Facing a Furor, Pakistan Rejects Emergency Rule

ISLAMABAD,Pakistan-Pakistan’s president,Gen. Pervez Musharraf,was on the brink of declaring a state of emergency in his increasingly volatile country but backed away after a gathering storm of media, political and diplomatic pressure,Pakistani officials acknowledged on Thursday.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned General Musharraf about 2 a.m. Thursday in Pakistan, the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said.Bush administration officials refused to discuss in public what was said,but one Pakistani official said that Ms.Rice exhorted General Musharraf not to declare emergency rule.The conversation lasted about 15 minutes.“She thought it was an opportune moment to talk about a couple of things,” Mr. McCormack said without elaborating.By the time of the conversation,Pakistan’s minister of state for information and broadcasting,Tariq Azim Khan, had said that General Musharraf was not ruling out declaring an emergency,which would give him sweeping powers to restrict freedom of movement and assembly,to suspend Parliament and to curtail the activities of the courts.Such a step,officials in Washington fear,would further inflame the region and open the Bush administration to additional criticism from democracy advocates who say it has already been too willing to turn a blind eye toward General Musharraf’s failure to restore civilian rule.In Pakistan,opponents of emergency rule,including some inside the government, warned that it would push the country into a deeper crisis, as the opposition parties, the judiciary, lawyers and civil society would react strongly against it.“I fear the whole system will collapse and the country will plunge into a period of turmoil,” said one minister, warning of moves to impose emergency rule.In his remarks on Wednesday, Mr. Khan cited both “external and internal threats” to the government, including the worsening security situation in the country’s tribal areas, where Al Qaeda and many Taliban militants are based.Other Pakistani officials suggested privately, however, that it was less the security situation driving the plan for an emergency than General Musharraf’s own political concerns as he tried to have himself re-elected to another term.
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