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A Report from NY Times
HOUSE OF GRAFT:
Tracing the Bhutto Millions –
A special report;
Bhutto Clan Leaves Trail of Corruption
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: January 9, 1998
A decade after she led this impoverished nation from military rule to democracy, Benazir Bhutto is at the heart of a widening corruption inquiry that Pakistani investigators say has traced more than $100 million to foreign bank accounts and properties controlled by Ms. Bhutto’s family.
Starting from a cache of Bhutto family documents bought for $1 million from a shadowy intermediary, the investigators have detailed a pattern of secret payments by foreign companies that sought favors during Ms. Bhutto’s two terms as Prime Minister.
The documents leave uncertain the degree of involvement by Ms. Bhutto, a Harvard graduate whose rise to power in 1988 made her the first woman to lead a Muslim country. But they trace the pervasive role of her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who turned his marriage to Ms. Bhutto into a source of virtually unchallengeable power.
In 1995, a leading French military contractor, Dassault Aviation, agreed to pay Mr. Zardari and a Pakistani partner $200 million for a $4 billion jet fighter deal that fell apart only when Ms. Bhutto’s Government was dismissed. In another deal, a leading Swiss company hired to curb customs fraud in Pakistan paid millions of dollars between 1994 and 1996 to offshore companies controlled by Mr. Zardari and Ms. Bhutto’s widowed mother, Nusrat.
In the largest single payment investigators have discovered, a gold bullion dealer in the Middle East was shown to have deposited at least $10 million into an account controlled by Mr. Zardari after the Bhutto Government gave him a monopoly on gold imports that sustained Pakistan’s jewelry industry. The money was deposited into a Citibank account in the United Arab Emirate of Dubai, one of several Citibank accounts for companies owned by Mr. Zardari.
Together, the documents provided an extraordinarily detailed look at high-level corruption in Pakistan, a nation so poor that perhaps 70 percent of its 130 million people are illiterate, and millions have no proper shelter, no schools, no hospitals, not even safe drinking water. During Ms. Bhutto’s five years in power, the economy became so enfeebled that she spent much of her time negotiating new foreign loans to stave off default on $62 billion in public debt.
A worldwide search for properties secretly bought by the Bhutto family is still in its early stages. But the inquiry has already found that Mr. Zardari went on a shopping spree in the mid-1990’s, purchasing among other things a $4 million, 355-acre estate south of London. In 1994 and 1995, he used a Swiss bank account and an American Express card to buy jewelry worth $660,000 — including $246,000 at Cartier Inc. and Bulgari Corp. in Beverly Hills, Calif., in barely a month.
In separate interviews in Karachi, Ms. Bhutto, 44, and Mr. Zardari, 42, declined to address specific questions about the Pakistani inquiry, which they dismissed as a political vendetta by Ms. Bhutto’s successor as Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif. In Karachi Central Prison, where he has been held for 14 months on charges of murdering Ms. Bhutto’s brother, Mr. Zardari described the corruption allegations as part of a ”meaningless game.” But he offered no challenge to the authenticity of the documents tracing some of his most lucrative deals.
Ms. Bhutto originally kindled wild enthusiasms in Pakistan with her populist politics, then suffered a heavy loss of support as the corruption allegations gained credence. In an interview at her fortresslike home set back from Karachi’s Arabian Sea beachfront, she was by turns tearful and defiant. ”Most of those documents are fabricated,” she said, ”and the stories that have been spun around them are absolutely wrong.”
But she refused to discuss any of the specific deals outlined in the documents, and did not explain how her husband had paid for his property and jewelry. Lamenting what she described as ”the irreparable damage done to my standing in the world” by the corruption inquiry, she said her family had inherited wealth, although not on the scale implied by tales of huge bank deposits and luxury properties overseas.
What Everybody Has Done With Pakistan
Quaid-E-Azam :
Islamic Republic Of Pakistan
Ayob Khan:
Army Republic Of Pakistan
Bhutto :
Peoples Party Of Pakistan
Yahya Khan:
What So Ever Divided By 2 Pakistan
Zia-Ul-Haq:
Jihad Republic Of Pakistan
Ghulam Ishaq Khan:
ISI Republic Of Pakistan
Moeen Qureshi :
Taxation Republic Of Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto :
Zardari Republic Of Pakistan
Nawaz Sharif:
Abba Jee & Sons Republic Of Pakistan
Gen. Pervez Musharraf :
Pakistan (Pvt). Ltd.
People of Pakistan :
Immigration From Pakistan
Table Talk
Ousting Zardari
July 16th, 2008 · Shaan Akbar
Insider Brief sources report that Pakistani intelligence officials have recently been engaged in a spate of closed-door meetings. The topic of discussion? The ouster of Asif Ali Zardari and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) from power and the engineered return of Nawaz Sharif.
The Why
The news in and of itself should not be surprising, and for multiple reasons. First, the Pakistani military/intelligence establishment has always distrusted and disliked the PPP. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir’s father, recognized this and established the Federal Security Force in an attempt to offset the influence of the ISI. The FSF was promptly disbanded after Gen. Zia-ul-Huq’s 1979 coup. On the other hand, Nawaz Sharif is a child of the establishment, promoted and sponsored by Gen. Zia himself.
Welcome To PPP Democracy – Jiyala Jamhuriyat!
By COL. RIAZ JAFRI (RETD.)
Monday, 23 June 2008.
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan—Liaqat Bagh to be renamed Benazir Bhutto Bagh, Murree Road to be renamed Benazir Bhutto Road, 27 December to be declared official holiday after Benazir Bhutto’s death anniversary, Lahore to be turned into Larkana, Presidency to be taken over by a PPP worker, the Prime Minister commutes all death sentences to life imprisonment as Benazir Bhutto’s birthday gift to the nation (read ‘gift to murderers’). All this, of course, without any authority.
The Co-Chairperson – not even an Member of National Assembly – being given full protocol and allowed the use of bullet proof SUV with tainted glasses (who says it violates the law?); the construction of Tarbela Dam abandoned at the whims of someone, anyone, without even being discussed in the Parliament, PM announcing publicly without any hesitation to restore the judges immediately on receipt of orders from Zardari (what a Prime Minister!), PM performing Umra with 80 plus guests and hangers-on, of course at your and my expense; and then BB death probe by U.N. – at what colossal costs and with what outcome – anybody’s guess, et al.
What is all this? Is it the democracy or the government of a person, for a person, by a person? Where is the Parliament, which unlike the previous ones is claimed not to be a rubber stamp? Are these acts democratic in nature and spirit? Or, is the present democracy yet another facet of the maadar pidar azaad Jiala jamhuriat? Jo jee mein aye karo, yahaan kaun poochhaney wala hai ?!!
Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd) is based in Rawalpindi. His commentary is appears frequently in several national Pakistani dailies. He can be reached at jafri@rifiela.com
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