On December 9, 72-year-old Abdullah Qureshi, a member of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) provincial council of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), was murdered in a suicide attack in Swat valley currently the scene of a military operation against religious fundamentalists who control a majority of the valley.
Pakistan
Called by military dictator General Pervez Musharraf after the imposition of emergency rule which saw the sacking of the judiciary, imprisonment of 10,000 opposition activists, censorship and closure of media outlets and the violent suppression of protests and set against the backdrop of increasing terrorist attacks by religious fundamentalists, Pakistans upcoming general elections were already set to be farcical.
Day seven passed without my arrest despite several attempts by the police. During the last three days, we were able to hold a meeting of the leading members of Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), gave interviews to private television channels and to a private team working for CNN. We were able to fax daily news to most of the newspapers in Pakistan.
Farooq Tariq is the secretary general of the 3000-member Labour Party Pakistan (LPP). The following is an abridged version of an interview with Tariq conducted by Ron Jacobs. Tariq is currently operating underground, being hunted by the regime. THe full version of this interview was posted on the Counterpunch.org website on November 11.
While Pakistans dictator General Pervez Musharraf has justified his November 3 imposition of emergency rule with the supposed threat of Islamic terrorism, the brunt of the crackdown has been felt by students, trade unionists, the left, the mainstream opposition parties, civil society and the movement of advocates (lawyers) who have been in the forefront of resistance to the regime since March.
On November 3, Pakistani military dictator General Pervez Musharraf initiated an intensified crackdown against all opposition to his increasingly unstable regime, with the decleration of a state of emergency. While the militarys spin doctors have attempted to make a distinction between this state of emergency and martial law, it has seen thousands of people put into preventative detention, mobile phones jammed, all non-government broadcasting stations taken off air and the abandonment of what pretence of rule of law still remained under Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999.
General Pervez Musharraf would have not expected the political scenario that has emerged after five days of martial law, imposed on November 3. His hopes for achieving normality have been dashed, despite using the most vicious repression against the advocates (lawyers) and political activists. More unpleasant surprises are still to come for the military regime, which was used to relatively stable political control until now.
Today is my second day in underground life. On November 3, when General Musharaf declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution, I was in Toba Tek Singh, a city around four hours from Lahore. This was to attend a meeting to prepare for the Labour Party Pakistan’s fourth national conference. The conference is scheduled to be held on November 9-11 in the city. Posters welcoming the delegates were printed and an invitation card to supporters for the open session of the conference was ready as well.
November 7, 2007 -- On the third day of my underground period, I escaped arrest by seconds. It was because of inexperience. We live in a society full of high-tech methods to find a person.
The following call for unity among left-wing forces was issued by Farooq Tariq, general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP).
Farooq Tariq, the general secretary of Labour Party Pakistan — along with 10 other LPP members — was arrested for the third time in three months on September 27.
In weighing how to deal with the al Qaeda threat in Pakistan, American officials have been meeting in recent weeks to discuss what some said was emerging as an aggressive new strategy, one that would include both public and covert elements, the July 18 New York Times reported following the release the previous day of the public version of a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Islamist terrorist threats to the US.
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