Times of India : Sharif asks US to end fixation with Musharraf

Sharif asks US to end fixation with Musharraf

November 17, 2007

WASHINGTON: Describing President Pervez Musharraf as "Pakistan's one man calamity", former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has urged the United States to look beyond the General and focus on his country which was "in flames".

"My country is in flames. There is no Constitution. Judges have been sacked on a whim and arrested, political leaders locked up, television stations taken off the air.... Extremism has assumed enormous and grave proportions," Sharif said in an Opinion Piece in The Washington Post.

"All of this is the doing of one man: Pervez Musharraf," the Pakistan Muslim League (N) chief, who was ousted by the military ruler in a bloodless coup in 1999, said.

Claiming that dictatorship was fuelling extremism in Pakistan, Sharif, who was unceremoniously deported by the General to Saudi Arabia in September after he tried to return to Pakistan from a seven-year exile, reminded Americans that President Bill Clinton had refused to shake hands with Musharraf or be photographed with him during a Presidential visit in 2000.

"People took that as a gesture from a friend who wished Pakistan well. By refusing to associate with a dictator, President Clinton essentially won the hearts of the Pakistani people.

"That was the policy that should have been pursued. That is the policy that should be pursued now. America should not alienate 160 million Pakistanis by supporting a dictator who prefers rifles to reason," Sharif said.

Sharif urged the US and other Western countries to ignore, what he called, the "lies" being spread by Musharraf that his exit will lead to anarchy and the extremists will take over Pakistan.