By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS
London : A day after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf promised to hold elections ahead of schedule, a key group of foreign ministers were Monday set to debate whether or not to suspend Pakistan from the Commonwealth because of his imposition of a state of emergency on Nov 3.
The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), which deals with persistent violators of the principles of democracy and human rights, is to announce its recommendation later Monday, setting the tone for decisions to be taken by Commonwealth leaders at their summit in Kampala Nov 23-25.
The current members of the troubleshooting group are the foreign ministers of Britain, Canada, Lesotho, Malaysia, Malta, Papua New Guinea, Saint Lucia, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.
Secretary-General Don McKinnon said before Musharraf’s latest move that Pakistan’s suspension “has to be there” as a possible sanction.
But he refused to predict the outcome of Monday’s meeting, saying: “These are nine quite independent foreign ministers. If you look where they come from, they could quite easily have nine different views.”
The London meeting began as thousands of protesters gathered in the Pakistani city of Lahore for rallies to be led by opposition leaders Benazir Bhutto and Imran Khan, but diplomatic sources said the CMAG foreign ministers would take notice of Musharraf’s weekend climb down.
His announcement that elections will be held by Jan 9 — before the legal cut-off date of Jan 15 — was welcomed by Britain, whose Foreign Minister David Miliband has been urging him to give a specific date.
Crucially, his announcement was also welcomed by the US — although it does not belong to the 53-member group of mostly British ex-colonies — and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Benazir Bhutto.
In his statement Sunday, Musharraf promised a “total, complete, democratic dispensation”, prompting Bhutto to accord a cautious welcome to what she called a “positive step to defuse the situation to some extent”.
However, Britain and the US would like Musharraf to do much more, including lifting the state of emergency, restoring Pakistan’s suspended constitution, freeing lawyers and other political prisoners and ensuring press freedom.
And London and Washington want these steps taken rapidly.
“We are also encouraging that the state of emergency has got to be lifted, and lifted as soon as possible,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.
Miliband told the House of Commons Wednesday that suspension was “one of the tools that is available” to the Commonwealth and urged Musharraf to honour a pledge to step down as army chief.
“The government of Pakistan says they (the emergency powers) are temporary. It is vital that they are so,” he added.
Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said Friday that the country is “pressing for a strong Commonwealth response that sets clear deadlines for the end of the state of emergency and for the restoration of democratic processes”.
Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth in 1999 after Musharraf ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharief in a coup but was restored as a full member five years later after Musharraf promised to shed his military uniform — a key demand that remains unfulfilled.
At their meeting in Malta in 2005, Commonwealth leaders declared that a single individual holding the offices of head of state and chief of army staff is incompatible with the basic principles of democracy and the spirit of the Commonwealth’s principles. They said that until the two offices are separated, the process of democratisation in Pakistan will not be considered irreversible.
However, Musharraf continues to be both president and army chief – leading to concern among some Commonwealth diplomats that Pakistan may have been let in too soon after suspension.
Currently, two countries remain suspended from the Commonwealth — Zimbabwe for what were widely seen as rigged elections in 2002, and Fiji for a military coup last year.