[Amirmsheesk]

The New York Times
July 9, 2007
Editorial
.
The General in His Labyrinth


Reuters
EMBATTLED President Pervez Musharraf


America needs to maintain friendly relations with Pakistan. That is exactly why Washington should hasten to disentangle itself from the sinking fortunes of Gen. Pervez Musharraf — a blundering and increasingly unpopular military dictator and a halfhearted strategic ally of the United States.

After 9/11 — fearing he could become a target in President Bush’s declared war on terrorism— General Musharraf agreed to drop his open support for the Taliban in Afghanistan and provide limited intelligence and logistical help to U.S. forces there.

Still, he has done far less than he promised — and far less than is needed. It’s not clear which side his intelligence services are rooting for, while Taliban and Qaeda fighters continue to find shelter and support on Pakistan’s side of the Afghan border. Yesterday, The Times reported that the Bush administration scrubbed a 2005 American attempt to capture Qaeda leaders on Pakistani soil so as not to cause trouble for General Musharraf. Meanwhile, Washington continues to uncritically support the general’s highhanded rule.

We’ve seen this story too many times before. One version starred the shah of Iran, others some of General Musharraf’s predecessors. None ended happily for the United States or the nations involved. Dealing with dictators is sometimes necessary. Clinging to them when their people want them gone is unbecoming of the world’s greatest democracy and unhealthy for America’s long-term interests.


Pakistan is approaching a turning point. Local Taliban militias and their Islamist allies have capitalized on General Musharraf’s appeasement policies and are extending their influence. The middle class is in revolt over the general’s sacking of Pakistan’s chief justice, his attempts at media censorship and his effort to award himself a new presidential term without free and fair elections. Military officers are tired of taking the heat and some are now pressing for a return to civilian government.


General Musharraf may hold on to power a while longer, or he may not. But it is past time for the Bush administration to stop making excuses for the general. Washington needs to make clear to the Pakistani people that America is the ally of their country, not their dictator, and that the United States favors the earliest possible return to free elections and civilian rule.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/opinion/09mon2.html

[TodeImmabbedo]

The New York Times
July 15, 2007

How a Clash Helped Pakistan’s Leader — and Didn’t

By DAVID ROHDE

A NIGHTMARE seemed to be unfolding last week when commandos stormed a hardline Islamic mosque in Pakistan’s capital. With at least 87 dead, it looked as if the clash could set off an Islamic uprising in the world’s only nuclear-armed Muslim nation.

Instead, few people attended protests organized by religious parties on Friday. What the battle at the mosque seemed to reveal was how complex Pakistani politics is, and how far Islamist radicals are from gaining widespread popular support, Pakistani and American analysts said.

“There was no uprising because the society is not radical and is more opposed to extremism than most commentators think,” said Frederic Grare, a Pakistan analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “The clash demonstrates that the majority of the people will back a policy aimed at reducing radicals’ influence.”

When hard-liners holed up inside the mosque called for a popular uprising, average Pakistanis ignored them. When radicals killed the senior army officer on the scene, the order went out from Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the country’s increasingly unpopular American-backed military leader, to crush the challenge to military authority. When it was over, the general seemed to have solidified his support from other army officers, his most important power base.

Whether he can hold onto power is another matter, though, since his biggest rivals for popular support are not the radicals but members of Pakistan’s dissatisfied secular democracy movement. They backed him against the Islamists, but they still want him and the military out of power.
And the militants remain a dangerous force, however small or unpopular.

Pakistani analysts predicted there would be terrorist attacks in retaliation for last week’s clash, perhaps including attempts on General Musharraf’s life. But they also said the attacks are likely to be centered in their area of greatest influence, along the Afghan border in the country’s largely lawless northwest, and are unlikely to destabilize the rest of Pakistan. “I do think there will be a rise in terrorist attacks, but it won’t be sustained,” said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani Army general and analyst.

Looking forward, the questions for Pakistan’s leaders remain how to contain the relatively small number of violent radicals while resolving rising tensions in the bigger political battle between military and civilian leaders.

One question is whether General Musharraf will now begin a wider crackdown against radicals and the religious parties that support them. Pakistan’s Army has long used such radicals as fighters in India and Afghanistan, while their parties were de facto allies against the secular democrats.

