This is a bit of a oxymoron. Pakistan has been run by a military dictator for the last 8 years, but the dictator kept some of the trappings of democracy around, like a free press, an opposition, of not just politicians but private armies belonging to anyone who cared, like the Taliban, roaming around the country, and so on.
Recently, the dictator tried to reassert his loosening grip on power, and miserably failed to deal with the private armies or even the politicians in the opposition.
He’s “aiming now at easier targets”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7076670.stm – law and order, which he has fixed by closing down the Supreme Court, and moved on to the favorite punching bag of all two bit dictators – the free press. All private TV channels are off the air, with only the state run propaganda channel operation, and that too under the guns of the Pakistan army.
I really like the reasoning which Musharraf is about to give to justify the emergency. In short, it is because _militants are killing us in Swat_. where us is Musharraf’s army. So, it logically follows that we must send a few truckloads of soldiers to surround the Supreme Court, as they are aiding and abetting the enemy. These pesky TV channels must also go, as they are telling the enemy… something.
“Deja Vu”:http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/2007/10/more_pakistani_politics_dejavu_yet.html, and the internet is probably next in line…
So Musharraf gave a speech on TV explaining the declaration of martial law, which he is calling emergency plus instead of martial law – but far as I could make out he said nothing at all. The one thing of note is that he had white stitching on the collar of his black sherwani, and it spoiled the whole look. He needs a better fashion designer.
Loved the sarcam, and well said, its all to protect one person and his greed for wealth and power while the rest of the country goes to hell
its time the people of pakistan, stood together and said no to military, in the country`s affairs.
I wonder if anything’s going to change.. if people will take to the streets or not, and whether that’ll make any difference at all.
There’s this documentary I recently watched, called “This revolution will not be televised”. It’s about Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, but there are some very interesting parrallels to Pakistan’s current predicament. I’d recommend it to anyone with a reasonably fast Internet connection – it’s available on Google videos, but it’s slightly over an hour long: video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144