[NYTr] Bhutto Rejects "Caretaker" Govt, Demands Musharraf Resign

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The New York Times - Nov 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/world/asia/17pakistan.html

Bhutto Rejects Caretaker Government

By SALMAN MASOOD and DAVID ROHDE

LAHORE, Pakistan, Nov. 16 — Hours after being released from house
arrest, the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Friday rejected a new
caretaker government appointed by the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez
Musharraf, to oversee elections and repeated her vow not to reopen
talks with him.

The police confirmed that they had ended Ms. Bhutto’s house arrest, a
gesture that appeared timed to ease tensions before talks between
General Musharraf and Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte, who
arrived in Pakistan on Friday. Mr. Negroponte is likely to urge General
Musharraf to lift emergency rule, American officials have said. After
his arrival, Mr. Negroponte spoke by phone with Ms. Bhutto, Sean
McCormack, a State Department spokesman, was quoted by The Associated
Press as saying.

Asserting that the country was under threat from Islamic extremists,
General Musharraf declared a state of emergency on Nov. 3. He suspended
the Constitution, dissolved the Supreme Court and replaced its
justices, and shut down independent news stations. Since then, the
authorities have arrested an estimated 2,500 opposition politicians,
lawyers and human rights activists.

Speaking to reporters from behind the fence at her Lahore compound on
Friday, Ms. Bhutto renewed her demand that General Musharraf resign,
telling reporters that the state of emergency had been aimed at his
moderate opponents, not at Islamic extremists. She also ruled out
further talks. “He talked with me about the road map to democracy and
imposed martial law,” she said. “He says one thing and he does the
opposite.”

In an interview with the BBC on Friday, General Musharraf said it was
Ms. Bhutto who wanted to avoid elections because her party would lose.
He said that she was “the darling of the West,” but that “she would not
like to go into an election because her party is not in a state to win
at all.”

Pakistanis have widely condemned the imposition of de facto martial
law, which appears to have sharply reduced General Musharraf’s
popularity. The move came days before the Supreme Court was expected to
rule that he was ineligible to serve another five years as president.
Critics in the country have rejected General Musharraf’s argument that
the emergency was required to fight extremism, saying the general is
using the specter of terrorism to cling to power.

In Islamabad, General Musharraf swore in a caretaker government charged
with carrying out elections scheduled for Jan. 9. Opposition parties
have threatened to boycott the elections, which they say cannot be free
under a state of emergency that eliminates basic rights.

Along with ending house arrest for Ms. Bhutto, government officials
released several women who are political figures and human rights
advocates, including Asma Jahangir, the country’s leading human rights
activist, who was placed under house arrest on Nov. 3.

Opposition leaders said the moves were token measures intended to curry
favor with American officials before Mr. Negroponte’s arrival. They
said General Musharraf had a long history of appeasing senior American
officials with conciliatory gestures during such visits.

On Friday night, two of Pakistan’s largest private television networks,
Geo and ARY, were forced to halt all transmissions from the United Arab
Emirates, where they had been broadcasting via satellite and the
Internet after emergency rule was imposed, Western diplomats said. Mir
Ibrahim Rahman, Geo’s chief executive, said Pakistani government
officials had asked officials in Dubai to shut Geo down. The government
of the United Arab Emirates had promised that it would not shut any
stations broadcasting from Dubai Media City, a special zone for
hundreds of foreign broadcasters.

“We have been given notice,” Mr. Rahman said. Officials from Pakistan
and the United Arab Emirates could not be reached for comment on Friday
night.

Salman Masood reported from Lahore, and David Rohde from Islamabad.