Opposition criticizes president’s proposal Kashmir issue
By Nasir Iqbal
ISLAMABAD, Dec 19: The opposition in the Senate continued its noisy protest on Friday against the Legal Framework Order (LFO) and boycotted the upper house proceedings after questioning President Pervez Musharraf’s right to decide policy on the Kashmir issue.
PPP parliamentary leader Raza Rabbani, speaking on a point of order at the outset of the sitting, accused the president of taking decisions on sensitive national issues without taking parliament into confidence and thus compromising Pakistan’s principled stand on Kashmir.
Leader of the house Wasim Sajjad, however, rejected the allegation after opposition senators walked out of the house after staging a protest that included desk-thumping and slogan-chanting for a few minutes.
He said Pakistan had not changed its principled stand on Kashmir and in fact the president had suggested in his interview that both Pakistan and India should show some flexibility by moving forward from their stated positions for sustainable peace and normality in Kashmir.
“The president made no decision against national interests,” Mr Sajjad said and assured the house that the president’s statements on Kashmir were not policy decisions but just moves and that parliament would be taken into confidence before any final decision was taken.
Wasim Sajjad said the UN resolutions on Kashmir envisaging a plebiscite to decide the future of the state were still valid and there was no change in Pakistan’s stance as Islamabad still believed that the Kashmir issue must be resolved in the light of those resolutions.
Mr Sajjad also spoke about the LFO, which, he said had already become part of the Constitution in the light of a ruling by National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain and a Supreme Court verdict that allowed the president to amend the Constitution.
“Both the office of the National Assembly speaker and the Supreme Court are institutions and the sovereignty of the country is not being affected by the LFO,” he observed.
He said the opposition had no justification for opposing the LFO after taking part in elections and taking oath as members of the two houses of parliament under the same document.
Mr Sajjad appreciated the government’s efforts for the resolution of the LFO controversy through negotiations and asked the opposition to help strengthen democracy and democratic institutions in the country.
Raza Rabbani accused the president of running a one-man show by taking decisions on important issues by himself, thus compromising the supremacy of parliament.
During his speech, women senators belonging to the treasury benches tried to disrupt him and called for a justification for a recent visit to India by PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto.
Mr Rabbani said statements of the president and the prime minister on Kashmir were contradictory.
When opposition senators started thumping their desks and shouting slogans like “Go Musharraf go” and “shame, shame,” the ruling coalition’s women members also resorted to desk-thumping and chanted “yes Musharraf, yes.”
The PPP leader said the joint opposition would continue its struggle against the LFO as the Constitution could only be amended by a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament rather than by a presidential decree.
He asked the government to bring a constitutional amendment bill before parliament if it wanted to make the LFO part of the Constitution.
Mr Rabbani accused the government of violating provincial autonomy by curtailing provinces’ powers, especially in Balochistan where, he said, forces under the direct control of the federal government had been deployed.
SENATORS’ FUNDS: Later, Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz told the Senate that development funds for senators would be transferred to the local government ministry in next January in line with directions of the prime minister.
He said the procedure for the utilization of these funds by the senators would be the same as for the National Assembly members who had to submit development schemes in their constituencies to be implemented by departments concerned.
The minister made the statement in response to a point of order by PML-Q senator Chaudhry Anwar Bhinder, who criticized the government for what he called discrimination against senators by not providing development funds to them.
Senate Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro asked the government to make a statement regarding a suggestion for extending the validity of the old national identity cards beyond Dec 31 by MQM senator Babar Khan Ghori who said people faced immense problems especially in view of the fact that passport offices were not issuing new passports on old identity cards.
Minister of state for law, justice and human rights laid the recently promulgated Contempt of Court Ordinance, 2003, before the house, which was adjourned until 5.30pm on Monday.
