A former prime minister, two ex-speakers, a deputy speaker, two former chief justices of Pakistan, an ex-governor and a former chief minister jointly called upon President Pervez Musharraf to step down, "so that Pakistan survives".
"Severe fault lines have emerged in the underpinnings of our Federation during your tenure", these former dignitaries said in an 'open letter' released here on Monday, expressing their 'considered opinion' that "these (Musharraf government's) policies considered now pose a serious threat to the integrity, solidarity and wellbeing of Pakistan".
Those who wrote the letter are Balkh Sher Mazari, Fakhar Imam, Illahi Bux Soomro, Wazir Ahmad Jogezai, Sajjad Ali Shah, Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddqui, Mian Gul Aurangzeb, and Taj Mohammad Jamali.
The letter by the eight 'heavyweights' comes within a month of a similar communication signed by 18 'high profile citizens' of Pakistan to the President urging him to shed uniform and hold fair and free elections, as the opposition's movement against the present governing dispensation gathers momentum.
Following is the text of the letter: In light of the letter previously written by some of your erstwhile colleagues we the undersigned do firmly believe that severe fault lines have emerged in the underpinnings of our Federation during your tenure in the highest office of our state.
Provincial discord and disharmony has been caused and is being continuously exacerbated by single-minded pursuit of current policies which, we believe, must be subjected to urgent scrutiny along with dispassionate and rigorous review. In our considered opinion these policies now pose a serious threat to the integrity, solidarity and well being of Pakistan.
We are particularly anxious about military action in Balochistan, and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of our country, where hundreds of innocent Pakistanis, including women, children and the elderly have been killed by Pakistani soldiers and airmen using helicopter gunships under your direct command as Chief of Army Staff.
Not a week passes without the print and electronic media informing the Pakistani people of some incidence of violence in which either armed forces personnel or Pakistani citizens have lost their lives. In many areas and in numerous communities in Balochistan and FATA women and children, the sick and the elderly, are being denied normal access to food and water as thousands of Baluchi and Pushtun homes are currently under siege of our own deployed troops. In the meanwhile the ISPR bulletins inform the media that "miscreants" and "hidden hands" are inflaming "insurgency". This revives the ghosts of memories from the days of East Pakistan.
When the Pakistan Army intervened to usurp power for the fourth time many of us may have given you the benefit of the doubt as the seemingly "reluctant coup maker". None of us sought office under your dispensation although some of us may have informally requested or advised you on evolving an exit strategy which might have avoided putting the institutions of Pakistan at risk, in fight of the Supreme Court judgement which gave you, after four months of your intervention, three years to put the nation back on track.
Every nation takes pride in its armed forces as the guardians of its frontiers. Our soldiers, sailors and airmen earn the admiration of the people for their readiness to offer the supreme sacrifice in the fulfilment of their prescribed duties. However, when the army leadership oversteps the limits of its responsibilities and usurps political power, this admiration is in danger of turning into anger. Each time there has been a military take-over, the people have given the benefit of doubt to the Generals and accepted their claim that it is only temporary and civilian rule would be restored after putting things back on track. Each time, they have had to face, instead, the grim determination of military rulers to hang on to power.
The Constitution of Pakistan, incrementally distorted though it may have been, from its original text of 1973, primarily to meet the strategic exigencies of your predecessor regimes, was further mauled in the fourth year of your dispensation and endorsed by a Legislature perceived by the public to be no more than a rubber stamp.
In the frequent addresses which you have made to the people of Pakistan, during your seven long years in power, you have enunciated a lengthy litany of promises which remain unfulfilled.
Seven years of your governance have brought unbearable inflation, rampant lawlessness, increased graft and corruption, no improvement in agriculture nor public utilities services, nor in public education, nor public health care, nor in containing population growth. You have allowed the State to abdicate from its basic responsibilities and the privatisation of public sector institutions has not been above controversy. Despite your emphasis on developing infrastructures not one major project initiated in your tenure has reached fruition.
The fiscal space allowed to your government after 9/11 is not far from being exhausted and the taint and odour of corrupt practices which you seemed to disdain are now all around you. In having failed to watch your talk, you have recorded a net failure in providing good governance to the people of Pakistan. And all your policies which have been discordant with national aspirations have collapsed, in conclusive failure.
Recently, the Chief Election Commissioner, appointed by you but who derives his authority from the Constitution, has categorically stated that the President cannot be partisan. You have failed to respect his pronouncement and your own Oath of Office, which is enshrined in the Constitution while you have publicly insisted that you never violate the Constitution.
For all of these reasons we urge you, finally to relinquish your office of Chief of Army Staff which you have held for almost nine years, and to dignify your Office of President by obeying the Constitution of Pakistan.
In order to redeem your pledge, made to the people of Pakistan when you assumed total power and in light of the reality that you have retained this power for nearly seven years, we further urge you not to embarrass yourself much longer by clinging to it.
We earnestly beseech you, General, to hand over to the Apex Court, largely constituted by yourself, to conduct elections strictly in accordance with the Constitution, through a consensual neutral Caretaker Government, so that we are all further governed through the exercise of free and fair elections which reflect the will of the people, who are the real Sovereign of the territories of Pakistan. If you volunteer to do so, in defiance of all the vested interests which surround you today, and take Pakistan forward towards constitutionalism you will have done your duty.
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