[NYTr] Bhutto Assassination & Pakistan's Future: Behind the Official Govt-Media Story

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Party for Socialism and Liberation - Jan 3, 2008
http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7847&news_iv_ctrl=1261


The assassination of Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan's future

Behind the official government-media story

By Mazda Majidi

On Dec. 27, 2007, Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's former prime minister was
assassinated. Reports immediately following the assassination indicated
that bullets were shot by a sniper, followed by a suicide bombing.

Corporate media outlets immediately adopted the imperialist narrative
laid out by President Bush and other imperialist leaders that Al-Qaeda
was responsible for the attack and that Benazir had been an untiring
fighter for democracy. Implicit in this narrative is that Pakistani
people with their backward Islamists were not quite ready for "Lady
Democracy." Even liberal "left" individuals and forces have been
heaping praise on Benazir and brandishing her "democratic" credentials.

Indeed, the Bhutto family in Pakistan is well-known for its struggle
for independence and popular reforms. Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto, founded the Pakistan People's Party, a party that to this day
owes its popularity to leading the struggle of Pakistani masses against
Pakistan's U.S.-client military dictatorship. Bhutto, the father, was
president from 1971 to 1973 and prime minister from 1973 to 1977.

Propelled to power by massive protests against the Pakistani regime,
Bhutto moved Pakistan toward independence and in the direction of the
non-aligned countries. During his tenure, profound reforms were
implemented including nationalizations of industries and land reforms,
benefiting Pakistan's working class and poor.

But in July 1977, U.S.-supported Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, staged a
coup, arrested Bhutto and halted his political program. With mass
protests of the early 70's subsiding, Bhutto's reforms were more than
Pakistan's ruling class was willing to give as concessions. In April
1979, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq hanged Bhutto.

Benazir's brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz, continued the father's
legacy of struggle for independence and against imperialist domination
through military dictatorship. In 1981, the Bhutto brothers hijacked a
Pakistani passenger plane, flew it to Afghanistan—under a revolutionary
government at the time—and demanded that Pakistan's political prisoners
be released.

Benazir: corrupt, pro-imperialist

But in her ascension to political power, the Oxford-educated Benazir
exhibited few signs of adhering to the family legacy of struggle.
Benazir first was elected prime minister in 1988 but was dismissed in
1990 over corruption charges. She became prime minister again in 1990
until three years later when she was again removed from power over
persistent scandals of corruption.

During her five years as prime minister, Benazir Bhutto did not
implement any reforms of the type that had made her father popular
among Pakistani masses. As for independence, Benazir was a reliable
ally of the United States, heavily involved in Pakistan's support of
counterrevolutionary forces in Afghanistan, the Mujahedeen and later
the Taliban.

During her tenure, Pakistan's infamous security force, Inter Services
Intelligence, the ISI, assassinated Benazir's brother, Murtaza. Murtaza
had been an outspoken critic of his sister's conciliatory line and a
proponent of the return of the PPP to its root values. Benazir's
reaction to her brother's assassination was to whitewash the crime and
to arrest and silence the witnesses.

The most lasting legacy of Benazir Bhutto's two periods as prime
minister was corruption. Through various scams, Benazir and her
husband, Asif Ali Zardari, took advantage of their positions to further
impoverish Pakistan's masses and plunder the country's resources into
their foreign bank accounts in Dubai and Britain. Benazir had appointed
her husband to the lucrative post of minister of industry.

Benazir was forced to live in exile to flee corruption charges. She was
sentenced in a Pakistani court for failure to appear, leading to a 2006
Interpol request for her arrest.

Of course, corruption among Pakistan's political elite is hardly
limited to Benazir Bhutto. Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's other former prime
minister who was removed by Pervez Musharraf's 1999 coup, is also
implicated in rampant corruption scandals. Further, Pakistan's military
leaders, Musharraf and his cronies as well as their predecessors,
historically have been involved in fleecing Pakistan's resources for
personal gain.

