.jpg)
.jpg)
In 1982, at age 29, Benazir Bhutto became the chairperson of PPP – a centre-left, democratic socialist political party, making her the first woman in Pakistan to head a major political party. In 1988, she became the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state and was also Pakistan's first (and thus far, only) female prime minister. Noted for her charismatic authority and political astuteness, Benazir Bhutto drove initiatives forPakistan's economy and national security, and she implemented social capitalist policies for industrial development and growth. In addition, her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labour markets, the denationalisation of state-owned corporations, and the withdrawal of subsidies to others. Benazir Bhutto's popularity waned amid recession, corruption, and high unemployment which later led to the dismissal of her government by conservativePresident Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
In 1993, Benazir Bhutto was
re-elected for a second term after the 1993 parliamentary elections. She
survived an attempted coup d'état in 1995, and her hard line against the
trade unions and tough rhetorical opposition to her domestic political rivals
and to neighbouring India earned her the nickname "Iron Lady"; she
was also respectfully referred to as "B.B." In 1996, the charges
of corruption levelled against her led to the final dismissal of her
government by President Farooq Leghari. Benazir Bhutto conceded her defeat
in the 1997 Parliamentary elections and went into self-imposed exile
in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in 1999.
After nine years of self-exile,
she returned to Pakistan on 18 October 2007, after having reached an
understanding with President Pervez Musharraf, by whom she was
grantedamnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn. Benazir Bhutto
was assassinated in a bombing on 27 December 2007, after leaving
PPP's last rally in the city of Rawalpindi, two weeks before the
scheduled 2008 general election in which she was a leading opposition
candidate. The following year, she was named one of seven winners of
the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights.
Personal life
Background
Benazir Bhutto was born at Pinto
Hospital in Karachi, Sindh, Dominion of Pakistan on 21 June
1953. She was the eldest child of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto, who was of Sindhi ethnicity, and Begum Nusrat Ispahani, a
Pakistani of Iranian Kurdish descent. Her paternal grandfather
was Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto. She had three younger siblings:
brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz (both of whom became active in
politics), and a sister, Sanam.
Bhutto was raised to speak
both English and Urdu; English was her first language; and
while she was fluent in Urdu, it was often colloquial rather than
grammatical. Despite her family being Sindhi speakers, her
Sindhi skills were almost non-existent.
She attended the Lady Jennings
Nursery School and Convent of Jesus and Mary in Karachi. After
two years at the Rawalpindi Presentation Convent, she was sent to
the Jesus and Mary Convent at Murree. She passed
her O-level examinations at the age of 15. She then went on to
complete her A-Levels at the Karachi Grammar School.
After completing her early
education in Pakistan, she pursued her higher education in the United
States. From 1969 to 1973 she attended Radcliffe
College at Harvard University, where she obtained a Bachelor of
Arts degree with cum laude honours in comparative
government. She was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Bhutto later
called her time at Harvard "four of the happiest years of my life"
and said it formed "the very basis of her belief in democracy". Later
in 1995 as Prime Minister, she arranged a gift from the Pakistani government
to Harvard Law School. In 1989, during her first visit, Benazir
Bhutto was conferred with her honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degree
from Harvard University in 1989.
In June 2006, she received an
Honorary LL.D degree from the University of Toronto.
The next phase of her education
took place in the United Kingdom. Between 1973 and 1977 Bhutto
studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Lady Margaret
Hall, Oxford, during which time she took additional courses in International
Law and Diplomacy. After LMH she attended St Catherine's
College, Oxford and in December 1976 she was elected president of
the Oxford Union, becoming the first Asian woman to head the prestigious
debating society. Her undergraduate career was dogged by controversy,
partly relating to her father's unpopularity with student politicians. Her
election to the presidency of the union was secured only when the poll was
re-run after Bhutto had accused the original winner, Vivien Dinham, of
canvassing.
On 18 December 1987, she
married Asif Ali Zardari in Karachi. The couple had three children:
two daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa, and a son, Bilawal. When she gave
birth to Bakhtawar in 1990, she became the first modern head of government to
give birth while in office.
Family
Benazir Bhutto's father, Prime
Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was removed from office following a military
coup in 1977 led by the thenchief of army General Muhammad
Zia-ul-Haq, who imposed martial law but promised to hold elections
within three months. Instead of holding general elections, General Zia charged
Bhutto with conspiring to murder the father of dissident politician Ahmed
Raza Kasuri.
Despite the accusation being
"widely doubted by the public", and many clemency appeals
from foreign leaders, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged on 4 April 1979 under the
effective orders of Supreme Court of Pakistan. Appeals for clemency were
dismissed by Chief Martial Law Administrator General Zia-ul-Haq.
Benazir Bhutto, her siblings, and her mother were held in a "police
camp" until May 1979.
Martial law: arrest and imprisonment
After 1979, Zulfi Bhutto's children and
his wife struggled against the ruthless far-right military
dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, despite negative consequences for
themselves due to their opposition. Benazir Bhutto and her younger
brother Murtaza spent the next eighteen months in and out of house
arrest while she worked to rally political support in an attempt to force
General Zia-ul-Haq to drop murder charges against her father. On behalf of
Bhutto's former Law minister Abdul Hafeez Pirzada and Fakhruddin
Abrahim, the Bhutto family filed a petition at the Chief Martial Law
Administrator Office for the reconsideration the sentence of Zulfikar Bhutto,
and for the release of Bhutto's friend Dr. Mubashir Hassan. However,
General Zia-ul-Haq claimed to have misplaced the petition, and further ignored
worldwide appeals for clemency. Zulfikar Bhutto was hanged on April 1979
despite the international pressure. Following the hanging of Zulfikar, Benazir
and Murtaza were arrested. After PPP's victory in the local elections, General
Zia postponed the national elections indefinitely and moved Benazir, Murtaza,
and their mother Nusrat Bhutto from Karachi to Larkana Central Jail. This was
the seventh time that Nusrat Bhutto and her children had been arrested within
two years of the military coup. After repeatedly placing them under house
arrest, the regime finally imprisoned her under solitary confinement in a
desert cell in Sindh Province during the summer of 1981. She described the
conditions in her wall-less cage in her book "Daughter of Destiny,"
which goes by the title of "Daughter of the East" in Commonwealth
countries for copyright reasons:
The summer heat turned my cell
into an oven. My skin split and peeled, coming off my hands in sheets. Boils
erupted on my face. My hair, which had always been thick, began to come out by
the handful. Insects crept into the cell like invading armies. Grasshoppers,
mosquitoes, stinging flies, bees and bugs came up through the cracks in the
floor and through the open bars from the courtyard. Big black ants,
cockroaches, seething clumps of little red ants and spiders. I tried pulling
the sheet over my head at night to hide from their bites, pushing it back when
it got too hot to breathe
—Benazir Bhutto, summer of 1981
After her six-month imprisonment
in Sukkur jail, she remained hospitalised for months afterward and she was then
transferred toKarachi Central Jail, where she remained imprisoned until 11
December 1981. She was then placed under house arrest in Larkana for eleven
months before being transferred to Karachi where she was placed under house
arrest for an additional fourteen months.
