IMAGINE a situation where the husband whose wife has murdered knows the killers, yet he would not reveal their identity. He would also not trust the country’s police and justice system despite being head of that country and seek international investigation. The case relates to late twice prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto who was shot dead in full public view last year in Rawalpindi. If she had not been killed, she would have been prime minister for the third time. The case has been entrusted to the United Nations.

In brief comments on the case involving the assassination on the first anniversary of her death, her husband and now President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari claimed he knew the killers and would reveal their identity at the 'right time'. Is this not mystifying? If he knows as to who killed Benazir, there seems to be no credible reason not reveal the names. Slogans raised at Naudero, where tens of thousands gathered to pay tribute to the late leader, speak about the growing impatience over the failure to bring the killers to book. People ought to be losing faith in the government and its functioning. Peoples Party rules at the centre and has a definite role in government in three other provinces; it can order a proper probe and thus deal with the killers. The failure to do so, to continue to talk about a UN commission, is baffling.

Why is Zardari calling on friends to help? What can they do? The government has failed even to set up an inquiry team to investigate a murder that changed the political destiny of a nation and has apparently taken no interest in the ongoing trail of five persons accused in the murder before the court. The case regarding the blasts in Karachi during the welcome rally for Benazir, which was quite obviously a bid to kill her, has not been registered. Notoriously bureaucratic UN, which six years after the event has still to come to any conclusion regarding the murder of Lebanon's Rafik Hariri, can not be trusted to unravel the case. Questions are being raised and suspicions remains.

Benazir Bhutto having spent eight years in exile, had returned to Pakistan on Oct 18, 2007 to campaign for a third term in power, only to be assassinated barely ten weeks later. A year later, her ghost continues to haunt distraught Pakistanis amid allegations and counter allegations about her possible assassins, prompting them to weave a web of conspiracy theories to explain the murder of the country's first woman prime minister. The people of Pakistan may never know who killed her, yet there is no dearth of probable suspects to choose from al-Qaeda and Taliban linked extremists, rogue elements within the military intelligence establishment or some contract killers hired by her political adversaries at that time, including General Musharraf?

Despite official claims by the Musharraf regime soon after the tragedy that some Islamic extremists might be involved in her murder, Bhutto's close circles were reported by the Pakistani media as having said that some rogue elements in the establishment persuaded religious extremist groups to pool their resources and even rehearse the fatal attack on her outside the Liaquat Bagh, where she was finally gunned down, followed by a suicide attack that killed over 20 people. The PPP had called for a wider inquiry by the United Nations to establish the identity and motives of the assassins, similar to the one involving the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri who was killed in a car bombing in Beirut on Feb 14, 2005.

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Tamil civilians caught in fighting denied human rights

THE Sri Lankan government should stop arbitrarily detaining civilians fleeing fighting in the northern Vanni region and urgently allow humanitarian agencies to return to provide desperately needed aid, Human Rights Watch demanded.

The 49-page report, "Besieged, Displaced, and Detained: The Plight of Civilians in Sri Lanka's Vanni Region," documents the Sri Lankan government's responsibility for the plight of the 230,000 to 300,000 displaced persons trapped in the Vanni conflict zone. They face severe shortages of food and other essentials because of government restrictions on humanitarian assistance. Individuals and families who have managed to flee areas controlled by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been detained in poor conditions in army-controlled camps.

"Hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped in a war zone with limited aid because the government ordered the UN and other aid workers out," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "To add insult to injury, people who manage to flee the fighting end up being held indefinitely in army-run prison camps."

The report is based on research conducted by Human Rights Watch in northern Sri Lanka from October through December 2008. In-depth interviews were conducted with officials from United Nations agencies and humanitarian organizations, diplomats, religious leaders, and civilians affected by the conflict, among others. Because of blanket government restrictions, the Vanni conflict zone is inaccessible to independent observers and journalists.

On December 12, Human Rights Watch released a 17-page report, "Trapped and Mistreated: LTTE Abuses Against Civilians in the Vanni," which documents the separatist group's brutal treatment of the ethnic Tamil population in its northern stronghold. The report details how the LTTE has refused to allow civilians in areas under its control to leave the Vanni conflict zone and how it has increased forced recruitment and forced labor practices, placing civilian lives at risk.

