By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS
London : Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri called up the head of a key Commonwealth group in a last-minute bid to stave off the country’s suspension Monday from the 53-member association.
Kasuri telephoned his Maltese counterpart Michael Frendo hours before the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) was to meet in London to decide the Commonwealth’s response on Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of a state of emergency.
“I received a call from the Pakistan foreign minister to explain the context in which the action (by Musharraf) was taken,” said Frendo, who is the chairman of the CMAG — a body composed of nine foreign ministers who decide on how to deal with Commonwealth countries that persistently violate principles of democracy and human rights.
Well-placed Commonwealth sources told IANS Kasuri called up mainly to tell Frendo that Musharraf was about to announce Jan 9 as the date for elections — ahead of the scheduled Jan 15.
Kasuri’s telephone call to Frendo came as informal consultations gathered pace among London-based diplomats from the nine countries that are members of the CMAG — Britain, Canada, Lesotho, Malaysia, Malta, Papua New Guinea, Saint Lucia, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.
Britain, a powerful voice in the CMAG, has welcomed Musharraf’s Sunday statement, promising elections ahead of the schedule, but is insisting on the lifting of the state of emergency and release of political prisoners.
“Without these, elections cannot be held in a free and fair manner,” a Foreign Office spokesman said.
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”.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband will not be attending Monday’s meeting — he has chosen to be present at the House of Common’s for a debate on foreign affairs — and has despatched his junior minister Lord Mark Falloch-Brown instead.
Miliband told the House of Commons Wednesday: “The government of Pakistan says they (the emergency powers) are temporary. It is vital that they are so.”
The CMAG’s decision will be rubber-stamped by Commonwealth leaders at their summit in Kampala Nov 23-25.
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 were likely to take notice of Musharraf’s weekend climb-down.
Crucially, his announcement was also welcomed by the United States — although it does not belong to the 53-member group of mostly British ex-colonies — and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader 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”.
Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth in 1999 after Musharraf ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in an army coup but was restored as a full member five years later after Musharraf promised to shed his military uniform — a key Commonwealth 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.