Release and self-imposed exile
In January 1984, after six years
of house arrests and imprisonment, General Zia succumbed to international
pressure and allowed Bhutto's family to travel abroad for medical reasons.
After undergoing surgery, she resumed her political activities and began to
raise awareness about the mistreatment of political prisoners in Pakistan at
the hands of the Zia regime. This intensified pressure forced General Zia
into holding a referendum to give legitimacy to his government. The referendum
held on 1 December 1984 proved to be a farce: only 10% of the voters bothered
to turn out despite encouragement by the state machinery. In 1985, Benazir
Bhutto received news at a local hotel in Nice, France that her
brother Shahnawaz Bhutto was murdered by poisoning. The Bhutto family
believed that this was done under orders from General Zia-ul-Haq, prompting
Zulfikar Bhutto's children to hide.
Further pressure from the
international community forced General Zia to hold elections, for a unicameral
legislature on a non-party basis. Benazir Bhutto announced a boycott of the
election on the grounds that they were not being held in accordance with the
constitution of Pakistan. She continued to raise her voice against human rights
violations by the Zia regime and addressed the European Parliament in
Strasbourg in 1985. In retaliation for the speech, Zia announced death
sentences for 54 members of her party at a military court in Lahore headed by
Zia himself.
Political campaign
Benazir Bhutto, who had returned to Pakistan after completing her
studies, found herself placed under
house arrest in the wake of
her father's imprisonment and subsequent execution. Having been allowed to
return to the United Kingdom in 1984, she became aleader in exile of Pakistan
People's Party (PPP). For the first time in the
Benazir Bhutto on a visit to Washington,
D.C. in 1989
history of Pakistan, a woman was chairwoman of a major political
party, though she was unable to make her political presence felt in Pakistan
until after the death of General Zia. She succeeded her mother
as chairperson of the PPP and the pro-democracy opposition, although a left
wingalliance, the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) to
the far-right andultraconservative military government of
General Zia.
1988 parliamentary elections
The seat, from which Benazir
contested for the safe constituency for the post of Prime Minister in 1980s,
namely, NA 207. This seat was considered a Bhutto clan's post and first
contested in 1926 by the late Sardar Wahid Bux Bhutto, in the first ever
elections in Sindh, British Indian Empire. The elections were for the Central
Legislative Assembly of India. Sardar Wahid Bux won, and became not only the
first elected representative from Sindh to a democratically elected parliament,
but also the youngest member of the Central Legislative Assembly at age 27.
Wahid Bux's achievement was monumental as it was he who was the first Bhutto
elected to a government, from a seat that would, thereafter, always be
contested by his family members.
Therefore, it was he who paved
the way for subsequent Bhuttos to enter Pakistani politics. Sardar Wahid Bux
went on to be elected to the Bombay Council. After Wahid Bux's untimely and
mysterious death at the age of 33, his younger brother Nawab Nabi Bux Bhutto
contested from the same seat and remained undefeated until retirement. It was
Nabi Bux who then gave this seat to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to contest in 1970. On
16 November 1988, the first open political elections in more than a decade were
held and Benazir Bhutto won major provinces of Pakistan and had the largest
percentile for seats in the National Assembly— a lower house of
Parliament.
Prime minister
First term (1988–1990)
Benazir Bhutto became 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan on 2 December
1988. Arriving at the Prime Minister Secretariat, Benazir Bhutto addressed
the huge crowd:
We gather together to celebrate freedom, to celebrate democracy, to
celebrate the three most beautiful words in the English language: `"We the
People. "
—Benazir Bhutto on 2 December 1988,
Initially on 2 December,
Benazir Bhutto formed a coalition government with MQM, a liberal
party, as her ally. As time passed, Bhutto quietly isolated MQM's influence
from government and later ousted them, establishing a single party government
and claiming the entire mandate from all of Pakistan. During this time, the
effects of General Zia's domestic policies began to reveal themselves
and she found them difficult to counter. During her first term, Bhutto vowed to
repeal the controversial Hudood Ordinance and to revert the Eight
Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto also
promised to shift Pakistan's semi-presidential system to aparliamentary
system. But none of the reforms were made and Benazir began to struggle with
conservative President Ghulam Ishaq Khan over the issues of executive
authority. President Khan repeatedly vetoed proposed laws and ordinances that
would have lessened his presidential authority. Benazir Bhutto's
accomplishments during this time were in initiatives for nationalist reform and
modernisation, which some conservatives characterised as Westernization.
Relations with India and Afghanistan war
Benazir took the office in the
crucial and penultimate decade of the Cold War, and closely aligned with
the United States PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush, based on a mutual
distrust of Communism, although she strongly opposed the United States's
government's support of the Afghan Mujaheddin which she labeled "America's
Frankenstein" during her first state visit to the United States in 1989. Benazir
Bhutto's government oversaw and witnessed the major events in the alignment of
the Middle East and South Asia. On the Western front,
the Soviet Union was withdrawing its combatant forces from
the Afghanistan and the United States-Pakistan alliance had broken
off due to the United States government's suspicions concerning Pakistan's
nuclear weapons program, in 1990. Benazir Bhutto deliberately attempted to warm
Pakistan's relations with neighboring India and met with prime minister Rajiv
Gandhi in 1989 where she negotiated for a trade agreement when the Indian
premier paid a farewell visit to Pakistan. The goodwill relations with
India continued until 1990 after V. P. Singh succeeded Gandhi as
Premier. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) influence on Singh
forced him to abrogate with agreements, and tensions began to rise with
Pakistan after the BJP enforced its hardline policies inside Kashmir which the
Pakistani government denounced. Soon, the Singh administration launched a
military operation in Kashmir in order to curb the secessionist movement. In
response, Benazir allegedly gave authorization for covert operations to
support Kashmiri succession movements in Indian Kashmir. In
1990, Major-General Pervez Musharraf, who was the Director-General of
the Directorate-General for the Military Operations (DGMO), proposed a
strategic plan against India to Benazir Bhutto calling for a Kargil
Infiltration, but Benazir refused because General Musharraf didn't have a
strategy for dealing with any resultant international fallout. In 1988,
Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul met with Bhutto and advocated for a plan
supporting the Khalistan movement, a Sikh nationalist movement.
