Zardari Tries to Amend Pakistan’s Constitution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Constitutional Package 

 

On May 25, the Law Minister Senator Farooq H Naek, accompanied by Mr Asif Zardari, unveiled some of the salient features of the much anticipated and talked about constitutional package. Almost all the clauses that he talked about in the press conference in Islamabad related to clipping of the powers of the President; and he did not disclose the details about the reforms concerning the judiciary and the remaining details of the 62-point constitutional package.

 

It remains unclear as to why the package was announced prior to consulting the coalition partners, and why the whole constitutional bill could not be released to the media. If it was not ready or the plan was to release it after finalizing it with the partners, then there was no point in announcing it in a hurry, unless the purpose was to pre-empt the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Mr Ifthikar Ahmad Chaudhry’s address to the Faislabad District Bar, or the lawyers’ long march on the capital. Either way, it goes without saying that the matter is not being handled in an appropriate fashion, and leaving the whole nation in a state of perpetual guessing game.

 

One need not be a rocket scientist to state that the system of governance in the country has failed. Almost all the major institutions of the State are to be blamed for this failure but some of the responsibility can also be laid on the Constitution of Pakistan. It took the law-makers 26 years to draft a constitution which contains innumerable reproductions of the Indian Constitution. The copying has been done in such a clumsy manner that many of the grammatical errors contained in the Indian Constitution have also been reproduced in the Pakistani one.

 

The shortcomings of our constitutional provisions come to the fore whenever any particular clause faces close public and judicial scrutiny. The nation has repeatedly experienced it while witnessing the judicial deliberations over Article 58(2)(b) and we all discovered last year that no mechanism exists in Article 209 to remove the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on any grounds including those relating to corruption charges.

 

The reason for this shoddy drafting is simple and clear; and unfortunately it is also very tragic. Our rulers never contemplate amendments only to improve upon the Constitution. The purpose at all times has always been to amass more power to themselves. If the President is solely in power in the form of a military dictatorship, then he deems it his right to modify Constitution in such a manner that all power vests with the President. If a democratic setup as is the case at present is in power and the President happens to be from the opposition, then all the energies are invested to deprive the President virtually of all the powers and concentrate them in the office of the Prime Minister. No one bothers to contemplate a situation where President Musharraf will not be in power and a political party opposed to such a person will be ruling the country on the basis of majority in the National Assembly. How would one control such a political party, and what would be the mechanism to dislodge an unbearable party? Would the politicians then again resort to writing letters to the Chief of Army Staff and approaching the GHQ?

 

Democracy basically means that political power is ultimately in the hands of the whole adult population, and that no smaller group has the right to rule. Those who seek to justify democracy for a society like Pakistan where power is clearly in the hands of one section of the population (for example, the military, or elite section of the populace, including a section of the bureaucracy) mean something different and their concept is almost akin to the communist countries and even the most ruthless dictatorships presently in the world, like in North Korea and Burma. Democracy has to be based on certain principles, and one of the cardinal ones in this respect is balance of power amongst the institutions of the State which in case of Pakistan include the legislature, executive, judiciary, media and the armed forces. A fanatical belief in democracy can make democratic institutions impossible. Some sort of practicality has to be kept in mind, particularly in light of our past experience starting almost since independence.

 

The PPP and PML-N ad nauseam have been talking about making parliament supreme. No one really knows as to what is meant by this resolve. Assemblies which seldom meet, and which most of the time lack proper quorums, and generally lack quality debates, cannot be expected to be supreme. It is simply a rhetorical statement, and utterly meaningless as nobody anywhere in the world would ever disagree with such a resolve.

 

However, what would you make of George Bernard Shaw’s comment that democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. Mr Shaw was not from Pakistan but who can appreciate his comment better than a citizen of Pakistan who repeatedly end up electing one incompetent and corrupt ruler after another following a lapse of a decade long military dictatorship.

 

In such a bleak situation, the much talked about transfer of power presently enjoyed by the President to the Prime Minister is hardly going to make any difference in Pakistan’s polity and general plight of the masses. Abolishing Article 58(2)(b) regarding the President’s power to dissolve the National Assembly and to transfer the power to appoint the Services Chiefs, and to appoint governors, to the PM, can hardly be regarded as revolutionary and reformatory steps. Among several proposed amendments, the package also contains a change in the Constitution that will give the PM the power to act as the Executive Authority of the Federation. Presently, Article 90 says the executive authority of the Federation shall vest in the President and shall be exercised by him, either directly or through officers subordinate to him in accordance with the Constitution.

Article 6 is also being proposed to be amended in that cases of high treason can be instituted against judges of High Courts and the Supreme Court who validate the suspension or abrogation of the Constitution; and that they would cease to be the judges of the superior courts. This is obviously being proposed in view of the unpleasant experiences associated with the recent introduction of the PCO (Provisional Constitutional Order) on November 3 last year but ironically can also said to apply in principle to judges who upheld the take-over by Musharraf in October 1999. Similarly, the criticism of the judiciary or the armed forces would not attract disqualification for candidates to the assemblies under Article 63 which with the issue of disqualification of the members of the Parliament. The drafters are not bothering to look at some of the clauses of Article 62 which enumerates the qualifications of Parliament members and some of which, such as possessing adequate knowledge of Islamic teachings and practicing obligatory duties prescribed by Islam and abstention from major sins, can be invoked to virtually disqualify the whole of the Parliament. This is yet another example of the short-sightedness of our rulers.

 

Additionally, the package talks of, electing one minority member from each province to the Senate to give the minorities an effective presence in the upper house; making it mandatory to hold the meeting of the Council of Common Interest twice a year to address the grievances of the smaller provinces and to sort out autonomy related issues; and of making the National Economic Council more effective and announcing the NFC Award every three years instead of five years.

 

One good that may come out of this package is re-naming the NWFP as Pakhtoonkhwa which was long over-due. Another positive aspect of the proposals is forming the caretaker government in consultation with the Chairman of the Senate, the Speaker of the National Assembly and Governors of the Provinces.

The major justification for introducing these constitutional amendments at this stage, and in such a hurry, is to facilitate the restoration of the judges sacked through the unconstitutional steps taken by President Musharraf in November 2007. No mechanism has been revealed so far and the matter remains at the mercy of the media which is indulging in constant kite flying in this respect. However, the Law Minister admitted that the tenure of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would be limited to three years which again appears to be individual specific as the framers of the amendments obviously have Mr Ifthikar Chaudhry in mind; final decision in this regard has yet to be made and apparently Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif in their May 27 meeting in Islamabad have agreed to extend this limitation to five instead of three years.

