KARACHI: A self-exiled Christian leader fired the first salvo at the minority deputies who allegedly betrayed their community in and out of parliament as freshly enfranchised Christians began sizing up their leadership options for the October polls.
Nazir S.Bhatti, chief of the Pakistan Christian Congress, reserved much of his scathing criticism for maverick politician Julius Salik, known as much for his bizzare outfits, long marches and alternative protest politics as his oratorical style. Accusing Salik of being a stooge for an Islamist party, Bhatti said the politician had been campaigning for empowering Muslim minorities in the global village, yet ignoring the oppression that Christians endured in their own country. Salik's last "political stunt" was to climb into a cage at his Islamabad residence and make it his living quarters for seven months. During the time he was confined to a cage,Bhatti said, Salik made impassioned speeches against New Delhi for failing to stop the Muslim genocide in Gujrat, and Israel for its war of attrition against the Palestinians. Two tragic events involving Pakistani Christians occurred in this period--terrorists attacked a church in Bahawalpur in January 2002 and killed 16 people and,! then, two months later, a grenad attack was made on a church in Islamabad's Diplomatic Enclave, leaving five dead. Salik and other former MPs, he said, maintained a "disquieting" silence over these incidents. "Does he represent the Christian minority of Pakistan? If he is a representative, then why is he always silent on Christian minority issues?" Bhatti asked in a hard-hitting statement released to the New York-based website Pakistan Christian Post. In the past seven months Salik has ignored calls made by Christian clergymen to come out of the cage and work in a meaningful way for his community. When he finally crawled out of the cage last month, Salik made no bones of the fact that he was acting upon the advice of the Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islam leaders, according to the PCC leader. "I don't understand why it took us so long to realise that Salik is a stooge," said Inyat Emmanuel, a PPP worker from Gujranwala. "For years he has humiliated his own community by pulling stupid gimmicks on the national scene. Who can forget that he wore Taliban gear to please his political masters? Or his peace in a cage stunt?" he said. Salik is only one of a crop of minority politicians whose actions are coming under the microscope. Joseph Eugene, a social activist from Karachi, claims that the former provincial lawmaker from Sindh, Michael Javed, confiscated a school belonging to the Catholic Board of Education in Essa Nagri nearly a decade ago but was never prosecuted. At the time Javed justified his action, saying he would ensure that Christians living in Essa Nagri would benefit from the move because he was more benevolent than the CBE. "He used his power and position to hold on to the property all the while," says Eugene. Emmanuel agrees with Eugene that Javed has poached the church property but contends that the CBE has not made any serious efforts to regain the school. "But let's not confuse the real issues. The gravest sin committed by our leaders is that they have silently watched the enactment of anti-minority legislation," Emmanuel points out. Rufus Imran, a development worker from Lahore, accuses past minority leaders of bartering away their community interests in favour of petty greed. "Our memories are not so poor as to forget who were in the assemblies then," says Imran,warning that a voters' backlash awaited such leaders. Since August 2001 several new faces have appeared from among the Christian community to claim union and town councillor seats, although the mainstream Christiangroups, by and large, boycotted last year's municipal polls. Some of these newcomers have the backing of major political groupings and analysts say they could pose a challenge to the old guard whose support has waned in recent years. --ends------------------------------------ends------------------ __________________________________________________________________________ You have received this email from "TV-Email", developed by Wavetech. For more information on "TV-Email" click on http://wavetec.com/tv-email =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet =================================================================== For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!