Issue 54 Vol III, December 31, 2007

F O C U S

The Blood and Gore in Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto's assassination adds to bloody family history
Gobind Thukral

THE grandiose white-domed mausoleum where Benazir Bhutto is buried alongside her father and two slain brothers is grim witness to the bloody story of one of Pakistan's pre-eminent political families. It also mirrors Pakistan’s blood and gore narrative. It is the story of military dictators supported and energized by the most powerful democracy, the United States of America. Pakistan born out of a united India’s struggle for freedom from the cruel British yoke had its roots in hatred. After sixty years, it is still struggling to come to terms with its past.

The mausoleum contains the remains of Benazir’s father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, ousted as prime minister in a military coup and later hanged in 1979 by a military dictator Gen. Zia- ul- Haq. Violence runs like a thread through her family life, to make her admirers to compare the Bhuttos, in the contribution they made to Pakistan's political life, and in the price they paid, to the Kennedys - and her enemies, pointing to the Bhuttos' bitter family feuds, to compare them to the Borgias. Benazir’s two younger, Shahnawaz, died mysteriously of poisoning in July1995, in an apartment owned by the Bhuttos in Cannes, France. French investigators said they suspected that a family feud over a multimillion-dollar inheritance from Zulfikar Bhutto was involved. However, no charges were filed.

Benazir’s other brother, Murtaza, who along with Shahnawaz founded a militant group that sought to topple Gen. Zia, spent years in exile in Syria beginning in the 1980s. Murtaza finally returned to Pakistan in 1994. He quickly fell into a bitter dispute with Benazir over the family's political legacy. He told a journalist at the time, over the money he said his father had placed in a Swiss bank when he was prime minister. In September 1996, Murtaza was gunned down outside his home in Karachi, and his widow, Ghinva, blamed Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir’s husband. Nusrat Bhutto, their Iranian-born mother sided in the dispute with Murtaza, and was dismissed by Benazir as the Peoples Party chairman. "I had no idea I had nourished a viper in my breast," she said of her daughter at the time. Murtza’s daughter, Fatima Bhutto who teaches in a Karachi college always had love- hate relations with her aunt, wadi bua as she called Benazir while expressing her sorrow over the tragic death in a column in the News International of Pakistan.

Benazir while recalling standing at the grave of his father, she wrote: "At that moment I pledged to myself that I would not rest until democracy had returned to Pakistan." And now before she returned he told London’s Guardian, "I pray for the best while I prepare for the worst. In any case, I am going back home. I am going back home to fight for the restoration of Pakistan's place in the community of democratic nations. I do not fear the extremists, for I have put my fate in the hands of my people, and my faith in God."

Now Benazir Bhutto, 54 was slain in a gun and suicide bomb attack on December 27 close to the Liaquat Bagh in the old garrison town of Rawalpindi where Pakistan’s first prime minister and freedom hero, Liaquat Ali khan was gunned way back in October 1951. Sixteen other innocent lives were lost in the attack. It was here that her father Zulfikar Ali went to gallows despite huge international protest and appeals. There had been two serious attempts on the life of President Pervez Musharraf close by.

Benazir, the two-time prime minister of the turbulent Islamic republic embarked on her political career while still in her teens after her father was hanged The first female prime minister in the Muslim world when she was elected in 1988 at the age of 35, was deposed in 1990, re-elected in 1993, and ousted again in 1996 amid charges of corruption and incompetence. Those controversies, however, did little to cool the admiration of her Western supporters. Now Benazir Bhutto's 19-year-old son, Bilawal on December 30 was declared to succeed her as chairman of her opposition party, extending Pakistan's most famous political dynasty, but leaving the real power to her husband, Asif Ali Zardari who will serve as co-chairman. Like her mother and grandfather, Bilawal is studying at Oxford.    This whole exercise of succession smacks of feudal mindset, in the party that claims to fight for democracy.

Z.A. Bhutto laid the foundations of Pakistan's nuclear capability as president and later prime minister, was toppled in 1977 by Zia who sent him to the gallows. Zia fostered Islamic militancy in Pakistan and made it his mission to crush the Bhutto family and its Pakistan People's Party (PPP) until he died in 1988 in a mysterious plane crash. Yet the PPP, founded in 1967, kept going despite persistent persecution by the powerful military establishment, and despite a string of tragedies and accusations of corruption the Bhuttos have remained one of Pakistan's top political families. Despite the apparent failure of her two corruption-tainted terms in power, Benazir has continued to enjoy support, particularly among the millions of urban and rural poor in this impoverished South Asian nation.

