First The New York Times reported here that the Pak Army had been "misusing" funds received from the USA. Then the Real Chief Justice stated Pakistan was passing through the darkest period of its history. And then, The Age, a major Australian newspaper, reported that the road to democracy in Pakistan may be a dead end.
On top of all that, A. Pakistani, one of our regular contributers, came up with an interesting but quite insightful way of looking at what the Musharraf regime has been doing lately. According to A. Pakistani, the real aim of the government was to actually imprison about 100 to 200 key resistant figures but it arrested more than 6000 people so that it could release 5900 or so after a week or two and give the impression of a "relenting" or "benign" or even a "vulnerable" regime. In his analysis, the same strategy was at work in the announcement that the emergency would be lifted on Dec. 16 and then it was lifted on Dec. 15. The government has not relented on any front and has not released any of the lawyers or judges but it is engineering a "soft" front. This is the same image-maintenance technique that Musharraf used in the early years of his coup against a civilian government. He was carefully hiring public relations firms to portray a "soft" image of his "enlightened" martial law.
We will have more of the same on every important front, it seems. Only nominal and simulated "retreat" and a lot of strategically important "captures" and "gains" by the Retired Commando and his strategists. A. Pakistani says we should look at the Real Chief Justice and other key lawyers as Prisoners of War -- the war against the people of Pakistan by its own "overfed on tax-rupees" army.
On top of all that, A. Pakistani, one of our regular contributers, came up with an interesting but quite insightful way of looking at what the Musharraf regime has been doing lately. According to A. Pakistani, the real aim of the government was to actually imprison about 100 to 200 key resistant figures but it arrested more than 6000 people so that it could release 5900 or so after a week or two and give the impression of a "relenting" or "benign" or even a "vulnerable" regime. In his analysis, the same strategy was at work in the announcement that the emergency would be lifted on Dec. 16 and then it was lifted on Dec. 15. The government has not relented on any front and has not released any of the lawyers or judges but it is engineering a "soft" front. This is the same image-maintenance technique that Musharraf used in the early years of his coup against a civilian government. He was carefully hiring public relations firms to portray a "soft" image of his "enlightened" martial law.
We will have more of the same on every important front, it seems. Only nominal and simulated "retreat" and a lot of strategically important "captures" and "gains" by the Retired Commando and his strategists. A. Pakistani says we should look at the Real Chief Justice and other key lawyers as Prisoners of War -- the war against the people of Pakistan by its own "overfed on tax-rupees" army.
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