Strike Hits Pakistan on Day First Lady Arrives : South Asia: Work stoppage is to protest violence in Karachi. Mrs. Clinton’s visit begins 11-day tour of region.

As a strike crippled major cities and Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto cracked down on those who organized the embarrassing work stoppage, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton flew into Pakistan on Saturday night to begin a lengthy visit to South Asia.

The focus of Mrs. Clinton’s 11-day, five-country tour will be health care, education and the status of the region’s women. Accompanied by her 15-year-old daughter, Chelsea, the First Lady arrived in Islamabad, the capital, just before midnight.

A one-day work stoppage timed to coincide with her arrival virtually shut down Pakistan’s commercial hub, Karachi, and shuttered shops and industries in other cities.

Nearly 500 people have been killed in Karachi’s near-anarchy in the past three months as religious, political and ethnic violence has escalated.

Two American employees of the U.S. Consulate were gunned down March 8 in Karachi, which Mrs. Clinton will not be visiting.

The strike to protest the unending turmoil shut an estimated 90% of Karachi’s stores, offices, industries and large bazaars. Banks and government offices were closed Saturday anyway.

“This is a strike for solidarity and condolence with those who have been killed in Karachi,” said S. M. Muneer, president of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), which organized the strike.

Many business leaders contend that Bhutto has ignored Karachi’s agony and are worried that foreign investment projects in Pakistan will not go ahead unless law and order is restored to the country’s largest city. They chose to stage the strike on the day of Mrs. Clinton’s arrival to attract maximum world attention.

Bhutto angrily accused her opponents of attempting to sabotage her visit to the United States, scheduled to begin April 5, and her efforts to woo new American investment. Many members of the FPCCI, the nation’s most influential business body, favor the opposition Pakistan Muslim League.

“It’s a politically motivated strike, and if anything happens the responsibility will be on the FPCCI,” warned Syed Abdullah Shah, chief minister for Karachi’s Sindh province and a member of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party.

At 4:30 p.m., police and paramilitary Pakistani Rangers surrounded FPCCI headquarters in Karachi to bar its leaders from holding a news conference. Police officials also produced a Commerce Ministry document immediately revoking the functions of Muneer and three federation vice presidents.

The move was quickly denounced by Muneer, who, like many others who had engineered the strike, went into hiding.

“These orders are illegal, unconstitutional and unethical,” the FPCCI president said, speaking via his mobile telephone to reporters in Karachi. “We are the elected representatives of the business community. We cannot be sacked by the government without giving us any show-cause notice.”

Earlier in the day, Muneer said he couldn’t go home because five police vans and 50 police officers had surrounded his house.

“For the first time in the history of Pakistan, police and intelligence agents have been placed outside the houses of businessmen to harass them,” he said. “. . . It will affect the government’s privatization program and will cast a bad image on (Bhutto’s) tour.”

Muneer said three business leaders had been arrested in the Punjabi city of Gujrat, but the arrests could not be independently verified.

The FPCCI has been seeking a night curfew in Karachi, compensation for victims of the violence and the deployment of army troops to the city. Bhutto, though, has made it clear that she believes police can cope with the increasing violence and terrorism in the city.

As for worries about investment, Bhutto said, her 19-month-old government has signed more than $12 billion worth of contracts and memoranda of understanding with foreign companies--including new U.S. capital and business ventures worth more than $4.6 billion.

During a fueling stop Saturday in Cairo, en route to Pakistan, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton went on an impromptu tour of the pyramids.

Today, Mrs. Clinton is scheduled to lunch with Bhutto in Islamabad and visit King Faisal Mosque, which can hold 100,000 worshipers and is one of the world’s largest.

On Monday, Mrs. Clinton will tour a women’s school in Islamabad, then fly to Lahore, where she will deliver an address at the Lahore University of Management Sciences and tour a village in rural Punjab.

Later that day, Mrs. Clinton will depart for India. Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are also on the First Lady’s itinerary.