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Quote: Pakistan's Reluctant Hero By Aryn Baker/Abbottabad Thursday, June 14, 2007 MAN OF THE PEOPLE: Chaudhry meets with supporters at the Bar Association in Haripur Paula Bronstein / Getty Images for TIME share The drive from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, to the hill station of Abbottabad usually takes two hours. But when the recently suspended Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry drove that route to address the local bar association two weeks ago, the journey clocked in at 14. Every small town and junction along the way was thronged with cheering crowds. Banners waved, music blared, and dancing ponies performed. Crowds at rallies for Pervez Musharraf can be just as big, but these days most of the President's well-wishers are bused in. "The government rents crowds for their rallies, but we are not getting money or food to be here," says Rauf Naizi, a 33-year-old farmer who had been waiting hours to see Chaudhry. "We come just to pay tribute to the Chief Justice." Politics has long been theater in Pakistan, and the current spectacle of a waning President and a crusading Chief Justice has the country enthralled. Three months ago Musharraf accused Chaudhry of misuse of office, leveling charges of nepotism and corruption. Chaudhry denies wrongdoing and refuses to go. The resulting furor threatens Musharraf's increasingly tenuous hold on power. Musharraf says he's the only leader capable of reining in the Islamic militants that threaten Pakistan, but his detractors claim that his stranglehold on power has sidelined moderates and delivered Pakistan's government into the hands of an extremist minority. Chaudhry just wants his job back. The fortunes of the two men mirror that of Pakistan. Will the country become more open and democratic, committed to civilian institutions—or will it collapse further in on itself, victim to government crackdowns and the extremist forces that lurk in the shadow of martial law? A drive anywhere for the Chief Justice these days takes on the trappings of a campaign rally. But Chaudhry is no candidate. He is a symbol, rather, of a yearning for democracy and an independent judiciary, and the people of Pakistan are coming out in the tens of thousands to show their support. Even visits to the Supreme Court in Islamabad, where the charges against Chaudhry are being debated, are cause for protests—or at least they were, until the recent enactment of a ban on any public gatherings of more than five people. The battered 1994 Mitsubishi Pajero that the Chief Justice uses for his journeys outside the city has become a national icon, its number plate, LOH 3, shorthand for a nationwide debate on the role of the military in government. Slightly cross-eyed and patently uncharismatic, Chaudhry stumbled into his present stature through a steadfast desire to do what was right. On March 9, Musharraf, backed by his generals and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, asked Chaudhry to resign. A video frame of that meeting, broadcast by the government on national TV, was meant to show the nation that even the Chief Justice was not above the law. Instead it unleashed outrage against the military. "That frame, of the Chief Justice sitting in front of the general, did for Pakistan what the Tiananmen Square photo of the boy standing before the tank did for China," says former Law Minister Iftikhar Gilani. "Almost every Pakistani has seen that image, and it has become a symbol of defiance against military rule." Chaudhry wasn't always a hero. Despised by some lawyers because of a perception that he took a progovernment stance on revenue cases, he was known as an abrasive, activist judge. As a Supreme Court Justice he was widely criticized for legitimizing martial law in 2000 and for a ruling by the Supreme Court in 2002 that permitted General Musharraf to keep his uniform while holding the office of President. "I wanted to take up arms against him," says Muneer Malik, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, who now works on Chaudhry's defense team. In 2005 Chaudhry was promoted to Chief Justice. But then he started investigating extrajudicial detentions and querying a spate of disappearances of activists. Earlier this year, he held the privatization of Pakistan Steel Mills—a pet project of the Prime Minister—to be unconstitutional. Many in Pakistan suggest that Musharraf's principal motive in dismissing Chaudhry may have stemmed from fears that the increasingly independent Chief Justice would obstruct the President's bid for another term, which requires a constitutional amendment ratified by the Supreme Court and approved by Parliament. Chaudhry in private conversations had expressed doubt that the President should also be head of the army, says Asan Iqbal, Secretary of Information for deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League. "It was after that that the government got very concerned," Iqbal says. When news broke of Chaudhry's suspension, Pakistan's black-suited lawyers campaigned to reinstate him. Opposition parties and thousands of ordinary Pakistanis quickly joined the movement. Posters and stickers of Chaudhry's face are plastered on walls, bumpers and T shirts across the nation. Talk shows fete the "judge who said no." Says Supreme Court advocate Athar Minallah: "It's not about the Chief Justice anymore. It's about the future of this country. It's about having systems, having institutions that are not dependent on individuals. It's all now about democracy." When Musharraf first came to power, he seemed for a time to be decisive and enlightened, and after Sept. 11 won full backing from the U.S. Maintaining his position as head of the army, he assured the country, was a temporary measure to ensure stability. If he ever felt the people were not with him, he said, he would quit. That was then. Angry at what he has termed sensationalist reporting, Musharraf launched a crackdown on the press two weeks ago. Live coverage of rallies related to Chaudhry have been banned, as have live talk shows on the issue. Opposition party organizers are routinely detained prior to planned antigovernment demonstrations. Outspoken activists have been charged with terrorist acts and others have simply disappeared. Qazim Bugti, mayor of a small town in the insurgency-wracked province of Baluchistan, was picked up in November. His is one of 99 abductions documented by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan last year. Though the country has had something of an economic boom of late, the blush is off the rose. Prices are rising and blackouts common. Extremist groups have gained power—last week an Islamic court in the tribal areas sentenced and executed four people for adultery. Towns in the northern provinces bordering Afghanistan are run by a Pakistani Taliban that has shut down barbershops, girls' schools and polio-vaccination programs. In Islamabad, students from the fundamentalist Jamia Hafsa seminary have occupied a children's library less than a mile from the Parliament building. Abdul Aziz, head of the Lal Masjid mosque where Jamia Hafsa is located, preaches against the government, calling for its overthrow if Islamic law is not implemented and claiming that he has 10,000 suicide bombers ready to be deployed. "What do you want us to do, storm the place?" asks Wasim Sajjad, leader of Pakistan's Senate. "We have a huge army, we can do it. But this is a very sensitive time. Elections are coming. The moment we do something, we will be blamed." Musharraf's lack of a popular mandate means that he has been unable to confront those like Aziz, and has had to form alliances with conservative groups, costing him the support of moderates. "The rate of evaporation of support for Musharraf over the past few months is unprecedented," says Iqbal. "I don't come across a single person who is defending Musharraf today." Even support from the U.S. seems to be wavering. Representatives Tom Lantos and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen along with Senator Joe Biden wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently, saying that, "It is our impression that many Pakistani citizens view the President's campaign against the nation's Chief Justice as an attempt to cow the judicial system into sanctioning electoral rigging and extraconstitutional delay of a return to a fully civilian government." To quell unrest, Musharraf's best move could simply be to reinstate Chaudhry. "Then he wouldn't be the 100-foot giant stalking the cities and roads of Pakistan," says Aitzaz Ahsan, Chaudhry's lead counsel. But many consider it unlikely that the President will back down. Islamabad these days is permeated by fear that martial law will be declared. "My worry is that [Musharraf] is about to do something really silly and really dangerous," says Gilani. Musharraf "has now developed a larger-than-life self-image," adds Iqbal. "He thinks that he is Pakistan's destiny." Certainly he was once seen as the savior of the country for taking power in a time of upheaval. Maybe Musharraf can secure that legacy by allowing democracy to be restored. Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9...0.html#ixzz1Yhu0NOcD