General, I Accuse You (From Attock Fort) By: Major Aftab Ahmed

Summary from the discussion on Face book @Laal Group:

Asjad wrote on September 28, 2009 at 4:14pm
BOOK: General, I Accuse You (From Attock Fort) By: Major Aftab Ahmed

In 1984 Major Aftab Ahmed was arrested along with other junior army officer were charged by Zia regime on treason and other serious allegations. Major Aftab Ahmed declared as principle accused and was trialed in-camera by a special military court at Attock Fort for waging a war against Pakistan and sentenced to life imprisonment. This book is based on his testimony he made before the trial court that he never recognised as a lawful authority and also includes his in-depth analysis of personal experiences during different regimes in Pakistan.

Quote from his book "Yes! I was consciously against martial law and had earnestly dreamed and desired the country to go back to her origin and ideology: a democratic system of governance to serve to her people. Whether in the barracks or out in the field, it was something, which I always advocated at my levels. Martial law had bled the country morally, politically, economically, and worst of all, geographically."

Title: General I Accuse You (From Attock Fort) By: Major Aftab Ahmed
Publishers: Jumhoori Publications; By Mahjabeen Agha: The NEws, June 7, 2007

Asjad wroteon September 30, 2009 at 5:31pm
Ok guys this is further info about Major Aftab Ahmed.
Today I called on the number (provided by comrade Mustajab) and talked to his brother Khalid Ahmed (in Netherlands) we had long discussion. I was really delighted that I made this call. This is the abstract of my discussion:
Although Major Aftab is not consider himself as communist or socialist but he had very strong commitment for democracy and social justice in Pakistan. During Zia martial law he was very much upset about the role of military as an institution and the way Gen Zia was running the country…. in his over 15 years service he wrote several letters to GHQ about the need for reforms in military and genuinely thought that since this is not imperialist British Army instead it is national army, so it should serve the country not to rule the country and also the culture of army should change from imperialist to national army…. On the basis of some of his letters and phony operation from ISI (on the initiate of ISI’s General Akhtar A. Rehman) Zia regime involved him and dozens of other democrat mind junior officers in treason cases and he got life sentence from military court. He get freed with other political prisoners during BB’s first government…. But guys guess what happened to him next..... in BB’s second government he was picked up by ISI again and went to jail (this time without any allegation) and it happened during his visit to Larkana with Murtaza and Nusrat Bhutto. According to Mr Khalid Ahmed he traveled with BB in 1986 and during that historic journey BB personally told him that his brother Major Aftab is her hero and she has lot of respect for him. Khalid also mentioned that in BB’s second term when Major Aftab was leading some big demonstration against government Mr. Jahangir Badar offered him some big benefits from BB’s government but he refused. He also suffered many family tragedies including lost of son when he was in prison and Zia regime never allow him to attend the funeral of his son.

Now a days Major Aftab lives in Lahore and he used to work for some security company and right now he is working for Punjab government and he is not satisfied there either.

Post #10
Taimur Rahman (SOAS) wroteon September 30, 2009 at 8:33pm
Very interesting and informative. Why was he picked up the second time?

Post #11
Umair Bilal (SZABIST) wrote18 hours ago
Looks like a must read.
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Post #12
Umer Akram (Lahore University of Management Sciences) wrote16 hours ago
This is very interesting.
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Post #13
Rashid Suleman (Germany) wrote13 hours ago
I have to read his book.
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Post #14
Asjad wrote13 hours ago
@Rashid - I am also very much keen to read this also. One another thing Major Aftab’s brother told me was that during his statements in military court @ Attock Fort there were always pin drop silence and it seems everybody was very much convinced by his arguments and then top regime ordered to conclude the case as early as possible. He said all of the top ranking military personnel involved in this matter were on the plane that went to hell with Zia.

