Bhutto calls for new rally

The former prime minister was released from house arrest Friday, Pakistani authorities said.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A massive security clampdown by President Pervez Musharraf snuffed out a planned opposition rally by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Friday but left the country facing more days of tense standoff as Bhutto was released from temporary house arrest and called for a rally next week.

Musharraf’s dispatch of thousands of police and soldiers to surround Bhutto’s home and seal off the planned site for the event drew international criticism and led the opposition to step up its demands that he retract the state of emergency through which he suspended the constitution last week.

It also intensified the personal power struggle between Musharraf and Bhutto, who returned from exile last month after working out a power-sharing deal with the general. Since the state of emergency, she has rallied the opposition by laying down an ultimatum for him to release thousands of detainees, step down as army chief of staff and hold elections in January as planned.

After reportedly arresting thousands of her supporters, police twice stopped Bhutto from leaving her house to attend the rally Friday. After the second attempt, they allowed Bhutto to speak to two dozen members of parliament from her party and at least 300 journalists, kept behind barricades of concrete and barbed wire.

Bhutto called the day’s events a “victory” for her party and tried to justify her earlier negotiations.

“I did hold talks with Musharraf,” said Bhutto, standing up and speaking through the sunroof of a white SUV. “When he suspended the constitution, made arrests and suspended fundamental rights, those talks obviously came to an end.”

Bhutto vowed to hold a march from the eastern city of Lahore to Islamabad on Tuesday, although authorities have banned demonstrations and gave little indication that it would be allowed.

Late Friday night, Pakistani authorities said that Bhutto had been freed from the virtual house arrest she was under after police surrounded her home in the morning. But she had not left the premises, and Rehman, a party spokeswoman who was with Bhutto, said Bhutto was still being held.

“She’s still barricaded by the police,” Rehman said. “She’s not been released.”