Pakistan in Turmoil: Benazir and Beyond

The images are haunting…. The loaded gun, the fiery bomb blast, and stunned humanity in bloodied tatters and tears.

It seems just like yesterday when a tall, lissome 17 year old girl shyly made her way to Simla with her father and charmed an entire Indian nation and its leader, but Benazir Bhutto’s journey is nothing like that of Indira Gandhi even though many say Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was inspired subconsciously to groom his exceedingly bright and beautiful daughter the same way Nehru had groomed his. Sadly her death is as tragic but more untimely.

Today as she lies buried next to her father, her life cut short at a time when she seemed the only symbol of hope for leading Pakistan to a semblance of democratic normalcy, the tsunami of chaos and unanswered questions, comments and commentaries, has flooded all airwaves and social gatherings globally. Her assassination, the fear of an uncertain future not just of her party but Pakistan is an ongoing topic of discussion. Needless to say, its impact is being felt the world over, and what happens in Pakistan will have repercussions on the international community as well.

There are many who remember her as a warm, generous and extremely lovable woman; a fantastic mother, wife and friend. Those who love her also say that as a politician Benazir tried her best in spite of the many roadblocks put in her path, loved her country, its people and wanted to lead it towards a democratic path once again.

Others are not so generous. There are many who call her one of the most inept Prime Ministers to have ruled the nation, as corrupt as anyone else, a woman who changed colors like a chameleon when it suited her, and did not do enough for women’s rights under her two administrations. A woman who returned only because she lusted for power and didn’t like being persona non grata. Her husband Asif Ali Zardari, her oldest child Bilawal too have faced the arsenal of dissenting voices, in spite of the overwhelming love and support of the common people in Pakistan, and all this when neither the father and husband nor the son have had the time to even mourn her death properly.

The life of the Bhutto family seems intrinsically intertwined with the politics of the land and the fragrance of the earth of Pakistan, in whose eternal embrace many members rest today. In an exclusive, many prominent voices from five countries, share their thoughts on the state of affairs in Pakistan, its future and the Bhutto legacy with me.

Revisiting History

“To begin with, Pakistan, right from its inception has had a lot of challenges because it was born out of violence, much of its history remaining under dictatorship and whenever it has taken on a semblance of democracy, its only been a semblance,” says T Sher Singh, a well known journalist who practiced as a highly successful lawyer in Canada until three years ago and has also visited Pakistan recently.

It is a thought that is further explored by General X a senior military official who wishes to remain anonymous. “The creation of Pakistan was based on the two nation theory which was not right. It divided the nation and has not helped the Muslims of the subcontinent. Had the partition not taken place, the large portion of Muslims from UP, Bihar and the rest of India would have been a very important component, and it would have been quite possible that many of the Prime Ministers would have been of Muslim origin in undivided India. The seed of the 2 nation theory created Pakistan but sadly Pakistan itself became many nations, with the Pathans, the Baluchis, the Sindhis and Punjabis all excluding each other. The most important nation within this nation then became the military, and with the exception of Jinnah and Liaquat Ali, Pakistan has been ruled by the Military or the rule been overseen by the Military. The Military has continued to put pressure on civilian governments ever since.”

The Royal Democrat

It is universally acknowledged that the charismatic Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a man with a multifaceted personality. Many who don’t know him, still have a definite opinion. One man who did know him very well is former diplomat and journalist Khalid Hasan. Hasan was also Press secretary to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for many years, and his friendship with the Bhuttos spans over four decades. It is obvious that Khalid Hasan loves the family deeply, but he is also quick to point out Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s shortcomings with honesty.

“There has never been any doubt that he gave the poor, common people, the peasants for the first time the consciousness of their rights. He gave them a voice, gave them an awareness that they mattered. He may not have been able to deliver, but as one man in Lahore said , “At least he took our name, until then we didn’t exist, we were invisible.” Those who are his critics and there is no shortage, they say well he didn’t mean it, he didn’t deliver, he exploited it. The fact is that his following was from among the poor, young students, the country side, and the working class. He pulled out the politics of Pakistan from drawing room intrigue.’

Khalid Hasan says that when Zulfikar Ali joined Ayub Khan’s cabinet there was something about his immensely magnetic persona that caught the imagination of the young people of Pakistan and he too was charmed. ‘He was smart, good looking, had a bit of a reputation of being a ladies’ man, liked to take an occasional drink, and he was an absolutely brilliant foreign minister who made his mark internationally in United Nations and world capitals. He was known for his acumen, his brilliance, his knowledge of history, of world affairs. It was remarkable, absolutely remarkable.” Hasan is however quick to point out that all great men have some failings that can prove their undoing and Bhutto was no exception. “ He was lacking in the ability to trust therefore I think that resulted in misidentifying friends as foes and foes as friends. Also his reliance much too much on the bureaucracy and he was friends with some of the most notorious bureaucrats of the time. They had become very close friends and as soon as he had fallen, they betrayed him.”

Prof Waqas Khwaja who practiced law in Pakistan and now teaches English literature at the Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, says that the appeal of the Bhutto family is based on the fact that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto started out with the idea of Islamic socialism. “Whether we used the word today or not, the idea has been very attractive for the masses. It is an idea that brings with it all the thoughts of social justice for everyone in society and it was the first time in Pakistan’s history that someone had actually talked about empowering the poor, the labor, bringing benefits and opportunity to the poorer classes and to the peasant in Pakistan. So Zulfikar Ali Bhutto started out with a lot of reforms. These reforms embraced all kinds of areas which included the bureaucracy, land reforms, labor reforms, labor union laws and social and political structures so that it really was the time Pakistan could profess to have entered the modern age and there was great hope and excitement.” It was undermined says Khwaja when Gen Zia took over in a coup and since then the military has been pretty much in charge.
Professor Waqas Khwaja

Gen X, on the other hand, says that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a politician who used all the tricks of the trade to acquire power, which including undermining Mujibur Rehman. Bhutto, he adds bears the responsibility for the further partition of Pakistan, with the creation of Bangladesh. As far as he was concerned the defeat of Pakistan in 1971 earned him the papers to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan. He was also a politician who wanted to remain in power and did whatever was required to do so.

Eminent journalist Haroun Siddiqui who is based in Canada says that India had the foresight to do away with feudalism, Pakistan failed to do so and the feudal families and the military continue to co exist in a mutually beneficial alliance. “Mr. Bhutto walks into this seesawing between the leadership coming from either the military or the feudal class and he being a feudal lord himself fits into the scheme of things. He eventually becomes a populist but a populist driven by a cult like personality, autocratic and not democratic at all and the entire PPP(Pakistan Peoples’ Party co founded by him) is based on it. It is the biggest party there is in Pakistan, driven by one man and since his death, driven by his daughter.”

