cars
and buses lay by the sides of the roads, evidence of nighttime mobs
that roamed the city in defiance of soldiers and police.
Food shortages were reported in some areas of the country, and most
gas stations and shops were closed. With a large percentage of the
population idle and angry, there was concern Saturday that the
violence could worsen.
"These are the sentiments of the people. This is their natural
reaction," said Zahid Hussain, 30, a truck driver who had pulled
over Thursday night in rural Sindh province, Bhutto's stronghold,
and had not moved since for fear of attack.
Pakistanis are scheduled to go to the polls Jan. 8, but with the
nation on edge, the election commission was expected to convene an
emergency meeting Monday to decide whether to postpone the long-awaited
vote. Rioters have targeted the commission's offices, and several
have been burned to the ground.
The elections, which will determine who controls Parliament and
shares power with President Pervez Musharraf, are seen both here
and abroad as a test of Musharraf's willingness to move toward
restoring democracy. In addition to the concerns about violence
marring the vote, opposition groups have long said they believe
that Musharraf and his allies plan to rig the balloting.
Bhutto had been campaigning for a third term as premier at a rally
in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Thursday when she was killed
as her bulletproof sport-utility vehicle was about to leave. The
attack -- gunshots and a suicide bombing -- was carried out in broad
daylight before hundreds of witnesses. But the exact circumstances
of her death remained a source of major controversy Saturday.
The government has blamed Islamic extremists and said Bhutto died
because her head hit a lever of her vehicle's sunroof. Her supporters
have blamed Musharraf's allies and say she was shot in a well-coordinated
assassination.
On Saturday, while paying his respects to her family in its ancestral
home, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif said the government should
be held responsible for Bhutto's death.
Bhutto loyalists turned their attention Saturday to the question
of who will succeed her as leader of her Pakistan People's Party.
But many in the party concede that they are still distracted by the
trauma of her death.
"Maybe the emotion won't last that long, but right now, I don't
care about the People's Party. I don't care about Pakistan. The
only thing I care about right now is that they have killed my
sister," said Nadeem Qamar, a doctor and a party stalwart for
decades.
Bhutto's father founded the Pakistan People's Party in 1967 as a
counterweight to the all-powerful Pakistani army, and she took over
soon after he was hanged by a military dictator in 1979. But Bhutto,
who held the official title of party chairperson for life, did not
leave behind an obvious successor.
The choice is considered crucial at a time when the party is playing
a central role in the movement against the deeply unpopular Musharraf,
who resigned last month as army chief but managed to engineer a new
term as president.
Bhutto's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, is scheduled to make his mother's
final wishes public at a news conference Sunday. Bilawal himself
is considered a possible heir to the dynastic PPP. Bhutto's husband,
Asif Ali Zardari, is thought by party insiders to be a likely
candidate to lead the party for the next several years, until Bilawal
is older.
Zardari is a divisive figure whose name is associated with corruption
allegations stemming from his wife's two terms as prime minister.
Some members of the party fear it could split without Bhutto to
unify factions that differ sharply on how best to challenge Musharraf.
While the party's top leaders have pushed to work for change from
within the system, many in the rank and file are making a different
choice. In Sindh province, rioters had left a wide swath of destruction
Saturday, with still-burning fuel tankers and smoldering tires
littering the highways. And young men wearing People's Party head
scarves had set up dozens of impromptu checkpoints along the major
roads, looking for targets.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, retired Brig. Javed Iqbal
Cheema, said 174 banks had been burned and billons of rupees worth
of property destroyed across the country.
The violence was met with threats of a stiffer government response.
"We are warning people to stay calm and restrain themselves," Cheema
said. "They will be punished in the toughest way if it does not
stop."
The army was already out in force in many areas of Sindh on Saturday
and appeared to be regaining control there. Elsewhere, however, the
unrest intensified. In Rawalpindi, riot police and People's Party
supporters clashed near the spot where Bhutto was killed.
