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Washington’s next war is already on the go. “Classified orders”, according to the September 11 New York Times, were passed by US President George Bush in July. And the target is not “axis of evil”-famed Iran. It is Washington’s close ally in the “war on terror”, Pakistan.

Pakistan is once again a focal point of an imperialist agenda and the so-called war against terrorism.

“I am on a bus roof top for two hours. I cannot tell how many have started from Lahore for the Long March to Islamabad but everywhere there are heads and heads. It is going beyond our expectations.”

Over 3000 activists and supporters of Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) took part in rally in Lahore on June 6 against the ongoing neoliberal policies of the current Pakistan People’s Party government.

The unpopularity and increasing isolation of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 military coup, was demonstrated in the February 18 parliamentary elections — with vote rigging, military interference and violence unable to prevent a landslide rejection of pro-Musharraf candidates.

On December 9, 72-year-old Abdullah Qureshi, a member of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) provincial council of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), was murdered in a suicide attack in Swat valley — currently the scene of a military operation against religious fundamentalists who control a majority of the valley.

It seems that the reign of General Pervez Musharraf is on its last legs. Musharraf has become the most detested president in the history of Pakistan. No longer are there progressives, liberals or moderates in his camp.

Called by military dictator General Pervez Musharraf after the imposition of emergency rule — which saw the sacking of the judiciary, imprisonment of 10,000 opposition activists, censorship and closure of media outlets and the violent suppression of protests — and set against the backdrop of increasing terrorist attacks by religious fundamentalists, Pakistan’s upcoming general elections were already set to be farcical.

Day seven passed without my arrest despite several attempts by the police. During the last three days, we were able to hold a meeting of the leading members of Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), gave interviews to private television channels and to a private team working for CNN. We were able to fax daily news to most of the newspapers in Pakistan.

Farooq Tariq is the secretary general of the 3000-member Labour Party Pakistan (LPP). The following is an abridged version of an interview with Tariq conducted by Ron Jacobs. Tariq is currently operating underground, being hunted by the regime. THe full version of this interview was posted on the Counterpunch.org website on November 11.

While Pakistan’s dictator General Pervez Musharraf has justified his November 3 imposition of emergency rule with the supposed threat of Islamic terrorism, the brunt of the crackdown has been felt by students, trade unionists, the left, the mainstream opposition parties, civil society and the movement of advocates (lawyers) — who have been in the forefront of resistance to the regime since March.

On November 3, Pakistani military dictator General Pervez Musharraf initiated an intensified crackdown against all opposition to his increasingly unstable regime, with the decleration of a state of emergency. While the military’s spin doctors have attempted to make a distinction between this state of emergency and martial law, it has seen thousands of people put into “preventative detention”, mobile phones jammed, all non-government broadcasting stations taken off air and the abandonment of what pretence of rule of law still remained under Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999.