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PAKISTAN: Bhutto&#39s Murder Rekindles Ethnic Suspicions

Analysis by Irfan Ahmed

LAHORE, Jan 5 2008 (IPS) - The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, leader of the powerful Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and twice prime minister, has pushed to the brink a country already known for regionalism and ethnic suspicion.

Bhutto was widely acknowledged as the only leader who enjoyed popularity in the four ethnically distinct provinces of the country, Punjab, Balochistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) besides her own Sindh.

Punjab, the biggest province in terms of population and resources, has long been accused of treading on the rights of other provinces. Punjab’s dominance also rests on the fact that the top military leadership has traditionally been drawn from the province.

Bhutto&#39s husband Asif Ali Zardari and other Sindhi leaders have been at pains to dispel threats to the federation, exhorting unity in the volatile situation that developed after the Dec. 27 assassination pitted one ethnic group against another.

At Bhutto’s funeral, mourners raised the slogan, ‘Pakistan nakhabey’ (we don’t want Pakistan) leaving it to Zardari to emphasise at other meetings and at press conferences that the PPP stood for a united nation and was not opposed to the army’s dominance.

Reacting to countrywide protests and the ethnic unrest, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said, in an address to the nation on Jan. 2, that troops stood ready in Sindh to deal sternly with ‘’law-breakers and those trying to carry out agitations’’.

Musharraf’s tough speech infuriated many. The PPP’s Punjab unit president Shah Mehmood Qureshi told IPS that Musharraf&#39s speech did not bode well for Pakistan&#39s integrity. ‘’There was no need to use such a harsh tone and use the word &#39miscreants&#39 without discriminating between mourners and vandals.’’

Qadir Magsi, a Sindhi nationalist leader who chairs the regional Sindh Taraqqi Passand Party (STPP), told IPS that Bhutto was killed because of her Sindhi origins and because of her unwillingness to toe the army line. ‘’Benazir&#39s fault was that she spoke about democracy, supremacy of parliament and constitution,’’ he said.

Magsi who is also a central figure in the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) and in the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM), which demands equal treatment for all the provinces, believes that Benazir&#39s sympathetic stance towards Balochistan nationalists and her strong condemnation of Nawab Akbar Bugti&#39s killing in an army raid on the province may have infuriated the Punjabi-dominated establishment.

But it was the fact of Bhutto’s murder in the Punjab city of Rawalpindi, that is dominated by the army, that has raised fears of Pakistan fracturing along ethnic lines. Such fears are not unfounded given that in 1971 ethnic differences that set off a civil war caused Pakistan the loss of its eastern wing, which then became Bangladesh.

It is being pointed out that top, non-Punjabi leaders end up being assassinated in Rawalpindi with some regularity. Two other former prime ministers, Bhutto’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Liaquat Ali Khan also met with sticky ends in Rawalpindi.

The founder and leader of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) party Altaf Hussain, who is currently in exile, issued a statement from London immediately after her death. "I wish to bring this on record that this is the third assassination of a prime minister belonging to the Sindh province," he said. He termed the murder an act to harm the country and create a sense of isolation among the people of Sindh province.

Perhaps, more than ever before, the realisation is dawning that Pakistan is home to various ethnicities that have, for more than 60 years, been in disagreement with each other over a plethora of issues such language, water distribution and finances. Sindh has been opposing central plans to build large dams which may give more control of river waters flowing downstream.

While the PPP is a national party its power base is firmly rooted in Sindh. And the fact that ethnic particularities, and even family ties, matter in Pakistan’s politics can be seen from the fact that Bhutto&#39s eldest child, Bilawal, has been nominated party chairman, though only after adding the charismatic word &#39Bhutto&#39 to his name.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is 19 and has just begun his studies at Oxford. Should the PPP come to power in the elections, now set for Feb. 18, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, a Sindhi by origin, will be the party&#39s candidate for prime minister.

Other possibles for the top job include Aitzaz Ahsan, PPP leader from Punjab and president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), but his Punjabi ethnicity seems to have gone against him.

Ahsan, still under house arrest for leading agitations to press reinstatement of top members of the judiciary sacked by Musharraf, is among those who believe that the assassination has put the federation in serious jeopardy. ‘’The burden rests on the Punjab and the Punjabis to demonstrate their solidarity with the people of Sindh,’’ he says.

Ahsan says ‘’certain forces’’ feared that Bhutto would become a dominant partner in any alliance or arrangement within the structure of the state. ‘’She was not expected to be a Shujaat Husain, Zafarullah Jamali or Shaukat Aziz (handpicked former prime ministers always ready to demonstrate allegiance to President Musharraf),’’ Ahsan said, when asked about possible reasons behind her assassination.

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