Musharraf must quit, says Intl thinktank

Font Size -

Agencies

Posted online: Thursday , January 03, 2008 at 12:00:00
Updated: Thursday , January 03, 2008 at 09:58:06

Washington, January 3: A nuclear-armed Pakistan will end up in a civil war from which extremists would stand to gain if President Musharraf continues in the post which will further worsen the prevailing situation, a noted thinktank has said.

The country is already facing a law and order problem in the wake of former premier Benazir Bhutto's assassination and the only way to arrest the slide is the coming of power by a democratically elected civilian government, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said.

"Unless he (Musharraf) steps down, tensions will worsen and the international community may face the nightmare of a nuclear-armed, Muslim country descending into civil war from which extremists would stand to gain. Particularly the US must recognise he is a serious liability, seen as complicit in the death of the popular politician," the ICG has said.

In its latest briefing titled "After Bhutto's Murder: A way Forward for Pakistan", the ICG has concluded that Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, is no longer, if he ever was, a factor for stability.

"Bhutto's death has drawn the battle lines even more clearly between Musharraf's military-backed regime and Pakistan's moderate majority, which will settle for nothing less than genuine parliamentary democracy," Mark Schneider, Crisis Group's Senior Vice-President said.

The ICG has agreed with the Election Commission decision to postpone the parliamentary election scheduled for 8 January to 18 February "but only if additional steps are taken so that the delay contributes to the creation of conditions for free and fair elections and the restoration of democracy".

"It is time to recognise that democracy, and not an artificially propped-up, defrocked, widely despised general, has the best chance to provide stability and turn back extremists' gains," Robert Templer, Crisis Group's Asia Programme Director said.

Bookmark this Page

What is this?

Digg

On Digg, users share intersting online content by submitting links to the site. At that point, the Digg audience can vote on whether or not they think it is interesting. Articles with lots of votes, or "diggs," rise up higher on the site's main page and topical subsection pages. Another form of social sharing, this site also lets users categorize the content they are submitting to Digg and label it with descriptions of up to 350 characters. Digg users can also submit comments on each content item submitted to the site.

To register, go to: http://digg.com/register

del.icio.us

At its most basic level, del.icio.us allows users to save their bookmarks online. Del.icio.us also gives users the ability to "tag" their bookmarks with descriptive category names. For example, someone who has bookmarked multiple Web pages that deal with the Washington Nationals baseball team could tag those links with any terms they want, like "baseball," "nationals," "natsfan," etc.

As members of a "social bookmarking" community, del.icio.us sers can also see how many other people have bookmarked the same pages, and they can look at those users' bookmark collections to find other interesting online content.

To register, go to: http://del.icio.us/register

Reddit

Reddit allows users to submit news articles and other online content to the site. Users also give articles a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Reddit then uses those votes to build a user profile and to find articles to recommend to you. Users can also submit comments on items posted to the site.

To register, go to: http://reddit.com/login

Digg

My Yahoo

Fark

del.icio.us

Newsvine

Rate this Article

Rating

Post Comments

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*
Message*	Characters remaining

TERMS OF USE: The views represented here are not neccesarily endorsed by www.expressindia.com and its allied websites. All messages will be moderated and no message that has inflammatory, abusive, derogatory language or any language deemed unfit for publication by the editor will be displayed. Though it will be endeavoured that as many messages as possible be displayed, there will be time lag between the submission and publication of the messages. The website reserves the right to publish or reject any message.

I agree to the terms of use.