Zardari on the way of china

Asif Ali Zardari, the president-elect of Pakistan, will visit China next week to negotiate a nuclear deal similar to the one between India and the US, an official said on Monday. “Pakistan is already in touch with China for the nuclear deal to meet its energy crisis and the talks would start during Zardari’s visit,” an official said on condition of anonymity. Zardari, who was elected president on Saturday, will be sworn in Tuesday and has already announced that his first foreign visit will be to China. The official said that under the proposed deal, China will supply nuclear material to Pakistan to meet its energy crisis. “This has nothing to do with the US-India deal but that has certainly provided us a way out to meet our energy crisis,” he said. For the last many years, Pakistan has failed to meet its growing energy needs and the situation has worsened since November 2007, with the country facing massive power cuts and adopting summer time to benefit the most from daylight and save energy. “Of course it will take time to finalise the deal after going through its details but the initial talks would start during Zardari’s visit and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) may be signed for reaching an agreement,” said the official. Zardari’s visit will coincide with the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games on September 17. “Zardari will participate in the closing ceremony as well,” said the official. Pakistan and China have a long history of close cooperation that started in early 50s and saw stronger ties during former prime minister and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s era. As foreign minister in military dictator Ayub Khan’s government, Bhutto played an active role in bringing Pakistan and China closer when the US was distancing itself from Pakistan in the mid 1960s. In the last three years, there have been 10 state visits by Pakistani officials to China. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was the last top official to visit China last month. In April, former president Pervez Musharraf has also visited the country.

 

Kashmir Agitation: failure of India in J & K

Currently situation in Kashmir is very worse. Only and only Indian government is responsible for this position. India deployed a huge number of army personel in Kashmir. Worsen condition in kashmir is only due to Indian Army as well as J&K Police. Last 30 days Jammu caught is fire on amarnath agitation but Indian government did not took any desition how to stop current agitation.
The psudo Secular parties are responcible for these agitaion. mainly congress and Communist are responcible for these angry agitation.

THE TWO month long Amarnath agitation has not lost momentum in Jammu region and despite life remaining paralysed for the last 50 days, the enthusiasm and support to the agitation has not withered. Continuing their strong protests against the Amarnath land transfer order, around two-lakh people on Monday (August 18) responded to the Jail Bharo call of the Shree Amarnath Yatra Sangarsh Samiti (SAYSS).

People from all across the region came out of their homes in the morning in overwhelming numbers and courted arrest as a mark of protest against the land order.

According to reports, large number of people gathered in Jammu city, Udhampur, Kathua, Hiranagar and Reasi and other major towns and villages on the call of the SAYSS, which is spearheading the agitation.

In the morning today, around 10 000 people gathered at City Chowk in Jammu city and took out a procession. Chanting ’Bum Bum Bole’ the protesters passed through main roads of the city and reached the city chowk police station and asked the cops to arrest them.

This was carried out in all the 16 police stations of Jammu city, with thousands of protesters shouting slogans against the state administration and governor N N Vohra. The protesters were later taken to MAM stadium and other schools and colleges, which were turned into jails for the time being.

Udhampur city witnessed a huge turnout and the situation turned violent after protesters clashed with security personnel. Police resorted to lathi charge and tear gas shells were fired to control the protesters, who were demanding the ouster of governor N N Vohra and return of the Amarnath land.

A large turnout was also reported in Samba and Kathua districts, but the protests remained largely peaceful and there was no report of any untoward incident.

Meanwhile, Shree Amarnath Sangarsh Samiti (SASS) termed the response to the Jail Bharo andolan as overwhelming and said it was a historic day for the people of Jammu. Brigadier Suchet Singh, speaking to merinews, claimed that more than three lakh people had participated in today’s Jail Bharo andolan.

Singh also criticised the state administration for failing to provide even basic facilities in the makeshift prisons. “The state did not even provide water to the agitating people,” he said, adding that the people of Jammu have entered into a do or die mode and will not stop till their goal is achieved.