But the big question is whether the general can survive a growing civilian-led, pro-democracy movement that is challenging military rule. Protests over his firing of the Supreme Court’s chief justice continue. Ethnic and regional tensions simmer. Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for this fall and winter.

“If the general political challenges continue,” said Teresita Schaffer, South Asia director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, “you could see a state of emergency or some other generalized crackdown — which will probably be described to the U.S. as a crackdown on extremists, but which will really be a crackdown on political dissidence.”

Last week, Bush administration officials continued to express support for General Musharraf. But Mr. Grare and other analysts said Pakistanis are more ambivalent.

Among Pakistan’s citizens, Mr. Grare said, “it is not certain that the support expressed for this specific action will offset the opposition to military dictatorship.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/we...w/15rohde.html

[darieBarexish]

The New York Times
July 15, 2007

Deadly Violence Surges in the Tribal Regions of Pakistan


Abdullah Noor/Associated Press
Pakistani soldiers stood guard Saturday at the site of a suicide bombing in North Waziristan.
Twenty-four paramilitary soldiers were killed and 26 other people were wounded in the blast near Miram Shah.
By ISMAIL KHAN

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, July 14 — In the deadliest suicide bombing in Pakistan since January, 24 paramilitary soldiers were killed and 26 other people were wounded Saturday near Miram Shah, the headquarters of the restive North Waziristan’s tribal region.

Rocket attacks on government and security installations surged Saturday in different parts of the North-West Frontier Province. An attempt to detonate a car bomb outside a bank here failed.

The deadly surge in violence occurred barely a day after the Interior Ministry in Islamabad announced the end of Operation Silence after a bloody raid to get at militants holed up in the Red Mosque, known here as the Lal Masjid, and the adjoining seminary.

A military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, said all those killed were from the paramilitary force, and five from the military were among those wounded.

He declined to speculate whether the attack had been linked to the end of the Red Mosque siege or to the military takeover of checkpoints that had been abandoned after an agreement with militants last September.

“It could be anything,” General Arshad said, adding that the cause of the spike in violence was being investigated further.

The suicide bombing occurred in the wake of threats by local militants of further attacks if the army does not vacate the checkpoints on Sunday.
In a brazen suicide bombing on Friday, a teenager posing as a tribal policeman entered the heavily guarded official compound of the administrator of North Waziristan in Miram Shah and blew himself up after having been stopped by local guards.

Three people died in that bombing, but the administrator survived.

The fate of the agreement reached last September between local leaders and the government of Pakistan now hangs in the balance. Under that deal, the Pakistani Army agreed to withdraw from the region and turn all control over to tribal elders. In return, Taliban and Qaeda forces sheltered in Waziristan were supposed to stay out of Afghanistan.

Members of the tribal peace committee set up to monitor the implementation of the agreement resigned in May. They have accused the government of violating the terms of the agreement after a raid on a suspected militant hide-out.

Local residents said that after the suicide bombing on Saturday, militants abandoned their office in Miram Shah and were no longer seen patrolling the local market.

They said that residents in and around Miram Shah were evacuating to safer places in fear of an impending military operation against militants.
Meanwhile, two more soldiers were wounded when a military vehicle hit a roadside bomb near an airport in the southern Bannu district of the North-West Frontier Province, the police said.

In Peshawar, the capital of the province, two antitank mines with detonators, batteries and a clock were recovered from a burning vehicle in front of the Cantonment Board Plaza here on Saturday afternoon.

The vehicle had been wired with explosives and was parked in front of the Askari Bank in the plaza.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/wo.../15attack.html

[Lvnufcdc]

Fact 1: You cannot do deals with the Devil. The Taliban & Al Qaeda will turn round and bite you very hard.

Fact 2: Pervez Musharraf's days are numbered. He is seen to be too much of a puppet for the US.

[pBiRXp8u]

Fact 1: You cannot do deals with the Devil. The Taliban & Al Qaeda will turn round and bite you very hard.

The New York Times just published an article that illustrates part of this^ problem:

Aid to Pakistan in Tribal Areas Raises Concerns


(New York Times Photo)
The hospital in Ghalanai, Pakistan, is supported by American aid, but many local residents have no way of getting there.
Many doctors have left because of inadequate security and low pay, a doctor there said.

By JANE PERLEZ
July 16, 2007

GHALANAI, Pakistan — The United States plans to pour $750 million of aid into Pakistan’s tribal areas over the next five years as part of a “hearts and minds” campaign to win over this lawless region from Qaeda and Taliban militants.

