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Pakistan and Politics

Events,Policies,Views,,Leaders,Reactions,Comments,News,Politics

by ikram ul haq

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NUSRAT SIAL,FCA's RESTORED, MAMNOON HUSSEIN, LIBERATION OF SIND/KHALISTAN

OCTROI ABOLISHED,PARANOID,TAPERECORDING

KARGIL-DRASS, HAKIM SAEED, MQM, MUSHAHID,NAJAM

CYCLONE, DEVALUATION,ZARDARI,PETROLEUM,ANP

NAJAM SETHI, DEATH OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM, OIL TANKER

NUSRAT SIAL,FCA's RESTORED, MAMNOON HUSSEIN, LIBERATION OF SIND/KHALISTAN-19 June 1999

• A Pakistani army helicopter crashed in Skardu with eleven casualties which included Brigadier Nusrat Sial, a major and three captains among others. The brigadier was the officer commanding the area where two Indian migs were shot down
• The Pakistani foreign minister returned from India the same day after listening to threats from his Indian counterpart and offering a ceasefire in all aspects of the Kashmir war despite a hostile reception.The Indians however refused to listen and not much can be expected from such intransigence and insisted that pakistan pul its troops out before negotiations.It obviously also spells the end of the Lahore accord which Nawaz had reached with much fanfare. Nawaz had been warned than about the vajpayee attitude but he had refused to listen
• The Indians resumed air and artillery attacks on a much wider scale which also included new areas such as batalik, yaldor,tigerhills,mushku , kupwara etc.There have been varying reports of high Indian casualties ,withdrawals,captures, encirclements and repulsions which have been denied by the mujahideen.Latest reports suggest that the pakistan army has blown up a Swedish Bofors battery of artillery guns
• Bill Clinton falling into Indian traps also asked Nawaz to pull his troops out of Indian controlled areas however pakistan said it had no forces in Indian occupied Kashmir
• A Rs642billion budget has been announced for 1999-2000 with 356 billion to be raised thru taxes of which 138 billion goes to provinces,288billion for debt servicing, 141 billion for defence and 116billion for development. Major features include a 20-25% hike in govt. salaries, zila taxes and radio licences have been abolished and duties reduced on telephone calls
• Rustam Shah Mohmand who was made OSD for supplying improper information about the cruise missile attack on Afghanistan has been made secretary for the interior
• The PPP is making copies of the BBC documentary on the primeministers corruption for distribution and display
• Artillery exchanges have also been reported from the sialkot border and predictions have begun asto when a war will break out. With the rainy season almost imminent a war is being ruled out . However as a precautionary measure the pakistan army has moved to its forward bases in the Lahore area and the airforce too is activating its war bases. Villages are being vacated in various border areas. With breakthroughs considered difficult in the Kashmir area the pakistan army might go for capturing a large chunk of Indian Punjab to set up bases for liberating khalistan while the Indians might try to capture the sialkot area which is seen as key to the Kashmir conflict. The desert heat restricts war in central and southern border areas but there are reports of Indian forward movements in those areas too. Some suggest that India might launch an air, sea and ground offensive to separate Sind from Pakistan. In response too that pakistan has put its navy on red alert too
• Six activists of the MQM have been awarded death sentences for murdering two sons of a karachi police official , their gunman and driver
• Mulazim Hussein an activist of the lashkar e jhangvi has been sentenced to death for multiple murders of several Shiites and others in the jhang-multan area
• In what is seen as a surprise choice unknown Mamnoon Hussein, head of karachis chamber of commerce and industry has been appointed the new governor of Sind(apparently because the primeminister liked his dahi baras) and Ghaus Ali Shah who was reputedly totally corrupt in his stint as chiefminister in the Zia era has been made the all powerful chief advisor.Apparently Moeenuddin Haider a compromise PMLn-MQM choice has been removed for not being tough on the PPP and MQM leadership. Ineffect he did not follow PMLn orders. However the PMLn is appreciative of his efforts to root out terrorism from karachi This is being seen as a prelude to imposing a dictatorial regime in sind either in coalition with the MQM or a PPP forward block. The GOP sees a crisis of leadership in both parties which might make them attractive to a break with their party leaderships. It is also being suggested that the role of IGP sind Rana Maqbool a not too popular police officer and Saeed Mehdi the prime ministers devious principal secretary are going tobe the main influences on Sind policy with Chaudhry Nisar Ali being reactivated to cobble a possible coalition. All this suggests The News could possibly lead to jam sadiq type crooked ruler
• The Supreme Court has rejected a GOP appeal against unfreezing foreign currency accounts and ordered the State bank to unfreeze the FCA's in full and frame rules for that. The SC ordered the payment of profits, ability to transfer funds overseas and withdrawals in foreign currency. The SC also chided the GOP to follow the rules that it created and submit to the pledge that nobody will interfere with the operation of FCA's. The judgement can be seen as a last gasp effort by a retiring Chief Justice to enforce the judiciaries power thru honest(not political)judgements against a GOP bent upon creating problems for the people

