Mumbai: Is Pakistan to Blame?
December 5, 2008
FRONTLINE/World correspondent Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy talks over webcam from Karachi, where the Mumbai terrorists allegedly began their journey, about Pakistani reactions to the attacks and the blame being laid at their door.
Video Dispatch Pakistan: Women and Power BY Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy
October 22, 2008
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is a regular correspondent for FRONTLINE/World and is based in Karachi.
Video editor: Charlotte Buchen.
I was 11 years old when Benazir Bhutto was elected Pakistan’s prime minister. It was a momentous occasion for many of us because her election signified that women could achieve whatever they wanted to in the country.
It is true that Pakistan, a Muslim country of more than 160 million people, has a rich history of women in politics. It is also true that many of them have found their way to power because their husbands or fathers or brothers were already in politics, which gave them access. Lately, that mindset has begun to change.
In January 2000, former President Pervez Musharraf initiated a series of local government reforms that allowed women to enter politics at a grassroots level. Nasreen Jalil, Karachi’s deputy Mayor feels that this step allowed women from different income levels to participate in government.
Sitting in her office in Karachi she tells me that the city council she presides over has 255 members, and 33 percent of them are women. “These women are from the lower-middle classes; they are not even well educated. But just the fact that they have been elected and sent to this forum, means that they are now part of the decision-making process and this will bring about a difference.”
Jalil is a good example. She doesn’t come from a political family, and when she joined the political party, Mohajir Quami Movement (MQM) 20 years ago, they didn’t even take her seriously. “My husband was accepted immediately because he was a man. I was taken casually and given menial jobs like making tea, or cleaning or photo-stating,” she says.
Jalil worked hard to be recognized and eventually served as a senator in Pakistan. But she also admits that she is lucky — most women in the country are unable to enter politics because of family pressures or lack of opportunities. She believes it’s the same in the United States.
“The United States lacks strong female candidates because people probably don’t want them there. They are afraid of strong women all over the world,” she tells me. “Look at how they disregarded Hillary Clinton,” pointing to the fact that Barack Obama did not nominate her as his running mate.
In the past few weeks, local Pakistani newspapers have taken a keen interest in the upcoming U.S. elections, especially in Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Of course, part of that interest stems from her now infamous recent meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari, in which he not only remarked that she “looked gorgeous” but also made, what some here say, an inappropriate comment about wanting to hug her.
The Urdu language newspapers ran prominent accounts of the “embarrassing” incident, and television channels played romantic ballads over footage of the meeting. Pakistan’s late night comedy shows lampooned the president’s faux pas, and the outcome of the meeting enraged many women across the country.
“I think it is offensive that women have to be pretty and that counts for the majority of their popularity,” says Jalil. “Why don’t people comment on whether Mr. McCain is wearing the right kind of suit or about the color of his hair? “It was a mistake. I think the people of Pakistan felt humiliated.”
President Zardari’s remarks are not new to Pakistan. A few weeks ago, a prominent English Language newspaper here published an article “Hotties in the House” listing the names of all the “good looking” politicians who are serving in the local and national parliament. Featured prominently on that list is Shazia Marri, who comes from a political family but only began her political career a few years ago. She is a member of the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party.
Marri became a child bride at the age of 14 and was divorced with a child by the time she was 16. That experience has made women’s rights issues a top priority for her. She is also also a beneficiary of Pakistan’s reserve seat quota for women, which guarantees a certain number of seats for women in local and national assemblies. Marri is now an information minister in the province of Sindh.
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| Pakistan politician, Shazia Marri. |
When I walk into her office, she is surrounded by men, women and children who have come looking for her help. Although she is chiefly the government spokesperson and liaison to the media, she’s inundated daily with people who need jobs, health care, basic sanitation — the list goes on. Her can-do attitude has made her very popular with all walks of life.
While Marri compares her challenges to that of American women, she believes that Asian women have more political drive than their U.S. counterparts. She is not especially interested in whether Gov. Palin is elected vice president or not — to her she is just another person running for office. “I don’t think there should be any special allowance made for being a woman. She [Palin] has to have the potential and the mindset,” says Marri. “Becoming the vice president of one of the most powerful countries in the world is a tough job.”
Pakistan: Taliban Goes After Media Publishers receive death threats; many blame U.S. for troubles
September 19, 2008
Jugnu Mohsin and her husband Najam Sethi are Pakistan’s most powerful media couple. Between them, they edit three newspapers, four magazines, and run a television production company. A few months ago, they began receiving threatening letters signed by the Taliban. The letters accused Sethi of being an anti-Islam American agent. They warned him that all his reports published in both his English-language papers The Friday Times and The Daily Times had been read and rejected by the forces of Islam. He was told that unless he repented for his sins and changed his editorial policy immediately, he would be executed like all the other un-Islamic American agents in the country. A picture attached to one letter showed a Pakistani journalist alleged to be an agent of America with his throat cut. As a precaution, Mohsin and Sethi cut back their engagements, hired armed security guards and sent their children out of the country. The Taliban has already beheaded scores of people under one pretext or another so the couple could not take the threats lightly. Five years ago, when I interviewed Mohsin for FRONTLINE/World, she was optimistic about her country’s future and confident that the Taliban could be defeated. But when I visited her office in Lahore last week, she described Pakistan in far more bleak terms.
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| The Friday Times is a prominent liberal newspaper in Pakistan. The Taliban has begun sending death threats to the newspaper’s editors. |
“The Taliban are not only in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), they are able to make inroads into cities with impunity,” Mohsin told me. “They have the media and the populace enthralled. They are winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the people.” It is a battle, she believes, the United States is losing. The Taliban has strengthened its propaganda machine. The group regularly releases videos in which members parade dead bodies of civilian women and children it claims have been killed by the hand of “Zionist America and its Pakistani counterpart, the Army.” Taliban leaders hold press conferences where they demand to know why Pakistan is fighting America’s war. They suggest that they have thousands of well-equipped young men ready to lay down their lives in the name of Islam. This war, they say, will end when the United States stops using the Pakistan Army to kill innocent Muslims.
