Category — Pakistan

SKARDU, April 25: Lawyers have criticised the government for not giving Baltistan division due representation in judiciary and other departments of Gilgit-Baltistan. They sought share of Baltistan in judiciary and all departments according to its population.

Baltistan chief court bar association president Shaukat Ali advocate, in a statement here, said the people of Baltistan had been totally ignored in filling posts in the Supreme Appellate Court, Chief Court, special judges in banking, customs, anti-terrorism, anti-narcotics, excise and taxation courts; no single position had been allocated to Baltistan for the posts of advocate general, additional advocate general, deputy advocate general and assistant advocate general.

He said the people of Baltistan were being denied their due share in other departments like election commission, public service commission and services tribunal etc.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/call-for-giving-baltistan-due-share-in-gb-jobs-640

One issue that stood out in Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir’s address to the 37th session of the Standing Committee of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Bhutan was the need to adopt a regional approach towards tackling water issues. Environment and climate change will be the focus of the 16th SAARC Summit, which is going to adopt a declaration titled ‘Green and Happy South Asia’. Climate change worldwide and the malign effects of global warming will have a negative impact on our common heritage — the Himalayas — which are the reservoirs of our water in the form of glaciers. And that is how the subcontinent has, historically, remained one of the most fertile areas of the world. The water that flows down the mountains and is distributed through an extensive irrigation system is a source of livelihood and the very survival of millions comprising the agrarian communities of the region.

The issue of water distribution is the bone of contention between upper and lower riparian countries in the region. Voices of protest against India pilfering Pakistan’s share of water are growing louder. Besides Pakistan, India has had problems with Bangladesh on the waters of River Ganges that forms its delta in Bangladesh. These are issues dictated by nature, which is no respecter of political boundaries. Without a cross-border and region-wise cooperation, these issues cannot be settled to the satisfaction of all parties.

The same applies to all other issues, be it energy, food security, trade, people to people contacts, security, etc. The proximity and relative ease of transportation has the enormous potential to make trade among member countries a booming success, whose benefits will accrue at all levels of the regional economy. Unfortunately, this potential of cooperation among member states has not been tapped because of bilateral political problems, particularly between India and Pakistan. Since no bilateral issue can be discussed on the forum of SAARC, this hampers progress on key issues, affecting all other countries. This is not to say that progress has not been made since SAARC came into being, but the kind of cooperation necessary to make the dream of a prosperous and peaceful South Asia — originally envisaged in the body’s charter — a reality, is nowhere in the offing. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\04\27\story_27-4-2010_pg3_1

By Khalid Hussain

ISLAMABAD: The ongoing water contentions between India and Pakistan in the context of the Indus Waters Treaty 1960 (IWT) place before us four different yet inter-connected realities. One is the perception present in news coverage and analysis by the mass media in both the countries. The other exists between the two Indus Water Commissioners (IWCs) that jointly make up the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) charged with implementing the IWT in letter and spirit. Third there are the ever-dominant bilateral security concerns that now stand compounded with ongoing international involvement in our regional geo-politics. And

finally, the environmental and ecological reality that we all live with across South Asia connects us to the rest of the world fighting climate change.

Let us address these perceptions one by one for a holistic perspective on water contentions between India and Pakistan. The media version is flawed because of a limited capacity to understand the complex hydrological regimes of the Indus Rivers System that both countries manage independently in their respective territories following the IWT. The almost secretive working of the IWCs in both countries further compounds the situation. The media in Pakistan, while projecting unfounded allegations of water theft and the ‘water war’ India is waging, tends to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the IWT – an instrument that has ensured water peace between the neighbours even during war times.

To these allegations, senior Pakistani statesman and a water expert in his own right, Dr Mubashir Hasan responds: “If India has stolen our water, then tell me how have they done it? Where have they taken it?”

“New Delhi has no ‘storage and diversion canals network’ to withhold Pakistan’s share of water,” explained India’s High Commissioner to Pakistan Sarat Sabharwal in his recent speech at the Karachi Council for Foreign Affairs.

