By IANS
Islamabad : The feisty Pakistani media reacted with anger over the declaration of emergency in the country, with one newspaper saying that “all the gains over the years have gone down the drain” and that the people had been “cheated”.
“So we are back to square one. Back to Oct 12, 1999. All the gains over the years have gone down the drain,” Dawn said in an editorial headlined “Another move towards absolutism”.
“All this talk about the forward thrust towards democracy, about the impending ‘third phase’ of the political process and the lip service to the sanctity of judiciary turned out to be one great deception. The people have been cheated,” it maintained.
“In a nutshell, one-man rule has been reinforced, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel – a tunnel that is dark and winding with an end that is perhaps blocked,” the newspaper added.
“In a sense,” Dawn said the emergency declaration was President Pervez Musharraf’s “second coup” and “his rule is now absolute, and civil society and democracy have received a blow”.
According to The News, November 3 “will go down as another dark day in Pakistan’s political and constitutional history”.
“It can be safely said that this is one of General Pervez Musharraf’s gravest errors of judgment, and a sorry indication that nothing has been learnt from the mistakes of the past,” it said in an editorial headlined “Black Saturday”.
Emergency rule “is only going to destroy the very institutions that this country crucially needs for evolving into a true democracy, particularly the judiciary, media and parliament.
“It will further fracture an already weakened federation, alienate those who have grievances against the centre…and push whatever little credibility the government had down a very deep abyss,” The News said.
“Such a draconian step will also have little effect on our ability to fight terrorism and extremism,” it added.
“Where do we go from here?” wondered Daily Times editor Najam Sethi in a news analysis on Saturday’s developments.
“We should expect the lawyers, civil society groups and most, but not all, the opposition parties to launch a spirited protest on the streets and boycott the courts,” Sethi wrote.
“But with the electronic media blinded, and the administrations freed from the oversight of the courts, the police and paramilitary forces will be used to arrest opponents and crush the protest movement.
“Two factors will play a critical role in what happens next: one, the extent to which the lawyers can continue their protest and if necessary sacrifice some dead bodies for their cause; two, the role played by the People’s Party of Ms Bhutto and the JUI of Maulana Fazalur Rehman.
“We should also expect a surge in terrorist activities and bomb blasts by Taliban and Al Qaeda elements to take advantage of the situation,” Sethi contended.