MONTREAL, Aug 24: Canada’s most influential newspaper has bitterly criticized President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s large-scale constitutional amendments and said Pakistan is rapidly sinking into tyranny.

“A nuclear-armed Commonwealth nation of 140 million people is rapidly sinking into tyranny, and what has (Prime Minister) Jean Chrétien’s government to say? Precious little. The silence that has greeted Gen Pervez Musharraf’s hijacking of democracy in Pakistan is a mute indictment of Western attitudes toward a major Muslim nation,” said The Toronto Star in its editorial comment on Friday.

‘Tyranny in Pakistan’ is the headline of the strongly-worded editorial which said: “Would it be too much to expect Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham to surface just long enough to denounce Musharraf’s military dictatorship? Musharraf may be a gutsy ally in the war on terror. He may be a bold reformer who has attacked corruption, anarchy and extremism. And he may be making an honest attempt to suppress cross-border Kashmiri terrorism.

“But he is a despot for all that. He seized power from an elected prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, in a 1999 coup. In April, he staged a travesty of a referendum in which he was the only candidate, awarding himself five more years in power. And though he promises parliamentary elections on Oct 10, he has in effect neutered them.”

On Wednesday, in a move he frankly acknowledged was opposed by most Pakistanis,he arbitrarily rewrote the constitution, changing 29 sections to give himself dictatorial powers.

Musharraf calls this “guided democracy.” And guided it certainly is, the newspaper wrote. “He (Gen Musharraf) will remain president and army chief. He’ll chair a new National Security Council to oversee parliament. Stuffed with military officers, it gives the army an unprecedented formal governing role.

‘‘He will have power to further amend the constitution on a whim, to dissolve parliament and to appoint supreme court justices and military commanders.”

The paper demanded that Canada must express moral outrage on behalf of Pakistanis who see their freedoms being snatched away.

We should ratchet up sanctions. War on terror notwithstanding, this is a regime going nowhere good, in a hurry.