Benazir
Bhutto killed: Pakistan's travails continue
(The
following article is from
the January 16-31,
2008
issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles
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By B.
Prasant, PV
correspondent in India
My
earliest recall of Benazir Bhutto
was in 1973 when she came to India accompanying her father, Pakistan's
prime minister, Zulifikar Ali Bhutto. She appeared to me to be haughty,
selectively aloof, over-protective of her father, and she showed signs
of dominating formal and informal tete-a-tetes that the Prime Minister
had with the Indian media. Some of her remarks have stayed with me.
She spoke arrogantly of
"Pakistan's destiny" being linked up with the Bhutto family, and was
always willing to hold forth on the parallels between US-style
westernization and "modernisation." She uttered not a single word on
the state of (or the lack of) democracy in her country even when her
father was in office, having won a popular mandate. Nor had she
anything to say on questions put to her on the condition of the
purdaansheen (head-scarved) women of her country, or about the women's
emancipation of which she always appeared overenthusiastic when in
Oxford.
Her political idiom was of the
US variety, and even at that young age (she was turning twenty, I
recall), she was watchful not to tread on the shoes of the military
elite who actually ruled Pakistan, allowing Bhutto senior to enjoy a
populist flirtation with democracy. She would certainly not say
anything about the spreading US hegemony over the sub-continent,
repeated prodding from the media notwithstanding.
Her father was becoming a tyrant
on his own, accosting and embarrassing the military elite. After his
hanging in 1979, Benazir and her mother were sent packing to the
Rawalpindi jail for some months. Following this, she went in for
elections, certainly not operating away from the larger machinations of
the junta, who regarded her as a convenient "democratic face" to
present before the patrons in the capitalist west, chiefly the United
States, as they did her father before he became politically redundant.
The lack of spontaneous popular
protest against her father's execution, other than burning of a few
vehicles and fiery speeches in areas dominated by the Pakistan People's
Party (founded by Zulifikar Ali Bhutto in 1967), was a clear indication
about the generalised apathy of the mass of the people of Pakistan, and
of the ruling classes to a prime minister being hanged with minimum
formalities of trial proceedings. A similar scenario followed Benazir
Bhutto's brutal death.
Strong disillusionment with
vicious military rule and the extremes of poverty made the people elect
Benazir Bhutto in hope of a change for the better. She became the prime
minister of Pakistan twice, with a gap of a few years in between,
during the beginning of which period she had been dismissed, and then
recalled, only to be dismissed again when she started to make noises
about family rule. The years were 1988, 1993, and 1996.
By this time, she had started to
accumulate an enormous amount of wealth, mostly through illegal and
semi-legal deals, enriching herself, her husband Asif Ali Zardari
(known as "Mr. ten per cent" for the cuts he would take for doling out
government contracts), and her brothers. Swiss bank accounts in the
family's name bulged to bursting.
Her two brothers met with
mysterious ends. Both cases of murder were squarely led at the doors of
Benazir Bhutto and her husband by the wives of the brothers, and by
other members of the Bhutto family. Criminal cases - wide-ranging and
strongly evidenced - were brought against her, and then mysteriously
dropped when a high-powered team of US officials made a covert visit to
Pakistan. She went abroad leaving behind her husband, the poor fall
guy, locked up in jail for close to eight years.
Benazir Bhutto started to plan
her return to Pakistan politics, activating her networks and getting
support from the US ruling classes, who had started to apprehend that
General Pervez Musharraf was getting able enough to defy US
imperialism's diktats about what to do with the economy, how do deal
with India, and less importantly whom to kill and whom to elevate in
the political hierarchy of Pakistan. The US minders brought into play
two other "democratic dummies," the much-accused former prime minister
Nawaz Sharif, and the cricketer-playboy Imran Khan, both bitter rivals
of Benazir Bhutto and both linked with the ruling elite in Pakistan,
especially in the armed forces.
Her return was entirely opposed
by Musharraf, the general-turned-president-in-civvies with strong
connections to the shadowy Pakistan branch of al-Qaeda. Musharraf
virtually guided the Pathan tribal section of the Taliban in the
country, cornering and exterminating in incremental doses, the Baluch,
the Sindhi, and the Yusufjhai varieties of the same terrorist sect. His
initial talks with Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, and Imran Khan alarmed
the latter two enough to make public noises about the developing
closeness of Benazir to the now-civilian general.
What went wrong suddenly in the
weeks prior to the assassination is too recent for even preliminary
political investigation. It is widely assumed by the Communists and the
Left in Pakistan, who mostly keep silent in concern for their own
security, that the Benazir-Musharraf celebratory was rudely interrupted
by a clear signal from the US that they preferred Benazir Bhutto, the
acceptable soft face of Pakistan to the extreme hard-line of the former
general.
Having managed to get the US
nominee killed, clearing the field for his election as a civilian
president, Pervez Musharraf has presented the US with a fait accompli,
which cannot be ignored or pushed aside. The US statement that the
elections should go ahead if everything continues to be normal is a
triumph for the military elite. Benazir Bhutto's tragedy lay in the
fact that she chose to walk into a playing field that she did not
control, and paid the price. The travails of Pakistan, a country
fatally dominated by feudal remnants, tribal loyalties, venture
capitalism, and militarism, go on uninterrupted.
Found
at:
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/Benazir_Bhutto_killed__Pakistan's_travails_continue.html