Tuesday, January 01, 2008
"The government continues to keep the media firmly under control by draconian censorship provisions. Opponents of the government can face trial by military courts. Election rallies and all anti-government demonstrations are banned. And most importantly, the country's Supreme and High courts, which have the final say on the legality of the elections, have been purged of judges perceived as "irresponsible," i.e. unwilling to accede to Musharraf's ongoing theatrics.Because of the conspiratorial nature of the assassination, it cannot be unequivocally determined at this point who was behind Bhutto's murder. But a large segment of the Pakistani population considers the Musharraf-run military-security establishment responsible. Of course, during the past couple of months in which the US had accelerated its efforts at imposing on Pakistan the Benazir-Musharraf "marriage of convenience" - to borrow Tariq Ali's term - in order to supposedly render an iota of legitimacy to a deeply unpopular Musharraf regime, members of al Qaeda and various other groups did vow to target Bhutto."