> Pakistan: Bhutto under house arrest

Hundreds of riot policemen today blocked the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and her supporters from making a planned long march from this eastern city 160 miles through Punjab Province to the capital, Islamabad.

Police officers surrounded the house where Ms. Bhutto was staying here and arrested party workers who tried to cross police lines to reach her. Riot policemen using barbed wire and dump trucks loaded with sand blocked off the neighborhood.

“We will definitely try to come out,” said Farzana Raja, a party spokesman, referring to street protests. “She will definitely try to come out.”

Minutes later, the police arrested Ms. Raja and several dozen other party workers. With the police deployed across the city, it appeared that Ms. Bhutto’s supporters would again be blocked from demonstrating.

Police officers arrested hundreds of workers from her political party around this city on Tuesday. Riot police officers were deployed outside government buildings here as well, in anticipation of protests by Ms. Bhutto’s supporters.

The Pakistani government placed her under house arrest on Monday for seven days, members of her party said, in an attempt to block the march. It was unclear what Ms. Bhutto would do in response to the government’s move. On Friday, a huge police presence in the city of Rawalpindi prevented a rally planned by her there.

Other opposition groups have accused her of mounting only token protests while negotiating a power sharing agreement with Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, at the urging of the United States.

Standing in front of police barriers, Yousuf Arza Giani, a party vice president, said the party had broken off all talks with the government. “It’s really bad, extremely bad,” he said.

A government spokesman, Tariq Azim Khan, citing intelligence data, suggested that Ms. Bhutto could be a target for militants. She survived a suicide-bombing attack last month in Karachi when she returned to Pakistan, after eight years in self-imposed exile, to lead her party in parliamentary elections.

Although there is general agreement that a threat to her exists, General Musharraf is widely seen here as using the specter of terrorism to expand his own powers and squelch all opposition. Party officials scoffed at the notion of a threat. “It’s a drama — there is no reality to it,” a local spokeswoman said Tuesday.

About 140 of Ms. Bhutto’s party workers were killed in the attack in Karachi on Oct. 18. The government has used that attack as public justification for stopping her protests. It has also made clear that any demonstrations are illegal under the emergency decree.

The decree has also cast uncertainty on parliamentary elections, scheduled for January.

Two of Pakistan’s bigger opposition parties said Monday that they would probably boycott the elections if emergency rule was still in place. Ms. Bhutto has not said whether she would pull her party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, out of the elections. General Musharraf said Sunday that emergency rule would continue at least until the elections.

On Sunday, Ms. Bhutto called the announcement a “positive” but insufficient step. She assumed a slightly tougher tone on Monday, suggesting that her negotiations with General Musharraf had come to an end.

“We cannot work with anyone who has suspended the Constitution, imposed emergency rule and oppressed the judiciary,” she said in Lahore.

Raza Zafarul Haz, the chairman of one of the country’s biggest parties, the Pakistan Muslim League of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said that for free and fair elections to go ahead, emergency rule would have to be lifted and judges who were fired after the imposition of the rule would need to be reinstated.

The party will make its final decision within a week on whether to participate, he said.

Liaqat Baloch, the secretary general of Pakistan’s most popular Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, said the party was considering withholding its candidates if the emergency was still in place in January.

Despite Ms. Bhutto’s tougher comments on Monday, analysts said they believed she had not completely moved away from her original plan, devised with the backing of the Bush administration, to seek a power-sharing deal with General Musharraf.

As the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, which has usually commanded about a third of the popular vote, Ms. Bhutto is trying to steer a path between a desire to return to power and not to appear to be too close to the widely unpopular president.

Ms. Bhutto was prime minister of Pakistan twice and was twice dismissed before she was able to complete her terms.

Separately, foreign ministers from the Commonwealth of Britain and its former colonies said Pakistan would be suspended from the organization unless the decree was repealed and General Musharraf stepped down as army chief by Nov. 22, The Associated Press reported.

Jane Perlez reported from Islamabad, and David Rohde from Lahore, Pakistan.

Police in Pakistan are mounting a massive security operation in Lahore, where opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has been placed under house arrest.

The house in which Ms Bhutto is staying has been surrounded and hundreds of activists are reportedly being held.

The clampdown aims to stop a "long march" of protest taking place.

In response, Ms Bhutto called for Gen Pervez Musharraf to quit as president, an increase on her demands for free elections and an end to emergency rule.

However, the BBC's Barbara Plett cautions that it remains to be seen whether Ms Bhutto is simply expressing what she sees as the national mood or whether she is preparing for a united opposition campaign to oust the military leader.

Gen Musharraf attracted fierce international protest when he imposed emergency rule in Pakistan on 3 November, citing rising militancy and "interference" by the judiciary in the governance of the country.

On Monday a Commonwealth meeting gave Pakistan 10 days to lift its emergency rule or face suspension.

Ms Bhutto had called on her supporters to join her in a "long march" of protest against emergency rule from Lahore to Islamabad, beginning on Tuesday.

But - for the second time in five days - Pakistani police have now placed Ms Bhutto under house arrest, saying the planned march defies emergency laws and that Ms Bhutto's personal safety is under threat.

Vehicles, barbed wire and metal barriers surround the house where she is staying, and thousands of police are said to be on duty in Lahore.

Dozens of Ms Bhutto's supporters who attempted to gather for the march chanted slogans, but were then bundled into police vans and driven away, our correspondent says.

Ms Bhutto said thousands of opposition activists had been arrested across Punjab province - of which Lahore is the capital.

In interviews with the BBC, she said the Pakistani people had lost confidence in Gen Musharraf's ability to steer the country towards democracy.

"It's time for him to leave," she said.

"There no circumstances in which I could see myself serving with President Musharraf."

Our correspondent says this demand apparently marks a significant shift from Ms Bhutto.

Her demands were previously limited to calling for an end to emergency rule and demanding that Gen Musharraf relinquish his army position.

But it remains unclear if Ms Bhutto's words will unite an opposition movement that until now has been fragmented, she adds.

Until now, neither opposition activists nor lawyers who spearheaded protests against emergency rule have participated in the protests outside Ms Bhutto's house - reflecting their suspicions that Miss Bhutto was still dealing with General Musharraf.

On Monday, Ms Bhutto said her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) would hold no more talks with Gen Musharraf on a possible power-sharing deal.

Ms Bhutto says she still wants the 270km (170-mile) march from Lahore to Islamabad to go ahead.

But a senior police official, quoted by Reuters news agency, said: "Her residence is an official jail now.

"If they try to take the law into their own hands, then we will resort to all means necessary, including charging with batons and tear gas."

Gen Musharraf says a parliamentary poll will be held in January, but opposition leaders want an end to emergency rule first.

On Monday, Commonwealth foreign ministers meeting in London gave Pakistan 10 days to lift its emergency rule or face suspension.

The meeting also demanded Gen Musharraf step down as army chief and release political detainees.

Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth in 1999, after Gen Musharraf seized power in a coup.

The country was reinstated in 2004.