Islamabad
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Wednesday that Britain
would help investigate the assassination of opposition leader
Benazir Bhutto, whose slaying has forced the delay of crucial
scheduled elections by six weeks.
In a televised address to the nation, Musharraf said British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown agreed to immediately send investigators from
Scotland Yard amid conflicting official government versions and what
he called "conspiracy theories" about Bhutto's slaying in a
gun-suicide bomb attack last Thursday.
However, the investigators would be limited to assisting Pakistani
authorities with forensic evidence and other technical issues,
falling far short of demands by Bhutto's political supporters for an
independent United Nations inquiry.
In his most detailed comments since Bhutto's slaying and three days
of rioting that followed, a stern-sounding Musharraf claimed a
senior Taliban commander and a radical Islamic cleric were behind
the murder.
"The entire nation and the media should run a campaign to expose
these people," Musharraf said in a 25-minute address. "Unless we
arrest those people who recruit suicide bombers we cannot get rid of
this evil of terrorism."
He also said he supported holding the elections as scheduled next
Tuesday, but deferred to the judgment of the Election Commission of
Pakistan, which earlier Wednesday postponed the polls until Feb 18
due to extensive damage by rioters to electoral offices in the
southern province of Sindh, Bhutto's political stronghold.
He said damage from the rioting cost the country tens of millions of
dollars.
"The law and order situation made it absolutely necessary to delay
the election date," Musharraf said, adding that army and
paramilitary troops deployed to quell the violence would remain
deployed through the elections.
He again asserted that the polls would be "free, fair, transparent
and peaceful."
Musharraf's address was unlikely to satisfy his political opponents
in Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and former prime minister
Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), who demanded
that the polls be held as scheduled.
Analysts say the opposition parties believed they could have swept
the elections if they were held on schedule, riding a wave of
sympathy for Bhutto and massive dissatisfaction with Musharraf and
his political backers, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q).
PPP officials have publicly accused rogue elements within
Musharraf's government of assassinating Bhutto, who was drawing huge
crowds after returning from self-exile to campaign for an
unprecedented third term as prime minister.
They have demanded a United Nations inquiry into her death similar
to one done following the assassination of former Lebanese prime
minister Rafiq Hariri.
While not directly accusing them of assassinating Bhutto, Musharraf
mentioned Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban commander in Pakistan's
ungoverned tribal areas opposite Afghanistan and Maulana Fazlullah,
a radical Islamic cleric whose armed followers had seized towns in a
scenic resort area before being beaten back by police, as being
major threats to the country.
"I can say I'm sure that these are the people who have martyred
Benazir Bhutto," the Pakistani leader said, noting that both men had
ordered suicide bombings against attacked civilian and military
targets.
Musharraf's government had resisted the idea of a UN investigation
into Bhutto's slaying, but given growing public scepticism with
official government claims that the attack was carried out by
Islamic militants, a foreign ministry spokesman said Wednesday that
Pakistan would be open to international assistance.
Ahsan Iqbal, a PML-N, said the embattled Musharraf should resign for
failing to uphold law and order, and that a "national unity
government" should be appointed to organize new elections to ensure
they are fair.
"The government's postponing of the elections only to save the
ruling party from certain defeat that has become inevitable after
the martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto."
The Bush administration, Musharraf's key foreign supporter, had
brokered Bhutto's return home from self-exile last October to create
a popular civilian government of following more than eight years of
military rule under Musharraf, who just retired as chief of the
army.
Bhutto had agreed to form a partnership with Musharraf to fight
Islamic extremism and promote democracy in the nuclear-armed nation.
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