By Murali Krishnan, IANS
New Delhi : Maintaining that the inexorable chain of events leading to the presidential election were a “defining moment” in Pakistan’s history, Pakistan’s respected human rights lawyer Asma Jehangir says President Pervez Musharraf has lost the moral authority to rule with people having lost all respect for him.
“This is a defining moment for Pakistan because the entire intelligentsia with a few notable exceptions has now given a clear message that military rule is no longer acceptable,” Jehangir, an outspoken critic of the Pakistani establishment, said during a short visit to the Indian capital.
“The change is already there in the minds of the people of Pakistan. I have never seen such scenes played out. I have been on the streets since 1968. Never have I seen the army being bitterly criticised in the streets and that too so openly,” Jehangir told IANS.
“I think the lawyers’ movement has changed people’s mentality,” said the 53-year-old activist, calling it short of a watershed movement.
Giving her view on the development back home, with Musharraf dropping charges against former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Jehangir said it would now all depend on how the former prime minister played her cards.
“Musharraf is an ordinary dictator but he survives because he has support from the West. If Musharraf accommodates her, Benazir will be in that camp but there could come a day when she can get rid of him politically.
“But if Benazir feels there is an overwhelming majority that does not accept Musharraf, she will put her lot with the opposition. I don’t think she will be a rubber stamp like Shaukat Aziz. It is a matter of time, Musharraf has to be taken out,” she said.
Jahangir, who was here as a speaker for the Sarojini Naidu awards given for participation of women in public life, has been speaking up for the oppressed not just in Pakistan but in some of the world’s worst trouble spots, which she has visited as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions.
“Earlier, people said let’s have the army because it was wanted for stability and infrastructure building. Now, they are saying this is instability. That is the change. The army is not the solution, they are the problem. And that realization has set in.”
For a quarter century, Jehangir has defended the oppressed in Pakistani society, among them political prisoners, bonded labourers, women and minorities sentenced under unjust laws.
She has also played a pivotal role in building institutional structures to provide free legal aid and monitoring human rights in Pakistan.
“Our establishment is a very strong one, to fight it is not easy and people place bets that the establishment will find ways to break the lawyers’ unity. They have tried and made a few inroads. But despite the might of its formidable machinery at hand it has not succeeded,” she averred.
“But there is just that much civil society can do. If a dictator is bent on thrusting himself on people with the force of guns, tanks and the support of Washington, he can. Nevertheless, I believe and know that lawyers and civil society have not given up. They have cleverly strategised their movement and it has gone step by step.”
Jehangir believes that with a change in people’s mindsets the next step for social transformation would be easier.
“The next phase is easier as we don’t have to explain to the people why the army is a problem. That has finished. The government used to be confident that it would be a smooth election for Pervez Musharraf. But even they (government) have gone on the defensive and now some of his own party members want him to strip the uniform.”
But in her reckoning it is a question of “too little and too late”.
“I feel that with or without the uniform he (Musharraf) is not acceptable to the people. When a ruler, particularly one who does not have the moral authority or legitimacy – when he is demonised to the extent that he has been – it becomes difficult to rule in any manner except when he begins to beat up people. That is a different thing. There is no respect for him any more.”
Jehangir also believes that general elections, scheduled early next year, will have no legitimacy unless Musharraf is out of the picture.
“This is a time for national reconciliation of political forces and they can sit only together minus Musharraf. The Pakistan Muslim League, the Balochistan and Sindh nationalists will want no truck with him. He is an untrustworthy person for any understanding and completely unacceptable,” she said.
However, Jehangir was also quick to point out that radical Islamists would be marginalized as the country moves gradually in the bumpy direction of democracy.
“These Lashkars (radical Islamists) will be marginalized but that is a long and big ‘if’ here. Don’t take it for granted that we are going to have general elections and all is going to be well. Because Musharraf is there and elections are going to be rigged badly. He needs to be cut out as he is incompetent.”