Prof Seema Gahlaut, who teaches at the University of Georgia says that outside, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was remembered as a democratic leader who did a lot for his country but when you looked at it impartially he was the one who oversaw all the events leading to AQ Khan and giving power to a handful of scientists who begged, borrowed and stole nuclear and missile technology, to make Pakistan a nuclear power.

A brilliant man and yet like all of us, a flawed one who shared a close relationship with his second child Benazir and preferred to groom her over his oldest son Mir Murtaza-a decision that was going to lay more thorns on the already treacherous path for a Muslim woman who would be King.

Who was she, this equally multifaceted woman called Benazir Bhutto?

Daughter of the East

This much is evident from conversations with those who knew her closely and those who analyzed her from a political perspective that Benazir the woman shone brilliantly but Benazir the politician had many shades of gray in her persona. While she shared some common traits with her father, she also brought in her own unique qualities that set her apart.

Mahnaz Malik an international lawyer of Pakistani origin who lives in London and shared a close personal relationship with Benazir says that an incident when she met Benazir for the first time at the age of 8, in the mid 80s left such a lasting impression on her that it was instrumental in making her the woman she is today. “She was introduced to me by my grandfather who had been negotiating with Gen Zia on her behalf. I remember being presented as a child to this very fair looking, beautiful young woman and my grandfather telling me –that’s your next Prime Minister. Benazir would always come to visit at night as she was a persona non grata at that time. It was very exciting for the children to be presented to her.”

That night Mahnaz met her with two of her male cousins. Benazir was asked for an autograph. She wrote a simple, “Best wishes” for the two boys, but in Mahnaz’s book she wrote, “Mahnaz who I believe will go on and serve her people and her country.” ‘For a little girl it was incredible to have such a positive role model who expressed a belief that I, as a little girl and then as a woman when I grew up, could actually be again helping my people and my country. It was very relevant and instilled a lot of confidence in me as a child.”

Mahnaz laughingly recalls that though they didn’t meet for a while she would promptly write a letter to the then Prime Minister in a most indignant tone whenever she felt something was wrong in Pakistan, admonishing her on the unacceptable manner in which she was running the country! “Thank God she never received those letters!”

The two met again when Mahnaz was 18 and a very strong friendship was cemented when Mahnaz was able to persuade the ice cream junkie Benazir to switch loyalties from Baskin Robbins to Ben& Jerry’s brand. They would often meet for breakfast and lunches, Benazir would make Mahnaz sit through some of her Party meetings and even asked her later if she would like to join her Party, an offer Mahnaz regretfully turned down, opting for a career as a super achieving author, activist, film maker and international lawyer. The relationship remained very close, very personal. “She gave me the code name of Peppermint after her favorite ice-cream flavor, because I really didn’t want to publicize my friendship with her.’

Mahnaz says while she felt the politician may have had shades of gray, the Benazir she knew as a person was a stellar woman of amazing qualities. ‘ Even if you took the politician away, and just saw her as a person, you would say Wow! This is quite an incredible lady. If you added the fact that she had all the commitments and all the stress and challenges that weighed her physical personality, then to be the loving and generous person she was, adds to her persona.”

One of her main strengths says Mahnaz was to make other people feel special whether they were close friends and family or distant relatives and acquaintances. “ People have said that as a politician Benazir was very arrogant and high handed, but the 11 years that I have known her, I have never seen a trace of arrogance.’ Mahnaz recalls a time the two of them went to a department store in London and the saleswoman was very rude to Benazir. Benazir addressed her as Ma’am and continued to patiently reason with her without once telling her who she was and that she knew the store’s owner very well.

When Mahnaz got her first paycheck, she took Benazir for dinner at an upscale restaurant, in London, frequented by celebrities. Benazir who was very young at heart, excitedly asked Mahnaz to look around and see which celebrity were all the people ogling at? ‘I looked around and everyone was looking at our table. I didn’t tell her you are that celebrity. She didn’t even realize that! As a person Benazir was very spiritual, very bright. She was phenomenally efficient when it came to time management.”

Contrary to stories of extravagance that continuously did the gossip rounds, Benazir did most of her own work, answered all her own emails, wrote and edited everything herself, until Mahnaz put her foot down and got her a couple of college interns. “She only had two volunteers working for her.” Benazir loved writing, says Mahnaz and the two writers would often compare notes. “ One story that she wanted to do at that time was about strong Muslim women through the centuries. She never had the time, but this would have been something she would have done when she’d have retired from politics, and its sad that she won’t be able to do all that now.”

As a mother, Benazir was extremely devoted to all three children. “You could not spend time with Benazir without being around her children. She would juggle tuitions for them while responding to an interview. She was a mother who really managed to balance affection with a very strong sense of discipline.” Mahnaz say all the three children are extremely bright and well brought up. Benazir protected them but never shielded them from people, exposing them just enough to understand and become familiar with the real world. She made sure the children were always well mannered and understood the value of money. Though not an outdoors person herself she encouraged her children to enjoy the outdoors and go riding like their father.

Khalid Hasan who has known Benazir since she was a young girl, says, “Benazir was very much like her father-very very bright, very vivid. Daughters are closer to their fathers than sons and so it was with them. Benazir was a lovely woman, She had a lot of humor in her, she was very kind hearted and generous. She never held a grudge. Sometimes her judgment may have been faulty but her heart was in the right place. She wished everyone well.”

Madam Prime Minister… or Not

While Benazir the woman left everyone charmed, her political legacy continues to be the fodder for intense and heated discussions, and more so now that she has been tragically assassinated.

Every one acknowledges that she was a very bright woman who was elected by the people not once but twice to head the Pakistani government. Its what she did during those years that people often squabble over.

“Benazir, unfortunately despite all her charisma, despite her being the first woman leader in a Muslim country, despite the fact that she was in fact selected by the people of Pakistan as their leader long before Germany got its first woman Chancellor and while France and US still have to elect a woman President, despite that, she remained autocratic,” says Haroun Siddiqui, and adds, “ I don’t buy this thing about it being tough being a woman in a Muslim country because this is one of the great narratives of the time, that it is very difficult for a woman to be a leader in a Muslim country. Nobody gives credit to the people of Pakistan for electing her in the first place. The fact is, it was an issue with some people but the people of Pakistan brushed it aside and elected her. Let me also tell you that Bangladesh, Turkey and Indonesia have elected women leaders long before Angela Merkel came along. So this whole paradigm of Muslims resisting women leaders is not universally true. It is certainly true for Saudi Arabia for example but not a general rule.

