[NYTr] Bhutto placed under house arrest ahead of oppos'n demo

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP via the LA Times - Nov 9, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-fg-pakistan9nov09-ap,0,626888
2.story?coll=la-news-alert


Bhutto placed under house arrest

Associated Press

Islamabad, Pakistan -- Pakistani police backed by armored vehicles
surrounded the Islamabad home of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on
Friday, and a security official said she had been placed under house
arrest ahead of a major protest.

The move against Bhutto came amid a broader crackdown on her
supporters, who were planning to rally near Islamabad against President
Gen. Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule. Bhutto's party said some 5,000
of its supporters have been rounded up in the last three days, and riot
police were out in force in nearby Rawalpindi, the city where Friday's
rally was to take place.

A security official, who spoke anonymously because he was not
authorized to talk to the media, said Bhutto had been place under house
arrest. He did not elaborate.

Amid the growing unrest, Musharraf's said Thursday that parliamentary
elections will he held by mid-February, a month later than planned.
Musharraf's announcement came a day after President Bush urged him to
hold the vote on time.

Bhutto denounced Musharraf's pledge as insufficient and said he should
step down as army chief within a week.

With anger over military rule spreading, the United States and domestic
opponents are stepping up pressure on Musharraf to end the emergency
rule imposed Saturday, shed his uniform and hold elections as planned
in January.

Bush, who counts Musharraf as a key ally in the war on terror,
telephoned him Wednesday to say he should step down as the military
chief and hold the vote on schedule.

Bhutto supporters arrested? And Bhutto, who had been in talks with
Musharraf on forming a post-election alliance, added to the pressure by
deciding to join protests against the emergency. Authorities reportedly
arrested hundreds of her supporters overnight to head off a major rally
she is planning near Islamabad on Friday.

News that elections would be held by mid-February was flashed on
state-run television, which quoted Musharraf as saying the vote would
be delayed by not more than one month. The government said earlier this
week that the vote could be delayed by as long as a year.

Musharraf's decision was announced after a meeting of his National
Security Council.

The announcement was seen as an indication that the emergency would be
short-lived because authorities would likely have to ease up on security
restrictions to allow campaigning.

"We think it is a good thing that President Musharraf has clarified the
election date for the Pakistani people," White House press secretary
Dana Perino said.

Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum forecast that the state of
emergency would be lifted in "one or two" months.

"It depends on how the law and order situation improves," Qayyum told
The Associated Press.

Musharraf maintains that restoring democracy is his ultimate aim and the
emergency was needed to prevent political instability, protect economic
growth, and maintain the campaign against extremism and terrorism.

Pakistan, a country of 160 million, has been wracked by Taliban and
al-Qaida-linked violence, including suicide bombings and clashes in its
troubled northwest, where the insurgents have in recent weeks scored a
series of victories against government forces.

Critics, however, say Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup,
imposed the emergency measures -- suspending the constitution, blacking
out independent TV news networks -- to maintain his own grip on power.
The moves came ahead of a Supreme Court ruling on the legality of his
recent re-election as president.

Days of protests, most of them by lawyers angered by the attacks on the
judiciary, have been quickly and sometimes brutally put down.

Widespread protests Thursday was no different. In Islamabad, police
chased about 20 high-school students into the city's bar association
headquarters after they showed up in solidarity with dozens of
protesting lawyers, who were observing the fourth day of a nationwide
strike.

In Lahore, in eastern Pakistan, more than 100 professors boycotted
classes and marched on the campus of the state-run University of the
Punjab.

Perhaps more troubling for Musharraf, however, has been Bhutto's move to
join the protests, adding a new dimension to the worsening political
instability.

Bhutto pulled back on the talks over a political alliance after the
emergency was imposed, saying the president's authoritarian ways have
fueled extremism and destabilized the country.

She was planning a large protest Friday in Rawalpindi, a garrison city
on the outskirts of Islamabad.

Authorities appeared determined to keep it from going ahead and about 20
policemen were posted Thursday to keep people out of the park where
rally was to be held, Liaquat Bagh -- named for Pakistan's first prime
minister, who was assassinated there in 1951.

The city's police chief, meanwhile, warned that suicide bombers were
preparing to attack the rally.

'Situation is very serious' "We have intelligence reports that suicide
bombers have entered Rawalpindi," said police chief Saud Aziz. He added
that the warning was based on specific information and "the situation
is very serious."

Bhutto's own jubilant homecoming procession last month following eight
years in exile was shattered by suicide bombers, leaving more than 145
people dead. Authorities suspect Islamic militants in that attack.

With Bhutto showing no signs of calling off the rally -- she has
repeatedly said she is willing to risk more bombings -- police arrested
at least 800 of her supporters across the eastern province of Punjab
overnight, said Jamil Soomro, a spokesman for the opposition leader.

But the government denied the arrests, saying no such crackdown had been
ordered.

"According to my information, only four members from her party were
detained last night when they defied a ban on rallies," said Interior
Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema.

Thousands of lawyers and opposition activists have been detained since
Musharraf declared the emergency on Saturday.

Four of those arrested were charged with treason Thursday for making
anti-Musharraf speeches in the southern port city of Karachi. The men --
three politicians from small leftist political parties and a labor union
activist -- were the first government opponents charged with treason
since the emergency was imposed. If convicted, the charge carries a
maximum penalty of death.

Charged with treason Police in Karachi also were trying to arrest eight
lawyers on treason charges for distributing anti-Musharraf leaflets.

Bush, personally stepping into the political crisis for the first time,
said he told President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in a 20-minute
conversation: "You can't be the president and the head of the military
at the same time."

For days, the White House has faced questions about why Bush was not
taking a tougher line against Musharraf who since Saturday's emergency
declaration has ousted independent-minded judges, put a stranglehold on
the media and arrested thousands of mainly moderate, secular Pakistanis.

"My message was very plain, very easy to understand, and that is, the
United States wants you to have the elections as scheduled and take
your uniform off," Bush said during a news conference with French
President Nicolas Sarkozy in Virginia.

A Pakistani Foreign Ministry statement said Musharraf, a key U.S. ally
in its war on terrorism, had told Bush he "was committed to full
democracy and civilian rule in the country as he had promised to the
people of Pakistan."