Is it curtains for the bluff and bluster game played by President ex-General Pervez Musharraf and his mentor in the White House, President George W. Bush, for the past eight years? The first important decision the new Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani took after being elected as prime minister was to order the release of the Chief Justice of the highest court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.

Justice Chaudhry and his family had been confined to his house since Musharraf declared a state of emergency in November last year and sacked 60 senior judges ahead of a Supreme Court ruling that could have invalidated his re-election as president. More here…

Now both Musharraf and Bush appear as pathetic caricatures extolling the virtues of democracy after working overtime to crush any dissidence to the totalitarian rule of Musharraf. The Pakistani president fearing that his days were numbered has started a media campaign that he would love to work with the new government and “promote democracy”.

If one reads carefully the US administration’s recent press release, it would appear that counter-terrorism is not really the main issue in engaging the Pakistan government!!! Imagine Musharraf was being promoted by the US government for eight years and given billions of dollars for the so-called “war-on-terror”.

Here is what the White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said: “We look forward to working with the new government in Pakistan. There’s lots of different areas where we can cooperate - not just counter terrorism, but across the board.”

The US State department Spokesman Sean McCormack said: “This (Gilani becoming PM) was the selection of the Pakistani political leadership and people. (Obviously…Bush & Co are still trying to somehow ensure that dictator Musharraf contiues as president.) We look forward to work with Gilani and his government. Beyond that, I don’t know that there’s much more to add other than our congratulations to his election as prime minister.” What a way to greet the return of democracy in Pakistan!!!

Why is the US administration not talking about seeking the new Pakistan government’s support for “war-on-terror”, or capturing al-Qaeda leaders or Osama-bin-Laden? Are these not the real issues? Or were these used as camouflage to ensure the survival of Musharraf all these years for some extraneous reasons?

These are serious matters which have not found proper space in the US media/blogs for some strange/unknown reasons, and may have long term impact on the US and its media’s standing/credibility in the world.

To give one example of the US backing dictators, who are despised by their people, and how this boomrangs: “The new Pakistan prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, a former house speaker who until two years ago was jailed under what he claims were politically motivated charges, beat the pro-Musharraf candidate for the premier’s slot, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, by 264 votes to 42.”

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This is a Guest Voice column by The Pakistani Spectator. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers.

NOTE: Today is the chehlum of Benazir. Chehlum means 40 days after death. It’s an important event in Pakistan.

Chehlum of Benazir Bhutto

by The Pakistani Spectator

Time runs very fast, and yes it’s the biggest healer, but the wound inflicted by untimely demise of two-time Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto came as a shock to the whole world.

She was a woman who was straddling the divides in the country, which were ripped open due to suicide attacks and bomb blasts. She was a moderate who was trying to mediate between the forces of status quo and the forces of change. She could have, that is, if terrorists hadn’t murdered her on 27th of December, just 40 days ago.

Pakistan has entirely changed after tragic and shocking death, really it is. Pakistanis have grown more touche towards democracy and their rights and their hearts are smoldering for change. Dukhtar-e-Mashriq (Daughter of the East) gave away her life for the cause of democracy. Pakistan saw a wave of violence after terrorists killed her ruthlessly in broad day light. Or was it the sun-roof lever of SUV?

She was the singular hope of the millions of people in this country, and now she has passed her will to millions of Pakistanis, who passionately follow her sayings and statements. There is no way the PPP will now lose the election, given the strong sympathy wave resulting from Mohtarma’s assassination — but we have to see beyond it. We need to make sure that we fulfill Benazir’s dream of progressive Pakistan shining with true democracy and rule of law.

Good public educational opportunity is the key to the economic and political progress of nations, and it can be so in the Islamic world as well. But in Pakistan $4.5 billion is spent on the military each year - an astounding 1,400 per cent more than on education. This is what Benazir Bhutto says in her posthumous book, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West, (to be published by Simon & Schuster on February 12).

Some of the excerpts from the book published in The Sunday Times: “When I returned (to Pakistan) I did not know whether I would live or die. I knew that the same elements of Pakistani society that had colluded to destroy my father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and end democracy in Pakistan in 1977, were now arrayed against me for the same purpose exactly 30 years later”.

The slain Pakistani leader revealed she worried whether Pakistan could survive the threat of disintegration and cited India as an example of how a nation can forge ahead.
Read the rest of this entry »

Some influential/powerful person has been avidly reading Sherlock Holmes in Pakistan. And so who else would be called to investigate Benazir Bhutto’s murder but Britain’s Scotland Yard. Even 60 years after the British rulers left the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan still believes that it is the White Man’s Burden to solve the brown man’s/women’s murder on their own soil.

