Musharaf’s Future in Pakistan
Wonder why did I write “in Pakistan” at the end of my article’s title? Obviously, one could satisfy one’s personal dignity and respect by finding a hideout far off from the place where you’ve inflated so much hypocrisy, institutional murders, false promises and so on!
Musharraf came into power as a result of a successful coup in 1999 when Nawaz Sharif’s government was overthrown and he was put behind the bars. Not only was Nawaz Sharif sent out of the country, the other mainstream political leader Benazir Bhutto was also out of the country on a self-exile. Almost claiming nonstop for seven years that these two would never return home, Musharraf finally had to give his stance a second thought.
Making the long story short, the two leaders came back to Pakistan in late 2007 and announced their contestation in General Elections. Clearly in the result, PPPP and PML(N) two stood out as the majority parties proving intelligence reports (PML-Q winning easily) to Musharraf wrong.
Musharraf had enjoyed the dual offices in my opinion. One, the President’s office and two, the implicit Prime Minister’s office since all power vested with him. However, the situation has changed dramatically and demands Musharraf to act as a President in true spirit i.e. let the Prime Minister do his job and manage the Government. Apparently, the retired military general is saying affirmative to all the demands and intentions being put forth before him however there’s one that he is not likely to accept. What is that? Signing his death warrant? Well, something equivalent. Signing the bill that 58-2B should be eliminated from the constitution. This puts Musharraf in the President house without any power to dissolve the assembly.
Moreover, its not just 58-2B. PML(N) is asking him to leave the entire arena and step out of the political scene completely. Understandably the tussle between him and the said party started back in 1999 where he had the power to overthrow PML(N). Contrary to that, now PML(N) has the power to throw him out of the political environment. But there’s a catch in this. The PML(N) needs 2/3rd majority in the Parliament to do so and they don’t even have 50% of that. However, if they manage to convince their allied parties i.e. the Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDA), they can manage the 2/3rd majority and might be able to accomplish the termination of Musharraf.
PPP on the other hand has had an ambiguous stand in this regard. Since mid 2007, they’ve had these democratic talks (which they say) with the President Musharraf. The result of which was a National Reconciliation Ordinance which benefited the PPPP the most. Now the situation is quite interesting, PPPP might be OK with going along with Musharraf but PML(N) says NO. Hence, the situation isn’t that clear and itself revealing. We’ll simply have to wait to see its outcome.
The thing that makes me actually THINK over this issue in first place is the Pakistani Supreme Court. Before November 3, 2007 when Musharraf imposed Emergency, there was an ongoing case against the candidacy of Musharraf in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Apparently, the judiciary was about to rule out against Musharraf’s legitimacy for the President’s election. Now, according to the PML(N)’s one point agenda, the PDA has agreed to restore the Pre-November 3 judiciary which means the same bench which was previously going to give a ruling on Musharraf’s case will be given another chance. This is the actual big question mark. Will they decide against his candidacy for President ship? If so, will he be gone? Is it that simple?
One thing we can say, if PML(N) had taken the majority in general elections, Musharraf’s exit would have been almost inevitable. Now, we only have to see how much pressure can PML(N) assert on the PDA. Primarily, if it can influence its allied parties towards the formation of an exit door for President Musharraf.
Education
“Human rights are rights a person possesses by virtue of being human” is much too narrow and limited for a Buddhist or global perspective. The argument is that these rights are” possessed” by every- one regardless of race, colour, sex, religion, birth, etc. and are not conferred by - or removable by- a political or other authority. On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the full text of which appears in the following pages. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.”
Of all the articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the most important article (to our society) is, article26, which is that:
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Education plays an important role in uplifting every society. A society can not survive without literate people .The Universal Declaration’s article 26 (right to education) is very important for Pakistani society, as majority of people in Pakistan are still illiterate, which is a drawback in our society. The Universal Declaration of this right has forced government to take some steps for the betterment of education system in Pakistan.
