[Marxism] WSJ: Bhutto Killing Inflames Pakistan

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here is the Wall Street Journal's take on the Bhutto assassination,
which is obviously an attack on democracy in every way. Ms. Bhutto
herself, however, was something less than a supporter of democracy,
having colluded rather actively with Musharraf in her return home.

It was intriguing to learn here that the supporters of Alan Woods
in Pakistan were supporters of or members of Bhutto's party, whose
founding program had included the advocacy of nationalization of
industry and that Tariq Ali thinks that Bhutto's party should now be
rebuilt because of its past history. I'm not informed about Pakistani
politics in any detailed way, but the call to reform Bhutto's party
and the call to now press ahead with demands that the election which
should go forward seem peculiar to say the least. Mass protests are
no unfolding against this horrific criminal attack, which was aimed
at both Bhutto's individual person, and at the forces which looked
to her for some change in the situation.

The projected idea of blaming "Islamic fundamentalists" for all that
goes wrong in the world, now including Benazir Bhutto's killing, is
way off base. Even if the men who physically assassinated Malcolm X
thought of themselves as Muslims, the forces behind them, and those
who most benefitted from his elimination, were the powers that be in
the U.S. social system. This morning we read about a claim that the
sinister Al Queda is  responsible for Bhutto's assassination. Should
this claim be true, it can only further confirm that there is zero
of a "progressive" nature to this supposed organization. I recall a
few people thinking there was something good about the September 11th
attacks on the United States. Given what has happened since that time,
it's obvious that the outcome of the attacks was a further escalation
of Washington's unilateralist attempts to completely dominate today's
world. Everything which has happened since then has been reactionary
and backward-looking.

Marla writes:
"A deeply divided and unstable Pakistan makes life difficult for its
neighbouring countries, India, Afghanistan and Iran. ISI sponsored terrorist
bombings have increased in India. Benazir's death shows how shallow the
public life in Pakistan is. The real perpetrators of the  ghastly crime
might never be known. Also the people of Pakistan seem to be unprepared to
put up a fight to the finish for real and  meaningful democracy."

Question to Marla: 
Do the people of India have a "real and meaningful democracy"?


Walter Lippmann
Havana, Cuba

==========================================================================
Bhutto's Murder Shakes Pakistan

Islamabad, Dec 29 (Prensa Latina) Protests shook many Pakistani
cities on Saturday, among them Rawalpindi, where opposition leader
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated last Thursday.

Supporters of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) she led have burned down
cars, public buildings, factories, gas stations and trade centers in
the locality of the southern province of Sindh as well as in the
northeastern region of Punjab.

At least 20 persons were wounded this Saturday in Karachi, the city
where Bhutto was born, and about 23 persons died and 59 were wounded
in the three days of riots.

Meanwhile, demonstrators burned tires and destroyed vehicles on the
road that joins Rawalpindi and the neighbor city of Islamabad.

The government deployed thousands of soldiers and paramilitaries and
ordered them to use all the necessary force contain those violent
episodes, the most serious Pakistan has lived in the last three
decades.

Analysts affirmed that the contradictory official communique, over the
death the ex-prime minister's death encouraged dissatisfaction,
uncertainty and insecurity all over the country.

hr/abo/alc
==========================================================================

WALL STREET JOURNAL             
December 28, 2007
        
PAGE ONE

Bhutto Killing Inflames Pakistan
By PETER WONACOTT and JAY SOLOMON
December 28, 2007; Page A1

The world's most unstable nuclear-armed nation is plunging deeper into
crisis.

Yesterday's assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has thrown
into disarray Pakistan's attempt to restore democracy, eliminating a leading
contender for power days before a national election and highlighting the
growing reach of extremists.



Ms. Bhutto, a Harvard-educated politician who enjoyed U.S. support, had been
expected to do well in elections scheduled for Jan. 8, possibly becoming
prime minister once again. Her death has deprived Pakistan's embattled
president, Pervez Musharraf, of his strongest potential ally in the battle
against the rising tide of radical Islam in this nation of more than 160
million people.

Yesterday's attack brought home how the world's second-most-populous Muslim
nation totters on the brink of becoming a failed state, with potentially
devastating consequences for neighbors like India and Afghanistan, and for
the West. The murder was the latest in the series of suicide attacks that
now occur in Pakistan with a frequency approaching that of Iraq, as
Taliban-style Islamic insurgents overtake swaths of the countryside.

Ms. Bhutto, 54 years old, was killed by a man who first shot her and then
blew himself up following a campaign rally in the city of Rawalpindi near
Islamabad, witnesses said. Twenty people were killed in the blast.

One of the first women to lead a modern Muslim nation, Ms. Bhutto has long
attracted the ire of Islamist extremists. She was the target of another
assassination attempt on Oct. 18, the day she returned to Pakistan after
eight years of self-imposed exile. More than 100 people died in that
bombing.

As a Western educated woman in an Islamic society, and the first female
Prime Minister of a Muslim country, Bhutto forged many new paths in a career
which spanned decades. Video courtesy of Reuters.

