Word: musharraf
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TIME: What do you make of Musharraf's declaration of emergency? BENAZIR BHUTTO: Actually, we call it martial law. The constitution has been suspended and while Musharraf is terming it an emergency for international consumption, he has actually in his capacity of Chief of Army Staff suspended the constitution of Pakistan and promulgated a new provisional order. The result of this is that he has stopped democracy in its tracks. And he has given an extended life to his ruling PML-Q party. I may mention that the PML-Q has some moderate elements in it, but the core strength...
...what does this mean for the future of the country? It is a very big problem. It means that dictatorship will be sustained until it is reversed. It is a clear breach of the understanding that Musharraf has with my party. We have been engaged with him for a period of time for a negotiated peaceful transfer to democracy. He has promised to retire as army chief. He has promised to hold fair elections, and implement fair election reform. Contrary to these promises, he has imposed emergency without consulting me. We advised him against doing this. And he chose...
...this region, towards democracy, so that there would be stability so that we could unite the forces of moderation, so we could confront the forces of extremism. But unilaterally they broke the negotiations by the imposition of emergency. So now we are demanding a return to the constitution, Musharraf to retire as chief of army staff, and that he hold the elections on time as he earlier committed to us. We told him in August during our talks in London, that there were issues with his eligibility and that he needed to have constitutional reforms like balance of power between...
...think these judges were actually in the wrong? I am not aware of the details but I know that General Musharraf has made some allegations against the judges, and they are allegations that they must respond to. They are very serious allegations. Without going into the merits of the allegations, I'm simply saying that there are ways to deal with these allegations of misconduct and not use them as a pretext for the imposition of martial...
...When Musharraf made his declaration of emergency rule, he said it was in the interest of fighting terrorism in Pakistan. Do you agree with him? I agree that there is terrorism in the country, I believe it has spread since the 2002 elections when the People's Party was excluded from the government, but I don't believe martial law was declared to stop terrorism, I believe it was declared to stop an adverse decision by the Supreme Court on Musharraf's eligibility to remain as President and to keep the ruling PML-Q in power...