In a largely illiterate country, these tactics are working – now more than ever. Last week, U.S. Special Forces landed on Pakistani soil for the first time since the war on terror began. Helicopters carried U.S. and Afghan commandos deep into the tribal belt targeting a Taliban hideout. In the last month alone, newspapers here have reported that the U.S. has attacked inside Pakistan six times with missiles fired from unmanned aircrafts. On the streets here, anti-U.S. sentiment is at an all-time high. Just two days ago, a powerful suicide bomb ripped through the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, killing 53 people and injuring more than 200. Two Americans were killed in the bombing, which experts say bears the hallmark of an Al Qaeda attack. In the aftermath, many people I interviewed on the streets repeated what the Taliban propaganda machine has been saying, “Innocent people are being killed because we support America.” There is virtually no blame attributed to the Taliban. When The New York Times reported last week that President Bush had signed a secret order approving the deployment of U.S. forces in Pakistan, the administration did not deny the report.
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| Newspaper publisher Jugnu Mohsin has received death threats from the Taliban for her publications’ editorial policies |
The impact of that decision is already being felt in Pakistan. There are signs that moderate tribal leaders living in the tribal belt may join forces with the Taliban if these incursions do not end. Just in the past few days, tribesmen aligned with the government have issued a statement confirming that they will retaliate if any more U.S. strikes take place. By taking direct military action in Pakistan, the U.S. has raised the stakes for the Pakistan government. But Mohsin believes that the U.S. presidential election in November and a change in the White House will help improve Pakistani public opinion. “By selecting Barack Obama as their presidential candidate, the Democrats have already rehabilitated the image of America as a country where anything and everything is possible,” she said. “Where there are opportunities alike for black people, for brown people, for white people, for immigrants… it is an America that people had forgotten in the last eight years.”
Yet it was Senator Obama who said in a speech outlining his foreign policy last year, “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” More recently, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has taken on a more conciliatory tone. After his forceful statement last year that he would chase Osama Bin Laden to the gates of hell if necessary, McCain told CNN’s Larry King in August that he would respect Pakistan’s sovereignty and would not send in U.S. forces, even though many believe high-value figures such as Bin Laden are operating freely there. Threatened newspaper editors such as Mohsin believe that recent U.S. military intervention is only adding to the crisis and playing into the Taliban’s hands. “This is our war,” Mohsin told me, “and we have to fight this on our own terms. If everybody turns against America, the Pakistani government will no longer be in a position to support the war on terror.”
Pakistan: Taliban Key Challenge for Next President
August 28, 2008
Video Interview and Dispatch: Our correspondent in Karachi describes a country in civil war
BY Joe Rubin
Joe Rubin is curator and presenter of FRONTLINE/World’s iWitness, an ongoing series of interviews with reporters and newsmakers in flashpoint regions across the world.
>>see the video interview here
Our reporter in Pakistan says the next U.S. president faces major policy challenges there as the hearts and minds of future generations are being won in Taliban-influenced religious schools, and a weak and warring civilian government shows little appetite to take on the growing insurgency. Watch her interview and video clips from Karachi and read her dispatch below.
A Country in Peril
by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy
Pakistani politics are not for the weak hearted. In a typical week here, the president of the country resigned, the two main political parties had a falling out, two powerful bomb blasts ripped through the country and at least 100 people were killed in skirmishes in the Tribal belt.
I was born and raised in Pakistan, but I have spent the better part of the past 10 years living in the West, mainly the United States and Canada. My husband and I made the decision to move back to Pakistan early last year. After all, the economy was doing well, security had improved tremendously, and a number of young Pakistanis were opening up new businesses. It was safe to say, society was thriving.
The bubble burst soon after we landed this year.
In the past few months, newspaper headlines here have screamed out news of scores of girls’ schools being burnt, video stores being ransacked, women being beheaded, hundreds of suicide bombers ready to attack, offices shut down for immoral behavior, stunning the country into silence.
The Taliban has arrived
Two weeks ago, my neighbors and I woke up to the news that an elderly couple, who live several streets away, had received a letter signed and dated by the Taliban, asking them dismiss their hired help because they were involved in “immoral activity” deemed un-Islamic by the Taliban. The shocked couple did not know who to turn to.
In the capital Islamabad, while Benazir Bhuto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari and the main opposition leader Nawaz Sharif wrangle for power, no clear policy for dealing with militants has been outlined. This is despite the fact that more 60 bomb blasts have rocked the country in the past 12 months, and that in the past month alone, the fighting in the tribal belt and in the Swat Valley has intensified to warrant heavy reinforcements by the Pakistan Army.
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| Posters warning against infiltration of the Taliban appear in neighborhoods across Karachi. |
“The man the United States relied on to fight the war on terror is now gone,” said Zubair Kadir, a lawyer who celebrated the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf by handing out sweets to his neighbors. “America put all its eggs in the same basket and now they don’t know who they should deal with.”
This is a sentiment that resonates deep within Pakistani society. The question on everybody’s mind is what will America’s next step be and how will the two presidential candidates deal with the country?
The fear amongst many Pakistanis is that a Democratic Party win will isolate Pakistan. They point to Bill Clinton’s policies and the fact that he spent only four hours in Islamabad in his eight-year tenure in the White House. “We cannot afford isolation,” says Sabiha Hamid, a businesswoman who runs a software company. “Pakistan is embroiled in a civil war, whether our government likes to admit it or not, and we will never win this war on our own.
We need America’s financial and moral support, said Hamid, whose business has been affected by the political instability in the country. “I think John McCain’s rhetoric and policies reflect those of the Bush administration and Pakistan needs that now more than ever.”
On August 25th, the Pakistan government — after years of side stepping — finally banned the Pakistani Taliban and identified it as a “terrorist” organization freezing its assets and bank accounts. The Taliban retaliated by issuing a warning in all the major cities: a spate of suicide bombings is now on the cards. For the 160 million Pakistanis, a new front on the war on terror has developed, right in their backyards. This is no longer America’s war, this is now very much Pakistan’s war.
Pakistan: “We Routed the Men with Beards!”
February 25, 2008
Pakistan: “We Routed the Men with Beards!”
