[Mrs. Zia had called for a “March for Democracy” on Sunday to protest the government’s decision to hold national elections on Jan. 5. The opposition coalition has demanded that the government step aside in favor of a caretaker administration to oversee the elections. But Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, arrested by a previous caretaker government in 2007, has refused to step aside and has said that the elections will be held as scheduled.]
By Julfikar Ali
Manik and Gardiner Harris
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A.M. Ahad/Associated Press
Supporters of the governing Awami League beat a supporter of
the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party at a protest in Dhaka on Sunday.
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DHAKA,
Bangladesh — A growing sense of crisis gripped Bangladesh on
Sunday as the government closed most forms of transportation into the capital,
arrested hundreds and barred the main opposition alliance from holding a
protest rally.
Police officers surrounded the home of the main
opposition leader, Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister who leads the
Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and prevented her followers from rallying outside
the party’s headquarters in Dhaka, the capital.
Mrs. Zia had called for a “March for Democracy”
on Sunday to protest the government’s decision to hold national elections on Jan.
5. The opposition coalition has demanded that the government step aside in
favor of a caretaker administration to oversee the elections. But Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina, arrested by a previous caretaker government in 2007,
has refused to step aside and has said that the elections will be held as
scheduled.
The police parked at least five trucks filled
with sand outside Mrs. Zia’s home and deployed water cannons alongside
barricades. Mrs. Zia got into a white vehicle around 1:50 p.m. and tried to
drive toward her party’s headquarters, but was stopped by a cordon of police
officers. She sat in the vehicle for nearly an hour. She finally emerged
holding the national flag and pleaded with police officers to allow her to
proceed. They refused.
“The program to restore democracy will go on,”
Mrs. Zia said to waiting reporters, according to local news media reports.
“Either today or tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, the program will
continue.”
Syed Ashraful Islam, the general secretary of
the governing Awami League, mocked Mrs. Zia for “staging a drama” in her
driveway.
The struggle between the two political
coalitions has paralyzed Bangladesh, unnerved Western governments and wounded
the country’s vital garment industry.
Mrs. Zia said the present government was
“illegal and undemocratic.”
“They should step down immediately if they had
any grace left,” she said.
At a news conference in Dhaka on Sunday,
Muhammad Hafizuddin Ahmed, the vice chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist
Party, vowed that the opposition’s protests would continue daily until Jan. 5.
He said the government had shut down Dhaka to prevent the opposition’s rally
and was “going to kill democracy by organizing a one-sided, voterless election
on Jan. 5.”
The police arrested Mr. Ahmed as he was leaving
the news conference, one of many opposition figures arrested in recent days.
“The problem for the ruling party is that the
voters in Bangladesh do not believe that a credible election can be held with
the ruling party at the helm,” wrote Muhammad Q. Islam, an associate professor
of economics at St. Louis University, in an opinion article published Sunday by an online
newspaper in Bangladesh. “Her arguments for holding elections have failed to
convince even her coalition partners, some of whom now have abandoned her,
multiplying her problems manifold.”
Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of the Dhaka
Metropolitan Police, said in a telephone interview that the police had refused
the opposition coalition’s request to hold a rally on Sunday “to ensure the
security of the people.”
“Despite the rejection of their application to
hold a rally, they announced they would hold it today anyway,” Mr. Islam said.
“We did not allow that to happen.”
One protester was killed in Dhaka on Sunday;
political violence has claimed the lives of more than 100 people in recent
weeks. In an attempt to stop the drive-by attacks, the police recently barred
motorcyclists from carrying passengers, an extraordinary measure in a country
where motorcycles are a dominant form of transportation and entire families
routinely ride together.
Kelly McCarthy, a spokeswoman for the United
States Embassy in Dhaka, told local reporters on Sunday that in a democracy all
parties and citizens “have the right to freely and peacefully express their
views.”
“The government is responsible to provide space
to all political parties for such activity; equally the opposition is
responsible to use such space in a peaceful manner,” Ms. McCarthy added,
according to local news reports.
Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, and
Gardiner Harris from Toulouse, France.
[Mr. Musharraf said he felt betrayed by his political allies, many of whom owed their fortunes and their positions to his patronage. But he insisted that he did not consider the United States, who once called him a premier ally in fighting terrorism, to be among the ranks of those who had abandoned him.]
