The twice-elected, twice-deposed Pakistani leader knew very well the risks she was taking
The Toronto Star, December 28, 2007
Sonya Fatah
When Benazir Bhutto left Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh park after addressing a rally yesterday, she appeared buoyant, almost victorious as she waved to the crowd that had gathered to hear her champion the cause of democracy less than two weeks before Pakistan was expected to elect its new leader.
Seconds later she lay in a pool of her own blood, her dream of leading the country again brought to a premature end as an unidentified gunman shot her in the head and chest before blowing himself up.
When I met Bhutto five months ago in her three-bedroom central London apartment, she appeared relaxed and confident, counting off the days before her return from an eight-year long self-imposed exile.
It was an exciting time for Bhutto, 54, twice-elected and twice-deposed prime minister of Pakistan, who found herself rediscovered and courted by international governments and the media. As President Pervez Musharraf’s power and popularity began to wane, Bhutto had crept into the vacuum, convincing foreign delegations and governments that if the war on terror had to be won in Pakistan, it had to include the people of the country.
“I don’t think the military can tackle extremism,” she told me over a cup of tea in her living room. “(Musharraf) and I speak from different vantage points. He needs the extremist issue to legitimize his rule. I don’t. I need the people’s support so I need to wipe out extremism … to regain the trust and love of the people.”
As Bhutto wove a romantic story about the people of Pakistan, it was difficult not to believe her sincerity.
Her home was modestly decorated and without an elaborate security system. Her media adviser, a former Pakistani ambassador to Britain, answered the door and led me into the living room where there was little, if any, opulence on display. Bhutto, I was told, was just getting ready. She was due to address an influential group of policy advisers after our meeting. Tea was served by the only other person in the house, a maid who had been with the family for decades.
Ten minutes later, Bhutto strode into the room, apologetically. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she laughed. “I was putting on all this television makeup because I thought I was going to be on camera.”
It was a reprimand aimed at her aide, but gently executed. She was meant to sit on a chair across from me, but she quickly disbanded with formalities and came to share the sofa with me “so we can be more relaxed.”
She spoke in soft, measured, yet urgent tones, bending forward to come closer when she wanted to make an important point.
If anything, her attitude reflected the change in her own circumstances. A year earlier, Bhutto had been relegated to Pakistan’s history books. But after Musharraf committed a series of national and international blunders, Bhutto quickly became a mainstream player, a potential queen on Pakistan’s erratic chess board of key figures.
“I’m willing to take the risk (of being arrested),” Bhutto had told me, when asked about the possibility of being handcuffed upon her return to Pakistan in October if talks between Musharraf and her party failed, and a long list of corruption cases against her remained in place. “I’m willing to take that risk for the people of Pakistan because I’ve spent my whole life serving the people of Pakistan.”
When she finally returned to Pakistan, she sobbed as she descended from the plane and raised her arms to the heavens in thanks. She survived a massive suicide blast during her homecoming parade that killed scores of supporters from her Pakistan People’s Party. She had not been arrested but her life was clearly in danger.
Afterwards, addressing a small group of journalists in her Karachi home, Bhutto said she was willing to pay with her life if that was the cost of restoring democracy. She would happily join the ranks of those who had died on Karachi’s main thoroughfare while supporting the cause of democracy.
Bhutto’s life journey, which ended at Liaquat park, had hardly been a straightforward one.
Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, became Pakistan’s first popularly elected prime minister but was toppled by the military in 1977 and later hanged for the murder of a political opponent.
Bhutto’s political career began in earnest in 1988, when Gen. Zia ul Haq, who hanged her father and ruled with an iron fist over Pakistan for 11 years, died in a mysterious plane crash.
Bhutto, who had spent several years in prison and in exile under Zia, returned to Pakistan in 1986. When Zia died two years later, she was elected prime minister by a large majority. Bhutto was 35 and the first Muslim woman to rule the country. On the streets of Pakistan, the euphoria was palpable.
To mark the end of 11 years of military rule, people danced in the streets blaring a PPP song, “Long live, Long live, Long live Bhutto and Benazir,” a tribute to her father and to her future career.
But the promises of a new Pakistan were quickly defeated after charges of corruption were filed against Bhutto and her husband, Asif Zardari. By 1990 her government had been dismissed.
She returned to power in 1993, only to be ousted again three years later on similar charges of corruption.
Until the end, Bhutto claimed the charges were false, part of a political vendetta to weaken her.
After Musharraf toppled her successor Nawaz Sharif in a coup in 1999, Bhutto quietly left the country. Over a period of eight years she moved between Dubai and London, tirelessly working to regain her foothold in the international community. It was only after serious tensions arose in Pakistan in March over Musharraf’s sacking of the country’s top judge that eyes turned to Bhutto.
She negotiated a difficult amnesty with Musharraf that quashed corruption charges against her and permitted her return in October.
It was never going to be easy. Bhutto’s triumphant return was short-lived when a suicide bomber struck her homecoming parade killing 140 people. It was a wake-up call for Bhutto who appeared shaken but even more determined to continue on her journey.
She seemed to have thought matters through in her London apartment as she talked about a need to change Pakistan’s foreign policy and move with the times, about combating terrorism without military force, and about addressing, even, corruption.
“The last time I could not contain the military or the intelligence because the power was not with me,” she said.
“I’ve lived physically outside the country but … mentally and emotionally within the country,” she said, insisting that although her feet had not been on the ground, the distance had not alienated her from Pakistan or its people.
“You know, politics began as a duty for me,” she told me. “My father used to say that politics was a romance for him, a romance with the people of Pakistan. For me, politics was a duty but now it’s become a passion … because so many people I know have been brutally murdered – like my father and my brothers.”
Indeed, the Oct. 18 suicide attack only fuelled that passion. “Having lost so many people, people who were close to me, people whom I ate with, people whose little children I saw, it’s really become a passion for me, that we have to succeed. So, I don’t think of the risks. I think of all those people who are with the people, who are with me. It’s their love, their strength and their sacrifices that drive me on.”
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