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| Party workers at information booths in Karachi check voter’s registration numbers. |
Karachi erupted in celebrations soon after the last votes were cast in Pakistan’s parliamentary elections. Thousands of people took to the streets, gun shots were fired in the air, music blasted through speakers at main roads, young men with painted faces joyously waved their party flags. And as the night grew darker, and the unofficial results poured in, they were joined by others who danced the night away. The 2008 elections in Pakistan, barring a few violent incidents, ended peacefully. Turnout was low — perhaps people feared attacks — but the results were a stunning rebuke to President Pervez Musharraf’s ruling party.
A week later, many voters are still ecstatic. Across the city at a local pool hall in the busy commercial area of Tariq Road, I spoke with a group of young men, all college graduates. One of them, 22-year-old Kashif Jan, had voted for the first time. “We routed the men with beards,” he tells me excitedly. “At least, we are on the road to democracy, and by voting Pakistanis have told the world that we are not extremists and we don’t want Islamic fundamentalists in power.”
“Can you imagine that 25 percent of the 2002 parliament was made up of religious parties and this time they won just a few seats? I think the people are rejecting their violent ways finally.”
His good friend, Ali Nasir, a graduate of Fatima Jinnah Medical College, tells me that the results shocked him. “Can you imagine that 25 percent of the 2002 parliament was made up of religious parties and this time they won just a few seats? I think the people are rejecting their violent ways finally.”
But for others, the joy of an election upset has given way to caution.
Riding on a wave of sympathy for their assassinated leader, Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistan People’s Party emerged as the big winner, followed by the Pakistan Muslim League led by Nawaz Sharif. But Pakistanis watched in awe as the two opposition parties announced their plans to join hands to form a new government. Historically, both political parties have fought each other for power in the country and Benazir Bhutto was known to have disdain for Sharif. In fact, in her book released posthumously last week, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, Ms. Bhutto, amongst other things, blames Sharif for helping to bring the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s. So watching Ms. Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, shake hands with Sharif on television during a press conference was a surreal experience for most Pakistanis.
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| The 2008 election results offered a rebuke of President Musharraf and the growth of Islamic extremism under his rule. |
“We had to shake ourselves to believe what we saw,” a Karachi pharmacist, Nabeel Khan, tells me. “Imagine, Asif Ali Zardari sharing power with Sharif. We are doomed. Everyone knows that will fall apart before the year is over.”
Khan campaigned hard for Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and convinced many of his co-workers to vote. What happens in the country affects his family directly. A few months ago they pooled their resources and purchased a piece of land in Nazimabad, a middle class suburb in Karachi. Since then, the assassination of Bhutto, the resulting riots, and all the political insecurity has affected the real estate market and the price of land has plummeted. “People often forget that what happens at the helm of affairs affects minnows like us,” he says. “We were planning to sell the land and make a small profit to help start a small business. And now we just don’t know what will happen.”
Newspapers and TV here agree that these elections have heralded in a new era in the country’s history, but the media are anxious to know what this will mean for them.
What’s Next?
For the past week, all the newspapers and television channels in the country have been discussing Pakistan’s future. They all agree that elections heralded in a new era in the country’s history, but the media are anxious to know what this will mean for them. In the past, when Sharif and Benazir Bhutto served as prime ministers, their governments did not allow the Pakistani media much freedom. This time around, any new government will have to contend with more than 20 TV news channels, plus a dozen or so FM radio stations that blossomed under President Musharraf until recently when he imposed his state of emergency. How will the democratically elected government handle criticism? A senior editor at one of the up-and-coming news channels told me in private that he was worried.
“Look, it’s simple,” the newsman said. “There is no way that the incoming government will tolerate us probing and questioning their every move. Quite honestly, things are going to get very tough for us.”
His news channel has had frantic meetings in the past three days to see how they can best defend against a predicted onslaught by the new government. “I know it’s a bit preemptive, but we need to be prepared. We wanted democracy in this country, now we have to learn to deal with it.”
The Terrorist Threat
The incoming government’s job will not be easy. First, there will be the inevitable political jockeying. Already, Sharif has made it clear that his party would move to impeach Musharraf, although the opposition parties fall short of the two-thirds majority they would need in parliament to remove him. Others are urging the opposition to find a graceful way for Musharraf to step down of his own accord and avoid a bitter showdown.
Sharif also appears to be angling for another chance to become prime minister. A constitutional amendment under Musharraf bars prime ministers from holding office for a third time. But Sharif, who served two previous terms as PM, is now saying his party’s cooperation with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) for a national coalition government depends on their willingness to withdraw the ban on third-time premierships.
Above all, there is still the rising threat of terrorism in the country. And today a reminder about just how difficult the task is going to be for any new government. A bomb blast ripped through a busy thoroughfare in Rawalpindi, the city known as the headquarters of the Pakistan Army, killing seven people including a top army medic.
The incoming government will have to tackle terrorism and make it a priority, says Aqueel Khan, who runs a security firm, which provides protection for multinational companies and offices. “Not a day has gone by in the past six months when we haven’t had a bomb blast, or a militant attack somewhere in the country. This civil war is not going to end just because we now have democracy.”
Welcome to Democracy, Pakistan-Style
February 18, 2008
Frontline World
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| Election banner on the streets of Karachi. |
Editor’s Note: On the eve of tense elections in Pakistan, where more than 50 people were killed in pre-election violence over the weekend, FRONTLINE/World’s Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy visits the neighborhoods around her home city of Karachi where she reports that ballot rigging, coercion and intimidation are all taking place. Although the government has stressed this election will be free and fair, one smaller-party candidate told Obaid-Chinoy, “In this illiterate country of ours, fear, intimidation, and harassment get you votes. Until that culture is destroyed, Pakistan will never have democracy.”
Even before the first vote has been cast, there are fears of massive rigging. Leaders of the two major opposition parties, the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League, have already warned that the elections will not be free and fair. To average Pakistanis, the February 18th election is merely a game played out at the behest of the Americans.
