Finding out what really happened

The president’s eloquent address in Seraiki to the People’s Lawyers Forum in Bahawalpur spoke of the peoples’ court giving justice to his late wife.

As he has done in the past, Mr Zardari stressed his party did not seek revenge and that indeed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir had both avoided this path of vengeance. Certainly, it is true that in the final analysis, it is public opinion that matters most and despite his many controversial actions such as nationalisation people do remember him.

The same is true for his daughter, notwithstanding attempts to discredit her legacy. Despite what the president has said about justice being done to Ms Bhutto by the UN report, one has to say that a serious effort should be made by the present government to uncover the truth and expose the conspiracy that ended in one of the most monumental political killings of recent times.

The leads mentioned in the report need to be pursued and this is particularly important given the president’s warning of other conspiracies afoot at this point in time and of the activities of those he terms ‘political actors’ attempting to influence national events. Merely suspending some of the officials mentioned in the UN report by name will not be enough.

Of course the real test of the government will come when it tries to question figures in the establishment whom the report says a role in influencing the initial investigation and later in hindering the UN inquiry team itself from carrying out its duties to the fullest extent possible.

More than anything else we need to preserve the system and to ward off interventions from agents that work from outside it and this can best be done by following up on the UN report.