Mister Musharraf

On Thursday Pervez Musharraf took oath as Pakistan’s civilian president, with the promise of...

On Thursday Pervez Musharraf took oath as Pakistan’s civilian president, with the promise of withdrawing the November 3 emergency on December 16 — that is, a day after the last day for withdrawing nomination papers for the January 8 elections. Dawn reported on November 30 that this gave him the “option of postponing the polls should it become necessary in the wake of a boycott by the whole of the opposition”. (On Thursday, the All Parties Democratic Movement, which includes the Nawaz Sharif’s PML, Imran Khan’s PTI and the MMA, decided to “unanimously” boycott the polls.) Nonetheless, it said in an editorial, “this is a defining moment for President Musharraf’s leadership”: “At a time when Mr Musharraf could have taken a safe passage out of a political mess of his own making by stepping aside as the COAS and president, he decided to give that safe passage to the army. He has served his institution well by sending it back to its professional duties, to deal with the growing threat of extremism and other challenges. Now it is time for him to serve the cause of national unity by lifting emergency rule and establishing his own credentials as a civilian head of state willing to work under a fully restored Constitution. The need now is for greater national reconciliation to keep the integrity of Pakistan as a viable polity, and not as a state to be ruled by military might alone.”

The News was less approving. It commented on his first statement of this presidential term: “His words that stability and development in Pakistan cannot be sacrificed for civil rights and democracy, as the west would like for Pakistan, may also cause some concern. In other words Mr Musharraf has warned that his administration would continue to use the strong stick and no one should nurture false hopes of getting more carrots. This is unfortunate and regrettable and could be counter-productive in the medium to long term.”

In The Friday Times, Najam Sethi, however, cautioned against trying to seek too much of a retreat from Musharraf: “The demand for the restoration of the sacked judges, however justified in the interest of democracy and accountability, is unrealistic. It amounts to asking Mr Musharraf to commit political suicide right now. So we may persist with it in principle but without making everything conditional on it. Nor should we worry too much on that score. The victories of civil society and the sacrifices of the lawyers will not go in vain because they are big steps in Pakistan’s march towards a functional democracy. Given the relentless pressure of these groups, the new judges are bound to spread their wings after a transfer of power from the presidency to parliament and the political parties next year.”

Begun in Swat

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Newspapers have been carrying daily reports of successes against militants in Swat. On November 27, The Daily Times took stock of the reversal: “Since the army went into the Valley, there has been a steady growth in casualty among the outsider elements and their local supporters. This is a change from the humiliating reversals which the militants inflicted on the paramilitary personnel earlier on, forcing one to come to the conclusion that that phase in Swat had done much to undermine the confidence of the local population and given heart to the planners of Al Qaeda and its Taliban minions to act as if they owned Swat.” It added: “The Pakistan army, as it operates in Swat, must recognise that the present operation is just the opening of a larger battle front. Some Punjabi veterans of the Kashmir jihad now fighting on the side of Al Qaeda, when interviewed recently, spoke of the fighting in Swat as a part of the grand strategy of ‘establishing small independent emirates’ — in Waziristan, Swat, Bajaur and in Afghanistan.”

Houbara hunt

In an editorial on Wednesday, Dawn concentrated on the houbara hunt: “As in previous years, the business of slaughter will be booming this winter. Arab dignitaries have been awarded 31 special permits to hunt the houbara bustard, a locally and internationally protected species that winters in Pakistan after travelling from its breeding grounds in Central Asia, China and Mongolia. Each licence carries a ‘bag limit’ of 200 birds which means that, at the very minimum, 6,200 houbaras out of the twenty to thirty thousand expected to grace us with their presence this year will be massacred on Pakistani soil. The actual figure will be much higher… The hunting of the houbara bustard is illegal in Pakistan but annual exceptions are made for Arab royals on the flimsy grounds that this ‘courtesy’ extended to ‘brotherly’ countries fosters goodwill. It is also argued that the money generated by these permits is spent on the uplift of the underdeveloped areas in which hunting takes place.”

mini.kapoor@expressindia.com