Weep for BB, weep for Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto’s assassination has shocked Pakistan and the entire world. While her remains have been buried yesterday next to her father and two brothers in the family mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Buksh, it is difficult to envisage the fallout, ramifications and implications of this brutal murder of one of Pakistan’s leading political figures being buried any time soon. From the details available so far of the incident in which she was cut down minutes after leaving an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh, it appears to have been a targeted assassination. Benazir Bhutto was hit by two bullets, one in the neck, seconds before a suicide bomber blew himself up in close proximity to her vehicle. The gunman lay in wait till Benazir emerged from the sunroof of her bullet-proof vehicle to wave to a crowd of zealous supporters thronging the path of her vehicle. Such accurate marksmanship appears to bear the hallmarks of a trained shooter. The subsequent suicide blast seems to have been designed as a backup in case the marksman failed to hit her fatally. All this smacks of a well-planned conspiracy to silence one of the most eloquent voices against the country being held hostage by a small minority of fanatical terrorists operating under a false justificatory umbrella of Islam. Doctors at the Rawalpindi General Hospital where she was rushed struggled to resuscitate her, but finally surrendered to the inevitable.
The news was greeted by her supporters and all citizens throughout the country with shock, horror, grief and anger. That anger spilt over into protests and violence throughout the length and breadth of the country on Thursday. Road and rail links between Sindh, where the strongest reaction became visible, not surprisingly since the province remains the PPP’s main stronghold, and the rest of the country were cut off by protestors. Domestic flights in and out of Karachi had to be suspended for fear of disruption or worse. All the major cities of the country, Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad-Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta and others witnessed outbreaks of protests, violence, damage to government and other property, arson and similar acts. As the night wore on, the angry crowds’ attention began to turn towards her funeral on Friday in Garhi Khuda Buksh, where her body was airlifted from Rawalpindi, accompanied by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari and her three children, Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Asifa, all of whom had flown in from Dubai to accompany Benazir’s body to her final resting place.
Friday dawned with the country by and large suffering from the silence of the grave, partly because of the strike call by a number of opposition political parties, including the PML(N) and the parties of the APDM, partly because the eyes of the whole country (and indeed the world) were turned towards the final rites being administered to the slain former prime minister. Nawaz Sharif, while expressing his shock and grief at the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, announced a boycott of the impending elections on January 8. However, soon after the funeral was over, the protestors were back on the streets in many parts of the country, and a familiar cycle of violent protest was re-enacted. The army, Rangers and other law enforcement forces, which were conspicuous by their absence on Thursday night, were deployed throughout the country to try and bring order back to a country wracked to the depths of its soul by the cutting down of a charismatic woman leader in whom a great many hopes resided to pull Pakistan out of the morass of terrorism and political crisis in which it has been bogged down almost throughout the outgoing year. These violent protests do not appear to be dying down, and the country is likely to see an escalating confrontation between the law enforcement agencies and the agitating crowds in the days ahead.
The government, from President Pervez Musharraf down, condemned the assassination roundly and the president in a brief statement on the electronic media announced three days of official mourning, during which the national flag would be flown at half-mast. The PPP, on the other hand, still reeling from the blow, announced the traditional 40 days of mourning. So much for the horrific events of Thursday and Friday. What is of great concern is the fallout of this dastardly terrorist act.
For one, the elections of January 8 have now been thrown into grave doubt, especially if the protests and violence do not abate. The boycott by the PML(N) has deprived the contest of one of the major electoral players, and thereby deprived the exercise of any remaining credibility or even relevance. Realising the need for applying a healing touch to the bleeding wounds of the country, the government has proposed calling an all-parties conference to take stock of the situation. Although the idea sounds good in principle, it is difficult to envisage the opposition flocking to such a moot in the obtaining circumstances, which have deepened the divide between the Musharraf dispensation and all other political forces. While the UN Security Council and many world leaders have sent a wave of condolence and condemnatory messages, the US and Britain, unsurprisingly since they are widely regarded as the main backers of a strategy of political reconciliation and transition to democracy through the impending elections, have reiterated the need for Pakistan to pay homage to Benazir Bhutto’s courageous martyrdom by proceeding with the elections on schedule, or not long after January 8. Unfortunately, the fly in the ointment is the deep mistrust (now deeper) between President Musharraf and almost all political forces except the King’s party. The president, already controversial after the events of 2007 and especially the November 3 imposition of emergency that allowed the decapitation of the superior judiciary, censorship of the media and the contested assuming of the office of president even in civilian mode, has suffered a further blow because of the assassination of the major political leader most inclined to work with him for the sake of a smooth transition to democracy. Even if the charged and perhaps motivated accusations from some political quarters of the Musharraf dispensation being responsible for the assassination are discounted as knee-jerk emotionalism, the government cannot escape the charge of responsibility for the major lapse of security and failure to protect one of the leading political figures of the country.
Whether in these circumstances, and given the possibility of the agitation continuing, elections can be held at all, and that too on President Musharraf’s watch, must now be counted as one of the major conundrums facing the country. A period of instability is on the cards, and the outcome highly uncertain at the moment of writing these lines. While the country mourns and weeps for a courageous young woman leader cut down in untimely fashion by the perpetrators of terrorism, there are many whose eyes will be full of worry and tears for the future of the country.
http://thepost.com.pk/EditorialNews....36094&catid=10