Editorial
Benazir Bhutto under arrest and free again
Musharraf's desperation puts Pakistan at risk
The danger in which Pakistan finds itself grows by the day. The responsibility for the country's reaching such a pass is of course General Pervez Musharraf's. His unwillingness to see that his unbridled ambitions are ruining Pakistan's present and may be destroying its future is regrettable as well as outrageous. More importantly, the fact that he has spread himself thin trying to hang on to power does not appear to worry him. Not even an imposition of a state of emergency has given him any respite from his problems, as the continuing situation in Pakistan so amply demonstrates. The suicide bomber who ended up killing himself and four others at the home of a federal minister on Friday is one more sign of how precarious things have become in the country.
The latest twist to the situation has come through the desperate move by the junta to confine former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to her home for a day and then, under local and global condemnation of the act, allow her to go free in a bare twelve hours. If that is not a sign of a regime at sea, what is? The emergency is certainly not helping General Musharraf to curb opposition to him, which is again symbolic of the moral ground he has lost. His attempt to convince people that religious extremism and the role played by the Supreme Court led him into imposing the emergency has fallen flat.
With Ms. Bhutto now demanding that he doff his army uniform, re-instate the Supreme Court judges whom he earlier sacked and announce a firm date for elections, it becomes clear that authority continues to ebb away from Pakistan's military leader. His refusal to see reason, indeed to accept the realities on the ground have now created a situation where the Pakistani state has begun haemorrhaging, and badly too. Suicide bombers have fanned out across Pakistan; and the so far peaceful Swat valley is today under extremist control. There is hardly any spot in Pakistan that is safe today. Musharraf and his regime are increasingly a besieged lot. Sadly enough, Pakistan's extremists have not only targeted him but have also been zeroing in on Ms. Bhutto and other moderate politicians.
Ironically, though, it is only General Musharraf who can save, at least partly, the situation. He should restore the Supreme Court, get out of his uniform, lift the emergency and hold the election. He needs to reach out to Benazir Bhutto and also Nawaz Sharif. Musharraf must stop believing that his future is inter-linked with that of Pakistan.
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