General Gul justified this strategy as the only way of preempting a fresh
Indian threat to Pakistan's territorial integrity. Bhutto
disagreed with his views and asked him to stop playing this
"card". General Gul reportedly told the Prime minister that,
"Madam' Prime Minister, keeping [Indian] Punjab destabilized is
equivalent... to the Pakistan Army.... having an extra division at no cost
to the taxpayers...”
Science policy
While on her trip to United
Kingdom in 1990, Benazir Bhutto paid a visit to Dr. Abdus Salam, a Nobel
laureate in Physics and a science advisor to her father, for
whom she had great respect. During her first and second terms, Benazir Bhutto
followed the same policy on science and technology that her father had laid in
1972, and she promoted the military funding of science and technology as
part of her policy. However, in 1988, Benazir Bhutto was denied access to the countrys’
classified national research institutes run under thePakistan Armed Forces which
remained under the control of civilian President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the
Chief of Army Staff. Ironically,
Bhutto was deliberately kept unaware about the progress of the nuclear
complexes when the country passed the milestone of manufacturing fissile core
decades ago. The U.S. Ambassador, Robert Oakley, was the first
diplomat to have been notified about the complexes in 1988. Shortly after
this, Benazir summoned Chairman of the PAEC, Munir Ahmad Khan who
she knew since 1975 in her office where Khan brought Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan with
him and introduced Dr. Khan to the prime minister. At there, Benazir
Bhutto learned to status of this crash program which had been matured since
1978, and on behalf of dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, Benazir first paid the visit
to KRL in 1989 which angered President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. Benazir
Bhutto also responded to Khan when she moved the Ministry of Science and
Technology's office to the Prime Minister Secretariat with Munir Ahmad Khan
directly reporting to her. Benazir
Bhutto had successfully eliminated any possibility of Khan's involvement and
prevented him from having any influence in science research programmes, a
policy which also benefited Nawaz Sharif. During her first and
second term, Benazir Bhutto issued funding of many projects entirely devoted to
the country's national defence and security.[37] The dismissal of
Lieutenant-General Gul by Benazir Bhutto had played a significant role on Chief
of Army Staff General Mirza Aslam Beg who did not interfere in
matters pertaining to science and technology, and remained supportive towards
Benazir Bhutto's hard line actions against the President. In 1990,
Benazir denied to allot funds of any military science projects that would be
placed under Lieutenant-General Zahid Ali Akbar, despite the fact
that Akbar was known to be closed to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. In 1990, she forced
Akbar to resign from active duty, and as director-general of Army
Technological Research Laboratories (ATRL); she replaced him with
Lieutenant-General Talat Masood as E-in-C of ATRL as well
as director of all military projects.
In the 1980s, Benazir Bhutto
started aerospace projects such as Project Sabre II,Project PAC, Ghauri
project under dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan in 1990 and the Shaheen programme in
1995 under dr. Samar Mubarakmand. The starting of the integrated space
weapons programme was one of the major contributions that enhanced
Pakistan's atomic bomb program as well. To some observers and historians,
Benazir is widely considered as "mother" of Pakistan's space
programme, is widely given credit for given the authorisation and nurturing the
development of the Ghauri andShaheen programme.
During her second term, Benazir
Bhutto declared "1996", a year of "information technology",
and envisioned her policy of making Pakistan a "global player" in
information technology. One of her initiatives was the launching of an
ambitious package to promote computer literacy through participation
from the private sector. Benazir issued an executive decree allowing the
completion of duty-tariff free imports of hardware and software exports, in
order to provide a low rate for data communications in both the public and
private sectors. Benazir
Bhutto also established and set up the infrastructure of soft-ware technology
parks in rural areas and in urban cities, and approved a financial assistance
loan for soft-ware houses for the public sector.
Atomic weapons programme
In opposition to her conservative
opponent Nawaz Sharif whose policy was to make the nuclear weapons
programme benefit theeconomy, Benazir Bhutto took aggressive steps and
decisions in order to modernise and expand the integrated atomic weapons
programme founded and started by her father in 1972, who was one of the key
political administrative figures of Pakistan's nuclear deterrent
development. During her first term, Benazir Bhutto established the
separate but integrated nuclear testing programme in the atomic bomb programme,
thus establishing a nuclear testing programme where the authorisations were
required by the Prime minister and the military leadership. Despite Benazir's
denial of the authorisation of the nuclear testing programme in her second
term, She continued to modernise the programme to new heights despite the
United States' embargo, which she termed "contractual obligation".
During her first term, Bhutto had
approved and launched the Shaheen programme as she had advocated for
this programme strongly. A vocal and avid supporter of the program, Bhutto also
allotted funds for the programme, and strategic programs were launched under
Bhutto's premiership. On 6 January 1996, Bhutto publicly announced that if
India conducts a nuclear test, Pakistan could be forced to "follow
suit". Bhutto later said that the day will never arise when we have
to use our knowledge to make and detonate a [nuclear] device and export our
technology.
The People of
(Pakistan)... are "security conscious" because of the (1971) severe
trauma, and the three wars with (India). Our (Pakistan) nuclear
development was peaceful... but was "an effective deterrence to
India"..... because (New Delhi) had detonated a nuclear device. She
(Pakistan)...., thus, had to take every step to ensure its territorial
integrity and sovereignty.....