After reporting for several months on the run-up to this violence-scarred election, I’ve spent the past two days in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, and I find that the mood here is somber. Most people are staying indoors and avoiding political rallies. There are few signs that Monday’s elections can change the country’s course. If it weren’t for the party flags and banners, you wouldn’t even know elections were about to take place.
“I’m taking a holiday from work because the local representative of a political party has offered me $15 and a bag of rice if my family votes for his party. How can I say no?”
At a bus stand in Saddar, a commercial area in the heart of the city, a number of people told me that they were voting because they were being enticed to. Azizah Khan, who makes $30 a month working as a domestic cleaner, told me that she had been given an offer she couldn’t refuse, “I’m taking a holiday from work because the local representative of a political party has offered me $15 and a bag of rice if my family votes for his party. How can I say no?”
At first she was hesitant to say which party, but finally she admitted that it was the Pakistan People’s Party, now led by the husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated at a campaign rally on December 27.
Naik Ahmed, who owns a hardware store in the industrial neighborhood of Korangi, told me that some members of the political party known as Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had paid his family a visit last week and demanded that they vote for them. The MQM has dominated politics in Karachi since the mid-1980s, often engaging in violent exchanges with rival parties such as the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), or the religious party the Jamaat-e-Islami, and various ethnic groups in the city.
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| A 2008 election sign encourages passers-by to vote for the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). |
“We told them that we weren’t even registered voters, but they told us that didn’t matter. All we needed was to show up at the polling booth and they would help us stamp the right vote,” Ahmed recalled. “Welcome to Pakistan style democracy,” he said as he boarded the bus.
In the run up to the elections, a number of smaller political parties have registered complaints with the election commission. They claim their party workers are being harassed and intimidated by the larger political parties. One of those threatened is the Pakistan Muslim Alliance, a secular, regional party which was formed in 2002. Its members are mostly lower-middle-class shopkeepers, mechanics, electricians and carpenters.
A number of smaller political parties have registered complaints with the election commission. They claim their party workers are being harassed and intimidated by the larger political parties.
In a true democracy everyone is allowed to contest the election, every voice and vote is counted,” says Dr. Saud Hussein, an adviser to the party. “But not in this country. Here unless you’re a landlord or rich industrialist, democracy is not for you.”
The Pakistan Muslim Alliance has fielded eight candidates in Monday’s elections. One of them is Hafiz Muhammed Kafiyatullah, a local cleric who was seething with anger. “I read in the local Urdu newspapers that I had withdrawn my candidacy in favor of my opponent from PML (Q) — the ruling party aligned with President Pervez Musharraf. I have done no such thing. They were trying to intimidate me. When I asked the election commission representative to help me, he said he had no real powers. Now what am I to do?” he implored.
Kafiyatullah is worried that his party’s election symbol (a fish) will not even be on the ballot sheet come Monday. Sitting next to him was Abdul, a stocky man with a beard who told me that it wasn’t just Musharraf’s party who were harassing them: “The MQM is not far behind. They came to us a few days ago and told us that if Hafiz and his followers didn’t vote for them, he could be killed.”
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| Election turnout is expected to be low as people fear more violence. |
In the murky world of Pakistan’s electoral process, Kafiyatullah’s story is not unique. Mohammed Ilyas, a young man who lives in Bilal Colony, a poor neighborhood of Karachi, told me that he had been recruited by the MQM a few days ago. “They came to me and said that I had no choice; I had to help their candidate win. They have now appointed me their polling agent, which means that I have to work with them to ensure that the votes are being cast correctly.”
According to Ilyas, members of MQM threatened to injure his brother if he didn’t cooperate. When I pressed him further, he told me that in some areas, the ballot papers were already at the candidates’s homes. “Some of us have been asked to come to stamp the ballot papers on Sunday night in favor of the MQM,” he said.
Ilyas explained the process to me in detail. In some closely contested polling areas where the races are hard to predict, the ballot boxes will be stuffed with papers already stamped for a candidate. “The second method is far more dangerous,” he said. “There will be many polling stations, which will be closed down. The voters who show up will be told that their votes have already been cast. In the poor neighborhoods, this is easy to do.”
Ilyas explained the process to me in detail. In some closely contested polling areas where the races are hard to predict, the ballot boxes will be stuffed with papers already stamped for a candidate.
The army and the police have been deployed across the country at various polling stations. A lot is on the line for not only the country but also the major political parties. Outside Pakistan the elections on Monday may seem like a major step toward democracy, but many of those trying to take part in the process feel that it’s actually a set back for democracy.
Dr. Saud of the Pakistan Muslim Alliance told me that he was 100 percent certain the elections were not going to be free and fair. “It’s not because the president of the government doesn’t want free and fair elections, it’s because in this illiterate country of ours, fear, intimidation and harassment get you votes. Until that culture is destroyed, Pakistan will never have democracy.”
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has been covering the Pakistan elections for FRONTLINE/World.
Pakistan: The Aftermath
January 7, 2008
BY Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
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| Correspondent Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy |
Editor’s Note: In her fifth and final dispatch from Pakistan, our correspondent Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy wraps up her preview of an election that never happened — postponed due to the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27.
Look for more FRONTLINE/World reports from Pakistan in the coming weeks, including reporter David Montero’s video about the conflict between Taliban insurgents and the Pakistani military in the Swat Valley.
When I arrived in Pakistan six weeks ago, I found the country’s civil society reinvigorated. In my hometown, Karachi, students, lawyers and activists were all agitating against President Pervez Musharraf’s emergency rule. They were united in their cause to restore an independent judiciary. This was the first time my generation had witnessed a movement like this. There was a sense that whatever the outcome, Pakistan would emerge stronger. Finally, its educated classes were making a noise, were concerned about the direction their country was taking.
But things unraveled very quickly.
The major political parties parted ways with the protestors who were calling for a boycott of the January 8th elections (now postponed to February 18th). Many people felt betrayed. Their top priority was the restoration of the judiciary Musharraf had purged, not the elections. The popular movement argued that if the political parties had pressured President Musharraf, if they had continued their struggle hand in hand with civil society, the judges might have been back on their benches.