Though no one claimed responsibility for yesterday's attacks, President
Musharraf blamed radicals linked with al Qaeda and the Taliban. "This is the
work of those terrorists with whom we are engaged in war," he said in a
nationally televised speech. "The nation faces the greatest threats from
these terrorists."

The Bhutto assassination puts President Musharraf, a close U.S. ally, in a
tight spot: He was counting on the participation of Ms. Bhutto and her large
Pakistan People's Party to lend legitimacy to the elections.

Ms. Bhutto had bitterly criticized President Musharraf's six-week emergency
rule, imposed in November and lifted Dec. 15, and his measures against the
independent judiciary and the press. But she also signaled that she could
work with him in a government -- a stance that distinguished her from her
longtime rival and another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. It was Ms.
Bhutto's determination to run in the upcoming election that prompted most
other opposition parties, including Mr. Sharif's, to follow suit and drop
threats of an electoral boycott.

Next week's election is now up in the air. Mr. Sharif, a conservative with
backing from Saudi Arabia, said yesterday that his party again intends to
boycott the vote. Ms. Bhutto's party doesn't have a leader of comparable
stature to step into her shoes. Closely intertwined with the Bhutto family,
her PPP was established by Ms. Bhutto's father, former Prime Minister
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged in 1979 by the country's military
rulers. The party announced a 40-day mourning period as it weighs its
options.

"It will be extremely difficult to hold elections now," said Hasan-Askari
Rizvi, a Pakistani political analyst who was recently a visiting professor
at Johns Hopkins University. "There will be violence."

Pakistan's tumult is roiling the capitals of world powers. Continuing chaos
is likely to further embolden militants in Pakistan and in neighboring
Afghanistan, and may undermine Islamabad's security cooperation with the
U.S.

The U.S. yesterday called for the elections to be held as planned. "We
believe the best way to honor Ms. Bhutto is for the democratic process to
continue," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said. To delay the
elections, he said, "would be a victory for the assailants."

Pakistan's army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, said the country's
police can handle the security situation. Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz went
on TV to call upon political parties to react peacefully. He said the
government was investigating the attack.

Some of Ms. Bhutto's supporters lashed out at President Musharraf and the
government's security agencies, accusing them of complicity with the killing
in Rawalpindi. They questioned whether Ms. Bhutto was given adequate
protection in this garrison city, the headquarters of Pakistan's military.

Ms. Bhutto knew the dangers she faced. In a commentary she contributed to
The Wall Street Journal after the Oct. 18 attempt on her life, she said she
had asked the government to provide security. "The attack on me was not
totally unexpected. I had received credible information that I was being
targeted by elements that wanted to disrupt the democratic process," she
wrote.

Since Pakistan was created by 1947's partition of India, it has never fully
gelled as a stable state. The nation's identity has been premised on a
single religion, Islam, and Pakistan provided sanctuary for generations of
Muslims who felt oppressed in India or sought their own homeland. But the
people of Pakistan have also grappled with a persistent question: How large
a role should Islam have in daily life? Very little, say human-rights
activists. Total theocracy, counter Pakistanis inspired by the Taliban in
Afghanistan.

Sixty Years of Instability

For most of its 60 years of independence, Pakistan has been run by the
military, which hasn't helped resolve the question of religion and state,
and in many ways planted the seeds for today's instability. Pakistan's
military rulers suppressed political dissent in the 1980s and 1990s. At the
same time, they provided succor to militants who fought the Soviets in
Afghanistan and India in the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Pakistan's plight stands in stark contrast to its foe and neighbor, India,
the world's largest democracy, which has never experienced a military coup.
Since 1947, Pakistan and India have fought three full-scale wars, one
resulting in the 1971 secession of East Pakistan, now called Bangladesh.
After a group of militants attacked India's parliament in late 2001, the
countries came to the brink of the first war between two declared nuclear
powers.

WSJ Washington Bureau Chief John Bussey analyzes how the assassination of
former Pakistan Prime Minister Bhutto could impact U.S. foreign policy.

Even Pakistan's civilian leaders have had to seek the tacit consent of the
nation's powerful military. Ms. Bhutto's father served as a martial-law
administrator under the military, before leading a grass-roots movement that
made him prime minister. Mr. Sharif emerged as a national leader while a
serving in a military government. The military eventually got rid of both,
executing Mr. Bhutto and exiling Mr. Sharif.

Ms. Bhutto rose to prominence in the wake of her father's death, serving two
terms as prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s. The military constrained her
involvement in strategic and foreign affairs, and her government was
criticized for alleged corruption.

President Musharraf, the former army chief of staff, came to power after
ousting Mr. Sharif in a 1999 coup. As a military commander, Mr. Musharraf
had cultivated contacts with militants -- typically through intelligence
services -- for their forays into India.

Then came the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., plotted by al Qaeda from
Afghanistan. President Musharraf reversed Pakistan's backing for
Afghanistan's Taliban government. Instead, he provided logistic support to
the U.S. military campaign there.

