January 14, 2008
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy spoke to CNN’s Don Lemon about the impact of Benazir Bhutto’s death on Pakistan shortly after her assassination.
Pakistan: The Aftermath
January 7, 2008
BY Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
 |
| Correspondent Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy |
Editor’s Note: In her fifth and final dispatch from Pakistan, our correspondent Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy wraps up her preview of an election that never happened — postponed due to the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27.
Look for more FRONTLINE/World reports from Pakistan in the coming weeks, including reporter David Montero’s video about the conflict between Taliban insurgents and the Pakistani military in the Swat Valley.
When I arrived in Pakistan six weeks ago, I found the country’s civil society reinvigorated. In my hometown, Karachi, students, lawyers and activists were all agitating against President Pervez Musharraf’s emergency rule. They were united in their cause to restore an independent judiciary. This was the first time my generation had witnessed a movement like this. There was a sense that whatever the outcome, Pakistan would emerge stronger. Finally, its educated classes were making a noise, were concerned about the direction their country was taking.
But things unraveled very quickly.
The major political parties parted ways with the protestors who were calling for a boycott of the January 8th elections (now postponed to February 18th). Many people felt betrayed. Their top priority was the restoration of the judiciary Musharraf had purged, not the elections. The popular movement argued that if the political parties had pressured President Musharraf, if they had continued their struggle hand in hand with civil society, the judges might have been back on their benches.
With the rule of law restored, more genuine elections might have then taken place. Instead, the election campaign felt like a shadow play with the government directing the outcome.
Backed by the U.S., Benazir Bhutto campaigned as the secular democratic alternative to Musharraf and to the rise of Islamic radicalism. The corruption charges against her were swept under the carpet, there was little talk about her failings as a two-time prime minister, including her support for the Taliban in Afghanistan. She was presented to the Pakistan people as the democratic choice.
The election campaign felt like a shadow play with the government directing the outcome.
And then came the unthinkable. Ten years from now, just as people in the United States ask each other where they were on 9/11, Pakistanis will ask each other where they were when they heard the news of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
We were all shocked — no, stunned. How could this have happened? Regardless of what one thought of her politics, she was a courageous woman who fought hard to keep alive the legacy of her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was ousted in a military coup in 1977 and hanged. She paid dearly for her political commitments.
A three-day mourning period was marred by rioting, looting, and more rioting, as we all watched in silence and horror. Factories were burned; people were killed. Would we ever recover from this? And just as we thought we had hit rock bottom, we heard that Ms. Bhutto had left a will, and in it she had named her husband, a dubious character, her successor as head of the Pakistan People’s Party.
Pakistanis wondered how a woman who stood for democracy, who charmed the West with her rhetoric about democracy versus dictatorship, could name her own successor, and a family member at that. To make matters worse, her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, then appointed his 19-year-old son co-chair of the political party. Bilawal is not even old enough to hold office, how can he be heading a political party?
Since Ms. Bhutto’s assassination, Pakistanis have watched in dismay as the government and the Bhutto family have hurled accusations at each other.
Since Ms. Bhutto’s assassination, Pakistanis have watched in dismay as the government and the Bhutto family have hurled accusations at each other. Her husband has accused the government of not providing enough security for his wife after she returned from exile in October and he held President Musharraf directly responsible for her death.
Right off the bat, at a tense, televised press conference, a journalist asked the President whether he had played any part in the assassination of his political opponent. “Frankly, I consider the question below my dignity to answer,” Musharraf responded. “I’ve been brought up in a very educated and civilized family, which believes in values, principle and character. My family, by any imagination, is not one that believes in killing people, assassinations or intriguing.”
Instead the President laid the blame on Islamist militants with al-Qaeda links who are battling government forces in the North-West Frontier Province, specifically naming Baitullah Mehsud and Maulana Fazlullah. He promised to target those responsible.
Musharraf also said that he is under threat himself, having narrowly missed assassination attempts in December 2003. “I cannot say that I am very, very secure. There are people gunning for me. But I know how to protect myself.”
A team from Scotland Yard has arrived in Pakistan to assist the government in its investigation of the assassination. But despite President Musharraf’s assurances of a thorough probe, Pakistanis worry that the Scotland Yard team will not be able to conduct an independent inquiry into Ms. Bhutto assassination.
In 1951, Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, was assassinated in the very same park in Rawalpindi where Benazir Bhutto was murdered.
Pakistan has been here before. In 1951, the country requested the help of the British government when its first Prime Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, was assassinated in the very same park in Rawalpindi where Benazir Bhutto was murdered. Even then, the Scotland Yard investigator was not allowed to operate freely and was sent back after a few weeks. The results of the inquiry were never made public.