Post #15
Wali Nayyar wrote12 hours ago
very interesting!!
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Post #16
Badeel Janjua (Pakistan) wrote11 hours ago
Wow nice piece of information, thnx for sharing comrade Asjad!
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Post #17
Asjad wrote8 hours ago
Some more infor:
Remember week ago notorious encounter between Brig. Imtiaz Bila and G.M. Khar on Dr Danish’s program @ExpressTV in which Khar also paid tributes to those junior army officer including Major Aftab – Khalid Ahamd said before going to that program Brigadier Bila give courtesy call to Major Aftab to figure out rather Major Aftab is going to media to tell his part of the story and he said now Brig. Bila calling him “putar” ….

When I asked why Major Aftab is not appearing into our ‘independent media’ to tell the nation about this important chapter of our national history and especially right now when people like Haroon Rashid start telling again in media that evil Gen Zia is our national hero and he was marda-momin …. He should tell the story of his martial law and also how our military establishment victimise even their own members – when they don’t follow their unconstitutional commands – - - he said we are trying all of our links and resource and contacted all of the major media anchors including Talat Hussain and Hamid Mir but still non of them is ready to tell Major Aftab’s story on air. That is the reason he published this book and two other books are also coming soon.

@ Badeel – it is my pleasure to share this – hopefully I transmitted correctively.


Post #18
Asjad wrote on October 5, 2009 at 7:52am
This is a thankU message from Khalid Ahmed (brother of Major Aftab Ahmed), regarding our discussion about his brother.

--------------------
Re: Asjad Bukhari - Calgary Canada

My dear brother,
Our telephonic conversation and your words will remain in my memories till my last breath on this earth. I wish I could use proper words about your kind views about my brother.

I forgot to thank you and all other friends who have been interested to know more about Major Aftab Ahmed. Let's hope that our electronic media (which claims to be independent/Impartial) would provide him an opportunity to say something, which might be a source of 'Great Hul Chal' in the hearts and minds of our masses (who have been waiting for the 'Frishtoon Ki Fooj',aasmanoon say utry gi Aur in ko Haqooq Dilwaye gi) to realize that " its high time to stand up, join hands and remove the 'Prince and Princess of Machiavelli', from the power corridors, if they at least would like to see our future generations free of injustices,poverty and all other social evils!!

I love you all,

Khalid Ahmed
Jan Palachstraat 16,
2552 NK The Hague, Netherlands.

Ph:+31-70-8873913 Res
+31-634918806 Mob
e.mail:khalidchaudry@hotmail.com

PS: will you please convey my regards to the Laal Group.


Post #19
Taimur Rahman (SOAS) wrote6 hours ago
Excellent contribution comrade. Brilliant work.

Will South Punjab be another Swat? And Bahawalpur’s provincial status

The ex-information minister under the previous PMLQ government, Muhammad Ali Durrani, has proposed in parliament that South Punjab or the “Seraiki” region of Punjab should be made into a separate province in order to save it from decades of neglect. In another event the interior minister of Pakistan, Rehman Malik, has told the Financial Times that “we suspect something similar to Swat may arise in South Punjab”. He says he has been sharing “information” with the Punjab government because jihadi militias like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) hail from South Punjab and “perhaps all those terrorists who fled from Waziristan or Swat might have taken refuge in South Punjab”.