This agitation has the support of the rich and poor and cuts across religious and regional lines, Singh asserted, “Abhi nahi to Kabhi nahi” this is the war cry of the people.

Criticising the Union government for its appeasement policy, Singh alleged that government is delaying a decision in the hope that this agitation will peter off. “This is a people’s movement and will achieve its goal,” he said. India is concerned only about the Hurriyat and Kashmiris and it will not be tolerated at any cost.

Warning that the agitation could further intensify and mode of action could change, Singh asked the Union government to realise its mistakes and take corrective action otherwise there could be more unrest and trouble.

The Samiti leaders also registered their strong resentment against certain sections of the national media, which they said were portraying the agitation as communal and sectarian.

There is deep concern among leading South Asia watchers in Washington over the volatile situation in Kashmir and the renewed cry for independence by the separatists which they fear could revert to the Intifada-like agitation of the 1990s.

These experts also acknowledged that the situation may also provide elements in Pakistan, especially the ISI, more so in the wake of the upheaval brought on by President Pervez Musharraf’s resignation and the dysfunctional government in Islamabad , an opportunity to foment yet another insurgency in the Valley and ramp up a proxy war reminiscent of old against India.

Former diplomat Howard B Schaffer, who served for 36 years in the US Foreign Service, of which a total of eight were spent in New Delhi during which time he was the US government’s principal expert on Kashmir, said, “I am very much discouraged by this situation in Kashmir. It really reflects the ultimate inability of the Indian government to reconcile the people of Kashmir to their connection with India.”

Schaffer, who while at the State Department, served two terms as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, at the time the senior-most position in the Administration dealing with the subcontinent, said, “It was very badly handled,” by the government of India, and while acknowledging that like the uprising in 1989-1990 “it was home generated,” warned that “as happened then, the Pakistanis are very likely to fish in troubled waters, even though God knows, they’ve got enough problems on their hands.”

Currently, the Director of Studies at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, which is part of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, he said it was indeed ironic that the Indian National Security Adviser M K Narayanan was on Thursday lamenting the exit of Musharraf and talking about a ‘political demise,’ in Pakistan following his departure.

Schaffer, who is completing one of the most comprehensive books on US foreign policy vis-�-vis Kashmir, titled America’s Role in Kashmir: The Limits of Influence, said, “For sure, Musharraf was devoted to this peace process — he got it started in 2004 — but before that, you remember, he was very much in the bad books of the Indian government and the Indian public.”

“He was the Kargil man, his government was behind the attack on (the Indian) Parliament and so on and so forth, so that we got to remember that there was a considerable reversal (from the earlier moves at rapprochement with New Delhi initiated by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif whom Musharraf deposed). But, not only did he get the peace process restarted, but he also made proposals that were unprecedented for Pakistan, such as finding a solution outside the framework of the UN resolutions.”

Schaffer said if was also Musharraf, who accepted ‘the Line of Control as a permanent boundary and these things will now not continue because whatever government is in power in Islamabad — whether it is dominated by the Pakistan People’s Party or whether Nawaz (Sharif) comes in — they won’t be able to make concessions of this sort that Musharraf was able to make when he was strongly, firmly in power.”

“And, so there will be a temptation as there already has been to play for the audience and that can only continue to have a bad reaction in India,” he said, and added, “But you never thought did you that India would be longing for the good old days with General Musharraf.”

Schaffer acknowledged that it has always been the case for Pakistani civilian government’s when it is beset by domestic problems to rake up the Kashmir issue and even though the current situation in Jammu and Kashmir began with a domestic conflagration over land allocation for Amarnath pilgrims, Pakistan was trying to get mileage out of it and internationalize it, even as it could give ideas to rogue elements in the ISI and the Army to exacerbate the agitation of the separatists and militants.

He hoped that Pakistan’s Army Chief, ‘General (Ashfaq) Kiyani will be sensible enough to recognize the stakes involved and to understand where Pakistan’s priorities now rest. As I said before, the last thing it should want to do is to get itself into a tiff with India.’

