Benazir Bhutto assination attempt

[steeljack]

Just wondeirng if any local members/users of the Accy web-site have any comments on the news reports about the attempted assination of Benazir Bhutto.
I think it would really be helpfull to local users of the group if someone who has links/ideas to events going on in Pakistan today could give us an idea about whats going on in that part of the world ,
example ....do the local expatriate Pakistani community support Benazir Bhutto or do they think she is a tool of the 'west' ?
Please let us know ......thanks

[beechy]

a suicide bomber attempts to kill benazir bhutto ?
the lady was at the front of the crowd walking in so called adoration
a lone bomber drives in at the back of the parade and
attempts to assisinate bhutto killing 126 people on the way
im rather cynical

[mani]

most brit-asians see Bhutto is a corrupt and a sell out - not to the west but to money itself. yeah there are those that think the sun shines outta her rear but thats a whole different thing. the amount of money she took out of the state from its coffers during her two reigns as prime minister is shocking. you dont start opening swiss bank accounts to hide £3.50! her husband was known as mr 10% after the well known allegation that any contract their govt awarded to any company 10% of it had to go to him. rare marble slabs to be imported from pakistan dont come cheap!

its a well known fact that pakistan doesnt seem to run itself these days - the great empire known as the usa has very influential fingers in very high places. its been allowing the president to remain the head of the army and be the president at the same time despite it being against the law. the pres goes heavy on the islamic fundamentalists in the lawless northern region of pakistan and in return the usa turns its back on any calls for democracy to be bought in. however recent times have meant that hte public have been turnin against all of this esp recently after the pres told soliders to storm the red mosque in islamabad where fundamentalists were hiding out.

so sending soliders into places of worship is not exactly a popular thing in the sub-continent as indira gandi found out to her misfortune when she sent soliders to storm the golden temple and that resulted in her assasination by her own sikh bodyguards. so now that the people were turnin against the pres the usa govt decided lets give them what they want - an elected prime minister to run the country.

now the president initially held a very heavy weight view that if butto ever came to pakistan she wud b charged for the crimes of corruption, arrested and sentanced. but times change and the usa bashed out a deal whereby all charges would be dropped, bhutto would become the democratically elected prime minister and the president wud remain and remain in charge of the army too.

so cue forward to her arrival and the bomb blasts. i'm actually surprised she went for its the former military people who killed my father stance rather than the al-qaeda/islamists thing. i do think its rather strange when she'd been standing on the truck for 6 hrs, 10 mins b4 the bombs went off she went inside? none of her senior people were wounded or killed. she says she went to work on a speech she'd already written - and being a harvard and oxford grad how much more work was to be done?

surely if you know your a high risk target the last thing you do is go into a place where its going to be a crowd of people around you.

the thing is she's sorta seen as the political princess of pakistan. her father a former leader gets over thrown by the military and for corruption and the attempted murder of an opponent - he gets hanged and she goes into exile which only ends when the military leader dies in dodgy circumstances. she returns to claim the throne her father once had *and gets removed from it twice for corruption* - its all very nice as a story in a book but the reality stinks.

[steeljack]

thanks for the input Mani , just a couple of questions
#1, it was reported she was on her way from the airport to the grave/tomb of Ali Jinna (first Prime Minister/President of independant Pakistan) is she related to him ?
#2 , any idea which form of Islam she follows ...Shia , Sunni, Ismali ?

thanks

[mani]

1) no

just a Google Page Ranking thing - its like tony blair goin to waterloo or agincourt to make a speech. its all about the heartstrings the connotations that it gives goin there and makin the speech from there - that its a rebirth of a nation etc

i think she's shia - her father was one and thus she would be one unless she's specifically changed though i doubt that. the thing is with musharaff being sunni and she shia u can appease both sides of the group which may otherwise be not willing to talk. the shia's can be very volatile in pakistan as they're a minority so thus willing to take up arms much more quickly.