and so it begins...

the gatehring of lawyers from Southern Sindh at Toll Plaza Karachi was baton charged and many arrests were made. So begins the long march, a last ditch attempt by the civilian elements of the society for upholding the rule of law & usual high handedness of a Federal Govt. to discourage it.

complete story: http://geo.tv/important_events/lawyers_longmarch/pages/english_news.asp

PPP old-school irked over Governor Rule & Opposition to Long March

While it is no secret that after assuming PPP leadership & becoming president Mr. Zardari has side-lined the former prominent members of BB erra and placed his assosciates on key positions i.e. Governor Punjab, Advisor on Interior Ministry and now the Chairman Senate.

This was supposed to have irked the former active and prominent members, but it has started to surface now, more than ever, that they are being irked and oppose the iron-fist tactics of Mr. Zardari.

Resignation of Mr. Razza Rabbani, Enver Baig, the vocal opposition and arrest orders of Naheed Khan & Fakhr, The oppostion of Makhdoom Amin Faheem and in-party sympathies of MNA's with him & most importantly indifferent stand of PM Yousuf Raza Gillni on mobile courts, his recent adresses in National Assemble expressing concerns over opposition of Long March are all indicators that for the first time in 40 year history of PPP, an internal pressure in building up against the party leadership.

PML-N & Nawaz Shareef's policy of targetting Zardari rather than PPP in general seems to have been carefully thought of, and is paying off. He provided the old-school members with a position to support the Lawyers movement and his stance on Punjab Govt. crisis, while at the same time starting an active public movement.

It still remians to be seen, however, how this will effect the events of 16th March. A miraclous executive order from PM, or involvement of resenting members of PPP in long march might still be a long-shot, but possibility is more than ever!

Speaker announced PA session on 18th of march.

As Governor announced PA session on 16th of March, so that PML-N people can not attend it. But, speaker announces the session on 18th of March by using his constitutional right. Lets see what happens.

Long March and preparation by Government.

There is no need to tell about the preparation of lawyers, students, political parties and civil society. But, the most impressive preparation are going on by Government.
They started by doubling the salaries of Islamabad police. Then they gave orders to the DPOs of all the districts that their job depends on their performance during Long March. And they seems to stick with what they said as they fired one SP in Gujranwala.
They have decided to seal Islamabad for two days.
So, there are multiple circles of blockage. city is sealed, people will be arrested from G.T road, people will be tried to stop at the edges. On top of that Govt. has threatened all fast food places and others to not to give food to Long March people. All rest houses in Islamabad are also instructed to not give places to attendees. So, lets hope govt. stay only this insane :P.

Raids are currently going on to arrest all the political leaders and lawyers.

Raids are going on since yesterday all over Pakistan.
Imran Khan's house in Islamabad was raided and many PTI workers are arrested both from Islamabad and also from party headquarter in Lahore.
Aitezaz's house was also raided, but they were not able to arrest him. Athar Minullah was arrested and then later released.
News are continuously coming about raids in all over Pakistan.

PPP and PML-Q to make joint Govt. in Punjab. Session called on the same day as LONG MARCH.

Finally the rumors are out there that PML-Q is going to sit in Punjab Govt. with a party whose chairman pronounced it as "QATIL LEAGUE".

But, even then they dont have numbers. Thats why Salman Taseer has called the provincial assembly session on 16th of march. The same day as LONG MARCH. So, that no one from PML-N can attend the session.

Government gone crazy!!! Dismissed SP Gujranwala on refusing to arrest innocent people.

Government has seriously gone insane. One SP in Gujranwala refused to arrest innocent people on using their right to protest. The government removed him from his post.

It shows that there are people who listen to their conscious, but only person who seems to be totally without conscious right now is Zardari. He doesn't even seem to care what people of Pakistan think.

A good article

Professions of peace on the part of those who sponsor mass movements may be sincere. Our experience shows that when people in large numbers come out on the streets they will not remain content with chanting endearing slogans. Orators will use their way with words, highs and lows of voice and body language to arouse them and call them to action. They will then set private cars and buses on fire, break windows and plunder stores, clash with the police, kill and get killed.

