While studying ‘European Diplomacy' during my post-graduation in International Relations many years ago, a few lines from a textbook have ever remained in my mind: “When criticism was for the sake of insulting others only and argument was considered immoral in society, we were called (the) ‘Dark Age people of Europe', and when criticism was for the sake of constructive change and argument was for accepting facts and ideas to get innovative solutions, now we are people of the Modern Age.” Unfortunately, the trend of criticism for the sake of condemnation and insult still raises questions about our claim to be called the people of the modern age. The tragic assassination of former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto had shocked the world. With the news that the United Nation's fact-finding commission has been set up to begin probe into her killing from this month, blogs and news bulletins are filled with deceptive and fabricated stories. The cluster of concepts and theories ensure one point, that, no matter what method and services were used for the investigation of the slain woman leader, it was definitely criticized by the opponents according to their own political theories and expediency. A Pandora's Box of spurious and unconfirmed rumors had opened up after the presidency of the slain leader's widower Asif Ali Zardari, and these mounted further with the delay in the identification of her assassins. She was assassinated on Dec. 27, 2007 after addressing an election rally at a park in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. After that, everyone seemed to be ready with their analysis of the killing without enough proofs, but with questions and criticisms. Many conspiracy theories have emerged, and think tanks as well as professional journalists seemed to have kept repeating such theories and rumors without doing their important job of verifying these. Some theorists claimed that the US government had some involvement in Benazir's assassination. These theorists say that Benazir was killed by the US because she revealed in her interview (with Sir David Frost on Al-Jazeera on November 2, 2007) that Osama Bin Laden was killed by British national Omar Saeed Sheikh, the (former or current) agent of Britain's intelligence agency ‘MI6'. Because her statement had damaged the good reason of the continued presence of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, she had been murdered. Another think tank group believes that Zardari and his associates are those behind her death. This school of thought criticized the stopping of an autopsy investigation of the slain leader. If this is to be believed, it was indeed a good decision to seek the UN commission's services to conduct an investigation. Otherwise, people would have asked how they could believe in the results when they did while they were in power. However, many still criticized the act of seeking the UN commission's services saying that it is a waste of time as well as of money. The UN has already been paid 1.8 million dollars as seed money to cover its initial costs. More countries are likely to contribute in the costs of the commission which can go as high as $5 million or more. Indeed, principally the demand for just and genuine investigation in the brutal killing of the top leadership of Pakistan should be supported to bring the culprits and their supporters to the court of justice. That is why, for seeking an impartial investigation, all the four provincial assemblies and the senate of Pakistan unanimously demanded a UN investigation. Furthermore, elaborate lip service has also been paid as in an email in which the slain leader named former president Gen. Pervez Musharraf as her possible killer. However, no clear evidence has been presented to authenticate the email. These skeptics raise an additional question about an order of cleaning up the crime scene immediately after the attack. They have no faith in the investigations conducted by Musharraf and claim that the arrested suspects in connection with this tragic incident are mere scapegoats. On the other hand, news related to the statement of PPP Senator Latif Khosa declared that Benazir herself had sent an email letter to the then president Musharraf, her lawyer and many others as well. She mentioned the names of four people she knew were after her life. Khosa said that the former Punjab chief minister Pervaiz Elahi, former Sindh chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim, Intelligence Bureau chief Ijaz Shah and ex-ISI chief Hameed Gul should also be named in the FIR on the basis of that letter. Doubting Thomases say that the UN commission does not have any magic wand that will enable it to put forth valid and logical results without an autopsy, and that it appears to be difficult that they will be able to reach any conclusion, since all evidences have been washed out. These aspects are haunting the party poopers that Zardari wants a clean investigation to close the case. They argue that he might also not be interested to find out the killers as some hidden hands in the military do not want to point the accusing finger at the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) or the Military Intelligence (MI). The commission is probing the facts and circumstances of the assassination only and will submit its report to the UN Secretary-General within six months. The duty of determining criminal responsibility of the perpetrators of the assassination remains with the Pakistani authorities as the commission is not a tribunal. Because the UN commission's team is headed by Mark Quarterman, who had also worked on the former Prime Minister of Lebanon Rafiq Al-Hariri commission; the result of the UN investigation can be expected to be based on another popular theory. Just like it was claimed during the Hariri investigation that the UN probe commission had enough independence as well as faced immense world pressure, it was believed again that the UN commission with a similar determination of the world's powers would be able to conduct a factual inquiry, and perhaps, be able to identify the real offenders behind the assassination of the slain woman leader. Thus, one can predict the result of the UN team's probe by focusing on the fundamental views of this conspiracy theory. The theory said: “Benazir was assassinated by an international conspiracy with the help of the alleged ‘extremists Taleban' in Pakistan, as well as the extremist elements in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) or the Military Intelligence (MI). These Taleban are actually agents and hired guns of external conspirators.” If this conspiracy theory is more or less accepted by the probing team, the expected simple end will lead to more doubts on none other than the ‘extremist Taleban' as perpetrators with a reason. Benazir was spitting venom against the Taleban and this was her crime in the eyes of her assassins. Let us see how successfully the UN is able to determine the culprits.
