Musharraf: Benazir responsible for own death

In an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes, Musharraf has said that Benazir was responsible for her own death:

"For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers," Musharraf says.

"Don't you think it will make her supporters crazy to hear you say that?" [60 Minutes reporter] Logan asks.

"Well, I don't think so. I mean, that's the fact. She shouldn't have stood up," Musharraf says.

I wonder if Musharraf also agrees that he himself is to blame for the attacks on his life. After all, if he had never taken over in a coup, no one would be wanting his death.

The idea that people are responsible for their own deaths is so absurd, but in this case it's an even more ridiculous argument. Benazir was a political leader, she was at a political rally, and she was engaging the crowd as she should have done in her capacity as a popular leader. If you follow Musharraf's argument to its logical conclusion, you will end up at the point where we must all stop doing politics. No rallies, no disagreements, no making anyone else angry, no speaking up, just keep your head down and shut up and no one gets hurt. Which is not true, of course, because that's exactly when people get hurt, when dictators think they can get away with murder because no one speaks up against them.

To me, this sounds a lot like people telling us not to be gay. If you feel society's derision, or face discrimination, or have to suffer social ostracism, well then just stop being gay already. You can have sex, you know, but just do it quietly, just don't talk about it, just don't ask that your partner be recognized and accepted. And if you behave like a straight person, well then no one gets hurt.

So I can never accept this argument, that people are responsible for the pain and suffering that is caused to them. Benazir didn't ask for it. The killers who fired the bullet and who detonated the bomb are the real culprits.

Irrational defense of the PPP

I'm still in shock over Benazir's death, and I'm shakily trying to figure out what the next steps should be. But even if much is uncertain, one thing is very clear which is that Zardari taking over the PPP is the worst possible step for the party and for the country. Zardari belongs to the group of party leaders that is the most traditional and feudal-minded, and seeks power simply to extract personal material gain, not to enact policies to help the poor, or to enact any kind of policies at all. Of course he sees nothing wrong in the party being "passed" to him in Benazir's will, as if it were personal property - because he really does believe that the party is personal property.

What is even more astonishing than the coronation of Prince Bilawal and the seizure of party control by the Regent Zardari is the number of people who are actually defending this move and the utter lack of internal democracy in the party. And I don't mean conservatives, military types, anti-democrats, feudals, and the like. I'm talking about the left. That includes friends, acquaintances, Communist Party members, long-time feminist activists, even fricking Ayesha Siddiqa!

What gives? Well, it's obvious that these folks have a very visceral and emotional connection to Benazir (and to Zulfikar). But why does this connection exist? Well, I have two theories. One is that these folks are really really dumb. Since I don't want to believe that, I prefer to go with a second theory. The second possibility is that all of us in Pakistan have become conditioned to look for individual saviors, and this conditioning is so deep that it has affected even the most intellectual and cerebral among us - that is, even those folks who know that political change is not about individuals but about systems. And so these folks continue to look for saviors. The problem is that things in Pakistan have become so bad, and so hopeless, that the only straw worth clutching at is the feudal-laden shell that is PPP. So despite Benazir's awful track record, proven over not one but two terms in office, and despite many other indications that she was going to give us the same old, same old, these folks continue to keep hope. Hope that, despite everything, she was a changed person and was going to deliver us to the promised land, to good progressive policies, to true social justice and equality. It's a lot like a cheating lover - every time they promise to change, and every time you believe it, thinking this time they really mean it. But things never do change.

Who Did It

Who killed Benazir? The main suspects are as follows:

• Al Qaeda/ Taliban fundamentalists, who were enraged at Benazir for supporting the US and for becoming closely aligned with it in the "war on terror"
• Military/ military agencies, who were threatened by Benazir because was the true champion of democracy and thus their hold on power
• Asif Zardari, Benazir's husband, who wants a position in the party so he could continue to loot and pillage Pakistan as he has done before
• The CIA, RAW, and various other international intelligence agencies that have motives to destabilize Pakistan

The most popular theories are the first two. Interestingly, it seems that most in the West have subscribed to the Al Qaeda/ Taliban theory, while within Pakistan, almost no one buys that explanation. Instead they believe the military is somehow behind it. And I agree with them.

