Say sorry, Mr. President

You can’t expect these things from the head of your country. But that’s what Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf did recently in an interview with Washington Post. He shocked people at large when he said-later denying having said so - that women in Pakistan get themselves raped to go abroad and make money. His exact words, when asked about the safety of women in Pakistan, were: "You must understand the environment in Pakistan. This has become a money spinning concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped."

When faced with hostile reaction to the statement, he denied having made it. "I am not so silly and stupid to make comments of the sort," he told CNN. General Musharraf should have known the Washington Post would not have conducted the interview without recording it. It therefore countered his denial by saying the head of Pakistan had in fact made the statement about his country's women in front of three journalists and all of it was recorded.

But the story did not end there. There is another twist in the tale. General Musharraf also made a very puzzling statement to the effect that he gave US$ 50,000 to Dr Shazia Khalid to leave Pakistan for Canada. She was gang raped while on duty at the Sui Gas Plant in Baluchistan by a group of men including one Army officer. Before an inquiry commission could pronounce its verdict, General Musharraf said the Army officer was innocent. While Dr Khalid asked for justice, intelligence agencies forced her to leave the country. Dr Khalid denies having received any money from General Musharraf.

But even if we were to accept General Musharraf's claim that he gave her US$ 50,000 to leave the country, the question arises: why on earth should a head of State pay someone who had been wronged to leave the country when she and her sympathizers were demanding justice.

Baluch nationalists said dishonoring a woman on Baluchistan soil violated their social norms. When they turned violent, demanding action against the rapists, General Musharraf told his Baluch countrymen that this was not 1973, when they had sheltered in the hills. This time they would not know what hit them, he said. Was he hinting at testing the efficacy of his missiles on Baluchis? Over the past 58 years, they have already twice faced the air power of their country's army. In 1973, armed Baluchis took up positions in the mountains when the military began a crackdown on them on orders from then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

"Pakistan should not be singled out for the crime of rape. That it was happening in other countries, including Europe, as well. But only Pakistan was accused of it by NGOs," he bemoaned adding that he had seen figures about rape in the US, Canada, France and Britain, he said.

There is no denying this statement made my Musharraf. But what makes Pakistan different from other countries are the virtual institutionalization of rape through the controversial Hudood Ordinance and the indifference of the authorities to victims' pleas for justice. The Hudood Ordinance makes it close to impossible for a woman who has been raped to have her rapist punished because she is asked to produce four pious eyewitnesses. Even worse, she is herself punished for the rape if she cannot find four pious eyewitnesses. Ever since General Zia-ul-Haq began his rule, when the ordinance was promulgated, thousands of women have suffered long jail terms for having complained to the police about being rape.

General Musharraf cannot name any other country where the gang rape of an innocent woman is ordered by a panchayat. There is no civilized society in the world where a woman's leg is amputated on charges of illicit sex. Can General Musharraf name a country where a girl from a minority community is kidnapped forcibly converted and then married to an old man, as took place in Jacobabad in Sindh.

Women's organizations have persistently demanded that General Musharraf prove his adherence to his highly publicized call for "enlightened moderation" by freeing women from the Hudood Ordinance. But even if he should wish to, he couldn’t, for fear of the Mullahs. On the contrary, with his statement to the Washington Post, he has betrayed a mindset typical of the chauvinistic, semi-literate, anti-feminist tribal chief and feudal types, who are responsible for the killing of hundreds of women every year in the name of family honor.