U.S. Assistance and the 18^th Amendment in the Constitution

          Some are jubilant on deletion of a name and some on insertion of a name in the Constitution of Pakistan but no one in the Parliament thought for a moment that along with restoring the 1973 Constitution in 2010, it was also necessary to ponder upon the question of how to restore the DEVALUED currency of Pakistan in 2010 to that of the valued currency of Pakistan in 1973. To restore the Standard of Salaries of the Civil Servants to that of the 1973 when one person was earning and ten were expending. To restore that confidence of the people in their elected representatives which was in the year of 1973 when the whole nation united under the flag of PPP.

          We also saw that 7 amendments were made by those who had enacted the Constitution in a short time of 4 years. We also saw that the whole nation came out against that person who had showed them how to speak and how to get their rights.

          The Military dictator was forced to come and get the charge of the Government. Then these political parties joined him and thus prolonged his rule to 11 years.

          The Government should ask the U.S. Government to assist us in restoring our currency. The pain of devaluation is piercing the heart of every Pakistani but it seems to me that such devaluation has no effect on the lives of the Parliamentarians because they seek only that thing which is in their interest.

          Deletion of names or insertions of names have no direct impact on the lives of the common man. The common people still remember the times of the former dictators when they were not feeling so suffocation as they are feeling now in the democracy.

          The U.S. Government is closely monitoring our condition and also our way of spending the aid and that is why now is stressing for Audit of the Accounts and would also act in future according to the needs of the common man. When President Obama intends to have long term friendship with the people of Pakistan then the U.S. Administration should pick those problems for the solution which give benefits to the maximum number of persons in Pakistan.

          Our currency is losing value every day and considerably decreased since 1973, it is imperative to ask the economists of the Country to sit and think how to increase its value.

          The currency of Afghanistan was nothing before coming of the U.S. but when the U.S. came it has got sufficient value. There was a time when people from Afghanistan were coming to Pakistan and were doing work on daily wages now the wheel is rolling in the reverse direction and people from Pakistan are going to Afghanistan because the presence of U.S. made them so rich to pay our people. It means that the standard of the living has decreased and the people have been forced to find other places for their livelihood.

          We boast being an Atomic power and show military might to the World but at the same time do not feel shame to have begging-bowl in the hand. I feel shame to ask the U.S. to help us but there is no alternative. So far the aid went to such hands which produce no promising results for the people. It is also a moment for thinking that despite having a democratic government for the last two years; we have no stable Finance Minister which shows that there is something wrong in the bottom. No one is willing to shoulder the heap of the filth created by another nor can openly say what has done to the accounting matter which has puzzled each entering person. The resignation of Shaukat Tarin, the recent stress of the U.S. officials for visa to them for the Audit etc. compels the thinking persons to have a mental picture of the state of affairs.

          But once again the ball goes to the court of politicians. The majority of the politicians are businessmen, capitalists, industrialists, landlords etc. and do business in Dollars, they would never wish to increase the value of the Pakistani currency because then they would get less.

          Thanks to illiteracy, ignorance and poverty of the people of my Country that they have no time to analyse the hidden motives of their leaders behind every act. The common man is not concerning whether the powers are concentrated in the hands of the President or the Prime Minister, the Governor or the Chief Minister. Mr. Zardari and Mr. Gilani are very clever when they said that the responsibility was of the Provincial Governments for everything. They know that in two Provinces they are only coalition partners while in two they have their own Chief Ministers. In Punjab, if the Provincial Government failed to give relief to the people that would be a big victory for the PPP. Similarly in NWFP (Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, the situation is tense due to the change of name and if that took the shape of the unpopularity of ANP, that would benefit the opponents of the ANP because the general people are not interested in the name, they want the solution of their problems which can easily be exploited by other parties.

          Let us see the future.

Manzoor Ahmad Yousafzai.

Email: manzoorahmadjalalmallb@hotmail.com

Sunday, 11 April 2010.

