November 02, 2006	Thursday	Shawwal 9, 1427

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WASHINGTON, Nov 1: The Bajaur incident has once again shown that the government’s efforts to forge a deal with Taliban supporters is not working, says Asma Jehangir, UN special rapporteur on religious freedom.

Ms Jehangir, who spoke on Tuesday on the current situation in Pakistan at Washington’s Carnegie Endowment, blamed the government for committing “gross human rights violations” on the pretext of fighting terrorists.

She said that in his book –- In The Line of Fire – President Pervez Mushrraf also admits arresting entire families, “including a six-month old child,” to force terror suspects to surrender.

“Washington is making a huge mistake in backing such tactics. It will backfire,” she said. “It is in the interest of the US as well as Pakistan to back democratic forces and not a military government.”

Ms Jehangir said she did not understand why people in Washington believed the present government in Pakistan was popular. “It is not. People are fed up with the dictatorship. They want democracy.”

She said while it was true that Pakistani politicians were “not very good” but Pakistan was not the only country that had bad politicians. “Are politicians in other developing countries very good? Does America have an ideal political leadership?”

Ms Jehangir claimed that the country’s intelligence agencies do not allow “effective and honest political leadership to emerge.”

She said that the current administrative setup was incapable of holding fair and free elections in 2007 because “if elections are fair, President Musharraf’s civilian supporters will lose. So the rigging has already started.”

Ms Jehangir rejected the suggestion that political upheaval in the country would lead to another military takeover. “The Pakistani society is not ready for another military rule. We want democracy and people in Washington must realise this.”

Ms Jehangir also rejected the government’s claim that it freed the media in Pakistan. “First of all, the media are not as free as the government says. Journalists are harassed. Transmissions are stopped,” she said. “But whatever freedom we have, it began in 1988 and it’s not a gift from anyone. Journalists struggled for it. They were jailed, kidnapped, tortured and flogged.”

Besides, in the age of internet age, it’s not possible for any government to suppress information, she added.

Ms Jehangir urged the US government to ensure that the weapons it gave were only used for fighting terrorism and not against the people of Pakistan, “as we saw in Balochistan.”

She said that Nawab Akbar Bugti’s death was a political assassination. “Mr Bugti was killed, let there be no doubt about it. Mr Bugti knew that the government wanted to kill him and people close to the government, spoke to me and said they had clear orders to kill Mr Bugti.”

She said the government was against Baloch sardars because they were not following its instructions and were “not allowing the military to seize their assets.”

Ms Jehangir claimed that under the present government, the military had entered every walk of life. “They are selling everything, from an egg to a tank and are in every business except the beauty parlour.”