John Negroponte in Pakistan, Bhutto Under House Arrest, Shots Fired at Police Stations

Dawn, November 13, 2007 Tuesday Ziqa’ad 02, 1428

Negroponte due this week

By Anwar Iqbal

US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte is expected to visit Islamabad later this week for talks with the government on the current political crisis, official sources told Dawn on Monday.

Mr Negroponte is expected to meet Gen Pervez Musharraf with a message from Washington, outlining various proposals for ending the crisis, sources said. These include lifting the emergency as soon as possible, ending curbs on the media and the civil society imposed after emergency and releasing all political leaders and activists arrested during the last 10 days.

In an interview to a US newspaper, published on Monday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that the emergency could discredit the parliamentary elections Gen Musharraf has pledged to hold before Jan 9. “It’s very hard to see how you could have free and fair elections with a state of emergency in place,” she said. “And it’s one reason that we’ve been emphasising not just the holding of free and fair elections, but the lifting of the state of emergency as well.”

Bhutto ordered to stay home for 7 days

www.chinaview.cn 2007-11-13 12:37:05 Print

ISLAMABAD, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) --

Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Chairperson Benazir Bhutto has been detained at a house in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, leading English-language newspaper The Dawn reported Tuesday.

Police officials reached the Khosa House early Tuesday with detention orders of Bhutto who would be confined for seven days at the Khosa House, to prevent her from leading a long march of over 300kms from Lahore to the capital of Islamabad.

Pakistan's opposition leader Benazir Bhutto (R) prays with the mother of Zaheer Ahmed, a victim of the October 18 suicide attacks in Karachi, during her visit to Lahore November 12, 2007. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

She was staying at PPP leader Latif Khosa's residence ahead of the planned long march to protest against proclamation of emergency in the country, suspension of constitution, detention of judges and arrests of lawyers and political workers.

Police in a late night step closed the Khosa House with barriers and deployed heavy contingents at the place.

Police sources were quoted as saying that the provincial government of Punjab had issued orders that the PPP workers should be stopped from the rally "at any cost".

Bhutto says her PPP party likely to boycott general elections

www.chinaview.cn 2007-11-13 23:32:21 Print

ISLAMABAD, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) --

Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Chairperson Benazir Bhutto said Tuesday that her party will possibly boycott the upcoming general elections, local media reported.

Bhutto made the remarks in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore during a telephone interview with a group of reporters.

She also urged Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to resign and ruled out the possibility of serving under Musharraf in the future government.

"It seems unlikely that the People's Party will participate in the upcoming elections," she said.

Bhutto said that she would seek to build an alliance to restore democracy with other opposition leaders, including former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The chairperson was staying at the PPP leader Latif Khosa's residence in Lahore before a planned march to protest against the state of emergency in the country, the suspension of the constitution, the detention of judges and arrests of lawyers and political workers.

According to local media reports, police officials arrived at the Khosa house early Tuesday with detention orders for Bhutto, who would be confined under house arrest for seven days to prevent her from leading a long march of over 300 km from Lahore to the capital of Islamabad.

Musharraf declared a state of emergency in the country and issued a provisional constitutional order on Nov. 3. On Nov. 11, he also announced that general elections including the national assembly and the provincial assemblies would be held simultaneously before Jan. 9.

But Bhutto said that fair, free and transparent elections were not possible under the state of emergency.

The Commonwealth on Monday gave Pakistan a 10-day deadline to restore its constitution and lift other emergency measures or face suspension of its membership in the 53-nation bloc.

Pakistan's foreign ministry responded on Tuesday that the country strongly rejected the deadline and expressed "deep disappointment and regret" over the ultimatum.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

Bhutto Under House Arrest, Says Musharraf Must Quit Power, As Shots Fired at Police Stations

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG Associated Press Writer

Nov 13, 2007, 2:11 PM EST

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) --

Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Tuesday called on President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to resign and ruled out serving under him in a future government after she was placed under house arrest for the second time in five days.

With the political turmoil deepening, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was headed to Pakistan and expected to reiterate Washington's calls for Musharraf to lift the state of emergency.

The Bush administration offered a measured response to Bhutto's remarks.

"We remain concerned ... (but) we are hopeful that moderate elements would join together," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. Pakistan should get back on a path to democracy and "the political parties in Pakistan should all be working together toward that goal," she said.

Musharraf's critics and chief international backers, including the United States, have said the restrictions imposed by the military leader - such as on independent media and rallies - would make it hard to hold a fair vote in upcoming parliamentary elections.