Schaffer acknowledged, “I don’t see that as a way of, even in the middle term, developing its popularity, but it may feel so and I think if it does, it will be a major mistake.”

The other half of this Washington ‘power couple,’ when it comes to foreign policy on South Asia, his wife, Teresita Schaffer, who also served in South Asia and has nearly three decades of experience as a diplomat, and succeeded her husband as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, echoed similar sentiments.

Teresita said she believed the current government in Islamabad “wants to keep things on an even keel and eventually to pursue the peace dialogue. But the disturbances in Kashmir will put pressure on that whole situation — and will tempt those who don’t want peace to meddle. So, I am worried.”

“It is certainly an opportunity for trouble,” she added, and noted, “There are both similarities and differences with the 1990s. One interesting difference is the role of the Amarnath land issue and of the Jammu Hindu community.”

Schaffer, now the head of the South Asia program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said, “The Amarnath land grant got a lot of people stirred up, but when the new governor, N N Vohra, resolved that, it was people from Jammu who expanded the protest. So, far more than the previous episodes, this one has local roots.”

Sumit Ganguly, professor of political science and Director of the India Studies Program at Indiana University in Bloomington, however, did not believe it could become another Intifada like in the 1990s, “especially if the Indian State, however, belatedly, manages to demonstrate a degree of dexterity in defusing the crisis.”

“It has already shown, after one or two initial missteps, that it is capable of showing restraint even in the face of grave provocation,” he said. “It needs to keep doing more of the same despite pressures from within elements of the national security establishment to adopt a harder line.”

Ganguly argued that “it also needs to douse the flames in Jammu as they tend to generate their own fires in the Valley.”

But, he warned that “the wild card in all of this, remains both the Islamists and the Hindu zealots, who thrive on each other follies and short-sighted goals and actions.”

Former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Karl F Inderfurth, now a professor of international relations at George Washington University and foreign policy adviser to the Obama presidential campaign, said, “There have been a lot of reasons that go back several weeks as to how this thing flared up.”

But, he too agreed that “there are those who do want to reverse the (peace) process,” between India and Pakistan, “and with the distracted political leadership in Pakistan, I believe that some of these forces are beginning to assert themselves again.”

Robert Hathaway, director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former Congressional staffer on South Asia on the Foreign Affairs Committee, also expressed concern and said, “It is something for the US and the international community to watch,” and make clear to Pakistan it would not tolerate any meddling by the ISI or elements within the Army.

“I am very concerned and clearly it has the potential to unravel and the situation is far more worrisome than it was earlier, because American intelligence has conclusive evidence that elements associated with the ISI were involved in planning and perhaps even carrying out the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul,” he said.

Hathaway acknowledged that “the current upsurge in violence and in agitation is the result of conditions within both Jammu and the Valley itself and the increased violence and the increased tension in the Valley was largely the result of developments within the Valley. So, I could believe that I am not going to point the finger at Pakistan because of that.”

“But neither can we rule out that they are not involved because we all know that Pakistan has a long history of fishing in troubled waters in Kashmir. It has a long history of supporting insurgent groups of various sorts,” he added.

 

Kashmir Agitation: failure of India in J & K

Currently situation in Kashmir is very worse. Only and only Indian government is responsible for this position. India deployed a huge number of army personel in Kashmir. Worsen condition in kashmir is only due to Indian Army as well as J&K Police. Last 30 days Jammu caught is fire on amarnath agitation but Indian government did not took any desition how to stop current agitation.
The psudo Secular parties are responcible for these agitaion. mainly congress and Communist are responcible for these angry agitation.

THE TWO month long Amarnath agitation has not lost momentum in Jammu region and despite life remaining paralysed for the last 50 days, the enthusiasm and support to the agitation has not withered. Continuing their strong protests against the Amarnath land transfer order, around two-lakh people on Monday (August 18) responded to the Jail Bharo call of the Shree Amarnath Yatra Sangarsh Samiti (SAYSS).

