Scotland Yard’s findings

THE much awaited findings of the Scotland Yard team’s inquiry into the assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, released last Friday, have cleared most of the confusion and controversy as to the cause of her death and whether there were one or more assassins involved. After having carried out two-and-a half weeks of extensive investigative work in cooperation with the local authorities, Benazir’s family and senior PPP officials the British team arrived at the same conclusion as the local investigators had - that Benazir died of a severe head injury sustained as a consequence of a bomb blast, which led to her head hitting the ‘escape hatch’ of her vehicle. It excludes the injury being an entry or exit wound caused by gunshot. The government spokesman, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema (Retd), it may be recalled, had attracted a lot of criticism when he said that the fatal wound was caused by the ‘lever’ of her Toyota vehicle sunroof. A worried Toyota Company had immediately issued the clarification that there was no such lever in the vehicle. In their report, the British investigators have dwelt at length on what they describe as an “unfortunate and misleading aspect of this case”. They explain that the ‘roof hatch’ has frequently been wrongly referred to as sunroof. It is meant only for the purpose of escape, and has a solid lip with a depth of 9cm, and hence is capable of causing a severe head injury under circumstances as Benazir faced. The type of explosives used in the bomb explosion, the report says, detonate at a velocity of 6000-9000 meter per second, and hence would generate significantly more force than necessary to provoke the consequences as witnessed in this case. The hosing down of the crime scene within a couple of hours of the incident, and therefore the loss of what would be vital forensic evidence, has been a source of deep suspicion and served as an invitation to ascribing of motives. Yard investigators do acknowledge that the task of establishing exactly what happened was complicated by various factors such as the lack of an extended and detailed search of the crime scene and the absence of autopsy reports.
Yet, they say, available evidence is sufficient to establish reliable conclusions. They have relied mainly on Bhutto’s X-rays taken at the hospital after her death. These have been compared with her dental X-ray records to establish that they belong to the same person. The Scotland Yard report also debunks the speculation that two attackers were involved in Benazir’s assassination. According to it, all the available evidence points toward the person who fired the shots and who detonated the bomb being one and the same person. These findings leave little doubt as to what caused Benazir’s death, and hence should put to rest all speculation on this aspect of the case. Her party, however, has expressed disagreement with the report’s conclusions, though it has been careful not to announce an outright rejection. Briefing journalists soon after the incident, Brigadier Cheema (Retd) had said, provoking disbelief and protests, that it did not really matter how she died, but that she was dead. Now that it is almost clear how she died, the crucial question that remains to be answered is: who killed her? The Yard team did not have the mandate to look for the killers. The government insists it is capable of doing that on its own. A few days after the incident it had presented what it claimed was an intercept of a conversation between an alleged high profile suspect, Baitullah Mehsud, and an operative, that laid the blame at al Qaeda’s door. It has also arrested some purported accomplices. Yet the problem of trust deficit remains serious. The PPP has reiterated its demand for a UN-led investigation.
 

Back to unrest

THE coordinated rebel attacks on East Timor’s president and prime minister are a further tragedy for a young country still trying to find its feet after final independence in 1999. The shooting of President Jose Ramos-Horta is the more shocking because, in 1996, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for the statesmanlike way in which he helped lead his country away from outside rule. Yesterday’s attacks are also a setback for the international community which, having pressured Jakarta into withdrawing, ploughed considerable resources into the new country. The UN Mission of Support in East Timor was wound up in 2005 having, as it thought, established sound economic, institutional and political foundations. At the time the mission was hailed a success, but very quickly instability broke out as rival gangs fought each other. Less than 12 months later, UN peacekeepers were back, 1,500 UN police backed up by a thousand Australian troops. It was only at the beginning of this month that the UN once again announced that it would start returning security control to East Timor’s police. There is a range of surface sources for the violence, including the anger of the opposition Fretilin party at the president’s choice of independence hero Xanana Gusmao as prime minister, as a way of breaking political deadlock caused by inconclusive elections.
Gusmao managed to form a coalition in 2007, excluding Fretilin There are also complaints from citizens from the west of the country who feel that they are excluded from the better opportunities in society. It was “westerners” among East Timor’s army who went on strike and were fired in 2006 - fully a third of the force. And it was from these ex-soldiers that came the rebel forces, largely led by Alfredo Renaldo, who have been responsible for much of the subsequent violence. It may possibly have an effect on the crisis that Renaldo was himself killed in the attack on the president. But probably not. Unfortunately, there is a deeper cause of this unrest. Money. East Timor, currently one of Asia’s poorest nations, is set to enjoy wealth from its substantial offshore holdings of oil and gas, which will be exploited jointly with the Australians. The final delineation of East Timor’s border with Indonesia will have some impact on precisely how much oil and gas the country will have. Encouraged by the UN, the Australians have promised maximum employment opportunities for East Timorese and also claim they will help the government in the capital Dili, not only spend the oil income wisely but also invest part of it for the long term. The Indonesians, however, cannot fail also to be interested in the country’s oil wealth. Why should it not be extracted via Indonesia’s existing infrastructure? And there are probably other, less obvious, international players with their own ideas for East Timor’s future. So yet again, a sovereign country is being destabilized by outsiders and the price is being paid in the blood of its citizens.

—Arab News