But even before the plan has been fully carried out, documents and officials involved in the planning are warning of the dangers of distributing so much money in an area so hostile that oversight is impossible, even by Pakistan’s own government, which faces rising threats from Islamic militants.

Who will be given the aid has quickly become one of the most contentious questions between local officials and American planners concerned that millions might fall into the wrong hands. The local political agents and tribal chiefs in this hinterland on the Afghan border have for years accommodated the very groups the American and Pakistani governments seek to drive out.

A closely scripted visit to the hospital here, used for a pilot project by the United States Agency for International Development, showed the challenges on full display. The one-story hospital here was virtually empty on a recent day.

Local people had no way to get there. Three of the 110 beds were occupied. Two operating tables had not been used in months. Many doctors had left because the pay was too meager and security too precarious, said Dr. Yusuf Shah, the chief surgeon.

Sher Alam Mahsud, the local political boss who escorted this reporter on a rare visit, said he wanted all the American aid money “delivered to us.” But the precarious security does not allow the Americans to assess the aid priorities firsthand, or to provide oversight for the first installment of $150 million allocated by the Bush administration.

“Delivering $150 million in aid to the tribal areas could very quickly make a few people rich and do almost nothing to provide opportunity and justice to the region,” said Craig Cohen, the author of a recent study of United States-Pakistan relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Yet it is here in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, as the region is formally called, that Washington is intent on using the development aid as a counterinsurgency tool, according to a draft of the Agency for International Development plan given to The New York Times by an official who worked on it.

The draft warns that the “severe governance deficiencies” in the tribal areas will make it virtually impossible for the aid to be sustainable or to overcome the “area’s chronic underdevelopment and consequent volatility.”
The ambitious plan was publicly highlighted during a visit to Pakistan in June by Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, as a measure of Washington’s support for Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

“The objective driving this decision is the hope that by bringing the FATA into the mainstream and assuring that basic human services and infrastructure are on par with the rest of Pakistan, the people of FATA would be less likely to welcome the presence of Al Qaeda and Taliban,” the draft states. The projects include health and education services, water and sanitation facilities, and agricultural development, it says, making clear that these are a means to a broader end. “The main goal of the United States government in relation to the FATA is counterterrorism,” it says.

One way to improve the chances of the aid’s efficacy would be greater emphasis on political reform in the tribal areas, according to the draft. The Pakistani government has created a panel to study reform of the political structure in the areas, the draft noted, adding that “Usaid should explore opportunities for contributing its substantial experience in local government capacity building to any reform efforts the government of Pakistan decide to undertake.”

Even if the tribal areas were not under the sway of the Taliban, which they increasingly are, the development challenge here would be steep enough, the document and interviews make clear.

The area, home to 3.2 million people, remains a desolate landscape where women are strictly veiled. Female literacy — at 3 percent — is among the lowest in the world. Schools are often used to run businesses. There is no banking system. Smuggling of opium and other contraband is routine.

The hostility to almost anything that smacks of foreign influence is such that money from the modest development agency program, administered by the charity Save the Children at the hospital here, was being delivered anonymously, undercutting any potential public relations benefit for the United States.

“We can’t do branding,” said Fayyaz Ali Khan, the program manager for Save the Children, in an interview in the city of Peshawar. “Usually we say the aid comes from the American people, but here we can’t.”

Suspicions about modern medicine are rife. A Pakistani doctor was blown up in his car in June after trying to counter the anti-vaccine propaganda of an imam in Bajaur, one of the tribal agencies, Pakistani officials said.

The Pakistani government has virtually no authority here. After years of fighting to assert its authority, at the cost of about 600 soldiers, it negotiated peace accords with tribal authorities that have all but confined Pakistani troops to their barracks.

Tribal elders, local imams and governors known as political agents — their title goes back to the British colonial days — are the on-the-ground arbiters of all decisions in many districts. The political agents are widely considered corrupt.

A senior American official in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, who would not speak for attribution, defended the plan’s goals as necessary and achievable. The official said that “Pakistani firms, consulting organizations and nongovernmental organizations” would be the main deliverers of the assistance.

The official said, referring to the international aid agency, that these would in turn be “managed under Usaid direct contracts and grants to American and international organizations.”