Last October she returned to Pakistan after eight years of self-exile amid hopes of a power-sharing deal with President Pervez Musharraf and to contest upcoming January 8 elections. However, it came at a bloody price, her homecoming parade was targeted in the deadliest terror attack in Pakistani history, leaving 139 dead and many injured . Ever since then, killings have escalated all around Pakistan.

The battle lines are squarely drawn; the vast majority in this Islamic Republic is moderate, yearns for a democracy and the two square meals and the jehadis and the corrupt army controlling nuclear arsenal battle each other as they feed each other. The jihads are indeed a gift from America to this hapless country, now being forced to fight them out.  America has successively used Pakistan for its narrow geo political interests either to fight communism first or jehadis it created to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. It was sucked into the SEATO and CENTO used as bridge to normalize with relations with China.

Pakistan’s successive military commanders that finished at least three political dynasties have run rough shod over the country. Musharraf has been backed to the hilt by the Bush administration for the past eight years and all his sins forgotten. He is their frontline ally in the fight against the Talibans and jehadis and the al Qaeda. It is clear from the events and reports that the fight has enriched the Pakistani military and strengthened the jehadis. More and more of Pakistan is under their influence and they control the whole tribal belt.  For America, there is neither any victory in Afghanistan nor in three provinces of Pakistan that border that tragic country which has been bombed to Stone Age.  This policy must change and a genuine democracy helped to take roots. Musharraf has postponed elections from January 8 to February 189 and bought time for his ramshackle party as the sympathy wave for Benazir and the Nawaz Sharif joining People’s Party had upset his apple cart.

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The Assassination of Ms Bhutto
Ishtiaq Ahmed

THE assassination of Benazir Bhutto comes as a severe shock but not as a surprise. Some 20 other people, among them five PPP volunteers, were also killed in the bomb blast that took place. It is being disputed whether she died of gunshots fired by the assassin(s) or the bomb blast that accompanied that crime.

According to the doctor in charge whose team tried their best to revive her heart, Benazir died of some deep wound to her head, but the post-mortem was not carried out as he was told by the law-enforcing authorities her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, had instructed that it should not be done.

Nothing had changed to suggest that her security had improved significantly since the massive bomb blasts of Oct 18 on her convey that began its journey from Karachi Airport for the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. On that occasion, some 150 people were killed and more than 500 injured. She was lucky to have escaped that terrorist outrage. This time luck let her down.

Indeed, the reference to luck is not meant non-seriously, because she was acutely aware of the fact that she had many enemies and some of them were plotting her death. Different theories and proofs about who the assassins were have been advanced. The government claims to have intercepted a telephone conversation between an Al Qaeda leader, XX, and some Maulvi Sahib in which both congratulate each other over her death and praise the men who took part in it.

The PPP’s Farhatullah Babar has called for caution in accepting such evidence, as it may be a cover up to conceal the identity of the real killers. Another story circulating on the Internet is that some commandos of a rogue unit of the Special Services Group, an elite force within the Pakistan military structure, had carried out the shooting and bomb blasts.

The assassination of Ms Bhutto is a national tragedy, but there is supreme irony involved in it, originating from a famous observation she made in an interview recently. She said: ‘No good Muslim will attack and kill a woman, because Islam forbids it. Anyone who did so will burn in hell. I am not afraid because no real Muslim will attack a woman.’

One can describe her remark as naivety or political rhetoric, or, perhaps she lived in a dream world of imaginary real and good Muslims. In the real Muslim world, fanatical groups kill anyone they perceive is a threat to their rigid version of Islam. They have done so in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime, in Iran under the Ayatollahs, in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and, indeed, in Pakistan.

In fact in ideological regimes such those of Iran and Saudi Arabia a comprehensive procedure upheld in law exists to intimidate and terrorise women. It includes killing them, whipping them and stoning them for allegedly living lives or doing things incompatible with their version of true Islam. In Algeria the extremists have in particular targeted women working in state institutions because according to them the only place where women belong is in the four walls of the house.

