On 31st August 2007 former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto met with British Foreign Secretary David Milliband for 45-minutes. Before this on 26th July Bhutto met Musharraf in Abu Dhabi. Shortly before this meeting Mr Milliband had visited Islamabad to meet Musharraf. Dawn Newspaper reported that Mr Milliband’s special adviser Mark Layall Grant, during his tenure as his country’s High Commissioner in Pakistan, played the role of a mediator between the president and the former prime minister, and was said to have been present during the Abu Dhabi meeting. During an interview with Channel 4 news in August 2007, when asked about the ongoing negotiations, Bhutto said, "the British Foreign Office has been very helpful" in brokering the deal. Bhutto is soon expected to visit the USA to discuss matters with Zalmay Khalilzad, current US Ambassador to the UN and formerly to Afghanistan and Iraq, and her point of contact in Washington. All this dealing and doubling-dealing betrays a desperate attempt to prop up a failing regime, hated by its people but loved by governments in the west.
Musharraf’s political life is at a critical stage. His on-going support for the US led war on terror, which has meant months of bombing in Waziristan with many innocent civilians being massacred in the process, has enraged the people of Pakistan. His suspension of the Chief Justice of Pakistan led to unprecedented demonstrations by lawyers. Security forces in the subsequent protests killed protestors in Karachi. After this came the siege at the Lal Masjid, dealt with by crushing force that saw women and children slaughtered, as he ignored alternative solutions. His attempt to use this episode to portray himself as a guardian against ‘extremism’ in Pakistan, failed to harness any significant support in Pakistan. The continued insurgency in Balochistan, the presence of a hostile Indian-backed regime in Kabul, the abandonment of Kashmir and the imprisonment of Dr A.Q.Khan have all contributed to the current depression Pakistan faces under Musharraf. He has attempted to exploit the hostile rhetoric within the US, openly accusing Pakistan of being a “safe haven” for terrorists in its recent National Intelligence Estimate, saying it was all done in the ‘national interest’. His arguments do not merely fail to convince. When American politicians like Senator Barack Obama argue for unilateral US action in Pakistan’s tribal areas, the pathetic and belated squeals from his administration sound positively hollow given that the administration itself has systematically outsourced its foreign policy to Washington. All of this has led to his political life hanging by a thread.
Britain and the United States realise that it would be hard to find a more compliant regime in Pakistan than that of Musharraf. It is widely recognised that it is only their external support, so as to stem the tide of Islam and its growing influence within the country, which sustains his ability to rule. One of the only solutions for Musharraf, whose Presidential term comes to an end, is to restore a semblance of a democratic process in Pakistan. In order to survive, he will have to assume a role as a civilian President, and allow elections to take place. It is for this reasons that these clandestine meetings have occurred, as well as other matters, such as the Supreme Court’s decision to allow former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to return and Musharraf’s recent statements around political reconciliation. Some may believe that only the return of democracy and the political parties can save Pakistan from its current crisis. This, however, would be a fundamental mistake!
If recent political events in Pakistan demonstrate anything, it is that for real change to occur a comprehensive root and branch restructuring of the political system needs to take place. For the Musharraf administration is not unique in its incompetence, mismanagement and subservience to foreign powers. The causes behind Pakistan’s political problems are systemic. It is the political system that is at the heart of Pakistan’s problem, a system that rewards corrupt politicians at the expense of ordinary citizens and which allows foreign states to dictate Pakistan’s security and military agenda.
After witnessing the corruption of the Bhutto administration in the late 1980’s, then again in the early 1990’s, two stints of failed government from Nawaz Sharif, these same political parties now seek to gain an unprecedented third sting from the same hole in an open insult to the historical recollection of every person in Pakistan. Both main political parties claim to want fair elections, yet run their own parties as dictatorial fiefdoms. Both claim to support a rule of law, yet both attacked the judiciary and the Supreme Court when in power. Both attack Musharraf’s foreign policy record, yet were equally as subservient to America, Britain and the IMF when in power.
The politics of Pakistan continues to be usurped by western governments interfering for their own interests with the support of secular elites, at the expense of the people of Pakistan. This time around, however, the political face-lift is more dangerous to the Muslim character of the Pakistani masses than ever. The return of the PPP is being introduced by General Musharraf as a natural ideological ally in his quasi-intellectual assault on Islam in Pakistan and globally – brutally illustrated by his slaughter of women and children in the Lal Masjid and by his continued crackdown in Waziristan. Inspired by his hero Mustafa Kemal. Musharraf seeks to roll back the process of Islamisation that has increased over the last two decades in Pakistan, and which has especially accelerated over the last six years.