People from all across the region came out of their homes in the morning in overwhelming numbers and courted arrest as a mark of protest against the land order.

According to reports, large number of people gathered in Jammu city, Udhampur, Kathua, Hiranagar and Reasi and other major towns and villages on the call of the SAYSS, which is spearheading the agitation.

In the morning today, around 10 000 people gathered at City Chowk in Jammu city and took out a procession. Chanting ’Bum Bum Bole’ the protesters passed through main roads of the city and reached the city chowk police station and asked the cops to arrest them.

This was carried out in all the 16 police stations of Jammu city, with thousands of protesters shouting slogans against the state administration and governor N N Vohra. The protesters were later taken to MAM stadium and other schools and colleges, which were turned into jails for the time being.

Udhampur city witnessed a huge turnout and the situation turned violent after protesters clashed with security personnel. Police resorted to lathi charge and tear gas shells were fired to control the protesters, who were demanding the ouster of governor N N Vohra and return of the Amarnath land.

A large turnout was also reported in Samba and Kathua districts, but the protests remained largely peaceful and there was no report of any untoward incident.

Meanwhile, Shree Amarnath Sangarsh Samiti (SASS) termed the response to the Jail Bharo andolan as overwhelming and said it was a historic day for the people of Jammu. Brigadier Suchet Singh, speaking to merinews, claimed that more than three lakh people had participated in today’s Jail Bharo andolan.

Singh also criticised the state administration for failing to provide even basic facilities in the makeshift prisons. “The state did not even provide water to the agitating people,” he said, adding that the people of Jammu have entered into a do or die mode and will not stop till their goal is achieved.

This agitation has the support of the rich and poor and cuts across religious and regional lines, Singh asserted, “Abhi nahi to Kabhi nahi” this is the war cry of the people.

Criticising the Union government for its appeasement policy, Singh alleged that government is delaying a decision in the hope that this agitation will peter off. “This is a people’s movement and will achieve its goal,” he said. India is concerned only about the Hurriyat and Kashmiris and it will not be tolerated at any cost.

Warning that the agitation could further intensify and mode of action could change, Singh asked the Union government to realise its mistakes and take corrective action otherwise there could be more unrest and trouble.

The Samiti leaders also registered their strong resentment against certain sections of the national media, which they said were portraying the agitation as communal and sectarian.

There is deep concern among leading South Asia watchers in Washington over the volatile situation in Kashmir and the renewed cry for independence by the separatists which they fear could revert to the Intifada-like agitation of the 1990s.

These experts also acknowledged that the situation may also provide elements in Pakistan, especially the ISI, more so in the wake of the upheaval brought on by President Pervez Musharraf’s resignation and the dysfunctional government in Islamabad , an opportunity to foment yet another insurgency in the Valley and ramp up a proxy war reminiscent of old against India.

Former diplomat Howard B Schaffer, who served for 36 years in the US Foreign Service, of which a total of eight were spent in New Delhi during which time he was the US government’s principal expert on Kashmir, said, “I am very much discouraged by this situation in Kashmir. It really reflects the ultimate inability of the Indian government to reconcile the people of Kashmir to their connection with India.”

Schaffer, who while at the State Department, served two terms as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, at the time the senior-most position in the Administration dealing with the subcontinent, said, “It was very badly handled,” by the government of India, and while acknowledging that like the uprising in 1989-1990 “it was home generated,” warned that “as happened then, the Pakistanis are very likely to fish in troubled waters, even though God knows, they’ve got enough problems on their hands.”

Currently, the Director of Studies at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, which is part of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, he said it was indeed ironic that the Indian National Security Adviser M K Narayanan was on Thursday lamenting the exit of Musharraf and talking about a ‘political demise,’ in Pakistan following his departure.

Schaffer, who is completing one of the most comprehensive books on US foreign policy vis-�-vis Kashmir, titled America’s Role in Kashmir: The Limits of Influence, said, “For sure, Musharraf was devoted to this peace process — he got it started in 2004 — but before that, you remember, he was very much in the bad books of the Indian government and the Indian public.”

