Pakistan Politics

Police beat back demonstrators from the gates of Parliament on Thursday when former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto sought to highlight charges that officials organized the gang-rape of her friend. Watched by Pakistan's political elite, Bhutto led her Pakistan People's Party, chanting "Fascists," in an unprecedented walkout from President Ghulam Ishaq Khan's ceremonial address to a new session of Parliament. Ishaq Khan denied any official complicity.

Re "Don't look back," Opinion, Nov. 30 Mansoor Ijaz allows his emotions to overshadow reason. Let us remind him that the corruption charges against former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto have never been substantiated. In fact, corruption under Pervez Musharraf's regime is much greater than during previous political governments. Under the Pakistan People's Party, the nation experienced the advancement of democracy and freedom.

A blogger alerts fellow students to an imminent campus demonstration. A chat room user offers up a poignant Urdu-language poem. Another message has more practical advice: a homemade tear-gas remedy. In the days since President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule, many Pakistanis have found a haven in cyberspace, where they can share information, keep up with the news and stay in touch with friends and associates amid a roundup of thousands of opposition activists.

A blogger alerts fellow students to an imminent campus demonstration. A chat room user offers up a poignant Urdu-language poem. Another message has more practical advice: a homemade tear-gas remedy. In the days since President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule, many Pakistanis have found a haven in cyberspace, where they can share information, keep up with the news and stay in touch with friends and associates amid a roundup of thousands of opposition activists.

They are historic figures, two Western-educated Asian women who rode peaceful "people power" revolutions to lead their impoverished nations from brutal dictatorship to struggling democracy. Both, propelled to prominence by martyred men, freed a boisterous press, restored civil liberties and were held up as champions of the poor. Both won standing ovations from an adoring U.S. Congress in the capital of their closest ally.

A year ago this week, a young, well-born Ivy Leaguer who had been the first woman elected to govern a Muslim country took to the airwaves to vow that this time she would not disappoint the Pakistani people. "Dear countrymen! The dark clouds besetting our democratic horizon have disappeared and given way to a new dawn," Benazir Bhutto declared. "By Allah's grace and your prayers, I have become the prime minister to serve the country." It was Oct.

Of all the ways to measure the Islamic zeal of this country's new rulers, one of the most popular is the counting of beards. The presence of a long beard on a Pakistani male is often regarded here as a crude but quick way to spot an adherent of an extreme interpretation of the Islamic faith. Experts watching the Pakistani army, which seized power in a coup Oct. 12, are relieved to find that the number of beards among senior officers is still decidedly low. Gen.

Thousands of mourners attended the burial of Murtaza Bhutto, estranged brother of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, on Saturday as Pakistan named a judge to investigate his killing by police. Murtaza Bhutto was buried at the ancestral graveyard at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, about 15 miles from Larkana, beside the grave of his younger brother, Shahnawaz, and near that of his father, executed former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Benazir Bhutto, heir to one of Asia's great political dynasties and all the bloodstained treachery that comes with it, emerged from a forced seclusion Wednesday and accused Pakistan's president of murdering her brother, kidnapping her husband and disgracing the name of all-powerful Allah. For good measure, she also said President Farooq Leghari--her onetime comrade--is a coward, a traitor and, to be brutally honest about it, not very bright.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appeared in public for the first time since he was deposed, arriving at court in an armored personnel carrier. Sharif, ousted in an Oct. 12 military coup, appeared fatigued after more than a month in what he described as a cold room in the hills. Sharif reiterated his innocence when he appeared before the court in Karachi, Pakistan's capital, in a legal process that could lead to the death penalty.

A suicide bomber believed to have been targeting Pakistan's interior minister set off a powerful explosion Saturday that killed at least 26 people and injured dozens, including the minister, Pakistani authorities said. Officials said the blast, at a political gathering in the restive North-West Frontier Province, appeared to be a renewed challenge by Islamic insurgents to President Pervez Musharraf's government.

President Pervez Musharraf's decision to reshape Pakistan as a moderate Islamic state carries implications that extend far beyond its borders, many people in this region believe. Among other things, they argue, Pakistan's new moderate course will: * Undercut extremist groups from throughout the Arab and broader Muslim world that have used Pakistan as both an important support base and a way station in the conduct of global terrorism.

President Pervez Musharraf vowed Saturday that Pakistan will dismantle the structure of extremism in mosques and religious schools that he said has bred violence and perverted Islam in this country. He also banned five militant organizations, saying Pakistanis are tired of a "Kalashnikov culture."

This was to have been the year that democracy returned to Pakistan. But Gen. Pervez Musharraf has changed his mind. In recent months, he has said that no matter how the October parliamentary election turns out, he intends to stay on as president. This doesn't entirely displease Pakistanis, who have been taken on a breathtaking ride by Musharraf.

When Osama bin Laden seemed to melt into the snowcapped mountains of eastern Afghanistan more than a week ago, many speculated that he had made a simple escape, taking an obvious route. Bin Laden had headed east, the thinking went, out of the rain of U.S. bombs on Tora Bora and into the arms of friendly tribes along the lawless and porous border with Pakistan. It's a fine theory, many in Pakistan say--although perhaps only a bit better than a few others.

Groups opposed to the United States' war in neighboring Afghanistan vowed Thursday to go ahead with street protests across Pakistan despite strict new government measures to curtail public dissent. The statements set up the first real test of the restrictions, which include bans on loudspeakers, incitement against the military and processions that disrupt commerce or routine life. Traditionally, the largest public demonstrations in Pakistan come on Fridays, the Muslim Sabbath.

Army troops began pulling back from Pakistan's border with India on Monday, almost a week after the military took over Pakistan's government and four months after a bitter border dispute threatened to erupt into full-fledged war. Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who overthrew the democratically elected government of Nawaz Sharif, said the redeployment was a peaceful gesture toward India. But India responded coolly, saying the move had no military significance.

When Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif selected Pervez Musharraf to be army chief of staff last year, jumping the general over two more senior officers, he apparently thought the former commando was a professional soldier uninterested in politics. Clearly, it was a miscalculation. The 56-year-old Musharraf on Tuesday took control of Pakistan's government as leader of the military coup that ousted Sharif's elected civilian regime.

A terrorist attack on a Roman Catholic church in eastern Pakistan left 15 worshipers and a security guard dead early Sunday, underscoring the deep domestic difficulties facing the government as it attempts to help the United States. To some analysts, the attack appeared to be directed against the military regime of President Pervez Musharraf, which has come under pressure from large sectors of the public because of its support for the U.S. campaign against Afghanistan.

Hoping to patch up bitter differences born of two decades of war, several hundred Afghan leaders representing exiled political groups, monarchists and anti-Taliban forces have gathered in this frontier city to discuss the creation of an alternative government for Afghanistan.