What are the findings? The venerable The Times of London, in the “Elementary my dear Watson” mode, states: “British officials have revealed that evidence amassed by Scotland Yard detectives points towards Al-Qaeda militants being responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.” Never mind that the Al-Qaeda, and militants, have already clearly denied their hand in Benazir Bhutto’s murder.

The Times continues…”Five experts in video evidence and forensic science have been in Pakistan for 10 days since President Pervez Musharraf took up an offer from Gordon Brown for British help in the investigation of the December 27 killing. Last week they were joined by three specialists in explosives.”

But the breath-taking revelation in The Times story is: “Scotland Yard has insisted that its task is not to establish who killed her but only how she died.”

Some investigation this!!! And surprising that the world famous investigating agency was ready to compromise its professional integrity/reputation by agreeing to visit Pakistan…

With the charismatic opposition leader Benazir Bhutto forcibly removed from the scene, what would be the unfolding scenario in turbulent Pakistan? There are several theories floating around.

Robin Wright and Griff Witte of The Washington Post report that the Bush administration is now depending on two politicians — one accused in the 1990s of being a crook and the other still viewed as almost powerless — to help prop up President Pervez Musharraf and stabilize volatile Pakistan, according to U.S. officials, regional experts and Pakistanis.

If this analysis is correct then the road ahead would be extremely bumpy and Pakistan would be moving fom one crisis to another endangering peace and stability in the Indian subcontinent.

Wright and Griff continue: “Asif Ali Zardari, who has assumed the regency of his wife’s Pakistan People’s Party, is nicknamed ‘Mr. 10 Percent’ for alleged corruption by profiting off government contracts when Bhutto was prime minister in the 1990s, charges for which he spent 11 years in prison. He will remain caretaker of Pakistan’s largest opposition movement until their 19-year-old son finishes studies at Oxford and is ready to assume party control — potentially many years away.

While the other potential leader “Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who led the party during Bhutto’s eight-year exile, is the party candidate to become prime minister if the PPP wins the largest vote in the Feb. 18 elections and forms a coalition government. First elected to parliament in 1970, he lacks both charisma and clout, according to U.S. officials and Pakistani experts.

“Although the United States has contact with an array of politicians, Washington is still hoping that the deal it tried to broker between Bhutto and Musharraf last fall — to forge a new moderate center and work together after elections — remains the way to salvage Musharraf’s government. But the personality and political dynamics have changed dramatically with Bhutto gone, especially within the PPP, U.S. officials said.

” ‘Sharif will not rest until Musharraf, who toppled him in a 1999 military coup, is ousted. And there’s such a strong feeling now in the PPP that Musharraf is just like Zia ul-Haq, just another Islamist-loving military dictator who had a role in the death of a Bhutto.’ Former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir’s father, was hanged during Mohammed Zia ul-Haq’s rule.”
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Does the murder of Benazir Bhutto ‘mark the culmination of the war on terror which
began on Sept. 11, 2001?’ According to this analysis by one of France’s leading historians, Alexandre Adler, the Pakistani military is up to its old tricks, appearing not to realize that ‘its chances of survival are directly linked to victory for the democrats and to a closer relationship with India.’

The Chronicle of Alexandre Adler
Translated By James Jacobson
December 29, 2007
France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)

With the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, we have reached the culmination of the war on terror which began on September 11, 2001. Still harboring on its territory the two main leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, it isn’t surprising that Pakistan has again taken center stage.

The quick and apparently anxious way General Musharraf joined with the Americans after September 11th indeed allowed Islamabad to avoid offering any clear answer on the involvement of its army and secret services in the attack on New York. Still later, the strategic nature of the country and the facilities granted the FBI and CIA to hunt down the men of al-Qaeda - certainly offered without pleasure - has continued to immunize Pakistan’s military junta vis-à-vis the United States. Still, behind the smiles of command, George W. Bush has continued to strengthen cooperation with India for the purpose of intimidating the Pakistani army. In turn, this decidedly unreliable army high-handedly refused to accept Washington’s offer of lifting the embargo on F-16’s in favor of an alliance with increasingly-friendly China. Read the rest of this entry »

While many observers and commentators are totally absorbed in guesstimating who would be the next president of the United States of America, few are still devoting the news space to finding out whether the present incumbent in the White House would be able to achieve anything before his term in office comes to a close in January 2009.

Among the exception is The Economist: “Few presidents have a pleasant time of it in their last year in office. Their chickens come home to roost. Their political capital dries up. Their advisers start worrying where their next pay cheque will come from. The entire country is fixated on the question of who will replace them.

“Woodrow Wilson was humiliated by America’s failure to join the League of Nations and then incapacitated by a stroke. Dwight Eisenhower was haunted by Sputnik and his multiplying medical problems. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton had to deal with the fallout from Iran-Contra and Monica Lewinsky respectively.