On Feb 20, a woman minister in the Punjab government, Mrs Zille Huma Usman, was shot in the head and killed by a man who believed that she and all women who live a public life were whores. That man had killed three women already because he believed they lived a life of sin, but each time the courts had let him off. Obviously, the dehumanisation and victimisation of women takes place at different levels of society, but we focus only on the individual who committed the actual crime.

Benazir had not only violated the strict code of chaste behaviour by choosing to live an active public life. The fact that she kept her head covered with a chador and was modestly dressed did not help her, it seems. But more importantly, in her latest political posture she had said and done things which were ideological and political anathema to the fanatics and ultra-nationalists and jingoistic forces in Pakistan.

She committed herself to working closely with the United States in the war on terror and even to let the Americans interrogate Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, a national hero who is fondly referred to as the father of the Islamic or Pakistani atomic bomb. Moreover, this time she had taken a more strident posture in favour of democracy and human rights. Such posturing most certainly earned her the wrath of a whole range of fanatics.

An Al Qaeda statement describes her death as the end of ‘America’s most precious asset in Pakistan’. Her assassination must therefore be seen an exercise in deterrence. The deterrence theory of punishment is premised on the assumption that the culprit should not only be punished severely, but also serve as an example to others, so that nobody dares break the law or defy the will of the state.

One can extend the same reasoning to non-state actors such a terrorist organisations and fanatical ideological movements. They follow their own codes of chaste behaviour and good conduct and punish brutally when those rules are violated.

The assassination of a national-level leader who was also a well-known international figure will only add greater disapprobation to Pakistan’s reputation as an authoritarian, military-dominated polity in which religious fanatics get away with impunity when they assault women and religious minorities, where the ruling classes are thoroughly corrupt and heartless, and the poor and needy are treated as dirt.

The question everyone is posing now is: what next? Some of us have been saying for a long time that the battle for democracy will not only be about winning the right to have fair and free elections, although that is an absolute pre-requisite for democracy. The battle for democracy is a battle for the mind. It is about ideas of human solidarity and dignity, about gender equality and equal rights of all human beings, irrespective of their caste, creed and colour. It will claim a lot of blood before it is won.

Can the heartless killing of Benazir Bhutto shock us and shame us in realising that by not protesting and opposing resolutely all forms of tyranny we have forfeited the right to live and think as a free nation. If it does, then she may have served a purpose much greater than her dreams.

[The writer is a professor of political science and a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore. Email: isasia@nus.edu.sg Courtesy News Pakistan.]

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Benazir Bhutto’s Assassination and the Clash of Civilizations
Dr Amrik Singh writes from Sacramento, California

Rawalpindi has earned the notorious reputation of terminating life span of three former Prime Ministers of Pakistan.  Liaquat Bagh where Benazir made her last speech bears the name of the first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan 1896-1951. He breathed his last after being fatally shot in 1951 by a hired Afghan assassin. Military dictator Zia ul Haq in the name of Islamic reforms ordered the execution Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979 in an open defiance to the mounting international diplomatic pressure. Z.A. Bhutto’s death sentence in Rawalpindi represented Zia’s chilling message to the civilized world that democracy in Pakistan was irrelevant. The US then had different priorities; one of them was to defeat Russians’ war against God.

A city built on the ruins of great Indus civilization, Rawalpindi remained a magnet for business and cultural activities during 1765 -1849 until British Governor General Lord Dalhousie annexed sovereign Punjab. He made it a largest hub of the British Military Garrison. After independence in 1947, Rawalpindi became the headquarters of the Pakistan national army. As a satellite town of the nation’s capital, Islamabad, its strategic importance always remained of paramount interest. In ancient times 350 BC- 280 BC, Taxila—one of seven tehsils of Rawalpindi district, attracted students in ten thousands from all over the world and had reputable figures like Chanakya on its staff. It is believed Kutilya completed Arthshashtra while serving as a teacher in the ancient seat of learning. UNESCO declared it as a World Heritage Site. Violence was once abhorred here when it was the capital of Buddhist King Gandhara in pre Christian era. Today, Gandhara School of art is a popular subject of scholarly studies.

British ascension to the Raj in eighteenth century changed the complexion of South Asian political demography.  The mainstream thinking of the East India Company was not to meddle in affairs of the Punjab. However, the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh left a vacuum that could be only filled by the British. The turmoil had started with mutiny in 1857. The British never had a rollercoaster ride in India after they brought Punjab under their control.