Benazir Bhutto inherited a country that was in the doldrums economically not doing very well, but that does not in any shape or form free her of the responsibility of how she governed and she governed very badly. She got the chance twice and each time she blew it. What is her track record? And one does not speak ideologically-these are the facts-that she was incompetent, her administration was accused of bribes and corruption, she was the queen of nepotism, appointing her friends in Supreme courts. She appointed her husband Asif Zardari, Mr. 10 percent, as the minister of investments conveniently. She was dismissed both times by two civilian Presidents, not the military and the second one was her own ally.”

Professor Waqas Khwaja disagrees. “First of all, I think her being a woman in an Islamic country IS an important thing to remember. In fact whether it’s an Islamic country or otherwise, for a woman to lead a country is still a very rare thing and has not happened too many times and the expectation from somebody from a gender that has rarely been allowed this opportunity, to perform better than anybody else, to be perfect in every way is an unrealistic one. Like male politicians, female politicians may have their difficulty as well and there may be a learning curve and its all very natural and normal.

I think we have become very narrow in our expectations and I don’t think that is right at all, and in any way appreciates the practical difficulties that people face when they are leading a very complex group of people, let alone a situation with the diversity of several ethnicities and provincial conflicts and what not. So here is a woman in Pakistani Muslim society, who has risen above a lot of the difficulties that her gender has faced traditionally in such societies. She has led with dignity, carried herself with dignity and I think that is a credit we must mark in her favor when we start speaking about it.

A lot of us have forgotten the difficulties she was operating under-often against a hostile President on one hand and a hostile Military on the other hand. When she first became Prime Minister, Ghulam Ishaq Khan who was the progeny of the Military regime was the President and the Military did not want her there. She had come on the basis of the vote of the electorate. They couldn’t do away with her right away, so they had to make the situation difficult for her which they did and hampered her in her policies. They would not make her aware of what was going on in the military.

One of the things that Zia-ul Haq unfortunately had done was to separate the budget of the military from the country’s budget, so the civilian government had no control over how the military spent its budget and a very large chunk of the revenue -60-65 and at one time even up to 70 percent was allocated to the Military. If you factor in debt repayment etc, there was virtually nothing left for developmental programs.

A civilian leader is judged on the opportunity he/she is able to create and there was very little money left over for anyone to do that. This has been the traditional structure in the country. We must also appreciate that she was operating under conditions that were extremely hostile and antagonistic and she did her best to vindicate her election and perform as well as she could. That was the first regime.

The second time she came back into power, the Military was still very antagonistic to her and her own party member (Farooq) Leghari was the President. He turned against her and once again the link of the feudals with the Military was at play here. Her policies of social justice and social enlightenment and development for women and students in Pakistan were undermined because of the nexus among the feudals and the Military and also the bureaucracy had no interest in seeing this kind of development in Pakistan.”

Prof Khwaja goes on to add that Benazir was not accorded the respect and the protocol that was due to a Prime Minister of a country by the Military. “This is on record, this has not happened in Pakistan before in terms of other Prime Ministers but specifically for her. This was one other disability she labored under. She would not be given information about the nuclear programs and what was going on there. The Army was always in full control of that. She was not allowed to go to the army, to the major functions that a Prime Minister normally attends as the operating head of State. So there also she was kept out of the developments in the Army. Zia had created a very strong faction of Islamists in the Military, which still subsists by the way. She was helpless to do anything about it and stem that kind of a current.

Having said that, it was true that she was removed on the charge of corruption-in particular her husband who was charged with massive corruption. A lot of Pakistanis I have talked to have vehemently said oh we are 110 percent convinced she was very corrupt and Zardari was very corrupt.

What I don’t understand is that the government that charged her, the institution which is the Army, they charged her with corruption and removed her. They set up the courts and Nawaz Sharif who was not at all friendly with her, his party was always the opposition party as far as Benazir and the People Party is concerned-these were the ones who had set up the courts, who were monitoring the courts, who were gathering all the evidence. And even after 10 years of pursuing these cases they were not able to gain a conviction. So if I look at it objectively, I don’t see this as a valid case. If this was a valid case they would have come to a conviction. If they say Mr. Zardari is Mr. 10 percent and they had all the evidence about all their illegitimate accounts, if all this is true why weren’t they convicted?”

Khalid Hasan agrees. “ Benazir earned her spurs. The fact is that she spent five years in Zia’s jail and many of these years were spent in solitary confinement. She may have been nominated or anointed by Bhutto but the fact is she earned it later after a long struggle. Once she told me, “ I never had a youth.”

Hasan says there were times she was overwhelmed by the harsh judgment of the people, but he told her that it was because much was expected of her, unlike many others. “ Both her terms were never completed. She never had a chance. The army, she said was always breathing down her neck and in her first term the cabinet she was saddled with, many of them were not of her choice. She couldn’t maneuver very much-also people found it hard to take orders from a young woman. General Mirza Aslam Beg refused to salute her, when she went to the Army Headquarters a couple of times.” In the first term there was a lot of inexperience, says Hasan and adds, ‘There is no job description –there is no-‘You do job 1 and 2 and you will have qualified yourself.’ She did a lot better in the second term.”

Pakistani journalist and documentary film maker Beena Sarwar says that while she believes Benazir was not able to do very much for women in Pakistan, there was still a huge symbolic value to her being in power and having a lot of women around her who were in power and were ministers. She took some steps for women empowerment but she was not able to change the laws that discriminated against women and one of the reasons for that was that she was never allowed to have complete power. “ She wasn’t allowed the 2/3rds majority and there were constant efforts to destabilize her government by a group I call the dirty tricks brigade, and never allowed to complete her tenure.”

Mahnaz Malik says from what she knows of Benazir on a personal level, she always found her to be very positive about women rights. “ On a very basic level she sympathized with working women because she was a working woman herself, trying to balance work and family. She knew the challenges women from her subcontinent faced because she faced them herself. In her case they were magnified as a female leader in a country like Pakistan. I don’t think she ever disassociated herself-she was very much a woman, she was very proud to be a woman and believed that you could be feminine and still strong.” In fact Mahnaz firmly believes that while people often compared Benazir to her father, she brought something special, something extra to the equation because she was a woman and a proud one at that.

