After the Bhutto assassination: "God save Pakistan"

"Bhutto martyred, God save Pakistan," the headline of a news article in the National Herald Tribune, a newspaper published in Pakistan's Punjab region, intones. After yesterday's assassination of opposition political leader Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi, a military-garrison city just south of the capital, Islamabad, Pakistan's U.S.-backed, democracy-crushing dictator, President Pervez Musharraf, declared three days of nationwide mourning to honor his slain rival. PIA, Pakistan's national airline, has "cancelled all its domestic flights. Railways also cancelled schedules of [their] trains. [The] Karachi Stock Exchange, business centers, schools and government offices will remain closed [for] the next three days." Meanwhile, violence has erupted in numerous cities around Pakistan, as "enraged" supporters of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, of which she was the leader, have burned automobiles, a police checkpoint and banners of the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam), the party that backs Musharraf. (National Herald Tribune)

In a televised address, Musharraf told his countrymen: "This is a big tragedy for the nation, which cannot be explained in words." He urged Pakistanis "to get united and to cooperate" and pledged that "we will not sit idle unless the terrorists are eliminated." (Associated Press of Pakistan)

Today, Bhutto was buried next to her late father in a family mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Baksh, her ancestral village in Sindh, a province in southeastern Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto's father, former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, "died 28 years ago in the same area, Rawalpindi, as his daughter. He was hanged by General Zia ul-Haq's military dictatorship, dying less than two miles from where his daughter was killed....[Benazir Bhutto's] burial, within 24 hours of her death, is in keeping with Muslim custom....As her body was transported, the violence that began immediately after her assassination yesterday...continued." Security forces were "given permission to shoot violent protesters on sight...." (Guardian)

 

"Farewell Benazir," declares an editorial in the Pakistani daily the News. It notes that, on the campaign trail, as she promoted the Pakistan People's Party in advance of parliamentary elections that were expected to take place on January 8, Bhutto had spoken out against militant-extremist forces that opposed the democratic values she had pledged to support, and acknowledged the security threat they posed. (Her most violent opponents tried to kill her during a campaign stop in Karachi on October 18; their attack killed some 140 other people instead.)

In fact, a day before she was killed, Bhutto made a campaign stop in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, a well-known stronghold of Muslim extremists. There, she told a small rally of her supporters: "Terrorists are killing innocent people. They are killing innocent children, men and women indiscriminately." Referring to Musharraf's regime, she said: "Dictatorship has always damaged Pakistan[,] and we must restore the supremacy of the people....To undermine the political process and enslave people, terrorist attacks are being carried out." (Gulf Daily News, Bahrain)

Notes the News: "She kept pushing for an end to the military domination [of Musharraf's regime] through free and fair elections, through quiet, secret diplomacy or through active vibrant campaigning. It now appears that while she was deeply concerned about the killers on the loose, and did whatever she could to protect herself, the state which was supposed to provide her protection as a citizen, and an important one at that, failed miserably."

Since yesterday's assassination, all Pakistan - and the world - has been asking: Who did it? Who's responsible for such an unthinkable crime? And what will happen next in this strategically important Muslim country that is dominated by the military (which controls its nuclear arsenal) and in which fundamentalist-Muslim militants are out of control? Notes the News: "[Benazir Bhutto's] death will be felt as a severe blow to U.S. interests in Pakistan and in the region. Pakistan, it would be fair to predict, is now in for very turbulent times."

The Pakistani daily the Nation observes: "The tragedy [of Bhutto's murder] has occurred at a most crucial phase in the country's history when there has been an upsurge of pro-democracy popular sentiment pitted in a bitter struggle against...one-man rule....There was hope, albeit faint, that there would be free and fair elections on January 8[,] to be followed by a popular government....But the nation that was looking [forward] to the polling day as a possible day of deliverance is now wondering how...events are going to take their course."

Indo-Asian News Service notes that, "under Musharraf's eight-year rule, Pakistan's slide to anarchy has been phenomenal," and warns that the killing of Bhutto "totally derails...American-sponsored plans [with regard to] ushering in democracy in Pakistan." A few weeks ago, Musharraf banned another rival politician, Nawaz Sharif (another former prime minister), from running as a candidate in the forthcoming elections. "In the absence of...Sharif,...the January election will loose whatever...modicum of credibility it might have had and should ideally be postponed." Will Musharraf allow the elections to take place, with little time for Bhutto's PPP to name and promote a new leader (who, in a parliamentary system, if the party were to win a majority of the nationwide vote, would become Pakistan's next prime minister)? The IANS news analysis predicts that Bhutto's assassination could "generate a huge wave of sympathy for her party." However, the news service adds: "Unfortunately[,] there is no one in her party who can capitalize [on] this groundswell of sympathy...." No obvious replacement leader with prime-ministerial potential was waiting in the wings.

More analysis from IANS: "The [Pakistan People's Party] may even attempt to bring Sanam Bhutto, [the] sister of Benazir Bhutto who has assiduously avoided politics, [in] to head the party because it desperately needs a 'Bhutto' tag to succeed. The assassination also indicates that the fundamentalist forces realize that ushering in democracy will marginalize them. They are committed to ensuring that the population of Pakistan does not get a democratic option to express [its] dissent. The absence of [the] right [to] democratic dissent helps to radicalize the society and thereby provides ready recruits for [militant, fundamentalist-Muslim] jihad."

The IANS news analysis advises the West to "realize the dangers of failure of a nuclear-armed Islamic state [in which] the society is increasingly being radicalized." The news agency's analysis recommends: "The ideal prescription for Pakistan would be a genuine federal democratic structure. Because after Benazir [Bhutto], the only political parties capable of taking on the fundamentalist forces seem to be the secular[,] nationalist parties representing different ethnic groups....The West will do well to force Musharraf to restore an independent judiciary and to make the state structure more federal."

Posted By: Edward M. Gomez (Email) | December 28 2007 at 06:57 AM

 

 

 

 

 

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