9/11 onwards Pakistan has rendered great many sacrifices in the war on terror or was made to do so as indicated in the president’s book. The Western governments themselves have been criticized by their public for canon foddering their soldiers in uncalled for military adventures. When it comes to Pakistan and the West the centre-centre bond is strong. Periphery seemingly doesn’t buy the rhetoric of war on so-called terror, as they believe it to be of the vested interest of the respective centres.
With the election season closing in, the interest of the Western governments has increased many folds in the domestic political scene of Pakistan. The recent unfortunate death of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Ms Benazir Bhutto who enjoyed strong global support in particular of the US due to her stance against extremism and terrorism, has stirred uproar at the international level as well as violent protests across Pakistan. The death of Benazir Bhutto carries global significance.
The Time magazine recently in a report titled, “Where Bhutto's Death Leaves the US” underlines, “…there are some who think the Bush Administration is not without blame. Hussain Haqqani, a former top aide to Bhutto and now a professor at Boston University, thinks the US, which has counted Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as a key ally against terrorism since 9/11, bears some of the responsibility.”
It goes on to say, “Some observers believe that US policy in Pakistan has favored personalities over principles. ‘We have a bad habit of always personalizing our foreign policy,’ says PJ Crowley, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.”
In the aftermath of Benazir’s brutal murder the options are getting limited for the US as the article points out, “Given the realities on the ground, the US is likely to continue to throw its support behind Musharraf. ‘In terms of political leadership, Pakistan does not have a deep bench,’ says Crowley.”
The report also points a finger at the level of security arrangements made in the tragic incident, “Senator Joseph Biden, the Delaware Democratic and presidential candidate, echoed (Hussain) Haqqani's view that Musharraf, at a minimum, didn't provide Bhutto with adequate security. In fact, he twice urged the Pakistani President to bolster Bhutto's protection. ‘The failure to protect Ms Bhutto raises a lot of hard questions for the government and security services that must be answered,’ said Biden, who is also chairman of the foreign relations committee.”
New York Times in its report titled, “New Questions Arise in Killing of Ex-Premier” points out, “Pakistani and Western security experts said the government’s insistence that Ms. Bhutto, a former prime minister, was not killed by a bullet was intended to deflect attention from the lack of government security around her. On Sunday, Pakistani newspapers covered their front pages with photographs showing a man apparently pointing a gun at her from just yards away.”
Regarding the controversy that has surfaced about the death of Benazir Bhutto it writes, “An account of her death that did not involve a gunshot wound was the optimal explanation for the government, said Bruce Riedel, an expert on Pakistan at the Brookings Institution in Washington, and a former member of the National Security Council in the Clinton administration. “If there is a gunshot wound, the security was abysmal,” Mr. Riedel said. The government did not want to be exposed on its careless approach to security, he said.”
Though time would tell the missing account of the killing of the PPP chairperson, on the strong possibility of she being shot dead contrary to the Pakistani government’s claims it reports, “Mr Minallah, the hospital board member, said Ms Bhutto’s doctors raised the likelihood of a bullet killing her in their report, when they wrote, ‘Two to three tiny radio-densities underneath fracture segment are observed on both projections.’”
A comment published on the website of The Guardian “Democrats despair” says, “This is a lonely time for democrats in two countries, Pakistan and Kenya. Lonely, because in each case their Western backers equivocate about the need to enforce free elections. In Pakistan, America and Britain fund a military dictatorship, which fails to protect its leaders, locks up its lawyers, and systematically nobbles the political process. In Kenya, we underwrite a president who has just stolen an election and set his country aflame in the process. We preach civil society, fair elections, a free press. We practice emergency rule, bent polls, and a muzzled media.”
On the possible delay in polls it says, “The delay in elections will help Mr Musharraf muddy the waters still further. If an election were held as scheduled on January 8, the Pakistan People's Party would sweep away all before it. The vote would be Pakistan's last act of remembrance for its fallen leader. Delaying the poll allows Mr Musharraf's people to get to work on the reputation of the PPP's caretaker leader, the widower Asif Ali Zardari.”
In the aftermath of the Benazir’s tragic assassination the entire global focus is on Pakistan - a nuclear-armed state that the West finds itself over ambitiously concerned about. An article titled “Pakistan's politics to be played out in Britain” appearing in Telegraph underlines, “While it is hardly likely that Labour backbenchers will rise up against Gordon if he makes the wrong call over Pakistan, the PM will not want to be seen to be supporting a failed presidency in Islamabad merely to placate a failed presidency in Washington.”
“What has this to do with domestic British politics? Everything. Mr Brown likes to say that ‘over there is now here’ - a more demotic version of Mr Blair's doctrine of global ‘interdependence’. There could be no more vivid illustration of this principle than the fate of Pakistan in 2008,” it adds.
At the domestic scene, the condolence offered by the PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif and the views aired by the husband of the late Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairperson Benazir Bhutto and now co-chairperson PPP Asif Ali Zardari speaking about strengthening the federation has helped averted a possible Sindhi-Punjabi clash. The PPP seems to have carried forward the spirit of political compromise that the late Ms Bhutto demonstrated just two days prior to her assassination on the birthday of Mian Nawaz falling on December 25, 2007 by sending him a birthday cake and flowers -- someone who has been his bitterest political rival.
It is important that the people of Pakistan and only the people of Pakistan decide the future of Pakistan in the coming very very crucial days. Needless of what the so-called opinion makers talk about or some politicians claim it is imperative for the people of Pakistan to decide where they want to see their country heading to. It’s democracy and only democracy that’s the way out. It’s YOU that counts. As Bilawal Bhutto quoting her late mother said it, “Democracy is the best revenge”, indeed it is.
