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Pakistan Crackdown Stifles Any Attempt At Protest

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By DAVID ROHDE and JANE PERLEZ, The New York Times

Published: November 10, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The sweeping security crackdown by Gen. Pervez Musharraf that thwarted a protest rally against his emergency decree by opposition leader Benazir Bhutto left the two adversaries locked in a standoff Friday.

On the surface, the show of force by the Musharraf-led government, which deployed thousands of police officers and other security personnel and confined Bhutto to her house here for most of the day, appeared to leave the rivals further from a power-sharing deal.

Events did not exclude the possibility that back-channel talks were proceeding, though, and Bush administration officials said they held out hope the two leaders still could defuse the crisis that began when Musharraf declared de facto martial law six days ago.

About 8,500 police officers locked down Rawalpindi, the planned site of the protest, so completely that only small groups of protesters made it into the city. Dump trucks, tractor-trailers and carts blocked all streets leading to the central square. Riot police officers on motorcycles threatened to beat groups of pedestrians who failed to disperse on command.

Bhutto was virtually kept hostage in her compound, behind rings of barbed wire.

By the end of the day, chaotic as it was, the standoff allowed Bhutto and Musharraf a face-saving way, whether impromptu or prechoreographed, to avoid potentially bloody clashes on the streets.

At one point Bhutto tried to show her determination to go to Rawalpindi, the garrison town adjacent to the capital. She got into her white four-wheel drive to leave, but a police bus and a personnel carrier blocked her way.

Later in the afternoon, in what appeared to be a carefully staged move that had been agreed upon with the government, Bhutto emerged at the barricades and made a 20-minute speech that was broadcast on official Pakistani television.

She also rejected the announcement made by Musharraf on Thursday that he would hold parliamentary elections before Feb. 15, saying it fell short of her demands to relinquish his role as head of the army and end emergency rule.

By Friday evening, a government spokesman, Tariq Azim Khan, said Bhutto was free to leave her home. A restraining order had been placed on her for the day, he said, to prevent her attending the rally, which had been banned under the emergency decree.

The spokesman said Bhutto had been confined because the government had warnings of potential attacks against her in Rawalpindi, and did not want a repeat of the suicide attack against her last month, when Bhutto first returned to Pakistan after living eight years abroad to avoid prosecution on corruption charges.

After that attack, in Karachi, Bhutto blamed the government for not paying proper attention to her security.

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