This being the land of conspiracy theories, rumors about Ms. Bhutto’s assassination are rampant. Several text messages about the assassination are circulating across the country. They both point to clips posted on the Internet website You Tube. The texts read, “If you want to know the truth about the death of Ms. Bhutto watch these clips.”
In the first clip, Ms. Bhutto is addressing the rally and a man standing next to her is seen gesturing to someone in the crowd. He then makes some suspicious gestures towards Ms. Bhutto. Conspiracy theorists interpret this as a sign that someone in her entourage was responsible for her death.
In the second clip, Ms. Bhutto is speaking to British journalist Sir Robert Frost in an interview last November. In a long, rapid-fire answer to a question, she says that Osama Bin Laden was killed by Ahmad Sheikh, the man responsible for killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Frost did not interrupt or question her about this. Most have interpreted this as a slip of the tongue. But the conspiracy-minded are suggesting that Ms. Bhutto admitted to something she should not have revealed and has paid for it with her life.
Also, in the wake of the assassination, there is more talk of the U.S. trying to impose its will on Pakistan. I had heard this from students when I first arrived in early December. “Perhaps the United States only wants a stable Pakistan, and not a strong one,” one young woman told me. “If they wanted a strong Pakistan, they wouldn’t impose their choices on us.” I found in every strata of society, there are people who believe that the United States only insists on democracy in Pakistan when it suits its needs.
“In a country where a plate of rice buys you a vote, how can there be democracy?”
There are also people who question whether democracy, as the West imagines it, can actually function in Pakistan.
I had a conversation with Rohail Hayatt, a renowned music producer in Karachi. A liberal, secular Pakistani, who formed Pakistan’s first pop band in the 1980’s, he was of the opinion that it was very difficult for democracy to flourish in Pakistan. “In a country where a plate of rice buys you a vote, how can there be democracy?” he asked.
I remember traveling through rural Pakistan in 2002 when the last elections were held and meeting villagers who told me that they were forced to vote for either their landlord or whatever candidate their landlord supported. About sixty percent of the population resides in rural areas where these feudal conditions prevail.
But despite the inhospitable terrain for democracy in much of the country, despite Pakistan’s history of authoritarian rule, and despite the chilling murder of Ms. Bhutto and the violence it unleashed, I can’t help feeling that all is not lost. The political stirring I witnessed in early December, when Pakistani civil society came to life, taking to the streets in support of democratic rights and an independent judiciary, has not been extinguished.
When campaigning resumes for the parliamentary elections on Feb. 18, there is sure to be a sharp debate about the country’s future, and how the coutry should deal with the increasing Islamic radicalism in its midst.
January 4, 2008
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy will be speaking with Maureen Taylor of CBC’s radio show “The Current”on Friday the 4th of January 8:30 a.m. EST
You may hear the show online-
Pakistan: Burn, Baby, Burn
January 2, 2008
BY Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
 |
| Burned out cars litter the streets of Karachi following the violence. |
Editor’s Note: In a televised speech to the nation Jan. 2, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf vowed that the army and police would crackdown forcefully on any renewed violence, and he appealed for calm in preparation for elections now postponed until Feb. 18. But as our reporter Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy writes from Karachi, the city is still tense after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and emotions are raw.
As dawn broke in Karachi the day after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, its residents woke to find their city looted and vandalized. After a night of rioting, an eerie silence hung in the air, as business owners surveyed the damage.
Paramilitary forces were given orders to shoot to kill if they came upon any protestors destroying property, but it was too late. More than 50 people had been killed across the country. Three hundred and sixty bank branches nationwide were torched and ransacked. Twenty railway stations were burnt and in Karachi, railway tracks were dug up by an angry mob. An industrial area in the heart of the city resembled a war zone, littered with the charred remains of cars and trucks.
The violence was the worst Karachi has ever seen.
“My father had suffered a major heart attack and we were on our way to the hospital when a mob attacked us,” said Ambareen Khursheed. “My mother and brother tried to stop them, to explain that my father was dying, but they didn’t care. They wanted to burn the car with all of us in it.” Her father died soon afterwards. “They were not mourning the death of a leader, these people just needed an opportunity to loot and plunder the city,” she told me at her father’s funeral.
“They were not mourning the death of a leader, these people just needed an opportunity to loot and plunder the city.”
Most people sat glued to their television sets. In a chai khana (tea room) in Neelum colony, several day laborers watched the Bhutto funeral proceedings in disbelief. One of them, Jan Khatim, told me that even though he didn’t agree with her politics, he was appalled by her murder. “I remember the days when we had peace and security. I am a devout Muslim man, but I condemn this killing. No Islamic man can say that this was done in the name of our religion,” he said.