T. Sher Singh thinks that Benazir’s being forced into exile turned out to be a blessing in disguise, in a way because it further exposed her to the political systems in the west much more than ever before, and gave her a strong sense of democracy and where Pakistan should be. Her third term would have been a very productive one had she lived.

Seema Gahluat says Benazir was seen as more progressive and it would have been a good chance for Pakistan to begin its movement back towards democracy. “ Not that Musharraf would have given up control but there was still hope because so much attention was focused on Pakistan that the army might have interfered less in how she may have governed the country.”

Eminent Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi shares his views on Benazir. ‘ Everybody knew that when she came in, she was very inexperienced and she didn’t really know how to run the country and then there were all these charges of misuse of power and corruption and although they were never proved, the perception did sink in that, that was the case during both her terms, there is no doubt about it. Its very difficult to prove anything in a country like Pakistan, which doesn’t really have a system of effective prosecution and justice delayed is justice denied.

But in terms of her personality, she was a very autocratic person, very sure of herself, very full of confidence, but at the same time she was also very warm hearted. She was not in the least vindictive which is what most Pakistani politicians are. They remember slights, they tend to be vindictive, they tend to be authoritarian. She didn’t have those personal problems. She would get angry with people, but then immediately forgive them, talk to them and if she hurt someone accidentally or willfully she would relent and apologize. She was always very sure of everything she did and was not susceptible to too much criticism, although later on she would have cause to reflect and on things that didn’t go right and gently demur to the fact that perhaps if they had happened in a different way, things might have been different.

All in all a very powerful leader, not always amenable to good advice, was fond of people who had alert, active minds, that understood native psychology, and was not averse to using intelligence reports to try and stabilize opponents. She was very much a political animal, but I think among all the political animals we’ve seen in this country, she was a better human being, she was more caring and at the end of the day she was no more or no less inefficient or corrupt than most of them.”

United States of America-being Bully-ish about the East

When the news about Benazir’s assassination hit the airwaves, and while Pakistan burned, globally there was intense anger at America. It was not just the anger the fundamentalists and the world in general feels against a nation that has made a habit of meddling in the affairs of others, and bullying heads of states. The anger also came because it is unanimously felt that Benazir died because the US did not protect their candidate of choice for bringing a semblance of democracy in Pakistan. But that is not where the blame ends.

“When the cold war was on between America and Russia, America supplied weapons through Pakistan to the Afghans who were anti-Russia and that is how the Taliban were created, and some of those weapons were used by Pakistan against India and some of these elements were also sent into Bangladesh and Nepal for infiltrating India,“ says General X, and adds “ these are the people who have become very powerful and don’t want to play second fiddle and they don’t want democracy to return because their power will decrease. If the reports are true then its obvious that Benazir was killed by some of these elements and Musharraf’s military is helpless, because an important faction of the armed forces and bureaucracy is in cohorts with these elements. Benazir was the greatest threat not only to Musharraf but all those who were being benefited by the military rule. Benazir came to Pakistan with USA’s assurances and whatever arm twisting the US did, did not translate in adequate security for her. Musharraf, instead of blaming the victim, has to accept full responsibility, as should USA, for what happened to Benazir.”

Pakistan is one more example of the disastrous foreign policy that George W Bush has followed, says Haroun Siddiqui “There is a mess in Iraq, an ongoing mess in Afghanistan and by extension in Pakistan. For the mess in Iraq Bush and his coterie of supporters are constantly blaming Iran and Syria for example, for the mess in Afghanistan they are busy blaming Pakistan. They need scapegoats.” Siddiqui says that the claims that there is a problem in Afghanistan because of the tribal areas in Pakistan are wrong. “The reverse argument is true. We have a problem in the border areas of Pakistan because Afghanistan is in a mess. The real war, the real problem is in Afghanistan and then flows over into Pakistan. Is it controllable? It is to some extent and to some extent it is not. I have traveled hundreds of kilometers in the mountainous borders on the Pakistan side and I have seen from the Afghan side as well. We have formidable mountains which cannot be possibly patrolled”. Siddiqui adds that here are some border portions where there are measures taken but Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban who are crossing the borders, aren’t doing it from that side. Siddiqui was in Pakistan recently and a minister said to him- ask the Americans why doesn’t USA control their borders against Mexico? They have all the resources, they are a bigger country and there are no mountain chains to combat and yet they have 12 million illegal Mexicans in the US. Don’t whine about Pakistan not doing enough- and don’t just keep bombing those people, because the human tide goes back and forth and the bombing hasn’t stopped it.

“I’m not a great admirer of Mr. Musharraf, but when he says look what are you talking about. You have 40,000 NATO and American soldiers in Afghanistan. I have committed 80,000 troops along my own borders, I have lost 800 soldiers, more than double the soldiers you have lost in Afghanistan, I’ve put double the resources in a single cause, suffered double the casualties.. and you are lecturing me that I’ve not done enough?” Military action is needed but military action alone cannot solve this problem. You need to find a political solution and the solution for Pakistan lies in the solution in Afghanistan and not the other way around.”

Beena Sarwar reiterates the fact that the American interference in Pakistan has not gone down very well with anyone. She says, “If you ask me how I see American attitude now, it’s the same as it’s always been- self serving to America, very focused on its American national interests, which in the end boomeranged on them.” Sarwar also points out that the American support of the Mujhadins helped them morph later in to the Taliban with links to Al Qaida and local religious militants in Pakistan. “ And they all came together sharing one ideological world view which is anti-American, anti-women, anti-religious freedom and anti-democracy. So American policy is directly responsible for nurturing and sustaining this because they survived on anti-Americanism primarily.” Sarwar says if America had pulled out of the equation and changed their policies things would have been very different.

General Y, who also wishes to stay anonymous says that the US has had the habit of always backing the wrong horse. ‘They have been backing Pakistan for the last 50 years and I think every 5-10 years they realize that they have backed the wrong horse and again they have done the same thing. They have reportedly sent billions of dollars to Pakistan to fight terrorism, and Pakistan military has taken a big chunk of that money to build an army to fight India. The fact of life is that India has always wanted a stable Pakistan and Pakistani dictators have always fed the public this fodder that a strong India is a danger to Pakistan and so they should try to break up India.”

T Sher Singh thinks, that on the contrary its India who keeps feeling insecure about Pakistan and adds that whether it’s the wrong horse, or any horse for that matter the US only backs one agenda-looking at the short term gain for them. “The Americans don’t have the same talent and skills that the British had in terms of determining long term policy and I don’t mean to praise the British. The British were more successful but as a result more manipulative, more colonial. However the sad fact is that the Americans don’t have those skills and not having those skills don’t see beyond the short term goals. As a result they keep adding a layer of problems wherever they go. The Americans have become a bit impotent in terms of what they can do despite their power, despite their influence.”