 

The constitutional package unveiled by the PPP will not end the unconstitutional November 3 actions of the President Musharraf. This goes to show differences amongst the coalition partners, and the fact that the political will to go all the way is lacking. Despite this, the PPP and the PML-N may agree to pass the 18th Amendment to completely disarm President Musharraf, making him a mere figurehead. There are signs, however, that they will continue to lock horns on the question of the restoration of the pre-November 3 superior judiciary.

The irony is that the package at this stage is being justified on grounds of restoring the judiciary but it remains totally silent on this crucial issue. PML-N says that that the restoration of the deposed judges has nothing to do with any constitutional package as the two are separate things, and the Party may have a point in this case.

The PPP first signed the Charter of Democracy, and later the Murree Declaration, and perhaps did not reflect upon its contents in detail. I say this because many of the issues mentioned in these two documents are not being included in the proposed constitutional package, and no plausible explanation has so far been given to justify their exclusion.

 
Constitution of any country can be amended in a short time, or within minutes as we in Pakistan have experienced on numerous occasions, or sometimes it may take years if controversial issues such as the issue of reservations for women in the Indian Parliament are involved. It is so far unclear as to how the PPP wishes to treat the proposed package. However, the way things are developing it seems that the PPP desires to hold extensive talks with a wide spectrum of political parties, and also initiate some sort of a debate in the media on the subject which may thus prove to be a long-drawn exercise, spanning over months. In other words, there may not be an instant solution to the lingering judicial crisis, and the political stability in the country may persist. What we may be seeing is that the whole system in the country is equal to the scum of the parts!

Aung San Suu Kyi’s House Arrest Condemned

 ALAIWAH condemns the extension of Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest by Burma’s military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). It also calls on the SPDC to take immediate steps to release Aung San Suu Kyi and all political detainees in Burma.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s foremost democracy leader and head of the National Democratic League (NDL), has been under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years.

On May 27, 2008, officials of the ruling junta in Burma confirmed the extension of her house arrest for another year. 

ALAIWAH  believes that the extension of Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest is unwarranted and that there are no grounds for this under the law. It also clearly violates international human rights principles.

ALAIWAH is deeply concerned about the implications of this decision to extend Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention for another year. The extended term of her detention reaffirms our belief that the SPDC intends to continue its firm and tyrannical grip on the people of Burma, and that there is no intention on their part to respect human rights in the country.

ALAIWAH is also concerned that the ASEAN has not made a proactive stance on the issue of Aung San Suu Kyi’s extended house arrest term. As a regional body poised to establish a “human rights body” aimed at promoting and protecting human rights in Southeast Asia, the ASEAN should show more engagement in these issues and actively urge the SPDC to start taking steps towards conforming with international human rights principles.
 
Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), everyone has the right to liberty and security of person and that “no one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds in accordance with such procedure as are established by law”.

ALAIWAH urges the SPDC to make a genuine commitment to moving towards democracy and respecting human rights. It urges the SPDC to immediately release Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners in Burma.

Correct School Textbooks Before Writing the University Thesis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AT THE 13th Saarc Summit in November 2005 in Dhaka, India proposed the creation of a Centre of Excellence, in the form of a South Asian University, which would provide world-class facilities and professional faculty to students and researchers drawn from every country of the region. Today (May 26) Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee is expected to lay the foundation stone for its proposed campus at a sprawling site near Delhi’s fabled Qutub Minar. The actual groundwork for universities is mainly done in schools. Have we fulfilled that responsibility?

The idea of the South Asian University, said to be the brainchild of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, himself a former economics teacher, has its attractions but it also raises fundamental questions. The notion of a centre of excellence modelled after the syncretic learning citadels of ancient Nalanda or Taxila could hardly be quibbled with.

If that is the idea then we should all help it to gather steam quickly. There’s nothing more invigorating than intellectual inquiry in full ferment. But do we have the intellectual wherewithal to implement the ambitious idea? My fear is that we have not done due diligence at a basic level where it matters most. We have not sown the seed of the questioning spirit in our schools for it to bloom adequately and widely. We have mostly given our students hide-bound ideas on religion, nationalism and history, to quote the most glaring areas where the vulnerable edifice of a common university would be most severely tested. This is where we lag behind as responsible nation states, forget being visionaries for a South Asian confederation, much less of a common currency.

The late Jyotindra Nath Dixit, former foreign secretary and high commissioner to Pakistan, spoke up loudly and frequently for good ties with Pakistan. He once berated the government when New Delhi under the BJP administration implicated Pakistan’s Deputy High Commissioner Jalil Abbas Jilani in a dubious case of cash payments to a Kashmiri conduit and deported him. Dixit would fondly narrate his memorable experiences as high commissioner, but one or two incidents rankled. A friend’s young son denounced him once as a dirty Indian. That would not have happened if the schools and the parents were alert about sowing prejudices. In a school textbook in Pakistan the Urdu letter “kaaf” denoted a “kaafir” showing the picture of a Sikh, he recalled. There are countless examples of doctored textbooks used in Pakistani schools. I had a copy of a detailed report on this by a Pakistani NGO but can’t seem to be able to locate it.

Indian textbooks should ideally be a shade better if for no other reason than for the fact that we pride ourselves as a secular, liberal democracy. But the way things are, in young minds in schools, particularly those managed by the RSS and Muslim madressah, they are left with a narrow distorted worldview that militates against an open university. In Gujarat or Madhya Pradesh, for example, the average student may have difficulty in knowing the difference between a Muslim and a Pakistani. Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, mocks India’s Muslims as ‘Mian Musharraf’. The daily abuse heaped on Indians as “kaafirs” in Pakistani madressahs and the description of Pakistanis as Islamo-fascist terrorists by their Hindu counterparts is matched only by the absence of a dispassionate, secular historiographical tradition in schools.

To give a subtle psychological insight, for example, most Indians do not know, or would hide the fact if they were aware, that Pakistan’s K2 peak is higher than any peak in India. Allama Iqbal’s poetic notion that the world’s highest mountain is our (Indian) sentinel, our watchman, is allowed to mutate into the unstated lie that Mount Everest is an Indian peak. These are minor examples that betray a deep undercurrent of pointless complex towards neighbours.

The stereotypes are daunting. Pakistani schools and colleges are taught history with Mohammed Ali Jinnah as their hero and Indians debate Gandhi’s merit as a world-class guru of non-violence. But they revel in tarring each other’s heroes as villains. Any deviation from the path is greeted with hostility from the establishment on both sides. Remember what happened when BJP leader Lal Kishan Advani praised Jinnah’s secular ideals. All hell broke loose over the remarks and Advani had to make a political sacrifice of sorts.