First, there is the issue of method. Jehadis like to blow up things. And the initial blame was put on a suicide bomber, which is a classic jehadi method of assassination. But it's now been shown conclusively that Benazir was shot by a gunman before the bomb went off. The government's ham-handed and incompetent explanations for Benazir's death didn't help build trust for its explanations either. (At one point, the government actually argued that Benazir had literally killed herself by hitting her head on the sunroof lever when she ducked inside the vehicle. That explanation has since been retracted.) In any case, I suspect that there was no suicide bomber, only a planted bomb that was designed to take out the shooter and destroy any evidence.

What was the motive? I think the army's motive was two-fold. First, it simply wants to stay in power. Yes, Benazir was no champion of democracy and was willing to make a deal with Musharraf for "table scraps" as Tariq Ali put it. But she did represent the hopes of millions for true change. And at the end of the day, the army didn't even want to give up a little bit of its power, even the very little bit it was being forced to share with Benazir. Some might think this seems very short-sighted and dumb and venal. Yes, the Pakistani military is all of those things.

Second, and more importantly, I think the army needed a big event to gin up emotions against the fundamentalists, to be able to continue doing whatever they want (especially in Swat), and to be able to continue to receive funding from the USA for the "war on terror." These funds have been in some jeopardy recently, and the Pakistani government knows it. There has been unprecedented criticism of Pakistan's role and actions this year as never before. Many public figures and presidential candidates in the USA have spoken explicitly about cutting off the country from aid, and of ending the US's reliance on Musharraf. Just last week, the New York Times revealed in an investigation that $5 billion of the $9 billion of military aid that Pakistan has received from the US since 2001 has been spent on non-war-on-terror items (it's gone instead to weapons systems targeting India). And then there is the lesson of history. To those who argue that Pakistan's position as US ally is secure, all one has to do is to look at our last great dance with the Americans, the Afghanistan war of the 1980s. Then too Pakistan was one of the largest recipients of US military aid, getting about $4 billion total by the end of the decade. No one thought the party would stop. And then 1990 came and Bush Sr. failed to certify Pakistan as a non-nuclear state as the Pressler amendment required, and that was that. The party was over, sanctions were slapped on Pakistan, and the 1990s were a grim decade spent trying to come to terms with what had happened. Interestingly, in a little-noticed congressional bill passed in December 2007, Pakistan is now required to show progress towards democracy - otherwise its aid gets cut. So far only $50 million of non-military aid has been cut, but I believe this is the harbinger of things to come.

So what better way to keep the gravy train flowing than to orchestrate a spectacular attack on a popular leader and then blame it on the fundoos? After all, ginning up fear of the fundoos has worked for the Americans, so why wouldn't it work for the Pakistani establishment? And the West is left stuck in a most visible mess, wanting to dump their old boyfriend Musharraf but unable to because Benazir's dead and they still think he's their best defense against the big bad jehadis.

Benazir's death

I've been off the blog for a while, pulled away by internet outages, trips out of town, and general busy-ness. But Benazir's death has prompted a return to cyberspace for me.

We're all still in shock, even a week later. Here in Karachi, it wasn't just the assassination itself but also the awful violent paroxysm that followed, which shut the city down for 3 solid days and a fourth measured one. I was out when news of her death broke, and immediately around me the shutters of shops started slamming shut. The shopkeepers aren't dumb; they know how this goes. They were well aware that the violence was about to erupt and they needed to get themselves and their wares out of sight. So we were blocked unceremoniously from entering a shop and left standing on the street while chaos and panic erupted all around us.

Thus began the long journey home, a journey that normally would have taken only 5-7 minutes at most, but ended up taking over an hour. Traffic was backed up on each and every road, small and big. Karachi had been turned into a massive parking lot, with everyone who was out trying desperately to get back home to loved ones and to relative safety. As I sat in the traffic jam, I looked around at the people in the vehicles around me and saw stunned faces. Some were crying openly. No one was smiling except for a man and woman in an expensive car who seemed to be having the time of their lives. Maybe they just react to bad news in a really strange way, but maybe it was that they're so disconnected with the country that this too was just a big joke to them (along with the dictatorship, the crackdown on civil society, the failing economy, and the daily violence of the jehadis and the army).

I later learned that cars had been smashed and burned at the end of the street we'd been stuck on. As we neared home, we drove up to an intersection where several men were setting fires. One of them looked up angrily from his task at me, arm raised. I wasn't sure what to do so I just gunned the engine, and for some reason he let me pass. One of those crazy random chances one gets in life. The worst thing by far I saw that night, though, was a long line of domestic workers (men and women) at a bus stop, trying to find a way to get home. Buses and other public transport had stopped running, since they had become one of the first targets of mass violence. But these workers were in an elite neighborhood, far from home, and there was no way for them to get back. The fear and worry on those faces, especially of the women, is something I will never forget.