Najam Sethi says that the perception in Pakistan was indeed that Benazir was backed by the US and it was fine tuning her, and forcing her to embrace Musharraf, even though it embarrassed her before her supporter base to some extent, since it had been anti-establishment. “In the last 10-15 days since she came back, she was extremely uneasy, because she said that Musharraf was not living up to the promises that had been conveyed to her quid pro co, and the Americans continued to lean on her to continue to work with Musharraf rather than to destabilize him or look for other options.”

Her main grouse, says Sethi was a lack of adequate security ad the fact that she was not getting a level playing field. “She talked incessantly about what she thought would be a rigged election. She sought assurances and guarantees from the Americans but I think the Americans were not able to get Musharraf to put in his muscle into those guarantees so there was a lot of disquiet even within her own mind. I discussed this matter with her on two different occasions. She was acutely frustrated by this backtracking in Islamabad but at the same time she was determined to take this route rather than take the route of confrontation and street violence. She felt that this country needed stability and democracy would help even if it was shared democracy where she would have to share power with Musharraf.” Sethi says Benazir felt extremism was a major problem facing Pakistan and along with terrorism it would destroy the country if not nipped soon. “The tragedy is that neither Musharraf nor the Americans who persuaded her to take this route were in the end able to deliver their part of the bargain.”

The US is going to be in a bind, says Seema Gahlaut because Benazir was their candidate and she feels it may have been the key reason why Benazir may have been targeted. Gahlaut adds that USA now does not have any good options at all. “There is domestic consensus here that continued support of a military dominated government in Pakistan doesn’t show the Americans in a very good light when you are trying to promote democracy all over the world. But on the other hand the choices they have are even worse in some cases.”

Seema Gahlaut also makes a very key point, “ In some ways what is happening in Pakistan is a perfect example of what happens when a country allows itself to be used by major powers without looking into the future. Pakistan is a fairly large country, its in a fairly significant region of the world and has nuclear weapons and missiles. The international community will go back and say well Pakistan army is the only force that provides some sort of stability and predictability in Pakistan. So the Army will win again.”

Asif Ali Zardari: The Return of the Prodigal Son in Law

Today the man who had been cast aside as Mr. 10 percent and castigated repeatedly with charges of corruption, (charges that were not proved and are still tooted by his detractors hanging over him like an invisible veil of disrepute), has inherited the good will of the masses that adoringly welcomed his late wife back. He has also won the grudging respect of many, for the way he has conducted himself in the aftermath of his wife’s assassination.

But who is the real Asif Ali Zardari and will he really be a successful power broker behind the scenes, just as his wife was a powerful force on center stage? Does he have her charisma, her appeal, even though he is not a Bhutto, and even though most of his detractors choose to keep whining about his past, and about how the marriage was really a sham and both were leading separate lives but chose to stay married for self serving reasons?

“I believe that Asif Zardari is more sinned against than sinner,” says Khalid Hasan who has known the family very closely. Rumors would be spread says Hasan on a regular basis that the Bhutto-Zardari alliance was on the rocks, that divorce was imminent, that the marriage has ended, and that would happen every six months. “The fact is they have remained married, the fact is she was fond of him and the fact is that he accepted her as a leader, he never questioned her. He would offer her advice but it was she who made the final decisions. I have seen it myself and it was a good marriage, it was a partnership. Of course there are tensions in every marriage, but she stayed married through a very difficult time(his long jail term and her exile), she raised the children without him. In the early years they never saw their father.

Yes Asif has remained controversial. The charges against him were taking kickbacks and so on. He hasn’t been convicted in any case. There are other stories about palaces and lands and frankly it troubled me as well. I asked Benazir and she said it is not true. I think he is not pure as driven snow but he is more sinned against than sinner.” Hasan says he doesn’t think the stories of kickbacks are true either. ’Asif is a very generous and kind man, very relaxed, a great organizer. You meet him and in five minutes you will feel as if you have known him forever. He is very warm and hospitable and has a Sindhi background where they have an open house and a larger approach to life. People are always coming and going. People would come to him all the time seeking help. Someone would go to him and say “Asif sahib I’m stuck with some bank- and he would pick up the phone and tell the person concerned-yaar is ka kaam karo(Hey buddy, can you do his work) why are you hassling him? And people would say oh he must’ve taken some kickbacks in return.”

Prof Khwaja, says that for him the bottom line remains, if Zardari had so many corruption charges against him, where is the conviction? ‘Zardari had been in jail for close to 10 years. He had been beaten up pretty badly when he was there regularly. Benazir was outside the country. If the evidence was there they could have brought it before the court of law. What happened to all of that evidence and what happened to all those hand picked judges who were not able to come to a conviction? Why did they release Zardari?”

Beena Sarwar says that the phrase Mr. Ten Percent was coined by a group that she calls the Dirty Tricks Brigade (her piece on the same appears in the print section of this e-mag). “It starts with a whispering campaign and initiates these kinds of moves, so Mr. 10 percent was a cute slogan that was picked up and it stuck. Remember he was in jail for 8 years in Pakistan. Even if he’d had a comfortable jail cell or spent some time in the hospital, the fact is, he couldn’t see his children, he couldn’t be with his wife, he was on his own. He was reviled and he had all the press against him. It couldn’t have been easy but he came out of it, didn’t accept any deal. He could have taken the easy way out-there was an ongoing deal offer, and he could have taken that and gone free but he didn’t do that, and Benazir said that to somebody(it was Khalid Hasan) “ Now you know why Asif is so precious for me.” He didn’t let her down.

Sarwar adds that while it’s very easy to make presumptions about Zardari’s past and say he was a playboy who liked his luxuries and polo, the fact remains that the couple had their own working relationship and you can’t bring those 8 years back either for them or their kids whose childhood he missed out on.

Perhaps the most telling thing about Asif Zardari’s personality is that in spite of being a man in a very strong patriarchal society, Asif allowed Benazir some amazing liberties. People may say who is Asif Zardari without Benazir Bhutto, but the fact remains that he could have made things pretty tough for her.

Beena Sarwar agrees. “He has let her be accepted as a leader, he took a backseat for whatever reasons-he let her children take her name, he let he be buried at her father’s ancestral graveyard rather than his own, and has expressed a wish to be buried next to her. In all effects he’s basically become a Bhutto. That is a big step, in this patriarchal society and nobody has objected to that.”

