'Extremely Stupid' & 'Bastards'

From declassified documents of 1970-71 released by the US State Department we learn, among other things, that President Nixon and Henry Kissenger believed that:

"The Pakistanis are straightforward and sometimes extremely stupid" and "The Indians are bastards" and "more devious".

Well, thirty plus years later things have certainly changed.

Yes, recent Pakistani governments (Benazir, Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf) have all proved, at the best of times, to be "extremely stupid", but the word "straightforward” is clearly is out of date.

Instead "deception" is now the order of the day – Okara Farm, Gwadar, Mukhtaran Mai, etc ad nauseum - you want me to go on?

As for the Indian leadership being 'bastards' and 'more devious', I would rather leave that for Indian citizens to decide - after all isn't that what democracy is all about?
Pakistan

A Troubled Judiciary

The newly appointed Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, uttered some valid truisms which are quoted in today’s newspapers. He said:

- The man in the street is disillusioned by the judiciary’s role and the way justice is dispensed because proper justice has become elusive in our society.
- Delay in dispensing justice was the same as denying justice and bred a chaotic and lawless society.
- National dailies, editorials and voices raised in [parliament] demanding accountability of judges shows a serious crisis of confidence that can shake the very foundation of the country’s judicial hierarchy.

One needn’t look far to discover where the real problem lies.

Take for example the Mukhtaran Mai case. At Musharraf’s command his flunkies (i.e. the Government of Pakistan) placed the woman in preventative custody, entered her name in the ECL, brought her under escort to Islamabad and subsequently seized her passport.

Now if we had a truly independent judiciary Mukhtaran Mai could have filed charges against Musharraf and the Government of Pakistan for illegal detention, kidnapping and forced transportation to Islamabad, theft of passport and unlawful entry of her name in the ECL. The judiciary would then have summoned Musharraf, Nilofer Bakhtiar, etc. to answer the charges made against them.

Can anyone envisage this happening in the near future?

No, of course not. That is why the judicial branch of the State has been rendered totally compliant by the executive branch of the State. And it is not just Musharraf’s military regime that prefers an emasculated judiciary; our previous civilian governments were no different. It is worth recalling what happened the last time a Chief Justice decided to assert his freedom - Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif sent their goons to ransack the Supreme Court.

Ideally even before democracy, we need a rule of law whereby the law is not only enforced but is applied equally to all – from presidents to street sweepers. Only by creating such a rich and fertile environment can we then plant democracy properly and firmly, and will it to flourish.
Pakistan
Musharraf
Mukhtaran

The Timebomb Begins to Tick Louder

Two months ago when I wrote about the impending political cataclysm that is facing Benazir Bhutto and her husband (‘A Damoclean Sword that continues to swing’) I overlooked a significant piece of detail which I had been unaware of and here it is: the couple now face an additional charge of aggravated money laudering which has even more serious consequences.

"Geneva: Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto now faces more severe money laundering charges against her in Switzerland, paving the way for her trial before a Swiss jury, legal officials and lawyers said Thursday.

Geneva investigating magistrate Christine Junod said she had formally charged Bhutto with aggravated money laundering at a hearing on Wednesday, marking a step up from the simple money laundering case first opened in 1997.
"The legal qualification of laundering can be made in this way when the amount thought to have been laundered, in this case about 12 million dollars, is high enough," Junod told the Swiss news agency ATS.
Legal sources said the charge carries a stiffer penalty and also extends the statute of limitations from about seven years to 15 years for the former Pakistani prime minister, who was forced out of office in 1996. Once the examining process is completed, the case must be tried in court by a jury. It carries a maximum sentence of five years in jail as well as a fine of about one million Swiss francs if Bhutto is found guilty. "

Under Swiss law the Examining Magistrate has now to make a pronouncement on this additional new charge of aggravated money laundering. The Examining Magistrate therefore summoned the couple to Geneva for a court hearing set for 15th June 2005 to commence preparatory investigation on the new charge.

Benazir Bhutto’s lawyer, Alec Reymond, petitioned for a delay offering the following explanation:
Mrs. Bhutto has to remain in Dubai for obligations of a familial nature until 25th June, date from which she will start a round of conferences abroad which has been organized for a very long time.” And that she will be entirely at the court’s disposal during the weeks of 2nd to 5th August and from 5th to 9th September.”