In Karachi, there were deaths caused by gunfire and one factory fire. The factory fire was apparently accidental. The workers inside were Muhajir and Pathan, and feared the mostly-Sindhi mob outside, so they didn't come out when the warning to vacate was given. For the most part though, deaths were few, and the targets of the violence was mostly property. In any case, anyone who had a home was hunkered down in it until Sunday. We were all under house arrest.

Benazir's death shut down the whole country - no other leader could have had this kind of nation-wide impact. No corner of Pakistan was untouched. Karachi, however, was clearly hit the hardest. According to news reports, between Thursday evening and Sunday evening, there were more than 700 vehicles burnt, and approximately 20 banks torched. The most common target was any building or vehicle that was visibly government property, such as post offices, railway bogies, KESC trucks, and other government offices. The targeting of elite symbols such as banks (and at least one cafe) was also interesting. It could either be that people were just looking for cash, or that this is a sign of the brewing revolution. I don't know. It's also the case that there was a lot of opportunistic looting, much of it by MQM ghundas.

I don't know how Karachi keeps taking body blows like this repeatedly and keeps bouncing back. I wish I could be so resilient, but I'm afraid I'm still not quite back to normal.

Benazir Bhutto, 1953-2007

Benazir under house arrest

Benazir is officially under house arrest for seven days. As far as I know, none of this is helping to rehabilitate her image among intellectual circles.

PPP workers arrested in Sindh

Approximately 2000 PPP workers have been arrested across Sindh, in connection with protests held across the province today. PPP workers were protesting the house arrest of Benazir as well as the mass arrests of PPP workers in Punjab on Thursday and Friday.

Meanwhile, Benazir continues the enjoy the good life. A New York Times article notes today that on Friday, Benazir moved seamlessly from playing the martyr in her attempt to hold the public rally in Pindi, to an upscale and glamorous evening dinner with diplomats at Parliament House in Islamabad. It's nice to know that her social life isn't being affected by all this yucky protesting stuff.

Bhutto under "house arrest"

The PPP rally in Pindi today has been shut down, and Benazir has been placed under virtual house arrest. Police have surrounded her home in Islamabad, and won't let her go to the Pindi rally site (they say that she is free to go anywhere else, however). Several hundred PPP workers have also been arrested since yesterday.

This is now shaping up to be a showdown between BB and Mushy. Of course Benazir is trying to salvage some credibility as a democrat and just as a person with any kind of conviction whatsoever. She also announced that she wants the restoration of the judiciary as it was before martial law, and that all cases including the NRO [National Reconciliation Ordinance, which grants her immunity from all corruption charges] should be decided by the previous Supreme Court.

The PPP also has plans to have a "long march" between Lahore and Islamabad on November 13. Obviously that looks increasingly unlikely now.

Update: Apparently BB has been released, but no word on whether the "long march" will go on. It's also come out now that Benazir met with US ambassador Anne Patterson on Wednesday. BB continues to have the blessing of the US. The question for them now is, can she deliver?

Update 2: Approximately 3500 PPP workers and activists have been arrested in the crackdown since yesterday.

Benazir manages to plumb new depths

In a piece for CNN, Benazir is claiming that the Oct. 18 attack was perpetrated through "a small child":

Although it remains difficult to know for certain, I doubt that a suicide bomber was involved in the attack on me. I suspect, after talking to some of the injured, that the terrorists used a small child as a ploy to get to me. They were trying to hoist the child -- dressed in the colors of my party's flag -- onto my truck.

Failing to do so, they dropped the child near my vehicle. Some witnesses said the child had been rigged as a human bomb. I can't be sure. What followed was a massive explosion, killing scores immediately, tearing many bodies in half and sending blood, gore and flames up into the vehicle.

Rest of her vomit-inducing piece here.

Many reports are emerging that Benazir knew about the impending martial law. They're also claiming that Benazir agreed to the appointment of Dogar as the new Chief Justice of Pakistan since he was a PPP appointee back in 1995. And her refusal to use the wherewithal of her party to challenge martial law suggests that she may be somewhat complicit in all this.