Basically, there is a general tendency to oversimplify the IWT, especially in Pakistan. Most coverage simply goes with the notion that India has no rights over the Western Rivers (Chenab, Jhelum and the Indus). The reality is not that simple. Indian has water rights for domestic uses including drinking, washing, bathing and sanitation. The non-consumptive uses allowed to India cover uses including navigation, flood control and fishing.

India also has the right to draw water from the Western Rivers to irrigate a maximum permissible irrigated crop area of 1.34 million acres. It can also use water from these rivers for run-of-the river hydroelectric projects. Hydroelectric projects incorporated in storage works are also allowed albeit to the tune of only 3.6 million acre feet (MAF). Of this storage, 0.4 MAF is allowed on the Indus, 1.5 MAF on the Jhelum and 1.7 MAF on the Chenab.

This is in addition to the storage that existed on these rivers before the Treaty came into force. However, storage is strictly regulated for India, with a total of only 1.25 MAF allowed as general storage. The remaining quantity is split between 1.6 MAF for generating hydroelectricity and 0.75 MAF for flood control.

The media is key to ensure a fair coverage of the issues involved. The current water scarcity that is feeding emotions across the borders of the IWT is not permanent. It is making water ‘hot’ at the moment but as soon as supplies are replenished in the river system, the issue will move to the backburner as always.

This is why sustained open communication is so essential, as underscored at ‘Talking Peace’, the editors’ and anchors’ conference organised in Karachi recently by Aman ki Aasha, a joint initiative for peace by the Jang Group and Geo TV in Pakistan and the Times of India group in India. Editors agreed on the need for more cross-border information and on the need to focus on facts rather than emotions when writing about each other’s countries.

Concerted joint efforts are essential to cover the range of issues involved in an objective and fair manner on both sides. This is imperative to counter tensions between the two countries. This brings us to the latest unresolved contention between the two Indus Water Commissioners (IWCs) that jointly make up the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) charged with implementing the IWT in letter and spirit.

As reported earlier (Part I of this series), Pakistan has already notified India of its intention to seek arbitration on the Kishanganga Hydroelectric project. The News has learnt that Pakistan will hire the services of its arbitrator in the Baglihar Dam case, Prof. James Crawford, Head of the Law, Cambridge University, once again. The News has learnt that a senior water expert from Pakistan paid a quiet visit to England in the last week of March this year to confirm his acceptance.(to be continued.) http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=28538

By Babar Dogar in The News, Apr 28
LAHORE: Former foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri has disclosed that the agreement on Kashmir, worked out through back-channel diplomacy, was an interim one, and was subject to review after 15 years.
Talking to The News here on Tuesday in the backdrop of ‘Aman Ki Asha’ – a joint venture of the Jang Group of Pakistan and The Times of India, Khursheed Kasuri claimed the Pakistani and Indian sides at that time had the realisation that in view of the history of Jammu and Kashmir dispute, no solution that they could think of would be an ideal one. He termed that agreement on Kashmir the best possible under the circumstances.

“We were aware of the fact that there would be an overwhelming support for this agreement; but we also realised that there would be criticism from some sections in Kashmir, Pakistan and India,” he said, adding that it was impossible to offer a solution which could be acceptable to everyone.

Kasuri said they decided that the arrangement they had arrived at would need a review after 15 years of its announcement. During this period, its implementation would be monitored by all parties concerned and, in the light of the experience, this arrangement could further be improved.

He said the water issue was not discussed as a crucial matter at that time; the agreement on Kashmir was being negotiated. However, the management of water was one of the issues included in the joint mechanism. He claimed that the joint mechanism was apart from the Indus Basin Treaty, which was the basis of water sharing arrangement between the two countries.

Responding to allegations from religio-political parties, which termed the proposed agreement an attempt to sell out Kashmir, Kasuri said the basis of the agreement was the assumption that Pakistan and India had tried everything in their power to enforce their version of a Kashmir settlement.

“They have fought five wars, including two minor ones in the Rann of Katch and Kargil. There have been various mobilisations of troops, including the largest one since First World War (Operation Parakram), in which one million soldiers remained eyeball-to-eyeball for almost a year,” Kasuri claimed. He said the nuclear parity had been established in South Asia after the nuclear tests India and Pakistan conducted, making war between the two countries nearly impossible.

