LAHORE, May 11: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal may give a call for a march on Islamabad in case government-opposition talks on the controversial LFO issue fail, warned MMA vice-president Qazi Husain Ahmad here on Sunday.
“The millions of people who had come on roads on our call on the Iraq issue in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and other cities might turn to Islamabad if we desired so,” he said.
“We will lose nothing if the joint committee fails to reach a consensus on the constitutional amendments package. But Jamali will lose his government, Shujaat his party’s majority (in parliament) while (Gen Pervez) Musharraf will also have to go along with them.”
Denying reports that the MMA had agreed to give two more years to Gen Musharraf to remain as the chief of army staff, the Qazi, who is also amir of the Jamaat-i-Islami, said: “Who are we to give this extension? Why should we give this extension?”
He said they had only offered Gen Musharraf to become a civilian president with their support after removing his military uniform and that offer too was for a limited period of time.
“I assure pro-democracy people that we shall never accept amendments to the Constitution by one person and shall ensure supremacy of the basic law and the parliament,” he said while speaking at a seminar held to pay homage to the late parliamentarian Maulana Abdul Sattar Niazi.
Punjab PML-N general-secretary Khwaja Saad Rafiq, Pir Binyamin Rizvi, Ahmad Saeed Kirmani, Mian Maqsood Ahmad, MPA Ghulam Farid Hazarvi, and Inamullah Khan Niazi also spoke.
The Qazi said Gen Musharraf had completed his three-year term given by the Supreme Court, whether lawfully or otherwise, so he should now deliver powers to civilian setup.
He said even the apex court was alive to the LFO as its chief justice was enjoying extension in his tenure under it.
“It is for this reason that we are not moving the court against unlawful acts, including the LFO, of the rulers.”
Earlier, talking to reporters after attending a Seerat conference organized by the Jamaat-i-Islami, he said neither the Pakistani nation nor the army would allow denuclearization of the country. He was referring to Gen Musharraf’s offer to India in this regard.
Answering a question about Gen Musharraf’s assurance to visiting US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage that Jihadi training camps, if any, in the country would be closed, Qazi Husain said the Jihad movement was going on in occupied Kashmir and not in Azad Kashmir.
He warned the government against ouster if it deviated on the national issue of Kashmir. He said a solution unacceptable to the real party in the dispute —- Kashmiris —- could not be implemented.
“India will have to give them their right to self-determination as Kashmiris will never like to be called Indians.”
The MMA leader said they would never allow opening of trade links with India unless and until the Kashmir issue was resolved, which was the main reason for the worsening of ties between the two countries.
Replying to a question about Indian prime minister Vajpayee’s visit to Pakistan, he said he might come to Islamabad and that too for discussing and solving the Kashmir problem and they would be happy to see the issue settled.
He told a questioner that the credit for solving the issue would go to Kashmiris and not Gen Musharraf for the latter had played no role in this regard.