Corrupt Zardari's Carnage in Pakistan

by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
March 15, 2009

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/209/corrupt-zardaris-carnage-in-pakistan

Asif Ali Zardari, self-proclaimed mad and champion corrupt, who became the President of Pakistan taking the advantage of his wife, Benazir Bhutto's assassination, is gradually exposing his ugly face, which possibly will push the fate of Pakistan's fragile democracy, once again inside the military's grip.

Extreme tension is already prevailing in Pakistan, with snatching off the countrywide cable network of popular Geo TV as well as resignation of Information Minister Sherry Rehman. Zardari government has denied the fact of forcing cable operators to snatch off Geo TV from network, saying, "It was a result of dispute between the management of Geo TV and the cable operators."

Pakistan information minister Sherry Rehman resigned from her post on Saturday. "Sherry Rehman met Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and tendered her resignation. The minister was angry over the crackdown against the media," a government official said. Some channels, including Geo News, Aaj TV, were taken off the air in several areas on Friday and Saturday.

The telecast of Pakistan's Geo News television channel was blocked in some parts of the country on Friday, the channel's website said.

The channel broadcast has been blocked in parts of Karachi, Hyderabad, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Quetta, Multan, Rawlakot, Muzaffarabad, Deepalpur and Sargodha cities, it said.

According to the channel, government officials have directed the cable operators to place Geo News channel at the 'tail end', making it difficult for the viewers to watch the channel.

Opposition leaders including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz [PML-N] chief Nawaz Sharif, Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan and Muttahida Qaumi Movement [MQM] leader Babar Khan Ghauri condemned the blocking of Geo News.

Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid [PML-Q] general secretary Mushahid Hussain said the channel was "being punished for airing the truth".

The Reporters Without Borders has also condemned the blocking of the channel, according to The News newspaper.

Zardari's advisor for interior affairs, Rehman Malik has categorically stated that the Government will not allow the long march and sit-in on the Constitution Avenue. "All elite agencies have given information that there is danger of target killings and series of bombings including suicide bombings by the enemies of the country during the long march."

Official said the government has decided to restrict the Sharif brothers to Raiwind to prevent them from participating in the march and that their security has been beefed up. "The Sharif brothers will not be allowed to go outside Raiwind. They will be unofficially under house arrest," an official confirmed, adding they would be allowed to go to Islamabad only after the permission of the federal government.

Meanwhile, Mia Nawaz Sharif sharply reacted to government's plan to stop the long-march saying, "We will go ahead with the long march. No one can stop it. It will be a milestone in Pakistan's history".

Earlier Sharif said the march would not stop despite hurdles put by the government on the way.

Under mounting pressure from the United States and amidst escalating political standoff at home, the Pakistan government on Saturday decided to challenge the disqualification of PML [N] chief Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz from contesting elections in a bid to defuse the crisis but the opposition party rejected the move. On a day of hectic developments, in what looked like a compromise with its estranged ally, the government of President Asif Ali Zardari decided to move the Supreme Court with a review petition challenging the apex court's decision barring the Sharif brothers from contesting elections and holding public offices. Shahbaz Sharif was unseated as the Chief Minister of Punjab province and Governor's rule imposed there by the Zardari government.

The government's package of concessions to Nawaz Sharif came in the wake of a telephone call from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Asif Ali Zardari when she told him that Washington wanted to see stability and democracy strengthened in Pakistan.

According to latest report, a day before the Long March to Islamabad, the Sharif brothers have been put under house arrest for three days by the Pakistan government. Former cricketer turned politician and Tehreek-e-Insaaf leader Imran Khan has also been arrested in Rawalpindi. The arrests come after Nawaz Sharif rejected President Zardari's offer for talks. This latest development has surely placed the fate of Pakistan's democracy into total uncertainty. It is expected that, military intervention has become imminent in order to save the nation from the carnage of a corrupt man like Asif Ali Zardari.

Until his marriage with Benazir Bhutto on 18 December 1987, Zardari was a unknown figure on the political scene of Pakistan. He became a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan and also served as the Minister of Environment during his wife's second term as the Prime Minister [1993–1996].

In 1990, Zardari was accused of threatening to kill a businessman with a remote-controlled bomb unless he withdrew money from a bank as pay-off. Zardari earned the nickname, "Mr 10%" following allegations of corruption. Zardari was released from jail in 1993 and became a government minister. From 1997 to 2004, Zardari was kept in jail on corruption charges and accusations of murder. Pakistani investigators accused Zardari and his wife Benazir for embezzling as much as US$1.5 billion from government accounts. He was also accused of allegedly plotting the murder of Murtaza Bhutto, the brother of his wife Benazir Bhutto. He was later cleared.

A New York psychiatrist found in March 2007 that Zardari's time in jail left him with memory impairments. Zardari claims to have been tortured. When Zardari stood for the Pakistani presidency in 2008, the Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, said that Zardari had no current mental condition requiring psychiatric help or medication.

New York-based psychologist Stephen Reich reportedly said that the PPP leader was unable to remember the birthdays of his wife and children, was continually apprehensive and had even had suicidal thoughts. The other, psychiatrist Philip Saltiel, who examined Asif Ali Zardari in March 2007, apparently said his years in jail had left him suffering from emotional instability and concentration and memory problems that he did not believe would improve for at least a year.

Zardari was accused of money-laundering activities in a US Senate report on private banking and money-laundering.

Zardari was under criminal investigation in Switzerland over receipts of kickbacks from two Swiss-based companies while his wife, the late Benazir Bhutto, served as the country's prime minister in the 1990s, a Swiss judge and two Swiss lawyers close to the case told Newsweek.

In Britain, the decade-old civil proceedings focus on Zardari. Zardari is accused of using illicit funds to acquire the 365-acre Rockwood estate, a $6.5-million property featuring a Tudor-style mansion and two adjoining farms in the Surrey district. The estate was bought and refurbished in 1995 through trusts in the Isle of Man and Liechtenstein, in addition to firms in the Caribbean linked to Bhutto, Zardari and the alleged kickbacks, according to the lawsuit. According to British court records, Zardari steadfastly denied ownership until January 2006, when he acknowledged he owned the property. The judge did rule that there is a "reasonable prospect" of proving that funds used to refurbish the estate were "the fruits of corruption," according to the documents.

Pakistan's political fate is now completely in the hands of a mentally sick President, who has suicidal tendency, according to psychiatrists. And, possibly, the most corrupt and mentally ill Asif Ali Zardari will cause in once again suspension of democratic process in Pakistan thus pressing the fate of the nation towards another millitary rule. Many analysts even feel that, although millitary rule is not appreciated by the international community, in special circumstances, for the sake of independence and sovereignty of any nation, it may even become unavoidable.

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