Reacting to the criticism by Syed Ali Geelani of his statement on the reported Kashmir agreement, Kasuri claimed that he had great respect for Ali Geelani for his being a freedom fighter, but he disagreed with him that the solution that was envisaged for Kashmir would have led to further disturbances in the valley and that the people of the valley would never have acquiesced in a settlement that he described as one perpetuating the status quo. Giving reasons for his disagreement, he said the whole purpose of the disagreement was to improve the comfort level of the Kashmiris by the gradual demilitarisation. “The Kashmiri leaders, we met in India, Pakistan and overseas, attached highest importance to withdrawal of the Indian forces,” he claimed. Furthermore, he said the Kashmiris, due to the proposed agreement, would have become in-charge of their own destiny in a vast array of specified subjects in the economic, social and political spheres. He claimed that the very creation of a joint mechanism consisting of Kashmiri representatives from both sides as well as Indian and Pakistanis would have comprehensively negated the criticism that status quo had not been changed. He said the agreement arrived at once signed could not be unilaterally changed by either side. He believed that it would have given a lot of relief and hope to the Kashmiris.

He welcomed the statement of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani that efforts were being made through the back-channel diplomacy to resolve all outstanding issues with India. He said it was important that negotiations be resumed because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government with which they negotiated the arrangement was still in power, and the BJP the other majority party had started the process during the tenure of former prime minister Vajpayee. He said he welcomed it despite being in the opposition because he believed that in matter of national interest one had to rise above the spirit of partisan.

He claimed that there was no need to reinvent the wheel and the recent comments from the Foreign Office of Pakistan suggested the same and were encouraging. He said painstaking and detailed work had already been done and the two governments should take off from where they had left.

Kasuri claimed that they conducted secret negotiations with all stakeholders because they wanted to avoid any spins or leaks, which could damage the level of trust between the parties. He said they could not have signed an agreement without authorisation from their respective cabinets and parliaments. He claimed that the whole idea was to produce a draft which the governments of Pakistan and India felt would be acceptable to the large majority of Kashmiris, Pakistanis and Indians, and the draft agreement would then have been submitted to the appropriate constitutional authorities in both the countries for their approval.

Kasuri believed that the present government also supported the agreement. He claimed that President Asif Ali Zardari, in his very first interview at the Aiwan-e-Sadr, said the nation would have good news about Kashmir very soon. He claimed that though this announcement was premature, yet it was clear that he could only make the statement because he was aware of the progress made on back-channel and supported it. He said the incumbent government appointed Tariq Aziz, their representative on back-channel, to continue his work after the present government took over. He further referred Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s announcement during an interview with CNN that former foreign secretary Riaz Muhammad Khan, who was privy to all negotiations on the Kashmir agreement, was asked to start working on the back-channel.

Kasuri pointed out that those who criticised the secret nature of the back-channel needed to take note of the great secrecy with which the representatives of various political parties conducted their negotiations in parliament over the issue of the 18th Amendment, although this was purely an internal matter and not even marginally capable of exploitation by premature leaks or spins as against the protracted and difficult nature of negotiations between Pakistan and India given their troubled history on the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir.

Regarding taking all the stakeholders on board, he stated it was unthinkable that an issue of this nature could be negotiated without having all the stakeholders on board. He claimed that besides the Foreign Office and the Presidency, the Military was appropriately represented.

Kasuri claimed that the nature of Pakistan-India relations following the Mumbai attacks needed concerted efforts not just by the government but also by the civil society to bring the two countries to the dialogue process once again. He appreciated ‘Aman ki Asha’ by the Jang Group and The Times of India Group as an important contribution in helping to remove some of the trust deficit that existed between the two countries.http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=28528

