DarkTimes - 24Hr Global News Blog

The unrest and political turmoil prevailing in the country is badly jeopardising the events related to sports in general and the cricket activities in particular. The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy successfully completed its ten rounds. The situation that worsened after the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, however, compelled the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to call off the eleventh round and postpone the matches played all over the country to a later date.

The next event that causes a major worry to the whole nation is a question mark on the Australian Team’s tour of Pakistan scheduled for March-April 2008. This being the Australia’s tour of Pakistan after a lapse of ten years, the millions of cricket fans are over-anxious to watch them in action. Since the tour is still about ten weeks away it is expected that the Australians will not deprive our cricket fans of the excitement that they have waited since long. While Cricket Australia has no plans of calling off the tour, it is quite likely that around half a dozen super stars will not accompany the squad. Considering it as their right to do so, the Australian Cricketers’ Association has decided to support the players.

Living in a paradox skipper Shoaib Malik plans to approach the top Australian players on personal net in a bid to ease their minds about conditions in Pakistan and to convince them to play the series. He wants to speak to them on phone and tell them that: “we will have good security for you.” I feel Shoaib is too small in stature to convince them. The postponement of general elections has further aggravated the situation. The Australians had planned to send their security mission after the elections. With elections now set for February 18, it would only leave a fortnight between the country going to polls and the Australian team’s arrival. They feel it would give Australia’s security mission little time to make its assessment and be able to sanction the tour. Former captain turned politician Imran Khan feels that “the cricketers are not under any threat. The Australia’s tour of Pakistan should go ahead”. Let us hope the PCB convinces the Aussies on this point.

Pakistan being the land of chronic political problems, there were occasions in the past when we had to play such series on neutral grounds in neighbouring countries. Way back in 2002 on account of the security fears sparked in the aftermath of 9/11 when Australia refused to tour Pakistan, the series was played in Colombo. Earlier in the same year, the West Indies refused to play in Pakistan and the matches were shifted to Sharjah. New Zealand had to cut short its trip to Pakistan as the result of a bomb blast outside their hotel in Karachi in May 2002. South Africa, India and England refused to play Test matches in Karachi between 2003 and 2005 due to blasts and security fears in the city. The most recent case was of a one day international against South Africa that was shifted from Karachi after Benazir Bhutto survived a bomb blast on October 18. It may also be noted that for the last many years we have not staged an international match in Peshawar due to the fears caused by unrest in Afghanistan and some parts of NWFP. PCB chief Nasim Ashraf has, however, ruled out any chance of staging the forthcoming series at a neutral venue.

The Australia tour being still away, the Zimbabwe cricketers are scheduled to land in Karachi on January 12 to play a series of five ODIs. There appears to be no reluctance on their part to visit Pakistan although the PCB is prepared to reschedule the tour in view of change in the election date if required. The people of advanced countries, having a relatively peaceful atmosphere, are not tuned to the way of life in politically disturbed regions. In contrast, in the under-developed or politically unstable countries the violence, riots, disturbances and even blasts are a part of daily life. Their people thus possess much stronger nerves to face all sorts of troubles. I remember during the World Cup 1996 there was a bomb blast in Colombo where the Australians and the West Indies were scheduled to play their match. Both the teams were so scared that they refused to go there. Since Sri Lanka had made all the preparations and sold out tickets in full, the match could not be cancelled. After deliberations on the subject, the two organising countries India and Pakistan decided to send their teams to fill the vacuum. The teams played the match and returned safely.

The year 2007 having passed we have stepped into 2008 with high spirits, fresh hopes and aspirations. A cursory glance over the performance of our cricket team during the past year will show that with no laurels worth the name, the defeats and disappointments reigned supreme. The nation’s aspirations were shattered when our team crashed out in the preliminary round of the World Cup at the hands of a team whose name was never heard before. The team, however, managed to win an ODI series against Sri Lanka before it lost the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup final to India. As for the Test series Pakistan lost all the three series, two against South Africa (home and away) and one against archrivals India on their soil. They also lost the ODI series both against South Africa and India. As per statistics for the past year, out of 8 Test matches Pakistan were successful in only one match, while they won 8 ODIs out of 23. Bangladesh with 34.78 percent and Ireland with 30.55 percent are the two teams below Pakistan. This is certainly a deplorable performance. Our team’s poor performance during the year brought them down to an all time low in ICC rankings: number 6. It is high time for the PCB to improve the falling standard of the national cricket team.

Assassination of prominent political leaders, presumably protected by the best security, is no easy thing. It requires agencies of professional intelligence training to ensure that the job is done and that no person is caught alive who can lead to those behind. Typically, from the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo in July 1914 to US president John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963, the person pulling the trigger is just an instrument of a far deeper conspiracy. So too in the assassination on December 27 of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Cui bono (To whose benefit)?

What was behind the murder of Bhutto at the moment her Pakistan People's Party appeared about to win a resounding
election victory in the planned January 8 elections (now postponed to February 18), thereby posing a mass-based challenge to the dictatorial rule of President Pervez Musharraf?

