EU-DIGEST

Coalition collapse bad omen for fight against extremism - by Nadeem Sarwar

The collapse of Pakistan's ruling alliance has come as a disappointment for many Pakistanis longing for political stability, but it might also be a bad omen for Western allies who want to see the country focus on its fight against Islamic extremists.

Labels: Pakistan

Mr Musharraf held talks in Brussels with Javier Solana, the EU’s high representative for foreign policy, who said he had stressed the EU’s desire that Pakistan should “move forward on a path of reform and the rule of law”. With European countries contributing more than half of the 41,700-strong international force conducting military operations against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, the EU has a strong interest in seeing a decline of political violence and unrest in neighbouring Pakistan.EU's engagement with Pakistan depends on fair polls says Solana

The level of the European Union's engagement with Pakistan depends on the holding of free, fair and secure elections there next month, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Monday. "Our message is clear. It is that the elections have to be fair, free and secure, which is also very important," Solana said after lunch talks in Brussels with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. "Our reaction on cooperation and the level of engagement will be in view of the result of the process," he added. He did not give any details as to what that cooperation may entail.The EU is Pakistan’s largest foreign trading partner, with annual trade worth euro 6.25bn, and Mr Musharraf said he had raised the issue of easier access for Pakistan to EU markets. Later on his European trip, Mr Musharraf is due to meet Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, and Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, as well as to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Labels: Elections, EU, Pakistan

Tough questions await Musharraf in Europe

President Pervez Musharraf heads off on a four-country trip to Europe this weekend where he is expected to face tough questions over his rule while shoring up international support. Former foreign secretary Tanvir Ahmed Khan expected Musharraf to seek to impress on Europeans that Pakistan’s best hope of stability rested with him retaining power. “He’s trying to establish his credentials with key Western powers with the same old message: that he’s indispensable, they don’t have a better friend than him, without him the war on terror would unravel and Pakistan’s economic progress would collapse,” Khan said. Musharraf is due to hold talks with European Union and Belgian leaders in Brussels, meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris and then attend the World Economic Forum in Switzerland before heading to London for talks with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Labels: Elections, EU, Musharraf, Pakistan

Pakistan vote delay won't curb instability - by M Ilyas Khan

The decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan to delay parliamentary elections by six weeks has surprised no one.This concerted move by the president and the Election Commission is indicative of the sensitivities involved in the current uncertain climate. By the commission's own admission, election records in only 11 out of the country's 114 administrative districts were destroyed in incidents of arson. Many analysts have been suggesting that elections could be held in the unaffected districts, with a short postponement in the affected ones. Instead, the commission has gone for an overall postponement, arguing that law and order situation in the rest of the country is not conducive for elections. This argument is likely to be interpreted by the opposition as an attempt by the commission to safeguard the interests of the ruling PML-Q party.The EU has offered Pakistan help in investigating the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, with Scotland Yard sending a team of police to lead the inquiry. But European and US politicians say a UN probe isn't necessary.

Comment EU-Digest:"There needs to be an independent investigation".

Labels: Elections, EU, Pakistan

Commission: Pakistan elections 'impossible' on schedule.

It appears "impossible" for Pakistan to hold a vote on Jan. 8 because of unrest following the killing of Benazir Bhutto, the country's election commission said Tuesday. The announcement could spark protests by parties demanding quick polls to capitalize on sympathy for the slain opposition leader. The commission said it would announce a new date on Wednesday after meeting Pakistan's political parties.

On the day she was killed, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto planned to give two U.S. lawmakers a dossier accusing the ruling regime and Pakistan's intelligence service of rigging upcoming elections, an aide said Tuesday. Sen. Latif Khosa, a lawmaker from Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party, said she planned to meet Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island on Thursday evening, a few hours after the rally where she was killed. She was preparing to give the U.S. lawmakers a 160-page report of complaints on "pre-poll rigging" the government of President Pervez Musharraf and the military-run Inter-services Intelligence Service was engaged in, Khosa said. Khosa also said he did not know if Bhutto's assassination was linked to the report.