In the eastern city of Lahore, workers slept in their offices because
public transportation was shut down and many were unable to get
enough gas in their cars to go home. Families brought blankets and
pillows to the airport, where they waited for flights that never
left. All cafes, movie theaters and markets remained closed in
Lahore, the country's cultural capital.
"We had to cancel over 100 weddings in the heat of the season,"
said Ali Hassan, a manager at the Avari Hotel, where employees have
been sleeping on cots.
"This is worse than the judicial crisis and worse than the emergency.
We even called off all New Year's Eve parties. It's a sad and violent
time for Pakistan," Hassan added.
Some people said they were profoundly frustrated by Bhutto's killing
and wanted to get away -- for good.
"I travel abroad all the time, and I never thought of leaving my
country until now," said Adnan Hassan, 37, an engineer who had
waited for days for a flight from Lahore to Islamabad. "We had hopes
that Pakistan would do better. But it's only getting worse."
Correspondent Emily Wax in Lahore and special correspondents Imtiaz
Ali in Peshawar and Shahzad Khurram in Rawalpindi contributed to
this report.
Archives:
http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?lists=newslog
Escaping the Matrix website: http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal
Web site: http://cyberjournal.org
How We the People can change the world:
http://governourselves.blogspot.com/
Community Democracy Framework:
http://cyberjournal.org/DemocracyFramework.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newslog/
End of forwarded message from Richard Moore <rkm@quaylargo.com>
Jai Maharaj
http://tinyurl.com/24fq83
http://www.mantra.com/jai
http://www.mantra.com/jyotish
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
Pakistan: the Washington Post spin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/29/AR2007122900972.html
Pakistan at Standstill as Discord and Unrest Grow Election Delay
Considered In Wake of Bhutto's Killing
By Griff Witte, Washington Post Foreign Service
The Washington Post
Sunday, December 30, 2007; A01
KARACHI, Pakistan, Dec. 29 -- Nationwide rioting brought life in
Pakistan to a standstill Saturday and forced government officials
to consider delaying next month's elections, as discord spread over
the killing of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
The death toll from the violence climbed above 40, with many people
fearfully staying indoors while others ventured out to torch
government buildings or battle with police firing tear gas.
The unrest turned streets in this normally frenetic city, Pakistan's
largest, into empty expanses of asphalt. Dozens of burned-out cars
and buses lay by the sides of the roads, evidence of nighttime mobs
that roamed the city in defiance of soldiers and police.
Food shortages were reported in some areas of the country, and most
gas stations and shops were closed. With a large percentage of the
population idle and angry, there was concern Saturday that the
violence could worsen.
"These are the sentiments of the people. This is their natural
reaction," said Zahid Hussain, 30, a truck driver who had pulled
over Thursday night in rural Sindh province, Bhutto's stronghold,
and had not moved since for fear of attack.
Pakistanis are scheduled to go to the polls Jan. 8, but with the
nation on edge, the election commission was expected to convene an
emergency meeting Monday to decide whether to postpone the long-awaited
vote. Rioters have targeted the commission's offices, and several
have been burned to the ground.
The elections, which will determine who controls Parliament and
shares power with President Pervez Musharraf, are seen both here
and abroad as a test of Musharraf's willingness to move toward
restoring democracy. In addition to the concerns about violence
marring the vote, opposition groups have long said they believe
that Musharraf and his allies plan to rig the balloting.
Bhutto had been campaigning for a third term as premier at a rally
in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Thursday when she was killed
as her bulletproof sport-utility vehicle was about to leave. The
attack -- gunshots and a suicide bombing -- was carried out in broad
daylight before hundreds of witnesses. But the exact circumstances
of her death remained a source of major controversy Saturday.
The government has blamed Islamic extremists and said Bhutto died
because her head hit a lever of her vehicle's sunroof. Her supporters
have blamed Musharraf's allies and say she was shot in a well-coordinated
assassination.