Asif Zardari’s lawyer, Saverio Lembo, also petitioned for a delay for the following reason:
Because of his ‘heart attack and subsequent angioplasty’ Zardari’s doctors has instructed him to stay in bed for three weeks and also advised him not to carry out long journeys with in the next six months.

While the Swiss Magistrate grudgingly postponed the hearing to 13 July, she made it clear “there will not be any other postponement of hearing apart from the one accepted today”

She also reminded Benazir Bhutto that obeying the demands of justice was significantly more important than participating in a cycle of conferences. She also mentioned that she was keeping track of all the recent travel activities of Asif Zaradari.

I wonder what comes next?

benazir+bhutto
asif+zardari
Pakistan

Sheeda Tulli in Trouble

The Newsflash
On 13 June at an HRCP function in Islamabad the visiting JKLF Chairman Yasin Malik blurted out that the current Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed had once been actively involved the training of Kashmiri guerillas.

As Daily Times of 14 June reported:

“ISLAMABAD: When the armed struggle in held Kashmir was at its zenith, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed set up a camp where around 3,500 Jihadis were trained in guerrilla warfare, revealed Yasin Malik, the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman…
…The JKLF leader praised Rashid for his contribution to the armed struggle, but the minister refused to comment when journalists approached him.”

_________________________________________________________

A Sudden Denial
The very next day (Wednesday, 15 June) Sheikh Rashid Ahmed denied running ‘terrorist camps’. This time Daily Times, quoting the Associated Press, reported:

“I never ran any training camp for terrorists. It has never been my policy to
train militants. I am a politician and support the peace process between
Pakistan and India,” AP quoted Rashid as saying.

Then the Foreign Office also weighed in, as the newspaper added:

The Foreign Office on Tuesday denied a story that Sheikh Rashid had been running terrorist training camps. “The news item is based on reported remarks by Yasin Malik,” an FO spokesman said. “The Government of Pakistan strongly refutes the story which is obviously based on lack of comprehension by the reporter. In fact, Yasin Malik had commended the moral support to the Kashmiri cause by the minister,” he added.

_________________________________________________________

Swift Rebuttals
Several People unexpectedly entered the fray by robustly corroborating Yasin Malik’s version, these included:

- General Mirza Aslam Baig, the former Army Chief,
- Maj Gen Naseerullah Babar, Interior Minister (1993-1996) during Benazir’s 2nd government
- Ch.Nisar Khan, ex- Federal Minister & colleague of Sheikh Rashid during Nawaz Sharif governments
- Khawaja Khalid, former officer in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
- Hamid Mir, of the Geo Television Network

They all confirmed that Rashid Ahmed used to run a militant camp in Rawalpindi which allegedly functioned under the name of ‘Freedom House’.

Hamid Mir went on record and said:

Sheikh Rashid's Rawalpindi farmhouse was dubbed Freedom House and used to be a hub of Kashmiri activists belonging to the JKLF. The camp was operational from 1988-90 to train JKLF cadres and Sheikh Rashid accompanied JKLF leaders, including Yasin, to the LoC several times. The camp's existence was known to high officials in Islamabad

Amir Mir writing in Outlook stated that:

A retired [Pakistani] intelligence official told {Amir Mir} that late Ashfaq Majeed Wani was in charge of Freedom House, the Sheikh's 20-acre farmhouse in Fateh Jang, Rawalpindi; and it was the ISI, then under Lt Gen Hamid Gul, which established the facility. But the former official claims the "liberation of Kashmir" may not have been the Sheikh's sole motive. "There were those in the intelligence who believed that he had actually rented out his farmhouse to the ISI for a hefty sum of money

In the same Outlook article, Amir Mir quotes Farhatullah Babar, a Pakistan People's Party spokesperson with a decided anti-Rashid standpoint:

Since only 20 acres of land was used to train militants, Babar has alleged that hundreds of acres of land were given to the Sheikh for some "collateral purposes". Claiming that the "training camp story was anything more than a decoy to divert state funds to favoured political leaders to overthrow democracy", the PPP has now demanded an inquiry into the Sheikh's role in training militants.