The mandate of the post-World War II situation required that the British leave India. The resulting partition took place by compromising all norms of decency and cardinal wisdom of non-violence of ancient Buddhists; and by giving prominence to intolerance, hatred, and violence. The legacy of the Raj influenced the social and political life of the two countries. India emerged as the largest democracy on earth. Pakistan, however, found itself on a very slippery ground after the assassination of the fist Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951. The bumpy ride of the civilian rule ceased when military dictator Ayub Khan set the precedent that the rod rules better than the consensus. The constitution was never followed. Instead each military dictator revised it to suit his design.

The blame of Benazir’s assassination squarely falls on Gen Musharraf as he remained apathetic to her request for the security. Benazir though entered into an uneasy alliance with Musharraf, she continued to be a staunch critic of his policies. In the aftermath of 9/11, she wrote an article in Washington Post in September 2001criticizing George Bush’s excessive reliance on a dictator whose only qualification was that he murdered the democracy in Pakistan. It was strange that George Bush continued to treat Musharraf with fondness even when he crushed civil rights of judges, journalists and common citizens with impunity. The clamping of emergency, termination of the entire judiciary and unlawfully killing of dissenting voices were clear signals of how the dictator would treat someone who promised the civil rule to the masses. No one can tell Pakistan military Generals about civil rules. Benazir tried the same and got terminated in the process.

Benazir’s assassination is a severe setback to Bush’s war on terrorism. As it was flawed right from the beginning, Bush didn’t pay any attention to Benazir’s apprehensions. She hinted at ISI’s covenant with underground militants. Undoubtedly, ISI is the key element in the military controlled administration of Pakistan. Benazir’s allegation of Musharraf’s shelter to terrorist groups was never investigated.

The independence of India and Pakistan heralded a home rule for the welfare of the common man. India though is the largest democracy in the world; it failed to provide basic amenities to its teeming millions. The same could be said about Pakistan. The absence of democracy in Pakistan and the dictatorship in the name of Islamic laws too could not alleviate the miseries of Pakistanis. Both countries have been pursuing policies that are detrimental to civil rights of their citizens. Innumerable human lives are sacrificed at the altar of twisted justice. It appears as if leaders of two countries indulge in primitive practice of offering human blood to seek special favors of gods. The blood rituals of human sacrifice have been, indeed, acting as driving force of political machinery of two countries since 1947.

India never fails to boast of giving the creed of non-violence to the world. Its negation on the eve independence in bloodshed of several hundred thousand citizens is no reminder of the glaring contradiction between percept and practice. On the contrary, the duplicity inaugurated a journey of organized communal riots in the years to come. The Indian brand of democracy legitimizes human sacrifices of minorities for the installation of leaders like Narendra Modi to the august Public office.. Now, the targeting of Christians in Orissa on Christmas day might be to please the goddess of democracy. In 60 years of Independence the fanning of communal violence in an organized manner for turning the tide of vote politics have been disguising anarchy as rule of the people, by the people, for the people.

India and Pakistan are two key players in South Asia. Unless they build a coalition to honor its citizen’s civil rights, no external power can do better for the welfare of the region. The trend of fanning hostilities on both sides of the borders to chart political careers in flagrant violation of civil behavior will remain counterproductive and self-destructive. India can play a significant role in democratising Pakistan, but only if she holds out the highest democratic principles of respecting minorities’ right to share the fruits of freedom.

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Bhutto’s Assassination, a Big Blow to America
Sawraj Singh

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination will prove to be a very big setback for the American policies. Bhutto was America’s last hope for mending relations with the Islamic world. Pakistan has been America’s most important ally in the fight against terrorism. Bhutto’s assassination will push Pakistan into chaos and instability that will only help the Islamic fundamentalists.

Pakistan does not have a leader of Bhutto’s stature and charisma at this time. There are only two well known leaders in Pakistan at present, Pervez Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif. Musharraf has been considerably weakened and discredited. Moreover, the Pakistani army has lost its influence and prestige because of its poor performance against the Islamists, particularly in the Northwest Frontier tribal areas. There are deep divisions in the army. The upper ranks are pro-Western, but the lower ranks are generally pro-Islamist and anti-Western in their outlook. Nawaz Sharif can be acceptable to the Islamists but is not very attractive to the West.

