Bhutto plots defiance as Musharraf gets US support

Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto laid plans Sunday for the biggest protest yet against Pervez Musharraf’s state of emergency as the nation’s political crisis entered a second week.

After cementing her profile as the only opposition figure able to muster a serious threat to the president, she was flying to the eastern city of Lahore ahead of a “long march” to the capital Islamabad.

Bhutto has given Musharraf to Thursday to quit as army chief, end emergency rule, restore the constitution and name a date for parliamentary elections by mid-January.

But Musharraf overnight won his strongest support from US President George W. Bush since declaring emergency rule a week ago.

Bush, who sees Musharraf’s Pakistan as a lynchpin in the “war on terror,” hailed the military ruler as a strong ally and said he had no reason to doubt his pledges to return to democratic rule.

“I think that’s what you have to do,” Bush added. “When somebody says this is what they’re going to do, then you give them a chance to do it.”

He said Washington would continue to cooperate with Islamabad because the United States needed help in the war on terror, notably against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Bhutto’s planned march, a distance of about 275 kilometres (170 miles), is due to start Tuesday and — if it is allowed to go ahead — threatens to draw tens of thousands of people.

She was placed under house arrest Friday to prevent her leading a rally in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, with authorities citing fears of a repeat of the suicide bombing that hit Karachi last month, killing 139 people.

Analysts say she has been impressive so far, addressing crowds from behind coils of barbed wire outside her home, turning up by surprise at a city centre rally and again at the sacked chief justice’s house, and appealing to foreign diplomats for support. “Nuclear-armed Pakistan is threatened by an internal implosion,” she told the envoys.

“Pakistan under dictatorship is a pressure cooker. Without a place to vent, the passion of our people for liberty threatens to explode.”

Political analyst Shafqat Mahmood said the images being beamed across the world “make Musharraf look truly dictatorial and awful internationally.”

“It certainly strengthens her position internationally but more importantly she is strengthening her position domestically because people are beginning to believe that the deal-making may be over.”

Bhutto has so far kept her Pakistan People’s Party largely off the street, but the planned protest march leaves the government with two choices.

Islamabad, Sunday, AFP.

Emergency to end in a month

Meanwhile Pakistan will lift its emergency rule in a month, a top official said Saturday, as former premier Benazir Bhutto left her home for the first time since the government lifted her house arrest.

Attorney General Malik Mohammad Qayyum said the state of emergency, imposed in the nuclear-armed nation a week ago by President Pervez Musharraf, “is likely to be lifted in a month.”

“It is mainly because of the law and order situation in some parts of the country,” Qayyum told private Geo television.

“We hope it will continue to improve as it is improving now.”

He told AFP separately, however, that emergency rule would be lifted “after a month.”

Imran Khan’s ex-wife leads London protest

Hundreds of protestors led by the ex-wife of Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan staged a demonstration outside the Downing Street office of Prime Minister Gordon Brown Saturday.

Jemima Khan, who was divorced from Imran in 2004, also delivered a petition to the premier’s London residence.The founder of the Movement for Justice Party has been in hiding since the start of the week, after police said he was under house arrest following President Pervez Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule.

“They’re telling me that they’ve never, ever seen brutality like this,” Jemima Khan told Sky News television. “They said it’s unprecedented in Pakistan’s history. Normal people, teachers, my children’s teachers, have been arrested.

“It’s completely inconceivable what’s happening in Pakistan ... it’s something that I’m so horrified by that I felt it was necessary to come out today and help to organise this demonstration.”

Lawyers, students and journalists were among those who took part in the demonstration, carrying placards, chanting slogans and urging the British government to put more pressure on Musharraf’s regime.

British paper declines comment on expulsion of journalists

Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper said it could not immediately comment on a report that three of its journalists were ordered out of Pakistan Saturday for a strong attack on President Pervez Musharraf.

State television in Pakistan reported that the three had been ordered to leave within 72 hours for using “foul and abusive language” against its leadership.

The report came after an editorial in the newspaper which was sharply critical of Britain’s and the United States’ relationship with Musharraf.

“In short, the relationship between General Musharraf and the West is bankrupt,” it read.

“Valued as an ally after 9/11, he is now part of the problem.”

The newspaper also described Musharraf as “a spent force” and said he had shown a combination of “incompetence and brutality”.

Islamabad, Sunday, AFP