Opinions divided over Bhutto

BY RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN

raffy.boudjikanian@transcontinental.ca

As the West Island's Pakistani community remains divided over former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's legacy almost two weeks after her death, her political party is trying to have the United Nations step in to investigate the assassination.

"First, the government said she was killed by a bullet. Then they said she was killed by a bomb. Then they said she hit her head on the car roof, then they said it was a bullet again," said Dollard resident Zaheer Khan, a spokesperson for Bhutto's Pakistani People's Party in Canada.

Hailing from a prominent Muslim family that includes another former Prime Minister, her father Zufikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto was educated in Oxford and Harvard before first becoming Prime Minister from 1988 to 1990, and then once again from 1993 to 1996. Though she was forced to resign at the end of her second term and went into exile amidst charges of corruption, she returned to Pakistan last October for Parliamentary elections this month when President Pervez Musharraf granted her amnesty, dropping all charges.

With Bhutto assassinated after leaving a rally on Dec. 27, the elections were held back until Feb. 18. Though bullets were fired at her, a suicide bomb explosion also killed 23 of her supporters, and the final cause of her death remains unclear.

"We want to have the U.N. form a full investigative body," Khan said, expressing distrust in the local government. He claimed that Scotland Yard's current investigation was useless, since it was receiving too much local aid.

Khan, who met Bhutto at her wedding in 1987, had nothing but praise for her. "She had a desire to make permanent change in Pakistan," Khan said, and that displeased the established hierarchy in Pakistan.

Not all were so kind to her. "She was a tyrant in civilian's clothes," said Shujaat Wasty, a master's student at Concordia University who lives in the West Island and is a member of the South Asian Research and Resource Centre, a Montreal-based organization. He could not understand the mainstream media's general tone after Bhutto's death, he said. "Any tragedy like this is terrible," he said, admitting to being shocked after hearing the news. However, Bhutto was hardly the democratic figure she is being made to be, he insisted.

"She still can't step into Spain, Poland or Switzerland," said Wasty, where charges of corruption remain.

"Some of (those charges) are still there, some of them were dropped," countered Khan. "We're not saying that she shouldn't be tried," he explained, saying that Bhutto's amnesty was only temporary, to allow her participation in the upcoming elections. "The new Parliament could very well come in and say that they want a trial," Khan said.

"A lot of people who are now part of the Musharraf government were once part of (former Prime Minister) Nawaz Sharif's government, and they haven't been charged with anything. Those who didn't join up have been charged with corruption. All we're asking is that everyone be charged equally," Khan said.

"Do you think that a poor man like me would have his charges dropped? No, the police would throw me in jail," contended another member of the West Island Pakistani community, who asked not to be named due to concerns of reprisals against property he has in his native country.

He complained that Bhutto did not return to exile after a first failed attack against her in October that killed 140 others. "I'm sure some of those people had a one-year old, or a four-year old, or a mother," he said.

Khan contended that Bhutto could not have fled again if she wanted to participate in the elections. "In Pakistan, only about 20 to 30 per cent of people have access to television, radio, newspapers or the Internet," he said. "You have to have on the ground presence at rallies in the public if you want to win an election," he explained.

Wasty pointed to the strong clamp-down on political opposition in the days when Bhutto was in power, likening it to practices in the Soviet Union.

A Human Rights Watch report from 1994 criticized Pakistan's government for its treatment of religious minorities, failure to protect women from an undemocratic penal code, and torture of jailed detainees.

Khan estimated there are about 7,000 to 8,000 Pakistanis in the West Island. He said that his house was open for three days after the tragedy for condolence visits.

Chronicle, Jacques Pharand

Bhutto party spokesman and Dollard resident Zaheer Khan says the U.N. should step in to investigate her assassination.