Pakistan After Benazir Bhutto

“Irreprehensible act.” Those were the words used by the UN at the end of an emergency meeting of the Security Council to describe the death of Benazir Bhutto, Harvard and Oxford grad, two-time Prime Minister, and mother of three who was assassinated at a rally in Rawalpindi Dec. 27 by a suicide bomber.

Not that the former opposition leader of Pakistan Peoples Party who had all corruption charges leveled against her dropped by President Musharaff, did not see it coming.

Egged on by Bush and Brown, and against advice to the contrary, she returned to Pakistan after an 8-year self-imposed exile. She escaped the first assassination attempt during a reception, spoke of death and dying and finally died for democracy. Like her father, former Prime Minister Ali Bhutto—hanged by the military—and her two brothers.

But the question is, after the spontaneous violence, which greeted her death, and after she lies buried beside her father in their country home, what next? t?

First there might be chaos, which may lead to war. Pakistan has always been a dysfunctional state replete with violence and killings. Benazir’s death might look like the last straw. The resulting disorder might end in the break up of the Muslim state.

A second scenario is a kind of shambolic democracy cum political instability. The military favors this alternative to stage a come back to power.

Third. George Bush who has spoken of “bringing the culprits to justice” might bring his war on terror to Pakistan and make it another Iraq. The country has been increasingly talibanized—there have been more killings in Pakistan than in Afghanistan—and four radical Islamic groups have been fingered.

We hope Pakistan emerges from this darkness to light. But it seems that the light will not shine so bright.

Arthur Zulu is a writer and publisher. To read his works, go to:

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