Supporters of the present government brand Nawaz Sharif’s protest movement as the politics of confrontation that is liable to strain the country’s fragile democracy beyond endurance. This is specious reasoning. People protesting on the streets are a part of the democratic tradition. They are a needed warning to rulers that they cannot get away with arbitrariness and usurpation of the citizen’s fundamental rights.

There are times when it is beyond the government’s capability to meet the protesters’ demand. That is not the case in Pakistan at this time. Reinstatement of Iftikhar Chaudhry, the deposed chief justice of Pakistan, along with the related issue of judicial independence, is the principal objective of the lawyers’ movement and their intended long march. The same objective informs the PML-N’s plan for a protest movement. Mr Nawaz Sharif says he will call off his movement if Justice Chaudhry is reinstated.

It is thus open to Mr Zardari’s government to reinstate the gentleman, send the protesters home and return our city streets to peace and tranquillity. It is possible that Mr Zardari’s personal pride and stubbornness are keeping his government from making this simple move to resolve the current crisis. If that is indeed the case, it is an awful shame that this government has chosen to keep the country in turmoil merely to appease a single individual’s ego, even if he be the president of Pakistan.

The writer, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, is a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics.

EMAIL

anwars@lahoreschool.edu.pk

Full article at Random Thoughts

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Don't Make Pakistan's Enemies Happy

THERE are some pundits in this country waxing eloquent on the unfortunate incident in Lahore on Tuesday. They demand to know why our cricketers were sent to Pakistan, which they say is not a safe place — as if Sri Lanka were! Yes, Pakistan is experiencing some problems and it may not be the ideal place for us to play cricket at this moment….

Sri Lanka … knows how hurtful it is to be questioned on her ability to provide security to visiting VIPs….

In 1996 … several cricket-playing nations did not want to play in Sri Lanka in view of terrorist threats…. But, Pakistan and India came here and demonstrated to the world that the situation was not so bad as it was made out to be….

So, it was Sri Lanka’s turn to stand by her all-weather friend, Pakistan, when she was invited to play cricket on the latter’s soil. And she did. Unfortunately, the least expected happened….

It is being claimed in some quarters that the Sri Lankan team had not been provided … adequate security. What is ‘adequate security’? No security is adequate where terrorism is concerned. In a world where the Pentagon has come under a terror attack and well-protected world leaders have perished at the hands of terrorists, there is always an element of risk in any kind of security arrangement….

Therefore, can we afford to complain about security arrangements in other countries?

Most of all, when its High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Bashir Wali Mohammad came under a terrorist attack in Colombo in 2007, Pakistan did not fault Sri Lanka. Instead, it gave an assurance that nothing would affect Pakistan-Sri Lanka relations. That is how friends should handle difficult situa tions…! Our cricketers are pre cious to us and we heaved a sigh of relief when they escaped death and returned home safely. Now that the boys are back, we must put the unfortunate Lahore episode behind us….

It is thanks to friends like Pakistan that Sri Lanka remains undivided. But for Pakistan’s un stinted support for Sri Lanka’s war on terror, perhaps there would have been no country for Mahela and others to rep resent in international cricket. Several were the occasions when Pakistan was so generous as to part with even the ammunition stocks reserved for its use to en sure that Sri Lanka’s war would go on…. No sooner had the Sri Lankan team been attacked than a sinister campaign was launched to discredit Pak istan…. Let no contribution be made to that deplorable move. Sri Lanka can rest assured that Pakistan will investigate the incident thoroughly … and bring the terrorists concerned to book. So, there is no need for pundits amongst us to tell Pakistan what to do.

That is the best way they can show their gratitude, if any, to a friendly nation in crisis struggling to avoid an adverse propaganda onslaught. — (March 05)

Source: http://epaper.dawn.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=07_03_2009_007_008&typ=0

Let’s honour the Lankans

A QUARTER of a century ago, The Economist carried on its cover a poignant close-up of Junius Richard Jayawardene with a tear rolling down his cheek.

Jayawardene was then the Sri Lankan president and the teardrop was actually the map of his island nation, which was bleeding from a debilitating insurgency.

In Lahore on Tuesday, another Jayawardene was leading the Sri Lankans. This time it was the cricket team. His performance was to be his swansong as captain and the island-nation’s team came perilously close to becoming a teardrop – albeit for Pakistan.

