NEW YORK, USA, 20 December 2007 (AP): One of Pakistan’s leading human
rights lawyers urged the United States to examine whether [Terrorist]
Pervez Musharraf is really indispensable to fighting terrorism and
indicated the answer would certainly be “NO.”

Hina Jilani, the United Nations Special Representative on Human Rights
Defenders, said that since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the
United States, military in Pakistan have gained control of territory
not only in tribal areas but in populous settled regions and
“militancy has increased”, including in the capital Islamabad.

“You don’t fight terrorism,” she added, by purging the Supreme Court
of judges who showed an independent streak for the first time, or “by
sending out the perception … that terrorists are victims of
injustice.”

“Now the United States thinks Musharraf is indispensable for fighting
terrorism in Pakistan”, said Jilani, a founder of the Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan. “These facts need to be very closely looked at
to assess the indispensability of Musharraf.”

Jilani, speaking at a luncheon Thursday on prospects for [real
civilian] democracy in Pakistan, stressed that she did not want to
understate or dismiss the issue of terrorism in Pakistan. But she said
“those who think that terrorism is a threat to Pakistan’s democracy
must realize that it is only one of the threats”, and that Pakistanis
have to deal with other “very critical issues.”

She recalled the six-week state of Emergency that ended Dec. 15 [2007]
in which Musharraf purged independent-mind judges, arrested almost
6,000 lawyers and hundreds of opposition figures, and reined in the
independent media.

Jilani, who was the target of an arrest warrant but was outside the
country, said arrests are continuing. Before ending Emergency rule,
she added, Musharraf unilaterally [illegally] changed the Constitution
to entrench decisions he made during the crackdown.

She said “the silver lining coming out of the crisis” is that a
coalition of lawyers, journalists, teachers, doctors, students and
trade union members are willing to fight for an independent judiciary
and an independent media and to demand accountability.

These members of civil society are opinion makers who reflect the
views of people on the street, she said, and this is the first time
they have joined forces in a movement that has been sustained over the
past 10 months.

Jilani said the movement has a vision for a future Pakistan “where the
political decision-making is firmly in the hands of democratic
institutions and the civil-political elements” in the country — not
the military which today controls security, monopolizes political and
economic power, and receives 63 percent of the budget, either directly
or indirectly.

“We do not want Musharraf and this is very clear”, she said. “This is
a demand that Musharraf should be ousted and then elections should
take place. We want Musharraf to go, but we want him to go as a part
of an [accountability] process, rather than as a sudden event which
creates more chaos, more instability and leaves a vacuum in which the
wrong kind of elements can step in.”

“I don’t want to exchange one general for another”, she stressed at
the luncheon at The Century Foundation, which does research and
analyses of economic, social, and foreign policy issues.

Jilani said Musharraf’s “totalitarian and authoritarian trends have
increased … because he thinks that this (Bush-Cheney) administration
is behind him, and he thinks that Americans will clear the way for him
and keep him there.”

“He doesn’t care about the [Pakistani] civilians”, she said. “It is
the Pakistani military that he wants to keep in hand, and he is fairly
confident that the Americans will help him do that.”

Jilani was appointed by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan to gather
information on the situation of human rights defenders around the
world. Her position is unpaid.

Jilani said since November [2007] she has visited Paris, London and
Washington DC trying to promote support for greater [civilian]
democracy in Pakistan.

The civil society movement believes one way to try to get rid of
Musharraf as expeditiously as possible is to get the political parties
before the Jan. 8 [2008] elections to “set the agenda for more
independent and free and stronger institutions, so that the whole
legal and constitutional framework is clarified.”

“The issue is, who is going to take the responsibility of determining
Pakistan’s future strategies — both its foreign and domestic
strategies and its security strategies”, she said. “Will the
politicians be a part of that, or be excluded from that forever?”

The clear message to the military, “which is composed by and large of
adventurers”, is that they have a constitutional role to defend the
country and provide security but “we don’t want their inclusion in
Pakistan’s political decision-making”, Jilani said.

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Tags: hina jillani, Musharraf, United Nations Special Representative on Human Rights