Musharraf's government was indecently quick to blame "al-Qaeda". Musharraf just days after declared he was "sure" al-Qaeda was the author, even though, on US pressure, he has asked Scotland Yard to come and investigate. "I want to say it with certainty, that these people [al-Qaeda] martyred ... Benazir Bhutto," Musharraf said in a January 3 televised address. He named Baitullah Mehsud, a militant tribal chief fighting the Pakistani Army, who has alleged ties to al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. Mehsud denied the charge. Had he been behind such a dramatic event, the desired propaganda impact among militant Islamists would require taking open responsibility instead.

By linking the Bhutto killing to al-Qaeda, Musharraf conveniently gains several goals. First, he reinforces the myth of al-Qaeda, something very useful to Washington at this time of growing global skepticism over the real intent of its "war on terror", making Musharraf more valuable to Washington. Second, it gives Musharraf a plausible scapegoat to blame for the convenient elimination of a serious political rival to his consolidation of one-man rule.

Notable also is the fact that the Musharraf regime has rejected making a routine autopsy on Bhutto's body. Bhutto publicly charged that the government had refused to make follow-up inquiries after the October bombing which nearly killed her and did 134 followers near her car. Bhutto accused the Pakistani authorities of not providing her with sufficient security, and hinted that they may have been complicit in the Karachi attack.

She also made clear in a British television interview shortly before her death that she would clean out the Pakistan military and security services of corrupt and Islamist elements. In the same David Frost interview, Bhutto also dropped the explosive news that Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar had killed Osama bin Laden some while back. That fact would make the alleged bin Laden terror videos periodically delivered to Western media clear as forgeries.

Days after the Bhutto killing, Pakistani authorities published a photo alleged to be of the severed head of the suicide bomber who killed Bhutto. Severed heads, like Lee Harvey Oswald (Kennedy's assassin) don't talk or say embarrassing things.

It has been known for months that the George W Bush administration has been maneuvering to strengthen its political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the "war on terror" across the region.

Who was Bhutto?
The Bhutto family was itself hardly democratic, drawing its core from feudal landowning families, but opposed to the commanding role of the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence. Succeeding her father as head of the Pakistan People's Party, Benazir declared herself "chairperson for life" - a position she held until her death.

Bhutto's husband, Ali Zardari, "Mr 10%", is known in Pakistan for his allegedly demanding a 10% cut from major government contracts when Benazir was premier. In 2003, Benazir and her husband were convicted in Switzerland of money laundering and taking bribes from Swiss companies. The family is allegedly worth several billions. As prime minister from 1993 to 1996, she advocated a conciliatory policy toward Islamists, especially the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Harvard-educated Benazir had close ties to US and British intelligence as well. She used the offices of neo-conservative US Congressman Tom Lantos when she was in Washington, according to informed reports, one reason Vice President Dick Cheney backed her as a "safe" way to save his Pakistan strategic alliance in the face of growing popular protest against Musharraf's declaring martial law last year.

The ploy was to have Bhutto make a face-saving deal with Musharraf to put a democratic face on the dictatorship, while Washington maintained its strategic control. According to the Washington Post of December 28, "For Benazir Bhutto, the decision to return to Pakistan was sealed during a telephone call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just a week before Bhutto flew home in October. The call culminated more than a year of secret diplomacy - and came only when it became clear that the heir to Pakistan's most powerful political dynasty was the only one who could bail out Washington's key ally in the battle against terrorism ... As President Pervez Musharraf's political future began to unravel this year, Bhutto became the only politician who might help keep him in power."

In November, John Negroponte, former Bush administration intelligence czar and now deputy secretary of state, was deployed to Islamabad to pressure Musharraf to ease the situation by holding elections and forming a power-sharing administration with Bhutto. But once in Pakistan, where her supporters were mobilized, Bhutto made clear she would seek an election coalition to openly oppose Musharraf and military rule in the planned elections.

A cynical US-Musharraf deal?
Informed intelligence sources claim a cynical deal was cut behind the scenes between Washington and Musharraf. Musharraf is known to be Cheney's preferred partner and Cheney is said to be the sole person running US-Pakistan policy today.

In terms of this, were Musharraf to agree to the stationing of US special forces inside Pakistan, "Plan B", the democratic farce with Bhutto, could be put aside in favor of the continued Musharraf sole rule. Washington would "turn a blind eye".

On December 28, one day after the Bhutto assassination, the Washington Post reported that in early 2008, "US special forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units", under the US Central Command and US Special Operations Command, a major shift in US-Pakistan ties. Until now, Musharraf and his military have refused such direct US control.

The elimination of Bhutto leaves an opposition vacuum. The country lacks a credible political leader who can command national support, which leaves the military enhanced as an institution, with its willingness to defend Musharraf on the streets. This gives the Pentagon and Washington a chance to consolidate a military opposition to future Chinese economic hegemony - the real geopolitical goal of Washington.