Pakistan crackdown widens as Musharraf insists emergency rule needed to fight terrorism

If you're a Pakistani writer at this point you'll pause now to condemn western meddling, the state department puppeteering that has brought things to this pitch. Fair enough: but not quite enough. Of course, the cold war and Afghanistan inflicted terrible damage. Of course, crass outside manipulation has become a way of life. But don't blame the west entirely for Pakistan's failure, almost from day one, to establish a democratic tradition; for its personal feuds, fulminations, corruptions and crippling birth rate

The Daily Telegraph of Britain argues that Musharraf should no longer receive Western backing and that past US and British support for his regime, usually explained away as necessary in the fight against Al Qaeda and aligned groups, has in fact strengthened extremists.

Our support for Gen Musharraf may turn out to have been self-defeating. By lining up with a dictator, we give his opponents every reason to resent us, and vindicate the constant anti-Western plaint of "double standards". And for what?

Gen Musharraf is as threatened by the terrorists as we are, but he has been a far from perfect ally: our forces in Afghanistan constantly complain about the ease with which the Taliban can operate from the Pakistani side of the frontier.

If … we continue to support Musharraf on the basis that he is the only alternative to the fundamentalists, we will eventually make that ludicrous contention come true. Once again, our Foreign Office, like the US State Department, is over-emphasising its investment in a regime that just happens to be there.

In a commentary piece for CNN.com, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who recently returned to the country after a power-sharing deal with the president, reiterates her suspicions that elements in the administration are targeting her. A bomb attack at her homecoming rally Oct. 19 left over 130 people dead and 250 wounded. She stopped short of accusing Musharraf but called on him to restore democratic rule.

The sham investigation of the October 19 massacre and the attempt by the ruling party to politically capitalize on this catastrophe are discomforting, but do not suggest any direct involvement by General Pervez Musharraf.

Until recently, he had made both public and private commitments to confidence building gestures that would move Pakistan forward in the transition to democracy. But at a time when he should be demonstrating to our country and the world his seriousness in allowing free, fair and transparent elections, he has declared martial law. This can only be seen as a step to entrench his dictatorship.

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