“He was the Kargil man, his government was behind the attack on (the Indian) Parliament and so on and so forth, so that we got to remember that there was a considerable reversal (from the earlier moves at rapprochement with New Delhi initiated by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif whom Musharraf deposed). But, not only did he get the peace process restarted, but he also made proposals that were unprecedented for Pakistan, such as finding a solution outside the framework of the UN resolutions.”

Schaffer said if was also Musharraf, who accepted ‘the Line of Control as a permanent boundary and these things will now not continue because whatever government is in power in Islamabad — whether it is dominated by the Pakistan People’s Party or whether Nawaz (Sharif) comes in — they won’t be able to make concessions of this sort that Musharraf was able to make when he was strongly, firmly in power.”

“And, so there will be a temptation as there already has been to play for the audience and that can only continue to have a bad reaction in India,” he said, and added, “But you never thought did you that India would be longing for the good old days with General Musharraf.”

Schaffer acknowledged that it has always been the case for Pakistani civilian government’s when it is beset by domestic problems to rake up the Kashmir issue and even though the current situation in Jammu and Kashmir began with a domestic conflagration over land allocation for Amarnath pilgrims, Pakistan was trying to get mileage out of it and internationalize it, even as it could give ideas to rogue elements in the ISI and the Army to exacerbate the agitation of the separatists and militants.

He hoped that Pakistan’s Army Chief, ‘General (Ashfaq) Kiyani will be sensible enough to recognize the stakes involved and to understand where Pakistan’s priorities now rest. As I said before, the last thing it should want to do is to get itself into a tiff with India.’

Schaffer acknowledged, “I don’t see that as a way of, even in the middle term, developing its popularity, but it may feel so and I think if it does, it will be a major mistake.”

The other half of this Washington ‘power couple,’ when it comes to foreign policy on South Asia, his wife, Teresita Schaffer, who also served in South Asia and has nearly three decades of experience as a diplomat, and succeeded her husband as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, echoed similar sentiments.

Teresita said she believed the current government in Islamabad “wants to keep things on an even keel and eventually to pursue the peace dialogue. But the disturbances in Kashmir will put pressure on that whole situation — and will tempt those who don’t want peace to meddle. So, I am worried.”

“It is certainly an opportunity for trouble,” she added, and noted, “There are both similarities and differences with the 1990s. One interesting difference is the role of the Amarnath land issue and of the Jammu Hindu community.”

Schaffer, now the head of the South Asia program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said, “The Amarnath land grant got a lot of people stirred up, but when the new governor, N N Vohra, resolved that, it was people from Jammu who expanded the protest. So, far more than the previous episodes, this one has local roots.”

Sumit Ganguly, professor of political science and Director of the India Studies Program at Indiana University in Bloomington, however, did not believe it could become another Intifada like in the 1990s, “especially if the Indian State, however, belatedly, manages to demonstrate a degree of dexterity in defusing the crisis.”

“It has already shown, after one or two initial missteps, that it is capable of showing restraint even in the face of grave provocation,” he said. “It needs to keep doing more of the same despite pressures from within elements of the national security establishment to adopt a harder line.”

Ganguly argued that “it also needs to douse the flames in Jammu as they tend to generate their own fires in the Valley.”

But, he warned that “the wild card in all of this, remains both the Islamists and the Hindu zealots, who thrive on each other follies and short-sighted goals and actions.”

Former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Karl F Inderfurth, now a professor of international relations at George Washington University and foreign policy adviser to the Obama presidential campaign, said, “There have been a lot of reasons that go back several weeks as to how this thing flared up.”

But, he too agreed that “there are those who do want to reverse the (peace) process,” between India and Pakistan, “and with the distracted political leadership in Pakistan, I believe that some of these forces are beginning to assert themselves again.”

