UN Comission Report on Benazir Bhutto Murder–>Initial response

United Nations has just released the report of UN fact-finding mission for Benazir Murder Case. Bhutto was killed in Rawalpindi in December 2007  during her election rally.

 

The commission headed by Heraldo Munoz, the U.N. representative from Chile, comments, “Bhutto’s assassination could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken.”

 

It also says :

 

 “The commission believes that the failure of the police to investigate effectively Ms. Bhutto’s assassination was deliberate.” Also, “ The officials, in part fearing intelligence agencies’ involvement, were unsure of how vigorously they ought to pursue actions, which they knew as professionals, they should have taken.” 

Note that the purpose of UN commission was fact-finding not fixing the responsibility. 

 

 

 

The main points are :

 

1 ) Musharraf government failed to provide proper security to Benazir Bhutto. The responsibility for this failure is on police and intelligence agencies including ISI,MI and IB.

2 ) Negotiations were going on between Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf but no agreement was made. Musharraf was not in favor of Benazir’s arrival in Pakistan at that time.

3 ) Musharraf government washed all the conclusive evidence. Only 23 pieces of evidence were provided and for this scale of incident usually thousands of pieces are preserved to investigate the truth.

4 ) The press conference of Brigadier Cheema of Interior Ministry was misleading in which responsibility was put on Baitullah Mehsud without investigation.

5 ) PPP’s own security team also failed to protect Benazir Bhutto despite PPP having so many people willing to give their lives for Bhutto.

6 ) Rehman Malik denied that he was responsible for Benazir’s physical security. UN commission finds Rehman Malik’s argument not factual as he was continuously in touch with establishment for Benazir’s security and was looking after the arrangements.

7 ) CPO Saud Aziz was responsible for not allowing the postmortem and washing the crime scene.

8 ) The car, in which Rehman Malik was sitting, left Benazir’s car alone which also decreased the level of security.

 

 

10 ) It is said that a 15 years old boy conducted the suicide blast but UN commission says a 15 years old boy cannot do all this alone. 

11 ) Threat to Benazir’s life was from Extremist elements but role of establishment cannot be overlooked in this. 

　 

Now few things which immediately come to my mind are: 

1) Why Musharraf was given a safe exit when even PPP workers think he was responsible for BB’s murder? Was it due to the fact that Mr. Zardari was one of the beneficiaries or it was due to some pressure? 

2) Why the key responsible persons continued to work on their positions without proper accountability during the government of PPP including interior ministry officers, police officers, intelligence agency officers including former DG MI Nadeem Ijaz, former ISI head and Vice Army Chief General Kiyani? 

3) Kiyani is now Army Chief and was representing Musharraf during NRO deal. Will he allow further investigation on the role of ISI, MI,Musharraf and Kiyani himself? 

4) In Rehman Malik’s car, two other persons were also sitting. These two persons are Babar Awan and Musharraf’s close friend and former Core Commander Mangla Lt. General (R) Tauqir Zia(who was also the Chairman PCB during Musharraf time). Will some probe them for their role and negligence? 

5) Why the government of Pakistan delayed UN Commission Report for 15 days (till 15th April 2010)? Even though UN Commission didn’t conduct any new interview after 31st March 2010 as opposite to the government’s claim that the Commission is requested to conduct few interviews. Rehman Malik even yesterday revised the same claim. 

6) Will this murder go into the dustbin of Waziristan or some serious investigations will be done to investigate this high-profile murder? 

 

Report can be downloaded from the link below:

http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/Pakistan/UN_Bhutto_Report_15April2010.pdf

 
Lets see if millions of dollars invested by a poor nation on this report will be of any use or not?

I hope some serious and independent investigation and trial will be conducted for this murder.

 

9 ) Commission didn’t find evidence against Asif Zardari’s and any of the family members’ involvement in this murder.

Two Thought Provoking Messages Of Quaid To Pakistani Nation.

” You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State “

- Quaid e Azam M. A. Jinnah on 11th August, 1947

“The adoption of Western economic theory and practice will not help us in achieving our goal of creating a happy and contended people. We must work our destiny in our own way and present to the world an economic system based on true Islamic concept of equality of manhood and social justice”

-Quaid e Azam M. A. Jinnah on the occasion of the Opening Ceremony of The State Bank of Pakistan on 1st July, 1948

Sanih e Mashriqi Pakistan–>Dr. AQ Khan on 1971 in Jang

Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan has written a must read thought provoking article on 1971 Independence of Bangladesh.

Monitoring by SC going on for years–>Ansar Abbasi report in The News

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=26187

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: The monitoring mechanism reflected in the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment for the accountability courts is well within the parameters of judicial functions of the Supreme Court and a practice that is going on for years.

