ISLAMABAD, July 4 (APP) – President and Co-chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party Asif Ali Zardari said that July 5 is one of the darkest days in the history of the country and will be remembered as the “Black Day” for spawning militancy, sectarianism, tyranny and oppression and systematically dismantling the constitutional and legal edifice of the country.In a message, the President said the nation however can take some comfort in the fact that on July 5 this year the Constitution that had been disfigured by the dictator has been restored by the people of Pakistan through the 18th Amendment.
This triumph of people and the Parliament is a stinging rejection of the dictator and dictatorship and a warning to all those who reject the will of the people expressed thorough their elected representatives, the President said.
The President said that in his message on this day last year he had urged the people to “vow to banish from the Constitution all undemocratic insertions made by the dictators from time to time.”
“I wish to congratulate the Parliament on this occasion for rising to the occasion and removing from the Constitution the vestiges of dictatorship,” he said.
The President said that dictators who strut along the stage are eventually punished by the people and the history even after they were dead and buried. They are punished when the pernicious structures of their personalised rule brought about by destroying the Constitution are torn apart by the people with a vengeance.
It is a lesson of history that all those possessing dictatorial mindset and a penchant for ridiculing the people and their representatives must always remember, the President said. Let there be no doubt or mistake that all power belongs to the people and the people alone, he added.
On this day in 1977 a dictator unleashed a litany of horror and shame, forced his name in the Constitution and forced the nation to tread the path of destruction. Today while the nation has succeeded in banishing dictator’s name from the Constitution it has to join hands to banish his legacy of militancy, hatred and religious bigotry, he added.
The President said on this day in 1977 the seeds of deadly Taliban and Al Qaeda were sown that plunged the world into chaos and has been haunting Pakistan for the past three decades.
“Let us resolve today to banish for ever the strategic partners of dictators namely the militants, extremists and religious zealots.
“On this day my thoughts also go to those martyrs of democracy who suffered and sacrificed during that black period of our national history. They suffered so that the future generations may live in peace, honor and in freedom,” he added.
