BY STEFANIA MAURIZI
Q: Let’s start with the tragedy of the Bhutto
assassination. Today, the international media reminds us she was the first
woman to become the prime minister of an Islamic country, she was a
democratic leader, etc. Nonetheless, she was the scion of a feudal family
which was primarily responsible for making Pakistan an atomic power and
she was known for authoritarian control of her party. Looking back, how do
you judge Benazir Bhutto?
A: Having first known Benazir Bhutto from high school
in Karachi and then later in Cambridge (Massachusetts), I am deeply
saddened by her assassination. But although the international media paint
her as someone who could have led Pakistan into the modern age, the truth
is very different. Her two tenures as prime minister were a nightmare of
autocratic government and misgovernance. Billions disappeared from foreign
aid. A Swiss court found her guilty of money laundering in 2003.
Ms Bhutto owned mansions and palaces across the world. She
even tried to steal land from my (public) university to feed the rapacious
appetite of her party members.
Even during school days, Benazir thought she had been born
to rule. More importantly, she made not the slightest effort to change the
feudal character of Pakistani politics and society. The Bhuttos own vast
tracts of agricultural land in Sindh that is worked upon by serfs.
Although she promised to bring democracy to Pakistan, after returning to
Pakistan Ms Bhutto made clear that for a few table scraps she would be
happy to team up with General Musharraf under the hopelessly absurd US
plan to give our military government a civilian face. Her party, the
Pakistan Peoples Party, was her fiefdom. She appointed herself as
"chairperson for life".
Reflecting the mindset of a feudal princess, she even
named her successors to be male members from her family: her 19-year-old
son, who is a student at Oxford and knows nothing about Pakistani culture,
as well as her phenomenally corrupt husband, initially known as Mr Ten
Percent and later as Mr Thirty Percent.
Q: Was Ms Bhutto a model for Pakistani women?
A: She was courageous and single-minded. And she
showed that a woman could be the head of a conservative Islamic state.
Nevertheless, it is hard to see what she wanted beyond personal power.
Although she said that she was fighting for grand causes, I’m still trying
to figure out what they were.
She certainly did nothing for Pakistani women during her
two stints in power and left untouched the horrific Hudood laws, according
to which a rape victim needs to produce four witnesses to the act of
penetration (else she could be punished for fornication). Nor did she try
to overturn the Pakistani blasphemy law that prescribes death as the
minimum penalty for those convicted of insulting the prophet of Islam or
his companions. As for democracy: she had been desperate to do a deal with
Musharraf who dangled over her head the many corruption cases that she was
charged with. But he proved too clever for her and she was forced into the
opposition.
In foreign policy, she played footsie with the army. It
could do whatever it liked, including making nuclear weapons, sending
Islamic militants into Kashmir and organising the takeover of Afghanistan
by the Taliban. In 2002 she regretted having signed the document
authorising funds for the funding of Taliban forces for seizing Kandahar.
Ms Bhutto makes an excellent martyr. In her death she will doubtlessly
play a more positive role than when alive.
Q: Al-Qaeda was immediately blamed for the Bhutto assassination.
However, many people hated her: Musharraf, the army and the infamous ISI
(Inter Services
Intelligence), which in 1990 removed Bhutto from power after she had
replaced General Hameed Gul, the man who invented the Taliban. Do you
believe that the al-Qaeda was really responsible for killing Benazir
Bhutto? Who is going to gain from Bhutto’s death?
A: There are different possibilities and much
confusion. But some facts are certain. There definitely were gunshots and
this was followed by a suicide blast.
Now, I do not think that suicide bombers can be bought
with any number of rupees. Only a religious fanatic lured by heavenly
rewards would blow himself up. Therefore the al-Qaeda, the Taliban or
other Islamic jihadist groups are strong possibilities. They always hated
Bhutto but even more after she announced in Washington that if elected
prime minister she would fight them even more vigorously than Musharraf.
Of course, rogue elements of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, who are
also strong Islamists and who lie deeply hidden within the establishment,
could also have done it. They have a stock of suicide bombers available to
them, as evidenced by the success they have had in organising suicide
attacks upon army commandos as well as their own colleagues.