Najam Sethi says he doesn’t know Asif Zardari well but he has met him off and on. “I think in the last 8 years he has matured considerably. He had a fairly flamboyant image about ten years ago but now he seems to have his feet firmly on the ground and in many ways is far more pragmatic to compromise and pragmatism than she(Benazir) was. I think that has something to do with the fact that she was the be all and end all of the Peoples’ Party. She could do no wrong; even when the party disagreed with her in private, in public they never dared to go against her and she had this extraordinary ability to say things that would have destroyed any other political leader, but they stuck with her through thick and thin. He can’t afford to take those luxuries. He will have to tread carefully in terms of what he says, how he presents himself and so on and so far he seems to have done a good job in the last 10 days or so.”

Sethi adds that in Sindh most people’s reaction was that there was really no choice so everybody’s accepted it. If there had been an adult Bhutto who had been part of Benazir’s entourage it may have been a different story. “There are Bhuttos-there is Mumtaz Bhutto an uncle and there are cousins like Fatima Bhutto but they don’t have the sort of standing and there have been no adverse reactions to Mr. Zardari’s take over. It was expected, and it has happened. I think people are also agreeable to the idea that the son is really the heir apparent and that in time to come he will come back and claim the rightful share of the political leadership, but since he is very young, this is obviously not the time to throw him into the deep end of politics and by and large the reaction in Sindh as far as Mr. Zardari is concerned is positive.

Mr. Zardari does have his detractors, some very few in Sindh because Sindh is Bhuttoland but he has his detractors in Punjab and in Karachi but now what you see is that the allegations of corruption and Mr. 10 percent and all the rest of it are tempered by reminders and notes appended to his character like he spent 8 years in prison and was very brave throughout those 8 years and acquitted himself well and then even when he left the country he was with Benazir. The stories of differences between them, never amounted to anything. She was very careful in terms of her own understanding and I think most people are prepared to accept that.”

Asif Zardari’s detractors feel that he does not have the political experience to run the party, but there are others who say that the common man is behind him, as are the majority of the party workers and he will have a number of key people who have taken care of the party, when Benazir was in exile to help him run it while his son 19 year old Bilawal finishes his education and returns to Pakistan, to hopefully take over as Chairman.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari: The Heir or the Spare?

When Asif Zardari named his 19 year old son Bilawal to lead the Peoples’ Party, saying it was a unanimous decision by the PPP, and Bilawal took over the last name of Bhutto Zardari, the reaction was mixed. There was an instant fear that the young man would become a target for fundamentalists, and he was too young to be dragged into a political arena that was overflowing with deceit, bloodshed, and all kinds of intrigues. There were also allegations by the Bhutto family that he is not a true Bhutto, and that this was a political move on part of the Party to cash in on the Bhutto name and Benazir’s death by playing on people’s emotions.

Mahnaz Malik says that the only thing she feels Benazir and Bilawal have in common is that both were young and were prompted to take a very active role in politics early in life because of the death of a parent but that is where the similarity ends. “Bilawal obviously is much younger than Bibi(as Benazir was fondly referred to) was when her father died. She was a graduate and she was also very mature. I met Bibi again when I was about Bilawal’s age and she was very sure that the defining moment comes after college and that is what she would have wanted for Bilawal. Bibi also spent a lot of time with her father around the time she was at Radcliff. Bilawal hasn’t had that level of grooming. He still has a lot to learn. Then he has a father who is a very strong personality, and having a strong parent can bring its own challenges. He hasn’t spent much time with his father so it will be interesting to see how that relationship develops. The dynamics in Pakistan have also changed-you are battling against a number of challenges. Exposing a 19 year old with the risks, the trials and tribulations of being a politician at this age is perhaps not the best thing for him, his development as a person and as a politician.”

Many who saw Bilawal’s press conference in London (this writer included), saw a side of this young man that was sheer grace under fire. The media vultures swooped down, lashing out at him, in their quest for a titillating piece of reporting. No one stopped to think for a minute that here is a young man, whose mother has not been dead for 10 days, who has not even had time to mourn her death properly, and that everyone needed to cut him some slack. Instead he was ambushed with questions that were brutal, questioning his right to be the Chairman of the PPP, asking why he would have aspirations to lead a messed up country like Pakistan, commenting that he has lived outside, so how would he know the pulse of the people of Pakistan. The questioners were unrelenting, and continued even though Bilawal made it clear that he was going to finish his education and was not an immediate player in Pakistan politics. He would think about the future only after he completed his education. But Bilawal showed the same grit that his parents seem to have in plenty and answered every question without flinching. His mother would have been proud.

Those who know Bilawal point out that he is extremely bright as are his sisters, and has made it to Oxford totally on his own merit. He is well rounded and has always been very interested in politics. The question that comes up is this-is this reverse discrimination just because he is his mother’s son? Why should he not be permitted when the time is right, to dabble in Politics? You can only do so much when it comes to the children of celebrities. The doors may open initially, but if they don’t deliver they are out just as fast as anyone else -and it is perhaps no different for children of political figures. Also, no matter how much time the pundits spend on analyzing the candidates’ record to death, their flaws, their strengths, emotions, usually rule the way the general public votes. How else would you explain George Bush Jr.’s second term in the US? The choice of Bilawal is based on emotion yes, but his capabilities must be judged once he is active in politics. As for leading a messed up country-if he has the will he will find the way. And time will tell whether Bilawal is the rightful heir to his mother’s legacy, especially since Fatima Bhutto has said she has no desire to jump into the political arena as of now either and her brother Zulfikar Ali Jr. is even younger than Bilawal. Besides they belong to the rival faction and won’t be accepted within the People’s Party. It may be foolish to expect that his privacy will be respected, but having seen how he handled the media in his first ever solo outing, its quite obvious Bilawal, even if he was neither a Bhutto nor a Zardari, has what it takes to handle any encroachment into his life.

But more pressing questions that loom on the horizon are whether Political parties should be ruled by families and what is the future of PPP?

“There was a lot of reaction, in the intellectual elite about that,” says Beena Sarwar about Benazir’s will appointing Asif Zardari as Chairman of the Party, “and they said, Where’s the democracy, why can’t the party have elections and maybe this is a good time for the party to reinvent itself? Now the problem is that the people who made these objections are not the constituency of the Peoples’ Party. The Peoples’ Party’s constituency is the ordinary worker and the poor person who wants a Bhutto, who wants the continuation of the name heading the party, so Zardari I think very intelligently handed the mantle over to his son because he knew he would not be acceptable. His son then took on the Bhutto name and that I think satisfied most of the workers of the Party. Fatima (the daughter of Benazir’s older brother Mir Murtaza) has been very unfair and very unkind to Benazir Bhutto during her life time. She wrote that Benazir is not a Bhutto, she is a Zardari. If I had got the chance to ask her I would have asked her if she was married would she have taken her husband’s name or kept the Bhutto name?”