“George Bush is likely to have a better year than Wilson (he is remarkably fit for a 61-year-old), but a worse one than most other presidents. Yet 2007 was a surprisingly good year after the debacles of 2006. The ’surge’ in Iraq proved fairly successful—and vindicated Mr Bush’s decision to back his own judgment against the collective wisdom of the Iraq Study Group.

“The White House also played a successful defensive game against the Democratic-controlled Congress, outmanoeuvring it on everything from Iraq funding to the federal budget to energy bills to wire-tapping. Mr Bush blocked the expansion of a children’s health insurance programme of which he disapproved. He is now talking about ending his presidency ‘in a sprint’…

“This is unlikely. Mr Bush has little going for him in 2008. Only one in three Americans thinks that he is doing a good job. Almost all of his closest political advisers have decamped. Congress is determined to get its revenge and block anything that he sends it. And in reality he has much less than a year to play with.”

More here…

Personally I would be more interested in knowing what President Bush would do after retirement. His two dear/closest friends did unusual things. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair decided to change his faith after quitting office - from Protestant to Catholic. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf (although he removed his General’s uniform under pressure) decided to cling on to presidential office despite continued public protest in the country (described as “the world’s most dangerous place”).

(Illustration above courtesy The Economist/Kevin Kallaugher)

Does the assassination of Benazir Bhutto signal the collapse of American policy in the region? According to the editorial board of the NRC Handelsblad of The Netherlands, not quite …

“… the assassination of Bhutto is an unprecedented setback for the United States. If Pakistan with its fifty warheads crumbles, the entire region around the only Islamic nuclear power runs the risk of disintegrating.”

EDITORIAL

Translated By Meta Mertens

December 29, 2007

The Netherlands - NRC Handlesblad - Original Article (Dutch)

In the for the time being the only Islamic nuclear power in the world, it is situated in a chaotic region, and an assassination has been committed for which everyone in that country can be responsible. Because of the combination of nuclear bombs, geopolitics and paranoia, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is much more dangerous than previous political assassinations in Pakistan. Bhutto was no lily-white politician. A cloud of corruption and tribalism hung over her. She was not averse to bargaining, not even with her key opponent, General Musharraf. And in her administrative career - she was prime minister twice - she left little of lasting value behind her.

Nevertheless, after her return from exile in October, she was the very embodiment of opposition against Musharraf, who had been written off for the presidential polls on January 8th. What the judges and lawyers were unable to do with their demonstrations this year, she could possibly accomplish. Bhutto was the personification of a potential civil and secular government, which could bring an end to the military regime and build a barrier against Islamic fundamentalism. Moreover, she was a political safety isle for President Bush, who desperately needs new initiatives now that his foreign policy in the region appears to be coming apart.

For all of these reasons, the assassination of Bhutto (the fourth killed in her family) goes beyond the interest of the victim herself. Pakistan as a state is balanced on the edge of an abyss. The presidential elections of January 8th will be boycotted by the remaining opposition candidates [they have since changed their minds]. Regional and tribal antagonisms, fueled by religious fundamentalism and/or economic interests, will be encouraged.

There is little chance that the perpetrators behind the perpetrator will ever be found. The instigators can hide themselves in Islamic circles that reside along the Afghan-Kashmir border. They can hide within the army, where the late General Zia ul Haq (who had Bhutto’s father Ali Bhutto tried and executed) is admired by soldiers who aspire to an Islamic state. And in any event, the state security services, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is still a spider in this web.

Since the intervention of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in 1979, the ISI has been allowed to play a larger and increasingly notorious role. For ten years, Pakistan acted as a broker for the U.S. The service trained the Islamic resistance movement. The Taliban are the by-product of this. After 9/11, Pakistan again became a bridgehead for the United States, this time against the religious students [Taliban] in Afghanistan.

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Was it Benazir Bhutto that was the primary target her assassins - or was it relations with the United States in general? According to this op-ed article from Switzerland’s 24heurs, ‘the target is democracy in Pakistan. Or more simply: the goal is to destabilize a government allied with the United-States. Allied with the wicked West.’

By Foreign Desk Editor Andrés Allemand

Translated By Sandrine Ageorges

December 28, 2007

Switzerland - 24 heurs - Original Article (French)

Who profits from a crime? This is the unavoidable question in the aftermath of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Should we listen to some of her supporters who already see a Machiavellian plot by President Pervez Musharraf to dispose of his main rival in legislative elections on Jan. 8 - and why not - since this justifies his hold on power with a new “security” coup d’état? Or should we instead adhere to hear the President’s speech, which blamed the perpetual war against Islamist terrorism?

