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Country in state of civil disobedience: Ghinwa The following is the edited text of the Dawn Dialogue interview with PPP-SB Chairperson Ghinwa Bhutto: Question: How do you look at the present political situation and the role of your party? Answer: We all know what is happening in Pakistan now, no matter which class we belong to. The situation has been deteriorating for a long time — for about 15 years. Economically they say that our reserves are so high and we have done so well. Every government says the same things but the figures must speak for themselves, in terms of ground realities. However, we still have our own worries, we all still have the same problems. The cost of living has been going up and the income of the people has not been improving correspondingly. As for foreign policy, we seem to be moving from one quicksand situation to another and we don’t seem to be free in chalking out our foreign policy. The first and most meaningful symbol of this lack of freedom was when the Afghanistan situation came after Sept 11, and everybody was saying we have no choice, we had no option but to give in to the American demands. Today we find foreign troops on our lands. Administratively, socially, economically and politically, there is still a great gap between provinces, and mistrust and a lack of cooperation which is now being manifested on the Kalabagh Dam and the Greater Thal Canal issues. Q: But where do you see your party in this situation? A: In such a chaotic situation, the country is increasingly becoming difficult to govern as people are cooperating less and less with any government, civil or military. So we are in a state of undeclared civil disobedience in the country. So the role of a responsible political party, which wishes to fix things and go into positive directions, should be to prevent the chaotic situation from exploding in the face of everyone in the form of a civil war and violence. A political party’s role will be to orient the people’s feelings and emotions into result- oriented actions and bring them together on a platform with a programme for reforms that the country needs at all levels and to galvanize the country and the people around this programme and to support a government, through elections, that can solve this crisis. Q: For the last eight or nine months parliament has failed to deliver and talks between the opposition and the government have been continuing without any result. How long do you think the people can go without their pressing issues being addressed? A: This deadlock between the government and the opposition is a first-hand manifestation of the lack or absence of a slogan around which people can be galvanized and can protest and express themselves. There is no party that meets the criteria. Had there been a strong party in this crisis, then there wouldn’t have been any deadlock. Things would have been resolved a long time ago. Either the army would have resolved it by saying what it wanted and had asked everyone to stand in line, or the political parties would have dealt with it with the support of the people on the street. However, this did not happen. Neither the army put an end to this through its usual ways and means, nor the opposition could muster the people’s support for its programme. However, I think people can see through the parties involved in this deadlock. What has been happening is that this delay is owing to compromises, compromises that are not very clear to anybody. We don’t know what is really happening behind those closed doors. No compromises, no discussions about the Constitution are taking place openly on the floor of parliament. Negotiations are always taking place behind closed doors, and then the results are being fed to the press. We often hear that the problem is over, but the next day we hear it is not. These parliamentarians are drawing their salaries from the government; they have been granted allowances to work in their respective areas but still they have not been performing their legislative duties. The issue of the LFO or certain items of the LFO which they dislike should be brought to the floor of parliament in order to be discussed. What I feel is that the LFO and what they are asking is really of no consequence. Asking the chief executive to take off his uniform is not going to ensure what they wish — supremacy of parliament. Having a civilian head of government does not ensure supremacy of parliament. We have seen civilian governments being dismissed by the army or with the approval of the army. We are not saying that President Musharraf is right in clinging to his uniform, because keeping the uniform and remaining as COAS is not going to ensure his position as well. This we have seen during Ayub Khan’s era and even during the Yahya Khan era. Ayub Khan had to step down for another general who in his time even after martial law had to declare elections and later on had to abdicate his position for the first elected socialist government in Pakistan under the leadership of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. There is no harm in coming to parliament under these circumstances; after all, they have all contested elections under the LFO. Women’s representation is a result of the LFO, abiding by the graduate condition is a result of the LFO. So if they could accept that, why they can’t accept the rest? Go to parliament and fight it out on the floor of the parliament. However, fighting it out in parliament does not mean what we have seen during all these days. They paralyze the parliament on one issue while there are so many issues hanging. I feel, sometimes, even the common man feels that these people are paralyzing parliament because they don’t want to address other issues. We have the foreign presence on our land; we have economic worries and issues about devolution of power. We have the problem of honour killings and rights of women, especially when we have a lot of women in parliament. We have lots of legislative work to do while at the same time dealing with the issue of the uniform. Actually this is not the issue. It is a question of who can change the Constitution and who has power over 140 million people. It is not only the uniform; it’s the whole system. How until now has it always been possible for one man to change the Constitution whether in a good or a bad