Highlights of the October 2008 issue
Interviews
Exclusive Online
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“I don’t know who advised Musharraf to resign”
Former attorney-general, Malik Abdul Qayyum, provides an insight into the days leading up to General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s resignation from the presidency
Q. How likely was General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s impeachment?
A. Though a final opinion could have been possible only if the charges against Musharraf were made public, on the face of it his impeachment had no legal grounds. One of the most obvious charges against him could have been that he suspended the Constitution and imposed military rule in 1999 and emergency in 2007. But both these acts he committed as the chief of the army staff (COAS) and there is no legal and constitutional provision for the impeachment of the COAS. I had advised Musharraf to wait before making any move to see what the charge sheet against him contained.
More importantly, the charges of overthrowing the government and suspending the Constitution pertained to his first term as president which enjoys validation by the Supreme Court (SC) and was endorsed by the parliament through his election and the Seventeenth Amendment. Even when he imposed emergency in November 2007, he had not yet started his second term that actually began after his re-election was notified in December 2007. Constitutionally and legally speaking, the period between the expiry of his first term and the start of his second term will be part of the former and not the latter.
No Country for Peace
By By Moosa Kaleem
The Baloch feel that the operation in the province has intensified since the induction of the new government and none of the promises made to them by the new leadership have materialised
On August 19, 2008 Frontier Corps (FC) personnel encircled a locality in Balochistan's Kech district. The area residents were ordered to leave their houses. These men, women and children were then interrogated about connections to the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and about that group's passage through the area. "People replied that they had never seen any BLA activist or armed people in the area, but that whenever a traveller comes to the area we give him a meal, without asking about his affiliation to any group," Mohammad Kamal Ayub, the district coordinator for Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, tells the Herald. According to him, the FC personnel set huts on fire, stole 300 sheep and goats and eight camels, and abducted two men – Peeral and Sabzal, the latter a local elder – trussed up in gunny sacks. Two days later the local residents found Peeral's bullet-riddled body in the surrounding mountains. Sabzal is still missing.
By Maqbool Ahmed
Deputy Superintendent of Police, Asghar Daihri of the special investigation unit, had no idea what lay in store when he signaled the white Corolla to a halt. It was the afternoon of Tuesday, January 29, 2008 and Daihri has gone to Cattle Colony, Landhi, with six constables to follow a tip that several man who had been responsible for a spate of robberies, carjackings and kidnappings were hiding in a house in the area. On the way, the seven men got stuck in a traffic jam and the white car happened to stop next to them. The young man at the starring wheel seemed uncannily similar to a suspect Daihri had seen on the security camera footage of the bank heist. The officer was right: he was the bank robber.
By Maqbool Ahmed
In the absence of anti-terror financing laws, investigations suffer in related cases
It was the night of September 14, 2004 when customs officials at the international departure lounge of Quaid-e-Azam International Airport intercepted Mehboob Kukaswadia, a passenger of a Dubai-bound flight, and recovered assorted foreign currencies worth 1.7 million dollars. Though a special customs and taxation court in Karachi absolved him of charges of currency smuggling, his arrest rang alarm bells in the US. Soon after, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), through the US embassy in Islamabad, provided to the Pakistan government information about Kukaswadia, who, it alleged, had sent a huge amount of US dollars to Dubai via telegraphic transfers.
By Irfan Husain
Most people who do not cook or step into the kitchen are often unaware what ingredients actually look like before they go into the pot. A couple of friends who fall into this category were surprised to learn that lobsters do not have a bright red colour when they emerge from the sea.
In passing, let me note that what we know as lobsters in Pakistan are actually langoustines (also known as scampi and Dublin Bay prawns). The true lobster is from the colder waters of the Atlantic and has two large pincers full of meat. This crustacean also grows to a considerable size, with some specimens weighing as much as 20 pounds. Years ago, at a restaurant in Washington DC, I ordered a lobster and was asked how big I wanted it. When I asked for the range, I was informed that I could have one weighing from four to 12 pounds.
“I am interested in what ordinary people go through because of government policies”
By Ali Asghar
Documentary film maker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy ventured into this field with no
formal training for it. With 12 films to her credit now, her work has taken her
to the tribal areas of Pakistan and beyond: to war-torn Afghanistan, Iraq, South
Africa and the Philippines. Along the way she has garnered many an accolade,
including the prestigious Livingston Award in 2005. Whether she is venturing
into the controversial issue of abortions in the Philippines, or talking to the
illegal immigrants pouring into South Africa, or meeting the injured Iraqi
refugees in Syria and Jordan, she does her work with passion and determination.
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