Robert Hathaway, director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former Congressional staffer on South Asia on the Foreign Affairs Committee, also expressed concern and said, “It is something for the US and the international community to watch,” and make clear to Pakistan it would not tolerate any meddling by the ISI or elements within the Army.

“I am very concerned and clearly it has the potential to unravel and the situation is far more worrisome than it was earlier, because American intelligence has conclusive evidence that elements associated with the ISI were involved in planning and perhaps even carrying out the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul,” he said.

Hathaway acknowledged that “the current upsurge in violence and in agitation is the result of conditions within both Jammu and the Valley itself and the increased violence and the increased tension in the Valley was largely the result of developments within the Valley. So, I could believe that I am not going to point the finger at Pakistan because of that.”

“But neither can we rule out that they are not involved because we all know that Pakistan has a long history of fishing in troubled waters in Kashmir. It has a long history of supporting insurgent groups of various sorts,” he added.

 

How Musharraf missed the Nobel Peace Prize

How Musharraf missed the Nobel Peace Prize

Pervez Musharraf is still living in a fool’s paradise. He resigned as Pakistan’s president not out of any guilt but he resigned under political pressure. Just a few minutes before his speech on Monday he told one of his close friends that the coalition partners will start fighting with each other very soon, there will be more political instability in his absence, people will come out on the roads in the next six months and they will demand, ‘come back Musharraf’. That is the reason Musharraf is not going out of Pakistan. He will stay in Pakistan under heavy security and he will wait for the people to call him back. He is badly mistaken. The people of Pakistan had already rejected him and his policies on February 18. They were sick of him and that was why even US President George W Bush abandoned him in his last days. but Musharraf still thinks that Pakistan cannot survive without him. He claimed in his Monday’s speech that Pakistan was about to be declared a terrorist state in 1999 but he rescued Pakistan and gave it a new identity. He never mentioned Kargil which gave a bad name to Pakistan, he never mentioned anything about the judicial crisis he created in 2007 and he never mentioned anything about the assassination of Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto . Her death started Musharraf’s downfall. His government lost its writ for at least one week after Benazir’s assassination. There was violence everywhere and the government evaporated. That was the time when the Army decided to stay away from Musharraf to save its credibility, and that was how Musharraf lost his power. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination was also a big blow to the peace process in South Asia. Don’t humiliate Musharraf, US tells Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had agreed on an “out of the box “solution to the Kashmir dispute after many rounds of direct and indirect talks. They decided in 2006 to resolve the Kashmir dispute latest by the end of 2007. US President George W Bush was also on board with them. Both the leaders were hoping for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008 but now they have missed the chance. Musharraf is no more in a position to sell an “out of the box” solution to the Kashmir dispute. Manmohan Singh will also face difficulties from the Indian parliament for the approval of an “out of the box” solution to Kashmir after the recent violence in Jammu and Kashmir . Musharraf and Manmohan Singh first met during the UN Summit in New York when the Indian prime minister called on the Pakistani president at his hotel in New York on September 24, 2004. It was an extremely pleasant encounter. Musharraf met Manmohan Singh again on April 18, 2005, during a one-day cricket match between India and Pakistan in Delhi . India lost the match but Musharraf and Manmohan Singh decided that they will find a Kashmir solution in which no side will be a loser but all will be winners. After a few months they had another dinner on September 14, 2005, in New York, during the UN General Assembly. Musharraf proposed demilitarisation of Jammu and Kashmir, self-governance and joint management mechanism of the troubled valley. Initially Manmohan Singh raised many objections but later on both of them decided to continue their efforts for reaching on an “out of the box” solution without compromising the stated positions of their governments. Indian National Security Adviser MK Narayanan and Pakistani National Security adviser Tariq Aziz continued their quite diplomacy in Dubai to discuss some more details. The Indian side convinced the People’s Democratic Party’s pro-Delhi leader Mehbooba Mufti and the Pakistani side took into confidence separatist Kashmiri leaders Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Yasin