PAGE INDEX

OCTROI ABOLISHED,PARANOID,TAPERECORDING-12 June 1999

• Jume10--Despite knocking Benazir Bhutto out of politics nawaz sharif still seems tobe quite paranoid about her. In a recent speech he kept complaining that she was sitting in foreign lands conspiring aginst him despite the fact that he had nothing todo with her problems and it was the judiciary that had sentenced her. He also said that all her foreign visits were meant to create conspiracies against the state
• June11-Speculation is rife that nawaz sharif is again attempting to reach a deal with the ANP. He flew to mardan on an unannounced vist to Azam Hotis residence but wali khan refused to meet him unless he agreed to the renaming of NWFP.However the hawkish PMLn leadership in sarhad has been asked to negotiate on the issue and reach an accord on kalabagh and pukhtunkhwa
• June 10-A PMLn mna from lakki marwat who defeated hunayun saifullah by a few votes has been unseated by the election commission on complaints that votIng did not take place in certain areas
• June 11-Six people were killed as a 100km per hour duststorm raged thru chiniot
• The GOP has imposed a 25% duty on imported sugar and a Rs2000/ton regulatory duty on edible oil
• After the Punjab abolished zila taxes the GOP announced that zila taxes were being abolished all over the country and funds would be made available to provincial govts to replace the losses of local govts. 577 local councils collected around Rs 19 billion in zila taxes
• June11-The economy slowed to a snails pace and a growth rate of around 3% has been forecast by the GOP due mainly to a drop in exports, imports and reduced revenue collections
• Heavy artillery duels continued in kargil and the ISPR states that pakistan is in a position to cut the Indians supply route to siachen. He also said that the conflict started after pakistan blew up an mmunition dump which supplied siachen.Casualties are said tobe around 250 on the Indian side and 27 on the Pakistani side
• June11--The GOP has again allowed lending against FC deposits
• June11-Pakistans literacy rate is said to have reached 45%
• June 12-Another 23 indians have been reportedly killed as the Indians launched artillery and ground assaults at three places in the kargil-drass-batalik regions
• June12-The Indians continued their scurrilous propaganda campaign against pakistan by suggesting that dead bodies handed over to them had been mutilated
• The Indians also claimed that they had received a tape containing a recorded telephone conversation between Gen musharraf amd Lt gen abdul aziz inter alia suggesting that Aziz told the GOP to go slow on negotiations and suggested that they had control over the mujahideen . The GOP rejected the claim. It would be difficult to believe that the army chief wud talk on an insecure line from beijing on sensitive matters. If true such a tape cud only be released either by Beijing or by pakistans own intelligence services
• .Jum12-The ANP which has a crisis of leadership with no one person regarded as the leader of the party has rejected any overtures by the PMLn if they did not agree to pukhtunkhwaPAGE INDEX

  

