Altaf Hussain calls for round-table conference of all parties

By M. Ziauddin
Daily Dawn
10 December 2004

LONDON, Dec 9: Altaf Hussain, chief of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), has called for a round-table conference of all political and religious parties of the country to evolve an agreed and realistic plan to save Pakistan.

Mr Hussain, who was talking here to a group of editors from Pakistan, said that the government should organize the conference, but participate in it only as an observer. "How can we keep Pakistan intact? That is the question, the answer to which the conference should be able to come up with a majority vote and the answer must be grounded in reality," he added.

Mr Hussain said the superpower had plans for Iran, but then in his opinion this plan could change and the superpower might decide, in view of its self-interest, and circumstances, to "take out our (nuclear) factory first and make a bid at us before it turns to Iran."

However, his top aides Anwer Bhai and Tariq Javed who accompanied him during the interview, intervened to say that before such an APC is organized, there should be another APC to decide that Punjab alone did not have the right to decide about Pakistan and that others who lived in the country, the Sindhis, Pushtoons, Balochis and the Mohajirs being equal partners were as much first class citizens of the country as the people of Punjab considered themselves to be and in doing so "we expect the people of Punjab to make the required sacrifices."

Mr Hussain hastened to add that he had no animosity towards the common Punjabis and that his grouse was only against the dominant Punjabi establishment. He said given an opportunity he would be able to play a positive role in unifying the nation, "a unified nation can be occupied but the occupier cannot consolidate the occupation as it is happening in Iraq." He said he felt he would be able to turn Pakistan into one nation by promoting what he said fraternity, pluralism and cultural pluralism.

He was clearly implying that if he was allowed to lead the nation he would be able to do what Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif or the military dictator could not achieve so far - national unity.

When asked how he could make a bid for the government without giving up his policy of joining hands with every new ruler of Pakistan, he said he would, if his top aides allowed him, sit in the opposition if the MQM did not win a clear majority.

KASHMIR DISPUTE: He said he can even play a positive role considering his skills in helping resolve the Kashmir dispute on realistic lines and with honour and dignity.

"I can talk to both the Indian and the Pakistani leaders and come up with a framework for talks for a mutually honourable and dignified resolution of Kashmir," he added.

In this connection, he said he was prepared to withdraw his proposal of making the Line of Control (LoC) a permanent border temporarily for one year with the troops from both the countries conducting joint patrol.

When asked, considering the stated positions of the two countries, how could there be a mutually honourable resolution of the dispute, he said the realistic position was that nobody, neither Pakistan nor India can gulp Kashmir, the people of Kashmir should be asked what they want, they have been saying that they have their own separate national identity, so it is they who should be asked what they want. He also proposed an all-party conference on Kashmir within Pakistan to come up with a national position on tackling this problem.

GEN MUSHARRAF: When asked if he had discussed all these issues with President General Musharraf, considering that his party was now one of the coalition partners of the military-led government, he said he had never met Gen Musharraf and implied that some forces were not letting them meet face-to-face.

"We have talked on telephone, we even talked during his latest visit to London and I told him that it was a successful visit and that he was doing the right thing by trying to reach out to the outside world," he added.

When asked why being part of a military-led government was he still so bitter against the army, he said he was against the feudal, the civil and military bureaucracy and the general Shahi.

Clarifying further, he said after the 1999 take over and till 9/11 the MQM sided with the army because it thought that for some time there would not be another military coup and neither would the regimes of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif come back soon.

"So we thought we would be relieved of the unrelenting pressure from the establishment and during this period we could be able to serve our people, so we entered into an agreement with the military government on some main issues like provincial autonomy, the NFC and the sharing of the waters among the provinces. No memorandum of understanding was, however, signed." He agreed when told that even on these agreed points there has been no progress even after five years.

POWER SHARED: When told that the MQM had shared power with the PPP, the PML(N) and now it was sharing power with the army which gave one the impression that it was only power hungry and not against feudalism and civil and military bureaucracy, he said it was the decision of his top aides that the MQM should always remain one of the power-brokers in the country and that the aides thought it was the only way to survive and advance the ideology of the MQM.

He said every accusation against the MQM and his own person was without an iota of truth, "and that is the reason why we ourselves went to the Supreme Court in 1994 and filed a petition, it is still pending."

UNIFORM ISSUE: When told that while he still seemed to be hostile towards the uniform as such he was supporting the uniform for the moment, he said that even the most staunchest democrat had to, at times, take the bitter pill of joining up with the undemocratic forces for advancing his democratic ideology "and look a man like Z.A. Bhutto too had to become the chief martial law administrator to bring in democracy." He said he was prepared to undergo scrutiny by a tribunal of judges and the country should accept its verdict which "we will also accept."

JINNAHPUR: "I am not against Pakistan, I am not the author of Jinnahpur; this was the brainchild of one Brigadier Asif Haroon, the press should dig out the truth by asking this brigadier on whose instructions did he come up with such a plan to malign the MQM," Mr Hussain said.

Recalling what he had actually said in India recently during his speech at the Hindustan Times seminar, he said if he had been there at the time of partition he would certainly have voted against Pakistan, but now that it had been established, it had the right to exist and flourish without India or anybody giving it a bad eye and in that context "I have never been against Pakistan and would never be." He said both India and Pakistan were a reality, both the countries should accept the existence of each other and respect each other.

ETHNIC POLARIZATION: He said the new generation in both India and Pakistan was being brought up on the science of information technology and, therefore, it would not take them long to end what he called ethnic polarization and ethnic particularism and because of the IT, he said, ethnic identities were getting weaker and an ethno- linguistic culturally pluralistic society was in the offing.

He said the IT was also breaking down the factors that made a state, like currency, defence etc. He said because of the IT no government could hide the truth from its own people, and similarly, the governments of Pakistan and India would not be able to hide the truth about Kashmir from their people for long and would have to come up with some kind of a settlement sooner or later, and sooner the better.

HOSTILITY: When asked if it was not logical for the MQM and the PPP to join hands for the betterment of Sindh, he said he had no hostility towards PPP workers but its leaders, he thought, were feudal which came in the way of such a joining together, "so now the MQM itself has gone into the interior of Sindh and mobilizing the Sindhi middle class, which is expanding at the moment."

He thought the release of Asif Zardari had something to do with the cancellation of protest of the PPP against Gen Musharraf in London during his recent visit which, he said by implication, that a deal was in the offing between Gen Musharraf and the PPP on uniform.

"The PML-N had also cancelled its protest in the belief perhaps that it would get back Raiwind in the bargain," he added in a lighter vein. He said that in Pakistan the prime ministers and the presidents did not enjoy any powers, "it is the hidden forces, and the ISI and the army which really wielded the powers in Pakistan."

He recalled that at one point in time in the 1980s these agencies had made a plan to create trouble between Mohajirs and Pushtoons of Karachi and even Wali Khan was misled by this propaganda carried out mostly in the media and announced that he would come with a band of one million Pushtoons to Karachi to meet the challenge at which "I wrote him a secret letter and explained the real position and he was convinced nothing like that was happening."

He said if he were against Pakistan he would have called for separation after so much of persecution all these years and after some 15,000 MQM workers were killed, but "I did not do it because I believe those who perpetuated these atrocities were only carrying out orders of their superiors."

"We are not against anybody, we are against the system, the system which allows only a few feudal families and civil and military bureaucracy to rule, which does not allow the common people to have a say in governance. This system of governance has lost half of the country and I fear it would lose the other half as well if it is not destroyed first," he added.