[Marxism] Doctors Cite Pressure to Keep Silent On Bhutto

[Ghulam Mustafa Lakho]

Doctors Cite Pressure to Keep Silent On Bhutto
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/31/AR2007123102493_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2007123102506


*Doctors Cite Pressure to Keep Silent On Bhutto*

By Emily Wax and Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 1, 2008; A01

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/pakistan.html?nav=el>,
Dec. 31 -- Pakistani authorities have pressured the medical personnel who
tried to save Benazir Bhutto's life to remain silent about what happened in
her final hour and have removed records of her treatment from the facility,
according to doctors.

In interviews, doctors who were at Bhutto's side at Rawalpindi General
Hospital said they were under extreme pressure not to share details about
the nature of the injuries that the opposition leader suffered in an attack
here Dec. 27.

"The government took all the medical records right after Ms. Bhutto's time
of death was read out," said a visibly shaken doctor who spoke on condition
of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Sweating and putting
his head in his hands, he said: "Look, we have been told by the government
to stop talking. And a lot of us feel this is a disgrace."

The doctors now find themselves at the center of a political firestorm over
the circumstances of Bhutto's death. The government has said Bhutto, 54, was
killed after the force of a suicide bombing caused her head to slam against
the lever of her vehicle's sunroof. Bhutto's supporters have pointed to
video footage, including a new amateur video released Monday, as proof that
she was killed by gunfire.

The truth about what happened has serious implications in Pakistan. The
ability of a gunman to fire at Bhutto from close range, as alleged by her
supporters, would suggest that an assassin was able to breach government
security in a city that serves as headquarters of the Pakistani military,
bolstering her supporters' claims that the government failed to provide her
with adequate protection.

If a gunman were to blame, it would also raise questions as to why the
government has for days insisted otherwise. Bhutto's supporters have called
for an international investigation.

The government has repeatedly dismissed allegations of a coverup, and some
U.S. medical experts, when asked Monday to review an official hospital
description of her wounds, speculated that a skull fracture and not a bullet
wound killed Bhutto.

The medical personnel in Rawalpindi, meanwhile, have mostly remained quiet.

"Our doctors have become caught up in this very emotional and political
issue," said Fayyaz Ahmed Khan, the doctors' supervisor at Rawalpindi
General. "It's a terrible position for our medical professions to be in."

A newly released video that was obtained by
Britain's<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/greatbritain.html?nav=el>Channel
4 and broadcast Monday cast doubt on the government's claims and
appeared to corroborate witnesses' stories. The footage appeared to show a
gunman and a suspected suicide bomber approaching Bhutto's sport-utility
vehicle. Seconds later, the video showed gunfire and Bhutto's hair and scarf
being blown back just as a bomb explodes.

Government officials identified Baitullah Mehsud, a pro-Taliban commander in
the restive South Waziristan region, as the organizer of Bhutto's killing.
But some observers said the government has been too quick to blame the
attack on the Taliban.

Jameel Yusuf, a lead investigator in the 2002 disappearance of American
journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi, said the Pakistani government had
blundered badly by not sealing off the crime scene. Moments after Bhutto was
killed, workers hosed down the blood at the blast site before any evidence
could be collected.

"When you're dealing with a murder of this nature, you need to have
forensics," Yusuf said.

Several witnesses say they had yet to be interviewed by police.

Kamran Nazir, 19, was badly injured by shrapnel at the rally where Bhutto
was killed. On Monday, he was at Rawalpindi General, with his father at his
bedside. His breathing was labored, and the top layer of skin on his face
was singed off. He said he was shocked that police had not questioned him.

"Why is no one asking me what happened? It's important to know the truth,"
he said as his father's eyes went wet.

"The truth is, there really is no investigation at all," said Babar Awan, a
top official in Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party who said he saw Bhutto's
body after the attack and identified two clearly defined bullet wounds --
entry and exit points.

He said that the principal professor of surgery at the hospital, Muhammad
Mussadiq Khan, was "extremely nervous, but eventually told me that Bhutto
had died of a bullet wound."

"Why was this man so nervous?" Awan said. "He told me firsthand he was under
pressure not to talk about how she died."

Reached at his home in Islamabad, Khan declined to comment, saying he worked
for a government hospital and was trying to "do my duty and remain a
doctor." In published reports in the English-language newspaper Dawn, Khan
has changed his story on multiple occasions, first speaking about bullet
wounds and later backing away from those comments.

Over the weekend, Athar Minallah, a board member at Rawalpindi General,
e-mailed journalists Bhutto's medical report. The report, which was separate
from documents that doctors say have been confiscated, describes a deep
wound in Bhutto's head that was leaking brain matter.

No "foreign body" was found in the wound, the report says, and no exit wound
was recorded. But in an X-ray of Bhutto's skull, the doctors identified "two
to three tiny radio-densities." Minallah said in an interview that the
report suggested those were bullet fragments.

U.S. medical experts said the "radio-densities" were probably not bullets.

Thomas M. Scalea, physician in chief of the shock trauma center at the
University of Maryland Medical Center, said that while there was no evidence
of a bullet wound, he was also perplexed by how the blunt force of Bhutto's
head against an object could have caused brain damage severe enough to kill
her so quickly.

"The whole thing strikes me as very unusual," said Scalea.

Bhutto's widower and the interim leader of her party, Asif Ali Zardari, has
requested an investigation into her death by the United Nations.

President Pervez Musharraf's spokesman, retired Gen. Rashid Qureshi, said
Musharraf is "considering" an offer from the British government to assist in
an investigation. Qureshi said Bhutto's husband bore responsibility for the
controversy, because he had denied the government permission to conduct an
autopsy immediately after Bhutto's death, on the grounds that it could not
be trusted.

"The body can be exhumed now if the family allows," Qureshi said. "There's
no problem with that."

*Witte reported from **Karachi**. Special correspondent Imtiaz Ali in **
Peshawar** and staff writer Jason Ukman and staff researcher Robert E.
Thomason in **Washington** contributed to this report.*