The most damaging allegation came from the former ISI officer Khawaja Khalid who asserted:

Then Nawaz Sharif introduced me to Sheikh Rashid, and he took me to his Freedom House camp near Fateh Jang Road near Rawalpindi. He asked me to get support from Arabs. I took several of my Arab friends to his training camp, and they provided him with some money, though they were not satisfied with the environment. The youths were mostly trained to fire AK-47 rifles, but there was no arrangement for the ideological training of youths. That was the point on which the Arabs objected, that it is ideological training that makes a difference between a mercenary and a mujahid. Rashid was the least bothered about ideological training, he was interested in money - Rs50,000 per person. Some money was provided to Rashid, and he claimed that he procured AK-47 guns with that money. How many, I do not remember.

_________________________________________________________

A Retraction
Yasin Malik then spoke to BBC with a clarification which was refuted by the former Army Chief Mirza Aslam Baig:

"We got refuge in his farmhouse... Sheikh Rashid helped us a lot and loved us" like a brother, Mr Malik told the BBC. However he denied having alleged in Pakistan's Daily Times newspaper that the minister had set up a training camp. "I have never mentioned the word training," Mr Malik said.
But Gen Beg has taken the allegations further, saying that Mr Rashid did run such a camp. "It came to my knowledge in 1990 that there was a militant training camp on Fateh Jang Road some 20km from Islamabad. I passed the information to the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who ordered the closure of the camp in 1991," he told the BBC.

. _________________________________________________________

Indian Reaction
On 24th the Press reported that Indian government turned down a visa application from Sheikh Rashid Ahmed to visit Indian-administered Kashmir.

_________________________________________________________

A Blog Comment
Your blogger vividly recalls Sheikh Rashid Ahmed bragging in the Pakistani press about the camp and his heroic support for the Kashmiri cause.

Can anyone, who has the patience and the urge to sift through newspapers of around 1989-1991, track down this report and find out what exactly Sheeda Tulli said? He certainly wasn't handing out Havana cigars to his guests, so what was he actually providing them with?

Pakistan
Sheikh+Rashid

The Fine Art of Toadying

I rest my case simply by quoting the BBC:

The BBC news website asked the prime minister's advisor on women's development, Nilofer Bakhtiar, if stopping Ms Mai from travelling may have done more damage than if she had been allowed to go.

"I don't want to get into that. All I want to say is that whatever decision the president took was the right one."

This lady deserves the Victoria Cross for sycophancy above and beyond the call of sanity.

Mukhtaran
Nilofer+Bakhtiar

State Sanctioned Thugs?

Freedom House, a well-known pro-Democracy organisation founded by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1941, had this to say about Pakistan’s police force:

Anecdotal evidence suggested that police continue to routinely engage in crime; use excessive force in ordinary situations; arbitrarily arrest and detain citizens; extort money from prisoners and their families; accept money to register cases on false charges; rape female detainees and prisoners; commit extrajudicial killings; and torture detainees, often to extract confessions. Political opponents, former government officials, and other critics of the regime are particularly at risk of arbitrary arrest or abduction, torture, and denial of basic due process rights at the hands of military authorities, according to Human Rights Watch. Prison conditions continue to be extremely poor. A report issued in November by Amnesty International noted that the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance of 2000 remains largely unimplemented and several thousand children continue to be jailed alongside adults.

Interestingly, two days ago ordinary citizens of Karachi were seen on TV stridently criticizing the role played by the Police in the distribution of heroin in the city. Many complained that because of the pressure of payoffs demanded by their superiors, local SHO’s had struck deals with the heroin gangs promising not to interfere in their operations in return for large sums of cash.

Ever wondered as to why no government – civilian or military – has ever bothered to reform the police?

The answer may lie in the fact that each government has relied on the police to harass and brutalize its political opponents into submission.

An obedient police force has therefore always been more important than one that is upright and competent.
Pakistan

The Follies of Hubris

These are absorbing times. Two influential columnists from US’s two most authoritative newspapers – The New York Times and the Washington Post - are suddenly on warpath against the Musharraf regime.
(Those wishing to obscure the issue will say these columnists are ‘anti-Pakistan’, but that will be patent nonsense as being anti-Musharraf and anti-Pakistan are decidedly not the same thing).