Mr. Cohen, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was skeptical. Almost every potential recipient of the money was suspect in the eyes of the people it was supposed to help, he said. “The notion that there’s going to be $150 million a year to Pakistani nongovernmental organizations who are going to be out in the open seems naïve to me,” he said.

“The insecurity of the area will require a heavy reliance on local partners” like Pakistani nongovernmental organizations to administer projects, he added. “But the nongovernmental organizations don’t trust the military, the military doesn’t trust the tribal chiefs, and the tribal chiefs won’t trust us unless they’re getting a cut of the money.”

Such Pakistani groups were often targets of the Islamic militants in the tribal areas. The militants are increasingly destroying CD shops and attacking small efforts to gain advantages for women.

Mr. Mahsud, the political agent for the tribal agency, or district, of Mohmand, where the hospital is, had his own ideas. Any aid money from Western donors should be “pooled here,” he said, during an interview at the FATA secretariat headquarters in Peshawar, meaning it should be distributed through local officials.

His power was evident when he drove in his impressive new four-wheel-drive vehicle through the heavy metal black gates that mark the boundary to his tribal agency. Armed men in heavy gray uniforms, wearing black felt berets in the summer heat, snapped to attention.
The hospital itself was barren, and silent. Dr. Shah, the chief surgeon, and other doctors who had come to the hospital for the visit of an outsider, said water was a luxury trucked in by tanker, arriving at best every other day.

One doctor, Aaquila Khan, brimmed with passion about helping the poor and feeble women who came to visit the woefully underequipped hospital, but she lives in Peshawar, more than an hour’s drive away, and so comes in just two or three days a week, mornings only, to treat those female patients.

“They are very much anemic,” she said of eight women she treated during a recent visit. “They are not educated, they are not aware of family planning, they have no money.” Only the women living within walking distance could come, she said.

The aid program run by Save the Children, a small $11 million starter project that hints at the bigger things planned by the Americans, formally began last December with a signing of a memorandum of understanding with the tribal authorities.

The idea is for Pakistani doctors to train health care workers who will go into the field and train traditional health assistants on more modern methods.

But the first training sessions have only just begun, said Mr. Khan, the program manager for Save the Children. The only sign of the program was a “resource room” with a large blond wood table and a dozen or so chairs still in their plastic wrapping.

The training sessions take place in Peshawar, over the tribal boundary, to ensure the safety of the doctors.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/wo...=1&oref=slogin

[HugoSimon]

What Bhutto attack means for Pakistan
By Ahmed Rashid
Last Updated: 3:04am BST 20/10/2007

Analysis
The bloody carnage in Karachi has once again plunged Pakistan into a political crisis, raised serious doubts as to whether parliamentary elections can be held in January and deepened the longstanding mistrust between President Pervez Musharraf and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.



Ms Bhutto took a calculated risk that cost the lives of 140 people

Within hours of the bomb attack there were a string of accusations and innuendos by members of Ms Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leaders that the government security and intelligence services failed to prevent the blasts.

In response Gen Musharraf condemned the bombing as an attack on democracy.

However, Ms Bhutto had plenty of known enemies which included the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, al-Qa'eda and the coalition provincial government that rules her home province of Sind.

The Pakistani Taliban had directly called for suicide bombers to attack Ms Bhutto on her return.

She has also accused pro-jihadi retired and serving military officers in Gen Musharraf’s multiple intelligence agencies of plotting against her.
She had also said that the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) party, which has been the handmaiden of the military regime since 1999, was against her return.

The claims and counter-claims will continue but the bombing may give Gen Musharraf and the ruling PML the excuse to postpone general elections that could bring Ms Bhutto to power.

According to the Constitution, Gen Musharraf has the powers to postpone the elections for up to 12 months.

The PML has long been urging Gen Musharraf to delay the elections so that Ms Bhutto’s popular support is whittled down.

Even if elections are held in January as expected, public participation will be minimal in the wake of yesterday’s bomb attack.

Political rallies and demonstrations, public meetings and door to door campaigning by candidates is likely to be heavily curtailed.

Under such circumstances the elections can only be a half-hearted affair and the potential for the military to rig the elections as it did in 2002 will be significant.

Government spokesmen say Ms Bhutto acted recklessly and took unnecessary risks by insisting on leading a 20 mile-long slow-moving convoy from the airport to the centre of Karachi, especially after Gen Musharraf had asked her to postpone her return.

