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India-Pakistan

Opposition parties fail to reach agreement

2011-06-01

[Dawn] ISLAMABAD: All opposition parties met here on Monday to devise a joint strategy for the budget sessions of the two houses of parliament, but, according to sources, failed to reach an agreement. But the parties invited for the meeting by Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan decided to meet again on Friday morning, hours before presentation of the budget, to consider the same agenda of taking a unified position on the budget and implementation of the May 14 resolution of the two houses of parliament on the May 2 US raid in Abbottabad. The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, which has become the second largest opposition group in parliament after the PML-Q joined the ruling coalition, has reservations over the PML-N move to unite the opposition parties on one platform because the two parties have been in a row over the position of leader of opposition in the Senate. "No such decision of a united opposition or taking a united stand has been taken in the meeting," JUI-F General Secretary Senator Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri told Dawn after the meeting held in the chamber of Chaudhry Nisar at the Parliament House. But, he said there was a consensus that all opposition parties should put pressure on the government to immediately set up an independent commission to investigate the Abbottabad raid. He said it was on the PML-N`s demand that they had agreed that the constitution of the commission should be the starting point for implementation of the resolution. Moreover, he said, the JUI-F had informed all opposition parties that a three-day meeting of the party`s Majlis-i-Shoora had been convened by Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... in Islamabad from June 10 and only after that meeting the party would be able to make any commitment to them. Replying to a question, Maulana Haideri admitted that his party was not on good terms with the PML-N over the issue of the leader of opposition in the Senate. He said his party had a clear majority in the Senate but the PML-N had been manoeuvring to get the opposition post despite having only seven senators. Aftab Sherpao of the PPP-S, Prof Khurshid Ahmed of Jamaat-i-Islami, Maulana Ataur Rehman of the JUI-F, Abdul Rahim Mandokhel of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and Zahid Hamid of the PML-N also attended the meeting.

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India-Pakistan

Pakistani Federal Minister blasts pro-US foreign policy

2007-08-22

ISLAMABAD, Aug 21: Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan Niazi on Tuesday stunned both the treasury and opposition senators when he roundly criticised the foreign policy, describing it as one of appeasement at the cost of national interests, sovereignty and honour. He also condemned recently-passed US legislation and the derogatory statements about Pakistan made by some American presidential candidates. Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s Prof Khurshid Ahmed immediately stood up to endorse most of the views expressed by the minister, and welcomed the “change of heart,” describing it as part of the change that had taken place in the wake of the July 20 landmark Supreme Court judgment. Interestingly, taking cognizance of the strongly-worded speech of the minister, the Foreign Office reacted officially, saying that only the foreign minister’s statement would be true representation of Pakistan’s foreign policy and Pakistan’s relations with various countries. However, not a single PPP or the PML-N lawmaker took part in the debate during which statements of US presidential candidates and a recently-approved Pakistan-specific law were severely criticised. Commenting on the statements made in the Senate on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the foreign mQinister would wind up the debate on the subject on Aug 22. Dr Niazi said in his speech that the key role Pakistan played in bringing about the downfall of the former Soviet Union was a blunder. It resulted in the emergence of a unipolar world and gave the US a licence to attack any country it wished, he said. He said that American presidential candidates’ statements threatening Pakistan’s internal security were a reflection of the jaundiced thinking of US leaders who had forgotten lessons of history and the glorious past of Muslims. Lashing out at the recent US law attaching strings to financial assistance to Pakistan, Dr Niazi described it as insulting and demanded that “we must return and refuse to accept such assistance”. He said the country should learn to stand on its own feet by rejecting all foreign assistance as a proud Muslim nation. Recounting events of the 1971 war with India and the country’s dismemberment, he said Islamabad kept waiting for the arrival of the Sixth US fleet in the Bay of Bengal as had been promised by the then US government. But the fleet never turned up, he said, adding that no good should be expected of the US in future as well. He said while the US officials never stopped the mantra of “do more”, ignoring the fact that Islamabad had rendered tremendous sacrifices in the war on terror, the US signed a civil nuclear agreement with India, instead of Pakistan. He said while India was encouraged when it had carried out nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998, heavy sanctions were slapped on Pakistan when it conducted nuclear tests and aspersions were still being cast on nuclear assets of the country. The minister said that events which followed the 9/11 incident proved that it was the brainchild of Jews. He said that according to holy Quran, Jews and Christians could never be friends of Muslims. Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the MMA said that the American presidential candidates’ statements had exposed Gen Musharraf’s US-centric policies, because after staking everything, national interest, pride and sovereignty Pakistan was still accused of doing little in the so-called war on terror. He said while the Iranian leadership had staunchly resisted the US pressure with full backing of its people, Pakistan’s military government had abjectly surrendered to the US dictates because of lack of genuine support from the people. He accused Gen Musharraf of compromising everything on a single telephone call of the American President. Treasury bench members Nisar Memon and Anwar Bhinder supported President Musharraf’s foreign policy, saying it was based on “ground realities”. Dr Kausar Firdaus called for review and revision of the foreign policy, and said the government should consider withdrawing Pakistan from the so-called war on terror that had cost the country dearly in terms of losses of life and national dignity. Senator Shahid Bugti said that an individual had put the country’s solidarity at risk only to prolong his rule.