There are two general issues involved here:
- Mendacity
- Abuse of power

On 17 June Musharraf openly acknowledged his involvement in blocking Mukhtaran Mai’s US trip (by the preventative detention, putting her name on the ECL, snatching her passport, etc) while addressing the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Auckland.

And having done so, he exposed senior members of his government, who had been yelling themselves hoarse to the contrary, to be nothing more than a pack of blatant liars. We’ve known this all along but thanks to the mighty Commando this fact was propelled into the glare of global daylight in front of an assembly of international journalists.

And while Musharraf in commando fashion opted to take it on the chin by saying ‘I did it’, the confession damaged him immensely. The dignified shroud of enlightened moderation and a neatly assembled democratic façade fell at his feet, exposing the iron fist and jackboots underneath.

Not used to democracy – apart from incessantly talking about it – Musharraf forgot that there is such a thing as a system of laws. In a democratic society no king, president or prime minister can issue any orders without the support of an underlying law and the exercise of legitimate legal authority. What Mush did was confess that he can and does behave like a medieval king – “off with that peasant’s head, etc” – without bothering to reflect on the legality of his conduct.

So in one fell swoop Musharraf managed to wreck the image of himself and his government to smithereens.

The early Greeks well understood the follies of Hubris. And there are two modern interpretations of an ancient Greek saying on this subject:

- Those whom the Gods would destroy they first make all powerful.
- Those whom the Gods would destroy they first make proud

Take your pick!

Mukhtaran
Musharraf

Musharraf vexed in NZ

Don’t go by what our ‘controlled’ TV channels and silly ol' geriatric Dawn have to say.
Commando Salamat did not get an easy time in NZ .

_____________________________________________________

Fact One - Musharraf was sent elsewhere…

First of all Musharraf could not make it to the NZ capital city of Wellington. Why? Because the visiting British Rugby Team, the Lions and its supporters had booked all the hotels in advance and therefore had democratic precedence. The New Zealand Herald reported:

General Pervez Musharraf arrives on Friday for a weekend of talks with Prime Minister Helen Clark. But the entire 55-strong delegation will only visit Auckland because there is not any available accommodation in Wellington. Foreign Affairs says there are only a few hotels in the capital that can cope with a delegation of that size, and they are all booked out for the Lions tour.
_____________________________________________________

Fact Two - An embarrassing clash took place between NZ Police and Mush’s guards (NZ Stuff))

The visit of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had a rocky start when police seized a pistol from one of his security men at Auckland airport last night.
Pakistani officials became involved in a lengthy argument after a police sergeant took a heavy pistol from the man's shoulder holster.
[See Photo: The policeman is holding the confiscated pistol in his hand].

It took more than an hour after the presidential party landed for diplomatic protection squad chief Inspector Bruce Blayney to sort the issue out.
Five guns were eventually handed over.

And The New Zealand Herald adds:
A spokesman from the office of the Police Commissioner said the delegation had been specifically instructed by New Zealand police to leave their weapons on the chartered plane that brought General Musharraf from Australia.
_____________________________________________________


Fact Three - As the Mukhtaran Mai story hit the local press, Musharraf decided to duck the issue by cancelling his interviews on radio and TV
– this is confirmed by the following press release issued by the irate TV station (NZ’s Scoop).

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has today cancelled two in depth media interviews with Pakistani President Musharraf.
The interviews were scheduled for Radio New Zealand’s “Nine to Noon” and the TVOne programme “Agenda”.
Agenda producer Richard Harman says no explanation has been given for the cancellation of the interview on his programme though a Foreign Affairs spokesman claimed the decision had been made by the Pakistanis.
President Musharraf’s visit here comes in a week with heightened concerns about human rights in his country provoked by an honour gang rape.
Mr Harman said his programme certainly intended to ask the President about the rape and human rights in his country.
“Right from the start the New Zealand authorities have been hyper sensitive over this visit and our interview,” said Mr Harman.
“We even received a demand from the New Zealand police that the President’s motorcade not be filmed as it entered the TVNZ network centre complex in Auckland.”
“It is time for the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs to start upholding the fundamental New Zealand democratic right of a free media and stop pandering to the whims of foreign dictators.”
_____________________________________________________

Fact Four - A New Zealand MP and Foreign Policy spokesman for the Green party publicly called on the NZ Prime Minister to challenge Musharraf for being a dictator who tortured and held people without trial
NZ Scoop reports.