She had also declined a government offer to fly her in a helicopter from the airport to the spot where she was due to hold a political rally.

Ms Bhutto clearly took a calculated risk that cost the lives of 140 people, but she had also put her own life on the line.

After nine years in exile Ms Bhutto felt the need to make her political mark and show the army, the public and the international community that she still has a massive following.

Moreover, she wanted to make her return very different from the abortive return of another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was put on a plane and sent off to Saudi Arabia when he landed in Lahore in September.
Police prevented his supporters from rallying at the airport to receive him.
For the US and Britain, which have led efforts to forge a power-sharing deal between Gen Musharraf and Ms Bhutto and to hold free and fair elections, the bombing comes as a severe blow.

Unlike Gen Musharraf and the army who have prevaricated on the need to crack down hard on extremism, Ms Bhutto has been clear about the issue from the start.

Her party faithful have backed her on the need to politically isolate the Islamic fundamentalist parties, deal harshly with Islamic extremism, make up with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and settle another insurgency that is taking place in Balochistan by the Baloch tribes who are seeking separation from Pakistan.

Gen Musharraf has refused to seek a national reconciliation between the army, the PML and the myriad opposition parties.

Instead he has successfully divided the opposition, played hard and soft with the extremists and still wants to keep Islamic fundamentalist parties on board with him in any future electoral alliance.

It was hoped that Ms Bhutto’s safe arrival, her show of strength and her subsequent dialogue with the military would increase pressure on Gen Musharraf to do the right thing.

Now that looks increasingly unlikely, as Ms Bhutto is forced to cordon herself off under tight security, reduce contact with her supporters and refrain from touring the country as she had planned to do.

The Karachi bombing will also have the indirect result of preventing right-wing politicians from deserting the ruling PML and joining her party as some had planned to do.

Whoever the bombers are, they have sent a clear signal that they will continue to target Ms Bhutto and anyone who is associated with her.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...19/wpak519.xml

[Leaters]

lets just hope the strongman is strong enough to keep his country together - otherwise this decade will be a happy memory when the local warlords start throwing nukes at each other...

[id2008]

Would that ^ keep China off our back?

[zlZ95pjt]

I think a root cause of Pakistan's failures is its not really one country. They should split off the ethnically Pashtun areas, which aren't really under government control anyway. I think then Pakistan might be able to create the sense of unity that could pave the way for a successful transition to democracy.

The Pashtun areas might still be a breeding ground for terror like they are today, but I'm not really sure - if they were forced to form a national government they might get more interested in modernization and development and less interested in extremism. You'd have to do it right.

[elektikakass]

Very worrying times, especially considering Pakistan is a nuclear power. I wonder where this is all leading...

[espabamar]

Pakistan barred from Commonwealth

Musharraf has faced international fire over the state of emergency
Pakistan has been suspended from the Commonwealth because of its imposition of emergency rule, the organisation has announced after a meeting in Uganda.
Secretary General Don McKinnon said Pakistan was being suspended "pending restoration of democracy and the rule of law".

Earlier Pakistan's Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge to Pervez Musharraf's re-election as president.

The president has said that he will now step down as head of the army.

In recent days Gen Musharraf's regime has also released more than 3,400 people who had been detained under the emergency rule which the president imposed earlier this month.

And following a visit by US envoy John Negroponte, opposition leader Imran Khan was freed.

But the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), the group reviewing the status of Pakistan's membership, decided that despite these changes, not enough had been done.

We're all clear that the choice is for Pakistan now, to make the changes that are in its interest nationally and internationally, and then to re-enter the Commonwealth as a proud and valued member

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband


Flying the flag for democracy

The BBC's Peter Biles in Kampala says that some Asian nations had reportedly resisted the suspension.

The decision was not put to a vote, our correspondent says, but after a day of fraught negotiations an agreement was eventually reached.

Mr McKinnon said the 53-member Commonwealth had reached the decision by consensus.

"CMAG agreed that notwithstanding some progress by the Pakistan government since its last meeting, the situation in Pakistan continued to represent a serious violation of the Commonwealth's fundamental values," Mr McKinnon said, reading from a statement.

Review planned

It is the second time that Pakistan has been expelled from the Commonwealth. The country was suspended in 1999, after Gen Musharraf seized power in a coup.

It was reinstated in 2004.