way? All the compromises that have taken place since Ziaul Haq until now— I think they have not done a great service to the question of supremacy of the people. From the way tickets have been granted and the way manifestoes have been thrown away when they came to power, they have compromised. Now all of them accept that they allowed themselves to be used against each other. That was the greatest disservice that the older, traditional political parties could have done to the cause of democracy. Q: Do you think holding fresh election is a way out? A: I think fresh elections are always the best way out. If the present elected parliament cannot find a way out, then it is better to have fresh elections. More elections are better for the country, for the people and for the culture of democracy and for the emergence of new political forces. Q: There is a political vacuum in the country. Both the PML and the PPP have failed to deliver. In the present circumstances there is an impression that your party is not taking initiatives to galvanize the people. Is there some financial problem or some compulsions or do you think the situation is not ripe for an active role? A: Leftist parties, or revolutionary parties or parties that speak for the people always have financial problems. When a party does not have financial problems, then you should have a question mark. A party is a reflection of society. When the corrupt sections of a society are in the frontline, then you see your political parties as corrupt. When you see fanatics and bigots in the forefront, then we see a lot of fanatical political parties flourishing. And when political awareness spreads, which comes from a series of experiences and setbacks and feelings of being cheated by the previous political parties, then political parties that are for the people start coming to the forefront. Q: How does your party see the Sindh situation? A: There is a great gap of trust between the provinces. Sindh is the most populated province after Punjab and suffers the most. It has people from all the provinces but it suffers most from its people-friendly system because there are lots of people of different backgrounds and nationalities and there is no contract to organize their relationships with the government and their relationship with each other and with the other provinces. And what makes it even worse are the latest developments on Kalabagh and on the Thal Canal. You cannot blame the Sindhis for not trusting Punjab because the Kalabagh Dam has always been an enigma for everybody. It has been kept a secret from everybody. Now if it is going to be beneficial for the whole country, then why can’t the whole country see what it is all about? If it is hidden and kept in secrecy that means that there is something in it that is going to harm one province more than another. Sindh feels isolated, unjustly treated, and rightly so. This situation should be tackled very quickly before it can develop into a very unpleasant situation. Q: If fresh elections are held, do you think your party will be able to gain seats? Because other than Mir Murtaza Bhutto no one from your party has made it to parliament. A: In the last elections we were almost made to give up. They could not say it to us straight but basically this is what they did by their actions. They disqualified me because of the graduation condition. We were fought against tooth and nail. Our candidates and our people were taken away. Pressure tactics were used to make us stay back. I am not going to put all the blame on that because manipulations can only take place when there is no political slogan which attracts the whole country. Once you have a political party which has a programme which embraces the whole country, then manipulation becomes very difficult. Those who manipulate have taken advantage of the fact that people are disappointed with political parties. There isn’t still any political party which could reach all the people and therefore they took advantage of this and made it even more difficult for us to reach out. We have not yet reached out to everybody. Q: Is there any chance of your political party making peace finally with the Pakistan People’s Party? A: Which political party? On what basis? When people ask would you compromise or reconcile, I ask on what basis, because the main question turns out to be that you don’t understand what the Shaheed Bhutto party is all about. It means that you don’t understand what our manifesto is all about. The problem with the other party is that they have stopped being the people’s party. Their interests now are totally entangled with the interests of the higher class or the class of the feudals, industrialists, and this goes totally against the interests of the people. We have seen them signing on the dotted line for the IMF. We have seen them giving up foreign policy for the army and America. We have seen them not respecting the sovereignty of the country when they send alleged terrorists out of the country. We are not saying that we have any sympathy for such elements, but we say that was the wrong procedure. The right legal procedure was not followed. So those people now have totally different interests from the interests of the common citizen or the country. They go to India and speak against Pakistan. They go to America and speak against the army. And they prepare budgets which are not people-oriented. No peasants have benefited from their financial policies. No labour has benefited nor did human rights conditions improve when they were in power. So that’s why I say on what basis can we reconcile. There is no basis for reconciliation. Q: When you say that the PPP has not lived up to the expectations of the people and that your party is the inheritor of the mantle of ZAB, then why has it not been possible for your party to attract more people who according to you were disappointed and had lost faith in Benazir Bhutto’s party? If you were disqualified why couldn’t other members of your party make it to parliament? A: We are not thinking about inheritance. We are not saying we are closer genetically to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto than they are. This is not in our programme. We are saying that we and ZAB Shaheed believed in the same principles. And we have proved it for the last seven years and again on many issues, and we have stood our ground. People did