Ramanisblog

Tag: Zardari

  • Coup in Pakistan? Zardari in Dubai-to step down.

    English: Asif Ali Zardari.
    Image via Wikipedia

    It is reported in the US media that Zardari ,President of Pakistan,is reported to be in Dubai for Treatment of Heart Attack and Dawn of Pakistan has reported that he is advised rest and kept under observation.

    In the meanwhile,US Media speculates that Zardari has offered to step down in the wake of memogate and has been under severe pressure and during his telephonic talk with US President Obama on Memogate was reported to have been incoherent.

    Now this is interesting.

    The rumors of a Coup is possible and more than probable, considering the political situation in Pakistan,with Imran Khan being projected as an alternate  to Zardari with some parties supporting him along with intelligentsia,Nawaz Sharief having scored a political point by moving the Supreme court to order an enquiry into memeogate scandal and consolidating his position .

    Add to this the possibility of Zardari anointing his son Bilawal to succeed him with the support of some groups.

    In this cauldron the Military stand is unclear and they seem to be upset over memogate and the attack by NATO.

    Let’s see how this plays out.

    Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari left Pakistan suddenly on Tuesday, complaining of heart pains, and is now in Dubai. His planned testimony before a joint session of Pakistan’s parliament on theMemogate scandal is now postponed indefinitely.

    On Dec. 4, Zardari announced that he would address Pakistan’s parliament about the Memogate issue, in which his former ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani stands accused of orchestrating a scheme to take power away from Pakistan’s senior military and intelligence leadership and asking for U.S. help in preventing a military coup. Haqqani has denied that he wrote the memo at the heart of the scheme, which also asked for U.S. support for the Zardari government and promised to realign Pakistani foreign policy to match U.S. interests.

    The memo was passed from Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz to former National Security Advisor Jim Jones, to then Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen on May 10, only nine days after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani military town of Abbottabad.

    Ijaz has repeatedly accused Haqqani of being behind the memo, and Ijaz claims that Haqqani was working with Zardari’s implicit support.

    Early on Tuesday morning, Zardari’s spokesman revealed that the president had traveled to Dubai to see his children and undergo medical tests linked to a previously diagnosed “cardiovascular condition.”

    A former U.S. government official told The Cable today that when President Barack Obama spoke with Zardari over the weekend regarding NATO’s killing of the 24 Pakistani soldiers, Zardari was “incoherent.” The Pakistani president had been feeling increased pressure over the Memogate scandal. “The noose was getting tighter — it was only a matter of time,” the former official said, expressing the growing expectation inside the U.S. government that Zardari may be on the way out.

    The former U.S. official said that parts of the U.S. government were informed that Zardari had a “minor heart attack” on Monday night and flew to Dubai via air ambulance today. He may have angioplasty on Wednesday and may also resign on account of “ill health.”

    “If true, this is the ‘in-house change option’ that has been talked about,” said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, in a Tuesday interview with The Cable. Nawaz said that under this scenario,  Zardari would step aside and be replaced by his own party, preserving the veneer of civilian rule but ultimately acceding to the military’s wishes to get rid of Zardari.

    In Islamabad, some papers have reported that before Zardari left Pakistan, the Pakistani Army insisted that Zardari be examined by their own physicians, and that the Army doctors determined that Zardari was fine and did not need to leave the country for medical reasons. Zardari’s spokesman has denied that he met with the Army doctors

    http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/06/president_zardari_suddenly_leaves_pakistan_is_he_on_the_way_out?test1=test1

    Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is in Dubai for treatment for a heart condition, the government said on Wednesday, with one source saying he had suffered a minor heart attack and fuelling speculation that the leader may resign.

    The statement from the prime minister’s office said Zardari went to a Dubai hospital at the insistence of his children, who live there. It contradicted earlier reports from Zardari’s own office that the tests were scheduled and routine.

    “The president went to Dubai following symptoms related to his pre-existing heart condition,” Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s media office said.

    “The president will remain under observation and return to resume his normal functions as advised by the doctors.”

    A presidential spokesman later quoted Zardari’s doctor as saying his condition was stable.

    A Pakistani source in Dubai familiar with the 56-year-old president’s condition told Reuters that he had suffered a minor heart attack.

    “Two days ago, he had chest pain” and decided to go to Dubai, the source said.

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  • Pakistan SC orders enquiry into ‘MemoGate’ -To what end?