—Benazir Bhutto, on
Pakistan's nuclear weapons,
Space programme
Benazir Bhutto continued her
policy to modernise and expand the space programme and as part of that policy,
she launched and supervised the clandestine project integrated research
programme (IRP), a missile programme which remained under Benazir Bhutto's
watch and successfully ended in 1996, also under her auspices. As part of
her policy, Benazir constituted the establishment of National Development
Complex and
the University Observatory in Karachi University and
expanded the facilities for the space research. Pakistan's first military
satellite, Badr-I, was also launched under her government through China,
while the second military satellite Badr-II was completed during her
second term. With launching of Badr-I, Pakistan became the first
Muslim country to have launched and placed a satellite in Earth's orbit. She
declared 1990 a year of space in Pakistan and conferred national awards to
scientists and engineers who took participation in the development of this
satellite.
1989 military scandal
In 1989, public media reported a
sting operation and political scandal codename, Midnight Jackal, when
former members of ISI hatched a plan to topple the Bhutto government.
Midnight Jackal was a political intelligence operation launched under
President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the Chief of Army Staff General Mirza Aslam
Beg, and the objectives were to bring the vote of no confidence movement
in the Parliament by bribing the members of Benazir's own party. Lieutenant-General Asif
Nawaz had suspected the activities of Brigadier-General Imtiaz Ahmad,
therefore, a watch cell unit was dispatched to keep an eye on the Brigadier.
This operation was exposed
by ISI when it had obtained a VHS tape containing the
conversation between two former army officers and former members of ISI,
from the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The tape was confiscated
by ISI director-general Lieutenant-GeneralShamsur Rahman Kallu who
showed this tape to Benazir the next day. The video tape showed the
conversation of Major Amir Khan and Brigadier-General Imtiaz Ahmed revealed
that Chief of Army Staff General Mirza Aslam Baig of that time wanted to end
government due to some issues. Though, the Brigadier had failed to prove
the General Beg's involvement, General Mirza, on the other hand, sharply denied
the accusation and started a full fledged courts martial of these officers with
Benazir being the civilian Judge of JAG Branch to proceed the
hearings. The officers were deposed from their services and placing them
at Adiala military correctional institute in 1989. It was not until
1996, that the officers were released from the military correctional institute
by the order of Prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Dismissal
By the 1990, Benazir Bhutto had
successfully lessened the role of President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in government
operations as well as Khan's importance in the military. With the
following revelation of Midnight Jackal, Benazir had successfully
undermined Khan's importance in national politics and his influence in
government-ruling operations on the day-to-day basis. Benazir Bhutto was thought
by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan to be a young and inexperienced figure in
politics, though highly educated. But, Khan had miscalculated the
capabilities of Bhutto who emerged as a 'power player' in international
politics. Benazir Bhutto's authoritative actions frustrated the President who
was not taken in confidence while the decisions were made, and by 1990, the
power struggle between the Prime minister and President ensued. Because
of the semi-presidential system, Benazir needed permission from Khan for
imposing new policies, which Khan vetoed as he seen to moderate or contradict
to his point of view. Benazir, through her legislators, also attempted to
shift parliamentary democracy to replace the semi-presidential
system, but Khan's constitutional powers always vetoed Benazir's attempts.
The amid tales of corruption
began to surfaced in the media in the nationalised industries and corporations
which undermined the credibility of Benazir Bhutto. The unemployment and labour
strikes began to take place which halted and jammed the economic wheel of the
country and Benazir Bhutto was unable to solve these issues due to in a cold
war with the President. In November 1990, after a long political battle, Khan
finally used the Eighth Amendment (VIII Amendment) to dismiss the Bhutto
government following charges of corruption, nepotism, and despotism. Khan
soon called for new elections in 1990 where Bhutto conceded defeat.
Second term (1993–1996)
Though the Pakistan People's
Party won the most seats (86 seats) in the election but fell short of an
outright majority, with the PML-N in second place with 73 seats in the
Parliament. The PPP performed extremely well on Bhutto's native province,
Sindh, and rural Punjab, while the PML-N was strongest in industrial Punjab and
the largest cities such as Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. On
19 October 1993, Benazir Bhutto was sworn as Prime Minister for second term
allowing her to continue her reform initiatives.
Benazir Bhutto learned a valuable
experience and lesson from the presidency of Ghulam Ishaq Khan, and the
presidential elections were soon called after her re election. After
carefully examining the candidates, Benazir Bhutto decided to appoint Farooq
Leghari as for her president, in which, Leghari sworned as 8th President
of Pakistan on 14 November 1993 as well as first Baloch to have became
president since the country's independence. Leghari was an apolitical figure
who was educated Kingston University London receiving his degree in
same discipline as of Benazir Bhutto But unlike Khan, Leghari had no
political background, no experience in government running operations, and had
no background understanding the civil-military relations. In contrast,
Leghari was a figurehead and puppet president with all of the military leadership
directly reporting to Benazir Bhutto. She first time gave the main
ministry to the minorities and appointed Julius Salik as Minister for
Population Welfare. The previous governments only give ministry for minority
affairs as a minister of state or parliamentary secretary. J. Salik is a very
popular leader among minorities and won the MNA seat by getting highest votes
throughout Pakistan.
Domestic affairs
Benazir Bhutto was Prime Minister
at a time of great racial tension in Pakistan. Her approval poll rose by 38%
after she appeared and said in a private television interview after the
elections: "We are unhappy with the manner in which tampered electoral
lists were provided in a majority of constituencies; our voters were turned
away." The Conservatives attracted voters from religious
society (MMA) whose support had collapsed.[ The Friday Times noted
"Both of them (Nawaz and Benazir) have done so badly in the past, it will
be very difficult for them to do worse now. If Bhutto's government fails,
everyone knows there will be no new elections. The army will take
over". In confidential official documents Benazir Bhutto had objected
to the number of Urdu speaking class in 1993 elections, in context
that she had no Urdu-speaking sentiment in her circle and discrimination was
continued even in her government.[ Her stance on these issues was
perceived as part of rising public disclosure which Altaf Hussain called
"racism". Due to Benazir Bhutto's stubbornness and authoritative
actions, her political rivals gave her the nickname "Iron Lady"of
Pakistan. No response was issued by Bhutto, but she soon associated with
the term.
Benazir Bhutto meeting with
socialist intellectuals in 1996 during a socialist convention in Pakistan.
The racial violence in Karachi
was reached at peak and became a biggest problem for Benazir Bhutto to counter.
