US takes up Pak aid review
Foreign Desk Report

Washington—Terming the emergency imposed by President Pervez Musharraf as counter productive to democracy and the development of Pakistan, the US state department has said the formal process of reviewing all forms of assistance to that country has begun.
“In this building, there have already been discussions about this (review of aid). I suspect within the next couple of days, there’ll be a broader discussion among various players like the Pentagon and other parts of the US government,” deputy state department spokesman Tom Casey said.
“As the secretary stressed, (US) want to see Musharraf honour his commitment to remove the uniform before taking the oath of office again. Pakistan should move forward with his pledge to hold elections in a free, fair and transparent basis as scheduled before January 15th,” he added.
“You would also really need to see the removal of these kinds of emergency measures there. The court should continue to play its role in the political process and the crackdown on independent media and on the political opposition should end,” the senior state department official said.
“It’s counterproductive to democracy and democracy’s development in Pakistan. We have long supported the efforts which President Musharraf had undertaken to expand democratic rights and opportunities in Pakistan but now he has taken us a large step backward from that through this emergency decree,” the state department official maintained.
On elections the state department has once again stressed that while it would obviously be a positive step to have those elections go forward, but only if they take place under the proper conditions.
“The idea is not just to hold elections, but to hold elections that really allow for the Pakistani people to freely choose the leadership of the country. And when elections happen in a situation where there are serious restrictions on freedom of expression and on ability of others to campaign, that’s not exactly the kind of election that we were hoping to see,” Casey said.
Acknowledging that it was aware that the President Pervez Musharraf was contemplating an emergency measure and had tried to dissuade him, the US has said it would watch the General`s actions in coming days to decide the course of action, including on the fate of aid and assistance to Islamabad.
“... What was told to us that there were the concerns of the Pakistani government and we were advised that they were contemplating some kind of emergency measure early last week,” a senior White House official said.
“... And we argue. That they should not take this step, particularly not before any Supreme Court opinion but also after. Because we felt that Pakistan was moving towards a more democratic future, and we were concerned that this would be a step off that path,” he said in a background briefing.
On suspending US aid, he said: “we are looking at all of those to see if there are automatic triggers... That have been triggered by the actions taken that would require some kind of cut-off in assistance, because obviously we want to comply with the law.
“... There are questions about the future of our aid and assistance. But what we`re looking for now in the next several days, some time in the course of this week, we would hope there`s some clarification on the intentions of the government.