In 1997, I was making a film on Saarc so I travelled to Pakistan close to August 14, the Independence Day. In a Lahore hotel a TV programme was showing young students from Aligarh discussing the call for Pakistan given by Jinnah. To establish the time, the radio newsreader announced the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Then it showed a Congress leader, a rotund villainous character dressed up as whatever the channel believed a Hindu looked like. In a menacing tone, he said if he had his way he would drop that bomb on the Muslims. India’s Doordarshan is doing no better in passing prejudices for history, particularly on the issue of Kashmir. There’s no space here to discuss that.

And what are we going to teach at the South Asian University? Neo-liberal economics or would there be room for Jean Dreze, Prabhat Patnaik and other assorted economists who disagree with the current syllabus at home? Visual and performing arts? It’s an excellent idea as long as we know what we are in for. With Bal Thackeray and Hindutva mobs breathing down our necks in India and the mullahs, their religious militias and the Zia-ul-Haq’s orphans in the Pakistan army scouring for any sign of delinquency (like the kind that Sadeqain dared to indulge in) what is the chance of a successful full semester being conducted undisturbed? It is great that people like Sheema Kirmani and Naheed Siddiqui have given dance and ballet performances in India. Theatre groups and musicians occasionally cross over. Of course it’s an excellent idea for people to be able to move freely across the heavily militarised borders. South Asian University would not be all about Indian and Pakistani prejudices towards each other.

It will involve Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan and Bangladesh among others. Only last week I joined a debate on NDTV’s Big Fight programme where most people were baying for the blood of Bangladeshi migrants. They cause terrorism and they eat up our jobs with cheaper labour, proclaimed a Hindutva ideologue.

Well! there you have it. The entire idea, the very dream of a South Asian community, together with a common currency like Europe, was getting stoned to death in the womb. I said so in the programme, but to little effect. The audience, brought up on bad textbooks, jeered. I said how on earth are we going to realise the dream of a confederation of South Asian nations, that Mr Advani wants, if we are surrounding ourselves with barbed wires. We are always looking for the foreign hand not realising that the fertile ground for subversion is created by our own politics. The entire northeast has enclaves of the most rabid Muslim fundamentalist groups entrenched there. It could be the relic of ISI or whatever. But why does the ISI succeed in wooing so many Indians? The answer has a lot to do with the fact that they were taught from the wrong textbooks. We have discovered a new terror link called HUJI, which has its roots in Dhaka. But is that what Bangladesh is all about, HUJI militants? In which case they should not be singing a national anthem written by Rabdindranath Tagore.

For goodness sake, this is the region whose communal partition we had all opposed as early as 1905. For better or worse, this is the country India had helped create and Indira Gandhi was called “Durga” for making that happen. “The end of Jinnah’s two nation theory”, exulted the media and the intelligentsia and the rant hasn’t decreased. Look again. Isn’t the Indian establishment subscribing to the same two-nation theory it claims to reject, by implicitly going along with ethnic profiling of religious groups a la Modi? So in this intellectually reckless atmosphere, the idea of a collective university could give us the badly needed departure. And it needs to be encouraged. But would that stem the rot? To breathe the free air of democracy and liberal ideals in South Asia we really need to clean up our doctored school textbooks first and raise the level of discourse in the classrooms. That’s when a credible South Asian thesis could be written at the arriving university.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

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Bangladesh: Anti Terrorism Ordinance

ALAIWAH is deeply concerned about the anti-terrorism ordinance approved by the Government of Bangladesh as reported in daily newspapers on 19 May, 2008.

This Ordinance has retained the provision that allows for the death penalty, life imprisonment, and prison sentences ranging from three to 20 years along with pecuniary measures against offenders depending on the gravity of offences.
 
The government has defined an “act of terrorism” across a broader spectrum, including any act that poses a threat to the sovereignty, unity, integrity or security of Bangladesh or creates panic among the general masses or obstructs official activities.

According to the Ordinance, terrorist activity is defined as a person killing another, inflicting serious injuries, detaining or kidnapping, or causing loss of property to any person, as well as using or keeping any explosive and flammable materials, firearms or any kind of chemical substances in his or her possession.

The law also states that those who finance terrorist groups will be tried under this ordinance and will be punished with a minimum of three years’ imprisonment and a maximum of 20, along with a financial penalty.

Sheltering a terrorist is punishable by a maximum of five years’ imprisonment. Anyone who carries informational material or broadcasts in support of an outlawed party can be imprisoned for a minimum of two years and a maximum of seven, along with a financial penalty. 

ALAIWAH believes this law will engender abuses and will serve as grounds for the persecution of political opposition, human rights defenders, trade unionists and other activists. The broadness of the definition of terrorism in the text of the ordinance will provide unrestricted power to the executive branch of the state and will restrain the fundamental freedom of the people. Some of the offences mentioned in the text can be tried under the existing penal code.

Moreover, it is alarming that the Ordinance is to be promulgated by the military-backed government without any discussion in Parliament and without making public the draft ordinance. In the past, this type of ordinance has largely been used in violating rights rather than against terrorists or terrorism.

Implementing the law without thorough scrutiny and public support will essentially be an anti-people act in the name of protecting the “integrity”, “solidarity”, “security” and “sovereignty” of the country.

 

Expecting Miracles from a Jackass Like Aitzaz and Munir Malik

 

 

