November 4, 2007

TORONTO - The Muslim Canadian Congress has welcomed Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier's rebuke of General Musharraf's Martial Law in Pakistan, but has urged Prime Minister Harper to go a step further. It has asked Ottawa to cease all links and cooperation with Pakistan’s Army generals until they return to the barracks.

In a letter to Prime Minister Harper, Tarek Fatah, the founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress wrote, “Ottawa should use all possible levers available to send a clear message to the generals in Islamabad that Canada will not cooperate with a rogue regime that tramples over the judiciary and rules the population at gun point.” As a first step, Fatah asked Prime Minister Harper to “impose a ban on Pakistan Army Officers and their families from entering Canada.”

Fatah said, "The Pakistan military is an institution of corruption that has held the entire country hostage for most of its life. It is time for countries like Canada to send a clear message to the junta in Islamabad: We will not deal with thugs." The letter urged Prime Minister Harper to summon the Pakistan High Commissioner in Ottawa and convey to him the dismay of Canadians who are appalled at the imposition of Martial Law in Pakistan. “We urge you to inform the Pakistan government that normal diplomatic relations cannot continue unless the constitution of the Pakistan is restored, all arrested political prisoners are released, and censorship on the media is lifted,” the letter added.

In a separate statement, the Muslim Canadian Congress said, “For too long Pakistan’s military dictator General Musharraf has been hiding behind the so-called war on terrorism to consolidate his power and enrich the junta while sacrificing the lives of ordinary poorly paid soldiers as gun fodder to please the Bush Administration.” Fatah said for 60 years the US has backed successive military dictators in Pakistan to serve Washington's strategic geo-political interests. "It is time for the democratic aspirations of the people of Pakistan to bear fruit,” the statement added.

The MCC urged the United States, the EU and Canada to put Pakistani Army officers and their families on their No-Fly lists and bar them from entering their jurisdictions. Only when the world treats these Pakistani military officers as international pariahs will they realize that their gig is up. It is the Pakistan military ISI that created the Taliban and cultivated international jihadism. To expect General Musharraf to fight and defeat the jihadis is at best naive.

It is time for the US to withdraw its support for General Musharraf and allow Pakistanis to elect their own government without any interference from Washington. "The MCC recognizes the threat posed by Islamists and their jihadi agenda, but the solution does not lie in the blundering policy of George Bush, which has placed military dictators and medieval monarchs at the helm of affairs, instead of the people of these countries. The best way to fight extremism is to foster democracy and not impose it through military intervention, both foreign and domestic," the statement concluded.

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For more information, please call Tarek Fatah at 416-953-1798