Being birth place and still strong ties with that part of Pakistan - Few of the things regarding this issue I would like to put into context:
Let me tell everybody one good news first – there is very remote possibility that South Punjab will be next Swat. The reason, majority of population of that region is Bralvi Sunni. At this moment trouble makers are Deubandi and Wahabis. Although Deubandis are gaining more power by force and recently they opened more madarasas then any other sect in the region and it is alarming but situation is far from Swat. In Bahawalpur the biggest evil group is Jaish-e-Mohammad and I have the impression that still that group is cooperating with ISI, but there is possibility it could turn any side. I remember teasing my family couple of years back on this issue that if you guys never dealt with Maluvi Masood Azhar, he would be your next CoreCommander…
Recently this issue is raised by Mohammad Ali Durani (infamous for always acting on the desire of establishment). A private draft bill he moved in Senate is seeking to amend the Constitution to facilitate the process of creating new provinces with a simple majority of the parliament. In his press conference Durrani said there is a strong sense of deprivation amongst the people of under-developed areas, especially in Southern Punjab. The only solution to these problems is the creation of smaller, more governable units, he added, in the first phase, Bahawalpur's provincial status should be restored, and that should be followed by the formation of a new province that includes the Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan divisions,”. He suggested forming a total of 16 new provinces.
My view on this issue:
Regarding Bahawalpur province this is historic fact that before the establishment of “One Unit” Bahawalpur had provincial status and it was promised by the government of Pakistan that it will reinstate, if One Unit will overturn. But when One Unit was tipped-over by General Yahya Khan he merged the province of Bahawalpur into Punjab. There were strong protests throughout the former State of Bahawalpur but the movement for the restoration of province of Bahawalpur was crushed by Gen. Yahya’s military government. I was seven/eight years old on that time but still the memory of that movement is fresh in my mind, one day police opened the fire on peaceful procession and killed four to five protestors. My father was among injured. In general elections of 1970 political alliance for restoration of Bahawalpur province got 85% votes, majority of feudals who oppose to the restoration of province (including Makhdomzada Hasan Mahmood) loss the election. The MNA from Bahawalpur was among two or three who never signed 1973 constitution, because the Bahawalpur province was not restored in 1973 constitution.
I remember when Aashiq Buzdar wrote his famous poem “Aashan Qaidi takhat Lahore da” and the book was banned and poet went into Jail (during Zia rule) – everybody felt that was his/her voice. Very few people will deny the fact that Bahawalpur and D.J. khan are most deprived regions in the Punjab. But when you talked to any political leaders from Central Punjab they will say “it is because of the feudal lords of that area” they will not looked into the figures of the budget of Punjab that has very little development funds allocated for that areas compare to the central Punjab and even 50% of allocated development funds not released on time. Another brutal reality of that region is – you can see more development in the towns where Punjabi settlers are in majority compare to Saraiki areas.
To avoid the clashes between linguistic groups in that region, personally I am not in favor of the creation of more provinces on linguistic bases but creation of new provinces on administrative bases is good idea.

Genie out of bottle - asjad

In our childhood we all heard and read scary-tales about evil ghosts and botalwala gin (genie in a bottle)… one of my elder sister was very good in making and telling scary stories about botalwala gin ….. every time when the story finished and genie went back to the bottle I go for deep breath and say thanks God that it was just the story and we don’t have to deal with botalwala gin in our real life. When I was growing up and did some thoughts on social issues and human behaviors…. I figure out those genies are very much exists in real life and we humans needs to deal with them. But the names of real life genies are not like HabukaWabuka or cheikoma…., they are like Racism, religious exploitation, ethnic/linguistic chauvinism etc… I also figure out that some of these genies are necessary evils and some or just the evils. I also learned that only conscious efforts can restrain these genies in bottles and that effort goes from individual to communal.

At the same time when I was learning these things one evil genie with big boots was already out of the bottle and terrifying everybody and also trying to free other genies like religious extremism, linguistic and ethnic bigotry etc. to destroy every good thing. Later on newly free genies evolving themselves with brand names like Sipah-e-Sahaba,  Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Taliban, and other militant lashkars.

Then all of a sudden big boots genie disappeared in the air and in the village things start recovering little bit and trade name genies feeling orphans but big boot’s power was still protecting those brand name genies...... and then one day big boot come back again with different face and soft image.... that big boot is also gone but the evil power is still haunting the village. Now the question is how to put back these genies in the bottle again? Is that possible for poor health villagers to restrain these strong giants back to bottles? I guess they need big boot’s help to restrain those brand name genies!