  KARGIL-DRASS, HAKIM SAEED, MQM, MUSHAHID,NAJAM, ECONOMY, SMALL CARS-10 June 1999

  • In what could eventually turn into a real war an indian orchestrated escalation took place in kashmir as the indians moved fifty fighter aircraft tot srinagar. That turned into an almost two week long bombing campaign against a few hundred fighters holed up on mountain peaks in the Kargil and Drass regions of occupied Kashmir. Two indian migs were shot down as they crossed into Azad Kashmir. One pilot was captured and the other died in the crash.The pilots were handed over to the indians. The fighters whom the indians call intruders also shot down two indian helicopters. The indians handed over the bodies of three Pakistani soldiers and the Pakistanis handed over six. There were also a number of civilian casualties on the Pakistani side including women and children as the indians used their Swedish BOFOR guns to pound Azad Kashmir areas along the LOC.Several indian attempts to move into azad kashmir were repulsed by the pakistan army. The indians aim seemed unclear and pakistan was seriously considering real retaliation until the indians suddenly agreed to a visit by the Pakistani foreign minister to deescalate the situation.It is thought by many that the indians intended to use the situation to popularize the BJP caretaker govt as well as to further humiliate Nawaz Sharif whose appeasement oriented peace overtures have run into consistent indian stonewalling and aggression. The USA and Vajpayee both seem to have similar agendas in trying to turn the temporary LOC into a permanent border which is obviously unacceptable.Pakistan again tried to downplay the situation and instead of retaliating in real terms asked for UN and world assistance.The indians see the weak response as an acceptance of the status quo and are trying to further subdue the Pakistani GOP and beaurocracy into accepting defeat on the Kashmir issue
  • The wife and daughter of the Turkish envoy were killed in a crash on the motorway
  • The Supreme Court has ordered the Punjab High Court to rehear the case of illegal allotments of plots made by Nawaz Sharif
  • The GOP seized 4000 copies of "The Economist" at the Karachi airport as it supposedly contained matter damaging to the govt
  • The Sind High Court declared the remand issued by the ATC to hand over Asif Zardari to the CIA in the Justice Nizam case as illegal
  • Three policemen were shot dead by two motorcyclists in the multan area
  • The Supreme Court has directed the GOP to arrange constitutional amendments to arrange for a govt and judiciary in the Northern Areas.
  • A PML youth wing leader died in Peshawar after police torture in a case of attempted murder
  • A generally pro Nawaz Supreme Court judge ordered the registrar to accept the Benazir appeal against her conviction in the SGS corruption case. Earlier the registrar had refused to accept the appeal saying that she had to court arrest first.That logic was rejected by the judge
  • An MQM activist Shafiq Kalia wanted in over 50 cases died in karachi two days after being arrested. Four policemen were arrested who said that the accused admitted to killing eighteen persons
  • The Frontier Post reports that the prime ministers secretariat is being turned into a university for the countries beaurocrats
  • The GOP has been accused of indiffrence to the plight of sinds cyclone victims and not ensuring proper cyclone warnings
  • A man with a loaded pitol was arrested from the primeministers rally in Lahore
  • The MQM senator Nasrin Jalil was refused permission to attend a human rights meeting in Washington
  • Police in Karachi killed a motorcycle riding tableeghi when he refused to stop and according to police opened fire on them. Demonstrators later blocked roads and pelted police with stones
  • Rafiq Tarar has apparently refused to confirm three judges of the LHC namely Zafar Yasin, Saqib Nisar and Asif Khosa who were recommended by the primeminister. According to some senators the confirmation of some judges was only approved after they gave judgements against the opposition. According to the famous judges case the executive has to approve all the recommendations of the CJ's in promotion cases but apparently now the law minister and the primeminister are finalizing all judicial appointments
  • Najam Sethi was released after the govt initiated an FIR aginst his seditionary speech in India. The SC has however forbidden his rearrest
  • The Frontier Post reports that the GOP has formed a media harassment cell consisting of security officials who will pick up all dissenting newsmen , staighten them out and release them within 24 hours
  • The election commission has finalized a fresh voters list which suggests that some sort of election exercise might be in the offing . Some say that a new election might take place in sind
  • Four people were killed in Karachi in differing circumstances reports the Frontier post. Two guards were killed in the Sarafa bazaar. A decaying headless body was found in a gunny bag and a contractor apparently became the victim of police violence apparently the fourth incident in as many days
  • India has banned the rebroadcast of PTV signals by cable operators especially in occupied Kashmir
  • A car apparently a recovered stolen vehicle in police custody was involved in a bomb blast in Peshawar
  • A bomb blast took place in the basement of a house in Lahore occupied apparently by some religious fanatic
  • The GOP has announced that FCA accounts opened after June 3rd will not be able to transfer funds abroad
  • The Senate approved a bill extending the quota system in GOP employment for another twenty years. It was only opposed by the MQM. The Supreme Court had declared the quota system illegal
  • The GOP has decided to remove all customs checkpoints on the GT road apart from two at the margalla junction and mulla mansoor.Passengers from Peshawar frequently complained about the repeated checking at various points
  • The ATC court handed down death sentences to 9 mqm activists in the hakim saeed murder case. An absconding MQM mpa zulfikar haider is said to have been the mastermind who committed the crime on orders of Altaf Hussein and his secretary Nadeem Nusrat
  • CBR has collected RS 259 billion in eleven months against an initial target of Rs 354 billion. The final aggregate collection is expected to be between Rs290-300 billion
  • The son of LHC judge Khawaja Sharif was abducted and beaten up by the sons of PMLn's Siddiq Kanju
  • Two suspected dacoits were killed in a police encounter in Karachi
  • Four suspects of a murder were killed in a police encounter in faisalabad
  • An uncontrollable road roller killed three people in abbottabad
  • Daihatsu, Daewoo, Hyundai and OKA(Russian) carplants are being setup in pakistan which are expected to reduce prices in the small car segment
  • KESC has been handed over to the army and Lt gen zulfikar the wapda head will also oversee KESC operations
  • Tariq Fatemi has been appointed ambassador to the USA and Inamul haq takes over at the UN while Riaz Khokhar has been posted as ambassador to china
  • The Frontier Post expects that Information minister Mushahid might be replaced by ahsan iqbal as he is seen as projecting himself as a deputy primeminister and involved in harassment of journalists and following a propaganda policy which is making the govt look bad
  • Five foreign ministry officials have been removed for fraud including one for espionage
  • Income tax has been imposed on the incomes of seamen
  • Export earnings are expected to drop by $1billion to $7.62 billion this year. This is largely attributed to the GOP handling of the FCA issue and dollar exchange rates
  • PIA plans to introduce a multi rate ticket system so that those who buy earlier can benefit

