WHO BOMBED BHUTTO?

by RAY FLEMING
IN this space yesterday I offered a fairly optimistic viewpoint on the return of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan, concluding with the comment: “For the moment Bhutto represents Pakistan's best hope for a better future. But it is no more than a hope.” A few hours after I wrote that, Ms Bhutto's convoy in Karachi was violently attacked twice; although she had a fortunate escape many of her entourage were killed or injured as were hundreds of the thousands who had assembled to welcome her home. This outrage is yet another indication of how desperately Pakistan needs political leaders who can win sufficient support for democratic principles and the rule of law. Such people do not grow under the military rule which Pakistan has had for almost a decade and often in the more distant past. Therefore the tendency is to look for former elected leaders such as Ms Bhutto and the still exiled Nawaz Sharif, even if they were failures in their time. Yet Bhutto's accusation yesterday that those responsible for her attempted assassination were not Taliban or other contemporary enemies but allies of the military ruler Zia ul-Haq who overthrew her father, prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 and hanged him two years later, showed how deeply enmities go in Pakistan.