At independence, Pakistan had a poorly educated population and few schools or universities. Although the education system has expanded greatly since then, debate continues about the curriculum, and, except in a few elite institutions, quality remained a crucial concern of educators in the early 1990s.
Adult literacy is low, but improving. In 1992 more than 36 percent of adults over fifteen were literate, compared with 21 percent in 1970. The rate of improvement is highlighted by the 50 percent literacy achieved among those aged fifteen to nineteen in 1990. School enrollment also increased, from 19 percent of those aged six to twenty-three in 1980 to 24 percent in 1990. However, by 1992 the population over twenty-five had a mean of only 1.9 years of schooling. This fact explains the minimal criteria for being considered literate: having the ability to both read and write (with understanding) a short, simple statement on everyday life.
Relatively limited resources have been allocated to education, although there has been improvement in recent decades. In 1960 public expenditure on education was only 1.1 percent of the gross national product (GNP); by 1990 the figure had risen to 3.4 percent. This amount compared poorly with the 33.9 percent being spent on defense in 1993. In 1990 Pakistan was tied for fourth place in the world in its ratio of military expenditures to health and education expenditures. Although the government enlisted the assistance of various international donors in the education efforts outlined in its Seventh Five-Year Plan (1988-93), the results did not measure up to expectations.
Structure of the System
Education is organized into five levels: primary (grades one through five); middle (grades six through eight); high (grades nine and ten, culminating in matriculation); intermediate (grades eleven and twelve, leading to an F.A. diploma in arts or F.S. science; and university programs leading to undergraduate and advanced degrees. Preparatory classes (kachi, or nursery) were formally incorporated into the system in 1988 with the Seventh Five-Year Plan.
Academic and technical education institutions are the responsibility of the federal Ministry of Education, which coordinates instruction through the intermediate level. Above that level, a designated university in each province is responsible for coordination of instruction and examinations. In certain cases, a different ministry may oversee specialized programs. Universities enjoy limited autonomy; their finances are overseen by a University Grants Commission, as in Britain.
Teacher-training workshops are overseen by the respective provincial education ministries in order to improve teaching skills. However, incentives are severely lacking, and, perhaps because of the shortage of financial support to education, few teachers participate. Rates of absenteeism among teachers are high in general, inducing support for community-coordinated efforts promoted in the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1993-98).
In 1991 there were 87,545 primary schools, 189,200 primary school teachers, and 7,768,000 students enrolled at the primary level, with a student-to-teacher ratio of forty-one to one. Just over one-third of all children of primary school age were enrolled in a school in 1989. There were 11,978 secondary schools, 154,802 secondary school teachers, and 2,995,000 students enrolled at the secondary level, with a student-to- teacher ratio of nineteen to one.
Primary school dropout rates remained fairly consistent in the 1970s and 1980s, at just over 50 percent for boys and 60 percent for girls. The middle school dropout rates for boys and girls rose from 22 percent in 1976 to about 33 percent in 1983. However, a noticeable shift occurred in the beginning of the 1980s regarding the post primary dropout rate: whereas boys and girls had relatively equal rates (14 percent) in 1975, by 1979– just as Zia initiated his government’s Islamization program–the dropout rate for boys was 25 percent while for girls it was only 16 percent. By 1993 this trend had dramatically reversed, and boys had a dropout rate of only 7 percent compared with the girls’ rate of 15 percent.
The Seventh Five-Year Plan envisioned that every child five years and above would have access to either a primary school or a comparable, but less comprehensive, mosque school. However, because of financial constraints, this goal was not achieved.
In drafting the Eighth Five-Year Plan in 1992, the government therefore reiterated the need to mobilize a large share of national resources to finance education. To improve access to schools, especially at the primary level, the government sought to decentralize and democratize the design and implementation of its education strategy. To give parents a greater voice in running schools, it planned to transfer control of primary and secondary schools to NGOs. The government also intended to gradually make all high schools, colleges, and universities autonomous, although no schedule was specified for achieving this ambitious goal.
