Between two scoundrels and a flip flop

Here we go again, just one day to go before presidential elections. We have three candidates, Asif Zardari, Saleem uz Zaman Siddiqui, and Mushahid Hussain. Before we come to these three candidates let us ask ourselves a question as a nation. If we had the choice to turn back time to February 2007, would we or would we not? Of course anyone in their sane mind would. Even if Musharraf was ruling as President and Army Chief I would be happy to go back to Feb 2007 anytime. Democracy can never work in Pakistan! Why? Because Prof. D. Scheuman, American expert on South Asian politics said on June 3rd 1949, “A state of Pakistan recently came into being in South Asia. It’s a state manifest with enormous pitfalls unique to itself. Its existence is vulnerable as times will show - in less than half a century the state will collapse because of its people - who are born in chains of slavery, whose thoughts cannot see love of a free country and whose minds can’t function beyond the scope of personal selfishness. Mark my words.”

This is what he said about average Pakistani. We can imagine if that average Pakistani is Nawaz or Zaradari what they can achieve. How did we get to this point? Well it’s a long story but suffice is to say that this is what happens when nations are left to be governed by crooks, and goons.

What is wrong with Asif Zardari becoming president? Well, if the only concern was that there will be more corruption during his rule than we could have lived with that. The really irony is that there is a greater drama that is being set up behind the scene. Why is it that Zardari, Nawaz, Hussain Haqqani (our ambassador to U.S, before that he was working for a think tank in America with links to the CIA), Rehman Malik and other individuals are working at key positions are all unelected? Why is Zalmay Khalilzad calling Zardari every other day and giving him advice? I wonder what the advice might be about. Maybe they will go hunting together when Zardari is president of Pakistan and Khalilzad is president of Afghanistan (something that Khalilzad wants). Let’s recall who Khalilzad is, he was former U.S ambassador to Afghanistan and also served in Iraq and is currently American ambassador to U.N. looks good so far, but now it gets ugly, he is one of the founding members of Project for New American Century (PNAC) of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). We all know what the goals of PNAC are we have seen the results in Afghanistan, Iraq and we are seeing the results now in Pakistan. Zardari has said clearly that he will continue the American war on terror and will cooperate fully with the American military. His law minister has said that the current Chief Justice should be accepted as the “Chief Justice” which basically means that Iftikhar Choudary will not be restored. The economic situation is a disaster and will become worst. The midnight stunt to put ISI under control of interior ministry badly failed but rest assured that the stunt will be repeated again in near future. What will the results be? Let’s leave that for our imaginations to play with. Sufficient is to say that as long as ISI is intact our nuclear weapons are intact and once they are compromised than this nation will see the real face of our easterly neighbor (which also happens to be accumulating troops to our west in Afghanistan, now I hope everyone knows what Pakistan meant by strategic depth when we used to use that term and politicians with monkeys in their head used to laugh at the term). Basically nothing changed for the better and is soon to get worst, so why were we hell bound to remove Musharraf? How come the lawyers and their cheerleader Atizaz don’t speak a word about his own beloved judges betraying Chief Justice Choudary and taking oath under the new Chief Justice? I think that Zardari will not let go of seventeenth amendment. He will retain as much power as he can. Americans like that they don’t want a parliament that is strong and is in a position to make legislations and define national and foreign policies. The example of Turkey is in front of us which has repeatedly defied American interests. Ron Suskind’s new book, “The way of the world” shows the deep level of U.S government and covert agencies involvement in our politics.