"Musharraf is all but a dictator, and the Prime Minister will be betraying the Pakistani people if she doesn't speak out strongly against his shocking human rights record during his visit here," Green Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Keith Locke said.

"It is good for New Zealand to have closer relations with Pakistan, but they must be accompanied by plain speaking on human rights.

"The routine torture of political dissidents in Musharraf's prisons has been condemned around the world, including in US State Department reports. Pakistan's Human Rights Commission estimates 5000 cases of police torture a year, including beating, whipping the soles of feet, and administering electric shocks.
"Miss Clark says she will be discussing counter-terrorism with Mr Musharraf. We ask her not to accept excuses from the President that the 'war on terror' justifies the use of force against prisoners and their detention without trial. The truth is that many ordinary Pakistanis have been terrorised by the country's security forces."

Mr Musharraf had also failed to protect women's rights, and our Prime Minister should relay our disquiet, Mr Locke said.

"At least 1500 women are killed in Pakistan each year for 'dishonouring' their families. Rape victims are discouraged from laying a complaint. Women can even be charged for the crimes of family members.

"Three years ago, a Pakistani woman Mukhtaran Bibi was sentenced to be gang-raped for a crime allegedly committed by her brother. She has now been detained by the Pakistani police because she dared to speak out about her case in the international media.
_____________________________________________________

Finally - a well known NZ Blogger ‘No Right Turn’ – a human rights advocate - summed up Mush's three day visit in NZ as:

A grilling
Agenda this morning commented at length on the cancellation of their interview with President Musharraf and issues surrounding his visit. They also reported on his speech to the Foreign Correspondent's Club in Auckland last night, during which it seems he received quite a grilling about human rights and the Mukhtaran Bibi case in particular. His response was to say that he had personally ordered Mukhtaran's travel ban and detention as he did not want her to tarnish Pakistan's image abroad. He also called human rights NGOs "westernized fringe elements" which are "as bad as the Islamic extremists". I think that makes it quite clear where he stands on human rights...
Meanwhile, according to Stuff, both Helen Clark and the Governor-General reportedly raised human and women's rights issues with Musharraf yesterday, so there's been some progress since the beginning of the week.


I would imagine the Great Commando will be relieved to return to dear old Pakistan. a country where he can do no wrong and is daily reminded of this 'fact' by his chumchas, such as Nilofar Bakhtiar

Musharraf

Homage to a Mai from a Village

If one was poor and illiterate what sort of prospect can one expect in Pakistan? OK, if we members of the educated-in-English-and-not-uselessly-in-Urdu elite were honest about it – the answer would be a hopelessly pitiful one.

Now add a ‘being a woman’ factor to the ‘poor and illiterate’ and what do you get? A short life span between 50 and 60 years, filled with daily hardships, misery, toil and drudgery, and having to live these years in a society completely dominated by men and their whims.

And then you have someone like Mukhtaran – definitely poor, definitely illiterate and definitely a woman – who has lived all her life in a small backwater village where her family was deemed to be lesser folk by the senior yokel hierarchy of the village.

On a horribly brutal day some three years ago she was gang raped by four members of the senior yokel family to avenge some concocted grievance. In those few short and inhuman hours Mukhtaran must have died a thousand deaths.

But she survived. In a failed society where her tragic cries might have remained unheeded because of the absence of proper administrative justice, she had the good fortune to be heard by some caring outsiders. They publicised her calamity and soon it caught the attention of local and then eventually the international press.

Finally alerted by all the attention Mukhtaran was getting, the authorities felt obliged to act. Her attackers were finally detained and Musharraf grandly awarded her Rs, 500,000.

Using that money along with some US$ 133,000 raised by US well-wishers; she built two schools, one each for girls and boys; a shelter for abused women; and bought a small Suzuki van to be used as a local ambulance. It becomes apparent that she desired genuine advancement for her community.

As I said previously, I would vote for her, like a shot, for president.

OK, I know the cynics out there will shake their heads and wonder – an illiterate village woman for president? Could one imagine her meeting and conversing with Putin, Chirac or Blair? This guy must be nuts for suggesting such a brainless idea!

In reply I would say the following:

For the past *^#@&^% fifty-seven years we have had urban educated males abominably mismanaging and egotistically misruling this country.