Malik for resolving the Kashmir dispute in the year 2007. The details of the great Kashmir solution were finalised in June 2006. Musharraf wanted Manmohan Singh to visit Pakistan in July 2006 but the Indian prime minister was looking for a politically suitable opportunity to break the ice. Musharraf sent a message to Benazir Bhutto that the Kashmir problem will be resolved soon and she will have to support an “out of the box” solution. Unfortunately 2006 was wasted and 2007 began. That was the year Musharraf started committing suicidal blunders. He sacked and arrested a sitting Chief Justice of Pakistan. Lawyers and civil society came out on the streets against him. He lost a legal battle in the Supreme Court of Pakistan on July 20, 2007, and Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was reinstated. Musharraf never digested this legal defeat. He struck a deal with exiled opposition leader Benazir Bhutto with the help of the USA and the UK. Musharraf agreed to take off his Army uniform and hold elections. Benazir Bhutto agreed to support the war against terrorism in return for free and fair elections. Benazir returned to Pakistan in October but there was a lot of trust deficit between her and Musharraf. She was not ready to take a clear position against the Chief Jutice. An agitated Musharraf imposed emergency in Pakistan on November 3, 2007, mainly against the Supreme Court and “rebel media”. Benazir Bhutto declared this emergency as martial law and announced that she was stopping her dialogue with Musharraf. Elections were announced on January 8, 2008, but Benazir Bhutto suspected rigging and started making noises against it. She had a long meeting with the director general of ISI, Lt Gen Nadeem Taj, on the night of December 26, 2008. Taj warned her about some security threats and suggested she abandon her election campaign. Benazir Bhutto refused. The next day she was assassinated in Rawalpindi. This assassination actually marked the political death of Musharraf. He lost his popularity in Pakistan completely. He delayed elections for one month but his rigging plans failed because the Army decided to stay away from politics. Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kyani even ordered the ISI not to support any political party in the election. The neutral role of the Army was a big blow to Musharraf. His supporters lost with big margins. The February 18 election was a clear vote of no-confidence by Pakistani voters against Musharraf, but he never accepted his defeat. He was not happy with the Army Chief. He was in a position to sack the Army Chief as the supreme commander of the armed forces but he was aware that the Army could defy his orders, like he defied the orders of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999 as Army chief. He decided to wait for an appropriate time to hit both the Army chief and the new coalition government. Musharraf was sure that only he could resolve the Kashmir dispute, he was sure that only he has the guts to pave the way for the recognition of Israel by Pakistan. He was also sure that the Pakistan Army needs him despite the fact that he was no more in uniform. He thought that only he could negotiate more and more military aid from the US. He was sure that he will catch Osama bin Laden soon and the West will force the new coalition government to accept him as President for the next five years. Musharraf delayed the government-making process in Pakistan for more than one month. He tried to make deals with PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif through top US diplomats but he failed. Musharraf is still popular in Western capitals but he is the most unpopular human being in Pakistan. The new coalition sent him messages to resign but Musharraf threatened to use his constitutional powers. His rough attitude created problems, and finally the coalition leaders decided to impeach him. All his old buddies have ditched him. The US and the UK were not in a position to help him. They requested the new coalition to provide a safe passage to Musharraf instead of impeaching him. He has lost everything. All his friends want him to say goodbye. Musharraf ruled Pakistan for more than eight years but he never ruled the hearts and minds of his people like a true leader because he never came to power through the ballot but through the bullet. He was definitely in a position to become a real peace-maker with the help of Manmohan Singh and Benazir Bhutto in 2007 but he missed this golden chance. He missed 2007 because he created a political turmoil in Pakistan by attacking the judiciary. He also missed a chance to win the Nobel Peace Prize along with Manmohan Singh due to his self-righteousness. He has missed everything now. He will soon realise that there is no use in staying on in Pakistan and ultimately he will leave the country because it’s difficult for him to face the common people. He will also miss Pakistan very soon but the people of Pakistan will not miss him. Musharraf was definitely the last military dictator of Pakistan; many people will remember him not only as a dictator but also as a traitor who broke the constitution of Pakistan not once but twice.