Predictable, yes! But what a paradox � Pakistan’s foreign minister is meeting Colin Powell in Washington, as Musharraf crowns himself. Though it was known all the time that after grabbing power in that country he had no intentions of stepping down ever. A typical manner in which dictators tend to behave wherever they may be. Did anybody notice that during a recent clamp down on political activities, politicians were rounded up and imprisoned for crimes they weren’t informed about for scores of days? But the bigger contradiction was that none of the politician sons- of the generals (who had brought military rule Pakistan Ayub’s- son Gohar Ayub and Zia’s son Ejaz- ul- Haq) were arrested. What a farce!
Apart from power itself, what else has Musharraf to gain out of Pakistan his own son is in the US, with no intentions of returning back to that country!!!
The level of forex reserves is a good barometer of the potential health of any economy because it reflects its ability to pay back royalty; all emerging economies boast significant levels of forex reserves. China is always second in the emerging market list and first in the forex reserve category (US$164 billion); Turkey was 22nd but had reserves of US$ 19 billion. India was 7th but its reserves topped US$ 37 billion. Hong Kong was last with reserves of US$ 106 billion! In fact, only Hungary had reserves under US$ 11 billion. The lowest forex holding is by South Africa, which at any given time has excess of $ 6.0 billion. Compare this to Pakistan’s forex reserves of only US$ 1 billion last month.
With a sinking economy and teeming millions, problems of diverse and dangerous nature, ethnicity, low illiteracy rate, islamisation, Talibans, separatists in the south, the fake issue of Kashmir, (more Muslims live India) drug addiction rate which is one of the highest in the world, the HIV spread which is silently creeping among injecting drug users. That is the gift of the generals and fatal signs of another Bangladesh in the making.
