Commonwealth May Lift Pakistan Suspension

The Las Vegas Sun ^ | March 19, 2004 at 2:45:45 PST | JASBANT SINGH

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - The Commonwealth is likely to lift the four-year suspension of Pakistan in April following a push by President Pervez Musharraf to return the country to democratic rule, the organization's secretary-general said Friday.

Don McKinnon said that the 52-member Commonwealth of Britain and its former colonies was not influenced by the strong backing that Musharraf enjoys from the United States, which conferred the status of "major non-NATO ally" on Pakistan on Thursday amid a major offensive against suspected al-Qaida guerrillas.

"We are not in the business of just following someone else," McKinnon told The Associated Press in an interview. "Our judgment is made on the basis of the country's democratic credentials and value of its democratic institutions."

A nine-country meeting of the Commonwealth will be held in London at the end of April to decide on lifting Pakistan's suspension. The meeting will include foreign ministers from Pakistan's nuclear rival India, as well as Sri Lanka, Canada, Nigeria, the Bahamas, Malta, Lesotho, Samoa and Tanzania.

The Commonwealth suspended Pakistan after Musharraf, then Pakistan's army chief, toppled elected President Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless coup in 1999. The suspension was renewed at the Commonwealth summit in Abuja, Nigeria, in December 2003.

Musharraf moved from semi-pariah to prized ally of the United States - a non-Commonwealth country - after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and helping U.S.-led forces topple the Taliban regime and its al-Qaida allies in neighboring Afghanistan.

In October 2002, Musharraf allowed parliamentary elections that saw a rise in strength by Islamic fundamentalists opposed to the U.S. alliance.

But Musharraf maintained the close ties to Washington, even as he compromised with the fundamentalists in January to allow him to form a government by promising to quit his post as army chief next year while still serving out his five-year term as president until 2007.

"Pakistan has done more things which very much point themselves into the direction of seeing their membership lifted," McKinnon said, calling the 2002 elections "reasonably fair. Since then, a government has been put together."

Landmark talks to start a comprehensive dialogue to end five decades of hostility and a cricket tour between the nations have helped bring about "a level of normalcy which we have not seen for some time," between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

India accuses Pakistan of helping Islamic guerrilla groups, which have been fighting since 1989 to merge India's portion of Muslim-majority Kashmir with mainly Muslim Pakistan, or to make it independent from predominantly Hindu India. Pakistan denies the charge.

--

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Seems like the right thing to do.