As in 1999, Pakistan will now be banned from attending the organisation's meetings and taking part in the Commonwealth Games.

Though in diplomatic terms being suspended has little impact, our correspondent in Kampala says that being a member does open doors, and as Mr McKinnon was keen to point out, just a year after its last suspension Pakistan was voicing a desire to return.

Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the "decision was taken in sorrow, not in anger", and that he hoped the group would be able to welcome Pakistan back soon.

"We're all clear that the choice is for Pakistan now, to make the changes that are in its interest nationally and internationally, and then to re-enter the Commonwealth as a proud and valued member," Mr Miliband added.

Progress will now be reviewed after parliamentary elections which Gen Musharraf has promised will take place in January.

Militant violence

Ten days ago Commonwealth foreign ministers from the bloc gave Pakistan 10 days to lift its emergency rule or face suspension.


Judges and lawyers have held a series of protests in Islamabad
They also said Gen Musharraf had to step down as army chief, release political detainees and restore press freedoms.

Gen Musharraf imposed the state of emergency and suspended Pakistan's constitution on 3 November. He later defended his decision, saying that he had taken the "in the national interest".

He said Pakistan was in a crisis caused by militant violence and a judiciary which had paralysed the government.

Pakistan has been engulfed in political upheaval in recent months, and the security forces have suffered a series of blows from pro-Taleban militants opposed to Gen Musharraf's support for the US-led "war on terror".

In a lengthy televised speech on the night of 3 November, Mr Musharraf said the situation was threatening Pakistan's sovereignty and had forced him into making "some very painful decisions".

[beckercpa]

I have some sympathy for General Musharraf in the given circumstances. The hypocrisy of the Commonwealth is astounding! Let he without sin throw the first stone - what about it Yoweri Museveni?

[Uttephabeta]

^ When Musharraf jailed his own judiciary and let terrorists go free, he lost any shred of sympathy he might have deserved.

[Loonerisav]

I have some sympathy for General Musharraf in the given circumstances. The hypocrisy of the Commonwealth is astounding! Let he without sin throw the first stone - what about it Yoweri Museveni?

Are you saying no one can take action against someone unless they are morally 100% pure, ie. no one on earth, therefore criminals should be allowed to run free because there is no one pure enough to judge them. This is a thread about Pakistan, I suggest you open a thread and call it Capns rants and post everything there, its the only way your posts will ever be on topic.

[outfinofulpv]

Are you saying no one can take action against someone unless they are morally 100% pure

No, all I am pointing out are the double standards being applied here. It wasn't too long ago that Idi Amin (The Last King of Scotland) was put into power by Britian in the belief that he could be controlled & manipulated by Britain. He drove out the Asian community, butchered his own people, practised cannibalism, (keeping heads in his fridge should he fancy a snack), murdered the Archbishop of Uganda, Dr Janani Luwou, awarded himself the Victoria Cross, and suggested that he be made head of the Commonwealth in place of the Queen!
Was he expelled from the Commonwealth - NO

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3157101.stm

All I am saying is that selective morality in situations like this result in the evil judging the wicked. Africa has an unfortunate history of throwing up unpleasant vile tyrants and we should try to apply the same rules to everyone including Yoweri Museveni, Thabo Mbeki et al.
Lets not forget that only a short time ago General Musharraf was being applauded as an ally in "the war on terror" with the US pouring $Billions into Pakistan.

[Eugen80]

Mbeki and Museveni are democratically elected and Mbeki is unlikely to be in power after 2009. I can't see the double standards - unless you're blaming Gordon Brown for events which occured when he was at university?

[AttableBewNaw]

Kampala, Uganda, 2007

Summit put at risk by violent protests against President Museveni, who has refused to step down after his official term

Government officials have raised security concerns as violence continues in Kampala after the disputed presidential election last year.

Political unrest, the jailing of opposition leaders and a continuing strike by judges who say they want to defend their independence has prompted doubts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office over whether the summit can go ahead in November.

..... but no action taken against Museveni!!

[jobsfancy]

Benazir Bhutto killed in attack

From BBC

Benazir Bhutto had been addressing rallies in many parts of Pakistan
Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated in a suicide attack.

Ms Bhutto - the first woman PM in an Islamic state - was leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi when a gunman shot her in the neck and set off a bomb.

At least 16 other people died in the attack and several more were injured.