    It is not new for Pakistani Rulers(civilian and military) to seek the help of foreign powers to bail out either for the country or for themselves.

    To protect them from the Military, the Civilian Presidents/PMs call for help, especially from the US or Saudi Arabia overtly.

    If a former President/PM is involved,either they seek help for themselves or ensure that their political opponent is offered sanctuary abroad as in the case of Nawaz Sharief and Pervez Musharaff.

    People are also aware what Ayub Khan,Yahya Khan,Benazir were up to.

    It is the accepted practice in Pakistan.

    What if the Commission finds that the memogate is true?

    The SC shall dismiss the Government?

    Waste of time?

    ISLAMABAD, Dec 1: President Asif Ali Zardari was dealt a second supreme blow in less than a week.

    Within days of having rejected the government’s review petition against the NRO judgment, the Supreme Court moved on Thursday decisively and rapidly against the government on a petition filed by PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif.

    It ordered an inquiry to be completed into the ‘memogate’ scandal within 15 days, barred former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani from leaving the country and issued notices to the president, the army chief and others concerned with the case.

    A nine-judge larger bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry took up nine petitions moved by PML-N leaders from four provinces, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan and
    two individuals.

    Mr Sharif himself presented his case by reading out the entire petition in the tightly packed court.

    The chief justice passed the order at the end of the four-hour proceedings without much deliberation or hesitation.

    The immediate ‘affectee’ of the order is obviously Mr Haqqani who has been directed not to leave the country without prior permission and to cooperate with the commission set up by the court.

    The commission will be headed by former secretary of the Anti-Narcotics Force Tariq Khosa, who will be free to conduct the inquiry on his own or to associate any expert to collect forensic evidence.

    Mr Khosa, who has also served as inspector general of Balochistan police and director general of the Federal Investigation Agency, is a brother of Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Punjab Chief Secretary Nasir Khosa.

    http://www.dawn.com/2011/12/02/one-man-commission-named-ppps-angry-reaction-president-coas-isi-chief-to-explain-position-sc-orders-memogate-inquiry-tells-haqqani-not-to-go-abroad.html

     

    Related: Memogate History.

    HUSAIN Haqqani will not be enjoying Christmas festivities in Washington DC. The former journalist and spin-doctor was simply outmanoeuvred by his opponents in the field he thought he had mastery of.

    He did not lose his job for contributing to the drafting of the alleged memo. He was not punished for courting Americans to influence Pakistan’s political and security set-up. He was booted out for committing perjury. Perjury, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “is the voluntary violation of an oath or vow either by swearing to what is untrue or by omission to do what has been promised under oath”. Husain Haqqani vowed that he has not been a party in the correspondence with Mansoor Ijaz that ultimately led to the memo delivered to Mike Mullen.

    In the media trial, he is charged with the crime of peddling to the Americans, thus compromising the sovereignty of Pakistan.

    He is reprimanded for bringing a bad name to the Pakistan armed forces and to one of the country’s intelligence agencies. His detractors are not content with him losing the coveted ambassadorial spot. They want to dig deep and see who else in the political hierarchy — implying none other than President Asif Zardari — might have been part of washing Pakistan’s dirty political laundry in the American laundromat.

    Armed with the sabre of sovereignty, anchors of independent electronic media have joined ranks to cut the likes of Haqqani down to size. Letting Pakistani sovereignty be violated by the Americans, if one believes the talk shows, appears to be the present government’s invention. Nothing can be farther from the truth. In theory, Haqqani is accused of trying to rope the Americans into what should be the exclusive domain of Pakistan’s national politics. If he is to be reprimanded for doing this, then the pioneer of this trend was none other than Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s first prime minister.

    Liaquat Ali Khan did not write or instruct the then ambassador to send any secret memorandum to the Americans. He was pretty open about it. During his first trip to the United States in 1950, he met the press at the National Press Club in the American capital. A reporter asked how large a standing army Pakistan wanted. Liaquat Ali Khan’s reply was quite simple to the inquisitive American reporter and here is a direct quote from the prime minister’s answer: “If your country will guarantee our territorial integrity, I will not keep any army at all.”

    So if Pakistan now has an all-powerful army, it is partly thanks to the American hesitation in extending the guarantee Pakistan’s first prime minister was seeking.