Female Education
Comparison of data for men and women reveals significant disparity in educational attainment. By 1992, among people older than fifteen years of age, 22 percent of women were literate, compared with 49 percent of men. The comparatively slow rate of improvement for women is reflected in the fact that between 1980 and 1989, among women aged fifteen to twenty-four, 25 percent were literate. United Nations sources say that in 1990 for every 100 girls of primary school age there were only thirty in school; among girls of secondary school age, only thirteen out of 100 were in school; and among girls of the third level, grades nine and ten, only 1.5 out of 100 were in school. Slightly higher estimates by the National Education Council for 1990 stated that 2.5 percent of students–3 percent of men and 2 percent of women- -between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one were enrolled at the degree level. Among all people over twenty-five in 1992, women averaged a mere 0.7 year of schooling compared with an average of 2.9 years for men.
The discrepancy between rural and urban areas is even more marked. In 1981 only 7 percent of women in rural areas were literate, compared with 35 percent in urban areas. Among men, these rates were 27 and 57 percent, respectively. Pakistan’s low female literacy rates are particularly confounding because these rates are analogous to those of some of the poorest countries in the world.
Pakistan has never had a systematic, nationally coordinated effort to improve female primary education, despite its poor standing. It was once assumed that the reasons behind low female school enrollments were cultural, but research conducted by the Ministry for Women’s Development and a number of international donor agencies in the 1980s revealed that danger to a woman’s honor was parents’ most crucial concern. Indeed, reluctance to accept schooling for women turned to enthusiasm when parents in rural Punjab and rural Balochistan could be guaranteed their daughters’ safety and, hence, their honor.
Reform Efforts
Three initiatives characterized reform efforts in education in the late 1980s and early 1990s: privatization of schools that had been nationalized in the 1970s; a return to English as the medium of instruction in the more elite of these privatized schools, reversing the imposition of Urdu in the 1970s; and continuing emphasis on Pakistan studies and Islamic studies in the curriculum.
Until the late 1970s, a disproportionate amount of educational spending went to the middle and higher levels. Education in the colonial era had been geared to staffing the civil service and producing an educated elite that shared the values of and was loyal to the British. It was unabashedly elitist, and contemporary education–reforms and commissions on reform notwithstanding–has retained the same quality. This fact is evident in the glaring gap in educational attainment between the country’s public schools and the private schools, which were nationalized in the late 1970s in a move intended to facilitate equal access. Whereas students from lower-class backgrounds did gain increased access to these private schools in the 1980s and 1990s, teachers and school principals alike bemoaned the decline in the quality of education. Meanwhile, it appears that a greater proportion of children of the elites are traveling abroad not only for university education but also for their high school diplomas.
The extension of literacy to greater numbers of people has spurred the working class to aspire to middle-class goals such as owning an automobile, taking summer vacations, and providing a daughter with a once-inconceivable dowry at the time of marriage. In the past, Pakistan was a country that the landlords owned, the army ruled, and the bureaucrats governed, and it drew most of its elite from these three groups. In the 1990s, however, the army and the civil service were drawing a greater proportion of educated members from poor backgrounds than ever before.
One of the education reforms of the 1980s was an increase in the number of technical schools throughout the country. Those schools that were designated for females included hostels nearby to provide secure housing for female students. Increasing the number of technical schools was a response to the high rate of underemployment that had been evident since the early 1970s. The Seventh Five-Year Plan aimed to increase the share of students going to technical and vocational institutions to over 33 percent by increasing the number of polytechnics, commercial colleges, and vocational training centers. Although the numbers of such institutions did increase, a compelling need to expand vocational training further persisted in early 1994.
