Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's attempts to consolidate his power base are being assaulted on all fronts, writes Iffat Malik from Islamabad Click to view caption It was not a good week for President Musharraf. As opposition to his constitutional reforms and electoral plans mounted, new security threats continued to add to an already long list. Potentially the most dangerous development was an attack by militants on a Hindu slum near Jammu, Indian Kashmir, that killed 24 people. It was the first serious incident in Indian Kashmir since an attack on an army camp in May and the assassination of Kashmiri leader Abdul-Ghani Lone. The attack shows that many activists remain active within the disputed territory. Coming just a month after the two nations teetered on the brink of nuclear war, the massacre could well spark off renewed tension. For the time being, it seems as if New Delhi is still deliberating over whether to pin the blame for this latest incident on Islamabad. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, a party of German tourists were assaulted in the Frontier province and a plot to kill Musharraf himself was uncovered. The government has also been coming under massive pressure from human rights groups over a judiciary-ordered gang- rape. On Wednesday, President Musharraf made the welcome announcement that elections for the National and Provincial Assemblies will be held on 10 October. Any fears that Musharraf might use the war against terror in Afghanistan as an excuse to postpone elections were dispelled. But optimism about a welcome return to democracy soon turned to pessimism. One day after the election announcement, the Supreme Court dismissed petitions submitted by various political parties asking for the removal of a condition which stipulates that all electoral candidates possess a university degree. Since less than one per cent of the Pakistani population fulfils this requirement, the rule effectively bars the vast majority from standing for office. President Musharraf claims the graduation qualification is necessary to ensure good governance but critics insist that it just aims at excluding established politicians. The huge wave of criticism that has been unleashed by the media, politicians, human rights activists and others to this and other measures -- including the president's right to dismiss the government -- have pushed Musharraf onto the defensive. On Friday evening he went on national television to address the people directly and dispel any "misconceptions" about his motives. In an hour-long address, the president insisted that he is not power-hungry: "I want to give power instead of taking it," he said and repeated a well-worn string of accusations in which he blamed the country's woes on corrupt politicians. He said that all they have given Pakistan is "poor governance, institutional collapse and the erosion of democratic values". Hence, he went on, what the country most needs is "not the mere revival of democracy but the establishment of a sustainable democracy". Musharraf plans to go about this by establishing a National Security Council (NSC) that will comprise the president, prime minister, leader of the opposition, four chief ministers, three armed forces chiefs and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. The NSC, he explained, will provide the checks and balances needed to prevent a repetition of past excesses and abuses. Critics, however, see the NSC as giving the army an institutional role in politics and claim that, because it concentrates power in the hands of its chairman, Musharraf, it will strengthen rather than limit his position. Human rights groups have led the attack on the proposed constitutional amendments. Musharraf's political opposition is also up in arms about a gang-rape in the village of Meerwala, southern Punjab. Though gang-rape is not uncommon in Pakistani rural areas, what has made this one different is that a local tribal council, supposedly convoked to administer justice, ordered the rape. According to initial reports an 11- year-old boy belonging to a low-caste Gujjar tribe was involved with an older woman from the high-caste Mastoi tribe. In order to penalise the dishonour, the local council ordered that the boy's 18-year-old sister be gang-raped. The punishment was duly carried out by four men, including a member of the council, in front of the girl's father and much of the village. The incident has horrified the nation and been featured in the international press. Faced with such an outcry, the government has no option but to take action. Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool has ordered the arrest of all those involved and a full enquiry whose preliminary findings have uncovered another outrage. The 11-year-old boy was, apparently, sodomised by three Mastoi men and then detained by local officials in order to prevent him from complaining. The accusation that he had had an affair with the older woman was contrived to cover up the homosexual rape. Such is the outrage that the case has generated that President Musharraf has become personally involved. He announced compensation of $8,300 for the rape victim and promised a thorough investigation and the punishment of those responsible. Also on the domestic front, the government last week continued to feel the extremist backlash against its support of the Americans and its clampdown on militant groups operating in Indian Kashmir. On Saturday, a group of mostly German tourists was attacked in Mansehra, Pakistan's north-west Frontier province. The party had stopped to examine an archaeological site when a crude explosive device went off. The tourists may have sustained only superficial injuries but the incident is another unwelcome addition to Pakistan's increasingly negative image abroad. An already grim week was rounded off by police in Karachi uncovering an even greater threat to Pakistani stability. They announced that they made arrests in the cases of the recent bomb attacks on the city's American consulate and Sheraton Hotel. They also announced that information given by those detained led to the arrest of Inspector Waseem Akhtar, a member of the Pakistan Rangers -- an elite paramilitary unit responsible for President Musharraf's security. According to police sources, Akhtar supplied the Sheraton bombers with information about the route Musharraf would be taking during his April visit to Karachi. They planted a huge bomb in a Suzuki pick-up van along the route. Only the failure of the remote-controlled detonator prevented them from carrying out their plan. President Musharraf will hardly feel reassured in knowing that even members of his own security forces are trying to kill him.
