DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE

Congratulations to the fighting masses in Pakistan for their latest victory! Given the history of Pakistan has been so bloodied by military dictatorships, such a humiliating end to the political career of the latest military dictator is a great victory for people's power.

This was a victory made in the streets by masses that braved the guns, batons and bayonets of the military. The whole world watched this valiant struggle progress, critically around the sustained mass response to Musharraf's removal of the "inconvenient" top judges who refused to keep doing his bidding.

An angry mass response to an outrageously anti-democratic act by a ruler is not an uncommon thing in our times. What is less common is a sustained mass resistance, one that does not fade away after a protest rally or two. It was a sustained mass resistance that we saw in Pakistan and it was that sustained mass resistance that finally forced Musharraf to resign.

Only the braveness and resilience of the masses and their fighting political leadership can account for this.

Of course dirty deals have been done by the new PPP-led government to smooth Musharraf's exit into a comfortable retirement villa somewhere.

But as Comrade Farooq Tariq's message signals, the fight to bring the dictator to account, to restore the removed judges and to end the neo-liberal policies that Musharraf has forced on the Pakistani people goes on. As does the fight to smash the deadly military and political alliance with US imperialism.

Congratulations!
Down with dictators, down with imperialism!
Working masses of the world unite!

Peter Boyle
National Secretary DSP

• Article on Musharraf's resignation by Farooq Tariq, Labour Party Pakistan spokesperson