LAHORE: Three years after the tragic assassination of the
twice-elected former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and
almost nine months after the United Nations Inquiry Commission
released its report; carrying broad hints about her probable
assassins, the actual mastermind of her brutal murder still remains at
large.
The UN commission, which was released twenty-eight months after her
assassination, had cited a major lapse in her security plan and
squarely blamed General (r) Pervez Musharraf for that. The report made
it abundantly clear that Benazir Bhutto had been left completely at
the mercy of her killers, who took advantage of the pitiable security
arrangements and assassinated her. The April 15, 2010 release of the
UN Inquiry Commission’s report had revived the interest of the general
public in the issue and all the mysteries that surround it. Although
the commission stopped short of naming Musharraf as the Bhutto killer,
it did go much further than anyone could have imagined in blaming him
and giving broad hints about his role in the security lapses that
paved the way for her assassination.
There were pages after pages in the commission’s report of evidence
implicating the military’s intelligence outfits, for their involvement
in Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. A long-established nexus between
the Pakistani military and the militants too reinforced public
suspicions of the military and intelligence establishment’s possible
involvement in the murder. However, despite the release of the
commission’s hard hitting report, her own party’s government seems
reluctant to proceed against the actual culprits, including those
Bhutto had herself named as her ‘would-be assassins’. Therefore, the
million-dollar question remains do her own party’s government has the
guts to proceed against either Musharraf or any of his former khaki
associates whose role has been questioned by the commission?
There are many angles to the murder that have not yet been explored by
Pakistani authorities. The UN Commission pointed out, albeit
delicately, some of these, and there is clearly a great deal still
hidden from the public eye despite the installation of her own party’s
government in Islamabad. The release of the UN report led to fresh
calls for a new probe into her murder, but amidst scepticism that the
masterminds of the plot would ever be brought to justice. Despite
these calls, it appears that investigating a possible involvement of
the military or intelligence agencies in the Bhutto murder will be
extremely difficult for the fragile civilian government in Islamabad.
Many in the government circles concede privately that despite the UN
Inquiry Commission’s findings, the PPP government will not be able to
take Bhutto’s killers to task, mainly for fear of upsetting the khaki
leadership which, despite being nominally under the control of the
civilian government, still pulls many of its strings. The main problem
is that Musharraf was allowed to leave the country under an
unannounced deal sponsored by the Americans and brokered by the
current military leadership, under which the dictator was given a safe
passage and immunity from any type of prosecution.
The official circles further say that the three year extension granted
to the current Army chief is, in fact, a reminder of the limits of the
civilian government’s authority. In short, when it comes to policy
planning with regard to the United States, Afghanistan and India, it
is the all-powerful military establishment which is actually calling
the shots since Pervez Musharraf’s exit, and will continue to do so
for the next three years, given the fact that Pakistan has spent most
of its sixty-three-year history under military rule. Despite
Musharraf’s unceremonious exit from political horizon, the army
remains the country’s dominant force, and many believe that the
government would not be able to proceed against him for his alleged
role in the Bhutto murder, especially after General Kayani’s
extension.
Currently languishing in self-imposed exile in London, Musharraf is
already well beyond the reach of the Pakistani authorities. And since
the political clout of the Army, Musharraf had left behind, refuses to
diminish, many in government circles believe the country’s khaki top
brass will not allow a potentially humiliating probe against their
former army chief for his role in the Bhutto murder. Despite Pervez
Musharraf’s ouster from power, and the apparent withdrawal of the
military from civilian life, the reality of present-day Pakistan is
that the PPP government is weak and the all-powerful military is
firmly in control.
Under these circumstances, the domestic inquiry initiated by the PPP
government in the Bhutto murder with a lot of sound and fury seems to
be back to square one, especially after the khakis compelled the
government of the day in July 2010 to write a letter to the UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and point out a spate of inaccuracies
and unsubstantiated observations in the UN Commission’s report on
Bhutto’s assassination. Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas has
already conceded that the UN report was taken by the military
leadership as a bid to malign the national institution.
Therefore, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was made to write a
seven-page letter to the UN Secretary General which objected to, among
other things, ‘repeated but un-evidenced finger-pointing at the role
of Pakistani security agencies and the Establishment, in the Bhutto
murder’. Quite bizarrely, the letter was written two months after the
report was submitted to the government and welcomed by President
Zardari, saying it had has strengthened the hands of his government
and would help in pursuing the murder investigation effectively. The
main thrust of the letter written by the foreign minister of the PPP,
which claims to be the only anti-establishment party, was to deflect
attention from the ‘establishment’ and therefore lessen the opprobrium
directed at it.
The letter stated that the Pakistan government has approached the UN
with a plea to warn member states against using, to Pakistan’s
disadvantage, observations about the country’s military establishment
made in its report on the Bhutto murder. It may be recalled that the
UN report had quoted multiple sources as having claimed that the
country’s mighty establishment – the de facto power structure
comprising the military high command and intelligence agencies, in
particular, the ISI the MI and the IB, and their powerful allies among
the political parties and civil bureaucracy – felt threatened by the
possibility of Bhutto’s return and was involved in or bore some
responsibility for her assassination.
Almost two weeks after Shah Mahmood Qureshi wrote the letter to the UN
Secretary General, in an obvious bid to appease the khaki
establishment, General Ashfaq Kayani was given a three year extension
by the government. In a nutshell, it seems as if the Benazir murder
case is in the doldrums as the government apparently lacks the
political capacity to bring the actual assassins to book. Many in
believe if her killers cannot be unmasked now, while her PPP is
ostensibly in power in Islamabad, it is less likely that they will
ever be unmasked, and there is a possibility that like all infamous
murder cases, the mastermind of Bhutto’s murder will also remain a
shadowy figure.
With the death of the world’s first woman to have led an Islamic
nation twice, only truth and justice can be the greatest revenge. That
is what the people of Pakistan want and that is what Benazir Bhutto
deserves.
amir.mir1969@gmail.com