Spare Sharif, Clinton to tell Pak

Spare Sharif, Clinton to tell Pak
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

Washington, March 17: President Bill Clinton during his brief stopover in Pakistan, will ask the military regime there not to execute deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif if he is found guilty of the crimes charged against him, Assistant Secretary of State Karl F Inderfurth has said.

``The President will raise the case of Sharif and will urge that, should he be convicted, he not be executed," he told reporters here last night.

Sharif, his brother and five other officials have been charged with hijacking, abduction, attempted murder and terrorism in a case based on the night of the country's military coup in October.

Inderfurth said Washington has made it very clear in its exchanges with the "new government in Pakistan" US concerns about Sharif and others who are detained.

Stating that through US ambassador in Pakistan, the Clinton adminsitration has urged that Sharif have due process and the trial be fair and transparent, he said, "We watch them closely. We have our own personnel there following the trial in Karachi."

Inderfurth said Pakistan's chief executive Gen Pervez Musharraf has publicly expressed that that he is not a vindictive man but he has also said that he will not interfere in the legal process, which will run its course.

"We understand that. We are concerned that we do not see a repeat of the past, which will serve no purpose. So we do hope there will be humane treatment if a sentence is found of guilt in those charges. I am sure the President will raise this," he said.

Inderfurth said the US assessment is that those who watch the trial think it has run basically with due process. "However, obviously there have been some very troubling developments, including the tragic murder of the lead lawyer in the Sharif team. So we are watching it closely."

National Security Adviser Samuel Burger said there are also other issues that the President would wish to raise, inclduing the case of US citizen Donald Hutchings (kidnapped and perhaps killed by Pakistan-based militants in Kashmir).

Burger said the administration performed diplomatic gynmastics over Clinton's Pakistan visit, adding "Technically, he is visiting the President of Pakistan, a holdover from the previous administration, and only after meeting the president will he (Clinton) have talks with Musharraf.

Meanwhile, President Clinton has said he is going to India and Pakistan on a peace mission.

"We are working on the peace processes, from Northern Ireland to the Middle East, and I am going to the Indian subcontinent at the end of this week," he said at a Democratic Party national committee dinner in Baltimore without elaborating.

At a joint briefing at White House yesterday, Berger and Inderfurth said Clinton is not visiting South Asia to mediate the dispute between India and Pakistan, but he will urge them to exercise restraint and resume dialogue.

"What the President will do, I believe, is to, number one, urge each party to exercise restraint, urge that steps be taken -- for example, in Pakistan, a number of steps that have happened since Lahore, that have contributed to tension in Kargil and elsewhere -- that create a better environment and can then enable the dialogue between India and Pakistan to continue," Berger said, adding "ultimately, that has to be the mechanism by which the issue is dealt with.

He said Clinton has not offered mediation because "you can only mediate a dispute if both parties want".

"The Indians have made very clear that that is not the way they prefer to see this issue dealt with. And we are certainly not going to interpose ourselves in a situation where one of the parties does not believe that is the right course of action," he said.

Pak fundraisers

Despite denials by the White House, suspicions persist that the US President's decision to visit Pakistan was influenced by Pakistani American donations to first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senatorial campaign, media reports here said.

Pakistani Americans raised $24,000 in Washington and $50,000 in New York for the First Lady's Senatorial campaign. At the New York fund-raiser, Hillary said she "deeply hopes" Clinton would visit Pakistan.

"Both fund-raisers were legal and there is no evidence to suggest that Hillary influenced her husband's last-minute decision to stop in Pakistan. But the fund-raisers have raised political questions of whether campaign donations to the First Lady are a factor to influencing Clinton administration policies," said The Washington Times