Indeed, Musharraf immediately struck at his suspected political enemies closer to home, those he feared presented a challenge to his eight-year rule. The first target of his draconian act was the independent-minded judiciary, which he had been trying to cow for months. What precipitated the crackdown was Musharraf’s increasing certainty that the Supreme Court was poised to rule that he was ineligible to serve a second five-year term as president, even though he had promised to resign his commission as powerful Chief of Army Staff, in a concession to the justices and to a public that desperately wants to separate the military from politics. It was a lightning, preemptive strike. Before the justices could hand down their decision, the police put Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry under house arrest along with a number of other Supreme Court and High Court justices throughout the country.
It was Musharraf’s second shot at Chaudhry. His earlier move to sack Chaudhry last March failed and sparked a nationwide protest in favor of the judge and against Musharraf’s constant meddling in the legal system. A court panel reinstated the suspended chief justice last summer. Since then the Chaudhry court has handed down a number of rulings against the government, including deciding that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the man Musharraf overthrew in his bloodless 1999 coup, should be allowed to return from exile in Saudi Arabia; that detainees held without charge in the jails of the country’s intelligence agencies should be released; and that the Red Mosque, which was seized by the military in a bloody action last July, should returned to the extremist group that founded it. Musharraf was not going to wait for the men in black to take his presidency away from him, even though his next term would rest on very shaky legal grounds.
Almost simultaneously he moved against some of the best and brightest lawyers, human rights activists, opposition politicians and activists: the network that had helped organize the public protests that led to Chaudhry’s reinstatement. He didn’t want a repeat of that scenario. Javed Hashmi, the head of Sharif’s party, famous-cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and noted human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir, among others, were rapidly placed under house arrest. Within 48 hours the police had arrested some 1,500 people. On Monday thousands of lawyers took to the streets in protest against the emergency and the detentions in Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi and other cities. In Lahore the police charged a gathering of some 2,500 lawyers, firing tear gas and beating many with rattan canes. At least 250 were crammed into police vans and driven away. Similar scenes occurred in other cities. Hundreds of politicians and lawyers went underground to avoid arrest.
Police also broke into the Lahore office of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Sunday afternoon, arresting 70 people, including teachers, lawyers, journalists and civil rights activists who had gathered there peacefully. Samina Rahman, 60, principal of the Lahore Grammar School, was among those arrested. Her lawyer son Zaki, 30, told NEWSWEEK that those arrested have been booked for rioting and inciting violence against the government, offences punishable by three years’ imprisonment. “There’s been no maltreatment so far, but bail has been refused and they’re in no mood to grant it,” he said. “There’s no rule of law; they’ve made this country unlivable.”
Jahangir, co-chair of the HRCP, said in an e-mailed press release following her house arrest in Lahore on Saturday that “the dictator has lost his marbles. Those he has arrested are progressive, secular-minded people, while the terrorists are offered negotiations and ceasefires.” Her daughter Munizae, 30, news correspondent for New Delhi TV, told NEWSWEEK that police and plainclothes intelligence personnel have besieged their house. “They must be feeling very insecure and frightened if this is what it’s come to,” she said. “Instead of tackling [militant leaders] Baitullah Mehsud, Fazlullah or the terrorists that are running amok, the government is picking on elderly women.”
The media has been hit hard as well. Police began interfering with newspaper printing operations and even confiscating electronic equipment at private TV channels. All foreign and local news channels remain off the air, and state-run PTV, as expected, has not broadcast any news of the large-scale arrests and police brutality that have been reported throughout the country. Instead, the official news channel is devoting substantial airtime to upbeat music videos and discredited talking heads tut-tutting the media’s “abuse of freedom” and the judiciary’s interference in matters of state. But the police onslaught is taking its toll. It seems that at least for now Musharraf has gained the upper hand with his iron first. “My deep anguish is for my colleagues,” Jahangir e-mailed NEWSWEEK from her home. “They are being beaten and arrested. It is clear that their spirit is being broken.”