Remembering Iqbal Bano (b. 1935 in Delhi – d. 21 April 2009 Lahore)

The great Ghazal singer of our time died in Lahore 21 April 2009. She gave new life to Faiz’s poem “Ham Dekhan gay”.Iqbal Bano, was an outstanding female Ghazal singer and a singer of both classical and modern ghazals. Bano was brought up and raised in Delhi. In 1952, a zamindaar from Multan married seventeen-year-old Iqbal Bano with a promise that he would never stop her music, but try to promote her. He fulfilled his promise until his death in 1980. After her husband passed away, Bano moved to, Lahore. It was observed that her temperament was particularly suited to vocal genres like thumri, dadra and ghazal.

I was grad five or six student in 1971, and still I cant forget the sadness, misery and hopelessness was in the faces of every adults in remaining Pakistan after fall of Dhaka. Teachers at school parents and other extended family members everybody was just crying and speechless…. Then ZAB takeover and there was hope in the air ….. during that time on Radio Pakistan there were number of new patriotic songs…. Some were amazing ….among them was …“Meray Watan ka nawjawan – watan ka geet gai ja” Iqbal Bano was the singer …. What a magic healing affect this song brought ….. unbelievable.

K2 ka Pakistan

No no I am not talking about the well-known slogan from K2 cigarette commercial. I am talking about our real K2 (King Kiani)… the pride of Pakistan ….. best of the best

The tradition to fabricate the urge for military rule in Pakistan goes back to late 50s. Rao Rasheed, Ex-IG police wrote in his book Jo mani dekha – that railway police arrested the man red-handed for planting the bomb in PWR train and during early investigation the poor guy shows his MI card that he is obeying the orders of his commanding officer. Actually Ayub Khan’s army intelligence was working on the justification-sheet for up coming military rule … then Fazli Haq’s diary about Zia – how he and his MI worked on the same lines in 1977 and then Asghar Khan’s letter to services chiefs …. Naeem Bukhari’s notorious open letter and Ansar Abbasi’s so called investigating report against CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry …

Now you guys must be thinking I will give some evidence that our king Kiani’s MI is also working to create some sort of justification-sheet…. the justification K2 might need ….
No no … now situation is very different …he is real king. . . . good professional soldier… and our Pakistani nation …. don’t resist anymore to any muggers ….. Similar to the act of the poor lady of Sadat Hassan Manto’s famous short story …. “Khool doo” ….

Don’t worry nature will not beat our dil dil Pakistan with two sticks . . . . one at a time only – now its time to get hit from Taliban ….. Don’t worry about Pak Fauj at this point of history …. they need some break …..

Ham sada hey aysay tha ki youn hi pazerai
Jis bar kizan aayin samjha ka bahar aayi - Faiz a Faiz

Jo bou ga wohi kato ga (As you sow so shall you reap)

“Khada Pita Sain Da – baki Nadir Shahi Da” - meaning of this Punjabi proverb is: whatever you consume from your earning, is yours, but the savings for rainy days and rest of your hard work earning will be looted by Nadir Shah’s Army.

This is still popular expression among old folks in Punjab. Social historians believe that this phrase comes into life during early 18 century when Nadir Shah and other Afghan warriors invaded Northern India year after year and every time when Afghan warriors entered in the cities they looted civilians regardless of there ethnic or religious background and brought the looted assets back to there mountain region of Tribal Areas and Afghanistan. When Mughal Empire (exception to Aurangzaeb’s time) was strong these Afghan warriors stopped invaded India but before and after they kept terrorizing the region, there was short break during Ranjit Singh’s era as well. Actually during Mughals, these Afghan warlords were getting enough from Empire, so they never felt the need for looting. British Empire also had hard time to protect Northern India from Afghan warriors but after several wars they sign treaties with Afghans and in 1883 successfully they established Durand Line as international boundaries.

