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The ARD spokesman said on Friday that US Ambassador to Pakistan Ryan C. Crocker's statement that 'there was no dictatorship in Pakistan and President Musharraf was moving towards democracy' was full of contradictions. ARD's central deputy secretary information Munir Ahmed Khan, while addressing a press conference, said it seems that the US Ambassador has a different definition for the word dictatorship, as according to him a president in uniform was not a dictator.
"One should ask him, would the Americans accept a president in uniform, live without free and fair elections and accept the exile of popular leaders? If these were norms of the democracy in their views then we categorically reject it," he added.
He advised the US Ambassador to gauge Pakistan against a yardstick based on the US existing democratic norms.
He disclosed that the US Ambassador had contradicted the US State Department Report that urged upon Pakistan military to refrain from interfering in domestic politics.
According to him, General Musharraf was an elected president, rather capturing the highest seat with the help of rigged referendum. "He (Musharraf) was an unconstitutional head of state who only came through the consent of the judiciary or the US against the wishes of the masses. This makes him a dictator," the ARD spokesman said.
Munir was of the view that the US has supported the wrong side, which the history would testify in time to come.
He advised the US not side with a dictator, but rather with the people of Pakistan who long to escape from the army rule, and wants true democracy, independent judiciary, return of Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, and free and fair elections.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2005

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