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ISLAMABAD - The United States yesterday suspended annual defence talks with Pakistan after earlier announcing a review of its aid to the country, in response to President General Pervez Musharraf suspending the constitution and imposing martial law.
Eric Edelman, undersecretary of defence for policy, was to head a
US delegation for the talksdue to begin yesterday, but he would not go until political conditions improved, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.
Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, warned that billions of dollars of aid given to Pakistan would be reviewed as a result of the behaviour of its ally in the "war on terror".
"The United States has never put all of its chips on Musharraf," Rice said, urging Pakistan to get back on the road to democracy.
Washington has given Islamabad around US$10 billion ($13.25 billion) over the last five years.
Britain's Foreign Office said aid worth £480 million over the next three years would be reviewed.
The US has opened itself to serious questions about its policy of supporting Musharraf and its willingness to turn a blind eye to some of his Government's more extreme actions.
Elections due to take place in Pakistan in a matter of weeks could be postponed by a year, the Government has announced. It said 500 people had been detained at gunpoint.
Dozens of other political opponents were on the run - among them the former cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan - and human rights activists were rounded up as the authorities sought pre-emptively to stamp out opposition to Musharraf's move to sack and arrest seven Supreme Court judges and invoke a state of emergency.
The judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, were under house arrest. A new chief justice, Hameed Dogar, has been appointed.
Lawyers called for a general strike and said they would be taking to the streets of several cities in protest. Last night police baton-charged and arrested lawyers protesting outside the High Court in Karachi and used teargas against lawyers who ransacked the office of a provisional chief justice who sided with the Government in Lahore.
Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami said authorities had also detained 600-700 of its supporters.
Musharraf's Government said it could not say how long the state of emergency would last.
It is clear, however, that the Government's pronouncements come with questionable levels of honesty and accuracy.
Just two days ago the Government's Information Minister, Tariq Azim, insisted to reporters that "neither emergency nor martial law is being imposed".
Yesterday, Azim was present at a press conference where the Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, announced that hundreds of people were being held without charge and that the current Parliament - due to be dissolved in days - might sit for another year.
Across Pakistan, people expressed a range of emotions ranging from anger to bewilderment at Musharraf's decision to replace the Supreme Court justices just days before they were due to rule on the legality of his recent presidential election victory.
Although Musharraf claimed he was acting to defend Pakistan against Islamic extremists, few saw it as anything other than an attempt to shore up his own position ahead of a court decision that could have ruled that his election victory was invalid.
"I think this is martial law. There is no television, no newspapers," said a woman walking in a park nestled beneath the Margalla Hills, which overlook Islamabad.
"But what can we do? We are just ordinary people."
Bushra Aitzaz Ahsan, the wife of the leading lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan, who was among those detained, said the Supreme Court justices had refused to support Musharraf's suspension of the constitution.
"Everything the government is doing is illegal and treasonable because the Supreme Court rejected the order," she said. Ahsan was being held in jail and refused visitors. The ousted Chief Justice was also being refused visitors. Swarms of armed police blocked off the road leading to his house.
- Independent, Reuters, AFP
