Daily Times - Tough questions await Musharraf in Europe

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Tough questions await Musharraf in Europe

President Pervez Musharraf heads off on a four-country trip to Europe this weekend where he is expected to face tough questions over his rule while shoring up international support. Former foreign secretary Tanvir Ahmed Khan expected Musharraf to seek to impress on Europeans that Pakistan’s best hope of stability rested with him retaining power. “He’s trying to establish his credentials with key Western powers with the same old message: that he’s indispensable, they don’t have a better friend than him, without him the war on terror would unravel and Pakistan’s economic progress would collapse,” Khan said. Musharraf is due to hold talks with European Union and Belgian leaders in Brussels, meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris and then attend the World Economic Forum in Switzerland before heading to London for talks with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

TheStar.com/EU-Digest: Separating myth from the reality in Pakistan - Is this a Government Conspiracy? - by Haroon Siddiqui

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Separating myth from the reality in Pakistan - by Haroon Siddiqui

In 1999, George W. Bush was asked in an interview: "Can you name the general who's in charge of Pakistan?" The Republican presidential candidate demurred: "Wait, wait. Is this 50 questions?" Pressed for an answer, he couldn't come up with the name but offered this gem: "The Pakistani general, he's just been elected, not elected, this guy took over office. It appears this guy is going to bring stability to the country and I think that's good news for the subcontinent." Bush now knows Pervez Musharraf well. But his assessment of "this guy" as the font of "stability" and "good news" hasn't changed all that much. Bush, however, is not the only one living in the kingdom of clichés.

EU-Digest: The Pakistan interior ministry said Bhutto had no gunshot or shrapnel wounds. He said the opposition leader died after smashing her head on her car's sunroof as she tried to duck. He also blamed Al-Qaeda, saying intelligence services had intercepted a call from Baitullah Mehsud, considered the extremist group's top leader for Pakistan, congratulating a militant for Bhutto's death.

Senior members of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) dismissed the government's version of events as "lies". "There was a bullet wound I saw that went in from the back of her head and came out the other side," Bhutto's spokeswoman Sherry Rehman, who was involved in washing her body for burial, told AFP. "This is ridiculous, dangerous nonsense because it is a cover-up of what actually happened," said Rehman. Maulana Omar, a spokesman for alleged Al-Qaeda kingpin Mehsud, also denied involvement in the attack and expressed grief over Bhutto's death. "This is a conspiracy of the government, army and intelligence agencies," said the spokesman from Waziristan, a lawless tribal region where Al-Qaeda leaders, including possibly Osama bin Laden, are alleged to be hiding.

In the US leading democratic candidate Hillary Clinton called for an independent, international probe into Bhutto's murder, saying Musharraf's government has no credibility. "I think it's critically important that we get answers and really those are due first and foremost to the people of Pakistan," Clinton said. In Europe there also is a call to break off diplomatic and economic relations with the Musharraf government until they return to the barracks and handover the leadership to a caretaker government which can prepare fair and honest elections.