Labels: Benazir Bhutto, Elections, Pakistan

Separating myth from the reality in Pakistan - by Haroon Siddiqui

In 1999, George W. Bush was asked in an interview: "Can you name the general who's in charge of Pakistan?" The Republican presidential candidate demurred: "Wait, wait. Is this 50 questions?" Pressed for an answer, he couldn't come up with the name but offered this gem: "The Pakistani general, he's just been elected, not elected, this guy took over office. It appears this guy is going to bring stability to the country and I think that's good news for the subcontinent." Bush now knows Pervez Musharraf well. But his assessment of "this guy" as the font of "stability" and "good news" hasn't changed all that much. Bush, however, is not the only one living in the kingdom of clichés.

EU-Digest: The Pakistan interior ministry said Bhutto had no gunshot or shrapnel wounds. He said the opposition leader died after smashing her head on her car's sunroof as she tried to duck. He also blamed Al-Qaeda, saying intelligence services had intercepted a call from Baitullah Mehsud, considered the extremist group's top leader for Pakistan, congratulating a militant for Bhutto's death.

Senior members of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) dismissed the government's version of events as "lies". "There was a bullet wound I saw that went in from the back of her head and came out the other side," Bhutto's spokeswoman Sherry Rehman, who was involved in washing her body for burial, told AFP. "This is ridiculous, dangerous nonsense because it is a cover-up of what actually happened," said Rehman. Maulana Omar, a spokesman for alleged Al-Qaeda kingpin Mehsud, also denied involvement in the attack and expressed grief over Bhutto's death. "This is a conspiracy of the government, army and intelligence agencies," said the spokesman from Waziristan, a lawless tribal region where Al-Qaeda leaders, including possibly Osama bin Laden, are alleged to be hiding.

In the US leading democratic candidate Hillary Clinton called for an independent, international probe into Bhutto's murder, saying Musharraf's government has no credibility. "I think it's critically important that we get answers and really those are due first and foremost to the people of Pakistan," Clinton said. In Europe there also is a call to break off diplomatic and economic relations with the Musharraf government until they return to the barracks and handover the leadership to a caretaker government which can prepare fair and honest elections.

Labels: Benazir Bhutto, conspiracy, EU, Musharraf, Pakistan, US

US has contingency plans to secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in case country falls into radical Islamist hands - by Ewen MacAskill

The Pentagon says it is working on a series of contingency plans to prevent Pakistan's nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of Islamist radicals. One of the contingency plans would involve US special forces, working in conjunction with Pakistan's military and intelligence services, to spirit away any weapons at imminent risk. But the US cannot be confident that the Pakistan military would co-operate at such a time. In spite of US aid to help with security, the Pakistan government has remained suspicious of US intentions, fearing that it might plant devices capable of neutralising the weapons.

Pakistan, which carried out its first nuclear test in 1998, claims to have about 80 to 120 warheads.

Labels: Islamists, Nuclear, Pakistan, US

Enough with Democracy! - by Robert Baer

The Bush administration is particularly culpable in creating the chaos in Pakistan because it forced a premature reconciliation between President Musharraf and Bhutto; it forced Musharraf to lift martial law; it showered money on Musharraf to fight a war that was never popular in Pakistan. The administration could not understand that it can't have both in Pakistan — a democracy and a war on terrorism.It is high time Americans return a pragmatic president to the White House. When George H.W. Bush, James Baker, and Norman Schwartzkopf decided not to occupy Iraq in 1991 at the end of the first Gulf War, they understood that imposing an American style democracy wasn't going to work.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, keying off the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, sharply criticized the Bush administration's Pakistan policy and called for an immediate cutoff of all military aid to that country that does not go directly to the fight against terrorism.

