VIEW: The blame game for BB’s murder

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VIEW: The blame game for BB’s murder —Ikram Sehgal

The media has not focused on the official line of responsibility that devolved on the federal secretary interior, at that time, Syed Kamal Shah. He was the focal point for ensuring the necessary security procedures

The UN Report has stated, “Responsibility for Ms Bhutto’s security on the day of her assassination rested with the federal government, the government of Punjab and the Rawalpindi district police. None of these entities took necessary measures to respond to the extraordinary, fresh and urgent security risks that they knew she faced.”

This is a very severe indictment; some names have been named and others not. Predictably, the Gilani government is very keen to establish that Musharraf and Musharraf’s government alone was responsible for Ms Benazir’s death. This is patently self-serving and no surprise that this campaign is being led by the two PPP leaders, Rehman Malik and Dr Babar Awan, who are in fact named in the UN Report for criminal negligence amounting to the death of their leader.

Musharraf’s government definitely failed in ensuring adequate measures to protect Ms Benazir, particularly when the October 18 blast had enormously raised the threat perception. To quote the UN Report further, “The federal government under General Musharraf, although fully aware of, and tracking, the serious threats to Ms Bhutto’s security, did little more than pass on those threats to her and provincial authorities and were not proactive in neutralising them or ensuring that the security provided was commensurate to the threats...Particularly inexcusable was the government’s failure to direct provincial authorities to provide Ms Bhutto the same stringent and specific security measures it ordered on October 22, 2007 for two other former prime ministers who belonged to the main political party supporting General Musharraf. This discriminatory treatment is profoundly troubling...”

The government’s intelligence agencies had intercepted messages that plans had been made by militants to assassinate the PPP leader. DG ISI Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj personally visited Ms Benazir the night before she died to dissuade her from going ahead with the Liaquat Bagh meeting. Obviously, the DG ISI would not have done so unless he had good reason. The prior warning makes those responsible for her safety doubly accountable. The Liaquat Bagh meeting had certainly sent up red flags all over. There are two ways in which Ms Benazir could have been eliminated in the circumstances that there were a number of interested parties who had reason and motive for her removal from the political scene: (1) someone ordered her assassination and/or (2) reduced the security cover around her, making it so weak and penetrable that any assassin could get through security cordons. While charging those down the line, who were physically responsible for Ms Benazir’s security in and around Liaquat Bagh as culpable, the primary responsibility still rests with those decision-makers who should have ensured the necessary instructions and that their subordinates were carrying them out, i.e. if they were given.

The media has not focused on the official line of responsibility that devolved on the federal secretary interior, at that time, Syed Kamal Shah. He was the focal point for ensuring the necessary security procedures. The UN report has mentioned that detailed security instructions had been issued by the federal secretary interior for the safety of two former prime ministers. Why were similar instructions not given to secure the person whose threat perception other than President Musharraf was highest, the one most likely to be targeted during the election campaign when security lines can easily be breached? Why did the then secretary interior fail to carry out his responsibility? Was he being ‘more’ loyal than the king in criminal neglect in not ensuring that security cover around Ms Benazir was tight?

Everyone knows that Lieutenant (retired) Hamid Nawaz, the then caretaker federal minister for interior, is an honourable and straightforward person. It is unthinkable that he would ever countenance such conduct. However, his input as caretaker minister, someone who was only going to be there for a short time, would be negligible. Knowing how bureaucracy functions, it is an even bet that the bureaucrats in his ministry would keep him outside the loop, letting him know only those things that would be otherwise impossible to hide. It is clear that, for some reason, only lip service was given to Ms Benazir’s protection. Unless someone is criminally indicted and held accountable for the security lapse, what is the incentive for them to come out with the truth? It may be also useful to ascertain the source of their present wealth. What lottery did they win as lifelong bureaucrats?

Courtiers always fall over themselves to do the bidding either of the ruler or the ruler to be. To quote Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, “You give way to the king’s requests. You open the way to his desires, this is what a courtier does.” Musharraf’s cousin, Major General Nadeem Ijaz, Director General Military Intelligence, virtually used to run things for him, mostly (as he thought fit) without any reference to Musharraf. While one cannot believe he gave Saud Aziz orders to hose down the location of assassination, thereby destroying the forensic evidence, he has much else to answer for, particularly about missing persons. Brigadier Ijaz Shah, the Director General Intelligence Bureau, was also a law unto himself and Major General Nusrat Naeem, the deputy director general ISI (at the time) similarly was a law unto himself. Both owed their rank and appointment wholly and solely to Musharraf. They certainly have reason to be questioned.

Musharraf had a number of things to answer for while in power, but one can hardly believe he would have ever given any instructions to eliminate Ms Benazir. He could be vindictive but that was mostly out of ‘inferiority complex’ like in the case of Lieutenant General Ali Kuli of whom he remained jealous throughout his life. Bodily harm was not in his nature (unless of course it became a matter of life and death as it became for General Zia in the case of Zulfikar Bhutto). Among all of Musharraf’s cronies, Ijaz Shah is the one who must come under detailed scrutiny as Musharraf’s civilian intelligence chief. He was (and is) capable of anything. He has a proven record of using his office to subvert the laws of the land. The problem is that his knowledge of the involvement of many of our current lot of politicians, both in and out of government, in many misdemeanours, may keep him safe from being investigated.

This could be a case of “who will rid me of this mad priest?” However, there are no hints of any such signals by Musharraf to any of his subordinates, incidentally some of them very close to him, if they were guilty of acting on their own to protect the interests of their boss (and directly their own), but without his knowledge. At the most, the junior flunkies can be charged with inefficiency. It is always in the order of things in Pakistan to give up for sacrifice those far lower down the order in order to protect the really guilty ones.

One thing is very surprising, even shocking. Both Musharraf and the PPP leadership need to answer this. Why was Syed Kamal Shah, who failed to do his job, a favourite son of both Musharraf and Rehman Malik? Why not ask Brigadier Muhammad Taj, SJ and Bar, one of Pakistan’s most decorated soldiers, why he almost put Kamal Shah, one of his company commanders, on ‘adverse report’ in 1973?

The very puzzling question is, why was he, primarily and directly, responsible for Ms Benazir’s lax security cover, consequently leading to her murder? He was first given indefinite extension in service by Musharraf, and subsequently by the PPP government when they took over, then given an extension of service by the Gilani government on the strong recommendations of his new boss, Rehman Malik. And why did Rehman Malik continue to protect him during the course of the UN enquiry? One can disagree with Musharraf on a number of things, but he can hardly be indicted as being either complicit or ordering Ms Bhutto’s murder. However, the fact does remain that he made an agreement with her and he was absolutely in power. He bears both official and moral responsibility for not ensuring foolproof security when he very well knew that she was going to be repeatedly targeted, and because of the election circuit, very vulnerable. The question is, were his handpicked bureaucrats in the federal interior ministry and his die-hard supporters among the intelligence agencies just covering their tracks for any future enquiry by doing routine lip-service actions, and yet not really protecting her? They did not murder BB, but they have certainly got away scot-free with complicity in the murder of one of this nation’s greatest assets. There is no accountability in Pakistan for those who have wealth and/or connections.

The PPP government is right; someone has to answer for the murder of their leader. For the sake of the country they should not play politics but must get it right.

The writer is a defence and political analyst. He can reached at ikram.sehgal@pk.g4s.com