Growing resentment in Pakistan against emergency

After lawyers, now students are emerging on the scene to oppose the military regime. Demonstrations took place on November 7 in most of the public and private universities of Pakistan. “Student power rises from slumber” was the headline of News International the next day. All courts across Pakistan are on a standstill and Pakistan Bar Council has announced an indefinite strike until the new Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) is withdrawn. There have been demonstrations on daily basis by the lawyers across Pakistan. Most newspapers in Pakistan are full of stories of arrests, demonstrations and strikes. No private television channel, however, has been allowed to broadcast news in Pakistan. You can only watch songs, dances, sports and religious readings on different channels but no news bulletin is being allowed, apart from the official Pakistan Television. The media organisations are also joining the mass movement after unprecedented repression against the electronic and print media. Benazir’s dilemma The most surprising opposition to the military regime has come from Benazir Bhutto. She was in negotiation with Musharraf regime for a power sharing formula. But the lawyers’ movement intervened in this unholy alliance, forcing Benazir to come up openly against the military regime. Almost half of the arrested lawyers belong to Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Benazir asked the Pakistani masses to rise up against the martial law of General Musharraf. “Restore the constitution or else we will have long march from Lahore to Islamabad on November 13,” she warned the regime. This resulted in the arrests of PPP activists across the country. They were spared by the regime in the first phase of repression. International outrage His close imperialist friends from the US, the UK and the European Union have been forced to condemn this imposition of emergency at least in words for the first time since Nine Eleven. Even Australia has condemned the sorry state of affairs in Pakistan and termed Musharraf “a dictator” for the first time, a fact Pakistani people knew for eight years. The Netherlands has suspended the aid to Pakistan and the US is reviewing its relationship with the military regime, according to the reports published here. Crackdown The movement is still growing in all spheres of life. This is despite an unprecedented level of repression. The police entered the office of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and arrested over 80 social and political activists who were discussing their strategy to oppose the military action. Police also entered the buildings of the Lahore High Court and arrested over 700 lawyers from the chambers of the judges, libraries, bar rooms and canteen. This was not done even under the most brutal martial law of General Zia-ul-Haq in the eighties. According to the home ministry in Punjab province, 1,734 political activists, journalists and lawyers were arrested during the first four days of the martial law. Similar figures were stated by the administrations of other three provinces. This has been the most brutal repression unleashed on the opponents of the Musharraf regime during the last eight years. The arrested lawyers and political activists have been charged with Anti Terrorist Act and they have been sent to far off places from their hometowns. No one can meet them. Similar repressive treatment has been meted out to those judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts of Pakistan who have courageously refused to take oath under the new Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO). They are put under house arrest and their children are not allowed to attend schools. Doctors have been refused entries to their houses where they were called for emergency treatments. Police are raiding the houses of the lawyers and political opponents of the military regime on regular basis. Pakistan has become a police and military state in the real sense of the term. Police presence can be seen everywhere in the major cities. There was an increase in cases of thefts and robberies during the first four days because police were only deployed to curb opposition to the regime. General Musharraf is now facing more opposition than he ever did among the general public in Pakistan. This is a real crisis of the Pakistan state. With each passing day the regime is getting more and more isolated. Now, it is only two political parties supporting the regime – Muslim League (Q) and Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM). Left resistance Several activists of Awami Jamhoori Tehreek (AJT), the alliance of seven leftwing political parties and groups are under arrest, including Nisar Shah, chairperson of Labour Party Pakistan. Abid Hassan Minto, convener of AJT and president of National Workers’ Party has asked all the leftwing forces to join the movement and fight the military regime. Student uprising against the regime is mainly the work of the leftwing forces and radical social activists. Fallout on economy It was a black Monday on November 5 for the stock exchanges in Pakistan. The stock exchange crash resulted in a net loss of US$ 4 billion in a single day, unprecedented in the history of last 17 years of the exchange. The implementation of neoliberal agenda on a faster speed has been marked by daily price hikes and growing unemployment. Free market rules the roost, resulting in monopolisation of the economy. The economic growth has not percolated down to the bottom. About 70% of the 160 million people in the country continue to reel under abject poverty.

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