Conclusion
So, this was how the Universal Declaration’s Article, 26 (right to education), has proved to be very important to our society. It has helped a lot in improving the education system of the country, since its independence. Females also got their right to education, but still majority of them our illiterate, because of our social, cultural and religious norms of the society. But government is still trying to provide awareness among the masses, about education and it is also providing many incentives such as, making education free for poor, building schools and colleges for them etc.
References:
www.wikipedia.org
www.hrw.org
www.plato.stanford.edu
www.un.org
www.yespakistan.com
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This article is based on readings and discusions by Mehreen Tariq
Article Five United Nation Declaration of Human Rights
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Although Pakistan is now an elected member of the new UN Human Rights Council, the practice of torture throughout the country is on the rise.
The Constitution and the Penal Code prohibit torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; however, police regularly tortured, and otherwise abused persons. Police routinely used force to elicit confessions; however, there were fewer reports of torture by police. Some human rights groups stated that this decrease in reports reflects the influence of army monitoring teams, who discourage the use of torture; other observers suggested that the frequency of torture remained unchanged, but the media devoted less attention to the issue.
It is common practice in Pakistan for arrested persons to be subjected to physical and mental torture in order for the police to obtain a confession, other information, and extort money. A newspaper reported that there were 80 cases of torture in 2006 police custody in Lahore.
Methods of torture used by the police include beating with fists, legs, wooden sticks or a piece of reinforced leather and burning the victim with cigarettes butts. In fact, police and law enforcement agencies are conditioned to think that it is their duty to torture suspected criminals. This is in contradiction to the Constitution of Pakistan, which clearly prohibits the torture of any person. Police corruption was widespread. Police and prison officials frequently used the threat of abuse to extort money from prisoners and their families. Police accepted money for registering cases on false charges and tortured innocent citizens. Persons paid the police to humiliate their opponents and to avenge their personal grievances. An 18-year-old girl Safia was raped in the Gaddani jail after being severely tortured, and was then burned alive by the jail authorities. Although a tribunal was set up to look into this case, no investigation ever took place and the perpetrators of this horrendous crime remain free to commit further crimes.
Pakistan’s military government is in fact increasing its use of torture and military confinement of civilians. ‘Torture cells’ are generally found in cantonments and other military controlled areas in the country. In Karachi and Quetta these cells are under the control of the Corp Commanders. Only Inter Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence personnel are allowed to visit these cells. Military methods of torture include forcing detainees to dance naked before an audience for several hours, forcing them to do push-ups the entire night, putting rats in their pants or pajamas, forcing them to listen to audio and video cassettes of other torture victims, as well as stitching their lips together.
Civil and human rights groups as well as the media have highlighted such crimes. Although some inquiries into police brutalities lead to the suspension of the accused officers, the officers are swiftly reinstated in their former jobs. The reluctance of Pakistan’s legal system to effectively try perpetrators of human rights abuse makes it almost impossible for victims to obtain justice. The lack of internal and external checks on the actions of law enforcement officials, as well as the lack of disciplinary and legal action allows certain officers to torture and harass the citizens they are meant to protect. Pakistan is a country where even Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the apex court, is not spared physical and mental torture by the country’s law enforcement agencies. Mr. Iftekhar Choudhary, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, was abused and tortured twice by law enforcement agencies, once in Islamabad (capital of Pakistan) and once in Karachi (capital of Sindh province). After Chief Justice Mr. Iftekhar Choudhary was summoned to Army House to appear before President General Musharraf, he was held in detention for five hours on March 9, 2007, where he went through severe mental torture, while five Generals were threatening and pressurizing him to resign. Subsequently, President General Musharraf referred his case (Reference) to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) on March 13, 2007. The Islamabad police took him into custody as he was appearing before court and he was manhandled. He was slapped; he was snatched by his hair and thrown brutally into a police van before several people. Torture in custody is very widespread in Pakistan, as it is held that by means of torture the writ of the state/government is sought to be maintained. Reported torture cases increased from the number of 1000 in the year 2005 to a number of 1319 in the year 2006. This figure only involves the cases reported, whereas there is several additional cases that remain unrevealed due to the victims’ fear. During the first half of 2007, the practice of torture in custody was getting worse as several lawyers and journalists were also exposed to severe torture by police and army intelligence agencies Women were often the victims at the hands of their husbands or male relatives. Authorities reported 1,261 honor crimes in the 12 months after June 2003, with the majority in Sindh. The practice was also common in Punjab and among tribes in Baluchistan, NWFP, and FATA. On October 26, the National Assembly adopted legislation that provides for additional penalties for all crimes involving honor and that restricts the right of victims or heirs to pardon perpetrators in exchange for restitution. Sexual harassment was a widespread problem. While the Pakistan Penal Code prohibits harassment, prosecution was rare. Family law provides protections for women in cases of divorce, including requirements for maintenance, and lays out clear guidelines for custody of minor children and their maintenance. In practice, many women were unaware of these legal protections or unable to obtain legal counsel to enforce them. Divorced women were often left with no means of support and were fed up by their families. While prohibited by law, the practice of buying and selling brides continued in rural areas. Women are legally free to marry without family consent, but women who did so were often the victims of honor crimes.
