Pakistani police beat protesters

By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police swung batons and fired tear gas at supporters of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto demonstrating near Pakistan's parliament Wednesday, deepening a political crisis triggered by the imposition of military rule.

Associated Press reporters saw hundreds of protesters pushing metal barricades into ranks of riot police blocking their path toward the parliament building, where state television reported that government lawmakers unanimously endorsed President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule.

Police beat several activists, some of them women, who broke through, and dragged at least six people from the scene.

Naheed Khan, a close female aide to Bhutto, stuck a policeman on the shoulder and screamed at him: "Who are you? How dare you take action against women?"

The demonstrators pulled back amid a cloud of tear gas, chanting "Benazir! Benazir!" and "Down with the emergency!"

Thousands of people have been rounded up and put in jail or under house arrest since Musharraf declared a state of emergency Saturday, and three days of protests by lawyers have been quickly put down with force.

Violent clashes with Bhutto's supporters could increase the uncertainty engulfing the country. Bhutto set a collision course with Musharraf on Wednesday by calling her supporters to defy a ban on rallies by marching on parliament and also attending a mass rally in the nearby city of Rawalpindi on Friday.

"I request my brothers and sisters to reach Rawalpindi at all costs," Bhutto told a news conference.

But the mayor of Rawalpindi, a garrison city just south of Islamabad, said police would prevent anyone reaching the park where Bhutto hoped to address supporters on Friday.

"We will ensure that they don't violate the ban on rallies, and if they do it, the government will take action according to the law," mayor Javed Akhlas told the AP.

Musharraf suspended the constitution after declaring the state of emergency. He has since ousted independent-minded judges, put a stranglehold on the media and granted sweeping powers to authorities to crush dissent.

With the encouragement of the United States, Musharraf had held negotiations with Bhutto widely expected to lead to a power-sharing arrangement after parliamentary elections originally slated for January.

Bhutto said Tuesday that Musharraf's resort to authoritarian measures was a "breach of trust" with her and that the talks were off. However, she also suggested that they could resume if circumstances change.

"I think we should all come down as strongly as we can for the restoration of democracy. And if General Musharraf wants to find a way out, well the ball is in his court," she said.

The United States and other foreign donors to Pakistan are pressing loudly for the elections to be held on time. They are also urging Musharraf to keep a promise to quit his post as army chief — the real source of his power.

"For elections to be credible, opposition political party leaders and their party workers must be released from jail or house arrest. The media must be free to report on events and share their opinions with the public," U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said after meeting the head of the election commission on Tuesday.

Musharraf says he suspended the constitution because the courts were hampering Pakistan's effort to fight extremism — for instance by ordering the release of suspects held without charge. But opponents accuse him of a mounting a last-ditch maneuver to stay in power.

In an op-ed piece published in The New York Times, Bhutto urged the U.S. to tell Musharraf it expects internationally monitored elections to be held within 60 days.

"It is dangerous to stand up to a military dictatorship, but more dangerous not to," Bhutto wrote. "The moment has come for the Western democracies to show us in their actions, and not just in their rhetoric, which side they are on."

Bhutto invited other opposition parties to a meeting in Islamabad on Wednesday to discuss a joint strategy against the emergency. However, the party of Nawaz Sharif, the premier Musharraf deposed in a coup in 1999, snubbed the gathering.

Sharif urged the West to abandon Musharraf but also ruled out teaming up with Benazir Bhutto, another key opposition leader, unless she cut off talks with Musharraf.

Sharif told The Associated Press that Pakistan was heading deeper into chaos and his archenemy had outlived his usefulness in fighting terrorism.

"One man is holding the entire nation hostage for his personal interests," Sharif said.

"The political forces, the lawyers and civil community that believe in moderation and democracy, they are sidelined today. Who is going to get the benefit? It will be the radicals and extremists, they will thrive now," he said in a telephone interview from Saudi Arabia, where he was deported in September after attempting to return to Pakistan. "Mr. Musharraf is a man who has outlived his utility in terms of fighting any battle against terror."

Sharif, whose government was ousted by Musharraf in a 1999 coup and has spent the last seven years in exile, said thousands of his party members had been rounded up in the past four days.

