By IANS
Washington : Imran Khan, the Pakistani cricketer-turned politician, said he met key US Senators and Congressmen to press Washington to cut aid to President Pervez Musharraf’s administration to put pressure on him to reinstate the sacked judiciary, a key to restoring democracy in the country.
Underlining Musharraf’s scorn for democracy and public accountability, Khan said here Thursday, “The $10 billion US aid since 9/11 was never mentioned in Pakistan’s parliament, which Musharraf used as ‘rubber stamp’.”
Speaking at a forum organised by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the Asia Society, Khan said if Musharraf rigged the Feb 18 parliamentary polls as speculated, the country may have a Kenya-type post-poll violence because the general public will not accept election results.
Khan heads the Tehreek-e-Insaaf party in Pakistan that he says is not marginal any more. He resigned from parliament and has boycotted the polls. He was put under house arrest after Musharraf imposed emergency Nov 3.
Asked why reinstating the legitimate judiciary headed by sacked chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is important, Khan said only an independent judiciary can supervise free and fair elections.
“That is the only way out of this quagmire. Any other way, the situation is going to get worse,” he argued.
Khan rejected the oft heard theory that Musharraf was playing a double game — allying with the US’ war on terror and keeping channels open with Al Qaeda and Taliban.
“Why would he be doing that? These guys are out to kill him. They’re killing the Pakistan Army. There are suicide attacks right at the doors of army headquarters,” he pointed out.
His reading is that “It’s just beyond Musharraf’s control. The situation is getting from bad to worse, and I think he has run out of options.”
Khan chided the US for backing the wrong horse, referring to America’s overt support for the Shah of Iran, whose corrupt and brutal rule led to an Islamic revolution. “In fact, all of the anti-Musharraf sentiment is also going against the US,” he said.
He expressed his concern that the trend of spiralling terrorism in Pakistan is bound to affect the US war on terror, “the way it’s evolving in Afghanistan and also the capability of Pakistan being any sort of partner because Pakistan soon is going to be fighting for its own survival”.
Answering a question about Indo-Pak relations, Khan said, there’s a consensus in both countries that “we have to settle our differences through dialogue”.
“This realisation came after the Kargil misadventure (1999) that the two nuclear armed countries could destroy each other,” he remarked.
Touring the US Jan 22-26 to present an “alternative view on Pakistan”, Khan has been speaking at various fora, including Asia Society in New York Friday, as well as to Pakistani Americans.
In Washington, Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader of the senate hosted him where Senators Joe Biden, John Kerry and others were also present. He also met Congressman John Tierney, chairman of the subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Relations, as well as other Congressmen including Peter Welch, Christopher Shays and Sheila Jackson.
He said he did not meet anybody in the Bush administration.
Imran Khan started his party a decade ago, which was found in a recent survey to have the second-highest vote share in the North-West Frontier Province, just behind that of the party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.