In September, the government ordered all United Nations and humanitarian agencies to withdraw their staff and operations from the Vanni, allowing only the International Committee of the Red Cross and the locally staffed Caritas to continue operations. Human Rights Watch research details severe humanitarian shortcomings: food deliveries for trapped civilians may be as low as 40 percent of the minimum amounts required, tens of thousands of families are in desperate need of plastic shelters, and sanitation facilities are virtually nonexistent. In November, Cyclone Nisha destroyed the shelters of an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 displaced persons, but the government refused to allow aid groups to bring in necessary shelter materials.

Since March 2008, all Tamil civilians fleeing the Vanni, as well as Tamil refugees returning from India by boat, have been detained on the assumption that they are a security threat. Approximately 1,000 civilians are being indefinitely detained under military guard at "welfare centers" in Mannar and Vavuniya districts. The government's policy violates the basic rights of displaced persons. Conditions in the camps are sub-standard, with inadequate shelter, a lack of sanitation facilities, and limited humanitarian assistance.

"The government's ‘welfare centers' for civilians fleeing the Vanni are just badly disguised prisons," said Adams. "The sad irony is that many of those now detained by the government were fleeing LTTE abuses. This detention policy is hurting the very people that the government should be helping."
Human Rights Watch's research found that government efforts, contrary to its claims, to fill the massive humanitarian gap caused by ordering aid agencies to leave have fallen far short. Available information, including from government-appointed officials in the Vanni, shows that the civilian population faces drastic shortages in food, shelter, water and sanitation supplies, and other life-sustaining services.

"The government's empty claims are not reflected on the ground, where even government officials in the Vanni are constantly sounding the alarm bells about humanitarian needs," Adams said.

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Democracy reestablishes itself in Bangladesh

IN a landslide victory reminiscent of the historic 1970 election that led to the birth of Bangladesh, the Awami League led by Sheikh Hasina daughter of the founder of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujbar Rehman has secured a remarkable majority in the Parliamentary elections held on December 29. This massive mandate will give the party the power to rewrite the Constitution and bring about the promised reforms. With this seven year army rule notorious for tortures and corruption comes to an end.

With results for all the 299 seats out, the party that led the country’s independence war against Pakistan, won 230 seats independently. The voter turnout was 70 to 75 per cent, according to the Election Commission. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by Begum Khaleda Zia came up with a paltry tally of 27. Its allies won three — Bangladesh Jatiya Party (1) and Jamaat-e-Islami (2). The Hasina-led grand alliance partner Jatiya Party bagged an impressive 27 seats. Other AL allies secured five, taking the grand total for the alliance to 262. Four independents won; LDP’s Oli Ahmed bagged one of the two he contested.

As early results indicated a massive Awami League victory, the prime minister-elect instructed her party activists to stay calm and not to organise rallies . Ms. Hasina won all the three seats she contested — Gopalganj-3, Bagerhat-2 and Rangpur-6.

Two-term former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia won her three seats — Feni-1, Bogra-6 and 7. Jatiya Party chief H.M. Ershad also clinched his three seats —Rangpur-3, Dhaka-17 and Kurigram-2.
Except Ms. Khaleda, an overwhelming majority of heavyweights lost their long-held seats, with such stalwarts as the former Finance Minister M. Saifur Rahman, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Jamaat’s Motiur Rahman Nizami, BNP’s Moudud Ahmed and Speaker Jamiruddin Sircar leading the list.

Hasanul Haq Inu of JSD, who contested as a grand alliance nominee with AL’s boat as his symbol, became MP for the first time, winning Kushtia-2. Rashed Khan Menon of the Workers Party who also contested on the same symbol made it from a Dhaka seat.

AL nominees won all three seats from the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
LDP chief Oli Ahmed, a former BNP minister, lost his Satkania (Ctg 14) seat to a Jamaat candidate, but won the Chittagong 13 (Chandnaish) seat. The former BNP minister Abdul Moyeen Khan failed to win his Narshindi-2 seat. The former Home and Commerce Minister, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, a retired air force general, lost his Patuakhali-1 seat.

The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, a key component of the BNP-led bloc, saw its stock plummet in Monday’s polls. Playing its religion card more mutedly than before, the party polled only two seats — a good 15 fewer than it had in the last election where it netted 17 seats.

The reversal of its political fortunes was so stunning that its chief, the former Minister Motiur Rahman Nizami, secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammed Mujahid, and firebrand Delwar Hossain Sayeedee lost by massive margins.

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