Mass resistance propels Pakistan struggle forward

Many diverse political forces seem to be applauding the dramatic victory in Pakistan of a movement that has forced the government of President Asif Ali Zardari to reinstate the head of the country’s Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had been summarily removed from his position of authority in 2007 by former President Pervez Musharraf. This action set off demonstrations, led mostly by lawyers. Police attacked the protests, beating many and jailing thousands, some for long periods. A surge of popular anger finally led to the downfall of Musharraf’s party in the last election.

However, the new president reneged on many of his campaign promises, including the issue of the Supreme Court. The movement for an independent, democratic judiciary grew.

The turning point in this struggle came Sunday, March 15, when thousands of people were preparing to begin what they called the “long march” from Lahore, capital of Punjab state, to Islamabad, seat of the national government, despite threats of police repression.

On the morning of the march, even as thousands gathered, Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister and head of the main opposition party who was overthrown by Musharraf in 1999 in a military coup, broke out of house arrest in Lahore as his armored vehicle rammed through barbed-wire barricades and drove to the site of the march. Police, who had been beating demonstrators in that same spot for several days, suddenly pulled back, and word went around that the government had given in to the movement.

Spontaneous celebrations filled the streets in many Pakistani cities and towns. Sharif called off the “long march.”

Even the U.S. State Department has tried to claim some credit for Zardari’s decision to bow to popular pressure and agree to the justice’s reinstatement. It made sure that the news media related how Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and other U.S. officials met with Pakistan’s generals, urging them not to intervene as the mass opposition to Zardari held its ground in the streets.

For now, there is no talk of a coup, although Pakistan has been in the grip of U.S.-supported military dictatorships for most of its six decades.

Washington hedges its bets

Justice Chaudhry became known to the world when former President Musharraf—a general who had originally come to power in a military coup—tried to claim the right to run for a second term and be simultaneously head of state and head of the armed forces. Chaudhry had made it clear that, respecting the constitution, he would rule against the president. So Musharraf dismissed Chaudhry and appointed another judge willing to render a decision in his favor.

The removal of Chaudhry had been so autocratic and so obviously meant to consolidate Musharraf’s rule that at the time even the Bush administration could not publicly bestow its blessings on the general’s move. That would only have inflamed the opposition even more and pushed it in a more openly anti-imperialist direction.

According to the March 17 New York Times, Chaudhry had also taken on “the military establishment over hundreds of missing people who were alleged to have been held without judicial process in secret detention centers, as Pakistan’s part in the campaign against terrorism.”

Clearly, Washington was not happy with the judge at that time, since it was the U.S. that had forced Pakistan to set up the secret jails. However, the imperialists had to figure that the horse they were riding—at that time, Musharraf—might be overthrown, and so they kept their options open.

The last two years have been tumultuous in Pakistan. When the head of the Pakistan People’s Party, Benazir Bhutto, returned from exile to campaign for president, she was assassinated at a rally in December 2007 in front of thousands of her supporters.

Her young son was then named future head of the PPP. However, Bhutto’s husband, Zardari, took the reins, became the party’s nominee and won the presidency—largely based on Bhutto’s popularity, not his own.

Zardari’s record of persistent charges of large-scale corruption, resistance to the demands of the democratic movement despite his election promises, and his inability or unwillingness to effectively challenge U.S. military incursions near the Afghanistan border has quickly eroded what popularity he had when elected.

The Pentagon has been attacking villages in the semi-autonomous northwestern region of Pakistan, purportedly in pursuit of “radical Islamists” who sympathize with the resistance to the U.S./NATO occupation of Afghanistan. People on both sides of the border share common cultures. Many have died in these U.S. attacks, which are usually carried out by pilotless drones armed with missiles and directed by satellites. As in Afghanistan itself, the “military targets” often turn out to be villagers, including children and women, who are blown apart in these high-tech massacres.

The U.S. had lobbied heavily against a decision by the Pakistan government to increase the autonomy of these regions. This only stiffened the resistance of the Islamic opposition.

New coalition emerging

The main party opposing Zardari and the PPP is the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), headed by Nawaz Sharif. An industrialist and one of the richest people in Pakistan, Sharif had endorsed Chaudhry’s cause two years ago but became outspoken after Zardari ejected the PML-N from power in Punjab last month and the Supreme Court barred Sharif and his younger brother from holding elected office. Hence, his dramatic entry as a leader of the “long march” to reform the judiciary.

What has emerged in recent weeks is an alliance between the largely secular democratic forces and the moderate Islamists in the PML-N. Sharif is undoubtedly hoping his party will replace the PPP in the next election.

Both political parties have long served the interests of the Pakistani ruling class and have compromised with U.S. imperialism. However, what is happening now is much more than mere election maneuvering.

The Pakistani masses are aroused by this struggle over the judiciary. Thousands of lawyers—who are poor and oppressed by Western standards—have literally put their lives on the line. Increasingly, workers and farmers have joined their protests.

The ruling PPP is in disarray, its officials disgruntled and afraid. “There are voices in the lower ranks of the party, an increasing cacophony against [Zardari’s] leadership because of the widening gap between the people and the government,” a PPP senator told a British newspaper. (Telegraph, March 16)

The U.S. for decades used Pakistan in its cold war against the USSR. Today Pakistan is a nuclear power with a large army and police force—and a high rate of poverty, illiteracy and child mortality. The people are being hit harder than ever by the world capitalist economic crisis, which is adding to the political instability. The elite, however, have profited handsomely during times of both civilian and military rule.

The U.S. government, even as it lays plans to partially pull out of Iraq, is sending more troops to Afghanistan. It is leaning heavily on neighboring Pakistan to allow its armed forces and territory to be used in the effort to crush the Afghan resistance, thus spreading the war and all its horrors to Pakistan.

The current struggle to break the grip of the militarized autocrats over Pakistan’s political institutions can become the first stage of a mass-based resistance to imperialism and its political pawns.