MQM burns people alive, Zardari to reward them with ministries!

MQM burns people alive, Zardari to reward them with ministries!

by Aziz Narejo

As the lawyers and other civil society members are unanimous in condemning the MQM for the reign of terror in Karachi yesterday when the London and Karachi based terrorist organization targeted lawyer’s offices, residences, their properties and bars and burned alive people including women and shot to death a number of people, the PPP is set to reward the hoodlums with ministries in the Sindh provincial government. If Zardari had his way, he would induct the members of the terrorist organization into the federal cabinet too.

Reports say that the deadlock (another term for MQM‘s latest round of blackmail) was broken after Zardari talked to terror boss Altaf Hussain over telephone yesterday (daily Times) and his point man Rehman Malik had talks with an MQM representative.

This would be the most condemnable act of the PPP leadership if it rewarded the fascist group with ministerial positions instead of holding independent probe into the recent killings and arson activities in Karachi and bringing the culprits to face the law. The PPP should have by now actually announced an independent probe into the May 12 Karachi massacre, Nishtar Park and October 18 Benazir Bhutto rally bombings.

One wonders why Zardari and his close associates are not listening to the voices of their voters and instead giving more weight to the advices from Musharraf and US diplomats. Why don’t they realize that Musharraf is a disgraced dictator and anyone who sides with him or his collaborators like MQM would loose any esteem in the masses?

Looks PPP leadership has not learnt a thing from its blunders of 1988. If it had, it won’t be repeating them. Well, who knows? It may end up with the same fate.

There is another perplexing thing about the PPP leadership: it is true that the party has stood to dictatorships in the past and its leaders and workers have offered tremendous sacrifices. Then why is it that the PPP leaders and workers are not standing up to Zardari and telling him not to associate himself with Musharraf, his collaborators like MQM and not to listen to the advices from US envoys? And that he should be unambiguous in his alliance with the democratic forces and immediately act to restore pre-November 3, 2007 judiciary and release all political prisoners.

Would any principled PPP leaders and workers stand up and be counted?