So did Islamists of one or the other flavour do it? Maybe,
but the waters have been muddied by the government. First, publicly
available photographs and videos show a modern-looking gunman accompanying
the suicide bomber. He fired three shots, heard by all present, at least
one of which hit Bhutto. Some say that there was a second sharpshooter in
a building too.
On the other hand, the government initially insisted she
died from concussion and not a bullet wound – an obvious lie immediately
refuted by those in the same car as Bhutto. Second, in just an hour after
the assassination the police washed away all the bloody evidence with
water hoses. So it is quite possible that non-Islamists in the government
have somehow used brainwashed suicide bombers trained in mosques and
madrassas to do their dirty job. But, as in the JFK murder, the truth
will never be known.
As for the gainers and losers: Islamist groups saw Bhutto
as a tool of America that would be used against them, and a leader who
could secularise Pakistan. Plus, she was a woman and popular. But
Musharraf and his political party, the PML(Q), have also gained because a
political rival has been eliminated. The losers are those Pakistanis who
wish for a secular, modern Pakistan and not one that is run by mullahs.
Although she never delivered on her promises, her followers never lost
faith.
Q: There is a lot of concern about the future of
Pakistan. How real is the threat of an Islamic takeover, in your opinion?
A: It has already been taken over! Twenty-five years
ago the Pakistani state began pushing Islam on to its people as a matter
of policy.
Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory,
punishments were meted out to those who did not fast during Ramadan,
selection for academic posts required that the candidate demonstrate
knowledge of Islamic teachings and jihad was propagated through school
books. Today government intervention is no longer needed because of a
spontaneous ground-swell of Islamic zeal. But now the state is realising
that it shot itself in the foot. The fanatical jihadists it created have
turned against it. It is supreme irony that the Pakistan army – whose men
were recruited under the banner of jihad and which saw itself as the
fighting arm of Islam – is now frequently targeted by suicide bombers who
are fighting a jihad to bring even stricter Islam. It has lost a thousand
or more men fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The pace of radicalisation has quickened. There are almost
daily suicide attacks. This phenomenon was almost unknown in Pakistan
before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Now it is common in major cities
as well as tribal areas. The targets have been the Pakistan army, police,
incumbent and retired government leaders and rival Islamic sects. But this
is just the tip of the iceberg; we’ll see much more in years ahead.
Q: Ideally, what do you want to see happen in the next
few weeks?
A: I want Musharraf to go – resign or somehow be
removed, preferably without bloodshed. I want the independent judiciary
restored, a new neutral caretaker government installed for overseeing free
and fair elections, and then elections that would decide upon the new
Parliament and prime minister. This will not immediately solve Pakistan’s
fundamental problems – army dominance, maldistribution of wealth,
religious fanaticism – but it would get Pakistan on the track to democracy
instead of the self-destruction it is racing towards.
Q: People in Washington are increasingly frustrated
with Musharraf’s counter-terrorism efforts; however, they think there are
no alternatives to Musharraf. What do you think about this?
A: The Americans have tunnel vision. They want lackeys
like Musharraf who do their bidding although here too there is deception
at work. They know, but choose to forget, that Pakistani military leaders,
Musharraf included, are the makers of the jihadist monster. In 1999, after
Musharraf launched the secret Kargil operation in Kashmir, the United
Jihad Council celebrated him as a true fighter for Islam. After 9/11 such
praises disappeared but under his leadership the army still covertly
supported jihadist groups and the Taliban in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
Musharraf is extremely unpopular now and the Americans
will have to dump him at some point. It is hard to find a pro-Musharraf
person anywhere in the country except in top business circles and top army
leadership. Until recently he ran both the army and the government
himself, with the connivance of a rubber stamp parliament put in place
through rigged elections. When the courts were about to rule that he could
not legally be president, Musharraf chose to suspend the Constitution and
impose emergency rule. He dismissed the Supreme Court and arrested the
judges, replacing them with judges who obey his every command. He blocked
all independent television channels and punished the news media for
disparaging him or the army. His police arrested thousands of lawyers and
pro-democracy activists. He ordered that civilians be tried in closed
military courts. This was necessary, he said, to save Pakistan from a
rapidly growing Islamist insurgency. But he released 25 Islamic extremists
on the day that the judges were arrested. In spite of all this, George W.