    It is ironic, bordering on being comical, the way commentators de-contextualise the issues at hand. What Mr Haqqani has purportedly done is part and parcel of the Pakistani ruling elite’s historical trait. In 1953, Ghulam Mohammad, then governor general, dismissed Prime Minister Khwaja Nazimuddin and promptly appointed Mohammad Ali Bogra as the new prime minister.

    Mohammad Ali Bogra at that time was serving as Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington. Nazimuddin’s ouster was planned by the establishment of the time and Bogra’s greatest political asset was his pro-American stance. One can infer that the Pakistani establishment of the 1950s, mainly comprising the civil and military bureaucracies, had no qualms in having Americans on board when it came to Pakistan’s national affairs.

    In 1958 Iskander Mirza, according to the US embassy in Karachi’s reports, was thinking of imposing dictatorship. The State Department instructed the American ambassador to caution Mirza about taking such a step and he deferred it for a while. The less one says about taking vital decisions without heeding the Americans’ advice the better.

    But in October of the same year when Mirza and Ayub Khan, the then army commander, decided to impose martial law, the American ambassador was told a week in advance of the impending decision. This should tell the reader that Pakistani leaders have a long tradition of consulting and soliciting American approval in their national affairs. More importantly, the Pakistani leadership has seldom shared the details of the nature of their ties with the Pakistani public.

    Ayub Khan allowed the Americans to use Pakistani territory to fly U2 spy planes over the Soviet Union. Pakistanis came to know about these covert operations when the Soviets downed an American plane and captured its pilot and put him on television screens for the world to see. Pakistanis, all along, were told that the Americans were using the base outside Peshawar for weather-monitoring purposes.

    http://www.dawn.com/2011/11/27/memogate-and-history.html

  • Pak President Asif Ali Zardari’s power to appoint army chief slashed: Report.

    Who has appointed the Constitutional Reform Committee and who is going sack them?Supreme Court justice sacked by the President and Supreme Court reopens cases against him after he has been thrown out.Who calls the shots,Army or Civilian Govt?
    Is the present PM a confidant of Zardari or the army or Nawaz Sharief or a stooge of the latter two?
    What do people of Pakistan want?Democracy,Dictatorship,Theocracy; institutions or individuals to run the Nation?
    Is Zardari a hero or a villain of Pakistan?
    Pakistan is yet to come to terms with its independence.God only can save Pakistan.
    ISLAMABAD: After losing control over Pakistan’s nuclear button, President Asif Ali Zardari’s key power to appoint the three service chiefs are to be taken away from him and vested with the prime minister, a media report has said.

    The Constitutional Reform Committee has transfered the authority to appoint service chiefs from the president to the prime minister in a move to clip the power’s of the president, the Dawn news said.

    The news channel quoting sources said on Thursday the decision was unanimously agreed upon by all the major political parties, including the Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Awami Muslim league.
    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Pak-President-Asif-Ali-Zardaris-power-to-appoint-army-chief-slashed-Report/articleshow/5449554.cms

  • Pak.ridiclues Obama on Osama.

    General Musharaff is on record stating that Osama is some where in troubled areas of Pakistan and that Pak.forces are trying their utmost to nab him;Mulla Omar had declared so.Other loose terrorist outfits also endorsed it.US had in fact bombed the area and civilians have been killed.Pakistan had cried foul on the killing of Civilians in this context.
    Well,Your boss Zardari does not know whether India has violated air space-Media reported and your military also said so.Dawood Ibrahim is in Pakistan ,the whole world knows it, including Television crews from India!Yet you people declare he is not there.
    Kasab,butcher of Mumbai is from Pak.You denied stating that his name is not on National records.Your TV located his house and interviewed his kin.
    You do not know what is happening in Pakistan.
    You want the US to tell you what is in your country.
    Then why do you run the country?
    Ostrich attitude shall spell doom for Pakistan.

    Story.
    Islamabad, Dec.3:
    Just hours after President Barack Obama acknowledged that Al-Qaeda’s leadership was present in Pakistan, and that the outlawed outfit is using the country as its base, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said Islamabad has no information regarding Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

    “Pakistan has no information on the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden,” Qureshi told the BBC .

    Reiterating that Islamabad is committed to root out terror emanating from its soil, Qureshi urged Washington to provide actionable information about Laden and other top Al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders.

    “If we knew where they are, we will get the Al Qaeda leadership. If the US has any information in this regard, they should share it with us,” The Daily Times quoted Qureshi, as saying.