One has come across many people, not all of them with even a nodding acquaintance with cricket, since the events of Tuesday, who have shed tears at what happened at the Liberty roundabout in Lahore. Others who were more tuned in to the intricacies of what brought the Lankans to Pakistan looked on with disbelief as the terrorists struck, for they knew what this would portend for Pakistan – and Pakistani cricket, in particular.

There was a collective sigh of relief when the visitors returned home ‘in one piece’ as a jaded Jayawardene told reporters at the Bandaranaike International Airport upon arrival.

To begin with the ‘Pearl Island’ – as Sri Lanka is popularly known – showed great character in the face of intense pressure from India not to tour Pakistan after Islamabad reached out to Colombo following the cancellation of the Indian cricket team’s scheduled tour of Pakistan last January. According to news reports, Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee tried his best to nudge Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa into declining Islamabad’s request to fill the void left by New Delhi’s refusal to send over its team.

In the heat of the Mumbai mania – not to forget the geographical disposition of India vis-à-vis Sri Lanka – it was not an easy decision to make. However, Rajapaksa managed the diplomatic tightrope walk with grace. Although India succeeded in driving a wedge in the originally drafted series of three Test matches, five ODIs and a Twenty20 in Pakistan, Colombo did not turn its back on Islamabad. There is a bit of history involved in the Sri Lankan gesture of solidarity with Pakistan.

Sri Lanka won Test status in 1982 primarily due to a support campaign spearheaded by Pakistan. The people of Sri Lanka still remember with fondness how a combined team from Pakistan and India played friendly matches on the island to show solidarity with them when some teams, led by Australia, refused to play there during the 1996 World Cup.

But most of all, they have not forgotten how Pakistanis swarmed the Gaddafi Stadium with Sri Lankan flags to support them when, as poetic justice would have it, Australia had to face Arjuna Ranatunga’s tigers in the final of that World Cup in Lahore. No prizes for guessing who won.

But Sri Lanka’s ties with Pakistan go beyond a game both nations love and consider second only to religion. Sri Lanka’s geographical ties with India which has led to the latter being accused of fomenting the secessionist campaign of the LTTE through a sea route at the tip of the island in Jaffna has always been an albatross around Colombo’s neck. Subsequent Indian involvement – a result of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s decision to send peacekeeping troops to the island under an agreement with Colombo – gave rise to bitter resentment among the Sri Lankans, who felt that the action compromised their sovereignty. The agreement unravelled in due course with Gandhi paying with his life in a suicide attack in India.

All this while, Pakistan not only lent diplomatic support to Colombo but also provided military assistance. Even though they are not geographically linked, the Sri Lankans have since embraced Pakistanis – and not the Indians – as their neighbours of choice.

It is a measure of how much the Sri Lankans value this relationship that, despite the dastardly act by militants on Tuesday, no official in Colombo, no member of Sri Lanka’s cricket board, no player in the Jayawardene-led team that returned home after a miraculous escape, no one from the intelligentsia or among ordinary fans has reacted to the horrific event with anger. After all, it would have been perfectly justifiable to do so. This amazing grace should not go unnoticed.

If the Pakistani government has a conscience – doubtful given the brazen lapses in security at its end – it should immediately move to honour the Sri Lankan team with at least the Nishan-i-Shujaat (Order of Bravery). This is the least the Government of Pakistan can do after letting the moment to offer an official apology to Sri Lanka pass.

The incident is nothing short of a national shame for us regardless of the nature of the beast that we are dealing with, especially given the fact that intelligence about the possibility, style and even the route likely to be used for such an attack was available as far back as January this year.

President Zardari can be sure that even a belated step such as awarding the Nishan-i-Shujaat to the Sri Lankan team would be much more welcomed by Pakistanis than, say, awarding the Hilal-i-Quaid-i-Azam to the likes of Richard Boucher for his ‘services’ in boosting ties with Islamabad.

A deadly missile attack on Pakistani soil by US forces less than 24 hours after receiving the honour with the portrait of Jinnah in the background was Mr Boucher’s chosen expression of gratitude.

We can be certain that the Sri Lankans would be more considerate and we may be able to even retain more than just a sporting contact with the islanders. So let’s hail the heroes with the award on March 23, along with our own policemen who lost their lives in the line of duty on March 3.

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Let’s honour the Lankans

Blogged with the Flock Browser