Clearly, the crime benefits the partisans of chaos. It wasn’t their first attempt. This year Pakistan broke a sad record: the number of suicide bombings. They killed nearly 800 people in the last twelve months, although most haven’t been publicized. Just yesterday, while the death of Benazir Bhutto was the central focus of the media, Nawaz Sharif - another former prime minister and a candidate in the presidential election - survived gunfire during his own election rally.

The target is democracy in Pakistan. Or more simply: the goal is to destabilize a government allied with the United-States. Allied with the wicked West. A government that resists, as much as it can, the advance of Islamic radicalism, which is no longer satisfied administering the “tribal zones” along the Afghanistan border or the thousands of madrasas - the Koranic schools which manufacture Taliban. Remember: in early July, the fundamentalists stormed the Red Mosque, in the heart of Islamabad.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US

Here are two important stories related to Pakistan. First, allegations have surfaced that sophisticated laser beam technology was used to eliminate Benazir Bhutto. Second, Pakistan’s general election has been postponed until February 18.

Key members of the US Congress were last night preparing to block further aid to Pakistan as the mystery surrounding Benazir Bhutto’s assassination deepened, with claims she was “targeted with the latest laser beam technology”, similar to that used by American forces in Iraq, reports The Australian.

“The moves by the US politicians came as French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner arrived in Islamabad for talks with President Pervez Musharraf over demands for an inquiry into the Bhutto killing similar to that mounted by the UN into the death of Lebanese leader Rafik Hariri in 2004.

“With speculation and innuendo growing over just who killed Bhutto, 12 members of the US Congress were demanding that all aid to Pakistan be frozen until the mystery was cleared up.

“Controversy surrounding the assassination intensified yesterday amid reports that crucial records had been removed from the Rawalpindi General Hospital where Bhutto was taken, and claims she was killed using laser-beam technology.

“The Nation on its front page said the gunfire and bomb blasts at Bhutto’s election rally “were a decoy to hide the real shooters” and claimed laser technology similar to that used by American forces in Iraq had been used. (Use of these weapons is also controversial as they have the potential to cause permanent harm. Lasers designed to cause permanent blindness were internationally banned under a UN agreement in 1995.)

More here…

Pakistan’s wellknown paper The Nation states: “Baitullah Mahsud and Taliban don’t have such (laser beam) technology. After bomb blasts in Karachi on Oct 18, Mahsud sent two messages to Benazir in which he said that they have neither any hostility against her, nor would make any attempt to kill her.

“When Benazir was admitted to Rawalpindi General Hospital, Dr M Musaddiq Khan told a PPP leader that he saw such a case for the first time in his life. These wounds were not of bullets, Dr said and added that she had expired before shifting to the hospital and a part of her brain and blood had spilled over from her head,” the sources unveiled. The sources said that both gunshots and bomb blast were a decoy to hide the real shooters.”

More here… Some food for thought: If the allegations about laser beam technology prove to be true…then the important question: How did this latest sophisticated US technology reach Pakistan?

Meanwhile despite Opposition parties’ demand that the General Elections be held as scheduled on January 8, Pakistan authorities have delayed the election by six weeks - to be held on Feb 18 now. An AP report says: “The opposition alleged that authorities were postponing the polls to help the ruling party, amid expectations that Bhutto’s group could get a sympathy boost at the polls.

“The ruling party could also suffer a backlash. Bhutto had accused elements within the group of plotting to kill her, a charge it vehemently denies.

“It was not immediately clear if Bhutto’s party would pursue threats to take to the streets because of the delayed vote. Earlier, party Sen. Babar Awan warned that the delay may trigger street protests and riots.”

The Reuters story provids analysts views: “Farzana Raja, spokeswoman for Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party: ‘Whatever reasons they give are such lame-duck excuses because the electoral papers and lists were burnt in the districts, but they have those lists in the central office.

” ‘We reject their baseless excuses. We’re ready to fight the election. It was all done on the request of Musharraf’s party because they can see defeat in the elections’.

“Nawaz Sharif’s spokesman Nadir Chaudhri: ‘We’ve already said that we want to contest straight away on the 8th, and so does the People’s Party, so it is a disappointment. We feel that the elections should have been held on the 8th. We’re going to decide our future course of action now at a meeting’.

“Tariq Azim Khan, Senior official of pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League: ‘It’s realistic and understandable, a short delay, keeping in mind the ground realities. There may be some (sympathy vote), but it’s wrong to prejudge what the voters will do. Sympathies don’t die down in a few days. It can’t be much of a leader if the sympathy is forgotten in just a few days’.”