Former foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri’s startling disclosure that a solution to the Kashmir problem had been worked out under the Musharraf government and that all that was required was a signature on the relevant documents is rather unexpected and opens up all kinds of new possibilities. While there had been talks on the issue that contributes most to continued tensions between India and Pakistan, we had not known a solution was so tantalisingly close. The information offered up by Kasuri, at a seminar organised as part of the Jang Group-Times of India Aman ki Asha initiative is most encouraging. It suggests that in the first place it is possible for both countries to work towards a lasting solution. The entrenched positions taken in the past have left doubts open on this score. It is also significant that in both capitals there is awareness of the need to settle the matter as one that holds the key to easing the relationship between the two nations. The formula for peace that Kasuri outlined, involving autonomy that stopped short of complete independence and a demilitarisation of the Kashmir territory, also appears – on paper at least – to be feasible. While almost all Pakistanis would favour the accession of Kashmir to their country, 63 years after Partition, this dream has remained elusive. It is said the terms worked out had been opposed only by a single, hard-line leader in Kashmir, while the ex-foreign minister stated the solution worked out had deliberately not been publicised to avoid an outcry in either country. In fact, Kasuri’s revelations show how both sides had reached a level of understanding where they were mindful of public reaction in both countries and were willing to show flexibility in order to ’sell’ the deal to their respective people. As we all know, hawks dominate the debate in many ways both in India and Pakistan and have in the past campaigned ferociously against efforts aimed at peace. Their influence within the structure of the establishment in both countries makes them especially powerful. It is also a fact that much of the justification for maintaining immense armies would evaporate if a solution was indeed worked out in Kashmir.

As far as people go, one must, however, hope the papers Kasuri spoke of are indeed signed in the not-too-distant future. This act could change the fate of the subcontinent and go a long way towards creating security and an escape from abject poverty for a sea of people. While there has been a longstanding debate on whether Kashmir should be tackled first or Confidence-Building Measures put in place to create the right environment for the issue to be taken up, the revelations made by the former minister indicate that a great deal of ground had already been covered. This should motivate the leaders in both Islamabad and New Delhi to move more rapidly towards sealing the deal. It would also encourage those championing people-to-people initiatives on both sides of the border to exert pressure on their governments in order to create a more conducive atmosphere. It is clear that many of the major players in both India and Pakistan are mentally prepared to resolve this long-festering problem. What they require is the backing of public opinion and moral courage and statesmanship. The stakes are extremely high. By moving towards peace they would play a part in the making of history and the settlement of a dispute that has through the decades since 1948 taken a huge toll on both countries, eating into resources, claiming hundreds of lives and keeping the people of Kashmir apart from each other while it is unity they yearn for. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=235924

THE irrepressible, inimitable, 90-plus, Khushwant Singh, who has few peers in the subcontinental journalist community, is much taken with young Fatima Bhutto — mind you, he always has had and is renowned for his roving eye. He also has much to say about Fatima’s book Songs of Blood and Sword which he has reviewed twice.

Firstly, in the Hindustan Times on April 17 and then in the April 20 issue of Outlook, the latter under the somewhat gory title of ‘The burnt inside of Pakistan’s house of Atreus’. The House of Atreus is famed for the curse put upon it for murder, betrayal and sheer horror, one of the most enduring of Greek legends.

Atreus of Argos was the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus who respectively married Clytaemnestra and Helen of Troy, and heaven knows there is abundant tragedy and gore in their stories. But the most repellent part of it all concerns the quarrel between Atreus and his brother Thyestes over the affair the latter had with Atreus’s wife which resulted in his banishment from Argos.

Thyestes wished for reconciliation and after some time was allowed to return. Atreus prepared a huge banquet in celebration at which he served up to Thyestes the cooked flesh of his two slaughtered sons. The unknowing father ate and was then informed by his brother of what he had just done — the origin of the term ‘Thyestian Banquet’. Thyestes, horror-stricken, put a curse upon the family of Atreus and fled. The curse, as legend records, worked to perfection.

According to Khushwant the story of the House of Bhutto, written by Fatima in “impeccably beautiful prose would have been a joy to read if it had not been a gruesome tale of intrigue, treachery, treason, violence and cold-blooded murder. It is one long nightmare ….”. Strong stuff, and with justification as we who have followed the Bhutto saga down the years well know, and the betrayal continues with the man we now have in the presidential palace in Islamabad, accompanied by his resident soothsayer.

Fatima is “beautiful, highly gifted and gutsy”. When she called on Khushwant, after launching her book in Delhi earlier this month, he wrote “I could not take my eyes off her. I kept gazing at the pinhead of a diamond sparkling on the left side of her nose and her long jet-black curly hair falling on her shoulders. I hope I see her at least once more before my time is up.”

