Pakistan Going Backward

By Edward W. Desmond.

When three policewomen appeared at the family mansion in Karachi late last week to make their arrest, the head of the house appeared defiant. Before being driven away to the police station, she turned to a group of onlookers and scornfully declared, "So, you see that leading a rally is not permitted in Pakistan. Today the government is coming out with its true colors." Thus was Opposition Leader Benazir Bhutto, 33, the popular daughter of the late Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, arrested in a sudden return of repression by President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq. It was a backward step after what had seemed like a gradual revival of democracy in Pakistan this year.

Since her return from exile last April, the charismatic leader of the Pakistan People's Party has been trying to force a confrontation with Zia and Prime Minister Mohammed Khan Junejo, who assumed office last year after elections that were boycotted by most of the country's political parties. Bhutto roused huge crowds with calls for new elections and the resignation of Zia, who has insisted on remaining the unelected President until 1990, permitting no elections to the National Assembly until then.

Last week Junejo decided that enough was enough. He banned political rallies marking Independence Day, including those by his own party, the Pakistan Muslim League. Zia, who was away on a pilgrimage to Mecca, almost certainly had a role in the decision. When the opposition ignored the ban, police arrested hundreds of Bhutto's advisers and political allies in predawn raids around the country. Opposition supporters in Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad surged into the streets, where they were met by riot squads and tear gas. In Lahore, beleaguered police fired into a crowd, killing four and wounding dozens.

The clampdown came just three weeks after Junejo returned from a trip to the U.S., where he proclaimed Pakistan's return to democracy and emphasized that Bhutto's appeal was fading fast. In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the U.S. hoped for the quick restoration of "peaceful conditions."

The confrontation between the Prime Minister and Bhutto began early last week when Junejo saw that Independence Day celebrations planned for Lahore might lead to violence and an embarrassingly poor turnout for the Muslim League. In a nationally televised speech, he canceled the league's rally in Lahore and asked the opposition to cooperate. Said he: "There are certain opportunist politicians who want to use Independence Day for their own political objectives."

Dismissing the appeal, Bhutto tried to board a Lahore-bound plane in Karachi but was stopped by court order. Instead, the next morning a van paraded her slowly toward the city's poorest quarter, accompanied by a throng of supporters chanting "Long live Bhutto." Within half an hour, police riot squads attacked without warning, firing tear gas shells. Later that day Bhutto was arrested.

The rioting appears to have changed Pakistan's political course. Junejo and Zia will have difficulty defending the crackdown, a necessity for winning support in the U.S. Congress, which is considering the Reagan Administration's $4.02 billion aid package for Islamabad. Meanwhile, Benazir Bhutto's efforts to force the government's hand may spark more bloodshed, possibly creating the same type of social unrest that led to Zia's military coup in 1977.

With reporting by Ross H. Munro/Karachi