At the national level, Pakistan elects a bicameral legislature, the Parliament of Pakistan, which consists of a directly-elected National Assembly of Pakistan and a Senate whose members are chosen by elected provincial legislators. More here…

For my recent stories on Benazir’s death please click here… And here…

Since I wrote my last post “Benazir Bhutto Murder: US Intelligence Warnings Went Unheeded”?”, there have been two important developments. One, Pakistan government has “apologised” for claiming that former premier Benazir Bhutto died of a skull fracture after hitting the sunroof of her car during a suicide attack. Second, media reports have begun to circulate that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated “on orders of lower- and middle-level officers of the Pakistani army and air force.”

The Hindustan Times reports: “(Pakistan’s) Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan has asked the media and people to ‘forgive and ignore’ comments made by his ministry’s spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema which were slammed by her Pakistan People’s Party as ‘lies’ and led to an uproar at home and abroad.

“The government’s apparent damage control exercise on Cheema’s comments made at a news conference a day after Bhutto was assassinated at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on December 27, came after TV channels aired privately shot photos and video footage which showed a gunman shooting at Bhutto.

Here’s the United Press International editor’s comment: “According to a source who asked to remain unnamed, members of the Pakistani armed forces involved in Thursday’s killing of the former prime minister and leader of the opposition are sympathizers of the ultra-conservative Islamists with ties to the jihadis.

” ‘It’s worrying when half of your lower or mid-level Pak intelligence analysts have bin Laden screen savers on their computers,’ a former official of the CIA was reported to have commented.

“More than one analyst is of the opinion al-Qaida and other jihadis have managed to successfully penetrate Pakistan’s armed forces and security services. Given the fact Pakistan is in possession of nuclear weapons, the possibility of a pro-al-Qaida regime replacing President Pervez Musharraf would radically change the entire geopolitical alignment in southwest Asia, and it would have a spin-off effect on the Middle East, as well, primarily in regards to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

More here…

Interesting games being played by the Pakistani establishment by giving different versions in the hope of confusing the public…well for quite some time now this has been an ongoing story!!!

There are many unanswered questions regarding Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. The latest is the AP report that senior American officials have revealed that “the United States provided a steady stream of intelligence to Benazir Bhutto about threats against her before the former Pakistani prime minister was assassinated and advised her aides on how to boost security, although key suggestions appear to have gone unheeded.”

The report adds that even the Pakistan government was provided this information. “The Bush administration has quietly joined calls for Pakistan to allow international experts to join the probe into Bhutto’s Dec. 27 slaying. The officials said they expected an announcement soon that investigators from Britain’s Scotland Yard would be asked to play a significant role. Any U.S. involvement would be limited and low-key, they said.

“Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani, said Monday that his government would welcome outside experts to help investigate the assassination, according to The New York Times. But Durrani said his government would not endorse a separate, outside investigation.” More here…

(Meanwhile The Indian Express reports: “Accusing the Pakistan government of trying to spin its way out of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, her husband and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari has said that the Pervez Musharraf regime had the most to gain from the former premier’s death. Click here for more…)

The Independent has published an article by Tariq Ali, a radical Pakistani who made a name for himself in Europe : “Meanwhile there is a country in crisis. Having succeeded in saving his own political skin by imposing a state of emergency, Mr Musharraf still lacks legitimacy. Even a rigged election is no longer possible on 8 January despite the stern admonitions of President George Bush and his unconvincing Downing Street adjutant.

“What is clear is that the official consensus on who killed Benazir is breaking down, except on BBC television. It has now been made public that, when Benazir asked the US for a Karzai-style phalanx of privately contracted former US Marine bodyguards, the suggestion was contemptuously rejected by the Pakistan government, which saw it as a breach of sovereignty.

“Now both Hillary Clinton and Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are pinning the convict’s badge on Mr Musharraf and not al-Qa’ida for the murder, a sure sign that sections of the US establishment are thinking of dumping the President.”

“A solution to the crisis is available. This would require Mr Musharraf’s replacement by a less contentious figure, an all-party government of unity to prepare the basis for genuine elections within six months, and the reinstatement of the sacked Supreme Court judges to investigate Benazir’s murder without fear or favour. It would be a start.”

More here…

Roger Cohen offers an intereting analysis on Pakistan…Click here…

Another reports says: “The day she was assassinated last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in rigging the country’s upcoming elections, an aide said Monday.”

Why did the terrorists want so badly to eliminate Benazir Bhutto? Because, according to one of France’s leading writers and philosophers, Bernard Henry Levy, her very existence posed a threat to everything they stand for - including the proper place of a woman.

“It is a woman, first of all, that they have killed. A beautiful woman. … the exact opposite of those shamed women, hidden and damned creatures of Satan, who are the only women tolerated by those apostles of a world without women … Behind the remains of this great lady, there should be the greatest possible number of heads of State, making her funeral a silent demonstration of the world’s adherence to the values of democracy and peace.”