Continued insurgency in Afghanistan, however, has resulted in a creeping
Talibanization of parts of Pakistan itself. Groups affiliated with the
Taliban and al Qaeda have extended their influence well beyond tribal areas
on the Afghan frontier, moving into large parts of the country. In the fall,
they overran the Swat valley north of Islamabad, a onetime tourist
destination and skiing resort.

Roots of the Crisis

Pakistan's current crisis began in March, when Mr. Musharraf sought to
dismiss the country's Supreme Court justice, who his government accused of
abusing the perks of his office. The move sparked pro-democracy protests,
with lawyers and others taking to the streets against Mr. Musharraf.

At the same time, despite resistance among Pakistan's swelling urban middle
class, extremism began reaching into big cities. Earlier this year, Islamic
radicals occupied Islamabad's Red Mosque compound, sending out antivice
patrols into the streets of the capital. The months-long occupation drew
upon youth educated in religious schools. It ended in July with a bloody
commando raid.

Since then, militants have launched a barrage of suicide bombings across the
nation. Last Friday, a bomb exploded in a village outside of Peshawar,
killing more than 50 people, an attack that apparently targeted Pakistan's
former top antiterrorism official.

The incidents underscored the challenges closing in on Mr. Musharraf. Both
ends of the political spectrum -- those who want civil liberties, and those
seeking to establish a strict Islamic state -- wanted him gone.
WSJ's Andy Jordan visits a Pakistani community in New York to get reactions
to the attack.

Ms. Bhutto's secular outlook, meanwhile, earned her admirers in Washington.
U.S. officials encouraged her to discuss a possible alliance with President
Musharraf. But almost as soon as she returned to Pakistan in October, after
reaching a deal with President Musharraf to help guide the country toward
civilian rule, friction between the two broke to the surface.

On Nov. 3, Mr. Musharraf -- buffeted by an upsurge in violence as well as a
challenge to his reelection as president by a parliament stacked with his
supporters -- declared emergency rule. He suspended the constitution, forced
the resignation of dozens of judges, jailed opponents and took popular
television broadcasters off the air.

His government suffered a backlash among critics inside Pakistan and abroad
who saw the security clampdown not as way to fight militants but to sideline
political opponents. Some critics say President Musharraf's unwillingness to
relinquish power after eight years at the helm further fed unrest by
weakening the state's legitimacy.

Ms. Bhutto was among those who condemned the president's emergency rule. In
response, President Musharraf detained thousands of her supporters and
thwarted her attempts to lead protest rallies. Ms. Bhutto was put under
house arrest twice.

In the following weeks, after Mr. Sharif returned to Pakistan from exile in
Saudi Arabia and President Musharraf stepped down as army chief, relations
between Ms. Bhutto and the president showed some improvement. Ms. Bhutto was
largely able to campaign freely, even holding rallies in the Northwest
Frontier Province, the stronghold of Islamic conservatives.

Ms. Bhutto was struck in the head and neck yesterday as she was entering her
car, according to Tariq Azim, former deputy minister of information, who
said he had been briefed by Pakistan's Ministry of Interior. Ms. Bhutto was
rushed to a hospital where she died from her injuries. The subsequent blast
killed 20 and injured about 45, according to Mr. Azim, who called it a "sad
and tragic day for Pakistan."

Yesterday evening, some roads were blocked amid the sound of gunfire in
Pakistan's commercial capital of Karachi. Police said five people were
killed and fires could be seen raging in some buildings. Near the site of
the bombing in Rawalpindi, PPP supporters vented their grief by pounding on
passing cars and shouting "Musharraf Dog."

Mr. Sharif fanned such sentiments by urging a "revenge on the rulers" for
Ms. Bhutto's death.

Leadership Vacuum

Most current and former U.S. officials say Washington's Pakistan policy --
premised on a Musharraf-Bhutto alliance -- is now in trouble. These
officials say the Bush administration should be working aggressively behind
the scenes to try to rebuild a coalition between President Musharraf and the
PPP. But they acknowledge that the approach is complicated by the leadership
vacuum in Ms. Bhutto's party.

They also caution that the U.S. shouldn't be seen as too openly managing the
political maneuvering due to fears this could fuel even greater
anti-American sentiment. Among the PPP officials Washington would likely
reach out to in the coming days are emerging leaders such as Aitzaz Ahsan,
who could possibly galvanize the party. But Mr. Ahsan, a prominent lawyer,
is a major opponent of President Musharraf for supporting Pakistan's ousted
judges, and has been under detention himself.

Some analysts expressed fear that the fallout from the killings could also
inflame separatist feelings in Pakistan's provinces, especially in Sindh --
Ms. Bhutto's home -- and in resource-rich Baluchistan.

"This will affect the very integrity of Pakistan," said Zafar Iqbal Cheema,
chairman of the defense and strategic studies at Quaid-i-Azam University.
"Ms. Bhutto was a symbol of Pakistan unity."


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