Poet Shuns Award Over Musharraf's Rule

"My conscience does not allow me to keep the award when we have pseudo-democracy like a house of cards, and when the government is waging a war against its own people in Waziristan and Baluchistan," Ahmed Faraz told Reuters on Monday, July31 .

The Pakistani army has been fighting tribesmen in Waziristan, on the border with Afghanistan, on accusations of supporting Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime.

It is also battling revolting ethnic Baloch tribesmen in the southwest.

Faraz,75 , hopes his action to return the Hilal-e-Imtiaz (the Crescent Moon Honor) would promote the cause for the restoration of full democracy in Pakistan.

Musharraf came to power in a bloodless military coup in1999 , and the leaders of the main opposition live in exile, and their parties have been marginalized over the last seven years.

Critics have questioned the fairness of elections held during Musharraf's time in office.

Pakistan's ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML)'s plans to organize presidential polls two months before next year's general elections have triggered a political storm and a constitutional debate as to whether the outgoing assemblies have a mandate to re-elect Musharraf for a fresh five-year term.

General Musharraf

Faraz said that Musharraf had violated the constitution and broken a promise to give up his role as army chief.

Under an agreement reached with his political allies in2004 , Musharraf should have chosen between being chief of the powerful Pakistani army (top military post) or head of the state (top civilian post) by the end of the year.

He has not since then, saying it was necessary in order for him to wage a war on terrorism in Pakistan and to seek peace with neighboring India.

"I am not scared because I have been blindfolded and put in solitary confinement before for democracy," Faraz said.

Faraz was jailed and sent into exile by the late military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq for writing poems against the military government.

He stayed for three years in Britain, Canada and Europe before returning to Pakistan where he remained chairperson of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Book Foundation for several years.

Faraz is considered one of the great modern Urdu poets, with a simple style of writing with which the common man can identify.

He wrote some of his best works, which have been compared with Mohammad Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the greatest Urdu poets of the last century, during those days in exile.

http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-07/31/06.shtml