1963 & 2007

What do the two dates 22^nd November 1963 and 27^th December 2007 have in common? Well, you guessed right. The first one is when President JF Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas Texas and the other date is when Benazir Bhutto was killed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. 

Anyone who lets out a sigh of relief thinking this is the only thing which is common between the two prominent assassinations of modern times then he or she has another thought coming his or her way. 

The Benazir kill is taking the shape of a mystery conspiracy which will not be easy to put together to bring the perpetrators to book just as the Kennedy kill case still seems to be as wide open today as it was then. 

Immediately after JFK’s assassination all sorts of theories began to take hold and the most potent one was one which pointed to a conspiracy. It was universally believed that Lee Harvey Oswald was not acting alone when he fired those three fatal shots at the President. However, the Warren Commission set by Congress poured cold water over that theory when it concluded that Oswald had acted alone in the assassination. But this conclusion was the result of exhaustive inquiries and pouring over at hundreds of exhibits by the Commission. Yet, the skepticism with which it was received was overwhelming. Critics began to question the government’s contention as told by the Warren Commission report despite thousands of hours of inquiries and investigations that were put into that report. 

Contrast this with the Pakistan Government’s hasty and awkward statement in which it sought to dismiss the belief that Benazir died of bullet wounds, which meant she was a target and was shot at as if there were no such things as official medical reports from doctors who attended to her after she sustained those serious wounds. Doubtless, Americans are a far more educated and democratically gifted people than Pakistanis, but that does not mean the people of Pakistan deserve anything less from their government than a sincere and conclusive investigation into their leader’s death just as what the American people expected and got after JFK’s death.

When exhaustive and detailed investigations failed to convince the people of America it is naïve on the part of Musharraf’s govt to think Pakistanis would accept its haste ridden version on Benazir’s death just a day after the murder. 

While it was widely believed three shots were fired upon JFK it was later conceded a fourth shot was also fired. This supported those who had always insisted the Kennedy kill was a conspiracy. In a similar fashion just a day after the hasty government version video graphics appeared in which the world saw a person firing a pistol at Benazir and another person behind him who is believed to be the suicide bomber.

The questions that come must come into every Pakistani’s mind is what led the govt to give out that statement so early, what happened to doctors’ reports, who was the guy with the pistol, and whether or not Musharraf himself is involved in it. Valid questions that need more than valid answers. 

Will the Benazir case remain inconclusive as JFK case has been all these years? Only time will tell, but already suspicions have abounded in Pakistan, more than what the Americans might have suspected in the JFK case.

Khwaja massoud