David Batty, Declan Walsh in Islamabad and Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Thursday November 8, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The treason charges against the three politicians and a union activist, which carry a maximum sentence of death, came in the wake of mounting political unrest since General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency on Saturday and suspended Pakistan's constitution.
The four were arrested on Monday and interrogated by police before being formally charged yesterday, said the court official.
Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's party (PPP) today said the number of people arrested since the imposition of emergency rule was now "in the thousands".
A spokesman for the former prime minister said around 800 PPP supporters had been arrested in the central Punjab province.
"They have raided homes of our activists across Punjab throughout the night. The number of people arrested is now in the thousands," a party spokeswoman added.
Ms Bhutto has planned a public meeting in Rawalpindi, a garrison city just south of the capital, Islamabad, tomorrow to protest against emergency rule.
She has also threatened a "long march" from Lahore to Islamabad - two days before the November 15 date by which Gen Musharraf had previously promised to leave the army.
Police have warned the planned rallies are banned, and a clash between them and Ms Bhutto's supporters could dramatically escalate the political crisis.
Ms Bhutto's gambit poses the first significant challenge to Gen Musharraf since he imposed emergency rule.
It also coincided with the first intervention into the crisis by US president George Bush, who yesterday pressed the general to to hold planned elections and to step down from the army.
The American president, who had not contacted Genl Musharraf directly since he established emergency law on Saturday, told a press conference: "You can't be the president [of Pakistan] and the head of the military at the same time. I had a very frank discussion with him."
Mr Bush has faced demands from Democratic congressmen to cut aid to Pakistan.
He has also been under pressure from the US media, which has contrasted his harsh words for the Burmese junta with his soft approach to Gen Musharraf.
But, speaking at a press conference with the French president Niçolas Sarkozy, Mr Bush recounted his conversation with Gen Musharraf: "My message was that we believe strongly in elections, and that you ought to have elections soon, and you need to take off your uniform."
The US deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte, softened Mr Bush's rebuke further with a statement to the House foreign affairs committee in which he disagreed with Gen Musharraf's tactics but described him as "an indispensable ally" in the US battle against terrorism.
Until now protests have been led by lawyers infuriated at the sacking of their chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who remains under house arrest in Islamabad.
Ms Bhutto's newfound steel edge could change the dynamic. She urged supporters to reach Rawalpindi tomorrow "at all costs".
"We can't work for dictatorship. We can work for democracy," she told an Islamabad news conference. "We're talking about the future of Pakistan as a modern nation."
In a possible prelude to the showdown, teargas was used on 400 Bhutto activists outside parliament yesterday, moments after government legislators inside the building had rubber-stamped Gen Musharraf's emergency rule.
The demonstrators retreated through the choking clouds of gas chanting "Benazir! Benazir!" and "Down with the emergency!"
Until yesterday Ms Bhutto had played a careful game, issuing verbal condemnations of Gen Musharraf but refraining from calling her party, which has countrywide support, on to the streets.
Power-sharing talks between the two have spared her party the worst of the government crackdown. While the leaders of virtually every other party have been jailed since Saturday, Ms Bhutto and her top officials have avoided the purge.
Even now she is keeping open the possibility of cohabitation with Gen Musharraf. He could "open the door" again if he "revives the constitution, retires as chief of army staff, and sticks to the schedule of holding elections", she said.
Still, some analysts detected a change. "She has come to the conclusion that if she doesn't put genuine full pressure [on him], Gen Musharraf will not lose his uniform and the political parties have no future, including herself," said Talat Masood, an analyst and retired army general.
"The Americans have also realised that Gen Musharraf has a rapidly diminishing utility. And he's reaching a point where he is more a problem than a solution."
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, a senior member of Gen Musharraf's inner circle, told the Guardian he expected the emergency would be lifted in "two to three weeks".
The route for Ms Bhutto's planned "long march" is highly significant. Lahore is the capital of the Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province and the area from which most of the army comes.
A mass road rally into Lahore was a high point of Justice Chaudhry's street campaign against Gen Musharraf last spring. The government promised a harsh reception for the march.
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