Beena reiterates that the common man is the constituency and not the people who have been criticizing and waxing eloquent on nepotism and dynastic rule. “The person on the street couldn’t care less for that”.

Mahnaz Malik feels that it is still sending the wrong message, when democracy has to bow before dynasty especially if one is to believe that Parties in Pakistan are institutions. “These kinds of decisions may do more harm and there may be no legacy for Bilawal to take over.’

Beena Sarwar responds that there really are no strong institutions in Pakistan. Benazir was the institution. People had pinned their hopes on her like they would on a Messiah to extricate them from the clutches of the constantly interfering Army.

She recalls that after the 18 October attack on Benazir she was attending a press conference when a senior journalist sitting next to her said that the Peoples’ Party was not a political party-it was a cult. “People will die for it and they literally have. The volunteer bodyguards knew they were directly in the line of fire and were ready to die for Benazir.”

Still at the end of the day there will always be this question-who has the charisma to replace someone like Benazir? Mahnaz Malik says, “When Benazir came into power she was known as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s daughter-Bhutto ki beti was constantly thrown in. But this time when she came back, it was very much as Benazir Bhutto. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was very much in the background but the cries you heard were “Benazir Bhutto” and from a very young population that Benazir loved being around. “ Benazir herself had to deal with the uncle syndrome when she first took over- from men who were her father’s friends and companions, and so she was very supportive of the younger generation. She really believed they could contribute a lot.”

Asif Zardari mentions in his interview (with Kavita) that there were 12 to 14 year old kids who were out on the streets protesting her death and that made them believe even more that Bilawal would be welcome as the PPP’S torch bearer. And so Bilawal remains the Party’s shining hopefully uniting force in absentia, albeit only in the future, but if they could run it with the mother in exile for 8 years, they can wait for, a few years for the son to rise again in the East. Zardari – from the restraint he has shown and a grasp of what works – may just be the surprise package to pull the party together. The world watches and waits.

The Young and the Restless

Rubab Saleem is a Pakistani journalist in her 20s. She constantly does surveys to see which way the wind is blowing as far the youth of Pakistan is concerned and she reports that the feeling among the youth is of overwhelming despair ever since Benazir was assassinated.

“Benazir was a symbol for all young women that you could be anything you wanted to be, even the Prime Minister of Pakistan in a male dominated society. She became an inspiration for women to come out of their homes and work for the country, and there was an overwhelming feeling that had she been allowed to live, her third term would have been her best one. There is a lot of anger at the inadequate security that was provided to her-this is a woman who was a two time Premier of the country. Is that how you treat a former Premier? The Pakistani youth is very worried about the future. A friend of mine in America says he fears that this country will fragment and Pakistanis are in danger, and Benazir’s death may be the last nail in the coffin of democracy for Pakistan for a long time to come. I see a lot of chaos and turbulence and the anger of the PPP will explode, the military will again pretend to intervene and we will again go back to the dark ages.”

Rubab Saleem adds that the youth feels the corruption charges against Bhutto and Zardari were trumped up by Nawaz Sharif, and so people, especially the younger generation feel much more warmly towards Asif Zardari and Bilawal but the rival Bhutto faction headed by Benazir’s uncle Mumtaz Bhutto says it’s the Bhutto family that has made all the sacrifices for the party, and they are the ones who should be at the head.

“Personally, many of us feel that the party should not be treated as the personal property of anyone and in my eyes no one amongst the younger generation of Bhuttos is competent enough to lead at this time. Aitzaz Ahsan was someone that all of us looked up to but he is under house arrest, and has taken back his application. So he is not contesting.

After Benazir we don’t see anyone who can be a role model for the youth. The major population of Pakistan is the youth but the education system has been so messed up, the youth is being brainwashed, about so much including against India. We have grown up reading and learning a very distorted view of India. I went there some time back and I have never seen such hospitality and love. It’s the people to people contact that makes you realize that the truth is something else.

I love my country but I agree when people say that it is the illegitimate child of partition. We need to take it on the right track, but the younger generation has lost its greatest uniting force with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. It is not necessary that an inspiring leader has to be the Head of State, but Benazir was capable of inspiring, uniting and heading a united Pakistan. She had the charisma, the education and today the maturity, and the Bhutto name seems to arouse unstinted loyalty from people who either knew her father or knew her.”

Rubab says the lack of a young and vibrant leadership in Pakistan is primarily due to the fact that economic instability deprives the youth of the zeal and passion required to be a good leader. “Everyone is struggling to make a living. Even those who are studying engineering or medicine reach a dead-end and can’t find a decent job. Financial deprivation leads to frustration and that leads to despair and hopelessness. I know of so many youngsters who do not even step out to vote, They think its a waste of time. The elite and their children continue to prosper, the common man continues to break under the burdens of his circumstances. At the end of the day everyone just wants his basic needs of food, clothing and shelter to be met and to co-exist peacefully, but that is not happening.”`

Najam Sethi says that lumping the youth in one generic whole doesn’t quite cut it. “The country is now split in so many different ways-there are ethnic fissures, there are regional problems, there are some nationalistic problems, some class problems, there are religious problems so to talk of a Pakistani youth is not terribly helpful.

Having said that if you look at the indicators of what the young people are thinking, I can think of 2 indicators clearly which are very inadequate but they at least give you an idea. First the people who received Benazir in Pakistan on the 18th(October 2007) are mostly young people, lots of young people who grew to adulthood during the time she was actually out of the country. Strange.. as one would’ve imagined that people who are in their thirties and forties who had their struggles earlier would have turned back to welcome her but no it was younger people and people from the ages of 18 to 25-26. So it was very strange to see a new generation of Pakistan who didn’t really know much about her yet had put their hopes in her. So clearly she was a figure of hope for many young Pakistanis who hadn’t really grown up with her during the time of her court trials and tribulations.

The second thing is if you look at the lawyers’ movement for the restoration of the judges and for an independent judiciary, it is again young people, lawyers in their 20s and early 30s, people who probably came into their professions in the last eight-ten years and all of it under General Musharraf’s time when the economy was booming, middle class was developing, trickle down effect was taking place.” This is the profile of the youth that has become the vanguard of the struggle for a free judiciary against Musharraf says Sethi, and adds that today many of the kids lighting candles and holding vigils are from the middle class and upper middle class, something that was not the case earlier.