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India-Pakistan

Verbal brawl between Sami and Mushahid

2007-04-29

Senators Maulana Samiul Haq and Mushahid Hussain Sayed on Saturday got involved in a verbal brawl at the close of a meeting of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. The argument centred on Haq being denied a British visa, which he blamed Sayed for. Sayed, on the other hand, alleged that he had called in several favours to convince the British High Commission to allow Haq to join one of the committee’s tours. Prof Khurshid Ahmed tried to calm the situation but failed while senators Gulshan Saeed and Mehtab Abbasi merely watched the altercation.

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India-Pakistan

'Resign or face God's judgment'

2006-12-13

Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) President Qazi Hussain Ahmad has written letters to all the treasury members of the Senate and the National assembly asking them to resign voluntarily or they would be answerable to God for supporting the un-Islamic Women’s Protection Act (WPA). In his two-page letter, Qazi has asked the parliamentarians to read the book on Islamic laws written by Prof Khurshid Ahmed accompanying the letter and then decide if their decision of supporting the WPA was correct. The government, he said, wanted to make Pakistan a secular state and promote obscenity following the agenda of the US and Europe. Begum Mehnaz Rafi, member of the Standing Committee for Women’s Development in the National Assembly, told Daily Times that she had received the letter but would not reply to it. She said she wanted to ask Qazi why his team and he had not resigned from the National Assembly after the house passed the bill.

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India-Pakistan

Pak senate slates US ‘designs’ against Muslim countries

2006-08-10

Lawmakers in the Senate on Wednesday criticised the ugly role of the United States as sole world power in backing Israel to massacre the people of Lebanon and to destroy peace in the whole region. Speaking on a point of order Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the MMA condemned the US for claiming itself to be the champion of human rights, democracy and nuclear non-proliferation after it dropped nuclear and hydrogen bombs on Japan and then transferred nuclear technology to Britain and France when the former Soviet Union attained it within three years after World War II. Then the US continuously attempted to block any efforts by Muslim countries, including Pakistan, and now Iran to seek nuclear civil technology for civil purposes while it was supplying weapons of mass destruction to Israel to kill thousands of people in the Middle East. The US, he recollected, spared “white Germany” despite Hitler committing unprecedented war crimes and selected Hiroshima for dropping uranium bombs on August 6 and Nagasaki for dropping hydrogen-laden bombs to kill 200,000 people and injuring 0.8 to 1 million people on Aug 9. Since World War II the US tried its best to keep nuclear technology away from others while continuing to make its own nuclear power more sophisticated and lethal as it exploded 70-times more powerful bombs and used daisy cutters in Afghanistan. Prof Ahmed said that world peace could never be established as long as the US was in control of everything. I used to just hate reading sh*t like this . . . until I discovered Rantburg.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

MMA won’t support Sami for Senate

2005-08-11

The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) will not support Maulana Samiul Haq, chief of a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam faction, in elections for senator in the NWFP if he has to retire from the Senate after the upcoming draw. “The MMA leadership is very clear: Samiul Haq will not be given an MMA ticket,” sources in the religious parties alliance told Daily Times. They said the draw to determine which senators would get a three-year tenure and which would get a six-year tenure would most likely be in October. The sources said that Haq had angered alliance leaders with his repeated violations of discipline since becoming senator. Haq had made public statements criticising the central leadership of the MMA and the alliance’s policies, and been absent from MMA meetings for several months. Haq and his son Maulana Hamidul Haq Haqqani had also accepted positions as chairmen of standing committees of parliament, despite MMA objections. Another reason was that Haq, along with Senator Prof Sajid Mir, had refused to support the nomination of Senator Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the MMA for the slot of leader of the opposition in the Senate. Haq’s JUI faction only has two seats in the NWFP Assembly, meaning it will be difficult for him to be elected senator again without the support of the MMA. The division of the JUI-S has made Haq’s task even more difficult, as the splinter group led by Qari Gul Rehman will certainly oppose his re-election.

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