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  CYCLONE, DEVALUATION,ZARDARI,PETROLEUM,ANP -25 MAY 1999

  • The Supreme Court has asked the CEC not to proceed on Asif Zardaris disqualification until his appeal in the SGS case is decided. Similarly the CEC has reserved judgement in the case of Benazir Bhuttos disqualification
  • The GOP has in effect devalued the rupee by 10 % and abolished the multi tier exchange rates. The rate is now around Rs51. However the govt has still not unfrozen the foreign currency accounts. The GOP will try to maintain the exchange rate by selling dollars in the interbank market when required
  • In what exposes the brutal nature of the Nawaz Sharif regime Asif Zardari was openly tortured in karachis notorious CIA enter. The police in an attempt to get a confession slashed his throat, injured his neck and cut his tongue. Finally on the orders of the Sind High Court he was taken to hospital while bleeding from the mouth. He had been on a hunger strike and was kept awake for three days and his clothes were covered with blood. His remand has now been cancelled by the ATC judge in the Justice Nizam murder
  • The GOP has raised petroleum prices by ten percent . Petrol prices are now Rs26 or $0.5 a litre
  • The Supreme Court is taking a soft approach to the distribution of ISI funds to the PMLn and JI in 1989. The judges asked the army to stay within the legal framework and have reserved judgement in the case
  • A severe 270kph cyclone crashed into the coastal and rural areas of Sind killing several hundred people , damaging property and flooding many areas. Hundreds of fishing villages have been wiped out and thousands of people and fishing boats are missing. Badin and Thatta have been declared calamity hit areas
  • Ajmal Khattaks farce as ANP president has been finally ended and Afsandyar Wali has been anointed the party chief. Even when a non family member was the head of the ANP all the decisions were still made by Wali Khan and family. The funny part is that the aging nasim wali is the advisor on student affairs
  • The GOP unable to read about its gross human rights violations has cancelled the permit for the HRCP newsletter
  • Qazi Hussein the JI chief was briefly detained as he tried to visit tribal areas (apparently to whip up sentiments) which were recently merged with settled areas
  • The income tax commissioner of Lahore Zulfikar Ali and his family were burned to death after former servants strangled them,tied them with ropes and set the room on fire
  • A bomb planted on a bicycle blew up killing 12 people in Daska. The bomb was left in a crowd of job seeking labourers. The area is a beehive of indian agents who cross over the Sialkot border with terrorist intentions.
  • As govt efforts continue to hang Asif Zardari on some murder charge , Benazir Bhutto plans to spend her exile in London
  • The govt has reissued ordinances aimed at reducing power theft and protecting wapdas military administration
  • MQM terrorist Saulat Mirza has been sentenced to death in the murder of the KESC chairman

