Pakistan

By Farooq Tariq
Instability, price hikes, growing unemployment and rising debts are the hallmark of the first nine month of Pakistan Peoples Party government. There are daily demonstrations across Pakistan on one or another issue by the masses.

Report by Bakht Gir Choudry
December 18, 2008: As a demand for 24-hour general strike for the restoration of Iftikhar Choudry, the deposed chief justice of Supreme Court, was made by spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan Farooq Tariq, there was non stop clapping for few minutes by the lawyers. The Lahore High Court Bar Association had invited Farooq Tariq as their main speaker on 18 December at the general body meeting held in Kiyani Hall Lahore. Hundreds of top lawyers of Pakistan have filled the hall.

By Iftikhar A. Khan
Dawn, November 3: [Pakistan's] political and military leadership warned the United States on Monday against air strikes inside Pakistan and stressed that territorial integrity of the country must be respected.

On November 3, thousands of people joined lawyers in a march from Rawalpindi to Islamabad to mark the anniversary of the declaration of emergency rule by former Pakistan president, General Pervez Musharraf. The march also demanded the reinstatement of popular former Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudry, who was removed by Musharraf for showing too much independence. This removal galvanised a mass movement initiated by militant lawyers which then grew into a broader peoples movement which finally forced Musharraf to resign.

Civil society, labour unions, political parties and student marched on November 1 in protest the Pakistan military and US bombing in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. US missile strikes hours apart killed at least 27 people on October 31 near the border with Afghanistan, only days after Pakistan demanded that the United States halt an intensifying campaign of using Predator drones to bomb tribal areas in Pakistan.

• See also Tariq Ali: The American war moves to Pakistan
• Click here for other stories on Pakistan on this website

By Tariq Ali
The decision to make public a presidential order of last July authorizing American strikes inside Pakistan without seeking the approval of the Pakistani government ends a long debate within, and on the periphery of, the Bush administration. Senator Barack Obama, aware of this ongoing debate during his own long battle with Hillary Clinton, tried to outflank her by supporting a policy of U.S. strikes into Pakistan. Senator John McCain and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin have now echoed this view and so it has become, by consensus, official U.S. policy. Its effects on Pakistan could be catastrophic, creating a severe crisis within the army and in the country at large. The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis are opposed to the U.S. presence in the region, viewing it as the most serious threat to peace.

By Farooq Tariq
The 2 October suicidal attack on Asfand Yar Wali Khan's Hujra in Charsada and the 20/9 deadly attack in Islamabad must be condemned by all. So is the case of all the suicidal attacks all over. There must not be any pretext, rationalization or any foundation for such an attack. These are gutless acts by groups claiming to be anti imperialist. The sheer volume of dynamite, over 800 kilogram, used in 20/9 suicidal attack shows that it is not a work of an isolated group. It could be an Alqaida work or a group having similar power and resources.
However, these attacks have created a ground for an all out brutalities by the Pakistani government and the American imperialism against the ordinary citizens in all parts of Pakistan . Any act of individual terrorism can only create a puzzlement, confusion, bafflement, disappointments, panic, alarm, fright, dread, and fear for the time being. In most cases, the state forces immediately reorganize it to
respond to these attacks.

By Farooq Sulehria
A highly-explosive truck on September 20 rammed into the gates of the posh Marriot Hotel in high-security zone of Pakistani capital Islamabad. A fact, until writing of these lines, carefully avoided in mainstream Western media is: the target was the USA.
A section of Pakistani press, however, was quick in pointing out, as target, "a top secret and mysterious operation of the US Marines going on inside the Marriott when it was attacked on Saturday evening". According to daily Dawn, "Well-equipped security officers from the US embassy were seen on the spot soon after the explosions. However, they left the scene shortly afterwards".

September 12, 2008: At least 12 people were killed and 10 others injured in yet an other US drone's attack at Miranshah in North Waziristan, Pakistan, just a day after NATO officials announced in Brussels that its forces will not take part in the US strategy of conducting raids into Pakistan from Afghanistan.

September 11, 2008: US President George W. Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials cited by the International Herald Tribune.