    He said even the United States does not have credible information regarding Laden and added that President Obama’s claims regarding Al Qaeda leadership’s presence in Pakistan was a mere ‘guess’.
    http://publication.samachar.com/pub_article.php?id=6795399&nextids=6795399|6795400|6793381|6792158|6800891&nextIndex=1

  • In Pakistan, end of amnesty could spark fresh political turmoil


    Read both the stories.We are in for another Afghanistan.
    ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – The imminent expiration of a controversial decree that provides amnesty against criminal charges to top Pakistani politicians could further weaken the country’s embattled civilian government, according to analysts here.

    The National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) was passed by former President Pervez Musharraf in 2007 as part of a political deal, brokered with the assistance of the United States, that allowed the late Benazir Bhutto back into the country to contest 2008 elections without having to face charges related to money-laundering and kickbacks on government contracts. More than 8,000 individuals, mainly bureaucrats, are currently protected by the decree.

    The NRO was ostensibly aimed at putting an end to politically motivated corruption cases that had led to bitter fighting between the two major parties during the 1990s, Pakistan’s so-called “decade of democracy.” But a sustained political campaign led by the main opposition PML-N party and backed by the right-wing media has meant that the NRO “has now become a byword for corruption,” according to Cyril Almeida, assistant editor of Dawn, a leading English daily.

    KEY OFFICIALS COULD BE LIABLE TO PROSECUTION

    If the Supreme Court allows the NRO’s expiration on Saturday and rules that old cases are automatically reactivated, key officials could be liable to prosecution.

    Among the officials who could be affected are Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, and senior diplomats, including Hussain Haqqani, the ambassador to the United States; and Wajid Shamsul Hassan, the ambassador to Britain.

    Presidential immunity means no cases may be brought against President Zardari, even after the NRO’s expiration. The president is now “politically vulnerable, but constitutionally impregnable,” says Mr.Almeida.

    Almeida points out that “no civilian government in Pakistan lasts long after the drumroll of corruption begins,” though it is unclear what form the government’s downfall could take.

    For the time being, at least, the resignation of the president, as demanded by some of his foes, seems unlikely, as does a parliamentary vote of no confidence. The possibility of a military takeover is also low.

    The ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) last month attempted to formalize the decree through parliament, but withdrew it amid fears that its coalition allies would not back the bill.

    Ayaz Sadiq, a member of the parliamentary accounts committee for the opposition PML-N, told the Monitor: “All these cases should have been decided by the court, not by the stroke of pen of a dictator who was supported by the West on all issues.” He added that those ministers who are named as beneficiaries of the NRO should resign to clear their names.

    Zardari himself should be “held accountable” for alleged misdeeds, he says.

    The government, on the other hand, denies the NRO was ever controversial.

    “It is understood by the people of Pakistan as a way to bring the leadership back into Pakistan,” says Farahnaz Ispahani, a spokesperson for Zardari. She instead blames “antidemocratic elements” for waging a propaganda campaign aimed undermining the moral authority of Zardari, a thinly-veiled reference to Pakistan’s shadowy intelligence agencies and elements within the Army.

    That point of view is partly backed by Almeida, who says that, while levels of corruption haven’t spiked recently, the attention paid to it by the opposition and the media has.

    US WATCHING CLOSELY

    The United States will be keeping a watchful eye on proceedings. Nawaz Sharif, leader of the PML-N and the country’s most popular politician, according to international polling, is widely seen as the man most likely to emerge as a possible future leader.

    His traditional ties to the religious right, as well as his party’s relatively unenthusiastic response in the US-led war on terrorism (he was, for instance, slow to back Pakistan’s recent military offensive in Swat), may signal “a more independent and less subservient stance vis-á-vis the United States,” according to Rifaat Hussain, a defense analyst at the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad
    http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1127/p06s10-wosc.html
    (news one day ago)
    ******
    AP Top News at 5:22 a.m. EST9To day-29/11/09)
    ISLAMABAD — A powerful opposition leader has called on President Asif Ali Zardari to relinquish wide-ranging powers immediately. Sunday’s statement by Shahbaz Sharif comes a day after the expiration of an amnesty protecting Zardari and several allies from graft prosecution. Zardari enjoys general immunity from prosecution as president, but the Supreme Court could challenge that.
    http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g8-DEMtAE9q4i4ySQ0eV_qZefmRQD9C94MU03