Expecting miracles from jackasses

By Ayaz Amir 5/30/2008

A strange nation we are, expecting wisdom from morons, radicalism from born opportunists, and virtue from knaves whose principal claim to fame is daylight national robbery.What do we take the national scene to be, the result of a Nepalese revolution or a Chinese long march? Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan after a deal brokered by the Yanks in whose prowess she had invested all her hopes. Nawaz Sharif’s return to the country came about as a result of Saudi royal intervention. Hard to detect the glimmers of any Che Guevarism in either of these Roman triumphs.Musharraf took off his uniform not because a million men and women, torches in hand, had besieged Army House but because the Yanks were twisting his elbow and support for him within the army command was waning. The lawyers’ movement played a vital part in weakening him but lawyers take on too much upon themselves when they portray themselves as the heralds of the changes that have swept Pakistan. All the leaders of the movement – from Aitzaz Ahsan to Munir A Malik to Ali Ahmed Kurd – are my friends. They are possessed of admirable qualities but modesty or humility, alas, is not the most conspicuous among them. They expect the world to change but themselves refuse to change, still stuck in the heady feelings generated by their movement last year. If the tide flows it also ebbs. Critical points come and pass. Their movement has lost its momentum and something more than Aitzaz’s driving skills – his uncanny ability to arrive at every destination at least ten hours late – is needed to regain it. The people made their views known on Feb 18 but only because they were given an opportunity to do so. If they had not been given that opportunity does anyone think that they would have taken to the streets and stormed the citadels of power? In which make-believe world do we live? Our capacity for being pushed around is virtually inexhaustible and our political class, far from honing the tools of political resistance, has arrived at the last stages of moral and intellectual bankruptcy. If the Feb elections had been shelved, Pakistan would have dug a deeper hole for itself but the masses would not have stirred. A nation that could endure Ayub Khan for eleven years, that knight of darkness – Ziaul Haq – for another eleven, and a certified mediocre like Musharraf, a disaster in both war and peace, for eight and a half years, can put up with anything. Still the fact remains that whether the Yanks played around with the props on our political stage or the Saudi Royals had a hand in altering some of the background tapestry, elections were held, Musharraf and his pack of political jackals were roundly humiliated, and political parties reviled and abused, and kept out in the cold all these years, swept to a dramatic victory. So the people were not remiss in expecting great things to happen. What they have received instead is another extended lesson in the workings of political bankruptcy, the political parties in whom the people had reposed their trust proving epic failures at political management. Instead of dealing with real issues and trying to figure out how to get the country out of the hole in which it is stuck they are chasing shadows, evening out old scores and charging at toothless dragons that have lost the power to spout any fire from their raging nostrils. Zardari, to his credit, is being the man that he always was: interested in power and money. Courtesy of the deal struck with Musharraf (through the Yanks) he has just won himself the biggest reprieve in Pakistani history, all cases against him – and it was not easy counting them – having been wound up. The people of Pakistan may yet be awaiting their miracle but he has received his. My Lord Dogar, presently adorning the highest chair in the Supreme Court, is the agent of this miracle. And the people of Pakistan, chumps as ever, expect Zardari to put Dogar in the doghouse while My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry, symbol and hero of the lawyer-cum-judicial movement, sweeps into the Supreme Court. This won’t happen in the real world as long as Zardari is around. So what he is doing is smiling all the time and spouting some of the worst clichés about institution-building that the people of Pakistan have had to put up with for a long time. The people of Pakistan – ordinary people, that is, because some have had a ball – have had to put up with much all these years. But having to endure lectures on politics from Mr Zardari takes the prize. Those in the charmed circle of the PPP elect – that is, in Zardari’s good graces and therefore enjoying office or importance – go about with trained smiles on their faces. Sherry, I said, was becoming a competent minister. She is also turning into a sophisticated version of the dreaded Mohammad Ali Durrani. But imagine the plight of those not in this charmed circle. They have to take in all that they are subjected to without wincing or saying anything in return. Our political parties, all of them, produce no rebels. They turn out courtiers instinctively aware that discretion is the better part of valour. So the nation is being fed a series of fibs as extended as the thousand and one tales of the Arabian Nights: all about constitutional packaging, etc. Zardari misses not a step when reciting this litany. Farooq Naek, the law minister, as he goes through the same paces looks a deeply unhappy man. Things are whirling out of control and the economy is sinking and the rupee taking a further dip every day but the political charade being played out in Islamabad goes on, each day bringing a fresh twist to it. And what is that other great party of the people, the PML-N, doing? Heaping fresh imprecations on Musharraf’s head when Musharraf is no longer the problem. Far from being a den of conspiracy, the erstwhile Army House where he is still holed up has now a house of sorrow, another lesson in what happens when the pomp and glory of power have fled. Yet the PML-N keeps harping on Musharraf as if with him gone or better still impeached, the bright morning Pakistan has long awaited will have finally arrived. It is a sign of the state the PML-N is in that without giving the matter a second thought it overreacts to the appointment of a political nonentity like my old friend Salmaan Taseer (never mind if he is a smart finance man) as Punjab governor, turning Salmaan at least for 48 hours into a looming presence on the political landscape. Beware the time when Musharraf is finally no more because the time for excuses then will have run out. Whom them to blame for the nation’s shortcomings or the ineptitude of the political class? The PML-N also runs the risk of being perceived as a single-issue party. It has boxed itself so much into a corner over the judges’ issue that it has drastically curtailed its room for manoeuvre. We will restore the judges, the party and its leaders thunder at every opportunity, when it lies not in their power to do so. The key to the restoration of the judges is in Zardari’s pocket and he has other games to play and other accounts to settle. The PML-N consoles itself with the thought that its graph is rising while the PPP’s is plunging. That may be so but of what use a rising graph when it is hard to predict what is going to happen in the next five months, let alone the next five years. How long will the present pantomime last? Suppose it doesn’t, will we head into an election or another night of the…I need not spell out the word. Zardari may be playing a negative game of his own but the PML-N’s interest lies in seeing to it that the present experiment, centred on Pakistan’s first attempt at coalition-building, lasts. But for that it will have to break free from the shackles of the judges’ issue. Perhaps it would if it got some help from the legal fraternity or even My Lord Chaudhry. But the legal community has run out of ideas while My Lord Chaudhry no longer seems capable of thinking outside the box. He has proved himself a great man in many respects but the gift that marks a Mandela from an ordinary mortal seems not to lie in his grasp. Someone with true greatness in his soul would have said by now ‘all right I am ready to step aside provided Musharraf goes too, Dogar also goes, and the Nov 2 judiciary is restored’ thus sacrificing self for a higher cause. Iqbal, awakener of our souls, where has thy memory fled, where all thy songs exhorting us to emulate the flight of the eagle? At stake is the country’s future, calling for vision and some measure of greatness. What we are getting is a dance by dummies and men of straw.

Disappearances & Torture Continue – No Control Over Secret State Agencies

Mr. Abdul Wahab Baloch, a peace activist and Baloch nationalist, who was missing since his arrest on May 28, 2008, was released from the custody of the Secret Intelligence Agency of the Pakistan army where he was severely tortured in different locations. Mr. Wahab Baloch was arrested after holding a peaceful demonstration at the Karachi press club against the tenth anniversary of Pakistan’s nuclear experimental detonations along with one of his friends, Mr. Ghulam Mohammad Baloch who was next day released on bail.

