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| Pakistan Under Musharraf Military Regime and the Question of Religious Fundamentalism |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
The American imperialism at present does not favour a war between India and Pakistan. It wants the Musharaf regime to take on the religious fundamentalists rather than a war on India. That is why Musharaf regime is now bringing most of its army from the front line with India to the front line with Afghanistan. It has carried out military operation in the tribal areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan that was unthinkable in the past. The priority of American imperialism at this juncture of history is to put all efforts to stop Assama and its allied forces to take over Afghanistan. But since the Pakistani religious fundamentalists have taken over the province next to Afghanistan, guerrilla activities have been on the increase. There is an increase in activities of the Talban Jihadists against the NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The other factor is a tremendous desire of the masses to a peaceful atmosphere between the two countries. The both countries are economies of less than $ 400 per capita. But their main spending has been and still is the expenditure in the name of defence. That is at the cost of the social sector on both sides. The infrastructure remains absolutely weak and unstable in economic, political and social basis.
The political situation is quite volatile. The present set up of a mixture of military and civil politicians is not a very strong one. The government is a weak government and is still not been able to legalize itself in the eyes of the masses. It is still considered mostly by the masses and rightly so a puppet government of the military with Musharaf as president. The Prime Minister Jamali who hails from Baluchistan is heading a breakaway group of conservative Muslim League. The ML has a long history to work together with the establishment to retain and remain in power.
The present government will find it very difficult to complete its full five years of term. Now almost a year in government, it has faced crisis after crisis. The elected Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali has been already forced to resign by Musharraf and the former employee of the IMF current Finance minister would be the new Prime Minister. One of the best comments on the present government has come from one of its ministers of information Sheikh Rashid. He told a reporter that the best success of this government is that it is still in power after even a year. The civilian set up under a general has tried its best to avoid any confrontation with the military by obeying all its orders without any question. But this situation can not last very long for it is possible that the present so-called civilian government be overthrown by General Musharaf if he feels at unease with the setup. He wants to have absolute powers like a dictator but with a civilian prime minister with whom he can share some of its authority. General Musharaf can become even more of a dictator by declaring an emergency or even a martial law. A new military rule is not at all ruled out. With or without Musharaf, the military will be part of the power for some more time until a real mass movement erupts to challenge the power.
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Writer Profile
Aftab Khan
25 years old Electronics & Computer System Engineer by Education and an activist of Human rights and Women Rights. Presently living in exile in Sweden since october 2003 due to the involvment in a campaign against the injustice in the society and undemocratic Military Government in Pakistan
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