Meet Nawaz Sharif. Poor soul was made to live in exile in Saudi Arabia, how many times have he heard this lame mantra from TV anchors and journalist and himself and his party members. As if Nawaz was living in some mud shack in the middle of the desert in Saudi. The crook who looted this country of billions of dollars then went into exile in Saudi, setup a steel mill there, with tax exemption, lived like a king there now he comes back cleansed of his sins just because he used to perform Umrah and Hajj there. His nomination for presidential candidate is Saeed uz Zaman Siddiqui. The biased media has forgotten the history of Siddiqui. We need to take a trip down memory lane. When Nawaz was Prime Minister in 1997 and started on a path to become completely autocratic, his tussle with then Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah started. In this tussle Shah was going to restore the thirteenth amendment and give powers back to Leghari who was president at that time. Nawaz decided to buy the judiciary. He sent his cunning henchman Rafiq Tarar, to buy off the judges in his private plane. Tarar flew from Peshawar to Quetta and back to Lahore buying loyalties of judges. Siddiqui was indeed one of those judges who revolted against his own chief justice (Shah). This is his ugly past and that of Nawaz himself. Nawaz does not trust anyone at president’s post that is why he has nominated Siddiqui, since he can be president just like Tarar was ‘a sitting duck’. Nawaz should have given someone else from his party the nomination for presidential election but he does not trust anyone. The media is lip-stuck at these points, no one has the guts to ask Siddiqui how come he was all quiet when PML (N) thugs were creating havoc in the Supreme Court of Pakistan and for the first time in history a sitting prime minister attacked his own supreme court. Our media is not ready to ask independent questions and daring questions like Indian media and media in other countries. Why don’t the media ask all the lawyers from where they are getting money since the last one and half year to travel the length and breadth of the country, organize rallies, bhashans, dinners, and massive media coverage? Boycotting court proceedings on a regular basis, and severely disrupting the working of the courts. What about their personal finances. I am not going to believe that our lawyers and Judges live on their monthly salaries. According to Amnesty international there is 96% corruption in Pakistani courts moving up from civil courts all the way up to Supreme Court. Can any new channel make a report on this? Does anyone has courage to tell the people that 60% people in our jails are those who are wrongfully accused of crimes they never committed and they are in jail for years just waiting for their case to be heard before a judge. Can any journalist ask lawyers and judges about this? Hazrat Ali once said “A nation based on Kufr (disbelief) can survive but a nation based on injustice will perish.” I don’t want to mention some names but you just have to see the history of our journalists. How they sucked up to different politicians and then went on to become Pakistani ambassadors to different countries. All Nawaz wants is to gain power again, for the third time, and he will again try to become autocratic ruler just like he was for a brief time in 1999.

The third candidate is Mushahid Hussain. Apart from the fact that he is basically been part of every government since as far back as I can recall. There is not much else in his closet. Or maybe there is and we just don’t know about it. Oh yea he was also a journalist back in time. God, if I knew journalist make so much in roads I would have done journalism instead of engineering.

With all this drama going on in the political front, our country is repeatedly being abused by U.S, NATO and Afghan air strikes, missile attacks, and now intrusion. Shaheen Shebai has said in his article that Gen. Kiyani needs to change all the wrongs with a magic stick. Well if Gen. Kiyani had to do all the changing then what was the need for all drama, political turmoil, and removing Musharraf? I said once that Pakistan’s politics is like a loop in a computer program. Democracy, bad governance, democracy, bad governance, military coup, the loop just continues. How long will this loop continue? I hope not long because now it’s getting to really hurt us directly as a nation and our national security interests are also getting compromised. This is not just good old politics of 1960’s. This is post 9/11 world where Pakistan is stuck between clash of super power regions and the nefarious designs of PNAC. We need to wake up and realize what is going on.

Vultures robbing us of everything leaving nothing but change!!!!

As mentioned in my last article our former finance minister and Prime Minister Shaukat (Shortcut Aziz as he was known in Pakistan) Aziz was nothing less than an economic hit man (EHM). He had many magic tricks up his sleeves but no magic trick is better than stealing someone’s treasures and giving them to someone else. Well he was not a magician but he certainly did authorize the sale of our gold and copper reserves to the largest gold mining and copper mining companies in the world.

There is a place in Baluchistan named RekoDiq, in Chagai district, latitude 28.8125 and Longitude 64.7. RekoDiq has fifth largest reserves of gold and copper in the world. Two large companies were given licenses to explore and extract gold and copper from RekoDiq. One of those companies is Barrick Gold Corporation. Barrick is the largest pure gold mining company in the world, with its headquarters in Toronto, Canada. Barrick is currently undertaking mining and exploration projects in Papua New Guinea, the United States, Canada, Australia, Peru, Chile, Russia, South Africa, Pakistan, Argentina and Tanzania. Barrick is owned and was founded by Peter Munk. (For interested souls Munk’s history is worth looking into)

The other company is Antofagasta PLC a Chilean business that operates in various sectors of the economy. It is one of the most important conglomerates of Chile with equity participation in Antofagasta Minerals, the railroad from Antofagasta to Bolivia, Aguas Antofagasta in Chile, Tethian in Australia and other investments in different parts from the world. The company is still 65% owned by the Chilean Luksic family.