Please see the urgent appeal
http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2008/2883/

Mr. Wahab Baloch was arrested at 5.30 PM May 28, from Zainub market on his way to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan office. He was taken by a group of more than five persons who threw a bed sheet over him. He was forced into a heavy duty jeep. After 15 minutes of driving the jeep was stopped. Mr. Wahab heard sounds and noises similar to those made by people wearing heavy boots. After he was taken inside he was beaten by fists, boots and sticks for the entire night with little intermission. The interrogators were demanding information on different bomb blasts in Balochistan and also about Mr. Akhtar Mengal, the former chief minister of Balochistan, who was just released after 18 months on the orders of the prime minister.

The next day, May 29, he was shifted to another secret location after once again being covered by a bed sheet; he was again tortured. After some time he was injected with an unknown drug and his body became totally numb and he was feeling that some people are questioning him and some time later he fell unconscious for several hours.

On May 30, when he regained consciousness he was provided with some food and two pain killers and he was not tortured on this day.

On May 31, he was again taken to a further location by the same method with the bed sheet. He was asked by the captors about the bomb explosions in Hub Chowki, an industrial area of the Balochistan province close to Karachi city, capital of Sindh province. He was also interrogated about an unknown militant organisation, the Watan Brigade.

The next day, June 01, he was asked about his connections with two persons, Mr. Humbel and Mr. Gawaram, who were not known to him. During this day Mr. Wahab was threatened to confess his connections with some terrorist’s attacks in Balochistan province or suffer further punishment.

On June 2, at 5.30 a.m. he was again taken into a jeep and after a drive of 20 minutes he was thrown out at the centre of a bridge, known as Kala Pull. Fortunately there was very light traffic so was not badly injured by the act and he was able to reach to his home.

Mr. Wahab reported that he was kept in different places where the size of the cells was not more than 3 by 4 feet with dim lighting. His mobile phone was returned when he was released without the SIM card which contained a great deal of persons information, messages and telephone numbers.

The disappearance of Mr. Abdul Wahab Bloch is the first recorded case of disappearance after arrest during the newly elected government of Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani. Different nationalists and religious groups claim that the disappearances at the hands of state intelligence agencies are continuing unabated. The CIA police deny that they arrested but that he was taken away from the CIA lock up by some intelligence agency. However, they would not identify the agency who took him into their custody.

It is evident that the newly elected government is unable, or perhaps unwilling to stop the menace of disappearances. During the first five months of year 2008 total 39 persons were disappeared (
http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2008statements/1454/
), and only three young persons, Asad, Asif and Khalid, were recovered from the custody of a military intelligence agency after they had been held in custody for two months. According to the Defence of Human Rights, Islamabad, an organization working on disappearances, the Rawalpindi police registered cases of terrorism while the three men were in custody. It is beginning to look as if the government is totally at the mercy of the intelligence agencies that arrest people without any legal obligation and torture them to get confessional statements. Furthermore, the government has still not provided any relief to those 513 persons who were disappeared after arrest and whose whereabouts have already been made public by their families by reports to the higher courts and even, to the Prime Minister.

ALAIWAH urges the government of Prime Minister to immediately investigate the case of Mr. Abdul Wahab Baloch. He should be offered rehabilitation and paid compensation for the ordeal and torture by state intelligence services. The government must also start investigations into those statements made before the courts by the persons who were kept for several months in the custody of the army and who were tortured for confessions linking them with terrorist’s organizations.

General Gulzar Without Balls Has Finally Woken Up

RAWALPINDI, June 3, 2008  – Pakistan Army’s ex-Corps Commander Rawalpindi and former Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) Chairman] Lt. Gen. (retd.) Jamshaid Gulzar Kiyani on June 2 stressed the need for making an example of Musharraf to block the emergence of future [military]
dictators in the country.

Talking to Dr. Shahid Masood in the Geo TV programme Meray Mutabiq, he said General Musharraf had committed basic mistakes such as the Kargil debacle, surrender to the U.S. threat of pushing Pakistan into the stone-age
and the Lal Masjid destruction.

Washington’s ”War on Terror” Shakes Pakistan

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jul2007/paki-j11.shtml

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/print.asp?ID=6983

http://muslimmatters.org/2007/08/01/chemical-weaponry-used-at-lal-masjid-red-mosque

He said no power could stay in the face of the power of the people. He
said he had seen the period of Ayub Khan, who could not face the wrath of the people. When asked whether the Army was with Musharraf, he said the armymen would never say anything about it and such things were never discussed in the Army.

He ruled out the imposition of Martial Law, saying that the President could not use Article 58 2(b). Gen. Gulzar Kiyani said Musharraf’s departure from power is close at hand. He said the president should not have given
into the U.S. threat in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy. He said the
Pakistan Army was the best professional Army in the world. He said
Musharraf had options at that time and he should have held a
referendum to ascertain the will of the people.

Gen. Gulzar. said the referendum Musharraf held for himself was a fake exercise as Gen. Zia  did the same during his rule. He said Musharraf
was clearly told about this mistake and afterwards he accepted his
mistake.

He said today everybody believed that Gen. Musharraf was fighting the
American War on the soil of Pakistan and “we are paying for that today.” His departure from power is close at hand. He said the president should not have given into U.S. threat in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy. He said the threat to push Pakistan into the stone age was delivered by the then Secretary of State Colin Luther Powell and not by the American
president. He said the president arrested and handed over Pakistanis to the U.S. Where have these unknown people gone? he asked.

He asked what was the crime of Afghanistan Ambassador to Pakistan
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef and as a diplomat did he deserve such
insulting behaviour? He said the ISI was used to commit wrong acts. He
said he was in the ISI and advised against such acts but his advice
fell on deaf ears. As a result, today Musharraf is the most unpopular
[illegal] president. If he had accepted the advice, he would have been
the most successful President of Pakistan today.

He said suicide attacks, that were beyond imagination before 9/11, are
difficult to control now. He said he is not a supporter of suicide
attacks but these reflect an easy reaction that cannot be stopped by
anyone.

He said there were suicide attacks one after the other in the wake of
the Lal Masjid and the Jamia Hafsa operation. He said if there were foreign elements in Lal Masjid, where did they go? He said innocent students were targeted with phosphorus grenades that, he added, come in the fold of chemical weapons. He said he had never seen such an act of tyranny. He said when a bullet crosses the body it is a wrong use of power but that is a tyrannical act. It tantamounts to killing an ant with a hammer.

He said ex-servicemen should have come forward a long time ago but they have not been an organized body that could be activated on one call. About the economic situation, General Gulzar Kiyani termed the present period the worst when it is difficult for the poor to get even one meal.

