Benazir Bhutto's niece calls b.s. on Aunt Benazir

i'm not entirely sure why i'm so fascinated with the happenings in pakistan... maybe it's that they are, in a broken mirror kind of way, illustrating many of the same dynamics that go on here in the u.s., to say nothing of the kind of people the u.s. government chooses to support...

once again, pakistan, pervez musharraf and benazir bhutto are in the news... this time, one of musharraf's principal opponents has been arrested, pervez says he'll give up his military role, and bhutto calls for him to resign... but, as bhutto's niece notes, in this la times op-ed, bhutto remains in a comfortable house arrest...

Aunt Benazir's false promises

Bhutto's return bodes poorly for Pakistan -- and for democracy there.
By Fatima Bhutto
November 14, 2007
KARACHI -- We Pakistanis live in uncertain times. Emergency rule has been imposed for the 13th time in our short 60-year history. Thousands of lawyers have been arrested, some charged with sedition and treason; the chief justice has been deposed; and a draconian media law -- shutting down all private news channels -- has been drafted.

Perhaps the most bizarre part of this circus has been the hijacking of the democratic cause by my aunt, the twice-disgraced former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. While she was hashing out a deal to share power with Gen. Pervez Musharraf last month, she repeatedly insisted that without her, democracy in Pakistan would be a lost cause. Now that the situation has changed, she's saying that she wants Musharraf to step down and that she'd like to make a deal with his opponents -- but still, she says, she's the savior of democracy.

The reality, however, is that there is no one better placed to benefit from emergency rule than she is. Along with the leaders of prominent Islamic parties, she has been spared the violent retributions of emergency law. Yes, she now appears to be facing seven days of house arrest, but what does that really mean? While she was supposedly under house arrest at her Islamabad residence last week, 50 or so of her party members were comfortably allowed to join her. She addressed the media twice from her garden, protected by police given to her by the state, and was not reprimanded for holding a news conference. (By contrast, the very suggestion that they might hold a news conference has placed hundreds of other political activists under real arrest, in real jails.)

Ms. Bhutto's political posturing is sheer pantomime. Her negotiations with the military and her unseemly willingness until just a few days ago to take part in Musharraf's regime have signaled once and for all to the growing legions of fundamentalists across South Asia that democracy is just a guise for dictatorship.

It is widely believed that Ms. Bhutto lost both her governments on grounds of massive corruption. She and her husband, a man who came to be known in Pakistan as "Mr. 10%," have been accused of stealing more than $1 billion from Pakistan's treasury. She is appealing a money-laundering conviction by the Swiss courts involving about $11 million. Corruption cases in Britain and Spain are ongoing.

It was particularly unappealing of Ms. Bhutto to ask Musharraf to bypass the courts and drop the many corruption cases that still face her in Pakistan. He agreed, creating the odiously titled National Reconciliation Ordinance in order to do so. Her collaboration with him was so unsubtle that people on the streets are now calling her party, the Pakistan People's Party, the Pervez People's Party. Now she might like to distance herself, but it's too late.

naturally, the wapo gives us NOTHING of benazir's background, and i'm certainly not the only one who notices... this from a commenter on the wapo article...

Bud0 wrote:
Do we have to paint everything in black and white? Musharraf is a dictator, but that doesn't make Bhutto (or Sharif or Imran Khan) a saint.

I think readers deserve to know that these are all millionaire aristocrats who got into politics so they could siphon the national treasury to their family's bank account.

And the dirtiest of the three is Bhutto, whose wealth is estimated at $1.5 billion, since her father and her both took turns looting Pakistan's coffers.

She also faces criminal money-laundering investigations in both Spain and Switzerland.

This woman is no Aung San Suu Kyi. In fact she has a lot more in common with Ahmed Chalabi.

