Lockdown

Greetings and salutations. As some of you may have noticed on the nightly news the political situation here in Pakistan has been rather volatile over the last couple weeks. Well if you want to get nit picky it has been rather volatile ever since its inception in 1946 with many an up and down cycle. But the last couple weeks have been the most charged since President Zudari took office about a year ago. As far as I can tell the problem is that there are only a few families that tend to run things here and because of that they have been competing against each other since the country was founded (oh and they all seem to be crooks – a lot like Oklahoma).

The latest problem starts with the last ruler President Musharif (who was the Army Chief of Staff and took over in a coupe of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif [remember this name]). In an attempt to maintain his power President Musharif fired the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court which lead to a great deal of popular up roar which eventually lead to Musharif stepping down. So who to take over? The Pakistanis actually had an election where candidate Benizer Bhutto (a former Prime Minister who had been fired due to allegations of corruption) was killed in a terrorist explosion. Who do you elect after the #1 candidate has been assassinated? That’s right her husband (who had served time in jail for corruption and has been nicknamed “Mr. 10%” for his embezzling).

One of Zudari’s campaign promises was that he would reinstate the Chief Justice who got fired, but after being in office for a year he still hadn’t done so, it is believed, because that Justice might re-open the corruption charges against him. The next stellar move is while the head of the military and the Prime Minister are out of the country, the Supreme Court (with a pro Zudari Chief Justice) excludes Nawaz Sharif (here is that name again) and his brother (who was the Chief Minister for the province of Punjab) from holding political office because of their past corruption charges. The Sharif brothers then threw their political weight behind the Lawyer’s Movement, who had been screaming for the reinstatement of the Chief Justice. The Lawyer’s Movement have been coordinating this Long March that was supposed to start in Lahore and Qweta and end up in Islamabad (where your friendly local arms dealer – me) lives. In an attempt to keep the Long March for gathering steam Zudari placed a lot of people under house arrest preemptively and basically shut down the city Sunday afternoon (this kind of tactic always works right?).

The major concern was that if the protest did get into the city and/or violence erupted (which was a very good possibility) the Army might have to step in to restore order and once that happened, they would probably just kick out Zudari for being stupid in letting it all get to that point. And what do we call it when the military kicks out the president? That’s right, a coupe, which we as a government tend to frown on.

The good news is Zudari flinched first in this game of political chicken and said he would restore the Chief Justice so Sharif basically turned off the Long March and the whole thing fizzled out. The other good news is since the whole country was about to implode, the embassy was shut down and we all got the last couple days off. Granted we were in lockdown mode and restricted to our houses, but I got to sleep in late on Sunday and did a lot of reading for the Joint Professional Military Education class I am taking.

The bad news is that because of this stupid power playing I had to miss the St. Patrick’s Day party that was going on at the British High Commission (they don’t have an embassy, they have a high commission because Pakistan used to be a colony or something like that). So far since I have been here I have missed two parties at the High Commission and two parties at the Marine House (where the Marine Security Guard lives). Granted I missed some of it because I was in the States which is infinitely better, but still. I am hoping nothing else goes wonky and I can make it to the Canadian Embassy for their St. Patrick’s Day celebration next weekend.

There was another celebration since the last time we talked. Most of you probably may not have known it but last Thursday was the Profit Mohammed’s birthday. We didn’t set up a tree or anything like that but the city was strung up with lights. Here are a couple of the pictures. Since it was at night and I was shooting form a distance they might be a bit blurry, but I had to stop by the side of the street to take the pictures and due to the force protection issues here I did not want to take too long to get the shots. I think you can get the point.

The Prime Minister's Secretariate.

The Supreme Court building.

Looking down Constitution Ave.

The only other thing to report is that I have grown what some might call a mustache (others might call it a caterpillar or some other derogatory name). I started it on the 1st of March and I think it has grown in nicely. I’m not saying it looks good, only that it is rather full. The reason behind this, like most facial hair growing experiments, is that there really isn’t much else to do so some of us decided to have a contest. These are the kinds of things we in the military do on deployment to pass the time. Don’t worry friends, I doubt that the ‘stache is going to make it beyond March. We will have to see what kind of reception it gets at the Canadian Club.

A shot of me, my mustache and the C-12.

A close up shot. Don't fear the 'stache.

Well like I said before all the shenanigans have fizzled out so it is back to work for me tomorrow. Thank you all for your e-mails and other comments (except the one making fun of my mustache). I hope your days have and continue to be calmer than the Pakistani political scene. Until next time, be good. And if you can’t be good, be good at it.