When asked about his appointment and expulsion as Chairman Federal
Public Service Commission, Gen. Kiyani said the real differences
started after the 9/11 episode. “After retiring from the Army on Oct.
14, 2004, when I reminded General Musharraf his commitment to doff his  uniform during a meeting, he said that the nation needed him.”

He said it was a reaction to his policies that suicide attacks started in the country. He said force was used in South and North Waziristan and 80 students were killed in a Bajaur Madrassa in an American operation. What was the crime of these students, he asked.

He said he remained Chairman of the Public Service Commission for three years. At that time the PM was Shaukat Aziz whose first demand was to give power of appointments in CBR and FIA to ministers. He said if this power was given to ministers they would have gotten their own way.

He said one of the two officers approved by former PM faced a NAB corruption case while the other had no chance of promotion. “I requested them that this would cause great demoralisation among the bureaucracy. I humbly submitted to them that this was a wrong step but in a short period the Chairman’s tenure was reduced from five to three years under the PCO to remove me.”

He expressed regret over the suicide attack outside the Danish Embassy
in Islamabad adding there was no conception of suicide bombings before
9/11. The policies of Musharraf in the post-9/11 scenario led to suicide attacks in Pakistan.

Pulling the curtain off past events, Lt. Gen. Gulzar Kiyani denied a hand in the removal of Nawaz Sharif’s government on October 12, 1999. “I was major-general then and I was promoted on November 1, 1999. After that I took the responsibility of Corps Commander Rawalpindi and successfully held the post for two years.”

Commenting on the 9/11 events of 2001, he said undoubtedly a hell was
unleashed on New York but he never reconciled with the practical
course Musharraf adopted after the incident.

To a question, he said no aspersion could be cast on the loyalty of
the Army and so on the Corps Commander. A corps commander also remains loyal to the Army Chief. However, different views came up at the corps commanders meetings in the wake of 9/11. Big differences emerged then.

When General (retd.) Musharraf asked as to what were their views to
the threats of pushing Pakistan into the stone-age, a difference of opinion emerged in the views of the corps commanders. It was three to four days after 9/11. Some commanders openly told Musharraf that they had
reservations. These pertained to an outright and open support to the
U.S. They believed that the U.S. should not be extended support
blindly. The Corps Commander is a professional soldier and ignoring
his advice leads to losses.

Regarding the 1971 War, he said he was on the eastern border but never
became a prisoner of war. He said there is no doubt that excesses were
committed against the people of Bengal  / Bangladesh.
He held General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan responsible for the same . General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi totally failed in East Pakistan and his role was very embarrassing which is a matter of regret.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ec/InstrumentOfSurrender.jpg

General Kiyani said according to his information Nawaz Sharif did not know anything about the Kargil episode. He was never thoroughly briefed on the same. He supported holding of a probe into the Kargil fiasco, adding,
factors behind the scene, about which people do not know, would also
come into the limelight.

Asked what was his plan, General Kiyani said he had briefed Nawaz
Sharif and told him that it was a very sensitive issue and he could
not unveil all the details to him. He was only apprised of the ongoing
situation. Nawaz time and again asked about the truth from senior
officials including Sartaj Aziz who was the Foreign Minister. He also
tried to persuade the Chief of Army Staff. General Majid spoke in
detail on the issue. General Mahmood was the Corps Commander then.

Kiyani said our Jawans (soldiers) bravely fought the Kargil War. I
think they revived the memories of the 1965 War. Our officers fought
more fiercely than in the 1965 War and repulsed enemy attacks time and again. Despite the fact that supplies were disrupted due to extreme cold, the Jawans continued the war. He repeated that arguments will come up when there will be a probe.

He termed Nawaz ‘s travel to the U.S. a bid to save the prestige of the Pakistan Army. He said in the meeting of May 17, Nawaz gave a green signal to the operation. He assured conditional support to General Musharraf that the government would back the operation when he successfully moved forward. If unfortunately the same failed, he would not be in a position to support him. When the Army was caught in an awkward situation, he again travelled to the U.S. to save the symbol of the country, the Pakistan Army.

To a question about the use of nuclear weapons in the war, General Kiyani said the war could have not been kept limited to the Kargil sector or a particular front particularly when the two countries possessed nuclear weapons.

Referring to the book authored by General Musharraf, Jamshed Gulzar
Kiyani said whatever has been written there is against logic. If you
catch your enemy by the jugular vein he would react with full force.
If you cut enemy supply lines, the only option for him will be to
ensure supplies by air. That situation the Indian Army was unlikely to
confront and it had to come up to the occasion. It is against wisdom
that you dictate to the enemy to keep the war limited to a certain
front. After that Nawaz went to the United States. But an attempt was
made to create the impression in the print media that Nawaz Sharif was
at fault to surrender there. He said this impression was created by
General Pervez Musharraf which was totally wrong.

Hindu’s Nirupama on Musharraf’s Shrinking Options

The rumours of President Pervez Musharraf’s imminent exit sweeping through Pakistan are an indication that the complex three-man chess game currently in progress on the country’s political chessboard is moving towards a conclusion.

 

 

There are two schools of thought on the rapidly unfolding developments, and though the substance is the same, they differ in nuance.

 

According to the more widely held one, the two other players at the board, Pakistan People’s Party leader Asif Ali Zardari and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif, have joined hands against Gen (retd) Musharraf, forcing him to consider his shrinking options.

 

Mr. Zardari, who seemed amenable to working with President Musharraf just a few weeks ago, was forced to do a U-turn because he saw Mr. Sharif, his junior partner in the ruling coalition, cutting the political ground from under the PPP’s feet with his aggressive and populist stand on the issue of the judges.

 

Over the last few months, the PPP’s position on restoring the judges, including deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhary, who were dismissed by President Musharraf when he imposed the emergency last year, has been mixed and earned it the ire of the lawyers but more importantly, of the other increasingly significant power centre in Pakistan, the independent media..

 

Leaving aside the late Benazir’s one Ifthikar Chaudhary moment – the time she marched to the sacked chief justice’s home last November in the early days of his house arrest and declared that he remained her chief justice and Pakistan’s – the PPP has swung from ambiguity to Mr. Zardari’s personal hostility towards the judiciary for perceived judicial wrongs against him when he was locked up on corruption charges.

 

The PPP’s mood swings on the judges and the resultant failure of the new government to reinstate them through a parliamentary resolution, as agreed by it and the PML(N) through the much celebrated Bhurban declaration, immediately told on the PPP’s popularity graph.

