Commonwealth suspends Pakistan over emergency rule

KAMPALA - The 53-nation Commonwealth suspended Pakistan's membership on Thursday, after President Pervez Musharraf failed to meet a deadline to lift emergency rule and resign as army chief.

The Commonwealth had given Musharraf until Thursday to lift the state of emergency he imposed on November 3.

Musharraf has begun rolling back some elements of emergency rule and Pakistani officials say he will be sworn in as a civilian leader within days. This week he freed thousands of detainees held since November 3. He has also promised a parliamentary election on January 8.

But the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), charged with reviewing Pakistan's membership, said: "The situation in Pakistan continues to represent a serious violation of the Commonwealth's fundamental political values."

CMAG had therefore "suspended Pakistan forthwith from the Commonwealth pending the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in that country," the organization's Secretary-General Don McKinnon, told a news conference, reading from a statement.

The statement expressed disappointment that while there had been some progress, many of the Commonwealth's demands, laid down on at a meeting on November 12, had "remained substantially unfulfilled -- the State of Emergency had not been lifted, the Constitution and independence of the judiciary had not been restored, and fundamental rights and rule of law remain curtailed."

It said that while thousands of detainees had been released, journalists, lawyers and human rights activists remained in detention.

Earlier this week Pakistan asked the Commonwealth to delay its decision and send a delegation to the country.

The nine-member CMAG was established in 1995 to deal with violations of Commonwealth rules on democracy.

The meeting ran five hours over schedule, apparently indicating difficulty in reaching a decision. Commonwealth sources said Sri Lanka had argued strongly in favor of Pakistan while Tanzania and Canada had been adamant it must be suspended.

But British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: "Every country was fully in favor of the decision, but it was a decision taken in sorrow not in anger ... the chance is for Pakistan now to make the changes that are in their interest."

The other members of CMAG are Papua New Guinea, Malta, Lesotho, Malaysia and St Lucia but the latter was absent.

It was the second time Pakistan had been suspended from the Commonwealth. It was previously barred in 1999 when Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup. Islamabad was re-admitted in 2004 after the Commonwealth recognized that democratic progress had been made.