A few others nodded in agreement and one of them, Sahib Khan, came over from his table to tell me that he had been caught in the rioting the evening before. “These people are criminals. They weren’t mourning, they were looting. I saw it with my own eyes. They looted a carpet shop and then a grocery store.”
Out on the streets, life slowly limped back to normalcy. But even now, most shops and fuel stations remain closed. Those that dared to open were threatened by groups of people wielding sticks. “Our Quaid (leader) is dead,” they screamed “and you want to do business.”
Most poor residents of Karachi do not own refrigerators and rely on daily groceries to feed their families. In Punjab Colony, Begum Nusrat was rushing from one closed shop to the next. “I have three small children, and nothing at home to feed them with. How can they close everything? What about us, the poor citizens? How will we feed ourselves?” she said as tears rolled down her face.
 |
| Some of the worst violence took place on the streets of Karachi, Benazir Bhutto’s home turf. |
Soon a crowd gathered around. They were all frustrated and angry. “We don’t care about politics,” said Zubaida Khanum, whose ailing mother had no access to medicines. “We are sad that they killed Benazir but the Pakistan People’s Party is supposed to be for the poor of the country, and this is how they treat us. They burn our motorcycles and close our shops, they leave us poorer and hungrier.”
What was most surprising to many in all of this was the fact that no senior Pakistan People’s Party leader condemned the violence.
Karachi was Ms. Bhutto’s hometown. This is where she received her early education and built her home and this is where she enjoyed a lot of support in her early years. In Gizri, an area hit by violence, where tires still burned on the streets, a group of her supporters, carrying her photograph and waving her party’s flag, told me that they were shocked and ready to avenge her death.
“She is the greatest leader we will ever have. The Bhuttos are for the people of Pakistan, they work for the poor, and they killed her,” said Ahmed Sohail, a twenty-year-old electrician. He blamed her assassination on the government. “She was a threat to Musharraf so they killed her.”
“The Pakistan People’s Party is supposed to be for the poor of the country, and this is how they treat us. They burn our motorcycles and close our shops, they leave us poorer and hungrier.”
But even Ms. Bhutto’s supporters were divided as to why she was killed. Ghulam Hassan, a car mechanic in the group, accused the Islamic militants. “These religious organizations could not stand taking orders from a woman. But I tell you she was more of a man than any of them, that’s why they killed her.”
More controversy followed, as it emerged that Ms. Bhutto had left a letter with Mark Siegel, her U.S. spokesman and lobbyist, saying that if she were killed, President Musharraf would be to blame. “I would hold Musharraf responsible,” she wrote. “I have been made to feel insecure by his minions…”
Soon after the release of the letter, in a televised press conference, the Pakistani government’s spokesperson declared that Ms. Bhutto had not died from shrapnel or bullet wounds but from hitting her head on her jeep’s sunroof. Ms. Bhutto’s aides promptly accused the government of covering up her assassination and urged international governments to send in impartial investigators to determine what really happened.
Newspaper editorials wondered how the government could come up with such a ludicrous theory when photographs and videos clearly showed that a man armed with a hand gun and a suicide bomber managed to breach her security and got in close range of her car. But some Urdu language news coverage was cautious and questioned why Ms. Bhutto, who was well aware of the threats made against her life, would risk exposing her head and torso from her jeep, making herself a clear target.
Most were shocked when they heard that (Bhutto) had left a will in which her husband had been made the head of her political party.
Benazir Bhutto undoubtedly left a void and even those who didn’t agree with her or her politics mourned her death. But most were shocked when they heard that she had left a will in which her husband had been made the head of her political party. Asif Ali Zardari is widely regarded as one of the most corrupt people in Pakistan. He has pending court cases in Switzerland and the United Kingdom. He has already served a jail term in Pakistan of eleven years on charges related to corruption.
Addressing a press conference Mr. Zardari named his 19-year-old son, Bilawal Zardari, (who has since added his mother’s maiden name, Bhutto to his) co-chair of the Pakistan People’s Party. A sober Bilawal addressed a large cadre of journalists and announced, “My mother always said, democracy is the best revenge.”
Bilal Zubair, a banker, who watched the press conference with his family, expressed his anger at this turn of events. “We live in a banana republic, where a 19 year old, who isn’t even old enough to contest the elections, is made to change his last name and command the largest political party in the country.”
Others had similar feelings. “America insists on democracy for Pakistan. Well how democratic is Benazir’s will? She was supposed to be a democratic person but she turned out to be as nepotistic in death as she was in life. Why aren’t Americans insisting that the People’s party have internal elections? Their silence is deafening,” said Huma Naeem, an artist.
It seems that in death as in life, Ms. Bhutto has polarized the nation.