With the rule of law restored, more genuine elections might have then taken place. Instead, the election campaign felt like a shadow play with the government directing the outcome.
Backed by the U.S., Benazir Bhutto campaigned as the secular democratic alternative to Musharraf and to the rise of Islamic radicalism. The corruption charges against her were swept under the carpet, there was little talk about her failings as a two-time prime minister, including her support for the Taliban in Afghanistan. She was presented to the Pakistan people as the democratic choice.
The election campaign felt like a shadow play with the government directing the outcome.
And then came the unthinkable. Ten years from now, just as people in the United States ask each other where they were on 9/11, Pakistanis will ask each other where they were when they heard the news of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
We were all shocked — no, stunned. How could this have happened? Regardless of what one thought of her politics, she was a courageous woman who fought hard to keep alive the legacy of her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was ousted in a military coup in 1977 and hanged. She paid dearly for her political commitments.
A three-day mourning period was marred by rioting, looting, and more rioting, as we all watched in silence and horror. Factories were burned; people were killed. Would we ever recover from this? And just as we thought we had hit rock bottom, we heard that Ms. Bhutto had left a will, and in it she had named her husband, a dubious character, her successor as head of the Pakistan People’s Party.
Pakistanis wondered how a woman who stood for democracy, who charmed the West with her rhetoric about democracy versus dictatorship, could name her own successor, and a family member at that. To make matters worse, her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, then appointed his 19-year-old son co-chair of the political party. Bilawal is not even old enough to hold office, how can he be heading a political party?
Since Ms. Bhutto’s assassination, Pakistanis have watched in dismay as the government and the Bhutto family have hurled accusations at each other.
Since Ms. Bhutto’s assassination, Pakistanis have watched in dismay as the government and the Bhutto family have hurled accusations at each other. Her husband has accused the government of not providing enough security for his wife after she returned from exile in October and he held President Musharraf directly responsible for her death.
Right off the bat, at a tense, televised press conference, a journalist asked the President whether he had played any part in the assassination of his political opponent. “Frankly, I consider the question below my dignity to answer,” Musharraf responded. “I’ve been brought up in a very educated and civilized family, which believes in values, principle and character. My family, by any imagination, is not one that believes in killing people, assassinations or intriguing.”
Instead the President laid the blame on Islamist militants with al-Qaeda links who are battling government forces in the North-West Frontier Province, specifically naming Baitullah Mehsud and Maulana Fazlullah. He promised to target those responsible.
Musharraf also said that he is under threat himself, having narrowly missed assassination attempts in December 2003. “I cannot say that I am very, very secure. There are people gunning for me. But I know how to protect myself.”
A team from Scotland Yard has arrived in Pakistan to assist the government in its investigation of the assassination. But despite President Musharraf’s assurances of a thorough probe, Pakistanis worry that the Scotland Yard team will not be able to conduct an independent inquiry into Ms. Bhutto assassination.
In 1951, Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, was assassinated in the very same park in Rawalpindi where Benazir Bhutto was murdered.
Pakistan has been here before. In 1951, the country requested the help of the British government when its first Prime Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, was assassinated in the very same park in Rawalpindi where Benazir Bhutto was murdered. Even then, the Scotland Yard investigator was not allowed to operate freely and was sent back after a few weeks. The results of the inquiry were never made public.
This being the land of conspiracy theories, rumors about Ms. Bhutto’s assassination are rampant. Several text messages about the assassination are circulating across the country. They both point to clips posted on the Internet website You Tube. The texts read, “If you want to know the truth about the death of Ms. Bhutto watch these clips.”
In the first clip, Ms. Bhutto is addressing the rally and a man standing next to her is seen gesturing to someone in the crowd. He then makes some suspicious gestures towards Ms. Bhutto. Conspiracy theorists interpret this as a sign that someone in her entourage was responsible for her death.
In the second clip, Ms. Bhutto is speaking to British journalist Sir Robert Frost in an interview last November. In a long, rapid-fire answer to a question, she says that Osama Bin Laden was killed by Ahmad Sheikh, the man responsible for killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Frost did not interrupt or question her about this. Most have interpreted this as a slip of the tongue. But the conspiracy-minded are suggesting that Ms. Bhutto admitted to something she should not have revealed and has paid for it with her life.
Also, in the wake of the assassination, there is more talk of the U.S. trying to impose its will on Pakistan. I had heard this from students when I first arrived in early December. “Perhaps the United States only wants a stable Pakistan, and not a strong one,” one young woman told me. “If they wanted a strong Pakistan, they wouldn’t impose their choices on us.” I found in every strata of society, there are people who believe that the United States only insists on democracy in Pakistan when it suits its needs.
“In a country where a plate of rice buys you a vote, how can there be democracy?”
There are also people who question whether democracy, as the West imagines it, can actually function in Pakistan.
I had a conversation with Rohail Hayatt, a renowned music producer in Karachi. A liberal, secular Pakistani, who formed Pakistan’s first pop band in the 1980’s, he was of the opinion that it was very difficult for democracy to flourish in Pakistan. “In a country where a plate of rice buys you a vote, how can there be democracy?” he asked.
I remember traveling through rural Pakistan in 2002 when the last elections were held and meeting villagers who told me that they were forced to vote for either their landlord or whatever candidate their landlord supported. About sixty percent of the population resides in rural areas where these feudal conditions prevail.
But despite the inhospitable terrain for democracy in much of the country, despite Pakistan’s history of authoritarian rule, and despite the chilling murder of Ms. Bhutto and the violence it unleashed, I can’t help feeling that all is not lost. The political stirring I witnessed in early December, when Pakistani civil society came to life, taking to the streets in support of democratic rights and an independent judiciary, has not been extinguished.
When campaigning resumes for the parliamentary elections on Feb. 18, there is sure to be a sharp debate about the country’s future, and how the coutry should deal with the increasing Islamic radicalism in its midst.
Pakistan: Burn, Baby, Burn
January 2, 2008
BY Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
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| Burned out cars litter the streets of Karachi following the violence. |
Editor’s Note: In a televised speech to the nation Jan. 2, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf vowed that the army and police would crackdown forcefully on any renewed violence, and he appealed for calm in preparation for elections now postponed until Feb. 18. But as our reporter Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy writes from Karachi, the city is still tense after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and emotions are raw.