He is not so enamoured with other member of the family and has harsh words for Zulfikar for “indirectly helping East Pakistan become an independent Bangladesh” because he found it unacceptable that if unity was maintained the East Pakistanis would far outnumber the western lot. So much for democracy! Khushwant also slams him for pandering to the archaic laws of the clergy merely to hang on to power.

He is scathing of Bhutto’s betrayal of Manzur Qadir, Ayub Khan’s foreign minister. As a fellow cabinet minister, Bhutto denounced Qadir as being a free-thinker and not a good Muslim. He was consequently dropped from the cabinet and ultimately Zulfikar moved into his slot. Khushwant also touches upon the J.A. Rahim incident, and his beating up by PPP goons merely because Rahim left a dinner after waiting for two hours for Bhutto to turn up.

As for Zulfikar’s son-in-law, he shares Fatima’s “low opinion” of him, refers to his indulgence in shady deals and terms him “uncouth and foul-mouthed”. He blames Benazir for doing little in her two terms to improve the lot of the common people. His closing lines in the Hindustan Times: “Incidentally, I also added a new word to my vocabulary which fits both Pakistan and India. It is ‘saprophytic’, which means feeding on decaying organic matter. Both nations rely on all that is rotten in their past.”

The book was also reviewed in London’s Sunday Times on April 4, by Max Hastings, who likens it to a Jacobean drama rather than a Greek tragedy, cataloguing the list of hanging, poisoning, terrorism, murder and assassination — “hate and blood” he terms it.

The content to him is “emotional, partial, naïve and wholly unreliable about who really did what to whom. But it possesses readability from those with a taste for family horror stories”. He is totally unsympathetic to all the characters, and spells out his factual reasons citing acts of omission and commission perpetrated by Fatima’s grandfather, her father, her uncle and her aunt, all of whom in ways most discernible were flawed characters.

Hastings is unforgiving to Fatima for her “blind rejection of any pretension to insight or judgment”. This may be unkind, for it would take an extraordinarily strong character to be objective about a hanged grandfather, a murdered father and uncle, and an assassinated aunt. She must be given leeway for having had a childhood and youth so tainted by tragedy and violence as to make the admittance of hard historical fact difficult indeed.

As admits Hastings, the “book’s virtues derive from the author’s passion and some vivid pen portraits”. Hastings’s own vivid pen portrait of Asif Zardari, Benazir’s husband, is that he is “considered by some to be the most notoriously corrupt figure in the subcontinent” and that he “climbed over her corpse to become Pakistan’s president….”

As strong a stuff as that of Khushwant! And his ending must make us all, including those who sit atop us, pause and think: “But she conveys a terrifying sense of the ungovernability of Pakistan and its 180m people, exposed to the competing violence of rulers and rebels. Another army coup must be due some day soon.” http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/ardeshir-cowasjee-the-recurring-nightmare-540

By Samson Simon Sharaf

The writer is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a political economist.