Bhutto was trapped in a padlocked house surrounded by thousands of riot police, trucks, tractors loaded with sand, and a row of metal barricades topped with barbed wire. She said it was now likely her Pakistan People's Party would boycott the January elections and ruled out serving a term as prime minister under Musharraf.

"I simply won't be able to believe anything he said to me," she told reporters by telephone from the house in Lahore where she was held to prevent her leading a protest procession.

Her comments appeared to bury hopes of the political rivals forming a pro-U.S. alliance against rising Islamic extremism. They had held months of talks that paved the way for Bhutto's return from exile last month to contest the parliamentary elections.

But Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, a close Musharraf ally, said he doubted Bhutto had closed the door completely to any cooperation with the general.

"She talks one thing but walks in a different way," Ahmed said, saying her comments were a reaction to declining public support for her party. "She knows the election result will be different from what she thought. That is why she is trying to create a disturbance."

In the southern city of Karachi, Bhutto supporters fired on two police stations in a poor district where her party is popular, and police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, senior police officer Fayyaz Khan said. A 9-year-old boy and a 22-year-old woman were wounded in crossfire between demonstrators and police, witnesses said.

Bhutto told the private Geo TV network that Musharraf was a hurdle to democracy and must resign both as president and army chief.

She accused Musharraf of imposing effective martial law when he declared emergency rule Nov. 3 - suspending citizens' rights and rounding up thousands of his opponents. Musharraf said the restrictions were needed to bolster the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida.

In an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, Musharraf said Bhutto "has no right" to ask him to resign, and said she was exaggerating her popular support.

"Let's start the elections and let's see whether she wins," Musharraf said.

Negroponte's trip to Pakistan was pre-planned and part of a regular strategic dialogue with Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, said U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Elizabeth Colton.

Authorities mounted a massive security operation to prevent Bhutto from leading a 175-mile procession to the capital, Islamabad, to press for an end to emergency rule. Officers detained scores of her supporters, including several lawmakers, who approached the barricades shouting slogans including "Go, Musharraf, go!" and "Prime Minister Benazir!"

Bhutto's spokeswoman, Sherry Rehman, said the former prime minister was stuck in the house with a handful of top aides. She said Punjab's provincial government had attached the seven-day detention order as well as several padlocks to the front gate.

Aftab Cheema, chief of operations of Lahore police, said Bhutto would not be allowed to leave the house, which was declared a "sub-jail."

Bhutto said once she was freed from detention, she would work to forge a broad alliance including Nawaz Sharif - a longtime rival and fellow former prime minister who shares her wish to end military rule.

Sharif was ousted by Musharraf in the 1999 coup that brought the general to power. He tried to return to Pakistan in September but was immediately deported.

Speaking from exile in Saudi Arabia, Sharif told The Associated Press that he believed the opposition was "beginning to get together."

Bhutto said she saw no prospect of achieving political power by cooperating with Musharraf's administration.

"Now we've come to the conclusion that even if we get power, it will just be a show of power. It won't be substantive power," Bhutto said.

"It seems unlikely that the People's Party will participate in the upcoming elections," she said, describing the vote as a "stage-managed show" to return the ruling party to power.

Other Bhutto supporters went ahead with the procession without her.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi, president of Bhutto's party for Punjab, said he was leading a column of 200 vehicles from Lahore, but they had been stopped by police about 55 miles from the city and hundreds of people were detained. There was no immediate confirmation from officials of the arrests.

Police initially said they ramped up security around Bhutto because of intelligence that a suicide bomber was planning to attack her in Lahore.

Bhutto was targeted by an Oct. 18 suicide attack on a homecoming procession in the southern city of Karachi as she returned from years in exile. She was unscathed, but the blast killed 145 others.

She was put under house arrest in Islamabad on Friday to prevent her from addressing a rally in the nearby city of Rawalpindi, where authorities issued similar warnings.

With Musharraf losing popularity because of growing disaffection with military rule, U.S. officials encouraged him to reconcile with Bhutto in hope of keeping a U.S.-friendly administration in control of the nuclear-armed nation where militants are orchestrating attacks inside the country and across the border in Afghanistan.

Extinguishing that prospect would put extra strain on Musharraf's relations with Washington, which is also pressing him to quit his army post.

Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in fighting al-Qaida and Taliban, has set no time limit for the emergency, which has also resulted in a ban on rallies and the blacking out of independent TV networks.

He signaled Sunday that he wanted to hold the elections with the restrictions in place, raising major doubts about the vote's credibility.

The emergency came shortly before the Supreme Court was due to rule on the legality of Musharraf's recent re-election for a new presidential term, and critics say it was a tactic to oust independent-minded judges and prolong his eight-year rule.

---

Associated Press writers Zarar Khan in Lahore and Matthew Pennington in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.