LARKANA, Aug 28: The Sindh National Front (SNF) Chairman Mumtaz Ali Bhutto on Monday hit out at some leaders’ statements that they would welcome Ms Benazir Bhutto into the All-Parties Democratic Movement if her deal with the government failed to materialise. In a letter written to Mian Nawaz Sharif and released to the press, Mumtaz Bhutto said that Ms Bhutto had let down the people of Pakistan, her own party, the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and the APDM and violated the Charter of Democracy signed with Nawaz Sharif by seeking a deal with Gen Musharraf.

Nevertheless, some APDM leaders were saying that if her deal did not materialise she would be welcomed into the movement. Would her entry not create mistrust about and within the APDM and obstruct the entry of those who, as a matter of principle, did not want to have any political link with her, he asked.

He appreciated Mian Sharif’s uncompromising stand against military dictatorship and termed the formation of movement a positive step in right direction though it failed to answer certain questions.

The charter of APDM was more or less the same as the one signed between Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto, which boiled down to the demand for the restoration of pre-Gen Musharraf takeover status quo, he observed.

Was there any guarantee that the same cycle of civilian governments for a year and a half each and then prolonged military rule would not be repeated all over again, he asked.

He said that people had been demanding the implementation of ‘autonomy and sovereignty’ but the APDM’s charter failed to address this reality. Mr Bhutto had also dispatched the copies of this letter to convener of APDM Raja Zafarul Haq, Maulana Fazul Rehman, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Asfand Yar Wali Khan, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, Imran Khan, Dr Qadir Magsi, Rasool Bakhsh Palijo and Dr Abdul Hai Baloch.