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Pakistan extends crackdown ahead of rally
Associated Press - March 12, 2009
Chris Brummitt, Islamabad – Authorities arrested at least 60 more people Thursday as they extended a nationwide crackdown aimed at thwarting opposition activists' plans to march on Pakistan's capital and surround the country's parliament.
US Ambassador Anne Patterson also met with top opposition leader Nawaz Sharif in a bid to resolve the political crisis, a Sharif spokesman said.
The showdown threatens to destabilize the one-year-old democratically elected government amid rising Western concerns the country could lose the fight against al-Qaida and Taliban militants along the Afghan border.
The crackdown reminded many Pakistanis of similar moves against many of the same activists by then-President Pervez Musharraf in 2007 – clampdowns that dramatically reduced his popularity, ushered in the new government, and contributed to his ouster the following year.
Sharif spokesman Sadiqul Farooq said Patterson was "trying to get things resolved" between Sharif and the government. "It is not only the American ambassador, other friendly countries are in contact," he said.
The US Embassy said it does not comment on the ambassador's meetings, but foreign help in resolving political disputes in Pakistan has been common in the past.
Sharif and the country's lawyers' movement are demanding President Asif Ali Zardari fulfill a pledge to restore independent-minded judges removed in 2007 by Musharraf whom some believe could be hostile to Zardari.
Sharif, a former prime minister, is also furious over a Supreme Court decision barring him and his brother from elected office. After the ruling, the federal government dismissed the Punjab provincial administration led by Sharif's brother.
The lawyers, Sharif's party and other small groupings plan to converge on the parliament building in Islamabad on Monday from cities across the country and remain there until their demands are met. The government is trying to stop them from leaving their home cities. Police rounded up around 300 political activists on Wednesday from cities around the country and banned rallies in two of its four provinces.
As protesters gathered to leave overnight and into Thursday, police arrested around 60 activists in Karachi and outside the southern city's high court. Scuffles briefly broke out between police and protesters, witnesses and city police chief Waseem Ahmad said.
Opposition leaders and lawyers were defiant. "Our long march will go ahead according to the schedule," said Naeem Qureshi, a prominent lawyer in Karachi, referring to the protest. He and others lawyers in Karachi were scheduled to leave for the capital Islamabad later Thursday in a motor convoy.
The growing political unrest is raising the specter of a possible military intervention in a nuclear-armed nation prone to army coups. It could put Washington in a prickly position if the civilian government – which itself rose to power on the back of the rallies and marches against Musharraf – keeps clamping down on dissidents.
Zardari, the widower of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has cultivated ties with the US and sought to rally Pakistanis behind the fight with Islamic extremists. Sharif is considered closer to Islamic parties and conservative factions less inclined to support the US war effort.
Protesters have pledged a peaceful march, but Sharif has used words like "revolution" and other harsh terms in recent speeches, prompting the government to warn him against committing sedition.
Information Minister Sherry Rehman told reporters the rallies were banned to "avoid bloodshed in the streets." While acknowledging her party had staged similar rallies in the past, she insisted that "we never called to raise the flag of rebellion."
The ruling party has restored most of the judges fired by Musharraf, but a few, including a former Supreme Court chief justice, have not regained their seats.
Zardari is believed to fear that those judges could move to limit his power or reopen corruption cases against him that were dropped by Musharraf when the former general was seeking to forge a political alliance before last year's elections.
[Associated Press writers Ashraf Khan in Karachi, Munir Ahmad and Zarar Khan in Islamabad, Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Babar Dogar in Lahore and Desmond Butler in Washington contributed to this report.]
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