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LAHORE, June 8: In an obvious reference to the passage of the Shariat bill by the MMA government in the NWFP, President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Sunday spoke strongly against the attempts at Talibanization of society and called for thwarting them.
Speaking at a reception arranged by the Lahore Bar Association, he said the people wanted a progressive, enlightened and dynamic Islamic state of Pakistan in line with the “vision of the founding fathers”.
It was the first gathering organized by a bar where President Gen Musharraf was invited.
“The people of Pakistan do not want a theocratic state and are strongly opposed to Talibanization of society. The attempts being made at imposing a particular dress code, defacing the billboards and uprooting the circuses must be discouraged, and thwarted. The people need to play their role to prevent these attempts. The law enforcing agencies and the judiciary should also act against such minor irritants and ward off these conflicts (from getting out of hands),” he said.
“Personal liberties and freedoms should be respected,” the president said, and added: “Nobody has any right by virtue of his being in power to tell others who is a good Muslim and who is not. Imposition of a particular dress code as Islamic and defacing of the billboards is quite a weird thing. It’s for people to prioritize the issues. The minority can’t be allowed to hold the majority a hostage.”
Speaking about the government-opposition talks on the issue of the Legal Framework Order (LFO), he said: “They (the MMA) had not shown willingness to reach any agreement on the issue in spite of a flexible attitude of the government. Now they have come up with their 17-point Islamization demands. From their demands, it seems as if we live in an un-Islamic state although the constitution of the country clearly says that no law repugnant to Islam will stay on the statutes.”
Gen Musharraf, who received a standing ovation by lawyers when he arrived there in his military uniform, insisted that “all such acts were tarnishing Pakistan’s image around the globe”. He added that Pakistan was perceived by other nations as an “intolerant society and a land of terrorists and fundamentalists”.
The president said: “Pakistan cannot make economic progress in a vacuum. It’s part of the global village and needs to interact with other nations if we wish to develop and prosper. We must try to grasp the regional and international situation, and behave accordingly if we wish to move forward.”
He said the Ummat could not move ahead by choosing the path of confrontation (with the West). “It needs to work on a two-pronged strategy to move forward: emancipate the Ummat (from economic and technological dominance of the West) and try to convince the West that all the (global) political disputes must be settled, as those encourage extremism.” He said Pakistan was an important member of the Muslim world and must play a “lead role in steering the Ummat out of the present crisis”.
UNIFORM: Gen Musharraf said he would remain in “military uniform” as long as he deemed it necessary whether anyone liked it or not. He agreed that the same person should not be holding two mandates of president and chief of the army staff at the same time, but added: “The (existing) environment of instability in the country demands that I should wear both the mandates. I’m not holding two offices (of president and army chief) by choice. I am doing so because of compulsion. I’ll take off my uniform the very day I feel that the institutions like the National Security Council and the political system are functioning properly and (have) taken root. I’ve already quit the office of chief executive and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee one by one. I will do so in future as well.”
LFO: President Gen Musharraf defended the changes made by him in the constitution, saying he was empowered to do so by the Supreme Court in a reference which had validated the military takeover on October 12, 1999.
“In a parliamentary system, the assemblies are supreme and the laws of the land and the constitution are sacrosanct. However, it is not an unusual thing to amend them (as has been done by him) in the larger interest of the people and country. The laws are meant for the well-being of the people and the security of the country, and not the other way round. These laws can be changed or amended in the larger interest of the people and the state, especially if they had been distorted (by the previous rulers) for personal and political gains. I have not made any change for my personal gain. We introduced all the amendments after consulting the politicians and the people,” he said.
He also criticized the “previous rulers who got the amendments to the constitution passed from the parliament without any debate on them”.
“The past rulers amended the constitution in order to arrogate all powers to themselves. We’ve done so for the people at large, to create a system of checks and balances by propping up the NSC, to prevent looting and plundering of national wealth, and to avoid military future interventions and martial laws,” he said.
He said the opposition was opposing only those amendments that related to the presidential powers to dismiss the government and the assemblies, the NSC and his military uniform.
He insisted that these changes to the constitution were needed to stabilize democracy and institutions in the country as well as to make economic progress which required political stability.
Without naming former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, he asked the people not to bear with the leaders who were trying to tarnish the image of Pakistan while sitting abroad.
He said he did not mind if “somebody spoke against him because it was natural to have friends and foes. However, he said, nobody should go too far in his opposition and work against the interest of the country or its people.
