Daughter of the East – Pride of Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto, a figure in Pakistan's political life for three decades, has died at the age of 54.
Benazir Bhutto, assassinated Thursday at age 54 in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, spent three decades in the turbulent and often violent world of Pakistani politics, becoming the first woman democratically elected to lead a modern Muslim country in 1988.
A highly controversial figure, the self-proclaimed "Daughter of Pakistan" was twice elected prime minister and twice ousted amid a string of corruption allegations that ultimately forced her into exile in London, New York, and Dubai for much of the past decade. She returned home just two months ago, despite threats to her life, and has launched her campaign for a third term, positioning herself as a bulwark against Islamic extremism and a champion of democracy.
The bombing and shooting that killed her as she emerged from a political rally, standing over the open roof of her car to greet crowds of supporters, occurred during a series of mass gatherings Bhutto was holding across Pakistan. She did so despite calls from her aides for caution following the double suicide bombing that nearly took her life on the night of her return from exile in October. That attack, which killed more than 130 people, occurred as she was driving from Karachi airport to her home on the city's waterfront, and provoked a characteristic reaction.
"We will continue to meet with the public," she said while visiting survivors of the Karachi hospital bombings. "This will not stop us."
When asked to explain the courage—or stubbornness, as some of her critics saw it—she displayed at critical moments in her political career, Bhutto often cited the example she said her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, set. He was a charismatic and often demagogic politician who served as president and prime minister from 1971 to 1977 (President of Pakistan 1971–1973; Prime Minister of Pakistan 1973–1977 – P.G.) before being hanged in April 1979, accused of orchestrating the murder of a minor political opponent.
Bhutto's father founded the Pakistan People's Party in 1967, the political force that swept him and later his daughter to power. Like his daughter, Bhutto's father spent years battling powerful Pakistani generals. He was removed from office and ultimately executed on the orders of General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq (President of Pakistan from 1978 to 1988 – P.G.), one of a long line of military rulers who dominated Pakistan for nearly 40 of the 60 years since its independence following the partition of British India (in 1947 – P.G.).
While in prison at the time, Bhutto was allowed to visit her father before his execution in Rawalpindi Central Jail, located near the site of the rally where she was killed nearly three decades later. In a 1990s interview with the BBC, she said that the sight of her father preparing for his death steeled her for her own political career, which, according to some biographers, was partly driven by her determination to avenge him by outwitting the generals.
History of violence
Violence permeated her family life to such an extent that her admirers compared the Bhutto family, both in their contribution to Pakistani politics and in the price they paid for it, to the Kennedys, while her enemies, citing the Bhuttos' bitter family feud, compared them to the Borgias. The younger of the two Bhutto brothers, Shahnawaz, died under mysterious circumstances of poisoning in 1985 in a Bhutto apartment in Cannes, France. French investigators said they suspected a family feud over a multi-million dollar inheritance from Zulfikar Bhutto, but no charges were ever brought.
Bhutto's other brother, Murtaza, who, along with Shahnawaz, founded a terrorist group that sought to overthrow General Zia, spent many years in exile in Syria. When Murtaza finally returned to Pakistan in 1994, he quickly fell into a bitter dispute with Bhutto over the family's political legacy—and, as he told a reporter at the time, over money he claimed his father had deposited in a Swiss bank while prime minister. In 1996, Murtaza was shot dead outside his home in Karachi, and his widow, Ghinwa, blamed Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's husband. Bhutto's mother, Nusrat, who was born in Iran, sided with Murtaza in the dispute and was dismissed by Bhutto as chair of the People's Party. “I had no idea I was nurturing a snake in my chest,” she said of her daughter at the time.
Bhutto, born June 21, 1953, the firstborn in the family, fondly told friends that she was her father's favorite. One of her most cherished childhood stories involves how her father encouraged her to reject traditional Muslim notions of women's roles and strive for more than just living at home. She said he conveyed these ideas to her through stories of Joan of Arc and Indira Gandhi.
After attending a private Christian school in Karachi, where the family owned a luxurious mansion, Bhutto attended Radcliffe College, earning a BA from Harvard in 1973, and then Oxford, where she earned a second BA in 1976. At Oxford, she became the first Asian woman to hold the presidency of the Oxford Union, the prestigious debating society that has produced several British prime ministers.
In her memoir, she described what life was like as a young woman at Harvard. "I was among many women who felt as free from the constraints of their sex as I did," she wrote. At Oxford, she adopted a Western lifestyle, spending winters in the Swiss ski resort of Gstaad. She later recounted that her hobbies at the time included reading royal biographies and "frivolous" novels, as well as strolling through Harrods in London—a habit she maintained throughout her life.
After graduating from Oxford, Bhutto suddenly found herself at the center of Pakistani politics following her father's arrest by General Zia in 1977 and his execution 18 months later. In her memoirs, Bhutto described her last meeting with her father through the metal bars of a Rawalpindi prison. "But I didn't cry. Dad told me not to cry," she recalled.