 

By withdrawing his party from the cabinet over the government’s failure to keep first one deadline for the judges’ reinstatement, and then a second, Mr. Sharif came out shining politically from the mess as a “man of his word” and “a principled politician”, while Mr. Zardari, accused of deal-making with President Musharraf and his political cronies, cut a sorry figure.

 

In order to cut his losses, Mr. Zardari lashed out against President Musharraf, describing him as a “relic of the past” and an “obstacle” between the people and democracy. Much to the joy of demoralized PPP cadres, Mr. Zardari said his party did not accept him as a constitutionally elected President.

 

Quickly, the PPP followed this up with ambitious proposals for constitutional amendments that would reduce the presidency to a figurehead. Chief among them was the deletion of 58 (2) (B), a clause that gives the President powers to dissolve parliament. Mr. Zardari was looking good again. Mr. Sharif rewarmed IS THERE SUCH A WORD? to him, declaring that the PPP leader had agreed with him that President Musharraf needs to be ousted.

 

A meeting between President Musharraf and Army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on May 28 that reportedly lasted over three hours and went on beyond midnight, set the stage for frenzied speculation that the “drop-scene” of this multiple-act drama was about to commence.

 

Implied in the speculation was that Gen. Kayani had looked his ex-boss “in the eye” and told him plainly that the Pakistan Army would not come to his rescue in either of two scenarios: a) if he should move against the government by using his powers to dissolve parliament and/or declaring martial law; and b) if the government should move to oust him.

 

If this is all too complex, try unraveling the more nuanced version. According to this political equivalent of a jalebi, Mr. Zardari is still involved in a tough balancing act between President Musharraf and Mr. Sharif. The PPP leader has offered Mr. Sharif the deletion of 58(2) (B) as a sop to keep him on his side. At the same time, he knows his own interests are tied to President Musharraf’s, at least for the moment.

 

Mr. Zardari wants the stripped-down President Musharraf to continue in office for some more time. Reason: his exit at this stage may prompt a mass exodus from Musharraf’s political creation, the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), and into the embrace of its parent party, Mr. Sharif’s PML (N).

 

That would dramatically alter the political landscape, leaving the PPP at the mercy of Mr. Sharif. The PML(N) may then insist on restoring the judges in the manner it wants, through a parliamentary resolution. That in turn would open the field for a number of adverse possibilities for Mr. Zardari, including a reconsideration of the the National Reconciliation Ordinance, the result of a deal between Benazir and President Musharraf, which has wiped his slate clean of all corruption charges.

 

According to informed opinion, the PPP – through back channel contacts that include the Americans — has been trying to make President Musharraf accept a constitutional package that would delete most of his powers in return for indemnity and safe passage. But Gen. Musharraf is reluctant to play ball with the PPP, and certainly not as a lame duck president. It was against this backdrop that the meeting between him and Gen. Kayani took place. President Musharraf wanted to assess if he could count on the support of the Army.

 

Some say that speculation that the replacement of the 111 brigade commander – the Triple One Brigade, stationed in Rawalpindi, has played the key role in all of Pakistan’s military coups – was Gen. Kayani’s answer to President Musharraf.

 

The replaced brigadier, Asim Bajwa, was a Musharraf loyalist. But those familiar with the working of the Pakistan military are of the opinion that even if he had stayed on, it is inconceivable he would have taken orders from Gen. (retd) Musharraf instead of his corps commander and the Army chief.

 

As he assesses his options, President Musharraf is also looking for assurances from the U.S that it will continue to back him, and in that respect, two phone calls from the US last week may have offered him some hope. One was directly to him from President George Bush, reiterating US support to Pakistan, and to his role in “strengthening US-Pakistan relations”.

 

The other came slightly before, at the height of the rumours, and it was from the US president’s National Security adviser, Stephen Hadley, to President Musharraf’s confidante Tariq Aziz. The US official reportedly praised President Musharraf’s role and the two discussed the consequences of his stepping down.

 

Whichever version you believe, President Musharraf’s choices may depend on two upcoming events in the political calendar. The first is the budget session of the National Assembly, which opens on June 6. This should give an indication of where the PPP and the PML(N) stand in terms of their coalition. The second date, and perhaps the more important one, is June 10 when the Supreme Court Bar Association has said it will launch a “long march” that will begin in Multan, and is to end in the capital, to press its demand for the reinstatement of the deposed judges.

 

SCBA president Aitzaz Ahsan is a prominent member of the PPP, but also an increasingly marginalised one on account of his differences with the party leadership over the judges issue. His call on lawyers – likely to generate an enthusiastic response as the SCBA is better organised than most political parties in Pakistan – to lay siege to Army House in Rawaplindi, where President Musharraf has continued to live even after stepping down as army chief, is an open dare to the PPP-led federal government.  

 

More importantly, Nawaz Sharif has indicated that he and his party will join the “long march”. That means the PML(N) government in Punjab will do nothing to stop the march. Rawalpindi falls in the Punjab province.

 

The questions being asked – they sound over the top now, but may well turn out to be real – is in a situation where the lawyers and PML(N) cadres, led by Nawaz Sharif and Aitzaz Ahsan, are marching on Army House, will the PPP-led federal government stop them or stand by? And if the PPP-led government cracks down on the marchers, what happens to the coalition? Alternatively, if the PPP stands by and does nothing, will the Army swing to President Musharraf’s rescue or not?

 

For now, the President has firmly put down the rumours that he is stepping down, but this is a fast moving game.All bets are off.

 

THE MARCH ON THE ARMY HOUSE HAS NO SIGNIFICANCE. IT IS PROTECTED BY THE ARMY AND IF NEED BE ARMY MAY INTERVENE TO DEFEND IT.

 

YOU VE IGNORED PERHAPS THE MOST IMP POINT: ZARDARI’S DEAL WITH MUSH IN RETURN FOR HIS INTRODUCING THE NRO.

THERE WAS NO REASON FOR MUSH TO INTRODUCE THE NRO UNLESS HE WAS ASSURED OF SOMETHING IN RETURN.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aitzaz Ahsan Says Most Graft Charges Against Zardari and Benazir Justified

 

NEW YORK, June 1/ 008: Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, President of Supreme Court Bar Association and a leader of Pakistan People’s Party, has severely criticised his party’s co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari for dragging his feet on restoration of the judiciary because he “doesn’t want independent judges”.

In a highly volatile and extensive interview with the New York Times magazine (Ahsan was on the cover of the magazine), he said that most charges of corruption against Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Asif Ali Zardari were justified. It may be mentioned that Barrister Ahsan was the minister of interior in the first government of Benazir Bhutto.