That's why I get antsy when the Post seems to push her. Everyone knows she's Bush's new chosen puppet, that the US govt engineered her return. Is she now to be wafted in to power on a magic carpet of uncritical media coverage?

context-free journalism... gotta love it...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

The Benazir Bhutto back-story we aren't being told [UPDATE]

oddly enough, i had completely forgotten about the fact that benazir bhutto fled pakistan a number of years ago under the threat of corruption charges, and it wasn't until today, after reading several articles and posts in, naturally, non-U.S. media, that i remembered... and, of course, i WOULDN'T have remembered at all if i had stuck with our oh-so-context-free media here in the united states...

what our media aren't telling us, this from radio netherlands worldwide...

There are ... many observers in Lahore and Islamabad who don't believe there's a real power struggle going on between Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto. They argue that it's a matter of a well-orchestrated piece of theatre, with former prime minister Bhutto publicly denouncing the president, while supporting him in secret. One observer, speaking close to the barricades, comments: "She wants Musharraf's support, and so she's supporting him."

Bhutto spent more than seven years living in self-imposed exile, in connection with charges of corruption made against her in Pakistan. Following negotiations between her and Musharraf, which began at the end of 2006, she returned to Pakistan in October this year. The charges against her were dropped. The talks were said to have been aimed at bringing democracy back to Pakistan and have now - according to Bhutto - been ended. President Musharraf, however, has always denied being involved in any negotiations with Ms Bhutto.

[...]

Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party is the only party which has made its voice heard in the protests. Bhutto has also been the only opposition leader who's been given the opportunity to speak to the press while under house arrest. This is one reason why observers think that her power struggle with Musharraf is perhaps being staged. "She has it in her power to get large numbers of people onto the streets, but she's not doing that," is the comment from one observer at the barricade.

[...]

ARY, a local TV station which can now only be received via satellite, reports that police officers have been given orders not to arrest any senior figures from Bhutto's party. Rightly or wrongly, the suspicions remain.

puts a few things in perspective, right...?

[UPDATE]

here's the context-free, benazir bhutto "back-story" as it appears in the nyt...

Ms. Bhutto was prime minister of Pakistan twice and was twice dismissed before she was able to complete her terms.

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

So much for Condi's plan for Pakistan by tempering Musharraf with Bhutto

whatever deal was made is obviously off now...

juan cole...

Opposition politician Benazir Bhutto has called for Gen. Pervez Musharraf to resign as president of Pakistan, and says she will never serve as prime minister under him. He put her back under house arrest on Tuesday.

My guess is that Benazir Bhutto will now be deported by Musharraf. He only let her back into the country under pressure from Secretary of State Condi Rice in the first place because she made a deal to cohabit with him politically.

However annoyed the Bush administration may be with Musharraf for letting the veil of 'democracy' drop and revealing clearly what a dictator he is, I can't imagine Washington backing Ms. Bhutto against the Pakistani military!

condi is a spectacularly ineffective diplomat... hard to believe the right-wing nutcases were actually pushing her for president not all that long ago...

Political associates of Secretary of State Condi Rice are stirring the 2008 presidential pot on her behalf. While she takes the high road, they're pushing her name out there. "She definitely wants to be president," said one. But, the friend added, Rice isn't planning on quitting to run. "She wants to be drafted," he said.

thank god THAT one died a natural death...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Musharraf lifts Bhutto's house arrest

one can only imagine the container-size load of shit that was dumped on his head for having made such a totally idiotic move in the first goddam place...

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was freed from house arrest late on Friday, hours after she was stopped from leaving her Islamabad home to lead a rally against the president's imposition of emergency rule.

"The detention order has been withdrawn," said Aamir Ali Ahmed, acting deputy commissioner of Islamabad.

A security official said police barricades around Bhutto's home were being taken down. A spokeswoman for Bhutto's party, Sherry Rehman, said she had no information about the lifting of the order.

Earlier in the day police prevented Bhutto from leaving her home and sealed off the capital and the nearby city of Rawalpindi to stop a rally against President Pervez Musharraf.

ol' pervez must have realized that he was signing his own resignation letter if he tried to keep her away from her supporters... god, he's such a fool, but, i guess, he's only acting in true form for somebody who, like his best buddy, george, wants so desperately to hang on to power...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments