December 27, 2024 marked the 17th death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto, a popular leader with great vision, who courageously resisted the agenda of Late Neo-colonial forces—pushing Pakistan towards a toothless nuclear State. In recognition of her great services, she was posthumously honoured with the prestigious UN Human Rights Award on December 10, 2008, given every five years. It was special as it coincided with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Professor Amin Mughal, a doyen of progressive and humanistic thinking, in his paper, After Benazir Bhutto: Some reflections, noted, “I confess, in the least uncharitable terms, that I was never fond of Benazir Bhutto. In fact, I was inimical to her politics. In death, however, she has redeemed herself. In the imagination of the masses she has acquired a mystical significance that is destined to be a never-ending source of inspiration in their struggles ahead”. This is the perhaps the best tribute to Benazir Bhutto until today.

The act of great courage by Benazir Bhutto, praised by Amin Mughal and many others, changed the entire political scene of Pakistan, unfortunately for the worse. She sacrificed her life to save the country from forces, working on the dictates of Late Neo-colonial masters.

The killing of Bashir Ahmad Bilour, senior minister and prominent leader of Awami National party and nine others in Peshawar on December 22, 2012 was a continuation of ‘Grand Design’ of Late Neo-colonialists.

The official disclosure by the federal interior minister on December 12, 2022 about Indian continuous sponsoring of terrorism in Pakistan testifies to what Benazir was actually fighting against.

In today’s Pakistan, there is not a single leader that matches the vision and determination of Benazir Bhutto and her struggle to make Pakistan domestically strong so that internationally our voice is heard on issues like unprecedented brutalities of Indian forces in held Kashmir and its open and naked terrorism inside our beloved motherland.     

The analysts/scholars/historians have so far ignored Benazir’s assassination from the perspective of ‘New Great Game’, propounded by Dr. Sachithanandam Sathananthan in his paper, The Great Game Continues. The main objectives of New Great Game are containment of China, sabotaging Road & Belt initiative (BRI) and capture resources of Middle East through Israeli-Indian nexus, besides creating rifts among Muslim states leading to wars.

The events after assassination of Benazir, such as, ghastly massacre in Peshawar Army School, blasts in Quetta and elsewhere, terrorist attacks in Lucky Marwat and Bannu, and continuous ambushing of our armed forces and civilian law enforcement agencies—continuing till today from cross-borders—prove the deadly tentacles of   New Great Game.

Heraldo Munoz, the lead United Nations (UN) investigator, assigned probe into Benazir’s assassination, in his book ‘Getting Away with Murder: Benazir Bhutto’s Assassination and the Politics of Pakistan’, doubts that the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) independently carried out the attack. He does not discount suspicions about involvement of intelligence operatives in her murder and later covering up evidence. He expresses fears that the murder would remain unsolved because of the absence of both capacity and willingness of the government and courts to solve the case.

“In Bhutto’s case, it would seem that the village assassinated her: Al-Qaeda gave the order; the Pakistani Taliban executed the attack, possibly backed or at least encouraged by elements of the establishment; the Musharraf government facilitated the crime through its negligence; local senior policemen attempted a cover-up; Bhutto’s lead security team failed to properly safeguard her; and most Pakistani political actors would rather turn the page than continue investigating who was behind her assassination”, Munoz observed.

Benazir in RECONCILIATION: Islam, Democracy & the West, the book she completed days before her assassination, elaborated true vision of Islam as “an open, pluralistic and tolerant religion”. She emphasised “Islam and the West need not to head toward clash of civilizations”.

Benazir quoted extensively from the holy Al Qur’an highlighting: “Islam is a religion of peace, though abused by extremists to create chaos/disorder”. She traced the factors behind “Militant Islam’ and exposed the agenda of Late Neo-colonialists to create secretariat divisions and other discords among Muslim states. These views and her determination to counter them annoyed the Late Neo-colonial forces that wanted to keep the Muslim World divided and engaged in armed conflicts. These forces used their proxy (militants) to assassinate her at 54.   