From that moment on, as Bhutto later said, she decided to oust General Zia from power. But in August 1988, the general and US Ambassador Arnold Raphel were killed in a military plane crash in southern Pakistan. Three months later, at age 35, Bhutto won the general election and formed her first government, but was ousted by Pakistan's president in 1990, less than halfway through her term. She won a second election in 1993 but was again ousted in 1996.
Her accomplishments as president were few. In subsequent years, she claimed to have suppressed Islamic militants, laid a solid foundation for democracy by lifting many restrictions on civil liberties imposed by the generals, and boosted the economy, particularly during her second term, attracting a flood of foreign investment. But in both cases, she was forced out under pressure from the military over accusations of corruption and mismanagement. Her ouster in both cases sparked only sporadic protests across Pakistan.
Complexities and contradictions
Bhutto, a woman of complex and often contradictory instincts, was a politician who publicly presented herself as a standard-bearer for Pakistan's dispossessed masses, a champion of civil liberties and unfettered democracy. But she made enemies with her imperious and impulsive manner as prime minister in her dealings with government officials, diplomats, and journalists, as well as what her critics described as a penchant for political vendettas. She recalled her father teaching her the importance of deception in politics, lessons she said she rejected in favor of openness. But American officials were troubled by her disclosures about her role in Pakistan's secret nuclear program. weaponsIn recent years, she has claimed that the Pakistani military kept her in the dark about the weapons program, and that she first learned about it at a CIA briefing in Washington in 1989.
In an interview two years ago (in 2005 – P.G.) for a documentary produced by The New York Times and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, she stated that while in office, she also did not know that A.Q. Khan, the head of Pakistan's nuclear program, was selling nuclear technology to other countries, including Libya and North Korea. However, according to Dr. Khan's associates, after visiting North Korea in the 1990s, Bhutto returned to Islamabad with North Korean projects. missiles, designed to carry Pakistani warheads.
In her 1989 memoirs, published under the titles "Daughter of the East" and "Daughter of Destiny," she chided reporters for focusing on her clothing—almost always the traditional loose dress favored by Pakistani women—declaring that she cared little about such things. But among her aides and the Pakistani diplomats who often accompanied her on shopping trips abroad, she developed a reputation for shopping at the high-end jewelry and shoes in the boutiques of Beverly Hills, London, and Paris.
Critics often attributed her arrogance and refined taste to a sense of superiority, as the daughter of Zulfikar Bhutto and a prominent member of a wealthy landowning family in the cotton-growing southern province of Sindh. The egalitarian credo that Bhutto preached as a politician found little resonance in the lives of impoverished men and women, many of whom were hired laborers working the family's ancestral lands.
After her second dismissal from office in 1996, according to a friend, Bhutto's sense of her inextricable connection to Pakistan's fate contributed to actions that led Pakistani investigators to accuse her and Zardari of embezzling up to $1,5 billion from government accounts.
British and American private investigators working for the government of her political rival, Nawaz Sharif, produced a voluminous document they claimed traced multimillion-dollar kickbacks paid to the couple in exchange for government contracts, as well as a network of bank accounts around the world used to hide the money. Bhutto and Zardari categorically denied the allegations, claiming their accusers were seeking to remove her from power.
Criminal investigations into the couple's financial dealings were launched in the UK, Spain, and Switzerland, among other countries. However, the cases against the couple in Pakistan dragged on in the courts for years, and the cases against Bhutto were eventually dropped by an amnesty granted by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (2001-2008 – P.G.) as part of a US-brokered deal that cleared the way for Bhutto to enter Pakistan in the fall to participate in the elections Musharraf had scheduled for January.
The US attempt to restore her to power in Islamabad reflected her tireless efforts during her years in exile to maintain ties with the political and media elite in Washington and London, where she constantly predicted that Pakistan would one day need her return and return to power.
Among her friends, Bhutto's marriage to Zardari, who was in Dubai when she was assassinated, was seen as key to understanding the many problems that arose in her life in the years following her father's execution. The 1987 marriage was arranged, according to Muslim tradition. Her mother acted as a marriage broker. Zardari came from a modest family of entrepreneurs who owned a cinema.
Bhutto herself spoke soberly about the implications of an arranged marriage, noting that five years of house arrest—and, briefly, imprisonment—under General Zia left her with little opportunity for courtship. But her friends watched her relationship with Zardari with interest. Handsome, with a macho appearance that Bhutto told friends she initially found humorous, he became an important figure in two governments, serving in her cabinet during her second term and playing a key role in approving foreign investment.
Zardari's nickname among Pakistanis, "Mr. 10 Percent," reflected the widespread belief that he had implicated Bhutto in the financial scams that played a major role in her decision to go into exile. Zardari, arrested before her departure, spent eight years in prison but was never brought to trial and was released by [President] Musharraf, after which he was allowed to leave Pakistan.
Bhutto never backed down in her husband's defense. "Time will tell if he is Pakistan's Mandela," she said.
The couple had a son, Bilawal, and two daughters, Bakhtwar and Asefa. Bilawal, 19, began his studies at Oxford in the fall. The girls remained with their father in Dubai.
The New York Times
29th of December 2007
29th of December 2007
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