As dawn broke in Karachi the day after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, its residents woke to find their city looted and vandalized. After a night of rioting, an eerie silence hung in the air, as business owners surveyed the damage.
Paramilitary forces were given orders to shoot to kill if they came upon any protestors destroying property, but it was too late. More than 50 people had been killed across the country. Three hundred and sixty bank branches nationwide were torched and ransacked. Twenty railway stations were burnt and in Karachi, railway tracks were dug up by an angry mob. An industrial area in the heart of the city resembled a war zone, littered with the charred remains of cars and trucks.
The violence was the worst Karachi has ever seen.
“My father had suffered a major heart attack and we were on our way to the hospital when a mob attacked us,” said Ambareen Khursheed. “My mother and brother tried to stop them, to explain that my father was dying, but they didn’t care. They wanted to burn the car with all of us in it.” Her father died soon afterwards. “They were not mourning the death of a leader, these people just needed an opportunity to loot and plunder the city,” she told me at her father’s funeral.
“They were not mourning the death of a leader, these people just needed an opportunity to loot and plunder the city.”
Most people sat glued to their television sets. In a chai khana (tea room) in Neelum colony, several day laborers watched the Bhutto funeral proceedings in disbelief. One of them, Jan Khatim, told me that even though he didn’t agree with her politics, he was appalled by her murder. “I remember the days when we had peace and security. I am a devout Muslim man, but I condemn this killing. No Islamic man can say that this was done in the name of our religion,” he said.
A few others nodded in agreement and one of them, Sahib Khan, came over from his table to tell me that he had been caught in the rioting the evening before. “These people are criminals. They weren’t mourning, they were looting. I saw it with my own eyes. They looted a carpet shop and then a grocery store.”
Out on the streets, life slowly limped back to normalcy. But even now, most shops and fuel stations remain closed. Those that dared to open were threatened by groups of people wielding sticks. “Our Quaid (leader) is dead,” they screamed “and you want to do business.”
Most poor residents of Karachi do not own refrigerators and rely on daily groceries to feed their families. In Punjab Colony, Begum Nusrat was rushing from one closed shop to the next. “I have three small children, and nothing at home to feed them with. How can they close everything? What about us, the poor citizens? How will we feed ourselves?” she said as tears rolled down her face.
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| Some of the worst violence took place on the streets of Karachi, Benazir Bhutto’s home turf. |
Soon a crowd gathered around. They were all frustrated and angry. “We don’t care about politics,” said Zubaida Khanum, whose ailing mother had no access to medicines. “We are sad that they killed Benazir but the Pakistan People’s Party is supposed to be for the poor of the country, and this is how they treat us. They burn our motorcycles and close our shops, they leave us poorer and hungrier.”
What was most surprising to many in all of this was the fact that no senior Pakistan People’s Party leader condemned the violence.
Karachi was Ms. Bhutto’s hometown. This is where she received her early education and built her home and this is where she enjoyed a lot of support in her early years. In Gizri, an area hit by violence, where tires still burned on the streets, a group of her supporters, carrying her photograph and waving her party’s flag, told me that they were shocked and ready to avenge her death.
“She is the greatest leader we will ever have. The Bhuttos are for the people of Pakistan, they work for the poor, and they killed her,” said Ahmed Sohail, a twenty-year-old electrician. He blamed her assassination on the government. “She was a threat to Musharraf so they killed her.”
“The Pakistan People’s Party is supposed to be for the poor of the country, and this is how they treat us. They burn our motorcycles and close our shops, they leave us poorer and hungrier.”
But even Ms. Bhutto’s supporters were divided as to why she was killed. Ghulam Hassan, a car mechanic in the group, accused the Islamic militants. “These religious organizations could not stand taking orders from a woman. But I tell you she was more of a man than any of them, that’s why they killed her.”
More controversy followed, as it emerged that Ms. Bhutto had left a letter with Mark Siegel, her U.S. spokesman and lobbyist, saying that if she were killed, President Musharraf would be to blame. “I would hold Musharraf responsible,” she wrote. “I have been made to feel insecure by his minions…”
Soon after the release of the letter, in a televised press conference, the Pakistani government’s spokesperson declared that Ms. Bhutto had not died from shrapnel or bullet wounds but from hitting her head on her jeep’s sunroof. Ms. Bhutto’s aides promptly accused the government of covering up her assassination and urged international governments to send in impartial investigators to determine what really happened.
Newspaper editorials wondered how the government could come up with such a ludicrous theory when photographs and videos clearly showed that a man armed with a hand gun and a suicide bomber managed to breach her security and got in close range of her car. But some Urdu language news coverage was cautious and questioned why Ms. Bhutto, who was well aware of the threats made against her life, would risk exposing her head and torso from her jeep, making herself a clear target.
Most were shocked when they heard that (Bhutto) had left a will in which her husband had been made the head of her political party.
Benazir Bhutto undoubtedly left a void and even those who didn’t agree with her or her politics mourned her death. But most were shocked when they heard that she had left a will in which her husband had been made the head of her political party. Asif Ali Zardari is widely regarded as one of the most corrupt people in Pakistan. He has pending court cases in Switzerland and the United Kingdom. He has already served a jail term in Pakistan of eleven years on charges related to corruption.
Addressing a press conference Mr. Zardari named his 19-year-old son, Bilawal Zardari, (who has since added his mother’s maiden name, Bhutto to his) co-chair of the Pakistan People’s Party. A sober Bilawal addressed a large cadre of journalists and announced, “My mother always said, democracy is the best revenge.”
Bilal Zubair, a banker, who watched the press conference with his family, expressed his anger at this turn of events. “We live in a banana republic, where a 19 year old, who isn’t even old enough to contest the elections, is made to change his last name and command the largest political party in the country.”
Others had similar feelings. “America insists on democracy for Pakistan. Well how democratic is Benazir’s will? She was supposed to be a democratic person but she turned out to be as nepotistic in death as she was in life. Why aren’t Americans insisting that the People’s party have internal elections? Their silence is deafening,” said Huma Naeem, an artist.