On Saturday, while paying his respects to her family in its ancestral
home, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif said the government should
be held responsible for Bhutto's death.
Bhutto loyalists turned their attention Saturday to the question
of who will succeed her as leader of her Pakistan People's Party.
But many in the party concede that they are still distracted by the
trauma of her death.
"Maybe the emotion won't last that long, but right now, I don't
care about the People's Party. I don't care about Pakistan. The
only thing I care about right now is that they have killed my
sister," said Nadeem Qamar, a doctor and a party stalwart for
decades.
Bhutto's father founded the Pakistan People's Party in 1967 as a
counterweight to the all-powerful Pakistani army, and she took over
soon after he was hanged by a military dictator in 1979. But Bhutto,
who held the official title of party chairperson for life, did not
leave behind an obvious successor.
The choice is considered crucial at a time when the party is playing
a central role in the movement against the deeply unpopular Musharraf,
who resigned last month as army chief but managed to engineer a new
term as president.
Bhutto's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, is scheduled to make his mother's
final wishes public at a news conference Sunday. Bilawal himself
is considered a possible heir to the dynastic PPP. Bhutto's husband,
Asif Ali Zardari, is thought by party insiders to be a likely
candidate to lead the party for the next several years, until Bilawal
is older.
Zardari is a divisive figure whose name is associated with corruption
allegations stemming from his wife's two terms as prime minister.
Some members of the party fear it could split without Bhutto to
unify factions that differ sharply on how best to challenge Musharraf.
While the party's top leaders have pushed to work for change from
within the system, many in the rank and file are making a different
choice. In Sindh province, rioters had left a wide swath of destruction
Saturday, with still-burning fuel tankers and smoldering tires
littering the highways. And young men wearing People's Party head
scarves had set up dozens of impromptu checkpoints along the major
roads, looking for targets.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, retired Brig. Javed Iqbal
Cheema, said 174 banks had been burned and billons of rupees worth
of property destroyed across the country.
The violence was met with threats of a stiffer government response.
"We are warning people to stay calm and restrain themselves," Cheema
said. "They will be punished in the toughest way if it does not
stop."
The army was already out in force in many areas of Sindh on Saturday
and appeared to be regaining control there. Elsewhere, however, the
unrest intensified. In Rawalpindi, riot police and People's Party
supporters clashed near the spot where Bhutto was killed.
In the eastern city of Lahore, workers slept in their offices because
public transportation was shut down and many were unable to get
enough gas in their cars to go home. Families brought blankets and
pillows to the airport, where they waited for flights that never
left. All cafes, movie theaters and markets remained closed in
Lahore, the country's cultural capital.
"We had to cancel over 100 weddings in the heat of the season,"
said Ali Hassan, a manager at the Avari Hotel, where employees have
been sleeping on cots.
"This is worse than the judicial crisis and worse than the emergency.
We even called off all New Year's Eve parties. It's a sad and violent
time for Pakistan," Hassan added.
Some people said they were profoundly frustrated by Bhutto's killing
and wanted to get away -- for good.
"I travel abroad all the time, and I never thought of leaving my
country until now," said Adnan Hassan, 37, an engineer who had
waited for days for a flight from Lahore to Islamabad. "We had hopes
that Pakistan would do better. But it's only getting worse."
Correspondent Emily Wax in Lahore and special correspondents Imtiaz
Ali in Peshawar and Shahzad Khurram in Rawalpindi contributed to
this report.
Archives:
http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?lists=newslog
Escaping the Matrix website: http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal
Web site: http://cyberjournal.org
How We the People can change the world:
http://governourselves.blogspot.com/
Community Democracy Framework:
http://cyberjournal.org/DemocracyFramework.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newslog/
End of forwarded message from Richard Moore <rkm@quaylargo.com>
Jai Maharaj
http://tinyurl.com/24fq83
http://www.mantra.com/jai
http://www.mantra.com/jyotish
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.