Quiet on one Pakistani front
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - The decision by President Pervez Musharraf to allow Scotland Yard
investigators from London to help in the probe into the assassination of
Benazir Bhutto last week offers Musharraf a chance to save face in the growing
crisis over the former premier's death.
The participation of one of the world's most famous police squads will go some
way to at least help calm the political situation, with
Musharraf announcing on Wednesday that
general elections scheduled for January 8 will now take place on February 18.
Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and other opposition parties, including
former prime minister's Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League, had wanted the
election to take place as planned, but they have indicated they will contest on
the new date.
Investigations into Bhutto's death will focus on whether she was shot by an
assassin. The government claims she fatally hit her head on a lever in the sun
roof of the car in which she was traveling in Rawalpindi when a suicide bomb
went off nearby. Her family and the PPP insist that she was shot twice.
On Wednesday, in a dramatic move, Musharraf, whose government earlier rejected
any option of international investigations, announced in a televised speech to
the nation that Bhutto's murder would be investigated by Scotland Yard.
Pakistan requested the assistance from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"There is a need for experts to gather all the evidence, assess it and then
draw their conclusions. The Scotland Yard team will soon come and investigate
the matter," Musharraf said. In response, the PPP's new leader, Asif Zardari,
Bhutto's husband, commented: "How can they consider Scotland Yard now? They did
not agree on a Scotland Yard investigation when Mrs Bhutto demanded one after
the October 18 bomb blast in Karachi," said Zardari in reference to a failed
attempt on Benazir's life on her return to the country after years in exile.
"Now we demand an inquiry into what is happening in the region and who is
instigating the violence," Zardari said. "Nobody should blame the workers for
the violence. When big trees fall, the earth trembles," he added in reference
to widespread violence that has claimed the lives of more than 60 people since
Bhutto's death.
All the same, he said that the bottom line was a policy of contesting the
elections rather than agitation. The PPP's central executive committee
announced on Wednesday that February 7 will be the final mourning day for
Bhutto and confirmed the party will contest the polls, but under protest.
However, Zardari warned that if any vote rigging was detected, they would have
no option but agitation. Musharraf blamed the law and order situation in the
country for the delay in the polls and also announced the deployment of the
Pakistani army and the paramilitary Rangers during the elections. "I don't want
to make the army controversial, but the situation demands its deployment,"
Musharraf told the nation. Veteran Pakistani analyst Mujeebur Rahman Shami
commented to Asia Times Online, "The major stumbling block in the whole crisis
is over. Now that the Pakistan People's Party has decided to take part in the
polls, the dust will settle and after that even the Pakistan Muslim League will
follow suit and contest the elections."
Columnist and former speech writer to Sharif, Nazeer Naji, also told Asia Times
Online, "The government did not have any option except to delay the polls. If
the elections had been held on January 8, they would have had to be postponed
in 45 constituencies." Rioters destroyed many election officers in the unrest
over Bhutto's death.
However, while the political situation might be approaching some form of
normalcy, the country's real fault line is in the tribal areas of South
Waziristan and North Waziristan on the border with Afghanistan, where a new war
is building.
The attack on December 28 in North Waziristan by a US Predator drone on
al-Qaeda ideologue Sheikh Essa, who advocates all-out war on the Pakistani army
and state, was a war drum. Immediately after, men of the chief commander of the
Taliban in South Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, carried out big attacks on the
positions of the Pakistani security forces. The latter have sustained several
casualties and many have been abducted. According to Asia Times Online
contacts, a special services group has been assigned the target of killing
Baitullah Mehsud at all costs. "This is a war on the Islamic Emirates [the
self-proclaimed name given to the Waziristans by al-Qaeda and the Pakistani
Taliban] and we have the full right of our defense," said a contact from North
Waziristan.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times
Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
