Shahbaz wants to inject new life into party

The exiled former chief minister of Pakistan's Punjab province and brother of deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif says he is determined to run the gauntlet of military disapproval by returning home.

"I am a proud Pakistani and Pakistan is my birth place and it's my birthright to return to my country", says Shabaz Sharif in an exclusive interview from his Park Lane apartment in London."

"Unfortunately, for one reason or another, the government of Pakistan has denied my return; it's totally unconstitutional and illegal. But now I am thinking of breaking the barrier to return."

Sharif was a popular chief minister of Punjab, credited with carrying out major improvments to the infrastructure of his home city of Lahore, when his brother's Muslim League government was toppled by army chief General Pervez Musharraf in October 1999. Both brothers were subsequently held in a series of high security jails for the next 14 months until they and their families, including their elderly parents, were packed off into exile to Saudi Arabia.

Sharif's London-based supporters say the reason for his planned return to Lahore is to test the depth of support for Musharraf who has been accused by his domestic critics of kowtowing to the Americans by secretly accepting curbs on the country's nuclear programme, cracking down on the Taliban along the border in Afghanistan and seeking a compromise with India on the disputed territory of Kashmir.

For his part Sharif says his only intention is to inject new life into his party – of which he is currently president – and lower the levels of tension and confrontation currently prevailing throughout Pakistan. Over a cup of tea in his third floor apartment, he said, "I am looking forward to going back and joining hands with my partymen, to strenghten our party, put it back on the rails and try to muster our strength and not create a confrontational atmosphere in Pakistan which can further take democracy away from the scene. That is not my intention.

"The whole idea is to create an atmosphere where we could forgive and forget, where we could bury the hatchet, bury the past and not remain wedded to the past, but move forward with unity of thought and action."

The past includes 14 months spent in jail and memories of seeing his brother, the former prime minister, shackled by his feet to the seat of the aircraft that flew him from Rawalpindi to Karachi en route to Saudi Arabia. The family's property in Lahore was subsequently confiscated and turned into an old peoples' home. Sharif says he does not bear grudges and he is willing to let the past remain the past.

"I don't believe in the policy of settling scores or vendetta, its not in my dictionary," he explains. "If we do that we will be once again cheating the hopes of millions of Pakistanis and that must not happen."

However he refuses to say whether this policy of forgive and forget will allow Musharraf to remain as head of state in a future political dispensation. "Its a premature question as far as I am concerned and I need to consult my party," Sharif explains.

"My party is authorised to comment on this issue. Sitting here in London I am not authorised to throw light on this issue, but certainly politics is the art of the possible to look at all these issues and carve a way out for the sake of Pakistan."

He is much more forthcoming on the other ex-Pakistani prime minister in exile and his brother's once deadly rival, Pakistan Peoples Party chief Benazir Bhutto. The two rivals have patched up their differences, Sharid confirms, and each has agreed to respect the popular mandate in any future election.

"If there were free and fair elections and we won, I expect Benazir Bhutto to respect the mandate of the people and not throw accusations as we have done against each other in the past and settle our score on the floor of the house," he says.

"In case she gets the majority, we will be fully respecting the mandate given to her and her party and allow her to have freedom of action with the support of her mandate and party in parliament. That's the commitment and I can put my hand on my chest to say we will keep to this commitment." Unlike his brother who was barred from public office and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment on charges of corruption and hijacking by trying to prevent Musharraf's aircraft from landing in Karachi on the eve of the 1999 coup, Sharif says there are no outstanding legal cases against him. Last month after he announced his intention of returning home, the Pakistani authorities registered a murder case against him.

Sharif says this is just another example of the government's atempt to stop him from returning. "Much as I would like to be allowed to walk the streets of my home town, Lahore, I am prepared for any eventuality. If they arrest me, I will resist, if they try and deport me, I will resist. I will try and explain that its unconstitutional, illegal, uncalled for, that they should not do this to me, they should not leave a legacy, don't further embarrass Pakistan's name in the comity of nations, I will try and explain this to them."