Labels: Bush, Pakistan, US

Pakistan: Bhutto assassination - blow to Pakistan and democracy but opportunity for EU to establish new regional strategy

Pakistani opposition leader and former premier Benazir Bhutto, who was challenging the dictator Pervez Musharraf, was assassinated at a party rally late Thursday, plunging Pakistan into a deep crisis, less than two weeks before elections. She was shot in the neck before a suicide bomber blew himself up at a park in the northern city of Rawalpindi, killing around 30 people. It happened minutes after Bhutto had addressed supporters. This was the second assassination attempt against Mrs. Bhutto, since her homecoming in October, when her convoy was hit in the deadliest such attacks in Pakistani history, leaving 139 dead. Mrs. Bhutto only survived then after ducking down at the moment of impact behind her armored vehicle. Bhutto, 54, became the first ever female prime minister of a Muslim nation, when she took the helm in 1988 for the first of her two premierships. Her father, also a prime minister, was hanged by the military in 1979, after being ousted from power. Following the assassination, Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister of Pakistan, said he held President and Military Dictator Pervez Musharraf "responsible" for the assassination and said inquiries should only be conducted after Musharraf steps down. Sharif told Bhutto supporters outside the General Hospital in Rawalpindi, where Benazdir Bhuto lay mortally wounded, that he would join hands with Buttho's PPP and fight their "war".

Benazir Bhutto, with some mysterious foresight, said on Tuesday that dictatorships in Pakistan had always nurtured extremism. The former premier also said she hoped that “total powers would be transferred from the present dictatorship to democratic institutions”.

Political and democracy-wise, everything looks gloomy and hopeless for Pakistan at this tragic moment. After Mrs. Benazir Bhutto was forcefully eliminated from the election process, and with the independent judicial system in Pakistan put out of commission by Musharraf himself, the election, if held, would be a total farce. Musharraf, at least for the moment, seems to hold all the cards in his hands. He and his allies inside and outside Pakistan can blame Al Quada and Taliban terrorists for the assassination, while he declares Marshall law to stay in power. Fortunately, there are also forces who can topple the Musharraf regime, forcing the military back to the barracks and restore democracy. The EU has a unique opportunity in this respect to take the lead in the international community to make this happen. For one, the EU can break off diplomatic and economic trade relations with Pakistan until the military returns to the barracks and gives its powers to a government of reconciliation, preparing for democratic elections based on the principles of Pakistan's great leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The success of the EU in this effort to restore democracy to Pakistan could also help establish a new European political strategy for the region. A strategy based on dialog and inclusion, as opposed to the present policy of confrontation and war, which is a total failure.

Labels: Afghanistan, Benazir Bhutto, EU, Pakistan

Netherlands Freezes Aid to Pakistan

Development Cooperation Minister Bert Koenders is suspending his aid to Pakistan. His step is prompted by President Musharraf's decision to call a state of emergency and suspend the constitution. The Netherlands has spent 15 million euros this year on Pakistan, and has budgeted 40 million for 2008. The bulk of that money, about 30 million, is available for educational program's. The rest was available for the environment and water management, human rights and democratisation. Koenders will now review this sum of 40 million euros afresh - but is continuing support for non-government organisations.

"It is a dramatic seizure of power," declared Koenders yesterday on Radio 1. He said it was horrifying that the Pakistani opposition, the judiciary, human rights organisations and journalists have been arrested.

Note EU-Digest: When will the US follow the lead of the Netherlands and suspend all financial aid to Pakistan? The United States has provided Pakistan with $10.59 billion in military, economic and development aid since Sept. 11, 2001. A breakdown of the assistance: The majority, about 60 percent, has gone toward "Coalition Support Funds," intended to reimburse the Pakistani military for their assistance in combating terrorism. The U.S. government considers it repayment rather than aid. About 15 percent, nearly $1.6 billion, is for security assistance. The Pakistanis have spent the majority of this money on purchases of major weapons systems. Another 15 percent is for general budget support for the Pakistani government. Only 10 percent was allocated for development or humanitarian assistance, including the U.S. response to the October 2005 earthquake.

Labels: EU, Netherlands, Pakistan

Rail link with Europe through Iran on cards: Sheikh Rashid Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmed here Saturday said that the government was considering to link Pakistan with Europe through Iran by rail.

Talking to newsmen after addressing a gathering of station masters and labourers of Pakistan Railway, the Minister said he would visit Iran next month to sort out the issue.

He said at the moment some 300 trains are operating while out of these only three or four are running into loss. These will be halted, he added.

Labels: EU, Iran, Pakistan, Railroad