Pakistani Sets Emergency Rule, Defying the U.S.

The day after Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s leader, declared emergency rule, headlines announced the news.

By DAVID ROHDE
Published: November 4, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sunday, Nov. 4 — The Pakistani leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declared a state of emergency on Saturday night, suspending the country’s Constitution, firing the chief justice of the Supreme Court and filling the streets of this capital city with police officers.
The move appeared to be an effort by General Musharraf to reassert his fading power in the face of growing opposition from the country’s Supreme Court, political parties and hard-line Islamists. Pakistan’s Supreme Court had been expected to rule within days on the legality of General Musharraf’s re-election last month as the country’s president.
The emergency act, which analysts and opposition leaders said was more a declaration of martial law, also boldly defied the Bush administration, which had repeatedly urged General Musharraf to avoid such a path and instead move toward democracy. Washington has generously backed the general, sending him more than $10 billion in aid since 2001, mostly for the military. Now the administration finds itself in the bind of having to publicly castigate the man it has described as one of its closest allies in fighting terrorism.
In blunt and brief comments on Saturday, American officials condemned General Musharraf’s move. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded a “quick return to constitutional law.” And in Washington, the White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said, “This action is very disappointing,” and he called on General Musharraf to honor his earlier pledge to resign as army commander and hold nationwide elections before Jan. 15.
In Pakistan, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the main opposition leader, returned early from a visit in Dubai, setting up the possibility that she and her party, as well as other opposition groups like the powerful lawyers’ body here, could organize demonstrations against the president. After landing in Karachi, she mocked General Musharraf and accused him of using the specter of terrorism to prolong his hold on power. “This is not emergency,” she said. “This is martial law.”
After a day of rumors in the Pakistani news media than an emergency declaration would come, the first proof came just after 5 p.m., when independent and international television news stations abruptly went blank in Islamabad and other major cities. Soon after, dozens of police officers surrounded the Supreme Court building, with some justices still inside.
Under the emergency declaration, the justices were ordered to take an oath to abide by a “provisional constitutional order” that replaces the country’s existing Constitution. Those who failed to do so would be dismissed.
Seven of the court’s 11 justices gathered inside the court rejected the order, according to an aide to Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Issuing their own legal order, the justices called General Musharraf’s declaration unlawful and urged military officials to not abide by it.