Although, the government of Pakistan is trying hard to make an improvement in the above mentioned ill-treatment methods according to the demands of universal declaration of human rights and Islamic fiqa. We may hope that one day, Pakistan will succeed in making improvement in above tortured methods.
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This article is based on class discussions and readings by Sana Javaid.
Article 16 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
The number of honour killings appears to be steadily increasing as the perception of what constitutes honour widens. There are honour killings for rape, for seeking marriage and for seeking divorce. Women are not given a chance to clear up possible misunderstandings. Tradition decrees only one method to restore honour-to kills the offending woman. A woman subjected to rape brings shame to her family just as she would when engaging in a consensual relationship. “A woman raped shames the community and dishonours the man”, according to Nafisa Shah-it does not dishonour the rapist.
http://www.unhrc.org
Freedom a Constant Struggle
Iraq! Winter 2004… There is much to be said, discussed and understood about the U.S. invasion, war and occupation of this ancient, oil-rich country.
The Bush government’s pre-war reasons for the invasion, disputed and disbelieved by millions immediately, have all been proven totally false. The latest U.S. government line about bringing democracy and freedom to the Iraqi people would be simply laughable, but since U.S. troops arrest, brutalize and kill Iraqi people everyday it is no joke.
Late last year, Medact, a British Medical Human Rights group, released credible estimates of up to 55,000 Iraqi civilian casualties. The killing goes on daily. Human Rights Watch, also in December of 03, reported that the U.S. and British invasion armies fired approximately 13,000 cluster bombs at Iraqi towns and villages. Over 2 million smaller bombs were released from these cluster munitions. This kind of hi-tech death, war and occupation can never be seen as democracy or freedom, no matter how slickly the Bush government or the corporate media manipulate the facts and images.
While the dying is disproportionately Iraqi, well over 500 U.S. soldiers have died and about 2500 have been wounded in this invasion and occupation so far. It is a certainty that many more U.S. soldiers will die and be injured and crippled. This killing will only cease once the war and occupation ends and all U.S. troops are brought home.
There are almost no serious analyses of this war and occupation coming from the corporate media or bourgeois politicians, even those publicly opposing the war. From among the people though, especially from progressive political and opposition groups and individuals, explanations and analysis of why Bush really invaded Iraq and what they are trying to gain is being heard.
Identifying some of the main themes, first of all there is oil. The second largest known oil reserve in the world is now under George Bush’s control. The other huge reserves of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, etc., are now in easy gun range of a large U.S. occupation army in Iraq. However this develops, there is no doubt that the people and governments of these countries know that the U.S. is now poised to go further. This could be more invasions or political and economic strong-arming.
