The assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the murder of tens of her supporters yesterday is another devastating blow against the struggle to democratize and promote human rights in Pakistan.

It is not that Bhutto was an admirable Prime Minister. She did little to support women's rights [1] while she was in office, for example. Her tacit support for the Taliban, at US urging, and continued development of nuclear weapons [2], echoes tragically down the years. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, appointed investment minister by Benazir Bhutto, apparently procured hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes [3] while they were in office. On the positive side, while first in office, she did try to prevent the first Gulf War [4].

Princeton Professor Zia Mian notes in Peacework that Benazir Bhutto made a suspicious deal with Musharraf [5] to drop the corruption charges against her, which enabled her to return to the country in October 2007. Despite all these other concerns, the Pakistani feminist activist Abira Ashfaq argued in Peacework that Benazir Bhutto represented the best chance of uniting opposition [6] against both dictatorial and fundamentalist militarism.

Thus, her assassination and the killing of her supporters, in addition to being a misogynist killing, is a grave setback for a democratic opposition already battered by Musharraf's dictatorship and militants' attacks. In response, CODEPINK has initiated a petition [7] calling for a suspension of all US governmental assistance to the Musharraf regime, and asked people in the US to call the State Department. I think the two main questions now are, might it be possible for outraged Pakistanis to channel their outrage into nonviolent resistance against the Musharraf regime? And will those of us outside of Pakistan step up our pressure on our governments to stop propping up his dictatorship?

While JFK violated his own dictum by laying the groundwork for death squads in Central America [8] and escalating the US war in Southeast Asia, for example, US President Kennedy issued a prescient warning when he told Latin American diplomats, "Those who make nonviolent revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable [9]." Militants in Pakistan, if they are responsible for Bhutto's assassination, might be hoping for exactly this scenario. Musharraf, to the degree that he is responsible (Bhutto had in recent days complained about a lack of security and said if she is killed, "I would hold Musharraf responsible [10]"), is clearly defying Kennedy's warning. The consequences of a violent revolution, which is already also well under way in Pakistan (with at least 600 killed by suicide bombers [11] in the last six months, according to the BBC), while always frightening to consider, are multiplied here, in a nuclear armed state with dubious command and control mechanisms [12]. Also frightening: what might government and military leaders in India, Israel, China, and the US be planning if they become afraid that Pakistani nuclear command and control is breaking down? The UN Security Council convened in emergency session last night to unanimously condemn Bhutto's killing [13].

For more information on Post-Emergency (post November 2007) struggles in Pakistan, see, for example, The Pakistani Federal Union of Journalists [14], and the Support Pakistan [15] pages with excellent policy-related news and links to additional organizations working both inside Pakistan and around the world to support human rights. This aggregation of Pakistani blogs [16] provides insight. Please also see more Peacework Magazine stories on Pakistan from 1999-present [17].

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