The author of the article, James Traub, writes: “I asked him (Mr Ahsan) how many of the allegations of corruption he believed were justified.

“Most of them,” Mr Ahsan said, after a moment’s reflection.

“The type of expenses that she had and he has are not from sources of income that can be lawfully explained and accounted for.”

In the interview which was conducted over a week, James Traub said that Mr Ahsan recognised that the PPP was itself a feudal and only marginally democratic body led by a figure accused of corruption and violence.

Mr Ahsan, who defended both Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Zardari in 14 cases, told Times that the charges of “corruption against both” and in Mr Zardari’s case also of “kidnapping, ransom and murder”, were justified.

“Ahsan”, said the interviewer, “is almost recklessly outspoken about PPP leaders, even though they are his own political patrons. He speaks admiringly of Benazir Bhutto’s courage and steadfastness but also points out with disdain that she viewed herself as the PPP’s ‘life chairperson’. And he does not bother to conceal his dim view of Zardari.”

Besides, the Times article said, Mr Ahsan believed that in the aftermath of the Lahore incident, wherein he saved former federal minister Sher Afghan from the wrath of the people ‘that he is more famous in the country than at any other time’.

“And I have become much more famous.” The thought tickled both his vanity and his sense of irony. “I’m being treated,” he said, “like the policeman who’s rescued the cat from the tree”.

On Mr Ahsan’s decision not to contest polls, Traub said: “I spoke to Mr Ahsan by phone a few days later. He had decided not to contest a by-election slated for this summer. He had decisively chosen movement politics over party politics, and perhaps he was happiest there. Mr Zardari and the PPP seemed to have increasingly thrown in their lot with Mr Musharraf, appointing allies of the president to key posts. Mr Ahsan wasn’t worried that a new round of protests, this time directed in part at his own party, would divide the country.

“There’s enormous popular support for my position,” he said. And he was, as ever, blithe in the face of confrontation. “I’m comfortable,” he reported from his home in Lahore. “I have no problem.”

On the issues of judges and confrontation between Mr Zardari and Mr Ahsan, Traub relates: “On the morning flight from Karachi to Sukkur, a city in the southern province of Sindh where the Pakistan People’s Party high command was going for an annual pilgrimage to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s grave site — now that of his daughter as well —Ahsan was approached by Farooq Naek, the law minister and a party leader. Naek, according to Ahsan, asked him to mute his harsh criticism of Zardari and the party. Zardari had reached an agreement with Nawaz Sharif to reinstate the judges within 30 days of the formation of the new government, and Naik implored Ahsan to show some faith and trust. Ahsan agreed to act as if he accepted their bona fides, though he didn’t altogether.

He says he believed that Zardari feared that Chaudhry and other apolitical judges might restore some of the cases against him that had been summarily dismissed. Ahsan seemed quite blithe about these concerns.

When I asked if he worried that the lawyers could be blamed for splitting the fragile coalition, he said, “if the party doesn’t act, it will force a debate inside the party, and that would be a good thing.” That night he pushed Zardari hard at the party’s conclave near the Bhutto family grave site; Zardari pushed back, insisting, according to Raja Adil Bashir, a party official, that the lawyers “should not try to threaten the government.”

STOP EATING JUNK FOOD

 

AT a massive 73-stone, Kenneth Brumley must lose weight, or die.
His daily intake of 30,000 calories is the same as a regular-sized man eats in two weeks.
For four years he’s been confined to a bed which buckled under his weight and powerless to move his gigantic legs.
Only deliveries of fast food from his partner Serena break the monotony of the day.
Because of this weakness for junk food, Kenneth is among two million Americans who are over 40-stone, and classed as super morbidly obese.
Kenneth, 40, from Texas, says: ‘I got into this shape over the last seven years.
‘They’ve been the worst of my life.

 

‘It is like I’m a prisoner to myself.
‘I just sit here, watch TV and eat.
‘That’s all I do, every day.’
The volume of food Kenneth consumes is truly shocking.
He says: ‘I’d wake up and get chilli cheese fries for breakfast.
‘It’s basically fast food 24 hours a day, seven days a week
‘That and a case of super-strength lager.
‘At my heaviest I ate three or four cheeseburgers at a time, maybe a half gallon of orange juice or apple juice.
‘Two litre bottles of soda would last about 30 minutes.
‘If I feel like Chinese, McDonalds or Mexican, that’s what I get.’
‘ I don’t know if it’s an addiction. But once that weight gets on you, it’s hard getting it off ‘
Amazingly, Kenneth, a dad-of-four, used to be a sports fanatic.
But his weight problem started at 19, when he temporarily moved to California from Texas.
He says: ‘I was constantly playing basketball, baseball, football.
‘I ate a lot when I was a child, a whole lot. ‘But I burnt all that off with the activities I was doing.
‘In California the lifestyle wasn’t good.
‘When I got there I didn’t know anybody and all the sports I was doing stopped.
‘So many times I went to buy new pants and would have to return two weeks later for a bigger size.
‘I was just picking up the weight unbelievably quickly.
‘ The weight stopped me enjoying life with my kids. I’ve missed most of their young lives ‘
‘I don’t know if it’s an addiction. But once that weight gets on you, it’s hard getting it off.’
Unsurprisingly, Kenneth’s had little success with fad diets.
But gastric bypass surgery, to reduce the size of his stomach, could be the answer.
He says: ‘I’ve tried low calorie, low carbs and the Greek food diet.
‘I did what exercise I could from my bed, but you lose 20 to 30 pounds, and that’s it.
‘Then you gain it back twice more.
‘I’d like to have a gastric bypass because I think that would be a big help and would change my life.
‘There is no way I’m going to improve like this.’ 
 

After being accepted as a gastric bypass patient at the prestigious Renaissance Hospital in Houston, a fire crew had to hammer down a wall in Kenneth’s house to get him out.
As their biggest ever patient, before he could undergo surgery he had 15-stone of fatty tumours cut away from his body.
Meanwhile his diet was reduced from 30,000 calories a day to just 1,200.
Despite the horrendous effort required to shrink his size, Kenneth remains determined to succeed.
He says: ‘It might take a few months but I’m going to be back on my feet.
‘It’s been a long time since I had fresh air.
‘I’m looking forward to being outside.
‘The weight also stopped me enjoying life with my kids.
‘I’ve missed most of their young lives, so now they’re young ladies.
‘It won’t be long before they’re getting married.
‘I want to be sure I’m walking with them proudly down the aisle.’