The events after her assassination—still shrouded in mystery—prove the thesis presented by Dr. Sachithanandam in The Great Game Continues. He rightly argued that removal of Benazir paved the way for Late Neo-Colonialists to implement their agenda. Blackwater and others of their alike infiltrated into the country and helped militant outfits to undermine our national security.

Dr. Sachithanandam also highlights: “The earliest foreboding surfaced in the backroom manoeuvres by United States and British intelligence services to engineer panic about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. It was a repeat of the duplicitous hysteria they generated over non-existent weapons of mass destruction that Iraq allegedly possessed”.

It was, Dr. Sachithanandam claimed, “Washington’s renewed interest in Zardari and Rehman Malik and not Benazir that forced Musharraf—once a close ally of Bush—to offer firm opposition to US Late Neo-colonialism to ravage Pakistan”.

According to Dr. Sachithanandam, “politically challenged Pakistani liberals—a motley crowd that includes members of human rights and civil liberties organisations, journalists, analysts, lawyers and assorted professionals—were utterly incapable of comprehending the geo-strategic context in which “Musharraf maneuvered to defend Pakistan’s interest”. So they slandered him an ‘American puppet’, alleging he caved in to US pressure and withdrew support to the Afghan Taliban regime in the wake of 9/11. In reality, the purpose was to ouster him and bring Zardari in.

The phenomenon of fundamentalism is complex and riddled with many puzzles. It cannot be understood without studying the foreign policy of the United States in which terrorism, drugs, arms and war play a pivotal role. This is not a recent phenomenon. From the early part of the twentieth century, US leaders have been using arms, drugs and war hysteria as tools to advance their foreign policy objectives.

In this background, it is understandable why Benazir decided to join hands with General Pervez Musharraf (late) to resist Late Neo-colonialism. American discomfort with Musharraf was palpable by late 2003, after he refused to send Pakistani troops to assist in the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.

When Musharraf offered to cooperate under the auspices of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), naïve Pakistani media and analysts lunged for his jugular, condemning him again for succumbing to US demands—in reality, he nimbly sidestepped American demand. Therefore, Pakistan did not participate and he was proved correct. Benazir was fully aware of the fact that Bush Administration had been becoming increasingly hostile to Musharraf’s determination to prioritise Pakistan’s interests when steering the ship of the state through the choppy waters of the unfolding New Great Game, which the West—led by the US—has been manoeuvring to contain growing Russian and Chinese influences in Central and West Asia.

Benazir decided to work with Musharraf, precisely for resisting the above agenda of Pakistan-hostile forces. Thus, she became the prime target of the said forces and was eliminated—interestingly the blame of hiding the real hands was shifted to the late Musharraf. Since then events show and prove that under the “chosen” leadership, Pakistan is moving towards disorder/disaster.

Benazir became a victim of ‘New Great Game’ in which her own party stalwarts betrayed her.  Benazir’s legacy has been that of continuous struggle. There is a need for recognition and continuation of her mission of resisting the New Great Game aimed at controlling the South Asian region through the bogey of militant Islam and Hindutva with the ultimate aim of containing China and muzzling the strong army of Pakistan.

An army, equipped with nuclear arsenals, courtesy Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, is a formidable challenge for them in their bid to increase Israeli influence and power to destroy another strong power, neighboring Pakistan having support of Russia. Only a bloc of China, Pakistan, Russia, Iran and Turkey can counter their ‘Great Design’. They removed Benazir from the scene knowing she could be the main catalyst for such an alliance.       

Benazir was fully aware of the contours of the New Great Game that was launched to contain growing Russian and Chinese influences in Central and West Asia and economically muzzle the strong Muslin nuclear state. Till her assassination, Benazir worked for resist this agenda of Pakistan-hostile forces. This legacy of Benazir should be followed by all Pakistanis, irrespective of their political affiliations, against all the militant outfits and Hindutva having an agenda of undermining nuclear Pakistan.