“So in other words, its not hunger or poverty that is driving them to protest. It’s the idea of freedom and democracy.”

See No Evil Report No Evil

The media in Pakistan has come a long way but since the first bomb blast on Benazir Bhutto’s arrival, the government has put gag orders on some electronic media.

“There is no control over the print media effectively,” says Najam Sethi, “ There are laws that have just been promulgated by Musharraf to try and restrain the print media but the media is not looking at these laws at the moment. So the print media is very daring and very free and all manners of debate and news is available in the print media. The electronic media has had a very nasty experience at Musharraf’s hands. They’ve had the plug pulled out on them and their channels were taken off the air. Now most of them have been restored except for a few which were the most popular and the most aggressive news channels in the country. They’ve suffered huge losses. They are still not on. The other electronic channels have been chastened by that experience. They can’t afford to go off the air for such a long time. So one of the things they have conceded is there will be no live coverage of certain events which might create difficulties. Even political rallies can’t be covered live… if that political rally had been allowed to be covered live, we might have known immediately what might have happened on that fateful day when she was assassinated. We, in the end, had to rely on amateur photographers and government video handouts to know who fired the shots and what happened but in a normal situation the media would’ve been there.”

Rubab Saleem says that the print media is accessed more by the older generation. The electronic media is more opinionated but also an opinion builder. She says however that people in Pakistan are not very mature in how they deal with the electronic media. She also points out that the militants have been using the media to serve their purposes. “ As long as suicide attacks were being reported in the media, they were on full blast. The moment the government started its censorship when it declared emergency, no suicide attacks occurred, which was interesting, because the militants lost their platform to put fear in people.”

What “Lies” Ahead

The fact that the elections were postponed from the 8th of January to the 18th of February in spite of all the major parties agreeing to participate did not go down well with anyone.

Beena Sarwar and Najam Sethi have been traveling and both spent some time in Benazir Bhutto’s Sindh province. Beena says there is a lot of uncertainty about the elections, and in Sindh there has been unrest and violence. On the day the assassination occurred the entire country came to a stand still; there was a lot of violence in Sindh, Larkana, Karachi and Hyderabad in particular, and while a lot of the looters did not come from the PPP, the government saw an opportunity to register cases against PPP members. “ I believe cases have been registered against 300,000 PPP workers, not all of them by name but there have been some open ended FIRS naming so and so and 50 others.. and then most of the PPP’s electoral candidates have been terminated in some cases for arson, attempted murder, looting and robbing and many of these cases are blatantly being made up.” Beena also says that the government supported party PLM(Q) has been putting out ads in the newspapers offering refuge to certain ethnic groups-Punjabis, Pathans, Baluchis and Mohajjirs against the Sindhis. That is a clear attempt she says to foment ethnic violence.

Najam Sethi says the PPP would have ideally liked to have had the elections held on 8 Jan because of the intense sympathy wave in their favor but the govt. postponed the elections claiming there was heavy damage to the election commission property, especially in Sindh and the election commission was not ready. The real reason he says is of course that the government is hoping this sympathy wave will subside in about 6 weeks and the ruling party which was trudging along before the assassination, will rise from the slump and try to recoup its credibility and put up a fight.

People remain cynical and the atmosphere in Sindh remains grim, says Sethi who had gone to see Asif Zardari and to the resting place of Benazir. Two slogans are constantly blowing in the winds of Sindh he says “Ya Allah, Ya Rasool , Benazir Bekasoor( As God is our witness, Benazir is innocent,’ and a harsher ‘Ai Katilon Khoon Ka hisaab do(You murderers, account for the blood you have on your hands), which is very very powerful. And of course there is fear and apprehension as to what is going to happen to the Party itself, whether it will stick together, whether or not Asif will be able to lead it properly, whether they will attempt to derail the electoral process.

“Musharraf has said, and I quote him – Come hell or high water the elections will be held on the 8th of January and well we’ve not had hell nor high water and the elections have been postponed. Cynicism in this country is so overwhelming that now people are saying what if there is another major assassination? Will they be postponed again?” Questions are also being asked if the elections will be fair and free.

Beena Sarwar says the fact that the 8th January elections were not going to be fair or free was a foregone conclusion to everyone because of the sacking of the independent judiciary and the muzzling of the independent media. The playing field was obviously not a level one. “As Asif Zardari said, the biggest election rigging is the elimination of Benazir Bhutto.”

There is also fear about erupting violence as Muharram nears and that may be a good excuse for the government to postpone elections again. “I don’t know if the elections will be held on 18th Feb. There was no reason to have postponed them; all the main players were saying-have the elections but they didn’t want the PPP to win. The 6 week interim period gives them enough time to weaken the Party, to break it, to foment violence …and basically ensure that the PPP win doesn’t happen.”

Gen X says that now the elections will be for the benefit of those who killed Benazir Bhutto. The west will support Musharraf since a known devil is better than an unknown one, and US has to take a big part of the blame. “Benazir Bhutto came to Pakistan with US assurance, and US perhaps conveniently forgot that no dictator is loyal to anyone but himself. That is how he becomes a dictator. The Americans and Europeans should not forget history. Remember that guy Hitler? Did he have any interest in the welfare of any human being? All the feudals and the Military that support Musharraf are as ruthless as him and Pakistan is going to be in great peril. When Indira Gandhi was assassinated, there was tension and riots but in a democracy things are handled differently. Even when the army is called its under the orders of a civilian government. For Pakistan things are very different. With the Military ruling they were unable to protect their future Prime Minister so you can imagine what kind of division there must be in their armed forces and that is a major problem in Pakistan.”

Gen Y adds, ‘All thinking Pakistanis agree that the country has to come together because the next few weeks can be dangerous and may sow the seeds that may even break up Pakistan. Musharraf is no longer in the army but he is still the President. Now all eyes are on Musharraf to see how a civilian Musharraf acts, because this is a new phenomenon that has happened and we have to see how he can continue to have a hold over the Military in his civilian dress. He may not last or he may succeed in becoming an equally good civilian dictator.’

T. Sher Singh warns that it is very important for America to swiftly move in with some of the other world powers and empower the United Nations with whatever it needs to clean up the country, weed out terrorism and hand over a democratic structure to the Pakistanis. “Otherwise the whole place will erupt and affect all of us around the world.”