Control of Iraq and increased hegemony of the Middle East also gives the U.S. government and U.S. corporations a greatly enhanced position in their ongoing competition with the European Union, Japan and Russia. Europe in particular is totally dependent on Mid-East oil. As the advanced capitalist countries coalesce into 3 or 4 blocs, the U.S. wants to control the economic lifeblood—oil—throughout the world.
The only Mid-East country that officially welcomed and praised the U.S. invasion was the Israeli government. Of course the U.S. had troops in and launched some of the war from Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. In Israel the right wing Likud government still fully supports the U.S. occupation and compares it to its own decades-long occupation of Palestinian land. Now we are seeing the U.S. occupation army employing Israeli type tactics against the Iraqi public. Doors are kicked in during the middle of the night; men and boys are taken off to secret U.S. prisons. Families and children of fugitive resistance fighters are often imprisoned. Homes are being blown up. But the Israelis, even after years of occupation, have not been successful with these terror tactics against the Palestinian resistance. In Iraq, we are already witnessing even more deadly attacks against U.S. troops in the past few months.
Early in the government’s road to this war, some critics argued that President Bush’s war fever was fueled by his father’s personal hatred of Saddam Hussein and Iraq. We now know that George W. Bush planned to wage war against Iraq from his first days in office, long before 9/11 and any other pretext that was later raised. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil’s recent book lays bare that Bush wanted and meant to invade Iraq from his first days in office.
However much any of the above views were the real reasons for this war, now that it continues, two further realities drive it on. The war profiteers, those merchants who profit from death and destruction, are circling like hogs in a feeding frenzy. Well-connected corporations, especially Halliburton and its subsidiaries, are raking in billions of U.S. tax dollars off this war. Every American war has seen some corruption and profiteering, but this pillage and what appears to be actual theft is obscene.
Immediately after 9/11/01, conservative, right wing and police forces seized on the sorrow and worry of the public to begin implementing a massive “Big Brother” police state machine. This included federal and state legislation, executive orders and the creation of new intrusive police structures and practices. The war against Iraq strengthened and speeded up this process. We now truly live in a war and police state. U.S. society is now more militarized than it has ever been. Intrusive police presence and snooping is a daily reality. This is not temporary. Bush, in his 2004 State of the Union speech, made this clear when he called for even more police state powers, all at the expense of people’s privacy and rights. There is a direct correlation between the U.S. state of war and the growing police state all across this country.
What we are witnessing is the emerging new face of U.S. imperialism. The United States has been an imperialist power for a long time. What we are seeing now is a new drive and dynamic to imperialism. With no Cold War or major socialist bloc to contend with, U.S. imperialism has embarked on a more aggressive and dangerous course. The U.S. has essentially declared itself to be the undisputed empire of the world. The more it invades and occupies overseas, the more it will build its police state domestically. These may be stark terms for some to easily accept, but the reality of all this is happening around us right now. Shying away from understanding it or dealing with it only makes us less safe and less free.
The driving force of imperialism is economics. Its methods are economic and political and recently more and more military. There already is a sizable segment of the U.S. public that is opposed to this war. The question that all Americans need to be asked, is to they want to live in an empire? In this election year it’s imperative and possible to ask these questions and to make opposition to this war very visible and powerful.
The fact that there are major anti-war candidates, Dean and Kucinich most clearly, reflects the ambivalence and worry of millions of Americans. Beginning with the March 20th worldwide anti-war mobilization, the Peace, Anti-War and Anti-Imperialist movements can tap into this worry of so many people. A building series of major rallies, as big and dramatic as possible, throughout this year is very feasible. Seriously opposing this imperialist U.S.A. war state and internal police state has its risks, but it is certainly possible and necessary right now. We can impact the short-term reality of the occupation and war in Iraq. More importantly perhaps, we can expose and resist the Bush government’s plan to erect this 21st century U.S. war and police state Empire. As a well-worn slogan puts it: FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE!
This article is based on readings and class discussions by Nada Gul
Reference:
“War in Iraq—Imperialism in the 21st Century”-Jaan Laaman