By IANS
Islamabad : No amount of condemnation will compensate for the “sense of loss that fills millions of hearts across the land today”, a newspaper editorial said Friday, reflecting the mood in Pakistan following the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
“No amount of condemnation will compensate for the sense of loss that fills millions of hearts across the land today,” Dawn said, adding: “The repercussions of her murder will continue to unfold for months, even years.
“What is clear is that Pakistan’s political landscape will never be the same having lost one of its finest daughters,” the newspaper said in an editorial titled “A dream snuffed out”.
“Among sinking hearts, an emptiness, and doom and gloom many questions will need to be answered,” Dawn said.
“Did she die because she was a woman politician swimming against the tide of obscurantism? Did she die because she was in the process of staging a comeback after being dismissed twice on charges of corruption and misconduct?
“Did she die because she represented the aspirations of millions of her supporters – supporters so committed that they refused to blame the party leadership for many unfulfilled dreams?” the newspaper asked.
Bhutto’s death “throws the entire political edifice, the painfully excruciating march of the country towards a democratic polity, the carefully crafted plan for a peaceful transfer of power to an elected leadership and the reluctant strategy of an authoritarian regime to yield to the will of the people, up into turbulent smoke and bloody dust”, The News said.
Its editorial, headlined “Farewell Benazir”, also maintained that “the course of the country’s history had been unquestionably altered once again”.
“She was a determined lady and a brave one too. She had been pointing fingers at the retired elements in the state intelligence agencies, those who had themselves turned into religious fanatics or supporters of violent extremism, saying that they were after her because she supported a moderate and liberal Pakistan”, The News noted.
“It now appears that while she was deeply concerned about the killers on the loose, and did whatever she could to protect herself, the state which was supposed to provide her protection as a citizen, and an important one at that, failed miserably,” the newspaper added.
“More importantly her assassination threatens to derail the entire process of Pakistan returning to an elected democratic rule, especially by a coalition of moderate and liberal leaders who could confront the growing menace of religious extremism and fanaticism,” The News said.
According to Daily Times, the consequences of Bhutto’s assassination “have to be seen on the basis of the vertical fault-line that has historically run through Pakistan’s politics and where the army has overtly and covertly tried to do everything possible to keep the PPP on the margins since its very inception”.
In this context, it noted that a former Inter-Services Intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, has publicly confessed that he put together the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad religious grouping in 1988 to thwart Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
“Where does Pakistan go from here?” Daily Times asked in an op-ed article titled “Honour Bhutto’s sacrifice”, saying the answer would depend on President Pervez Musharraf.
“He will have to make a decision and a smart one. And the only sensible decision is to not postpone the elections,” Daily Times said, contending that whoever had ordered Bhutto’s assassination wanted to create unrest through violence, and to get the elections postponed sine die.
“The postponement of elections will only increase the possibility of violence by signalling to an already bereaved PPP rank and file that the dastardly act of killing Bhutto was aimed at eliminating a political threat and keeping the country away from democracy,” the newspaper said.
“In fact, the only way Musharraf can show his sincerity and even get himself, the army and perhaps his political allies absolved of the accusations that will now fly thick and fast, such being the nature of Byzantine politics, is to go ahead with the elections,” Daily Times maintained.