The assassin displayed remarkable cool. At least once, he chose to delay his fire and then moved in very close to an advantageous position with the bomber following him. The man who grappled and brought him down deserves a citation.
Benazir Bhutto, the Daughter of the East is dead, buried and treacherously abandoned by her party leadership. Some prime witnesses including the assassin himself, the suicide bomber, Khalid Shanshah, Baitullah Mehsud and God knows who else are silenced forever.
Someone needs to explain why that hyperactive Benazir, the Princess of the day, infused with vigour like an elixir had to die. The Bhutto legacy will endure treacherous times. Quoting Hussain Pawar, The pyre will burn.
At a time when the country is struggling to fight its civil war in the backdrop of a sinking economy and growing parochialism, the Bhutto Legacy provides the cohesion needed to offset threats. It is the duty of every Pakistani to keep this pyre burning till such time the planners of Benazir’s murder are identified and punished.
In the same stride, the nation must also know who murdered national leaders like Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his sister, Liaquat Ali, Bhutto, Ziaul Haq and Murtaza Bhutto.
Much before the UN investigation, every Pakistani was convinced that all investigations into the tragedy are deliberately misleading. Scotland Yard appears as much an accomplice in the cover-up as the Handle Theory. It appears that even the most incriminating video released by Channel Four through CNN and a Pakistan television network was deliberately blurred and edited to create confusion. This fact alone warrants expanding the ambit of inquiry to handlers outside Pakistan.
There is no doubt that Benazir was abandoned and left vulnerable by the state security apparatus and by her very own stalwarts.
Her chief of security merits inquest solely on the basis of his changing statements in the hours following her murder. As it turns out, he and Babar Awan were the ‘get away men’ who fled the scene in Benazir’s reserve vehicle. The most loyal Khalid Shahanshah who had probably lost that element during his visits abroad was the first to jump into Benazir’s vehicle and also to jump out and bolt to Zardari house, only to be gunned down in Karachi.
After Benazir’s rally security was stand-down. There were no senior police officers befitting the presence of a two-time prime minister and VVIP. The much touted Elite Force instructed to make a box bolted well before the murder. Stays behind parties were either blocking the turning to the left or mere spectators; some at their own peril rubbing shoulders with the suicide bomber and the shooter. There was no chivalry in their death.
The news broadcast by channels within the first two hours of the incident need to be replayed. There were eyewitness accounts by doctors of RGH that Benazir had received one to two fatal gunshot injuries. Suddenly everything changed and the doctors were made helpless by police and district administration. Even Sherry Rehman sings no more.
Cell phone communication through towers close to RGH will also reveal conversations of doctors and paramedics eagerly disclosing to friends and families the extent and type of Benazir’s injuries. By morning everyone including cell phones was quite and shift doctors quarantined. http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Columns/25-Apr-2010/BBs-murder-the-pyre-must-burn

The  author is a former federal secretary in Pakistan
Political crimes are far worse than common crimes because, in the former case, only individuals are wounded, whereas in the latter, the existence of free society itself is threatened. I was frightened for my country the day Benazir was assassinated and horror of horror, the scariest moment of all, when Zardari was elected as the president of Pakistan.

Who killed Benazir? Who cut short her life so full of promise? The UN commission assigned to enquire into the facts and circumstances of her death does not answer this question. For some inexplicable reason, its hands seemed to be tied. It was appointed, it seems, not to unmask the killer, but only to determine the facts and circumstances of the assassination! The duty of carrying out a serious, credible, criminal investigation to determine who conceived, ordered, and executed this heinous crime remains with the PPP government. Isn’t it tragic that even after 28 months of her assassination nobody knows who killed her?

“Men may lie. Circumstances never lie,” is a guiding principle of the law of evidence. Some facts and circumstances determined by the UN commission of inquiry speak for themselves and are worth quoting:

* “The Commission is persuaded that the Rawalpindi Police Chief, CPO Saud Aziz, did not act independently of higher authorities, either in the decision to hose down the crime scene or to impede the Post-Mortem examination.” -Section 259 (x)

* “The rapid departure of the only back-up vehicle in which Mr Malik and other senior PPP leaders rode, was a serious security lapse.” -Section 236. (It allowed Ms Bhutto’s damaged vehicle to become isolated?)

* “There was not an effective criminal investigation of either the Karachi or the Rawalpindi attacks. This is inexplicable.” -Section 238

* “Ms Bhutto was killed more than two years ago. A government headed by her party, the PPP, has been in office for most of that time, and it only began the further investigation, a renewal of the stalled official investigation in October 2009. This is surprising to the Commission.” -Section 247

* “The Commission’s effort to determine the facts and circumstances of Ms Bhutto’s assassination is not a substitute for an effective, official criminal investigation. These activities should have been carried out simultaneously.” -Section 247

Many questions arise in one’s mind that remain unanswered:

* Mr Zardari is on record having said – not once but a number of times – that he knew who the killers of his wife are. If so, why hasn’t he brought this vital piece of information to the notice of the police?

* The FIR is a very important document as it sets the process of criminal justice in motion. The success or failure of the prosecution in a murder case depends to a large extent on the contents of the FIR and when it was lodged. Why didn’t Zardari lodge an FIR in the police station at the earliest opportunity?