It seems that in death as in life, Ms. Bhutto has polarized the nation.
Pakistan: The New Taliban
December 21, 2007
BY Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
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Length: 4:54 |
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| There are as many as 10,000 Islamic schools in Karachi alone. |
Editor’s Note: As campaigning continues for Pakistan’s pivotal January 8 parliamentary elections, FRONTLINE/World reporter Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy files the third in a series of dispatches — this one focusing on the rise of fundamentalist political forces challenging President Musharraf’s government.
On the streets of Karachi, the religious political parties are campaigning hard for the January elections. Their army of madrassa (Islamic school) students are wall chalking, hanging banners, handing out leaflets and encouraging people to bring the Islamists to power.
The religious parties have reason to believe that they may be victorious. In the 2002 elections, they made formidable gains — for the first time in the country’s history they took control of a quarter of the seats in parliament. Their aim this time: To win majority control of parliament and elect their own Prime Minister.
The religious parties have reason to believe that they may be victorious. In the 2002 elections, they made formidable gains.
There are as many as 10,000 Islamic schools in Karachi alone. Though the religious parties say they forbid political activities on their campuses, that’s not what I found when I visited one such school in Sohrab Goth, a very poor area on the edge of Karachi.
This is a vast, sprawling, dusty neighborhood, which came into existence in the early 1980s when refugees from the war in Afghanistan poured into camps set up by the Pakistani government. The camps are long gone. Now a mix of second generation Afghans and Pakistanis live here in concrete buildings. A traditionally conservative area, women seldom leave their homes unaccompanied by men, and the Afghan traditional blue burqa is the norm.
I arrived at Jamia Baitul Muqadas in Sohrab Goth on a crisp December morning at the invitation of its headmaster Maulana Mohammad Ghayas, who is contesting the upcoming elections. The maulana wanted to show me that he ran a liberal Islamic school, that Islamic religious parties were not a threat to the country, and that once elected they were going to bring peace and prosperity.
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| Headmaster Maulana Mohammad Ghayas says he runs a liberal Islamic school. |
Some madrassas are opening up their doors in an effort to allay the fears of those who believe that these institutions are hot beds of fundamentalist activities. Many madrassas forbid female journalists but I was allowed to walk freely through the halls of the school and speak to any of the students I chose to.
Classes were in full swing when I arrived, children as young as five were enrolled. As I passed one of the classes, I saw a teacher berating a student. He was holding a large pipe in his hand, ready to strike. When he saw me, he dropped it. Madrassa teachers have a reputation of being harsh to their students. Severe corporal punishments are handed out in the name of Islam.
The maulana on his tour insisted that the religious school was not a training ground for militants as people in the West thought. He was right in one sense: There were no weapons lying around. But the Islamic schools, even those without direct links to violence, promote an ideology that provides religious justification for violent attacks. An entire generation of Pakistanis is growing up in these madrassas, devoid of any critical thinking, and developing severe hatred for anything Western. These Pakistanis are the backbone of the religious parties and they have the street power to paralyze cities.
An entire generation of Pakistanis is growing up in these madrassas, devoid of any critical thinking, and developing severe hatred for anything Western.
In 2002, President Musharraf vowed to reform the madrassa system and its curriculum. Foreign students were to be registered with the government and the classroom content was to be vetted. Five years later, his plans have failed. Maulana Ghayas declared that the president could not control the madrassas because they were not funded by the government and did not rely on their resources. “We are an independent body,” he told me. “We rely on private donations, how can the president control us? We will never listen to him.”
At the madrassa I met 25-year-old Khan Sahab, an Afghani by birth, who told me that Pakistan’s true identity had been distorted by President Musharraf. “He thinks that Kamal Ataturk [the father of the modern Turkish republic] should be Pakistan’s mascot. Our ideal is our Prophet Mohammad, not some secular Turkish man.” Khan had spent the past four years studying at this madrassa, and he hoped that the headmaster would win the elections. “President Musharraf has women on television, there is no Shariah law here, women can walk around amongst men, we will change all of that when our leaders come to power. That is the true destiny of Pakistan.”
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| Many who attend the religious schools are proud to be associated with the Taliban. |
Downstairs, before the call to prayers, I met with 14-year-old Saeed Shah, who had seven siblings all studying at various madrassas around the city. “I am proud to say that I am a Taliban,” he told me. “A Taliban is not what you people think he is, he is a true Muslim, only America has made him to look like a villain. To us a Taliban is a hero, a true defender of Islam.”
The headmaster, Muhammad Ghayas, belongs to Pakistan’s largest Islamic political party, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, which gained prominence in the 1970s when it played a vital role in assisting the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets. Today, The Jamiat is known to have links with the Taliban on the Pakistan as well as the Afghan side of the border. In the past two years the party assisted Musharraf’s government in negotiating a peace deal with the insurgents in the tribal belt of Waziristan.
Though the party’s leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, is a suave politician and is not opposed to working with the more secular parties in Pakistani politics, his followers are more hard line. They want an Islamic Shariah-run government more severe than Saudi Arabia’s.
An active Islamist insurgency in the tribal belt has spilled over to other areas like the Swat Valley. There are bomb blasts on a daily basis; hundreds of Pakistanis have lost their lives in recent months.
They may be well on their way. Already an active Islamist insurgency in the tribal belt has spilled over to other areas like the Swat Valley. There are bomb blasts on a daily basis; hundreds of Pakistanis have lost their lives in recent months. In some areas in the northwest, women are forbidden to work and attend schools. Barbershops have been closed down, CD and DVD stores burnt. Renegade FM radio stations are broadcasting calls for Jihad.
Musharraf’s government has been slow to control religious extremism in Karachi and the rest of the country. This has emboldened the religious parties and leaders like Maulana Ghayas who feel the time is ripe to bring about an Islamic revolution. Not through violence, he told me, but by the ballot.