However, the judgment has been grossly misinterpreted by some to show that it amounts to interference in the functions of the executive branch.

Independent sources in the Law Ministry confided to The News that all the special courts, set up in the past or are functioning right now in Pakistan, have been and are being monitored and supervised by the apex court, which adopts such monitoring mechanism to ensure that cases pending before the courts concerned do not get delayed unnecessarily.

The sources believe that those feeling uneasy with the monitoring mechanism announced in the Dec 16 judgment for the accountability courts are deliberately creating confusion to prove this judgment as a move by judiciary to interfere in the executive functions.

These sources said such elements are said to be oblivious of the fact that a similar monitoring mechanism is working in the apex court for anti-terrorist courts.

Even for high courts and the subordinate judiciary, a comprehensive monitoring mechanism is presently in place as part of the national judicial policy to ensure quick disposal of cases and to clear the backlog.

Following the government’s complaint that the terrorism cases are not timely pursued and result in increase in terrorism, the present Supreme Court under Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had set up an effective monitoring system to keep a vigilant eye on the anti-terrorist courts so that no unnecessary delay could occur in such cases.

Under this monitoring scheme, Justice Javed Iqbal serves as a monitor for anti-terrorism courts of Sindh; Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday oversees the ATCs in Frontier; Justice Nasirul Mulk supervises the Balochistan ATCs; and Justice Sardar Raza Khan is monitoring the performance of the Punjab ATCs.

Neither anyone had objected to this monitoring mechanism for the ATCs nor was any objection raised for such overseeing strategies adopted in the past for the special courts during the last three decades. However, the sources said a vested interest group is deliberately trying to create confusion for the monitoring mechanism evolved for the accountability courts by the Supreme Court.

In its latest judgment, which has unnerved many powerful and mighty in the government, the Supreme Court clearly said this mechanism is evolved to “monitor the progress and the proceedings in (NAB) cases”.

Since the NRO beneficiaries and their sympathisers were generally complaining that the cases terminated under the condemned NRO remained undecided for over 10 years, this mechanism was evolved to address these complaints and ensure the NAB accused get quick justice.

The NAB has been condemned by the NRO beneficiaries while the Supreme Court also found its incumbent chairman, the prosecutor general and the deputy prosecutor general incompetent. Therefore, the apex court judgment directed the Bureau to transmit periodical reports of the actions taken by them with regard to NAB cases to the Monitoring Cell of the apex court set up following the same order.

Interestingly, similar directions were given to all the provincial governments under the national judicial policy to ensure that the challans in criminal cases, pending before the lower or superior judiciary, are submitted by prosecution within the stipulated time period to avoid unnecessary delays in dispensing justice.

NRO Trashed By Supreme Court

In a remarkable judgment by 17 member bench headed by Iftikhar Chaudhary, Supreme Court of Pakistan has declared NRO as unconstitutional from the day of issuance.

As a result of this judgment all the cases closed by NRO are reinstated on the positions of 5th October, the day General (R) Musharraf issued the order of National Reconciliation Ordnance (NRO).

According to the judgment of SC 17 member bench the NRO is contrary to the equality of all citizens in front of the law guaranteed by the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan.

The historic judgment also says:

1) All the High Courts will make sure that cases reopened by this judgment get a fair trial, proper investigation and proper legal procedure.

2) Government is responsible to pursue the cases in Swiss court against Asif Ali Zardari and team.

3) NAB Chairman, Prosecutor General and Deputy Prosecutor General to be sacked and replaced by some other persons.

4) Government needs to take action against former Attorney General, Justice (R) Malik Qayum for writing unauthorized letter to Swiss court to withdraw cases against Asif Zardari.

During the proceedings Chief Justice also made clear that even parliament has no right to change the basic structure of the constitution.

The court has also shown displeasure on Acting Attorney General Shah Khawar and said he hide the truth.

The judgment is welcomed by a majority of legal community and civil society considering it another milestone towards to goal of real independent judiciary and rule of law.

It seems we have not learned the lesson from our history–>16 December 1971

History teaches lots of lessons and nations which don’t learn from it often become a forgotten part of it.
Below are the words of Hamood ur Rehman commission report. The commission was made to investigate the 1971 Fall of Dhaka or Independence of Bangladesh. As Bangladesh is a sovereign state now and we wish best of luck to them on their independence day.

“Indiscriminate killing and looting could only serve the cause of the enemies of Pakistan. In the harshness, we lost the support of the silent majority of the people of East Pakistan.” Hamood-ur-Rehman Commission Report on 1971

It seems we have not learned the lesson from our history and still repeating it in NWFP,Baluchistan and FATA.