[NYTr] 'Desperate' Musharraf declares martial law

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[Good stuff on the Informed Comment Global Affairs blog
from Barnett Rubin direct from Pakistan also:
http://icga.blogspot.com/  -NY Transfer]


sent by tsimonds - activ-l

The Observer - Nov 4, 2007
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2205020,00.html

'Desperate' Musharraf declares martial law

 - Pakistan's president acts against rivals
 - Britain expresses 'grave concern'

by Declan Walsh in Islamabad

Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule last night,
plunging the nuclear power into crisis and triggering condemnation from
leaders around the world.

The action to reassert his flagging authority was, he said, a response
to Islamic militancy and to the 'paralysis of government by judicial
interference'. He said that his country's sovereignty was at stake.

Judges and lawyers were arrested, troops poured on to city streets and
television and radio stations were taken off the air. Musharraf also
suspended the constitution and fired the chief justice, Muhammad
Iftikhar Chaudhry, who spearheaded a powerful mass movement against him
earlier this year.

Last night police arrested opposition politicians and senior lawyers
including the chief justice's lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, and Imran Khan.
'Musharraf is acting like a spoiled child, holding the whole country
hostage. These are the last days of Pervez Musharraf,' said Ahsan as he
was escorted from his home into a police van. Ahsan, who leads the
Supreme Court Bar Association, said that lawyers would launch a series
of nationwide protests tomorrow.

Soldiers entered the Supreme Court in the late afternoon where Chaudhry
and six other judges said Musharraf's declaration that he would rule
under a provisional constitutional order was illegal. Chaudhry was
reportedly under house arrest last night.

Police sealed off the main street in central Islamabad and soldiers
entered the state television and radio buildings. Private news networks
went off the air and mobile phone coverage was intermittent. Shots were
heard in several neighbourhoods of Karachi, where there is strong
support for former Prime Minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto
who had gone to Dubai on Thursday on a personal visit. She arrived back
to Pakistan to a rapturous welcome last night and immediately decried
Musharraf's move as tantamount to dictatorship.

'Unless General Musharraf reverses the course, it will be very difficult
to have fair elections,' she said.

The United States, which sees Musharraf as a crucial ally against
al-Qaeda, had urged him to avoid taking authoritarian measures and
called the move 'very disappointing'.

Late last night Musharraf addressed the nation on state television. He
said he decided to impose a state of emergency in response to a rise in
extremism and to interference from the courts and judges in the business
of government. Pakistan's internal security has deteriorated in recent
months with a wave of suicide attacks by al-Qaeda-inspired militants,
including one that killed 139 people.

There had been increasing speculation that Musharraf, who seized power
in a 1999 coup, might declare an emergency rather than run the risk the
Supreme Court would rule against his re-election as president. US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was 'deeply dismayed' by
the move and Whitehall expressed 'grave concern'.

In a statement last night, the Pentagon said the emergency declaration
by Musharraf did not impact the US military support of Pakistan or its
efforts in the war on terror. Spokesman Geoff Morrell said: 'Pakistan
is a very important ally in the war on terror and he [US Defence
Secretary Robert Gates] is monitoring the situation there.'

Britons of Pakistani origin were also urged to use their contacts to
press home the message by the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. 'All
friends of Pakistan will be concerned by the turn of events today,' he
said. 'We recognise the threat to peace and security faced by the
country, but its future rests on harnessing the power of democracy and
the rule of law.'

Musharraf had promised to resign as army chief by 15 November, with
general elections due by mid-January. Those elections are now in doubt,
as is a power-sharing deal with Bhutto. 'She is waiting to see if she is
going to be arrested or deported,' Wajid Hasan, her spokesman, said.

Musharraf has faced numerous crises over the past year, including
protests, court challenges and spiralling Islamist violence. Last week
troops mounted a major assault on an Islamist cleric who has declared
his own Islamic mini-state in Swat, a previously peaceful area popular
with tourists.

But the greatest threat to Musharraf's power was the Supreme Court,
which was due to rule in the coming weeks on the legality of his
controversial 8 October re-election as president. As the result of an
opposition boycott, he received 98 per cent of the votes. The legal
challenge has now been quashed, but emergency rule raises a range of
new problems including the possibility of widespread public protest and
a further breakdown of Pakistan's battered state institutions.

Hardliners in Musharraf's political party, PML-Q have been urging him to
impose emergency rule for months. But others have opposed yesterday's
move. One senior PML-Q official, who declined to be named, told The
Observer that the move was a disaster and predicted it would eventually
spell 'the end for Musharraf'.

Human Rights Watch condemned yesterday's move as 'a brazen attempt at
muzzling the judiciary'.

(c) Guardian News and Media Limited 2007