PPP denounces dictatorship

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's party has denounced President Gen. Pervez Musharraf for what it called establishing dictatorship in the country and said he was clutching to power on the back of Washington's support.

"People of Pakistan unequivocally reject dictatorship," Taj Haider, information secretary of the Pakistan People's Party said.

"He (President Musharraf) forgets that his source of remaining in power is the goodwill and support of those in Washington. They are the real policy makers of his government. He remains answerable to them and not to the People of Pakistan," he said in a strongly worded policy statement which accused the U.S. of backing a military ruler.

The statement came ahead of Musharraf's much publicised visit to Camp David where he will hold talks with the U.S. President George Bush in an attempt to win not just economic support but to ensure support for his government which is under fire from the Islamists for the government's support the United States in war against terrorism.

There are expectations that if Musharraf managed to get the desired results from his U.S. visit he would quickly move against the government of the North West Frontier Province and also against the opposition challenging his constitutional amendments which gives him sweeping powers over the parliament.

Haider, a left-wing leader of the PPP, said that the government was working more to satifisfy the international financial institutions rather than the people of Pakistan.

"The foreign policy and the defence have already been made subservient to the wishes of the Western powers," he said in his strongly worded attack, which resembled the tone of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

"In order to please the West he can accuse the religious parties of trying to Talibanise Pakistan and even ridicule Islamic tenants", Haider said echoing sentiment of the Islamist parties.