Bhutto represented the pro-Western elite that has dominated the subcontinent in the last sixty years. Her assassination is not only going to weaken this elite class in Pakistan, but will lead to the overall decline of the pro-Western forces in the subcontinent. Islamic fundamentalism will radicalize and further polarize the subcontinent. Bhutto’s assassination and the victory of Narendra Modi, the fundamentalist Hindu leader in Gujarat, both will be steps in that direction.

However, there is a basic difference between the Islamic and Hindu fundamentalism. The Hindu fundamentalism has rightist and pro-western leanings. The Islamic fundamentalism at this time has taken a strong anti-imperialist stand by challenging the western domination of the world. Therefore, an alliance of the Islamic fundamentalists and the radical left cannot be ruled out in the subcontinent because Chairman Mao Tse Tung said, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Even though Hindu fundamentalism has a soft corner for the West, particularly because it shares the anti-Islamic feeling with the West, yet it objectively goes against the fundamental interests of the West because of its differences with the West on the issues of liberalism and secularism. Moreover, Hindu fundamentalism will only encourage retaliatory Islamic fundamentalism in the subcontinent.

Pakistan played a decisive role in bringing down the Soviet Union by providing a base for the Taliban. Now, it is going to help the Taliban defeat the West in Afghanistan because a weak and unstable Pakistan will become a strong base for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Eventually, the West is not going to be able to control the Islamic fundamentalism. Bhutto’s assassination will weaken all of the pro-Western leaders in the Islamic countries.

With the resurgent Russia boiling with anti-Western sentiment and posing a growing military challenge, China’s ever increasing economic challenge and the rising threat of Islamic fundamentalism, the days of Western domination and America’s unparalleled status as the only superpower are numbered. With Bhutto’s assassination, America and the West have lost the last chance to maintain the status quo. Pakistan may have been lost as a stable and crucial ally forever. Benazir Bhutto leaves a vacuum for America that will be very difficult if not impossible to fill at this time.

[Sawraj Singh M.D. F.I.C.S. Chairman, Washington State Network for Human Rights]

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Countdown to Assassination

* 1988-90 Benazir Bhutto becomes the first female prime minister of a Muslim country after leading her Pakistan People's Party, founded by her father, to poll victory. Her first term ends with her dismissal by the president and corruption charges being laid.

* 1993-96 Bhutto's second term ends with her being sacked for corruption and nepotism. Her husband, Asif Zardari, had been investments minister and became known as "Mr Ten Percent". She leaves the country and is found guilty of corruption while abroad. The charge is later quashed.

* 1998 Swiss charges of money-laundering are brought against Zardari.

* 1999 Bhutto and Zardari are sentenced to five years in jail and fined £4.3m on charges of taking kickbacks from a Swiss company. A higher court later overturns the conviction.

* 9 March 2007 President Pervez Musharraf suspends Chief Justice Iftakar Mohammed Chaudhry, triggering a wave of anger across the country and protests by Bhutto's PPP which joins up with the party of Nawaz Sharif.

* 10 July Musharraf's troops storm the Red Mosque in Islamabad to crush a Taliban-style movement. At least 105 people are killed. Attacks and suicide bombings follow.

* 20 July Supreme Court reinstates Chaudhry, dealing a blow to Musharraf's authority.

* 27 July Musharraf meets Bhutto in Abu Dhabi as negotiations, encouraged by the UK and USA, begin on how to move the country towards a civilian-led democracy.

* 10 September Nawaz Sharif arrested at Islamabad on his arrival from exile. He is deported to Saudi Arabia.

* 2 October Musharraf's government announces an amnesty for outstanding corruption charges against Bhutto, clearing the way for her return.

* 6 October Musharraf wins a new presidential term in a vote by legislators. Supreme Court holds off confirming legality.

* 18 October Suicide bomber tries to assassinate Bhutto in Karachi on her return from Dubai. At least 134 are killed.

*   3 November Musharraf imposes emergency rule.

* 11 November election set for 8 January.

* 13 November Bhutto under house arrest, to stop a march against emergency rule.

* 22 November Commonwealth suspends Pakistan.

* 28 November Musharraf hands over command of army.

* 29 November Musharraf is sworn in as civilian leader.

* 30 November Bhutto publishes manifesto for election, keeping open the option of boycotting it.

*  9 December Sharif says he will take part in election.

* 15 December Musharraf lifts state of emergency.

* 27 December Bhutto is assassinated in Rawalpindi.

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