Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir has said that “Pakistan should not be taken for granted nor treated as a client state.” Pakistan has strongly protested against the US Predator drone strike in the North Waziristan Agency on the peaceful tribal jirga.
US ambassador Cameron Munter was call upon by the Pakistani Foreign Office on the orders of the Prime Minister Gilani and protest was recorded and explanation of killing the innocent civilians was demanded.Pakistani authorities have said that this drone strike was in complete violation of humanitarian norms and law.
US ambassador was told that Pakistan feels that fundamentals of relationship between the two countries need to be revisited. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Hussain Haqqani has also been directed make strong protest to the US State Department.
Pakistan has said that such “irrational, unjustifiable and intolerable “attack will only strengthen the hands of radical and extremist elements.Pakistan has also declared that it will not take part in the next week’s trilateral ministerial meeting between the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
While see these protests against the US drone attack on the Pakistani soil and on November 2010 Prime Minister Gilani said in Pakistan’s National Assembly, “Such attacks are intolerable, and we protest against it”.
Last year WikiLeaks published some cables regarding this issue which quoted Prime Minister Gilani saying that he doesn’t care about attacks by the US unmanned aerial vehicles. This meeting took place in August 2008. At this meeting Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Rehman Malik suggested the US to stop these attacks for limited time to cool down the public but Prime Minister Gilani said that he doesn’t care as long as militants are being killed in these attacks.
He also said that his government will protest against drone strikes in the National Assembly of Pakistan and later on everyone will forget the issue.
Such duality of the government regarding the key issues of public concern and safety raises the question “Is lying to the face of the people of Pakistan is a government policy supported by all the major parties including PPP, MQM, PML-N, PML-Q.
One wonders what democracy is for, if the so called democratic parties and governments don’t care about the feelings of the general people of Pakistan.
Hiding facts from public, lying in front of their faces even when truth is out in the open and failing to take any responsibility of failures are few reasons why we never see the public opposition to any of the military rules in Pakistan. Unless political parties can start building trust between them and public no law will be able to protect another military rule in future.
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