By Bernard Henry Lévy*

Translated By James Jacobson

December 28, 2007

France - Liberation - Original Article (English)

It is a woman, first of all, that they have killed.

A beautiful woman.

A visible woman - an even conspicuously, dramatically visible woman. A woman for whom it was a point of honor not only to hold meetings in one of the most dangerous countries in the world, but to do it with her face uncovered – the exact opposite of those shamed women, hidden and damned creatures of Satan, who are the only women tolerated by those apostles of a world without women.

With Daniel Pearl, they killed a Jew.

With commander Massoud [of the Afghan Northern Alliance ] , they killed a moderate Muslim, a literate man and a free spirit. With Salman Rushdie , they tried for years to kill a man who dared to say that being human sometimes means to choose one’s destiny.

Well with BB, Benazir Bhutto, they killed a bit of all of this. But they also killed a woman, this woman, who was an intolerable provocation. It was the radiance of her unveiled face, nude, defenseless and magnificently eloquent - they killed her, because it was this woman, because it was her face - at once powerless and with a force that can’t be replicated, because she lived her destiny as a woman who refused the looming curse against the human face of all women, according to these new fascists who call themselves jihadists; thus they killed the one who was the very embodiment of the hope, spirit and will of democracy, not only in Pakistan, but in the lands of Islam in general.

Pervez Musharraf was a counterfeit adversary of al-Qaeda. He pretended to fight them while he played his double game with his occult alliances - his way of keeping his stock of terrorists under his elbow and releasing them one by one in dribs and drabs, all according to the needs of the alliance with his great and complicated American friend - he did their bidding under the table.

Benazir, if she had won, what can one say? If she had lived, simply lived, she wouldn’t have ceased saying at the risk of her own life, her very being, her very presence, that she was their resolute, absolute, irreconcilable adversary; for these people she was a threat - more than just a political one, an ontological one; she would have left them nowhere to hide. They knew this and they killed her.

I am reminded of an afternoon on December 2002 in London, when I investigated the death of Daniel Pearl - and therefore this powder keg, the rear-base for al-Qaeda, even though the forward base was already in Pakistan; Pearl was beautiful, yes; and incredibly courageous in his will to return - whatever the cost - to that country which had already uprooted Benezir’s two young brothers and her father in events redolent with the air of a Shakespearian tragedy. [All were killed under suspicious circumstances during Benazir Bhutto’s two terms as Pakistan President].

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Monte Wolverton, Cagle Cartoons

Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Sunday chose her 19-year-old son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as her successor and appointed him as Chairman of the party. (Interestingly, Benazir Bhutto became chief of the PPP at the age of 31 following the assassination of her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto).

While Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was appointed co-chairman of the PPP. These decisions were taken by the party’s Central Executive Committee in a closed-door meeting. The PPP has decided to participate in the forthcoming elections in Pakistan.

“It catapults Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, an Oxford University student with no political experience, to the center of Pakistan’s tumultuous public life. Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari, 51, is powerbroker in the party who served as environment minister in her second government.” More here…

The Time magazine says: “The young (Bilawal) Bhutto, Benazir’s only son, knows the dangers of the job he might be about to take on. Last year Benazir told a reporter that she hoped her three children would choose a different career. ‘My children have told me they are very worried about my safety,’ she said. ‘I understand those fears. But they are Bhuttos and we have to face the future with courage, whatever it brings’.”

(Photo of Benazir Bhutto and baby Bilawal on the cover of an old magazine)

EDITOR’S NOTE: The shocking assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has now pitchforked her name into the headlines — and made her a household name all over the world. There have been a slew of moving tributes including articles about what she could have done for her country had she lived.

But a counter opinion is also emerging as well — one that challenges the conventional media wisdom. It can be see in THIS POST titled “Bhutto’s Assassination: Stripping Away the Romance.” It details criticism of and allegations about Bhutto and her family. Also read this PBS Frontline piece on criticism that came from Bhutto’s niece Fatima which echoes the other criticism.

Here is a Guest Voice column that also casts a critical eye on Bhutto. Guest Voice columns do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers. It is written by Saleeem Khan,
Chair of the Department of Economics at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, and former economic advisor to Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto:

Benazir Bhutto Not What the Media and Bush Administration Claimed

By Saleeem Khan, Ph.D.

The violent death of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, is the latest event in a culture of violence that has been steadily spreading in the body politics in Pakistan.

Ms. Bhutto’s assassination took place in Liaqat Park 28 years after the execution in April 1979 of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a democratically elected prime minister of Pakistan, at the hands of a military dictator. The prison where his execution was carried out is hardly a mile away from the Liaqat Park, a site where the first prime minister of Pakistan, Liaqat Ali Khan, fell to an assassin’s bullet 28 years earlier in October 1951.

