A Multi-Layered Tragedy.

Even those of us sharply critical of Benazir Bhutto's behaviour andpolicies--both while she was in office and more recently--are stunned andangered by her death. Indignation and fear stalk the country once again.

An odd coexistence of military despotism and anarchy created the conditionsleading to her assassination in Rawalpindi yesterday. In the past, military rulewas designed to preserve order--and did so for a few years. No longer. Today itcreates disorder and promotes lawlessness. How else can one explain the sackingof the chief justice and eight other judges of the country's supreme court forattempting to hold the government's intelligence agencies and the policeaccountable to courts of law? Their replacements lack the backbone to doanything, let alone conduct a proper inquest into the misdeeds of the agenciesto uncover the truth behind the carefully organised killing of a major politicalleader.

How can Pakistan today be anything but a conflagration of despair? It isassumed that the killers were jihadi fanatics. This may well be true, but werethey acting on their own?

Benazir, according to those close to her, had been tempted to boycott thefake elections, but she lacked the political courage to defy Washington. She hadplenty of physical courage, and refused to be cowed by threats from localopponents. She had been addressing an election rally in Liaquat Bagh. This is apopular space named after the country's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan,who was killed by an assassin in 1953. The killer, Said Akbar, was immediatelyshot dead on the orders of a police officer involved in the plot. Not far fromhere, there once stood a colonial structure where nationalists were imprisoned.This was Rawalpindi jail. It was here that Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,was hanged in April 1979. The military tyrant responsible for his judicialmurder made sure the site of the tragedy was destroyed as well.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's death poisoned relations between his Pakistan People'sparty and the army. Party activists, particularly in the province of Sind, werebrutally tortured, humiliated and, sometimes, disappeared or killed.

Pakistan's turbulent history, a result of continuous military rule andunpopular global alliances, confronts the ruling elite now with serious choices.They appear to have no positive aims. The overwhelming majority of the countrydisapproves of the government's foreign policy. They are angered by its lack ofa serious domestic policy except for further enriching a callous and greedyelite that includes a swollen, parasitic military. Now they watch helplessly aspoliticians are shot dead in front of them.

Benazir had survived the bomb blast yesterday but was felled by bullets firedat her car. The assassins, mindful of their failure in Karachi a month ago, hadtaken out a double insurance this time. They wanted her dead. It is impossiblefor even a rigged election to take place now. It will have to be postponed, andthe military high command is no doubt contemplating another dose of army rule ifthe situation gets worse, which could easily happen.

What has happened is a multilayered tragedy. It's a tragedy for a country ona road to more disasters. Torrents and foaming cataracts lie ahead. And it is apersonal tragedy. The house of Bhutto has lost another member. Father, two sonsand now a daughter have all died unnatural deaths.

I first met Benazir at her father's house in Karachi when she was afun-loving teenager, and later at Oxford. She was not a natural politician andhad always wanted to be a diplomat, but history and personal tragedy pushed inthe other direction. Her father's death transformed her. She had become a newperson, determined to take on the military dictator of that time. She had movedto a tiny flat in London, where we would endlessly discuss the future of thecountry. She would agree that land reforms, mass education programmes, a healthservice and an independent foreign policy were positive constructive aims andcrucial if the country was to be saved from the vultures in and out of uniform.Her constituency was the poor, and she was proud of the fact.

She changed again after becoming prime minister. In the early days, we wouldargue and in response to my numerous complaints--all she would say was that theworld had changed. She couldn't be on the "wrong side" of history. Andso, like many others, she made her peace with Washington. It was this thatfinally led to the deal with Musharraf and her return home after more than adecade in exile. On a number of occasions she told me that she did not feardeath. It was one of the dangers of playing politics in Pakistan.

It is difficult to imagine any good coming out of this tragedy, but there isone possibility. Pakistan desperately needs a political party that can speak forthe social needs of a bulk of the people. The People's party founded by ZulfikarAli Bhutto was built by the activists of the only popular mass movement thecountry has known: students, peasants and workers who fought for three months in1968-69 to topple the country's first military dictator. They saw it as theirparty, and that feeling persists in some parts of the country to this day,despite everything.

Benazir's horrific death should give her colleagues pause for reflection. Tobe dependent on a person or a family may be necessary at certain times, but itis a structural weakness, not a strength for a political organisation. ThePeople's party needs to be refounded as a modern and democratic organisation,open to honest debate and discussion, defending social and human rights, unitingthe many disparate groups and individuals in Pakistan desperate for any halfwaydecent alternative, and coming forward with concrete proposals to stabiliseoccupied and war-torn Afghanistan. This can and should be done. The Bhuttofamily should not be asked for any more sacrifices.

Tariq Ali's book The Duel: Pakistan on the Flightpath of American Poweris published in 2008