A country, that had a great deal hope four decades ago, is now widely perceived as a failing state. Pakistan is not only poverty stricken, we have an absence of rule of law, few working amenities, rampant illiteracy, an extremely corrupt and amoral ruling class, a powerfully wealthy and defiant army and a criminal police force.

Yes, we would also have to agree that we have been inundated with exceedingly corrupt and amoral politicians, rural gentry, generals, admirals, air marshals, bureaucrats, businessmen, traders, bankers, wankers, et al. And yes, nearly all of them – 99% - have been educated men, mostly urban. (No, I did not forget Benazir Bhutto, she enters this list of the dissolute as the remaining 1% - which consists of the ‘urban & educated but woman’ category)

A simple good hearted woman like Mukhtaran may not impress everyone. However, she will help bring back a genuine heart and a moral soul to a country, which many suspect that even God has given up on in sheer disgust.

And hey, there will never be any shortage of self-important educated urbane males who can be roped in to entertain the likes of Putin or Chirac.
Mukhtaran
Musharraf

Post-Mortem of a Complete and Utter Fiasco.

For a moment let us forget Mukhtaran Mai and the fact that three years ago she was gang raped, stripped naked and left to ruin, only to be saved by pressure from outside the frontiers of our blessed Islamic Republic.

And then last week after being placed on the ECL, she was locked up under so-called ‘protective custody’ by dozens of policemen, had her telephone line cut, then ‘officially’ kidnapped and dragged to Islamabad then pressurised by some bimbo (an advisor to the PM by the name of Nilofar Bakhtiar, who let her know that the great Commando Musharraf was personally "very angry" with her).

Mukhtaran Mai was then forced to withdraw her passport from the US Embassy where she had sent it to obtain a visa for her intended trip to the US, and made to face a press conference, nervous and shaking, to save the face of the wizardly half-wits currently in power and deny everything.

But no one believed the façade. Under international derision and anger these wizardly half-wits had to beat a hasty and undignified retreat. They removed her name from the ECL and announced that she was free to go whenever and wherever she wished.

_________________________

Let us for a moment forget about the dreadful ordeal this poor brave and underprivileged woman had to undergo. Lets us instead examine how the government of Pakistan managed to make a total international ass of itself on a grand scale

From the facts that have emerged it appears that the daft circus was begun by one Jahangir Karamat –a former Army Chief who has been famously accused in the Lahore High Court of pocketing $20 million in purchase of 300 tanks from Ukraine.

Mukhtaran Mai had been invited by a group of Pakistani-Americans (see www.4anaa.org) to visit the US. It has been reported that the retired army chief, currently our Ambassador in Washington, feared that she might malign Pakistan’s image during her stay in the US. So he instructed the Foreign Office at Islamabad to prevent her from reaching the US.

I imagine no one can say no to a General – particular a retired army chief so highly thought of by Commando Salamat himself. The Foreign Office promptly informed the Ministry of Interior and the menacing wheels of coercion were quickly put into gear against a poor and defenceless village woman.

As we all know once officialdom in Pakistan starts moving any withdrawal is perceived as loss of face. So, despite the howls of protest in the local press, Islamabad moved onwards relentlessly to curb Mukhtaran Mai’s independence. Then yesterday it stopped in its tracks. Why? Because a New York Times columnist pronounced that:

-the Pakistani government had gone ‘berserk’
-‘The threat to Pakistan's image comes from President Musharraf for all this thuggish behavior’
- ‘President Musharraf has gone nuts’
- Mr. Bush should ‘invite Ms. Mukhtaran to the Oval Office - to show that Americans stand not only with generals who seize power, but also with ordinary people of extraordinary courage’.

This was followed the next day by a savagely critical editorial in the same newspaper.

Prodded by the Press (and US bloggers on warpath emailing officials by the thousands) the US Government got in to action.

Christina Rocca, the assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, announced that the US Government was ‘dismayed at the treatment being meted out to a courageous woman, Mukhtaran Bibi, who is herself a victim of a horrendous crime and is being denied the right to travel and to tell her story,” She added that "We will pursue this matter during the course of the day"

The Empire had spoken. And so the bullies of Islamabad had to temporarily duck for cover.
Mukhtaran
Musharraf