* The post-mortem, the examination of a body after death, is a legal requirement and is carried out by pathologists in order to identify the cause of death. Why did Zardari refuse to have post-mortem performed on BB’s body? Why was it refused by the police? Why were they not interested in identifying the cause of BB’s death?

* Why was General Musharraf, a known suspect in the murder of BB, allowed to leave the country by the PPP government which was firmly in position at the time of his exit from the country? Was it all part of some deal?

The assassination of Benazir, a stain on the nation’s conscience, still haunts me. Tragically, her death is fast becoming a non-event. It seems no one is interested in unraveling the mystery surrounding her assassination or unmasking the perpetrator or perpetrators of this dastardly crime. Should the high and mighty, with blood on their hands, get off so easily when ordinary people committing petty crimes are sent to jail?

“It is essential,” the UN report says, “that the perpetrators of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto be brought to justice. The government of Pakistan should ensure that the further investigation into the assassination of Ms Bhutto is fully empowered, and resourced and is conducted expeditiously with no hindrance.”

Is the PPP government prepared to do that? Even though it’s already very late, will the PPP government set up a high-powered judicial commission headed by a judge of the Supreme Court?

The blood of Benazir calls for justice, not revenge. The PPP government owes it to its martyred leader to unmask her killer, whoever he may be, and bring him to justice. Let an enquiry be held in broad daylight. We will not be able to live with ourselves if we do not see to it that the truth is unveiled. The interests involved are too great and the men who wish to stifle the truth are too powerful, and the truth will not be known for sometime. But there is no doubt that ultimately every bit of it, without exception, will be divulged.

Truth carries a power within it that sweeps away all obstacles. And whenever its way is barred, whenever someone does succeed in burying it for any time at all, it builds up underground, gathering such explosive force that the day it bursts out at last, it blows up everything with it. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=235928

Ordinary Pakistanis, especially those who cannot read English, should be given the opportunity to access the report in its entirety, instead of leaving them at the mercy of spin-doctors and prejudiced television anchors trashing the report

Some forces in Pakistan have already gone into overdrive to discredit the report of the UN Commission of Inquiry into the facts and circumstances of the assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. The 65-page report’s focus is on the circumstances surrounding Ms Bhutto’s assassination and the subsequent criminal investigation, or lack of it thereof, but it offers insights into questionable practices that pass as statecraft in present day Pakistan. The legitimacy of the state is already quite low among significant sections of the Pakistani population, and if these deeply entrenched practices continue unabated, it will further corrode those shaky foundations.

The report has done Pakistanis a favour by defining what is known as the ‘establishment’ of the country. Here is how the report defines it: “The Establishment is generally used in Pakistan to refer to those who exercise de facto power; it includes the military high command and the intelligence agencies, together with the top leadership of certain political parties, high-level members of the bureaucracy and business persons that work in alliance with them. The military high command and intelligence agencies form the core of the Establishment and are its most permanent and influential components” (page 50). It states further, “The capability of the Establishment to exercise power in Pakistan is based in large part on the central role played by the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies in the country’s political life” (page 6).

The commission was understandably “mystified” by “the efforts of certain high-ranking Pakistani government authorities to obstruct access to military and intelligence sources”. This attitude speaks volumes about the arbitrary power of the establishment in viewing itself as above the ordinary procedures of law and its ability to get away with it. Although the US and the British governments acknowledge their role in paving the way for Ms Bhutto’s return to Pakistan in 2008, the US authorities frustrated the commission by not permitting it to meet US intelligence officials.

The report castigates the federal government led by Pervez Musharraf for not providing adequate security to Benazir Bhutto, and finds the manner in which the post-assassination criminal investigation was conducted “inexcusable”. Thus, Ms Bhutto joins scores of Pakistani political activists whose deaths were “avoidable” and where the law enforcement and justice institutions did little to bring to justice the perpetrators of those crimes.

We do not have to agree with every sentence of this report, but summarily and prematurely dismissing it is tantamount to accepting “hosing down” the crime scene, allowing higher ups in the police to subvert investigations, letting intelligence agencies hunt and hound individuals without any judicial mandate or political oversight.