Until 1980 it was more or less respected by all sides. In 1980s Pakistani army & CIA jointly initiated proxy war against socialist Afghan government to protect US interests in the region. In this ghost war they exploited Islam to motivate non-state actors to start terror against Afghan and Russian troops. Around the world, (brainwashed) youngsters brought into the region to start US sponsored terror against Afghan socialist government but majority of them were local Afghans and Pakistanis illiterate fanatics. This was the big blow for non state actors to grow larger then state power in the region. Durand Line was disrespected by CIA, Pakistan Army and militant jehadis for over 20 years. That is also a historic fact that the USSR did big mistake for entering there troops in Afghanistan. After USSR left Afghanistan and US also stop taking the interest in the country, then Pakistan Army found this golden opportunity to control entire Afghanistan and they did this successfully for number of years (through Talaban). With this mess, the arrangement of modern history, where boundaries were respected was jeopardize on the hands of non-state actors. Now the status of Durand Line is backed to before 1883 era.

In the year 2001 after 9/11 world was changed and Pakistan was forced to take ‘U” turn against there own creation, the beasts called Jehadi Talaban. These newly orphans were not raised to respect Durand Line or any other rules of Islam or civilized world. Now where we are? Are we going back to 18th century situation again? The time when some of the reliable Muslims clerics of Punjab and Northern India used to invite Afghans to invade India on the name of protecting Islam but once they reached, only scars of atrocity left behind.

Great Punjabi intellectual of that time Bulleh Shah was also among the critics of those Muslim clerics they supported Afghan warriors:
"Mullah te mashalch, donu iko chit Loka karday chanan, aap andheray wich” (The mullah and the torch-bearer Hail from the same stock They give light to others, And themselves are in the dark.) "Sach kanda bhanbhar balda nain”.

Unfortunately the masses never stand against terror on the name of Allah and unfortunately elite class of that time was also a part of that atrocity on there own people – this brought into the situation when everybody in Punjab was saying: “Khada Pita Sain Da – baki Nadir Shahi Da”
The moral of this story is: Jo bou ga wohi kato ga (As you sow so shall you reap)

Can we stop Pakistan falling on the hands of Terror?

Most of the people like me strongly believe, that the danger, state of Pakistan and its citizens are facing today is the direct result of there own policies during and after Afghan-Soviet war of 80s. Pakistani agencies and CIA created and trained these so-called jehadi savage groups to fight against Russians and later on we used them to control entire Afghanistan and then we tried to convert some of them towards neighbor hostile state. Other then USA and western world, Saudi Arab was the main sponsor of this evil adventure of 80s. To make Saudis happy these militant groups were trained with the coating of the fanatic interpretation of Wahabi Islam. After 9/11 under the pressure of USA and international community, Pakistan government (reluctantly) did “U” turn and they turn their guns against there own pets. At this point, the history changed and Bin Laden and his disciples took solo leadership position of these groups. After US war on Iraq and other foreign policies of President Bush, the public opinion in Saudi and other Muslim countries went further in favor of Al-Qaida/Jehadis. Generosity of rich Saudis and some other Muslims made these groups more resourceful and brutal. At now the terrorists are the loose network of three types of forces: a) Fanatics b) Lunatics c) Criminals. With this un-holly marriage, now the situation is that all these evil groups are out of control under the tent of Jehades.

This was very brief background. The question is - how to fix this mess and stop the nuclear power nation Pakistan falling in the hands of lunatics, fanatics and criminals?

The answers or discussions on the issue from different corners I am getting at this time are:

Pakistani Media: Major segment of them portrays soft corner for terrorists, most of them are suggesting that it is not our war because we don’t have this situation before US invasion of Afghanistan. They are suggesting don’t do any operation against them, you should negotiate with them. Some of the media anchors provoke government to take military action against the people they challenge the writ of the state. But when government takes action they flip into other side and criticizing government for killing there own people. (Lal-Masjid incident and tribal area military operations are the best fit examples of this).