Now according to the information available from Pakistani, international newspapers and interest groups, RekoDiq have vast reserves of copper and gold deposits. The area is of prime importance to these giant mining companies. Tethyan Copper Company (TCC) is an Australian company that had stake in RekoDiq project. Barrick bought shares of TCC for the
RekoDiq project. RekoDiq contains 12.3 million tons of copper and 20.9 million ounces of gold, and, and the deposits could me more than the current estimates. The copper-gold deposits at RekoDiq are believed to be even bigger than Sarcheshmeh in Iran and Escondida in Chile. The RekoDiq copper deposits which are in the neighborhood of Saindak copper project, is four times larger in copper ore tonnage than Saindak, Balochistan. The most credible international surveys suggest that RekoDiq is one of the biggest undeveloped copper projects in the world with over 11 billion pounds of copper and nine million ounces of gold. According to the current gold and copper prices, 20.9 million ounces of gold is worth$17.34 billion and 12.3 million tons of copper would be worth $86 billion. If there are more deposits than the price goes up.

With this is mind now we come to the real stuff. The real stuff is that without any independent and open bidding the government of Pakistan gave the contracts to these companies. The details were not disclosed to the public or media. Just like Steel Mills was about to be sold to phony company until Chief Justice Choudary intervened and stopped the sale, these reserves of gold and copper were sold to giant corporations for dirt cheap. The details of the contract are very sketchy and not clear. The only thing we know is that Pakistan government will get only 25% of the money. 25% only, 75% will be taken away by these corporations. It’s a heist, a huge plunder of our natural mineral resources. Why did the government of Musharraf and he chief wizard not disclose to the public the deals of these resources? Why was the deal so hidden? What kind of an agreement gives 75% of your resources to a private company? This agreement is worse than the Saudis and other Middle Eastern Countries did with Western Oil companies to extract their oil. Where did this come from? To answer that question we have to realize that we are going through a Shock, an economic, political, social shock. It’s called Shock Doctrine by famous Canadian journalist and author Naomi Klein, in her best-seller, eye opener book “Shock Doctrine”. Here is a quote from her recent article that explains the recent oil contact signed by puppet Iraqi government and oil companies. “According to Iraq's oil minister, the long-term contracts will be signed within a year. While ostensibly under control of the Iraq National Oil Company, foreign firms will keep 75 percent of the value of the contracts, leaving just 25 percent for their Iraqi partners”. This is from where 75-25 ratio comes from. Its part and parcel of such agreements that EHM writes.

Now, a brief introduction of so called ‘Baloch nationalist’. Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) has got nothing to do with Baloch Nationalist. Late Bughti was a nationalist and he supported Pakistan’s independence but BLA certainly is not working in the interest of Pakistan or Balochistan. BLA is getting money and aid from Afghanistan, India, and British intelligence. Recall in history that Gwadar was not part of Pakistan at the time of independence. This was because during Khan of Kalat had sold Gwadar to ruler of Muscat, Oman. Pakistan had to pay money to Oman to buy back Gwadar from Oman. No wonder that BLA has not uttered a word about RekoDiq. BLA only attacks Pakistan’s government officials, police, army, and projects that effect the entire country.

You think that this is an eye opener well it is but it just gets better. There is an area in Sind it’s called Thar. Thar has the largest deposits of Coal in the entire world. When Shaukat Aziz was finance minister and later PM, American and Chinese companies were interested in starting a coal power plant project that would have generated over 5000MW of electricity. Aziz sidelined the project. The Chinese company was furious and sent review summaries to Presidents office but to no avail. If the project would have been approved back then, there would have been sufficient electricity for the citizens of this country. Now the Federal government in Islamabad is fighting with Sind government over who will own this coal. How much coal is there in Thar area? Thar has around 175 billion tons of coal sufficient enough to cater to all the energy needs of the country for the next three centuries. How much is this coal worth, according to a rough estimate based on current coal prices $1.57 trillion. That’s right trillion with a T. How much electricity can this project produce? 100,000 MW. The current shortfall facing Pakistan is around 6500MW. We are sitting with all this coal and we are importing coal from other countries. Recently Thar coal project conference was organized in U.S to attract investors. Why can’t the conference be held in Pakistan? When will our leaders come on TV and tell the public that Pakistan possess such mineral reserves? Are we again headed for the 25-75% disaster?

Pakistan has all the mineral and natural resources that we need. What we need are leaders who are nationalist and patriotic. We can’t afford leaders who are corrupt scoundrels. Hats off to all our leaders as they are unwilling to talk about these issues. They are too busy fighting each other for the presidential palace. No TV channel is willing to invite some government official and ask them some hard questions. It’s not a surprise, with all this money in the eyes of the investors I am sure they can spend some money to keep some mouths shut.