Tariq Ali in the London Review of Books:
'To recapitulate. After Benazir Bhutto was assassinated last December,
her will was read out to the family’s assembled political retainers. Her
19-year-old son, Bilawal, inherited the Pakistan People's Party, but until
he came of age her husband, Asif Zardari, would act as regent. The
general election, postponed following her death, took place in February.
The immediate impact of the stunning electoral defeat suffered by
General Musharraf's political party and his factotums was to dispel the disillusionment of the citizenry. Not for long. 'Musharraf is still clinging on to the presidency; Zardari is running the
government with the help of his old cronies; the judges dismissed by
Musharraf have still not been reinstated; the economy is a mess; and
the US Air Force has started dropping bombs on the North-West
Frontier Province again. Poor Pakistan.'
July 17, 2008
Tariq Ali’s new book, The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American
Power, will be published by Simon and Schuster in September.
Robert Fisk in The Independent:
'Only a few days ago - in one of the most remarkable (but typically
unrecognised) scoops of the year - Tariq Ali published a brilliant
dissection of Pakistan (and Bhutto) corruption in the London Review
of Books, focusing on Benazir and headlined: Daughter of the West.
In fact, the article was on my desk to photocopy as its subject was
being murdered in Rawalpindi.
'Towards the end of this report, Tariq Ali dwelt at length on the
subsequent murder of Murtaza Bhutto by police close to his home at
a time when Benazir was prime minister - and at a time when Benazir
was enraged at Murtaza for demanding a return to PPP values and
for condemning Benazir's appointment of her own husband as minister
for industry, a highly lucrative post.
'In a passage which may yet be applied to the aftermath of Benazir's December 29, 2007
murder, the report continues: "The fatal bullet had been fired at close
range. The trap had been carefully laid, but, as is the way in Pakistan,
the crudeness of the
evidence, witnesses arrested and intimidated - a policeman killed who
they feared might talk - made it obvious that the decision to execute
the prime minister's brother had been taken at a very high level."'