A power struggle among the ruling elite was said to be the cause of the Liaqat tragedy, but that killing was never professionally investigated and I doubt very much that her tragic demise will ever be.

These and numerous other tragic events in the 60 year history of Pakistan are of far reaching national and international consequences because Pakistan occupies a strategic position in a very volatile region. These events imperil national, regional and international peace. The magnified exposure of these tragic events in the world media is closely linked to protecting western interests fails to adequately express concern for the safety and welfare of Pakistan and its people.

I have known both Bhuttos personally for over a quarter century. I met Ms. Bhutto for the first time in 1984 in New York when she was invited to meet with a politically active group of young Pakistanis. My meeting with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was arranged on August 1974, in the Prime Minister’s house in Rawalpindi. Subsequently I maintained contacts with both of them. I served as an economic advisor in his administration from 1975 to 1977. Memories of a long relationship and my observation of their tenure as public servants are still fresh in my mind. Both leaders were idols of the people and had developed close bonds with the poor and dispossessed.

Ms. Bhutto had inherited her father’s legacy as a political leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) which he had founded in 1967, and the mission of democracy and economic reform which he planned for his nation. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was an astute politician, possessing Clintonian talents and a statesman of international stature. He had made the mission of his life to serve the poor and downtrodden and worked tirelessly in promoting international cooperation and world peace.

In both my meeting with him on August 8, 1974, and the subsequent contacts which I maintained with the Bhutto family he spoke of his agenda of political and economic reforms and the difficulties he was encountering in their implementation. He went on to reiterate his commitment to make a difference in the lives of the common man and peace with India at any cost and sacrifice. His economic reforms, as he explained to me, aimed at providing the basic necessities of life–bread, clothing, shelter–to the poor of Pakistan, but were negated by bureaucratic controls and conspiracies by the feudal lobby.

The three sins that made him a pariah among international powers were his nuclear program, an Islamic summit, and the drive for third world unity. These programs drew strong opposition from the western world in general and the US in particular. For these sins, as the world events have witnessed, he paid with his life.

Bhutto had trained Benazir from his prison cell to pick up the pieces of his reforms and democracy and prepared her mentally for sacrifices that she might have to make. In my meeting with her in New York she talked about her commitment to the PPP’s political and economic agenda emphasizing the need for building a strong popular support and forging unity among the ranks of party’s leaders and workers.

Ms. Bhutto’s day to govern the country came in 1988. On the strength of her party’s political and economic programs and with the support of the people she was elected prime minister of Pakistan twice, first in 1988 and for a second term in 1993; each time her tenure lasted for two years.

Sadly she failed to demonstrate the qualities of a competent governor for which her father had tried to prepare her, and she was unable to achieve any worthwhile program for socio-economic progress.

She made herself the chairperson of the PPP for life, dominating the decision making processes and exhibiting little taste and patience for democracy.

In the government she developed a close alliance with the bureaucratic establishment, surrounded herself with powerful feudal and corrupt party leaders.

She only paid lip service to educational programs in general and female literacy in particular. During her tenure as prime minister the economy was largely mismanaged, poverty rose and governance standards deteriorated.

Much is made of her education at Harvard and Oxford preparing her to meet the challenges of leadership in a modern world. Throughout her life she remained beholden to feudal interests and preferred a life of “The Rich and Famous.”

While in office, she and her husband, Asif Zardari, according to the Pakistani media and the New York Times stole as much as $1.5 billion from government accounts. Neither the people of Pakistan nor the international media missed her during her eight years of self exile.

Only when Washington needed her as a front for democracy in Pakistan did she reemerge as a political force by the international media. She stridently defended the war against militancy and Al Qaeda and seldom referred to the many other urgent problems facing the people of Pakistan.

Pakistan is a country of 170 million people and they have never been allowed to have a say in shaping their destiny. Without their active participation in national affairs, stability and democracy is not possible.

Two fundamental conditions for creating stability and democracy in Pakistan are critical. First, the country needs the rule of law, and second, it must become a functioning democratic state. Without reinstating the sacked justices of the Supreme Court and formation of a national government able to conduct free and fair elections the rule of law and democracy can not take hold in Pakistan. To tackle the militancy and violence in Pakistan restoring the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and installing an elected government in Islamabad are critical at this time.

The death of Benazir Bhutto and the current violence in its wake provide an open opportunity for the ruling elite in Pakistan and their international backers, to rethink the real issue of a stable and democratic Pakistan. The need to make these necessary evolutionary changes is ever more urgent.

Dr. Khan is Chair of the Department of Economics at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, and former economic advisor to Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto.

