Why Musharraf Stands to Gain from Bhutto's Assassination

 by Aaron Goldstein  

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Pervez Musharraf is all set for a coronation on January 8th.

Benazir Bhutto might have been killed by al Qaeda or the Taliban.  But it was Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf who stands the most to gain by her assassination.
 
With Bhutto now dead and Musharraf's other main nemesis, Nawaz Sharif, declared ineligible to run by Musharraf's handpicked Elections Commission, Musharraf is all set for a coronation on January 8th.
 
Bhutto was assassinated in the city of Rawalpindi, the heart of Pakistan's security services.  She should have been guarded like Fort Knox.  Instead, Islamic fundamentalists did their dirty deed while Musharraf's forces looked the other way.
 
Musharraf was clearly uninterested in Bhutto's well being. This was evident by the previous assassination attempt on Bhutto during a political rally in her hometown of Karachi when she returned to Pakistan last October after nearly a decade of self-imposed exile.
 
The thought of Bhutto's assassination and the previous attempt on her life conjures up images of the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr. in August 1983, when he returned to the Philippines after three years in exile in the United States.  The inquiry into Aquino's assassination by the government of Ferdinand Marcos produced the conclusion that Aquino had been killed by a lone communist hitman.  This despite the fact that Aquino was being "guarded" by Marcos' security forces.
 
Pakistan's Interior Ministry has concluded that Bhutto died because she hit her head on the sunroof of the car in which she was standing after the rally, rather than being wounded by an assassin's bullet or shrapnel from explosives detonated by a suicide bomber.  How did they arrive at this conclusion without the benefit of an autopsy?  Because Musharraf wants to trivalize Bhutto's death by suggesting she died as a result of her own clumsiness.  In so doing, they simply make themselves more complicit in her demise.
 
Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for an independent international investigation of Bhutto's assassination, possibly to be done by the UN.  Given the lack of progress concerning the inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, I am not sure what good would come of a UN investigation into this matter. What I am sure of is that the United States needs to rethink its relationship with the Musharraf government.  This might mean partially withholding foreign aid or have another ally, such as Saudi Arabia, place pressure on Musharraf as it did when they compelled him to allow Sharif to return to Pakistan last month. It might also mean that now is the time to for Musharraf to capture bin Laden or al Zawahiri.  As it stands, on top of the the political turmoil of his own making, Musharraf has done little to help the United States in the War on Terror.  This state of affairs must change.
 
One might not agree with the politics of Benazir Bhutto.  Yet no one can honestly question her commitment to democracy and non-violence.  This commitment would ultimately cost her life. She deserved a far better fate.  After all, despite everything, Bhutto was willing to share power with Musharraf.  Yet sharing power with Bhutto was never a priority for Musharraf and now it is one less thing he needs to worry about.

Foreign Affairs, National Defense

Read more articles by Aaron Goldstein