By Steve Hynd
A year and a half after Benazir Bhutto's death by assassination during the lead-up to Pakistani elections, the UN has finally appointed a three man panel to "inquire into the facts and circumstances" of her death. However, the "duty to determine criminal responsibility of the perpetrators of the assassination remains with the Pakistani authorities," according to Michele Montas, UN Secretary Ban Ki Moon's spokeswoman.
I'm not sure what that means. Will they simply be looking into the evidence for her death being by bullet or by head trauma caused by her striking her head against a sun-roof lever, as the Pakistani government maintains happened? Or will they be trying to establish who the gunmen were, what their affilitations might be and the identities of the actual issuers of the assassination order - then leaving it up to Pakistan as to whether it wants to prosecute those who ordered the hit? The Scotland Yard enquiry at the time was restricted, at Pakistani insistence, to the former - and came away inconclusive.
Either way, there's certainly plenty to keep the team busy (as the series of posts we did at the old Newshoggers site at the time shows) - especially after all this time. I'm sure that a lot of the trail of evidence is very cold by now.
For myself, I'm convinced that the ISI killed Benazir Bhutto, most probably at the instigation of General Musharraf rather than as a "loose cannon" operation. That they then accused Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who denied the claim and called for a full independent investigation, because they thought it likely he'd never come to trail for the accusations. And that current Pakistani president and Bhutto's widower Asif Zardari knows all this...and did a deal to keep quiet in return for becoming President, where he can continue his lifelong habit of lining his own pockets via corruption.
In his new book To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan, Nicholas Schmidle writes:Mehsud had reportedly said back in October, as Bhutto planned her return from exile, that he would "welcome her with his men," though he later denied having said this.Regarding Musharraf's involvement. . .But that didn't make sense to me. How could he have gained from this: Maybe, he hoped, his domestic and international supporters would redouble their demand for a strongman in light of the ensuing chaos. In reality, Musharraf slid further out of favor with the West and lost more popularity at home.The relaxation of security prior to the attack certainly implies that the ISI, anyway, was rolling out the red carpet for a TTP operation.
ReplyDeleteThis latest development is fully consistent with U.N. policy of doing nothing in a timely fashion. Had they acted promptly it is likely that some controversial report would have resulted and the U.N. avoids that whenever possible.
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