Pakistan Remains Calm as Military Moves to Solidify Control

KARACHI, Pakistan — Fresh from toppling the country’s civilian government, Pakistani troops arrested another top elected official Wednesday and ransacked the offices of others, even as calm prevailed across the nation.

A day after Pakistan’s army ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the general who orchestrated the coup showed no signs that he intended to return power to the elected civilians any time soon. Troops loyal to Gen. Pervez Musharraf continued their occupation of key institutions and appeared to be debating their next move as Pakistan’s new rulers.

Military sources said Wednesday that Sharif, arrested a day earlier when he tried to fire Musharraf, had been taken to an undisclosed “safe house” about 12 miles from the prime minister’s official residence in Islamabad, the capital. Troops detained another Sharif loyalist, Punjab state parliamentary Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Illihi, and soldiers searched the offices of the deposed prime minister’s friends. Members of Sharif’s Cabinet were arrested the night of the coup.

“All I can say is Mr. Sharif has been given proper treatment, and no physical harm has come to him,” said a Pakistani official who requested anonymity.

As Pakistanis and world leaders waited, Musharraf and his commanders uttered few public statements, which left confusion about the coup leaders’ intentions. Musharraf met with Pakistani President Mohammed Rafiq Tarar. The army’s top commanders then reportedly held lengthy talks.

The army postponed what was expected to be an announcement of where the general intended to take the country. Many people in Pakistan had expected Musharraf to announce the formation of a non-elected civilian government of technocrats and economists to lead until fresh elections could be held.

The general’s other options include martial law, already imposed by the Pakistani army three times in the nation’s 52-year history. Such a move would require dissolving the elected parliament and suspending Pakistan’s constitution.

But according to Pakistani military sources, the army Wednesday ruled out imposing martial law. The sources said the coup leaders were set to announce today the formation of a new government.

“No one knows what this situation is, who is in charge,” said one government worker who refused to give his name.

Mirza Aslam Beg, a former Pakistani army chief, said Musharraf planned to set up an interim government to rule for about two years.

“It will examine the accountability of many of the leaders who are known to be corrupt and who must be called to account,” Beg said.

The military sources said the new government will focus on reviving the nation’s moribund economy.

The coup has alarmed leaders around the world, who fear instability in a country that is believed to have nuclear weapons and which only this summer sent hundreds of troops across the border into India.

Yet for all the week’s dramatic events, life in Pakistan for the most part appeared normal Wednesday, with people going about their business and few soldiers visible on the streets. Banks and the Karachi stock exchange were closed for the day, but buses ran, shops were open and children went to school.

Many Pakistanis seemed to welcome the coup. Some said that although they were wary about a resumption of military rule, they were happy to see a leader whom they regarded as corrupt and incompetent finally leave the political stage.

In little more than two years in office, Sharif had attacked most of the country’s important institutions: He jailed members of the media; helped drive from office a chief justice of the Supreme Court and a president; amended the constitution to take away the president’s power to dismiss the prime minister and parliament; and chased his main rival, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, into exile. He courted Islamic fundamentalists, was the subject of serious corruption charges and presided over a near-total collapse of the country’s economy.

“Mr. Sharif came to power with a lot of promise and made many promises to many people--businessmen, the middle classes, women, old people--but he failed to deliver on each one of them,” said Imran Asghar, a hotel owner in Islamabad. “No wonder people are celebrating that he is out of power.”

Such feelings were not universal, but few people in Pakistan seemed willing to publicly criticize the generals. Among those who did was the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent group that was one of Sharif’s biggest enemies.

“The commission regards the army takeover of the country with deep concern and anguish,” it said in the statement. “The interruption of the political process will do little to serve the longer-term interests of the people or of democracy.”

Musharraf took power Tuesday after a feud with Sharif over the disastrous military operation earlier this year in the Kargil area of the Himalayas. The incursion began when several hundred Pakistani soldiers occupied Indian mountain peaks overlooking an important highway in the disputed region.

Musharraf is widely credited with launching the operation, and many Pakistanis believe that Sharif played only a superficial role. Nonetheless, it was Sharif, under pressure from President Clinton, who agreed to pull back Pakistani forces. The Kargil retreat was regarded as a humiliation to the army, and Musharraf and other commanders were said to be furious at the premier’s capitulation.

According to Wednesday’s edition of the Daily News, an English-language newspaper here, the army had been preparing for weeks to mount a coup against Sharif in the event of Musharraf’s ouster. When Sharif ordered the general into retirement Tuesday, Musharraf and his supporters struck fast and hard. Within two hours of the announcement, the army had seized the airports and the state television network. The troops also thwarted Sharif’s plan to arrest Musharraf when the general returned Tuesday from a trip to Sri Lanka.

While the army gave assurances that Sharif was being treated well, others had doubts. In Pakistan, the maltreatment of deposed leaders has been commonplace. In 1979, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged by a military junta after being overthrown in a coup. In June, the late prime minister’s daughter, Benazir Bhutto, alleged that her husband had been beaten and tortured while in prison.

Some Pakistanis said privately Wednesday that their country’s economic situation may force Musharraf to move quickly to restore democracy. With rising prices, high unemployment and a $32-billion foreign debt, Pakistan is relying heavily on international aid to stave off collapse. Those institutions may have more leverage over Pakistan than any government.

In July, the International Monetary Fund suspended a $1.6-billion loan after Pakistan failed to meet some of its performance goals. The IMF was expected to resume the program in November, but officials have indicated that the coup may prompt changes. The Asian Development Bank had planned to provide Pakistan with $880 million in development aid this year and about $600 million next year. Its officials said they were monitoring events in Pakistan.

“We are in a situation where we depend on foreign funding,” said Assad Nakvi, a stockbroker in Karachi. “If foreign funding is halted, Pakistan could go under.”

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Times special correspondents Kamal Siddiqi in Karachi and Syed Talat Hussain in Islamabad contributed to this report.