By Salman Masood
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — With the opening of
a treason trial looming over him this week, the former Pakistani military ruler
Pervez Musharraf struck a defiant tone on Sunday, calling the case the worst
kind of “political vendetta” and claiming that the country’s powerful military
establishment was upset by his treatment.
In a rare interaction with reporters
representing foreign news outlets, Mr. Musharraf spoke with a seeming
confidence that belied a barrage of legal charges and harsh criticism in the
press against him since his return from exile abroad in March.
In those early days, he presented himself
as a potential savior for Pakistan’s political woes. But in the months since
his return, as his political hopes imploded and as the new government of Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif, whom he deposed in a 1999 coup, began exploring charges
against him, he has instead become a kind of public indicator of how much the
country — and, perhaps, the military — might have changed since his time in
power.
On Sunday, he insisted that he had been
treated unfairly and suggested that the military was on edge over his fate,
despite silence from Pakistan’s generals over the past few months.
“After having done so much for the
development and welfare of the people, is this what I deserve?” Mr. Musharraf
asked in a session with reporters in the dining room of his farmhouse villa on
the outskirts of Islamabad.
“I would say the whole army is upset,” he
said. “I have led this army from the front — I am not a study-table type of an
army chief. The feedback that I have received is that the whole army, they are
worried, and they are totally with me, I think, on this issue.”
He added, “Certainly, they wouldn’t like
anything happening to their ex-army chief.”
However, he stopped short of commenting on
what the new army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, might think of the treason
prosecution. Mr. Musharraf described General Sharif as a “straight dealer,” and
said, “I hold him in high esteem.”
Much of his ire was directed against
Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the recently retired head of Pakistan’s judiciary, whom he
described as “an activist chief justice.”
It was Mr. Musharraf’s move as president
in 2007 to fire Justice Chaudhry, whom he had promoted to chief justice two
years before, that ignited an opposition movement that eventually forced the
former general out of power.
Mr. Musharraf said he felt betrayed by his
political allies, many of whom owed their fortunes and their positions to his
patronage. But he insisted that he did not consider the United States, who once
called him a premier ally in fighting terrorism, to be among the ranks of those
who had abandoned him.
“I have tremendous support there,” he
said. “I have been to United States for my lectures, all over United States. I
have been on the Hill also, to the Senate and the congressmen. There is
tremendous amount of appreciation of whatever I did in the region, fighting
extremism and terrorism. They have not let me down.”
He added, though, that he did not expect
the United States to be offering him any kind of public support in his legal
troubles. “In the background, maybe on their own, they are maybe doing
something,” he said, “but I am not involved in that.”
Mr. Musharraf, who during his stretch in
power was fond of emphasizing his credentials as a swashbuckling commando
leader, said that nowadays, he felt confined and restless in his home. He has
spent much of the past months under house arrest, and is surrounded by guards
to protect him from assassination.
It was a such a potential security risk
that put off the treason proceedings against him until the new year, after bomb
materials and handguns were found along his convoy’s route to the capital for a
planned court appearance on Tuesday.
He described his farmhouse villa, a
four-bedroom home on five acres of land, as just “a little better than an
average house.” It is comfortably, if not lavishly, appointed, and decorated in
a mostly marshal theme, including commemorative swords.
Mostly, he expressed a longing to be able
to leave it more freely.
“I want to be a free man, to go and come
back as I please,” he said. “What is the charge against me? I have not been
convicted of anything.”
A circuitous road out of Islamabad leads
to Mr. Musharraf’s residence, which is ringed by three security checkpoints. A
retired colonel oversees his security, with paramilitary ranger troops
positioned alongside the boundary walls and private commandos within the house.
Mr. Musharraf insisted that he was not
deterred by the legal challenges against him — not even the impending treason
case, which is based on accusations that he subverted the Constitution by
firing Justice Chaudhry and imposing emergency rule during that crisis, and
could carry the death penalty if he is convicted. But he acknowledged, “I am passing
through an important, critical stage.”
In the interview, he defended his time in
office, saying that even though his political allies pushed him toward actions
that ended up mistakes, he stood on his record of fighting terrorism and
militancy by Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.
He reserved special criticism for Justice
Chaudhry and Prime Minister Sharif. And he took pains to insist that he would
never cut a deal with Mr. Sharif merely to spare himself the pain of legal
proceedings.
In that matter, however, the prime
minister would seem to hold the cards. The special court proceedings on the
treason charge against Mr. Musharraf are to resume on Wednesday.
