Benazir Bhutto - SZABIST

We are all Bhuttos now
Fasih Ahmed
Ms Bhutto will be far more dangerous in death than she was in life for those who feared and vilified
her. Her assassination has shattered the nation. The nation will never forget her sacrifice.
Twenty-eight years ago a military C-130 aircraft conveyed the body of an assassinated prime minister
from Chaklala Airbase to Larkana in the dead of morning. Last night, another military C-130 left the
same airbase for the Sindh town at 1.30 am carrying the body of that prime minister’s assassinated
daughter, Benazir Bhutto.
Ms Bhutto’s historic homecoming on Oct. 18 was marred by one of the worst suicide bombings in
Pakistan’s history which left at least 190 dead and hundreds injured. Ms Bhutto barely escaped that
attempt on her life. Despite her repeated exhortations, no adequate or independent inquiry has thus far
been made into that massacre. Foreign news channels have shown pictures of authorities zealously
fire-hosing the road where Ms Bhutto was fatally shot barely an hour after the incident took place. All
forensic evidence that could have provided additional answers is irretrievably lost.
It is imperative now that the nation ask the questions Ms Bhutto had been asking. Among them: Why
are PPP demands for an independent inquiry into the Oct 18 and May 12 incidents being resisted?
Why are the election rallies of certain prominent PMLQ leaders never attacked by gunmen and suicide
bombers? It is very unlikely that the nation will accept or believe any answers that come from the
present regime.
Throughout her storied and tragic life, Ms Bhutto had shown insuperable courage. Her family and
friends had been beaten, tortured and killed. Yet, despite the threat to her life, she barnstormed from
Khyber to Karachi in stark contrast to how those from the PMLQ have been conducting themselves.
Last May 12, hours after 40 people were killed in political violence in Karachi, the ruling party put on
a distasteful show outside the Presidency with the country’s rulers speaking to their rent-a-crowd from
behind a tall bullet-proof glass perched atop commercial containers. In Lahore, Zahoor Elahi Road is
currently barricaded and cordoned off from end to end.
No minister, no judge, no soldier has had the moral courage or integrity to disassociate himself from
the present regime. These people have chosen to dismiss everything Ms Bhutto gave her life for. They
have chosen to stand in support of a callous, cold-hearted and utterly unaccountable regime that has
casually presided over the worst crises in our 60-year history. In so doing, these people have shown
abject disdain for the sentiments of an inconsolable nation — and world — in mourning.
The last I had the privilege of meeting Ms Bhutto was in November in Islamabad. This was the third
such occasion since her historic homecoming on Oct 18. “I agree with you Fasih,” she said, referring
to a press clipping she had read. “This is a war between Wahhabism and secular values.” She repeated
what she had said to me onboard her flight home on Oct 18. “These people don’t scare me,” she said,
“remember that it’s all in God’s hands.” I gloomily told Ms Bhutto that her homecoming had
represented light at the end of the tunnel, but after the bombings and all that followed it was now more
“tunnel at the end of the light”. She tossed her head back and laughed. “It’s not all that bad Fasih,” she
reassured me, “It’s going to be alright.”