Video Credits:
Camera: Mahera Omar, Sohail Ahmed
Pakistan: “The Liberal Dictator”
December 5, 2007
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Length: 3:19 |
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| From left, Afia Zia and Nazish Brohi, founding members of the “People’s Resistance” group at their weekly candlelight vigil outside the Karachi Press Club. |
Editor’s Note: When President Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule in early November, fired his entire Supreme Court and arrested hundreds of judges and lawyers, mass protests followed, and the country was thrown into political turmoil. To take the current mood of the country, we asked our long-time correspondent in Pakistan, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, to write a series of diary dispatches in the run up to the elections Musharraf says will take place on January 8. In her first diary entry, Obaid-Chinoy reports from Karachi, where, she says, the city is alive with political activity for the first time in 20 years.
I landed in Karachi to find a city galvanized by politics. It’s been more than two decades since civil society has made any effort to engage in the political process. In fact, my generation, those in their 20s and 30s, has never seen such fervor in the streets. These are exhilarating times for Pakistan, both for those who oppose President Musharraf and for those who support him. Debates once held over dinner tables inside people’s homes are now being heard everywhere, from the pages of Facebook to blogs and radio shows.
On the first evening back in my hometown, I was invited to a meeting of individuals calling themselves the “People’s Resistance.” They came together soon after President Musharraf imposed the state of emergency on November 3, and their members are doctors, lawyers, women’s rights activists and journalists from this middle class neighborhood. During the past month, they had been organizing flash protests, candlelight vigils and demonstrations, often using graffiti to get their message across. “One coup per dictator” and “Go Musharraf Go” are two of their most used slogans.
I couldn’t help thinking that inadvertently President Musharraf’s emergency decree had been good for Pakistan. It had stirred up the dormant middle and upper classes, which seldom took part in the electoral process or even bothered to vote.
The agenda that evening was simple: Should the People’s Resistance boycott the upcoming elections or not? The 20 or so members present launched into a lively debate, where the women were far more vocal in opposing Musharraf than the men. In the end, they unanimously voted to boycott the upcoming elections if the ousted [Supreme Court] judges were not reinstated and current conditions persisted. [During the first week in December, Musharraf renewed his pledge to end the state of emergency on December 16 in preparation for the January 8 elections.]
I couldn’t help thinking that inadvertently President Musharraf’s emergency decree had been good for Pakistan. It had stirred up the dormant middle and upper classes, which seldom took part in the electoral process or even bothered to vote. Now they were asking tough questions of the state.
“Look, we have no romantic illusions about the political parties — we know they are corrupt and nepotistic,” Nazish Brohi, a social policy researcher and founder of the group, told me after the meeting. “We just want the system to work. Judges can’t be thrown out at the whim of one man. If we allow the system to work, then it will produce leaders who we can elect in the future.”
When I asked her if democracy could work in Pakistan, she responded with certainty: Yes, it could.
“I want to debunk the myth that an illiterate population will not be able to elect good leaders,” she said. “Education is not a prerequisite for intelligent voting.”
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| Activist Tarzia Mohuddin with her teenage daughters Michelle and Ghanwa at the vigil. |
Another woman at the meeting, sociologist and columnist Afia Zia, acknowledged that Musharraf had advanced the cause of women in Pakistan. “It’s been funny because General Musharraf has been a liberal dictator,” she said. “He’s given us a lot of rights.” But she insisted that the military and Musharraf must “get out of politics” for democracy to have a chance.
Outside, I spoke to a young man who was closing his shop for the evening. Adil Khawar had heard the chants “Go Musharraf Go” coming from the meeting across the street. When I asked him about the current state of the country and the upcoming elections, he looked at me with a wry smile. “I don’t know what democracy is because I haven’t really experienced it, but I do feel a sense of freedom,” he said, adding, “I feel for President Musharraf — he is up against a lot, and I know that he means well for this country.” Then, pausing, he said, “Maybe we don’t deserve him.”
Later, while surfing through Facebook, where many young Pakistanis gather to talk about the political future of their country, I found at least as many groups for Musharraf as against him. Students as young as 14 were sharing their opinions under headings such as “We choose Musharraf but oppose emergency in Pakistan” and “A Turnip would make a better Head of State than Musharraf.”
A young musician called Imran Qadir told me that a number of his friends were joining rallies and protesting, but he supported Musharraf because he’d given many freedoms to Pakistanis.
A young musician called Imran Qadir told me that a number of his friends were joining rallies and protesting, but he supported President Musharraf because he’d given many freedoms to Pakistanis. “You know, when I was 14, you couldn’t wear jeans on television. Nawaz Sharif’s government was so anti-Westernization that if I wanted my music video aired on state-run television, I would have to heavily censor it. But in the last eight years, we have over 40 television channels; I can say what I want; I can wear what I want and will not be censored.” But Qadir said he was considering moving away from Pakistan because of the uncertainty: “I don’t want [former prime ministers] Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif to come into power, because they are not democratic in any way. They are despots, who are power hungry and will do anything to get what they want. In fact, I won’t be surprised if they turn back the clock for our generation.”
The debate has polarized Pakistan’s urban professional classes, many of whom sympathize with President Musharraf and have nothing but disdain for their democratic choices.
Another young woman, Sabina Ahmed, told me that she had never felt so passionate about politics in her life: “President Musharraf is a dictator. He may be liberal, but he is as power hungry as the rest. He has ruined this country’s judiciary and removed our best judges from power. It is going to take the country at least a decade to recover.”
The debate has polarized Pakistan’s urban professional classes, many of whom sympathize with President Musharraf and have nothing but disdain for their democratic choices. They credit the president with holding economic growth at 7.5 percent and for attracting billions of dollars in foreign investment to the country. But they also feel that he has crossed the line by removing the judiciary and silencing the media.
At a candlelight vigil the next evening, many expressed that they wanted the president to resign immediately. Tarzia Mohuddin had brought along her teenage daughters. Holding a sign that read, “Freedom of Thought and Expression,” she told me that Musharraf had disappointed her. “He started out so well,” she said. “But now he has destroyed everything he claimed he stood for. How can there be democracy when he has destroyed the very institutions that could uphold it?”
Video Credits:
Camera: Mahera Omar, Sohail Ahmed