It shows the shooting several times during this newscast (not in English):

The Pakistan government is claiming she died due to a head injury when her head hit the car. Be sure to read our coblogger Swaraj Chuahan’s earlier post Benazir’s Murder: Deepening Mystery & Musharraf Regime’s Vanishing Credibility.

The latest development is that a Pakistan government official said if necessary they would green-light her body being exhumed:

The Pakistani government has no problem with officials from Benazir Bhutto’s political party exhuming the slain opposition leader’s body if they see a need to do so, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Saturday.

Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema made the remark when asked about comments from a top Bhutto aide who helped bathe Benazir Bhutto’s body after her death.

Sherry Rehman, Pakistan People’s Party information secretary, said it was clear that the former Pakistani prime minister suffered bullet wounds to her head, contrary to a government report that she died because she hit her head on a sunroof lever.

Cheema noted that if Rehman — as she said — believes she saw bullet wounds that caused Bhutto’s death, “We don’t mind if the People’s Party leadership wants her body to be exhumed and post-mortemed. They are most welcome, but we gave you what the facts are.”

Cheema emphasized that the government’s conclusion on the cause of death was based on “absolute facts, nothing but the facts.”

“It was corroborated by the doctor’s report; it was corroborated by the evidence of the footage we showed you.”

Rehman — who had been riding in the car behind Bhutto’s when it was attacked — called the government’s conclusion that Bhutto was not shot “the most bizarre, dangerous nonsense.”

“It’s beginning to look like a cover-up to me,” Rehman said in a CNN interview.

Rehman said Bhutto was hemorrhaging on the way to the hospital and that the two cars used to get her there were blood-soaked.

“There were clear bullet injuries to her head,” said Rehman. “When we bathed her we saw that.”

The video won’t enhance the government’s credibility. And if there is an autopsy and the doctors are not 100 percent independent, her death could wind up akin to JFK’s in the United States where a large number of people don’t believe the official version.

Two MUST READ posts:

–Arianna Huffington shares her memories of her dear and highly courageous friend.

–Pajamas Media’s Ghalia Aymen reports from Pakistan on the mood there.

And be SURE to read our India-based coblogger Swaraaj Chauhan’s earlier post today:

–Benazir’s Murder: Deepening Mystery & Musharraf Regime’s Vanishing Credibility

As I write this post, India’s leading TV channels are showing video clips of the alleged assailants firing from the revolver at Benazir Bhutto. And the news agency AP reports: “An Islamic militant group said Saturday it had no link to Benazir Bhutto’s killing and the opposition leader’s aides accused the government of a cover-up, disputing the official account of her assassination.

“Bhutto’s aides said they doubted militant commander Baitullah Mehsud was behind the attack on the opposition leader and said the government’s claim that she died when she hit her head on the sunroof of her vehicle was ‘dangerous nonsense’.

“Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton called for an independent, international investigation into Bhutto’s death — perhaps by the United Nations — saying Friday there was ‘no reason to trust the Pakistani government’.

To give a further twist to the entire mystery, Pakistan government did not carry out the post-mortem on Benazir Bhutto’s body. The government now explains that it was not done at the request of Bhutto’s husband. It is unbelievable that in a crime that has international ramifications, and all the potential of turning into a major controversy, the Pakistan government
conveniently overlooked basic legal requirements and allowed the burial to take place. Thus fuelling supicion that Musharraf regime is attempting a cover-up.

AP report says: “Pakistan’s government asserted Friday that al-Qaida was behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and offered the transcript of a conversation as proof. Hundreds of thousands mobbed her funeral as the army tried to quell rioting across the nation that left 27 dead.

“President Pervez Musharraf’s government also said Bhutto was not killed by gunshots or shrapnel as originally claimed. Instead, it said her skull was shattered by the force of a suicide bomb blast that slammed her against a lever in her car’s sunroof.”

India’s leading TV channel NDTV quotes AFP report: “An alleged Al-Qaida leader Baitullah Mehsud, blamed by the Pakistan government for killing Benazir Bhutto, denied any involvement in her death, his spokesman said on Saturday. ‘He had no involvement in this attack,’ spokesman Maulana Omar said in a telephone call. ‘This is a conspiracy of the government, army and intelligence agencies’.

“The spokesman said he was calling from Pakistan’s Waziristan area, a lawless tribal region where Pakistani government forces have been battling Islamist militants. ‘It is against tribal tradition and custom to attack a woman,’ Omar said.

“He said the transcript released by the government, allegedly of a phone call between Mehsud and a militant discussing Bhutto’s death after the killing, was a ‘drama” and expressed sadness over her assassination on Thursday.”

Here is the Voice of America’s version…

So what is the truth?…It is out there…!!!

Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News