By IANS
London : The British media, which has long been a strong backer of Benazir Bhutto, Friday said the killing of the former Pakistani premier leaves Western policy on Pakistan facing its greatest test since the 9/11 attacks in the US.
“At a stroke, the linchpin of American and British plans to bring stability to the country has been removed,” said a report in the Daily Telegraph.
It said Washington and London wanted Bhutto to become prime minister because President Pervez Musharraf had “grown so unpopular that his government risked becoming wholly ineffectual. The answer was to unite Pakistan’s secular, pro-Western politicians in one administration.
“Bhutto’s supporters have already accused the regime of organising her assassination. While this claim is extremely implausible, it will be widely believed and could stir further unrest,” said the report in the pro-Conservative newspaper.
British newspapers buried their strong ideological and political differences to pay handsome tributes to the Oxford-educated Bhutto. But the Guardian – on the opposite end of the political pole from the Daily Telegraph – did not think it entirely implausible that military officers may have had a hand in snuffing her out.
“The threat her return represented to Islamic militants was nothing to the one that it posed to dark elements within the military establishment who had waged a 30-year war against her family,” the pro-Labour newspaper said in an editorial.
“Had Bhutto succeeded in her ambition to drag Pakistan from military dictatorship to civilian rule, she would have posed an intolerable threat to the security and personal wealth of some of Pakistan’s most corrupt generals.
“What better way to dispose of her and turn off the light of publicity that she would have shone on their dark and lucrative affairs, than to direct the suicide bombers her way? One eventually would get through, and yesterday he did.”
Times, a pro-Establishment newspaper that has supported the Labour government in recent years, said: “The full restoration of democracy sooner rather than later has to be Ms Bhutto’s final legacy.
“There can be no modern Pakistan without democracy. After a comparatively short delay, elections should occur.
“The military should emerge from the barracks only to ensure sufficient order for the Pakistan people to return to the ballot box. Bhutto’s murder was designed to destroy Pakistan’s right to choose. To honour her memory, Pakistan must show that democracy will always triumph over murderous extremism.”