Bhutto’s Party To Seek UN Probe
Mark Bandeich reports for Reuters that Benazir Bhutto’s party, the Pakistan People’s Party, will “call on the United Nations for an inquiry into her assassination if it forms a government after elections next month.”
The reason is that they don’t trust the Musharraf government any longer since “[t]he government’s position on the assassination has been shifting from day to day,” as Farhatullah Babar, a senior official in Bhutto’s party said.
Last week Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf said that Scotland Yard would help with the investigation. Several British investigators already arrived in Pakistan at the end of last week and started working. Bhutto’s party isn’t satisfied with that however and wants the UN to start an investigation similar to the one it started with regards to former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri death.
Although it seems completely logical to me that Musharraf would rather have his own investigators and the Scotland Yard team work on this case, it would be a sign of reconciliation if he would comply and perhaps even support the wish of the PPP to get the UN involved. As it is trust is lacking in Pakistan. The only way for Musharraf to convince people to trust him is by doing everything in his power to find out what happened to Bhutto and to punish those responsible for her death.
In the meantime, tensions are rising between the US and Pakistan. The New York Times – in what’s becoming a habit – published an article yesterday about secret plans of the CIA to do something about Al Qaeda in Pakistan. In response, Pakistan government spokesman Waheed Arshad said that “it isn’t the American but the Pakistani government that is responsible for this country.”
He added that there are no covert US operations in his country and that Pakistan won’t allow the US to send military forces either.
“Such reports miss all factual basis,” Arshad said.
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