Intelligence agencies are part and parcel of modern states. In Pakistan, they have gone a tad too far in subverting the state they are supposed to serve. The commission is correct in observing that “pervasive involvement of intelligence agencies in diverse spheres, which is an open secret, has undermined the rule of law, distorted civilian-military relations and weakened some political and law enforcement institutions. At the same time, it has contributed to widespread public distrust in those institutions and fed a generalised political culture that thrives on competing conspiracy theories” (page 60).

What can the current government do? It should take two of the following three steps without any delay. Taking of the third step is vital, but partly contingent upon the power of the PPP government relative to other forces of the establishment.

Ordinary Pakistanis, especially those who cannot read English, should be given the opportunity to access the report in its entirety, instead of leaving them at the mercy of spin-doctors and prejudiced television anchors trashing the report. The government can, and should, commission speedy and authentic translation of the report in Urdu and regional languages and use the Ministry of Information and other methods to ensure wide distribution of the report.

Secondly, the resourceful forces directly and indirectly named in the report would ensure that the television talk shows put excessive focus on the fact of the passengers of Benazir Bhutto’s backup vehicle leaving the crime scene instead of coming to meaningful help of their fatally injured leader. Moral propriety and political sagacity makes it imperative for all passengers of that car currently holding ministerial berths to resign without any delay and cooperate fully in any future criminal investigation to ascertain the truth behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Their timely resignation will significantly deflate the efforts to distract the public’s attention from the main findings of the report. However, if these passengers refuse to part with their ministries for the time being, and are allowed to retain their portfolios by the prime minister and the president, this act will cast its shadow over the sincerity of the current government in carrying out “credible criminal investigation that determines who conceived, ordered and executed this heinous crime of historic proportions”.

Carrying out a credible criminal investigation should be the ultimate and long-term goal of the government. And it is necessary not just to answer many unanswered questions surrounding Benazir’s assassination, but doing so, as the report puts it, “would constitute a major step toward ending impunity for political crimes in this country”. This will not be an easy feat to accomplish. The forces that frustrated the UN commission will inevitably hamper a transparent and vigorous criminal investigation.

The current government has partly redeemed Benazir Bhutto’s political legacy by ensuring the passage of the 18th Amendment to the constitution. Initiating a credible and rigorous investigation into Ms Bhutto’s assassination will go a long way in restoring people’s trust in Pakistan’s political system. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\04\25\story_25-4-2010_pg3_5

The revelations by Mark Siegel, a close friend and adviser to the late Benazir Bhutto, on the heels of the UN commission’s report on Benazir’s death and the filing of a petition seeking the registration of a case of high treason, are another couple of nails in the coffin of former President General (retd) Pervez Musharraf. Apparently, Musharraf was not too happy about Benazir Bhutto’s decision to come back to Pakistan in 2007. According to Mark Siegel, after the 2002 general elections, Musharraf offered to drop all charges against President Asif Ali Zardari, release him from prison and give him any ministry of his liking, in return for a 10-year hiatus from Pakistani politics by Benazir. Benazir in consultation with Zardari declined Musharraf’s overtures, which did not go down well with him.

However, history does not halt its forward progression and following the UN report, the present democratic government has — rightly — decided to let the law take its course. Everyone mentioned in the UN report should be brought to justice, even a former dictator in the shape of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf. The PPP government was not able to bring Ziaul Haq to court over the judicial killing of the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto because Zia was backed by the then judiciary and he passed away before relinquishing power. However, this time around, Pervez Musharraf, especially after the sacking of the chief justice of Pakistan and the consequent lawyers’ movement, finds himself isolated. In bringing Musharraf to justice, the present government will also help control the intelligence agencies, who have over the course of time become politicised and at times a major threat to the basic fibre of the democratic system. Such moves will not only emphasise the fact that no one is above the law, it will also ensure a safer democratic playing field to the political parties.

Unfortunately, due to o’ervaulting ambition and vested interest, Pakistan from the very beginning has fallen prey to military dictatorships, with the help and collaboration of the judiciary and the intelligence apparatus. Now, finally, a democratic government and comparatively freer judiciary have the opportunity to correct the mistakes of our past. Let’s hope for everyone’s sake they do not squander this golden chance. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\04\25\story_25-4-2010_pg3_1