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Pakistan Parties Rally Behind Musharraf
ISLAMABAD, Sept 20 (News Agencies) - Pakistan's two biggest political parties Thursday backed President Pervez Musharraf's call for national unity in the crisis over threatened U.S. military action against neighboring Afghanistan.
Despite concerns that a conflict could consolidate the military's grip on power, both the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) indicated they would not support protests by religious parties, which continued around the country on Thursday.
"We will support him in the greater national interest," Mian Mohammad Azhar, the leader of one the PML's two factions, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Musharraf, who has offered the country's airspace and logistical support for any U.S. operation, said in a national television broadcast on Wednesday night that he had been forced to choose between saving Pakistan or saving the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan.
Musharraf urged the country to put the national interest first and resist religious parties' calls for Pakistanis to side with their fellow Muslims in Afghanistan.
"I'm the chief of the Pakistan army and my first priority is the defense of Pakistan. The rest follows after," Musharraf said.
"Some elements want to take advantage of this [crisis] to pursue personal or party agendas. They want to create anarchy and damage the country."
PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar acknowledged Pakistan had little option but to go along with the international community or face diplomatic isolation and a worsening of a severe economic crisis.
"We have to support the international fight against terrorism for the maintenance of law and order," Babar told AFP.
Raja Zafarul Haq, the chairman of the PML, said U.S. attacks would carry enormous risks for the security of Pakistan, but also recognized that Musharraf had little choice but to side with Washington.
"It [a military attack] will have long-term implications and Pakistan may end up facing a situation on two fronts. The eastern border [with India] is already unsafe and now the western border [with Afghanistan] will be a problem.
"But obviously Musharraf took this decision under duress."
The PML is the party of Nawaz Sharif, the elected prime minister ousted in a coup by Musharraf in October 1999. Sharif was convicted of corruption and hijacking last year and now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia after being pardoned by Musharraf from a death sentence.
The PPP is led by another exile, Benazir Bhutto. She is the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the prime minister ousted by Pakistan's previous military dictator, General Zia ul-Haq, in 1977 and hanged two years later.
Democratic parties in Pakistan are acutely aware that Zia used the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan as a pretext for extending his rule indefinitely - he was still in power when he died in a 1988 plane crash - and are fearful that history might repeat itself.
Musharraf last month announced a "road map" for the restoration of democracy that committed his administration to holding nationwide elections in October 2002. That, however, has been thrown into doubt by what may prove to be a prolonged crisis.
"We are apprehensive that the military ruler might use the present crises to curb some more civil liberties and even delay the process of democratization," the PPP's Farhatullah Babar told AFP.
Musharraf's decision to back the United States and abandon the Taliban, Pakistan's former allies, could reduce international pressure for democratization, he said.
"Zia also used the Afghan card to prolong his rule," Babar said. "The Americans will not be pushing for democracy as long as their international agenda is fulfilled by Musharraf."
A coalition of religious parties is calling for a nationwide campaign in support of Afghanistan, starting after prayers on Friday, the Muslim holy day.
In the northwestern city of Peshawar Thursday, 3,000 religious students marched through the streets chanting, "Bush is a dog" and burning an effigy of U.S. President George W. Bush.
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