President Pervez Musharraf condemned the killing and urged people to remain calm but angry protests have gripped cities across the country.

Security forces have been placed on a state of "red alert" nationwide.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack. Analysts believe Islamist militants to be the most likely group behind it.

Ms Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), had served as prime minister from 1988-1990 and 1993-1996, and had been campaigning ahead of elections due on 8 January.

Benazir Bhutto's coffin has now been taken from the hospital

It was the second suicide attack against her in recent months and came amid a wave of bombings targeting security and government officials.

Nawaz Sharif, also a former prime minister and a political rival, announced his Muslim League party would boycott the elections.

He called on President Musharraf to resign, saying free and fair elections were not possible under his rule.

The United Nations Security Council has begun emergency consultations on the killing.

Scene of grief

Ms Bhutto's remains have been removed from Rawalpindi General Hospital in a van. They are reportedly being taken to the city's airport.


Extremist groups have in their sights all those committed to democratic processes in Pakistan
David Miliband
UK foreign secretary

The attack occurred close to an entrance gate of the city park where Ms Bhutto had been speaking.

Police confirmed reports Ms Bhutto had been shot in the neck and chest before the gunman blew himself up.

She died at 1816 (1316 GMT), said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of the PPP who was at hospital.

Some supporters at the hospital wept while others broke into anger, throwing stones at cars and breaking windows.

Protests erupted in other cities as news of the assassination spread with unconfirmed reports of several deaths in clashes between demonstrators and security forces:

* A number of cars were torched in Karachi, capital of the PPP's heartland province of Sindh, where shots were also reportedly fired

* Cars were reportedly set on fire in Hyderabad, also in Sindh Province

* Police in Peshawar, in the north-west, used batons and tear gas to break up a rally by protesters chanting anti-Musharraf slogans

* One man was killed in a "shoot-out" between police and protesters in Tando Allahyar, the mayor said

* Unrest was also reported in Quetta, Multan and Shikarpur

'Security lapse'

Mr Musharraf has announced three days of national mourning.

Burning vehicles in Hyderabad
Protesters set vehicles on fire in the streets of Hyderabad

Mr Sharif said there had been a "serious lapse in security" by the government.

But an old friend of Ms Bhutto, Salman Tassir, told the BBC World Service he did not think criticism should be directed at the government.

"There have been suicide attacks on Gen Musharraf also," he told Newshour.

"I mean it is extremism and the fanatics who are to blame."

Earlier on Thursday, at least four people were killed ahead of an election rally Mr Sharif had been preparing to attend close to Rawalpindi.

Ms Bhutto's death has plunged the PPP into confusion and raises questions about whether January elections will go ahead as planned, the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says.


BENAZIR BHUTTO
Benazir Bhutto photographed in 1972
Father led Pakistan before being executed in 1979
Spent five years in prison
Served as PM from 1988-1990 and 1993-1996
Sacked twice by president on corruption charges
Formed alliance with rival ex-PM Nawaz Sharif in 2006
Ended self-imposed exile by returning to Pakistan in October
Educated at Harvard and Oxford


The killing was condemned by India, the US, the UK and others.

US President George W Bush telephoned Mr Musharraf for what the White House would only describe as a "brief" conversation on the situation.

Ms Bhutto returned from self-imposed exile in October after years out of Pakistan where she had faced corruption charges.

Her return was the result of a power-sharing agreement with President Musharraf

He had granted an amnesty that covered the court cases she was facing.

But relations with Mr Musharraf soon broke down.

On the day of her arrival, she had led a motor cavalcade through the city of Karachi.

It was hit by a double suicide attack that left some 130 dead.

Rawalpindi, the nerve centre of Pakistan's military, is seen as one of the country's most secure cities.


Many analysts say attacks like those on Thursday show the creeping "Talebanisation" of Pakistan.

Radical Muslims calling for Islamic law, and fiercely opposed to the US, have become increasingly active in Pakistani politics in recent years, analysts say.

[Vjwkvkoy]

Tragic. I was afraid of this.

[JohnMaltczevitch]

Next will we invade Pakistan to prop up Musharraf. So you thought we could just pull US forces out of the middle east huh? Not so fast - these guys HAVE nukes.

I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA did this just to keep the US entangled in the region, because obviously what we must do is intervene -- for humanitarian reasons... I mean -- for national security... I mean -- to protect American interests in the region.