Bush called Musharraf "a democrat at heart".
The Americans have shot themselves in the foot by
supporting the army consistently for decades. They have lost credibility
and respect among Pakistanis. Everybody laughs when they hear that America
wants democracy for Pakistan. In this situation, even if Musharraf goes
and General Kayani (the new army chief) takes over, the best that America
can hope for is for the status quo. This is sad because America is a great
country with many virtues. If only they could get over their hang-up of
wanting to run the world! It’s an impossible task anyway.
Q: In Pakistan what is the man on the street thinking?
A: Almost everyone holds the government responsible
for the assassination. Tragically, suicide bombings are not condemned with
any particular vigour. There is no strong reaction against the mullahs,
madrassas and jihadis. Perhaps people are afraid to criticise them because
this might be seen as a criticism of Islam. Interestingly, in all the
street demonstrations I have gone to after the Bhutto assassination, there
was no call for cracking down on extremists. Yesterday I met the lone taxi
driver who thought the Islamists did it.
Q: What could be an effective way to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban
in Pakistan?
A: To fight and win this war, Pakistan will need to
mobilise both its people and the state. The notion of a power-sharing
agreement between the state and the Taliban is a non-starter; the
spectacular failures of earlier agreements should be a lesson. Instead,
the government should help create public consensus through open forum
discussions, proceed faster on infrastructure development in the tribal
areas and make judicious use of military force – troops only, no air
power. This should become every Pakistani’s war, not just the army’s, and
it will have to be fought even if America packs up and goes away. But as
long as Musharraf is president
it will be impossible to get popular support for the war. If presented
with a choice between Musharraf and the Taliban, the overwhelming majority
of Pakistanis would want the latter – although I am sure they would regret
it later.
Q: Let’s talk about Pakistan’s nukes. There’s a lot of
concern about the possibility that nuclear weapons could end up in the
hands of Islamic fundamentalists. Early in December The Washington Post
revealed that a small group of US military experts and intelligence
analysts convened in Washington for exploring strategies to secure
Pakistani nukes if the Pakistani regime falls apart. Their conclusions
were very scary, as there are no palatable ways to forcibly ensure the
security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. What do you think about this?
A: The government says there is absolutely no danger
of loose nukes. Pakistan has been sending serving officers of the
Strategic Plans Division, which is the agency responsible for handling
nuclear weapons, to the United States for training in safety measures (PAL’s
locking devices, storing procedures, etc). But there’s no way of telling
if this will be effective. Extremists have already penetrated deep into
the army and the intelligence agencies. We now see repeated evidence: for
example, last month an unmarked bus carrying employees of the ISI was
collecting employees early in the morning. It was boarded by a suicide
bomber who blew himself up, killing 25. It was an inside job.
And now there are many other such examples, such as that
of an army man killing 16 Special Services Group commandos in a suicide
attack at Ghazi Barotha. A part of the establishment is clearly at war
with another part.
There are also scientists as well as military people who
are radical Islamists. Many questions come to mind: can there be collusion
between different field-level commanders resulting in the hijacking of a
nuclear weapon? Could outsider groups develop links with insiders? Given
the absence of accurate records of fissile material production, can one be
certain that small quantities of highly enriched uranium or weapons grade
plutonium have not already been diverted? I do not know the answers.
Nobody does.
(Pervez Hoodbhoy, professor of nuclear and high energy
physics, and chairman of the department of physics at Quaid-e-Azam
University in Islamabad, was interviewed by Stefania Maurizi for Il
Venerdi (the Friday supplement) of La Repubblica, where the
interview will be published in Italian. The interview is reproduced here
in the original English, as supplied by Professor Hoodbhoy.)
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