missing m

Well the obits for the daughter of Pakistan’s House of Atreus are coming in: modernizer, moderate, martyr…

The western-educated Bhutto had energetically made the case for democratic ideals as part of a well-orchestrated campaign to gain a third prime ministerial term at a crucial time in Pakistan's turbulent history.

For Bhutto, democracies do not go to war against each other and democratic governments do not harbour terrorists - and a democratic Pakistan, free from military dictatorship, would cease to be a haven for terrorists. The US president, George Bush, could hardly put it better himself.

I don’t know how Dubya might have put it but “the democratic governments do not harbour terrorists” stuff is a bit rich when Pakistan’s democracy was one of only three countries to recognize Taliban rule in Afghanistan, after having nurtured it and then helped install it in power. We’re missing an M by the way: murderer.

My father was a member of Parliament and a vocal critic of his sister's politics. He was killed outside our home in 1996 in a carefully planned police assassination while she was prime minister. There were 70 to 100 policemen at the scene, all the streetlights had been shut off and the roads were cordoned off. Six men were killed with my father. They were shot at point-blank range, suffered multiple bullet wounds and were left to bleed on the streets.

My father was Benazir's younger brother. To this day, her role in his assassination has never been adequately answered, although the tribunal convened after his death under the leadership of three respected judges concluded that it could not have taken place without approval from a "much higher" political authority.

It’s amazing how much latitude you get when you used to be president of the Oxford Union.

Comments

[ejh]

Monetary stability

[a very public sociologist]

Oh yes, I expect over the coming days she'l be hyped up into a Mandela-like figure by the media. It'll be interesting to see what the press have to say about it tomorrow, expecially the tabloids. I wonder if The Star will think she had a "cracking pair".

[Cian]

As the saying goes - if you thought Bhutto was the solution, then you didn't understand the problem.

What's been particularly nauseating in the US is not just the saintliness of Bhutto, but that the entire discussion has been framed around how it will affect the US election (and implicit, how can the US control Pakistan - I've got news for you guys, you cannae).

[Simon]

Yes, CBS news ran a piece where their 'political analyst' was discussing the effect it would have on the campaign. I thought he meant the Pakistani election campaign, but it turned out he was talking about the primaries. They then asked all the candidates how they would deal with the situation in the hypothetical event they were president, which rather turns it into a parlour game.