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  NAJAM SETHI, DEATH OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM, OIL TANKER-17 MAY 1999

  • The arrest of Najam Sethi has created a lot of anti GOP sentiment as he is the fourth journalist tobe targeted by the PMLn. It has also caused a protest from the USA at the maltreatment of journalists. Najam Sethi turns out tobe quite a complicated character. Cambridge educated, marxist leanings, ahmadi, bookseller, importer of indian books, illegal printer of foreign books,gunrunner during the Baloch Marri rebellion, police approver, advisor to govts, editor, indian agent, married to cousin of Abida Hussein and maybe an american agent as well
  • The Punjab High Court when moved for the release of Najam Sethi showed its subordination to the GOP by ruling that the ISI's activities were not covered by law and that the court was powerless. In what seemed a contradictory attitude the Court enquired what were the procedures in neighbouring countries especially since Najam Sethi is accused of being an indian agent
  • The Frontier post reports that a new 3000km plus missile named Tipu could be tested on the 28th of May
  • Asif Zardari has appealed to the Supreme Court against the judgement of the Ehtesab Bench in the SGS corruption case
  • 260 PPP demonstrators were arrested in khairpur for protesting the conviction of Benazir
  • Justice Saeed uz Zaman Siddiqui has been appointed the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on the retirement of Ajmal Mian
  • Qazi Farook Pasha has been appointed the Chief Justice of the Nwfp High Court on the retirement of Mahbub Ali Khan
  • The Benazir appeal to the Supreme Court against the Ehtesab Bench judgement was rejected by the Supreme Court registrar stating that she had to submit to imprisonment before the appeal could be filed. In the appeal is an affidavit from swiss lawyer Schlegelmilch and a london jewellery store which states that Benazir and her relatives had no access to the funds in the Bomer Finance accounts and that the purchaser of the expensive necklace was not Benazir
  • The pro Nawaz urdu daily ASAS reports that the GOP has been unable to pay the over $190000 bill for the british investigators of Benazir Bhutto's wealth, corruption and accounts
  • Profit rates have been slashed by 2% on all national saving schemes to help banks increase deposits
  • In another demonstration of GOP control over the minds of the Supreme Court the judges acquitted the the PMLn legislators involved in the Supreme Court storming case despite there being enough evidence of complicity and involvement.
  • After an indian attack in siachen the pakistan army counterattacked and conquered a 25 square kilometer area comprising several hilltops and a road in the kargil area of Occupied kashmir thus cutting of indian road links to Siachen
  • Sixty people died as an oil tanker overturned after crashing into a donkey cart. As the people of Rodo Sultan in the jhang area tried to scavenge petrol from the overflowing tanker it caught fire which quickly engulfed the entire village.
  • five peopel were killed as the Quetta Express train derailed near Rahim yar Khan in what could be a terrorism incident

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