Despite London’s Metropolitan Police Force, known as Scotland Yard from its original headquarters in the yard of the Scottish Office in Whitehall, being a somewhat devalued brand in the U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has offered its services to the Pakistani government to assist with the “investigation” into the murder of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist or indeed a Pakistani nuclear scientist to come to the conclusion that the 5 Scotland Yard investigators who have flown out to “assist” will have their work cut out and be somewhat challenged to “solve” this case.
For instance where have you seen a crime scene being preserved by being hosed down by the local fire service? Or indeed seen journalists, not the police, gather the video evidence which shows Benazir Bhutto being shot by TWO gunmen and falling back through the sunroof of her armoured vehicle before the suicide bomber killed the assassins and 20 others with his bomb? And then there is the small question that for this, the second gravest assassination in Pakistan’s troubled history, no autopsy was carried out on Benazir Bhutto. So in all probability, in this only slightly competent country, there is no forensic evidence from the crime scene, little corroborating evidence from media sources and no definite cause of death or evidence from the body. So no clue as to whether the explosive used was from a military source, whether the detonator was homemade, what guns the bullets came from, whether the guns had been used in other crimes, the identity of the assassins, their families, their previous movements and associates, whether money was paid, their support structure, etc; etc; In short very thin gruel indeed to feed the investigation or to point fingers. It would take a very creative Scene of Crime Officer to produce evidence from this mess, even in a country with a huge and powerful intelligence service and “traditional policing” to which America has rendered suspects.
Following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani government initially said there was no need for outside help with the investigation into the murder. Now the government has performed an apparent U-turn, with President Pervez Musharraf saying on Wednesday that the UK would be sending investigators from Scotland Yard to help in the inquiry. It will not be the first time Scotland Yard has come to the help of Pakistan after an assassination.
But will the UK detectives have more joy than their predecessors, for the history does not breed confidence?
Back in 1951 Pakistan asked the UK for help after the country's first Prime Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, was shot dead in a park in Rawalpindi, the former British Raj’s garrison town which is the headquarters of Pakistan's military, and the site of Army House, where Musharraf lives (and where he has refused to leave, even though he has stepped down as head of the Army).
The park was renamed Liaqat Bagh (park) in his honour. Fifty-six years later it was in this same park that Ms Bhutto's attacker, or attackers, struck. The similarities between 1951 and December 2007 go beyond location. After Mr Khan's death, many opposition leaders said outside investigators were needed because they believed that some government officials were themselves involved in the murder conspiracy. As in the case of Ms Bhutto, the government back in 1951 initially rejected outside help before agreeing that an expert from Scotland Yard come to Pakistan. But for reasons never disclosed, the British investigator was asked to leave Pakistan only few weeks into his investigations. The Pakistani authorities never revealed anything about the investigation.
Move on four and a half decades to September, 1996 when another politician was killed outside his home in Karachi and the demand for help from Scotland Yard was again heard in the country. This time the dead politician was Murtaza Bhutto, the brother of Benazir Bhutto. Ms Bhutto was at that time prime minister and she enlisted the help of British Home Office forensic experts and former experts of Scotland Yard. But not long after the President, Farooq Leghari, sacked Ms Bhutto's government, which stood charged with corruption, and Mr Leghari sent the British experts back home.
The Scotland Yard detectives heading out for Pakistan do not face the easiest of tasks. No one can even agree as to whether a gunman shot Ms Bhutto. Her widower, Asif Zardari, is against exhuming the body to resolve the dispute. He ruled out an autopsy, suggesting that the results would be manipulated.
The detectives are unlikely to make much progress from the scene of the crime and a major question to be answered is how much co-operation the British detectives will get from the various police and intelligence organisations in Pakistan, some of whose members may be far from inclined to want to work with foreign police.
Bhutto's death has been a terrible shock to Pakistan, but it is hard to say that it is a surprise. As a woman, and from the poorer province of the Sindh rather than the Punjab heartland of Pakistan's establishment, she seemed to hold out the hope of turning Pakistan into a more modern country, although corruption charges from her two spells as Prime Minister were still simmering in Swiss courts. When she returned after eight years abroad, in flight from corruption charges, many reckoned that her life expectancy could be measured in weeks if not hours.
President Musharraf angrily denied allegations that he or his Government was behind Ms Bhutto’s death and said that the British detectives would be able to examine fresh evidence. In this I for one believe him as he has angrily protested that he is not tribal or feudal and had nothing to gain from Mrs. Bhutto’s death. This at least is self evident.
Since its traumatic independence in 1947 with the disastrous partition of British India and the assassination of its first Prime Minister democracy has not taken root in Pakistan with the military strangling democratic development (and hanging the only Prime Minister regarded as being fairly elected - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979). Pakistan has degenerated into a poorly run and performing country in thrall to a powerful and self serving military, feudalism and corruption. Pakistan has remained since independence an impoverished and underdeveloped country, suffering from decades of internal political disputes, low levels of foreign investment, and a costly, ongoing confrontation with neighbouring India. Its GDP per capita is a lowly 2,600 dollars (IMF 2006) compared to 3,800 in neighbouring India and beneath the Islamic platitudes it has not been competent in providing for the vast majority of its people. Indeed the country for all its pretensions is only kept solvent by foreign aid and remittances from overseas Pakistani’s who thrive when they leave their homeland.
PPP officials and Bhutto family members say that the ISI and the Army stood to lose money and power if Ms Bhutto became Prime Minister. Pakistan has received at least $10 billion in military aid from the United States since 2001, which was supposed to be used for the campaign against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, but has not been rigorously accounted for. Critics say much of it has been diverted into private pockets or towards other projects, such as upgrading forces on the Indian border. Proponents of this theory cite the appearance of the gunman, who does not look like a typical Islamist militant and appears to have had some weapons training, but they have yet to present any harder evidence.
Whatever the truth and whatever Benazir Bhutto’s deficiencies her brutal assassination is a great setback and today Pakistan, the sixth most populous country in the world with the second largest Muslim population, is staring into the abyss with no obvious way forward. All this is a far cry from the hopes invested at independence in 1947.
Indeed, we must wonder how a westernised Shia Muslim lawyer descended from Rajput Hindus and married to a Parsi would fare in today’s Pakistan by standing on a platform and declaring:
“If we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor... you are free - you are free to go to your temples mosques or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state... in due course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims - not in a religious sense for that is the personal faith of an individual - but in a political sense as citizens of one state.”
Muhammad Ali Jinnah – Inaugurating the Pakistan Constituent Assembly. 11th August 1947
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