Politicians: Other then present ruling party and his allies, majority of political parties taking the same position as media. Because this is the popular lines and it gives them easy fame.

General population: Because of the poor performance and bad governance of governments, they are not very much standing in back of any government but overall they are divided and confused. Majority of them believe on conspiracy theories that USA and India is playing all the evil game and our nukes are the target. But recent terrorist attacks in Punjab cities might change there attitude.

I think: Pakistanis have lot of potential, they can comeback safely out of this deadly situation. Regardless of there differences, the nation has to unit on this issue and as a first step they have to put pressure on media and political/religious leaders and there schools not to be sympathetic with these terrorist groups. Pakistan Army and political governments have to make it there number one priority and they should attack first on there supply lines, especially cash flow from rich Saudis etc., and on the basis of efficient intelligence network they should attack there leadership with iron hands on there sanctuaries, no matter those sanctuaries are in mosques or in madrasas in big cities or in mountains. At this time it feels me that Pakistan is bleeding badly and no-body is there to rescue this poor body.

With big hope that this situation will change – asjad

So called Islamic emails

From time to time we all receive some kind of so-called Islamic emails… I am posting some of the parts of my email to one of my friend who forwarded recently two emails to me:
This is my viewpoint on it... I am just writing few lines in response to the previous two emails you forwarded to me… I don’t means to hurt or offend you – please consider this just the opinion from elder brother… I am just expressing my personal opinion BUT you have the right to disagree totally or partially …

We know from centuries humans are discriminating and killing each other on the bases of color, race, ethnic, religious and linguistic basis and also on the basis of so many other artificial classifications. If we read the history critically from this perspective – most of the time greed for wealth and resources is the motive behind the wars and killing – but ordinary folks are too emotional about there religious, ethnic or any other circle, they lost the ability to see the real culprits behind or sometime they have there own evil wishes as well. I think being good human, being good Muslim and being the good followers of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) we shouldn’t be the part of that hate and greed game.
This is going on from centuries that people from different believe systems hate and kill each others…. There leaders have there own agendas and ignorant followers are being used as ammunition, basically humanity is suffering in this war. We need to apply our intellect to think out of the box. I can’t speak on behalf of others but I like to say something about the message of the last prophet of Allah Mohammad (PBUH) – “All humans are one nation (Omata wahida Insaniya) and Allah is the creator of all” Can you eliminate hate with hate, can we control wild fire with lighting more fire? … Lets contribute to defeat this hate, we know we cant have complete success in this life but at least we can contribute few drops as a positive step OR at least we can satisfy our souls that we follow the rules we trust.

Lets come to first email about Coco-Cola logo: This message is floating from years and years. My kids brought this from school… Anyway, why should I need to flip the Coca-Cola logo horizontally? And then to do the adjustment of the image that might looks like with some non-sense meaning that really hurts my believe? Who is putting that much effort behind and to stretch in this way – I have nothing more to say about this type of people other then this, that the brain(s) behind these messages are not positive and Allah give them courage to spread the last message of Allah in some positive and effective manners.

Regarding the email about the death of an artist he drew picture of our Prophet – let me tell you that the artists they drew those cartoons were 12 or more and not the one as it was mentioned in the email. Is in it our responsibility to do some research rather the news is correct or wrong? Even if it is true - why we are giving importance to these non-sense and sick people. In the words of one of our famous sufi poet of Punjabi Mian Mohammad Bux “ Dusman mare ta kushi na karia – Sajna wi warjana”
I recognize the fact that there are lobbies and people in this world they hate our prophet and our believe and also hate us. But the message of Islam is not reactionary – it is final message of creator to all of his creation to take benefit of his accurate advice. If somebody or some nations don’t want to follow this advice it is bad luck for them… BUT we should be behaving in the light of high human values of Quran not based on the bad actions or practices of others as reactionaries. Does this makes sense? For me it is.
Regards,