Indeed, it’s unclear how much longer the so far limited public protests can continue. While Musharraf has shown no mercy against those he suspects of being his sworn enemies, he has so far spared Benazir Bhutto and her Pakistan People’s Party. Few if any PPP stalwarts have been arrested, and Bhutto has kept her well-organized party under control and off the streets. Just hours after Musharraf announced the emergency, she returned to Karachi from her home in Dubai, where she had gone to meet her family after her dramatic and tragic return to Pakistan last monthafter seven years in exile. During her tumultuous welcome a suicide bomber blew himself up just in front of her motorcade, killing some 140 people and injuring nearly 500. On her return last weekend Bhutto acknowledged that Pakistan was threatened by terrorism but countered strongly that democracy and not more authoritarianism was the only way to successfully tackle the radical Islamic challenge.
Although strongly opposing Musharraf’s emergency decree and the suspension of civil liberties, Bhutto is clearly not ready to challenge the president’s move on the streets, at least not yet. She has already spent months patiently negotiating with the president—who once called her a “thief” and vowed never to allow her to return to Pakistan—successfully concluding a deal that swept away several serious corruption charges involving hundreds of millions of dollars. NEWSWEEK has learned that Bhutto will be traveling to Islamabad in the next day or two to meet with Musharraf and discuss a set of demands.
According to sources she will be pushing for the general to honor the commitment his lawyer made before the Supreme Court in September that he will resign from the army by Nov. 15, when his presidential term ends. She is also expected to demand that he stick to the previously announced mid-January timetable for general elections; that the elections be held under a caretaker administration, not under Musharraf’s present government; that the emergency be lifted and constitutional rights be restored; and that the restriction on her seeking the premiership for the third time be lifted. Finally, she wants there to be an independent inquiry, involving foreign experts, into the Karachi suicide bombing that was aimed at, but narrowly missed, her. She does have some leverage in her talks. If Musharraf demurs, Bhutto could politely threaten to bring tens of thousands of her followers into the streets.
Yesterday Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told a press conference that the election could be postponed for up to one year, though Musharraf’s attorney general said today that it would by held by Jan. 15. And state-run Pakistan TV today quoted Musharraf as saying that elections would be held on time. “There is every intention of holding free and fair polls and on schedule,” an aide close to Musharraf told NEWSWEEK.
It’s unclear, however, how the public will react to Bhutto’s engaging in another round of negotiations with the president. During her last talks, which won her an amnesty from corruption charges, her popularity plummeted. In those negotiations she failed to win any significant political concessions from Musharraf. Many Pakistanis skeptically see this next round of talks as perhaps yet another self-serving exercise on her part. Even so, Pakistanis know that without Bhutto’s participation any attempt at street agitation to force Musharraf to lift the emergency, or to force him out of office, will only end in failure. With most of the opposition detained, only the PPP has the numbers and the organization to make a difference on the streets. As long as Musharraf can continue containing the size of the protests, he probably has nothing to fear from his secular, democratic opposition. If, however, this new round of negotiations fails, and if Bhutto were consequently to order her faithful into the streets, the police might not be able to maintain control. If that were to happen, Musharraf might have no alternative but to call for the army to intervene and send its troops against unarmed protestors.
The Pakistani military would be hesitant to act. After eight years of military rule the army is already highly unpopular. It wouldn’t relish facing down middle-class protesters in the streets. The military’s morale may already be at an all-time low. The war of attrition it is fighting against tribal militants, the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the frontier area, and now in neighboring towns, is not going well. Yesterday tribal militants released more than 200 soldiers they had captured without a shot being fired two months ago. Last week in the Swat Valley nearly 50 more troopers surrendered, were briefly detained and were released. There is presently no split in the army over pursuing the war against extremists, although many commanders and soldiers are doing it reluctantly. But if Musharraf were forced to deploy the army on city streets, some senior officers could revolt. Even today rumors spread like wildfire that the new vice army chief of staff Parvez Kayani had placed Musharraf under house arrest. In a phone call with Reuters, Musharraf laughed off the buzz, calling it “a joke of the highest order.” But there will be no joke if the public protests eventually gain traction and the army has to decide if saving Musharraf’s skin is worth battling its own people in the streets.