The MQM attempted to make an alliance with Benazir Bhutto under her own
conditions, but Benazir Bhutto refused. Soon the second operation, Operation
Blue Fox was launched to wipe the MQM from country's political spectrum. The
results of this operation remains inconclusive and resulted in thousands killed
or gone missing, with majority contains Urdu-speaking. Benazir Bhutto
issued the statement to MQM asking the MQM to surrender to her government
unconditionally. Though the operation was halted in 1995, but amid
violence continued and, Shahid Javed Burki, a professor of economics,
noted that "Karachi problem was not so much an ethnic problem as it was an
economic question. Amid union and labour strikes beginning to take place
in Karachi and Lahore, which were encouraged by both Altaf Hussain and Nawaz
Sharif to undermine her authority, Benazir Bhutto responded by disbanding these
trade union and issuing orders to arrest the leaders of the trade unions, while
on other hand, she provided incentives to local workers and labourers as she
had separated the workers from their union leaders successfully. Benazir
Bhutto expanded the authoritative rights of Police Combatant Force and
the provisional governments that tackled the local opposition
aggressively. Bhutto, through her Internal Security Minister Naseerullah
Babar, intensified the internal security operations and steps gradually putting
down the opposition's political rallies, while she did not complete abandoned
the reconciliation policy. In her own worlds, Benazir Bhutto announced:
"There was no basis for (strikes)... in view of the ongoing political
process...".
In August 1993, Benazir Bhutto
narrowly escaped an assassination attempt near her residence in the
early morning. While no one was injured or killed, the culprits of this attempt
went into hiding. In December 1993, disturbing news began to surface in
the Swat valleywhen Sufi Muhammad, a religious cleric, began to
mobilise the local militia calling for overthrow of the "un-Islamic rule
of [Iron] Lady".Benazir Bhutto responded quickly and ordered the Pakistan
Army to crackdown the militia, leading to the movement crushed by the Army
and the cleric was apprehended before he could escape.
However, corruption grew during
her government, and her government became increasingly unpopular amid
corruption scandals which became public. One of the most internationally and
nationally reported scandals was the Agosta Submarine scandal. Benazir Bhutto's
spouse Asif Ali Zardari was linked with former Admiral Mansurul
Haq who allegedely made side deals with French officials and Asif Ali
Zardari while acquiring the submarine technology. It was one of the
consequences that her government was dismissed and Asif Ali Zardari along with
Mansurul Haq were arrested and a trial was set in place. Both Zardari and Haq
were detained due to corruption cases and Benazir Bhutto flew to Dubai from
Pakistan in 1998.
Women's issues
During her election campaigns,
she had promised to repeal controversial laws (such as Hudood and Zina ordinances)
that curtail the rights of women in Pakistan. Bhutto was pro-life and
spoke forcefully against abortion, most notably at the International
Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, where she accused the
West of "seeking to impose adultery, abortion, intercourse education and
other such matters on individuals, societies and religions which have their own
social ethos." However, Bhutto was not supported by the leading women
organisations, who argued that after being elected twice, none of the reforms
were made, instead controversial laws were exercised more toughly. Therefore,
in 1997 elections, Bhutto failed to secure any support from women's
organisations and minorities also gave Bhutto the cold-shoulder when she
approached them. It was not until 2006 that the Zina ordinance was finally
repealed by a Presidential Ordinance issued by Pervez Musharraf in
July 2006.
Bhutto was an active and founding
member of the Council of Women World Leaders, a network of current and
former prime ministers and presidents.
Foreign policy
Benazir Bhutto's foreign policy
was controversial. As for her second term, Benazir Bhutto expanded Pakistan's
relations with the rest of the world. As before like her father, Benazir
Bhutto sought to strengthen the relations with socialist states, and
Benazir Bhutto's first visit to Libya strengthened the relations between
the two countries. Benazir also thanked Muammar al-Gaddafi for
his tremendous efforts and support for her father during before Zulfikar's
trial in 1977. Ties continued with Libya but deteriorated after Nawaz Sharif
became prime minister in 1990 and again in 1997. In Pakistan, Gaddafi was
said to be very fond of Benazir Bhutto and was a family friend of Bhutto
family, but disliked Nawaz Sharif due to his ties with General Zia in the
1980s. Benazir Bhutto is said to have paid a state visit to North
Korea in early 1990 and in 1996, and according to journalist Shyam
Bhatia, Bhutto smuggled CDs containinguranium enrichment data
to North Korea on a state visit that same year in return for data on
missile technology. According to the expert, Benazir Bhutto acted as
female "James Bond", and left with a bag of computer disks to
pass on to her military to North Korea.
Benazir Bhutto in the United
States, 1989.
Major-General Pervez Musharraf
closely worked with Benazir Bhutto and her government in formulating the
foreign strategy with Israel. In 1993, during Benazir Bhutto's state visit
to the United States, Major-General Pervez Musharraf who was tenuring as
the Director-General of the Pakistan Army's Directorate-General for the
Military Operation (DGMO), was ordered by Bhutto to join this state visit. As
unusual and unconventional it was for the Director of the Directorate-General
for Military Operations (DGMO) to join this trip, Benazir Bhutto and her DGMO
had chaired a secret meeting with Israeli officials in New York in
1993 who especially flew to Washington. Under her guidance, General
Musharraf had intensified theISI's liaison with Israel's Mossad. A
final meeting took place in 1995, and General Musharraf had also joined this
meeting with Benazir Bhutto after she ordered General Musharraf to fly to New
York immediately. Benazir Bhutto also strengthened relations with
communist state Vietnam and visited Vietnam to sign the mutual trade
and international political cooperation between both countries. In 1995,
Benazir Bhutto paid a state visit to United States where she held
talks with U.S. President Bill Clinton. During the visit, Benazir Bhutto
urged the United States to amend the Pressler Amendment and emphasized United
States to launch a campaign against the extremism. Though, the Prime Minister
criticized U.S.'s nonproliferation policy and demanded that the United States
honour its contractual obligation. She was successful in getting the
United States to pass the Brown Amendment which released Pakistani government
funds which had been frozen after the Pressler Amendment, However the arms
exports ban remained.
In 1995, the ISI reported
to the Bhutto that P.V. Narasimha Rao, Indian Premier had given
an authorisation for nuclear tests, and the tests could be conducted any minute.
