Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has defended his plan to hold elections under emergency rule because he says the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal might fall into the wrong hands in a “disturbed environment”.
“They cannot fall into the wrong hands, if we manage ourselves politically. The military is there. As long as the military is there, nothing happens to the strategic assets, we are in charge and nobody does anything with them,” he told the BBC in a radio interview aired Saturday.
Yet these claims ring hollow with political leaders, lawyers and pro-democracy activists, thousands of whom have been jailed since emergency rule was declared on November 3. They say Pakistan is now in the grip of a military dictatorship.
President Bush sent Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte to meet with Gen. Musharraf on Saturday to pressure him to lift emergency rule, resign as military chief and free thousands of jailed political prisoners as a prerequisite for free and fair elections to proceed on January 9.
Mr Negroponte will also try to revive a power-sharing deal between Gen. Musharraf and former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Mr Negroponte spoke with Ms Bhutto by telephone on Friday while she was still under house arrest in Lahore.
Gen. Musharraf bitterly accuses political opposition leaders such as Ms Bhutto and Pakistan’s judiciary of being the real culprits trying to derail democracy in Pakistan.
“Who is trying to derail the political and democratic process? Am I? Or is it some elements in the Supreme Court - the chief justice and his coterie... and now some elements in the political field?” he asked.
Days before the Supreme Court was expected to hand down a judgement that challenged Gen. Musharraf’s eligibility to run for re-election, he declared emergency rule, suspended the country’s constitution and dismissed seven of the eleven Supreme Court judges.
He then closed down the country’s media organizations. Journalists were threatened with imprisonment when they tried to cover pro-democracy rallies where thousands of peaceful protesters were beaten and arrested.
In Saturday’s interview, Gen. Musharraf demanded an explanation for the Western media’s portrayal of him as a dictator, and mocked Ms Bhutto as “the darling of the West”.
Ms Bhutto, who has been placed under house arrest twice in the past two weeks, has now ruled out any power-sharing arrangement with Gen. Musharraf, whom she called “the obstacle to the democratization of Pakistan”.
“I've spent 18 months talking to General Musharraf,” she told the PBS NewsHour in Lahore. “And at the last minute, he dumped the road map to democracy and went back to military dictatorship … And now the situation in Pakistan is critical. It is imploding from within.”
She said that Gen. Musharraf’s anti-democratic attitude and behavior made it impossible for any of Pakistan’s political opposition leaders to work with him.
“I’ve spent my time under house arrest contacting other political leaders, seeking with them a view as to whether they could work with Musharraf, and they all say no.”
Gen. Musharraf said he will resign as head of the army once the Supreme Court has ratified his next term as president.