Friday, April 09, 2010

By Sabir Shah

They did it yesterday, they undid it today

LAHORE: Many sitting legislators, including PM Yousuf Raza Gilani, had not only supported General Zia-ul-Haq’s December 1984 referendum, but were also part of the parliament that approved the 8th Constitutional Amendment in November 1985, which gave him discretionary powers to dissolve the National Assembly under Article 58 (2) b of the Constitution.

The 1985 assembly or the Majlis-e-Shoora, had earlier endorsed a Constitution Order on March 2, 1985 through which a large number of amendments were made to the country’s Constitution.

Though these legislators, hailing from all political parties, unanimously voted on Thursday to erase the name of the country’s longest-serving ruler, General Zia-ul-Haq, from the Constitution for his unconstitutional acts during his tenure (1977-1988), a stroll past the 25-year old history archives reveals that the military ruler of yore was also supported whole-heartedly then by the PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, the Chaudhrys of Gujrat and the Jamiat-e-Ulema Pakistan chief Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, Jamaat-e-Islmai, Makhdoom Sajjad Hussain Qureshi, father of Foreign Ministe Shah Mehmood Qureshi. etc.

While Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani had organised a huge political meeting in support of the 1984 referendum at Qasim Bagh Stadium Multan, Nawaz Sharif had become Punjab’s chief minister after the 1985 party-less polls, courtesy his mentor General Zia-ul-Haq and the then military administrator-cum-Punjab Governor General Ghulam Jillani Khan.

Similarly, a few scions of NWFP’s Saifullah family, former NWFP Chief Minister Pir Sabir Shah, late Khawaja Safdar (father of the fiery PML-N leader Khawaja Asif), Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, late Khaqan Abbasi (father of PML-N MNA Shahid Khaqan), Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali, sitting PML-N MNA Rana Nazir Ahmed, Javed Hashmi, Yusuf Raza Gilani’s late uncle Makhdoom Hamid Raza Gilani and Zafar Ali Shah etc were all members of the 1985 National Assembly which had made laws under the umbrella of General Zia.

General Zia had constituted Majlis-e-Shoora on December 24, 1981 under Presidential Order (P.O.15 of 1981) and its 284 members were nominated by none other than the President himself.

The 1985 polls had wiped out the entire leadership of the Jamaat-i-Islami. The party had only managed to win eight of the 63 National Assembly seats it had contested.

However, the feudal character of the Parliament in 1985 had remained unchanged, as it continued to be dominated by the rural landlords. The only change was that the younger generation of landlords had taken over from their elders. The social background of the new members of Parliament could be judged from the fact that this Assembly had 117 landowners, 17 tribal leaders, six religious leaders, eight urban professionals, seven former army officers, two student leaders and 42 businessmen in its fold. Most of these tycoons had opted to enter into politics in vengeance against Pakistan Peoples Party’s anti-business policies.

The first session of the 1985 National Assembly was held on March 20, 1985. Late Muhammad Khan Junejo was nominated as the prime minister of Pakistan by the President (General Zia-ul-Haq) then. Muhammad Khan Junejo, the first casualty of the killer Article 58(2) b on May 29, 1988, had received a vote of confidence on March 24, 1985.

Apart from many other reasons, Prime Minister Junejo’s decision to sign the Geneva Accord against the wishes of General Zia and his open declarations of removing any military personnel found responsible for an explosion at a munition dump at Ojhri Camp in Rawalpindi in 1988, proved to be some of the major factors responsible for his removal.

According to General Zia’s son and former federal minister, Ijaz-ul-Haq, “They cannot delete General Zia’s name from history till Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution are there. The recent disqualifications of various legislators were done under these two Articles. These two Articles determine the qualification criteria for a lawmaker in this country. So how can they do it without undoing all what General Zia had done?”

The tide turned in the late 90s when Nawaz Sharif-led PML-N secured a two-thirds parliamentary power and rendered the president toothless. And when he was booted out by Gen Musharraf, a horde of politicians, Chaudhrys being prominent among them, helped him arm the Presidency with powers snatched by the last Nawaz government.

Given this so-chequered and oft-repeating-itself history, masses keep their fingers crossed in a country where one class of politicians or the others always makes hay when the sun shines.