Benazir responded by putting the country's nuclear arsenal programme on
high-alert emergency preparations were made by the government, and Benazir
Bhutto ordered the Pakistan Armed Forces to stay on high-alert. However, after
the United States interfered, the Indian operations for conducting
the nuclear tests were called off and the Japanese tried to provide mediation
between both countries. However, in 1996, Benazir Bhutto met with the
Japanese officials where she warned India about conducting the nuclear tests,
and in the first time, Benazir Bhutto revealed that Pakistan has achieved
"parity" with India in its "capacity" to produce nuclear
weapons and their "delivery capability." While talking to Indian
press, Benazir Bhutto said that Pakistan "cannot afford to negate the
parity we maintain with India" in the nuclear area. Benazir Bhutto's
statements represent a departure from Pakistan's previous policy of
"nuclear ambivalence." Soon after learning this news, Prime
minister Benazir Bhutto issued a statement concerning the tests in which she
reportedly told the international press and condemned Indian nuclear tests, as
she put it:
If (India) conducts a nuclear
test, it would forced her (Pakistan) to.. "follow suit...The day will
never arise... when we (Pakistan)...have to use our knowledge to make and
detonate a [nuclear] device and export our [nuclear] technology..."
—Benazir Bhutto, 6 January
1996,
Benazir Bhutto also intensified
her policy on Indian-held Kashmir by rallying against India. Benazir
Bhutto, accompanied by her then-Speaker of the National Assembly Yousaf
Raza Gillani (future prime minister) at the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting
at the United Nations, gave a vehement and intensified criticism to India which
upset and angered the Indian delegation headed by prime minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee. Vajpayee responded by saying: "It is Pakistan which
is flouting the United Nations resolution by not withdrawing its forces from
Kashmir...You people create problems every time. You know the Kashmiri people
themselves acceded to India. First, the Maharajah, then the Kashmiri parliament
both decided to go with India"
In 1996, Benazir Bhutto attacked
the Indian nuclear programme and warned India of "tragic
consequences".Bhutto criticised Indian held-Kashmir and described it as
the worst example of Indian intransigence. Benazir also countered
Indian allegation for Pakistan'sputative nuclear test as "baseless
allegation". Bhutto criticised India as a bid to hide its plan to
explode a nuclear device, and failure to cover up its domestic problems
including its failure in suppressing the freedom struggle in Kashmir.
Relations with military
During her first term, Benazir
Bhutto had strained relationship with the Pakistan Armed Forces,
especially with Pakistan Army. Chief of Army Staff General Mirza
Aslam Beg had cold relations with the elected prime minister, and
continued to undermine her authority. As for the military appointments, Benazir
Bhutto refused to appoint General Beg as the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Committee, instead invited Admiral Iftikhar Ahmed Sirohey to
take the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1988, Benazir
Bhutto appointed Air Chief Marshal Hakimullah as the Chief of
Air Staff and Admiral Jastural Haq as the Chief of Naval
Staff. In 1988, shortly after assuming the office, Benazir Bhutto paid a visit
to Siachen region, to boost the moral of the soldiers who fought
the Siachen warwith India. This was the first visit of any civilian
leader to any military war-zone area since the country's independence in 1947. In
1988, Benazir appointed Major-General Pervez Musharraf as
Director-General of the Army Directorate General for Military Operations
(DGMO); and then-Brigadier-General Ishfaq Pervez Kayani as her
Military-Secretary. In 1989, the Pakistan Army exposed the alleged Operation
Midnight Jackal against the government of Benazir Bhutto. When she learned
the news, Benazir Bhutto ordered the arrest and trial of
former ISI officer Brigadier Imtiaz Ahmad and Major Amir Khan, it was
later revealed that it was General Beg who was behind this plot. General
Beg soon paid the price in 1993 elections, when Benazir Bhutto politically
destroyed the former general and his career was over before taking any shifts
in politics. During her first term, Benazir Bhutto had successfully
removed senior military officers including Lieutenant-Generals Hamid
Gul, Zahid Ali Akbar, General Jamal Ahmad Khan, and Admiral Tarik
Kamal Khan, all of whom had anti-democratic views and were closely aligned to
General Zia-ul-Haq, replacing them with officers who were educated in Western
military institutes and academies, generally the ones with more westernised
democratic views.
During her second term, Benazir
Bhutto's relations with the Pakistan Armed Forces took a different
and pro-Bhutto approach, when she carefully appointed General Abdul Waheed as
the Chief of Army Staff. General Abdul Waheed was an uptight, strict, and
a professional officer with a views of Westernized democracy. Benazir also appointed
Admiral Saeed Mohammad Khan as Chief of Naval Staff; General Abbas
Khattak as Chief of Air Staff. Whilst, Air Chief Marshal Farooq
Feroze Khan was appointed Chairman Joint Chiefs who was the first (and to
date only) Pakistani air officer to have reached to such 4 star assignment.
Benazir Bhutto enjoyed a strong relations with the Pakistan Armed Forces, and
President who was hand-picked by her did not questioned her authority. She
hand-picked officers and promoted them based on their pro-democracy views while
the puppet President gave constitutional authorisation for their
promotion. The senior military leadership including Jehangir Karamat, Pervez
Musharraf, Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Ali Kuli Khan, Farooq Feroze
Khan, Abbas Khattak and Fasih Bokhari, had strong Western
democratic views, and were generally close to Bhutto as they had resisted
Nawaz Sharif's conservatism. Unlike Nawaz Sharif's second democratic term,
Benazir worked with the military on many issues where the military
disagreement, solving many problems relating directly to civil-military
relations. Her tough and hardline policies on Afghanistan, Kashmir and
India, which the military had backed Benazir Bhutto staunchly.
After the assassination was
attempted, Benazir Bhutto's civilian security team headed under Rehman
Malik, was disbanded by the Pakistan Army whose X-Corps' 111th Psychological Brigade—
an army brigade tasked with countering the psychological warfare— took
control of the security of Benazir Bhutto, that directly reported to Chief of
Army Staff and the Prime Minister. Benazir Bhutto ordered General Abdul Waheed
Kakar and the Lieutenant-General Javed Ashraf Qazi director-general
of ISI, to start a sting and manhunt operation to hunt down the
ringmaster, Ramzi Yousef. After few arrests and intensive manhunt search,
theISI finally captured Ramzi before he could flew the country. In matter
of weeks, Ramzi was secretly extradited to the United States, while
the ISI managed to kill or apprehend all the culprits behind the
plot. In 1995, she personally appointed General Naseem Rana as the
Director-General of the ISI, who later commanded the Pakistan Army's
assets in which came to known as "Pakistan's secret war in Afghanistan".
