Pakistan Requests British Help in Bhutto Inquiry

Pakistan Requests British Help in Bhutto Inquiry


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By CARLOTTA GALL and GRAHAM BOWLEY
Published: January 3, 2008


President Pervez Musharraf addressed the nation in a recorded speech in Islamabad on Wednesday.
The decision to request outside help with the inquiry into Ms. Bhutto’s death appeared to be an attempt to deflect some of the withering criticism that has been building inside and outside Pakistan about the competence and objectivity of the investigation, and the government’s explanation about how Ms. Bhutto died.
In the address, Mr. Musharraf defended the decision announced earlier Wednesday by Pakistan’s election commission to postpone parliamentary elections until Feb. 18, six weeks later than originally scheduled, saying the delay was unavoidable because of the destruction caused by the post-assassination riots in Sindh Province, the political base of Ms. Bhutto.
One of the main opposition leaders, Nawaz Sharif, said his party was opposed to the postponement of elections but he stopped short of calling for street action. “We do not accept this decision,” he said by telephone from Lahore. “We will discuss the mode of protest of the party.”
Senior Bush administration officials and American lawmakers from both parties had privately been urging Mr. Musharraf to allow international involvement in the inquiry into Ms. Bhutto’s death to help tamp down civil unrest since the assassination and to give the inquiry credibility with Ms. Bhutto’s family and supporters.
“We have decided to request a team from Scotland Yard,” Mr. Musharraf said. “This team will work on the case and solve all the issues.”
Outrage continues in Pakistan over the Musharraf government’s assertion that Ms. Bhutto was not killed from gunfire or from shrapnel caused by a suicide bomber’s explosion, but from striking her head as she tried to duck into her car during the attack at a campaign rally last week.
Many of her supporters blame the government for her death, some accusing it of poor security and others of outright complicity.
In the televised address Wednesday, Mr. Musharraf blamed terrorists for Ms. Bhutto’s death and said he was personally saddened by it. They had long been implacable rivals.
Mr. Musharraf said he was grateful to the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, for Britain’s help in the investigation. Scotland Yard said in a statement that a small team of officers from its counter terrorism command would travel to Pakistan, but that the Pakistan authorities would lead the investigation.
The election commission announced that the new Feb. 18 election date was necessary because the riots had damaged some election commission offices and paralyzed parts of Sindh Province.
“The destruction that has happened, and the transport system completely destroyed and the law and order situation — because of these reasons the postponement is absolutely necessary and the decision by the election commission is absolutely proper and right,” Mr. Musharraf said.
Mr. Musharraf called for the elections to take place peacefully in February and asked the country to unite against what he said was the threat it faces from terrorists.
“This is a time for reconciliation, not for confrontation,” he said.
He dwelt for a large part of his speech on the damage left in the wake of the riots, which he said were in part politically motivated, and said troops would continue to be deployed in Sindh Province until after the elections. He said the authorities would react to any further violence with an “iron hand.”
The chief election commissioner, Qazi Muhammad Farooq, made the announcement about the new election date in the capital, Islamabad. He said the commission had made the decision after consulting political parties and the chief secretaries of Pakistan’s four provinces.
Mr. Farooq said a number of election commission offices had been burnt, and ballot papers, voting lists and election screens destroyed in the protests since Ms. Bhutto’s assassination.
They could not be replaced before Jan. 8, the date originally scheduled for the elections, Mr. Farooq said. Security in the country also remained unsteady and not conducive to elections, he said.

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“In all the four provinces, for some days this election process came to a complete halt,” Mr. Farooq told a news conference, Reuters reported. “Polling will now be held on Feb. 18 instead of Jan. 8.”
Some of the heaviest rioting has taken place in Sindh Province, where Ms. Bhutto’s hometown, Karachi, has been worst hit by the post-assassination violence.
Punjab Province and the North West Frontier Province have also suffered damage, and tensions remain high there, Mr. Farooq said.
The postponement until Feb. 18 will also not interfere with Muharram, the annual festival for Shiite Muslims that begins Jan. 10 and runs through Feb. 8. The festival is often an occasion for sectarian violence in Pakistan.
“I assure all political parties that the elections will be fair, free and transparent,” Mr. Farooq said, according to Agence France-Presse. “I appeal to them to accept this decision in the supreme national interest and participate fully.”
Despite their protests against the delayed vote, the two main opposition parties are still likely to contest the elections next month.
Opposition party members and Western diplomats have said the decision to push the election into February was largely meant by the government to deprive the opposition of a huge sympathy vote after Ms. Bhutto’s death.
Opposition officials have said the delay is an attempt by Mr. Musharraf to recoup some of his plummeting popularity and let the sympathy toward his critics diminish.
“Whatever reasons they give are such lame-duck excuses, because the electoral papers and lists were burnt in the districts but they have those lists in the central office,” said Farzana Raja, a spokeswoman for the Pakistan Peoples Party, the party that Ms. Bhutto used to lead, Reuters reported. “We reject their baseless excuses. We’re ready to fight the election.”
In the posh Clifton neighborhood of Karachi Wednesday, there was a shared cynicism about the reasons for delay and the fairness of the entire exercise.
“There’s a high probability it might be rigged,” said Fiza Asar, 23, who was shopping for a wedding present for a friend. Were it not for the vote-tampering concern, she said she was glad to see the elections postponed. Otherwise, had elections been held next week, there would have been a disproportionately high sympathy vote for Ms. Bhutto’s party, she said.
“We don’t believe it’s going to be a free election,” said Ajay Solani, 32, as he stood outside a cafe. He said he would have voted if Ms. Bhutto had been alive.
“There’s no Benazir Bhutto. We don’t have any belief in Zardari,” he said referring to Ms. Bhutto’s husband. He expected the government would delay polls yet again in the event of some other incident between now and Feb. 18.
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Carlotta Gall reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Graham Bowley from New York. Jane Perlez contributed reporting from Lahore, Pakistan, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.
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