(Adds Commonwealth on emergency meeting) By Simon Cameron-Moore ISLAMABAD, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Pakistan's opposition, including Benazir Bhutto, tried on Tuesday to work out a united response to President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule, leaving lawyers to bear the brunt of a crackdown. Ousted chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, though being held incommunicado at his residence, managed to get out a message by mobile phone to the lawyers' movement leading public protests. "The constitution has been ripped to shreds," Chaudhry said. "The lawyers should convey my message to the people to rise up and restore the constitution. This is a time for sacrifices. I am under arrest now, but soon I will also join you in your struggle," said the charismatic judge, who defied Musharraf in huge public rallies earlier in the year. While hundreds of lawyers were detained during clashes with police on Monday, Tuesday's protests were small and tamer. Most Pakistanis express dismay over Musharraf's decision, and are impatient to vote for a new government. "It just pains me that we're living in such an unstable and uncivilised country," said Samiya, a thirty-something corporate executive in Islamabad, who reckoned Musharraf should have quit rather than impose an emergency to save his job. "There's the law of the jungle here." While hundreds of opposition activists have been detained, primarily from the party of exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Islamist groups, the political parties have yet to order their supporters on to the streets. BHUTTO IN OPPOSITION TALKS Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who returned last month from 8 years abroad after Musharraf gave her immunity from old graft charges, flew to Islamabad to consult other opposition leaders. She said she would not meet let alone negotiate with the military president on forming a caretaker government. "If I met him face to face it might demoralise everybody else," Bhutto told Britain's Sky Television, adding that meetings in the past had not led to fruitful results. "It's certainly very difficult to know what General Musharraf is going to do next, because he said one thing, and he says all the right things to me, but what he said did not happen." Ahsan Iqbal -- a spokesman for Nawaz Sharif, the man Musharraf deposed in 1999 -- said Bhutto would have to give assurances that she had cut links with Musharraf before they could talk of reviving an opposition alliance. Former cricket star Imran Khan, a high-profile politician with a small following, vowed to oppose Musharraf from hiding. When Bhutto landed in Islamabad, the leader of the largest opposition party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, was swiftly whisked away, waving from a white bullet-proof land cruiser. Some 500 supporters chanted "Prime Minister -- Benazir". The United States had hoped Bhutto would share power with Musharraf after elections due in January, but the president's move has brought disarray to U.S. policy towards an ally in fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban. President George W. Bush urged Musharraf on Monday to lift the emergency, hold elections and quit as army chief. ELECTION UNCERTAINTY Officials have said elections will still take place in January or a bit later but the general has not confirmed this. U.S. Ambassador Anne W. Patterson called on the Election Commissioner in Islamabad to urge him to set a timetable quickly to dispel people's doubts. The Commonwealth of mainly former British colonies called an emergency meeting for Nov. 12 to discuss Pakistan, which was suspended from the group's councils in 1999 after the coup that brought Musharraf to power and only reinstated in 2004. The security presence around Pakistani cities was not much greater than usual for a country that has had 23 suicide attacks by al Qaeda-inspired militants in the past four months -- one of the reasons Musharraf cited for his authoritarian steps. But troops in Islamabad manned razor-wire checkpoints near the presidential palace, parliament and Supreme Court. In the central city of Multan, police used batons to beat more than a dozen stone-throwing lawyers chanting "Go Musharraf Go" before bundling them into trucks, a Reuters witness said. A dozen more were detained in the eastern city of Lahore. Musharraf's emergency declaration on Saturday was seen as an attempt to stop any chance of the Supreme Court invalidating his re-election as president by parliament last month on the grounds that he stood while still army chief. (With reporting by Kamran Haider, and Augustine Anthony in ISLAMABAD, Imtiaz Shah, Sahar Ahmed and Ovais Subhani in KARACHI)