not really come out in the last elections to vote. People don’t change their views overnight. It takes time. They need to trust you first. There has been a lot of hostile publicity against us by the other party. The people need to know and trust you. They have learnt a lesson. It is not so easy now, as it used to be, to win their trust. They first gave their trust to Mr Bhutto and he was faithful to them. But later on those who came with his name betrayed them. Once, twice, thrice. They are still betraying them. People cannot trust you. They need time. And those who voted for the programme of ZAB in the last elections did not vote for anybody. They stayed home. They haven’t voted for us, they haven’t voted for them. But with the passage of time they will give you the trust and follow you and put their fears aside. You must remember that there is also the fear factor. These poor people have the police on their heads. They have the MNAs of their areas, chaudhris, etc. It has to be a phenomenon in which they can feel protected from the powerful of the area. Q: What is the major problem with the people of Pakistan? A: Poverty. When you spend more than 60 per cent of your salary on food then you are below the poverty line. How many of us can spend less than 60 per cent on food? No matter what they say about the economy, it is still very bad. How many of you can really ensure a decent education for your children or own a house? So first of all it is poverty, then law and order. Justice is also a major problem because it is so difficult to get. Q: Speaking about justice, please give us an update on the Mir Murtaza Bhutto murder case? A: I think we are all updated because nothing is happening. I am not satisfied with the course of the trial. Q: There is a move for the merger of various political parties. The Muslim League has merged. And there are other moves to integrate the various splinter factions of the PPP. There were also reports that you have been contacted. How do you look at the merger moves? A: No. After the elections I have not been contacted concerning any matter with regard to a merger. However, before the elections we took the initiative and we were almost able to make something until the alliances came up. Q: Would you go along with another group if they contact you? A: It depends on how they contact us. And on what lines. Our line is clear and that is why we have not been contacted. Q: If Gen Musharraf dissolves the assembly tomorrow and calls for fresh elections, is your party prepared for that? A: We are always ready. Any party should always work with the people. Our programme is ready and our contact with the people has not been interrupted and we are always prepared for elections. Q: There is an impression that the PPP-SB has confined itself to Sindh. There are no active wings in Punjab, NWFP or Balochistan. Why is this so? A: We are making more progress now in Punjab than we made even during Murtaza’s time. Q: Despite all the dejection and discontent, political parties failed to mobilize people and bring them out on the streets during or after the elections. Why? A: It is funny that no party has galvanized the people on domestic issues. It is more foreign issues that mobilize the people. If I tell them I am going to give you a better salary, they will still remain cold. But if you tell them that Iraq is being hit, Afghanistan is being hit by the Americans, and America is putting conditions on you, it mobilizes the people. This is one of the reasons. Before Afghanistan, before Iraq, there was also some kind of confusion especially in Afghanistan— the way the people thought we are in the forefront because our people, the Taliban, are in the forefront. It wasn’t a big issue because nobody was stepping on our feet. Q: How do you look at the MMA and its policies. Are they with the military or they are really in the opposition? A: May be they have one hand here and one there. Q: How long do you think the present system can continue in view of the problems mentioned by you? Neither the government nor the opposition is touching the real issues. A: Things will remain the same as long as no political party with a proper programme to change the system comes forward with a sweeping majority. Small majorities, weak majorities, are not going to resolve anything and we are going to remain in the same position. You need a big majority of either an alliance of parties or one big party that believes in a programme of change in the system in all its aspects, in order not to meet such situation. But as long we are going to have a little bloc here and a little bloc there, with all of them having question marks about their background, we are going to have the same type of problems. And the country will keep plunging into one crisis after another and things are going to change for the worse. And will go out of hand of those who think they are in control. Q: There is a feeling that Punjab is dominating other provinces and they are not getting their rights. A: As long as you and I are speaking of our issues and our crisis as a Sindhi problem or a Balochi problem or a Pathan problem and treat Punjab as separate from us, we are not going to succeed and will not be able to have this huge bloc in parliament for change. You have to go beyond your Sindhism, Balochism and Pathanism, and go forward in Punjab. The peasants can still be and are your allies. Who elected your Sindhi prime minister? The Punjabis, because he did not speak of Sindhis and Punjabis. He spoke of the poor and the rich. Nationalism (in the old sense)] is not going to succeed in Pakistan. Q: There is unrest in all the provinces and even the elite in Punjab are criticizing the regime. Do you think this is indicative of any change? A: You must have heard about how the peasants and other people are being treated in Khanewal, Okara, Charsadda and other places. If you go beyond those big headlines, you see that there are much more serious problems that can unite all of us. They are not prepared to go beyond what is happening in the assemblies. It has become like a gossip column. It is not relevant. What is relevant is in those small headings which indicate that change is coming and that can unite us. The Dawn Dialogue interview panel consisted of Habib Khan Ghori, Latif Baloch, Bahzad Alam Khan and Shamim-ur-Rahman. Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