He urged the public to protest against Musharraf, and predicted that unless the state of emergency was reversed and Musharraf ousted, the country could be pitched toward "catastrophe."

"Even the ruling junta today does not know how to go get out of this situation they have got into," he said.

Musharraf purged the Supreme Court just as it was preparing to rule on the legality of his contested re-election as president last month. The court also has pressed for authorities to allow the return of Sharif from exile in Saudi Arabia.

Lawyers particularly are incensed by the ouster of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, an independent-minded judge whom Musharraf had tried unsuccessfully to fire earlier this year.
Chaudhry is under house arrest in Islamabad but managed on Tuesday to use a cell phone to urge lawyers to take to the streets.

"We should act upon this message and it will be decided once and for all if the army or the people will rule Pakistan," Zaman said.

Rice presses diplomats on Iraq posts

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the U.S. envoy to Baghdad reminded diplomats on Friday of their duty to serve their country amid a revolt among some who are resisting forced assignments to Iraq.

In separate comments, Rice and Ambassador Ryan Crocker said that foreign service officers are obligated by their oath of office to work at any diplomatic mission worldwide, regardless of the risks involved or their personal feelings about the policies of any given administration.

"We are one foreign service and people need to serve where they are needed," Rice told reporters aboard her plane as she flew to Turkey for a weekend conference of top officials from Iraq's neighbors. Crocker also is attending the conference.

She noted that more than 1,500 of roughly 11,500 foreign service officers had already done Iraq duty voluntarily and, while expressing an understanding of the safety and security concerns of those who might be ordered to go, said they must uphold their commitments.

"I would hope others would think about their obligation not just to the country but their obligation to those who have already served," said Rice, who sent a worldwide diplomatic cable explaining the situation and appealing for volunteers to fill the 48 vacancies that the State Department must fill next year in Iraq.

"We will fill these new jobs as we have before — with volunteers," she said in the unclassified cable, which was made public by the State Department. "However, regardless of how the jobs may be filled, they must be filled. I believe strongly that it is our duty to do our part toward succeeding in the vital mission in Iraq given to us by the president."

On his way to the meeting in Turkey, Crocker offered an even blunter assessment, saying that diplomats have a responsibility to prioritize the nation's interest over their personal safety and that those who don't are "in the wrong line of business."

Joining the foreign service "does not mean you can choose the fight," he told reporters in Dubai. "It's not for us to decide if we like the policy or if the policy is rightly implemented. It's for us to go and serve, not to debate the policy, not to agree with it."

Crocker, a 36-year veteran diplomat who has worked throughout the Mideast and was personally skeptical of the Iraq war, has been the U.S. ambassador to Iraq since early this year.

Since his arrival, he has repeatedly asked for more and more experienced personnel to work at the Baghdad embassy and in Provincial Reconstruction Teams in outlying areas.

His requests have been given top priority by Rice and State Department management officials who have offered generous incentives, including extra danger pay, leave time and preference on next assignments to attract diplomats to volunteer for Iraq duty.

But facing a shortfall in volunteers, the department announced last week that it would identify 200 to 300 foreign service officers as "prime candidates" for 48 unclaimed positions in Iraq and that if not enough of them agreed to go, some would be ordered to do so under threat of dismissal.

The move is the largest diplomatic call-up to an active war zone since Vietnam and on Wednesday several hundred diplomats angrily complained about the step in a town hall meeting, with many applauding when a colleague likened it to a "potential death sentence."

Others complained about the fact that they would be separated from their families, a lack of training and support, and the prospect of returning from Iraq with physical or mental disabilities with few options for treatment, something Rice addressed in the cable.

"I commit to each of you that all those who serve in Iraq, and their families, will receive the department's full support before, during and after their assignment," she said. "I know you will continue to make our nation proud as you serve worldwide, dedicated to the mission, and ready to overcome any challenge."

The State Department says three foreign service personnel — two diplomatic security agents and one political officer — have been killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

The union that represents diplomats says the security situation is precarious and the completion of a new, heavily secured embassy compound and living quarters in Baghdad has been beset by logistical and construction problems.

The move to so-called "directed assignments" is rare but not unprecedented.

In 1969, an entire class of entry-level diplomats was sent to Vietnam. On a smaller scale, diplomats were required to work at various embassies in West Africa in the 1970s and 1980s.