Asia-Pacific, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, North America

POLITICS-PAKISTAN: International Condemnation of Army Coup

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 13 1999 (IPS) - World leaders responded Wednesday to the coup against Pakistani Prime Minister Mohammed Nawaz Sharif’s government by criticising the nation’s armed forces and calling for a return to civilian rule.

A statement from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the Pakistani military leadership to restore both civilian rule and “the constitutional process” seized by the army 24 hours previously.

“Although the intentions of those who perpetrated it are still unclear, the Secretary-General does not believe that coups are the way to solve a country’s problems,” said UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva.

Away from UN headquaters, the coup, led Gen. Parvez Musharraf after his dismissal as army chief, also sparked widespread criticism.

The Finnish president of the European Union (EU) said in a statement that the EU could “in no circumstances approve extra- constitutional and non-democratic means in any country” and therefore urged the Pakistani military to “respect democracy and the parliamentary process.”

Chief Emeka Anyaoku, secretary-general of the Commonwealth – which currently includes Pakistan as a member state – said that the takeover would isolate Pakistan because it “flies in the face” of democratic norms.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright echoed that argument, saying that there could be no “business as usual” between the US and Pakistani governments until civilian rule is restored.

Yet many governments muted their objections, often avoiding any mention of the fate of Sharif’s elected government to focus on hopes for some new form of civilian rule.

According to diplomatic sources here, Musharraf and other top military leaders have already begun talks on forming a possible “caretaker cabinet” of civilian politicians that could rule Pakistan until fresh elections.

The discussions involved President Rafiq Tarar who, like Musharraf, was appointed to his post last year by Sharif, and top politicians from Sharif’s ruling political party, the Muslim League, the sources said.

Sharif remained under detention Wednesday at his residence in Islamabad, and several other top officials – including Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz and Information Minister Mushahid Hussein – also were under arrest, said reports from the Pakistani capital.

Some diplomats speculated that Sharif’s ouster by Musharraf would largely follow the same pattern as several previous dismissals of prime ministers in recent years.

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, now opposition leader, and Nawaz Sharif had both been dismissed previously under the now- defunct Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed Pakistani presidents to dissolve corrupt or mismanaged governments.

The Muslim League-dominated parliament scrapped that provision last year but the military still intended to do the same thing that happened during previous dismissals – to place a caretaker cabinet in charge for several months and hold fresh elections, sources said.

Sharif, whose popularity slid sharply this year following Pakistan’s economic woes and his agreement in July with US President Bill Clinton to put an end to a separatist insurgency in the Kargil peaks of the disputed region of Kashmir, would not be expected to fare well in a new round of elections.

Ironically, Sharif owed his nearly three-year stint as prime minister to the dismissal of his rival, Bhutto, who was dismissed by President Farooq Leghari in 1997 in what was widely seen as a military-backed effort.

Both Sharif and Bhutto have now been dismissed twice, and neither has served a full term since democratic elections resumed in 1988 at the end of the 11-year dictatorship of Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq.

In recent years, the military stayed clear of direct involvement in political matters, particularly out of wariness that it would be internationally isolated if it planned any future takeovers.

According to several sources in the Pakistani government, however, that wariness subsided over the past year as the army grew to doubt its previously close relationship with the US government.

Those doubts – and coup rumours – first arose after the May 1998 nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan, after which both countries were hit with US sanctions. They were strengthened after Sharif’s Jul. 4 agreement with Clinton to withdraw the insurgent troops which had seized the peaks of Kargil on India’s side of the Line of Control, the de facto border in Kashmir.

Recent developments have done little to assure the Pakistani military that its close relationship with the United States – which lasted throughout Zia’s 11-year regime and the 1979-90 Soviet incursion in Afghanistan – has endured.

This week, the US and Russian governments were prepared to push a resolution in the UN Security Council that would cut air links to Afghanistan and freeze the overseas assets of the country’s ruling Taliban.

Although the sanctions were deemed likely to pass – a move which would isolate the Taliban, which was organised at least in part by Pakistan’s military – no vote had been scheduled by Wednesday. Some diplomats here said they were concerned about the coup when considering the timing of a sanctions vote.

Similarly, one European diplomat said on condition of anonymity, worries had grown since the coup that efforts to prod Pakistan and India to sign the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) would be hurt.

Clinton, the diplomat said, had planned to visit both countries this winter and to urge the two nations to sign and ratify the CTBT.

But the coup and the failure by the US Senate to ratify the CTBT have damaged any chances that the proposed trip could succeed, he added.

 
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