Bhutto assassination heightens threat of US intervention, says scribe

The mass popular revulsion over Benazir Bhutto’s assassination has unleashed intense instability in Pakistan, says Bill Van Auken, US political activist.

According to him, the developments could well draw the US military into direct involvement in the attempt to suppress popular upheavals in that country.

Bill Van Auken is a full-time reporter for the World Socialist Web Site. He contested the 2004 US presidential election, as candidate of the small Socialist Equality Party, and has been nominated by the party to contest again in this year’s election.

Van Auken’s article appears at countercurrents.org site.

We like our leaders dead!

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination has moved the world far more deeply than any other political murder of recent times.

The US-based New American Media, which caters especially to the needs of ethnic minorities in that country, carried several reports that looked at how people in different countries reacted to it.

NAM editor Sandeep Roy recalled other assassinations that occurred in the region in a piece, carried under the telling title: We South Asian like our leaders dead. Benazir Bhutto not only redeemed herself but, in a way, the politics as well, he said.

News analyst Ketaki Gokhale pointed out that loggers in Pakistan were shocked by Benazir Bhutto’s the assassination of Benazir Bhutto but annoyed at Western attempts to turn her into Pakistan's Aung San Suu Kyi. See Today We Mourn, Tomorrow We Think of Politics: Pakistani Bloggers.

NAM Korean media monitor and editor Kenneth Kim said Bhutto’s assassination struck an unusual chord with Koreans. The outpouring of posts on Korean websites shows that Koreans, with their own history of military regimes, can readily empathize with the turbulence in Pakistan.

NAM Chinese media monitor Jun Wang noted that the Chinese government condemned the assassination but its reaction was a little different from the usual Chinese reactions to such tragedies and the Chinese Internet picked up on that. See Benazir's death resurrects ghosts in Asia.

Benazir Bhutto: the ride to death

Benazir Bhutto photographed on way to the Rawalpindi rally where she was assassinated

Pakistan People's Party chief Benazir Bhutto was shot and killed by a sniper in Rawalpindi on Thursday. Two of her close associates were critically injured in a blast that occurred at the same time.

She had a narrow escape eight weeks ago in a similar attack at Karachi when she returned to Pakistan after several years in exile.

Benazir Bhutto is believed to have been the US administration's choice for prime ministership. Apparently Parves Musharraf was ready to instal her in office. Her nomination papers for the elections were accepted while those of her chief rival, Pakistan Musl;im League chief Nawaz Sherif were rejected.

Both Bhutto and Sherif have served previously as Prime Minister. Sherif was inclined to keep out of the elections called by Musharraf but decided to contest as Bhutto was not ready to join the boycott.

Benazir Bhutto's elimination puts in jeoprady the electoral process which was supposed to pave the way for return of democracy.

See also IANS report: Benazir's day began in triumph, ended in assassination