Click to play videoThe dead bodies at Pakistan’s Lal Masjid have been cleared, but the blood stains on its soil and the bullet marks on its walls are still there and very prominent.
In his own country General Musharraf is now “trapped” and torn between owing allegiance to United States and dealing with the radical gunpowder that’s getting ready in Islamabad.
Musharraf used force, after negotiations failed to bring order at Lal Masjid. But the Pak media and a good majority of political experts smell foul play. They say that the negotiations were successful, but Musharraf wanted to appease China and US and thus he ordered the killings at Lal Masjid.
Musharraf claims all those killed in the masjid were militants. However, the claims have not gone down with a majority of public in Pakistan.
The question is will General Pervez Musharraf survive the crisis?
Pakistan’s former tourism minister Nilofer Bakhtiar, Executive Editor, GEO TV Hamid Mir, Senior Journalist, Saeed Naqvi and Former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, G Parthasarathy discussed the issue on CNN-IBN Face the Nation.
Will General Pervez Musharraf survive the crisis?
In a recorded message to his country on state television, Musharraf said on Thursday that terrorism will be rooted out and misuse of mosques or madrassas will not be tolerated.
He justified the attack that killed 73 militants and 10 commandos and blamed Lal Masjid militants for bringing shame on the country for abducting 7 Chinese earlier.
Though the Pak troops have cleared the Lal Masjid and most of the dead have been buried, there are rumblings of protest and questions about General Musharraf's future.
Musharraf acknowledged in his address, that the tribesman in the frontier provinces may protest, but the majority of Pakistan is behind him. He now also has the threat of Ayman Al Zawahiri ringing in his ears. The Al Qaeda's number two has called upon Pakistanis to rise in revolt against Musharraf.
“Most of the Pakistanis are of view that this action was avoidable,” said Executive Editor, GEO TV Hamid Mir.
“People are aghast at the way this whole drama was maneuvered. They want to know who was behind this whole stand off in the first place. The Lal Masjid is just a kilometer away from the ISI headquarter, the President’s House and the parliament house. It was a big intelligence failure. Yet there is no proper probe, action, no announcement about those officials who are responsible for the security lapse in Pak capital,” he added.
Some are of view that Musharraf staged this whole drama and let the radicals concentrate in the mosque because he wanted to kill them and please America, added Hamid Mir.
Was the ammunition recovered from Lal Masjid planted there?
The state-ordered military operation at Lal Masjid was called Operation Silence which ended after 48 hours of gunbattle. Pakistani army troopers began a cleanup, allowing cameras to capture the mosque complex. TV footage of inside the mosque showed walls peppered with bullets that lead into one destroyed room after another.
There were traces of petrol bombs that were used by the radicals to fight back Pakistani rangers in the final stages.
An arsenal of rocket launchers, anti personnel mines, bombs and chemicals were recovered from the basement bunkers that were used to keep hundreds of hostages through the siege.
One thing that General Musharraf did not talk about in 25-minute long address was—how come in the heart of Islamabad, such large amounts of arms and ammunitions were allowed to be gathered—and that too in the premises of a mosque and a seminary?
“The weapons that were shown to the media were not the ones recovered from the militants,” said Hamid Mir.
“The majority of dead bodies recovered from Lal Masjid were badly burnt and mutilated. How come the weapons were clean and undamaged? They in fact looked shining and new. Media has serious doubts about these weapons and most probably they were not planted there by the militants,” he added.
Senior Journalist Saeed Naqvi, on the contrary said that Pakistan’s operation silence bears an uncanny resemblance with India’s Operation Blue Star of 1984. “Lal Masjid remains an amazing whodunit. General Musharraf and his co-hosts will have to answer many questions. The operation has an uncanny similarity with 1984 Amritsar operation Blue Star.”
He said there might be larger conspiracy behind it. “Operation blue star happened in a place of worship in Amritsar in 1984 where you had Bhindarvala chased to the last row. In Pak you had Ghazi to be chased. But the consequences of 1984 were internal to India whereas the consequences of Lal Masjid are going to be regional other than for Musharraf himself,” he added.
Is Musharraf trapped in his own country?
Within Pakistan, there are going to be serious divisions because a strong body of opinion feels that Musharraf has yielded to American and Chinese pressure.
“Pervez Musharraf on one hand he is pleasing the Chinese and on the other, he is pleasing the Americans. Between the two there is an adversarial relationship. He is now trapped,” said Hamid Mir.
Former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, Parthasarthy said, “The fact of the matter is that he has gained politically with this operation. The action has split the 37 political parties. The two mainstream parties, the People’s Party and the religious party Maulana Fazl Ul Rehman’s JUI are not joining others in demonstrations. They are against it. US will now put pressure on Benazir and Musharraf to come together.”
Nilofer Bakhtiar former tourism minister of Pakistan who had to step down following the fatwa by Lal Masjid clerics spoke to CNN-IBN from Pakistan over the phone.
“I am in a way relieved that this action has finally taken place and the operation now is over. I’m sad about all those people who lost their lives in this operation,” she said.
She said that the operation in itself is a victory for liberal-minded Pakistan.
“Any kind of extremism is bad and this was one very severe form of extremism. It was time for the government to take action and I’m glad that it did,” she added.
On being asked how come such large amount of ammunition was kept in the mosque, and whether the government had been turning a blind eye to it she said, “This is a big question mark for everyone. I think this was due to negligence on the part of the law enforcing agencies.”
She said that the government was being blackmailed because of the presence of woman and children in Lal Masjid area. “For a long time they were trying to negotiate peacefully to get the results. But that did not happen. Hence the serious action,” she added.
Agreeing with Nilofer’s view, Parthasarthy said, “General Musharrraf could not defend her when a resignation was demanded from her. Her own party and the party chief Chaudhry Shajjat Hussain did not back her. This shows the amount of influence Lal Masjid clerics have on mainstream politics in Pak.”
However, Hamid Mir strongly disagreed with the view. He said that there is a clear cut conspiracy theory behind Lal Masjid drama.
“Chaudhry Shajjat Hussain started negotiations with the two cleric brothers in April this year. On May 20, 2007 he told me that the negotiations have been successfully completed and that the clerics had decided to leave the library occupied by them. But after that Chaudhry was contacted by a very influential government offcial who requested him to prolong the negotiation. They were not interested in a peaceful solution at all,” he added.
On being asked whether she thinks Musharraf will be able to survive the Lal Masjid crisis, Bakhtiar said, “I thing this whole operation will in fact help him last for a longer time now. All the moderates in Pak today are relieved and happy.”
Final Verdict: Will Musharraf survive the Lal Masjid crisis?
Yes: 81 per cent
No: 19 per cent.
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