Word: musharraf
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...days Bhutto had planned to lead a rally in the nearby town of Rawalpindi to celebrate her return to Islamabad, the nation's capital, but when President Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule last Saturday, the rally morphed into an anti-emergency protest. By Friday morning, however, the protest was hardly able to get off the ground. Overnight, police blocked all private vehicles from entering Ralwalpindi, spread barbed wire across the streets of the protest venue and flooded the park grounds where she was to speak in order to prevent supporters from sitting on the ground. A few hundred protesters clashed...
Bhutto's determination to leave the door open to negotiations has left many Pakistanis frustrated and many wondering about her motives. A long anticipated power-sharing deal between the two rivals would have seen Musharraf step down as army chief while maintaining the presidency, with the support of Bhutto?s party. In exchange, Bhutto would have been cleared of as of yet unanswered corruption charges (which she claims were politically motivated), permitted to return after eight years in exile, and allowed to run for the office of Prime Minister, which...
...meantime, while Bhutto was addressing the crowd, a suicide bomber in the northern city of Peshawar, bordering Pakistan's restive tribal areas, detonated himself at the residence of a government minister, killing four. When Musharraf declared emergency rule last week, he cited the threat of religious extremists. Of course, suicide bombers are easier to prevent in hindsight, but it cannot be overlooked that while government security forces focused all their attention today on one woman calling for democracy, terrorists scored one more victory for their cause...
Bhutto, exhibiting a newly discovered resolve vis-à-vis Musharraf, with whom she had hoped to reach a power-sharing deal, declared his announcement insufficient, and demanded that he remove his uniform immediately. She said Musharraf should release the original judges and let "the real Supreme Court" decide on his legitimacy. "We will accept the decision of that Supreme Court, which will be constitutional and includes those judges who are detained," she said. Up until now, Bhutto has avoided all references to Pakistan's judiciary, focusing instead on elections and a call for civilian rule...
Some critics point out that Bhutto, who was awaiting a ruling on the constitutionality of an amnesty bill that would have absolved her from longstanding corruption charges, would have been perfectly content with Musharraf's more docile Supreme Court 2.0. But the people of Pakistan have grown to love their independent judiciary. Protests against Musharraf's emergency rule have been dominated by the country's black-suited lawyers, who have garnered immense respect for their tireless campaign for rule of law and a civilian President. Bhutto, it seems, has been forced to respond to the demands of her people over...