In exile, Benazir signed a pact with Nawaz Sharif, vowing never to
collaborate with Musharraf and to settle for nothing less than the
dismantling of military dictatorship. She wasted little time in
breaking her vow in 2007, when the instability of Musharraf's regime
forced him to reach out to her. In a U.S.-British brokered deal, the
path was paved for Benazir’s return to nominal power. Musharraf, having
just been elected president in another sham election, signed a
presidential order, the National Reconciliation Ordinance, and gave
amnesty to Benazir against all pending corruption charges.

But Musharraf was faced with the likelihood of the Supreme Court
decertifying his election as president. According to Pakistan's
constitution, the head of the military is ineligible to run for the
office of the presidency. Musharraf declared martial law and removed
all the Supreme Court justices. The justices illegally appointed by
Musharraf validated his presidency.

Following the imposition of the martial law, Benazir wavered in her
alliance with Musharraf, responding to a wave of mass protests, as well
as pressure from the ranks of her own party, the PPP. During this
period, Musharraf temporarily placed her under house arrest and
prevented her from addressing political rallies. 

But U.S. undersecretary of state, John Negroponte, made a trip to
Pakistan. For years Musharraf has been touting his record as a
supporter of the U.S. "war on terror." Benazir's competing claim was
that civilian rule under her equally compliant governance would be the
best way for the United States to confront "terrorism." Negroponte's
trip solidified the Bhutto-Musharraf collaboration and the stage was
set for elections in early January 2008, with the anticipated outcome
being Benazir Bhutto becoming prime minister and Musharraf maintaining
his presidency. This pro-imperialist block of Pakistan's ruling class
would maintain power under the watchful eye of the military, albeit
with a democratic facelift.

Military and the ruling class

The military has been an integral part of Pakistan's political
structure since British colonialism formed the country. When the
military has not held direct political power, it has stood ready to
intervene and retake direct military rule. As such, the military has
scarcely trusted any civilian leaders, Bhutto, Sharif or any others.
Musharraf himself has been less than committed to his alliance with
Benazir, allowing her back into the country only begrudgingly, under
pressure from the United States.

While eager to prove its value and loyalty to its U.S. masters,
Pakistan's military leaders are eager to maintain their rule and
suppress Pakistani masses as they see fit. Client states see their
interests tied to imperialist powers. But, they also know that
imperialists will easily sacrifice even their most loyal servants when
it suits their interests. It is clear that Pakistan's military leaders
were not as convinced as their imperialist masters of the virtues of
relinquishing direct political rule in the interest of survival and
stability.

Musharraf, Bush and others have been quick to implicate Al Qaeda for
the assassination of Benazir. However, Mehsud, leader of the Taliban in
Pakistan, and Jamaat Islami, another fundamentalist Islamic group, have
denied any involvement. Had Al Qaeda carried out this high-profile
assassination, one would expect it to eagerly take responsibility, as
it has in similar cases in the past. The convenient accusation that Al
Qaeda carried out the assassination seems unconvincing. In fact,
Bhutto's husband has flatly rejected the claim that his wife's
assassination was the work of Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Following the first assassination attempt on Oct. 18, 2007, Bhutto put
the responsibility on “certain individuals who abuse their positions.”
She even sent Musharraf a letter containing a list of people in the
"government and Pakistan security forces” conspiring against her.

Benazir Bhutto did not represent the aspirations of the Pakistani
people for independence and social justice. Nor did she represent a
movement for democracy, even bourgeois-democracy in a formal sense. Her
assassination is an indication of the unwillingness of a deeply
entrenched U.S.-client military, unwilling to share political power
even with loyal opposition forces representing class interests not
contradictory with its own class character.

But the justified outrage of the Pakistani people, the majority of whom
put the blame for Benazir's assassination squarely on the shoulders of
the military, is more an indictment of the military dictatorship than
an endorsement of Benazir’s democratic credentials.

Through their continued struggle, Pakistanis will push for real
democracy, removing the yoke of imperialist domination and empowering
the masses against their foreign and domestic exploiters, in or out of
uniform. Along this path, the legacy of the Bhutto family—excluding
Benazir and her pro-imperialist political record—will serve as an
inspiration.