Bomb
Blasts Hit Bhutto’s
Return To Pakistan
By Peter Symonds
19 October, 2007
WSWS.org
Two bomb blasts last night ripped
through huge crowds in the Pakistani city of Karachi gathered to welcome
former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who had just returned after eight
years in exile.
Up to 125 people are reported
dead and 100 injured, but the toll could rise as police and rescue workers
assess the scene. Bhutto, who was travelling on top of a specially prepared
truck, escaped unharmed and was immediately taken to her official residence.
Among the dead were supporters of Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party
(PPP) as well as police and journalists.
Bhutto landed in Karachi
at around 2 p.m. local time from Dubai and was making her way at snail’s
pace toward the shrine of Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah,
where she was due to give a speech. Some 20,000 police and paramilitary
troops, including snipers and bomb disposal units, had been mobilised
to provide security. An estimated 150,000 to 300,000 people lined the
route. The two bombs detonated shortly after midnight, creating scenes
of panic and chaos.
At this stage, no organisation
has claimed responsibility. At least three groups linked to Al Qaeda
and the Taliban were reportedly threatening to kill Bhutto for supporting
for the US “war on terrorism” and its occupation of Afghanistan.
Haji Omar, a Taliban commander in Waziristan, told Reuters: “She
has an agreement with America. We will carry out attacks on Benazir
Bhutto as we did on General Pervez Musharraf.”
Pakistani President Musharraf
and the US were both quick to condemn the bombings. For months, the
Bush administration has been pressing the beleaguered military strongman
to reach a power-sharing deal with Bhutto in order to intensify a security
crackdown on Islamist organisations, particularly in the Pashtun tribal
areas, such as Waziristan, on the Afghan-Pakistani border. Hundreds
of people, including civilians, have died in fierce clashes between
the military and Islamist militants in the border region.
While a formal agreement
between Musharraf and Bhutto has not been announced, there is every
sign that a political understanding brokered by Washington has been
reached between the two leaders. Musharraf promulgated a National Reconciliation
Ordinance on October 5 that gave Bhutto immunity from corruption charges
brought against her after she lost power in 1996. In return, her PPP
did not join other opposition parties in opposing Musharraf’s
sham reelection as president on October 6.
Bhutto has returned to lead
her party in national elections due to be held in January and become
the new prime minister. But the arrangement with Musharraf is fraught
with political and legal difficulties. Musharraf’s own reelection
is under challenge, as the country’s constitution bars the president
from also holding the post of army commander. If the Supreme Court overturns
the election and blocks his installation for a second term on November
15, Musharraf may impose martial law.
Musharraf, who seized power
in a coup in 1999, has been reluctant to give up control of the army,
which is his only real source of power. He finally agreed to Bhutto’s
demand that he relinquish command of the military, but only after he
is successfully installed for a second five-year term as president.
Musharraf is unlikely to accept a purely ceremonial role and is reportedly
seeking control over foreign affairs, defence and internal security
in any arrangement with Bhutto.
For her part, Bhutto faces
a series of obstacles to becoming prime minister for a third term. Not
only is the Supreme Court considering challenges to the National Reconciliation
Ordinance and thus her amnesty, but she must find a way around the constitution’s
ban on anyone serving more than two terms as prime minister. Bhutto
also faces concerted opposition from within the military and the ruling
military-sponsored party, the PML (Q), which will inevitably lose power
and privileges in any power-sharing deal.
It cannot be ruled out that
embittered elements of the army and/or PML (Q) were responsible for
last night’s bombings. The Pakistani police has been quick to
blame “terrorists” for the attack and allege that suicide
bombers were responsible, but details of the two blasts are yet to be
determined. Significantly Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari, speaking
from Dubai, told ARYONE World Television: “I blame the government
for these blasts. It is the work of the intelligence agencies.”
Bhutto’s mooted deal
with the dictator Musharraf has undermined her own credibility as a
champion of democracy, cut into her popular standing and generated political
ructions inside the PPP. According to recent polling by the US-based
International Republican Institute, only 28 percent of Pakistanis regard
Bhutto as the best leader for the country—a fall of 4 percent
from the last poll. By contrast, support for Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted
as prime minister by Musharraf in 1999, has jumped by 15 points to 36
percent. Unlike Bhutto, he has opposed any deal with Musharraf.
The official response to
Sharif, who attempted to return last month from exile in Saudi Arabia,
and Bhutto could not have been more different. In the days before Sharif’s
arrival in Islamabad, Pakistani security forces rounded up thousands
of activists belonging to his Pakistan Muslim League (Sharif), including
members of parliament, and surrounded the airport with a heavy cordon
of police and soldiers. In breach of a Supreme Court ruling affirming
Sharif’s right to return to Pakistan, he was bundled onto a plane
and sent back to Saudi Arabia.
Bhutto’s own attempt
at a triumphal return to Pakistan was an effort to claw back lost political
ground. Not only did she have to counter Sharif, but Bhutto had to deal
with memories of her return from exile in 1986 when 750,000 people turned
out in Lahore to welcome her. Then she had returned to challenge the
military dictator, General Zia ul-Haq, who had executed her father,
the populist Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in 1979. Now, Bhutto
has returned to closely work with another dictator, Musharraf.
According to the British-based
Economist, much of the fanfare surrounding Bhutto’s arrival yesterday
was carefully orchestrated and paid for. “If there is no such
thing as a free crowd in Pakistani politics, the one in Karachi was
unusually pricey,” the magazine wrote. “For over a week
thousands of billboards along the 16 kilometre route that Miss Bhutto’s
‘caravan of democracy’ was to take had been rented by PPP
supporters to advertise the event. ‘Welcome homeland Benazir!’
was a poem emblazoned on one of them.
“To import the requisite
flag-wavers from the party’s strongholds in rural Sindh and southern
Punjab, thousands of buses were hired. The driver of one parked outside
Karachi airport, Sajjad Hussain, said he had come from Punjab province
in a convoy of 100 buses. A local doctor, who is seeking a PPP ticket
in the election, hired his bus for 75,000 rupees ($1,250). Over 500
buses were reported to have come laden with Miss Bhutto’s hometown
of Larkana, in northern Sindh. Asked who was footing the bill, the PPP’s
leader in Sindh, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, grimaced: ‘We are, I am,
tax-paid—we love it!’”
This charade underscores
just how fragile Pakistani politics has become. Neither Bhutto, Musharraf
nor Sharif has any significant base of solid political support. Each
has presided over growing social inequality and resorted to anti-democratic
methods to retain power. In one way or another, all have supported the
Bush administration’s bogus “war on terrorism” and
the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, which are deeply unpopular
in Pakistan. Right-wing Islamic fundamentalist parties and organisations
have made some gains, but the far broader wellsprings of popular anger
and hostility find no expression in Pakistan’s political establishment.
The bomb blasts in Karachi
are a reminder that Bhutto’s return, far from bringing peace and
democracy, is likely to open up a new chapter of political crisis and
instability.
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