The man who sacrificed Afghanistan, Pakistan’s strategic depth, it’s nuclear command and control to America in its war on Islam in exchange for his own political survival is expected to take on the secular transformation of Pakistan. Only the most corrupt regime in Pakistan’s history that of Benazir Bhutto, could serve as a suitable ally for this dishonourable initiative. With them, Nawaz Sharif, who presided over the surrender of Kargil and who then begged for President Clinton to intervene, expects to be taken seriously again as a candidate for prime minister. The corruption and incompetence of the 1990’s combined with the betrayal of the first decade of the 21st century should teach us a salutary lesson, that those who wish to maintain the current situation for their own ends will stop at nothing to achieve their objectives. It is as if they never heard the ayat of Quran:
“O you who believe! Betray not the trust of Allah and the Messenger, nor misappropriate knowingly things entrusted to you”
(Translated Meaning Surah Anfal: 27)
O Muslims! We must learn our own lesson. It is not sufficient to change from military leaders to political leaders without changing the underlying political system. It will not work now, nor has it ever worked in the past. Having President Musharraf in uniform or without uniform does not alter the basis of the political system nor does it change the fundamental economic and foreign policies that have brought Pakistan to its knees. Indeed if one was to read the headline from October 1999, just before the last coup that brought the army into power, some of the very same editorials and opinion pieces that today complain about military rule were lambasting the records of political parties and calling for the military to intervene. The need of the hour is not secular democracy or for General Musharraf to remove his uniform, but the return of the Islamic Khilafah. A renewed effort at re-establishing the Khilafah via an elected and accountable Khalif must be vigorously sought. Some (mostly the elites) claim this is unrealistic, yet according to recent opinion poll carried out by the University of Maryland 74% of Pakistanis support the establishment of a unified Khilafah in the Muslim world.
The establishment of such an entity is therefore not a question of if but when, as the tide of Islam and support for unification does not just engulf Pakistan but the whole of the Muslim world. Only with a comprehensive elimination of the current flawed systems in Pakistan and a replacement with the constitution, judiciary and systems of the Islamic Khilafah can the direction of Pakistan be comprehensively changed for the better. The Quran clearly commands Muslims to rule by Islamic laws, canons and policies when it states:
“Therefore judge between them by what Allah has revealed, and do not follow their vain desires (to turn away) from the truth that has come to you “
(Translated Meaning Surah Maida: 48)
It is only the Islamic system that will break the monopoly of the elites and only a sincere leadership that will take on the vested interests that are bleeding Pakistan dry. It is only the Khilafah that will take on the feudal landlords and ensure they pay their fair share of land tax or have their land confiscated. It is only the Khilafah that will redistribute wealth to the poorest in Pakistan’s society who will ensure that a poor labourer in a small dwelling in Sindh is as much a citizen as the billionaire who lives in Defence in Lahore. Under the Khilafah no one is above the law, not the Caliph, nor the rich or the well connected. Not the heads of political parties with their entourage of hundreds or the officers in the army. The Khilafah will introduce discipline and inculcate core values back into society and ensure law and order once again as its primary objective. It will safeguard the security of ordinary citizens and not the interests of organised criminals and their allies in the police force. The Khilafah will take on the oil marketing companies and the agricultural middlemen who are inflating the prices of energy and key commodities. The Khilafah will deliver opportunity for the many and not the few and ensure political and security decisions are never again made by foreign powers.
Dear Muslims, our collective work to salvage this Ummah would carry a great reward, honour and pride in this world and a garden in the Hereafter, whose width is that (of the whole) of the heavens and of the earth. Our failure to do so would mean we are an Ummah that leaves herself to follow the whims and desires of the corrupt and powerful men who seek to dominate our lands. We learn from the Quran al-Kareem
“If they do not respond to you then know that they are merely following their whims and desires. And who could be further astray than someone who follows his whims and desires without any guidance from Allah? Allah does not guide the people of the wrongdoers.”
(Translated Meaning Surah al-Qasas: 50)
Let us make it known at the critical juncture that it is unacceptable for western governments to continue plotting the future of the Muslim world as if it is their chessboard. It is unacceptable for these corrupt politicians and traitors to be the only ones to continue in power in our lands. It is only the system of Allah and His Messenger that can bind our people, their hearts and minds with justice. As this debate revolves around us, let not the Muslims be the only ones who are silenced from making their view known.
Hizb ut-Tahrir invites you to join with it in continuing its struggle to expose the colonial policies of western governments in Pakistan and the Muslim world and create a positive public opinion about Islam as a way of life and the Khilafah as a new state and civilization that will free Pakistan and the Muslim world from chaos, instability and injustice.
“O you who believe! If you help (in the cause of) Allah, He will help you, and make your foothold firm.”
(Translated Meaning Surah Muhammad: 7)
Source: Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain