Musharraf pips the Supreme court and declares Emergency!

Musharraf has gone the way that previous army generals have gone before him, that is the way of the Emergency and the imposition of the Martial law. It is sad to see democracy being given such short shrift in Pakistan and although this news is shocking in its very nature, it certainly comes as no surprise to any of us in the sense that we all expected this rouge general to do this quite a while back.
All the fundamental rights of all Pakistani citizens are hereby suspended, what is more the very constitution of Pakistan is hereby suspended by a new Provisional Constitutional Order, one which cannot be legally challenged in a court of law.

What started off Musharraf on this road to the emergency was the removal of the Supreme court chief justice Iftekhar Chaudhry and this started off Musharraf on a collision course with the judiciary. Soon the rest of Pakistan joined in to protest the rule of the general Musharraf. Under enormous pressure, Musharraf had reinstated Iftekhar Chaudhry as the chief justice of Pakistan but it seems that the plans to remove him were already in motion. The Supreme court of Pakistan was to announce its verdict on the 14th of November regarding the validity of the recently held presidential elections which Musharraf won by a huge margin. Had Musharraf waited until the 14th of November, his reelection may well have been declared invalid. So as to prevent that from happening and to remain in power, Musharraf pipped the judiciary in declaring this emergency.

The reasons put forth by Musharraf in declaring this emergency are manifold but one of the chief reasons was the recent surge in militancy and the attack on Ms. Bhutto's life. Of course, there are many who think that the attack was self contrived by the general and that it was all too convenient for him to get rid off his chief political rival. All said and done, Bhutto had emerged as the strongest political contender and had the bomb attack worked and Bhutto had died, then Musharraf would have got ridden off his main rival. Since he could not do much to Nawaz sheriff due to the Saudi royal family connection, he decided to deal with Bhutto and we all know how that attack went. Bhutto must have gotten an inkling of things to happen in Pakistan which is why she flew to Dubai under the pretext of seeing her children but the latest reports suggest that Benazir Bhutto is on her way back and is due to arrive in Karachi even as I write this post.

All fundamental rights are all suspended and there are to be no meetings of any kind and the army has moved into all corners of Pakistan with orders to fire at will. This is not the kind of behaviour that one expected from one of America's closet allies in the war on terror. Recently Condi rice had said that the current administration is totally against any imposition of any emergency or any martial law but it seems that is what is taking place in Pakistan as we speak.More to the fact, right now there is a high level meeting going on in the American embassy in Islamabad between the American officials to chalk out their position on the current emergency. Meanwhile, the army entered the Supreme court of Pakistan and told Iftekhar Chaudhry, that his services as the chief justice of the Supreme court of Pakistan is no longer required. This has all the hallmarks of being just a preview before the actual 'martial law' is imposed on Pakistan. At the moment, in Pakistan, all phone calls and mobile signals are halted as well as the airing of independent television channels. It is sad to see this happen to a neighbouring country and one that India values a great deal. What is puzzling me a little bit is both India and Pakistan have a common heritage and a similar constitution that upholds democratic values. Yet, in Pakistan, time and time again, the democratic values have been suspended and the army has taken the reins of power from an elected government. This has happened so many times that it seems that this imposition of the emergency since the time of General Zia ul haq has become an all to familiar story in Pakistan. It seems that even the coffee wallah no longer looks surprised as the army imposes emergency on his home nation and it has all the appearances of 'Business as usual'!

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