During this course, General Rana directly reported to the prime minister, and
led the intelligence operations after which were approved by Benazir Bhutto. In
1995, Benazir also appointed Admiral Mansurul Haq as the Chief of
Naval Staff, as the Admiral had personal contacts with the Benazir's family.
However, it was the Admiral's large-scale corruption, sponsored by her
husband Asif Zardari, that shrunk the credibility of Benazir Bhutto by the
end of 1996 that led to end of her government after all.
Policy on Taliban
The year of 1996 was crucial for
Benazir Bhutto's policy on Afghanistan when Pakistan-backed extremely
religious group, the Taliban, took power in Kabul in September
1996. It was during Benazir Bhutto's rule that the Taliban gained
prominence in Afghanistan and many of her government, including
herself, had backed the Taliban for gaining the control of Afghanistan. She
continued her father's policy on Afghanistan taking aggressive measures
to curb the anti-Pakistan sentiments in Afghanistan. During this time, many in
the international community at the time, including the United States
government, viewed the Taliban as a group that could stabilise Afghanistan and
enable trade access to the Central Asian republics, according to
author Steve Coll.
He claims that her government
provided military and financial support for the Taliban, even sending a small
unit of the Pakistan Armyinto Afghanistan. Benazir had approved the
appointment of Lieutenant-General Naseem Rana who she
affectionately referred to him as "Georgy Zhukov"; and had reported
to her while providing strategic support to Taliban. During her regime,
Benazir Bhutto's government had controversially supported the hardline Taliban,
and many of her government officials were providing financial assistance to the
Taliban. Fazal-ur-Rehman, a right-wing cleric, had a traditionally deep
influence on Benazir Bhutto as he convinced and later assisted Benazir
Bhutto to help the regime of Taliban she established the Taliban's
Afghanistan. In a reference written by American scholar, Steve Coll in Ghost
Wars, he dryly put it: "Benazir Bhutto was suddenly the matron of a new
Afghan faction— theTaliban."
Under her government, Pakistan
had recognised the Taliban regime as legitimate government in
Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to open an embassy in Islamabad.
In 1996, the newly appointed Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Abdul
Salam Zaeef presented her diplomatic credentials while he paying a
visit to her. Other authors also wrote extensively on Benazir Bhutto's
directives towards Taliban, according to one author, that it was later founded
and became a historical fact that it was Benazir, a Western-educated woman, who
set in motion the events leading to 9/11 incident in the United
States.
However in 2007, she took an
anti-Taliban stance, and condemned terrorist acts allegedly committed by the
Taliban and their supporters.
Dismissal
In spite of her tough rhetorical
actions to subdue her political rivals and neighbouring India and Afghanistan,
the government corruption heightened and exceeded its limits during her second
regime by her appointed government members and cabinet ministers, most notable
figures were both Asif Ali Zardari and Admiral Mansurl Haq. Soon after the
death of her younger brother, Benazir Bhutto widely became unpopular and public
opinion turned against her government. In Sindh Province, Benazir Bhutto
lost all the support from the powerful feudal lords and political spectrum that
turned against her. In 1996, the major civil-military scandal became
internationally and nationally known when her spouse Asif Ali Zardari was
linked with then-Chief of Naval Staffand former Admiral Mansurol Haque.
Known as Agosta class scandal, many of higher naval admirals and
government officials of both French and Pakistan were accused to
have gotten heavy commissions while the deal was disclosed to sell this
sensitive submarine technology to Pakistan Navy.
In November 1996, Bhutto's
government was dismissed by Leghari primarily because of corruption and
Murtaza's death, who used the Eighth Amendment discretionary powers to
dissolve the government. Benazir was surprised when she discovered that it was
not the military who had dismissed her but her own hand-picked puppet President
who had used the power to dismiss her. She turned to the Supreme Court hoping
for gaining Leghari's actions unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court justified
and affirmed President Leghari's dismissal in a 6–1 ruling. Many military
leaders who were close to Prime minister rather than the President, did not
wanted Benazir Bhutto's government to fall, as they resisted the Nawaz Sharif's
conservatism.[ When President Leghari, through public media,
discovered that General Kakar (Chief of Army Staff), General Khattak (Chief
of Air Staff), and Admiral Haq (Chief of Naval Staff) had been
backing Benazir to come back in the government; President Leghari aggressively
responded by dismissing the entire military leadership by bringing the
pro-western democracy views but neutral military leadership that would
supervise the upcoming elections. This was the move that Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif (elected in 1997) did repeat in 1999, when Nawaz Sharif had deposed
General Jehangir Karamat after developing serious disagreements on the issues
of national security. (see Dismissal of General Jehangir Karamat).
Criticism against Benazir Bhutto
came from the powerful political spectrum of the Punjab Province and
the Kashmir Province who opposed Benazir Bhutto, particularly the
nationalisation issue that led the lost of Punjab's privatised industries under
the hands of her government. Bhutto blamed this opposition for the
destabilisation of Pakistan. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
CommitteeGeneral Jehangir Karamat at one point intervened in the
conflict between President and the Prime Minister, and urged Benazir Bhutto to
focus on good governance and her ambitious programme of making the
country the welfare state, but the misconduct of her cabinet ministers
continued and the corruption which she was unable to struck it down with a full
force. Her younger brother's death had devastating effect on Benazir's image
and her political career that shrunk her and her party's entire credibility. At
one point, Chairman of Joint Chiefs General Jehangir Karamat noted that:
In my opinion, if we have to
repeat of past events then we must understand that Military leaders can
pressure only up to a point. Beyond that their own position starts getting
undermined because the military is after all is a mirror image of the society
from which it is drawn.
—General Jehangir Karamat
commenting on Benazir's dismissal,
Soon after her government was
ended, the Naval intelligence led the arrest of Chief of Naval Staff
and acquitted him with a running court-martial sat up at the Naval
Judge Advocate General Corps led by active duty 4-star admiral. Many
of her government members and cabinet ministers including her spouse were
thrown in jails and the trials were sat up at the civilian Supreme Court.
Faced with serious charges by the Navaz Sharif's government, Bhutto flew
to Dubai with her three young children while her spouse was thrown in
jail. Shortly after rising to power in a 1999 military coup, General Pervez
Musharraf characterized Bhutto's terms as an "era of sham
democracy" and others characterized her terms a period of corrupt, failed
governments.
Parliamentary opposition (1996–1999)
Benazir Bhutto suffered wide
range public disapproval after the intense corruption cases were made public,
and it was clearly seen after Benazir Bhutto's defeat in 1997
parliamentary elections. Soon, Benazir left for Dubai taking her three
children with her, while her husband was set to face trial.
Bhutto assumed the position
of Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament despite
living in Dubai, working to enhance her public image whilst being supportive of
public reforms. In 1998, soon after the Indian nuclear tests, Benazir
publicly called for the tests, rallying and pressuring the elected Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif to take the decision. Benazir had political intelligence from
within close circles of the prime minister that Nawaz Sharif was reluctant and
hesitated to give authorisation to the tests. Therefore, it was felt, her
public call for the Test would increase her popularity. However, this move
backfired when the Prime minister indeed authorised and gave orders to the
scientists from PAEC and KRL to conduct the tests. A wide
range of approvals of these tests was conceived by the Prime Minister; the
public image and prestige of Nawaz Sharif was at its peak point. As for
Benazir, it was another political defeat and her image gradually declined in
1998.
However, Pakistan entered in
the year of 1999 that brought dramatic changes for Benazir Bhutto as well as
the entire country. Benazir criticized Sharif for violating the Armed
Forces's code of conduct when the prime minister illegally appointed General
Pervez Musharraf as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Committee. Nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan also criticised the
Prime Minister.
In early months of 1999, Sharif
remained widely popular while Sharif took initiatives to make peace with
neighbouring India. However, this all changed when Pakistan became involved
with unpopular and undeclared war with India. This conflict, known as
Kargil war, brought international embarrassment for the country, and the prime
minister's public image and prestige was destroyed in matter of two months. Benazir
gave rogue criticism to the prime minister, and called the Kargil War,
"Pakistan's greatest blunder"
Lieutenant-General (retired) Ali
Kuli Khan, Director-General of ISI at that time, also publicly
criticised the prime minister and labelled this war as "a disaster bigger
than East Pakistan". Benazir Bhutto, now joined by religious
and liberal forces, made a tremendous effort to destroy the prestige and
credibility of her political enemy, according to south Asia expert William
Dalrymple. In August 1999, Sharif soon faced an event that completely
shattered what remained of his image and support. Two Indian Air Force MiG-21FL
fighters shot down a Pakistan Navy reconnaissance plane, killing 16
naval officers. Benazir Bhutto criticised Sharif for having failed to gather
any support from the navy. Pakistan Armed Forces deteriorated as the
Armed Forces began to criticise the prime minister for causing the military
disasters. During this time, Benazir's approval ratings were favourable and
received a wide range of positive approvals in society. The Armed Forces Chiefs
remained sympathetic towards Benazir as she continued to criticise the now
unpopular Sharif.
I went over the statement with
[American] officials.... and [I] find there is (nothing) which supports the
...(Nawaz) Government. Before December of...(1999)... Nawaz Sharif's
premiership and his... government would fall....
—Benazir Bhutto, Statement
issued on 25 September 1999,
Early 2000s (decade) in exile
By the end of 1990s, the one-time
populist Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had become widely unpopular, and
following the military coup, Sharif's credibility, image, and even his career
was destroyed by General Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. Musharraf formed
the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) in order to politically banish the
former prime minister's party support in Balochistan, Punjab, Sindh, Khyber,
and Kashmir Provinces. The Pakistan Muslim League (Q) had consisted of those
who were initially part of the former prime minister's party but then moved
with Musharraf in order to avoid prosecution and going to jail. The year of
2000 brought positive changes for Benazir Bhutto who widely became unpopular in
Pakistan in 1996. In the 2000s decade, following the declassification of secret Hamoodur
Rahman Commission's papers and other secret documents of 1970s, Benazir
Bhutto's support in Pakistan began to rally. Her image in the country widely
became positive and People's Party seemed to be coming back in the government
soon the new elections were scheduled to take place. Amid fear of
coming back of Benazir Bhutto threatened Pervez Musharraf, therefore, Musharraf
released many of the political prisoners of the liberal-secular force,
the Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM). Musharraf saw MQM as the vital
political weapon of holding back of Pakistan Peoples Party. But, MQM had only
support in Karachi at that time, and lacked its support to urban
areas of Sindh, which remained a vital threat for Musharraf.
Therefore, in 2002, Pakistan
president Pervez Musharraf amended Pakistan's constitution to ban
prime ministers from serving more than two terms, fearing the comeback of
Benazir Bhutto. This disqualified Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif from ever
holding the office again. This move was widely considered to be a direct attack
on former Prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. On 3 August
2003, Bhutto became a member of Minhaj ul Quran International (an
international Muslim educational and welfare organisation).
Public life
While living in Dubai, United
Arab Emirates, she cared for her three children and her mother Nusrat, who
was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. She also traveled to give lectures
in the U.S. and kept in touch with the PPP's supporters. She and the children
were reunited with her husband in December 2004 after more than five years. In
2006, Interpol issued a request for the arrest of Bhutto and her
husband on corruption charges, at the request of Pakistan. The Bhuttos
questioned the legality of the requests in a letter to Interpol. On 27
January 2007, she was invited by the United States to speak to President George
W. Bush and Congressional and State Department officials. Bhutto
appeared as a panellist on the BBC TV programme Question Time in
the UK in March 2007. She has also appeared on BBC current affairs
programme Newsnight on several occasions. She rebuffed comments made
by Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq in May 2007 regarding the knighthood of
Salman Rushdie, citing that he was calling for the assassination of foreign
citizens.
Intention to return to Pakistan
Bhutto had declared her intention
to return to Pakistan within 2007, which she did, in spite of Musharraf's
statements of May 2007 about not allowing her to return ahead of the country's
general election, due late 2007 or early 2008. It was speculated that she may
have been offered the office of Prime Minister again.
Attitudes toward Urdu-speaking class
In 1980s, Benazir Bhutto removed
the Urdu-speaking Dr. Mubashir Hassan, co-founder of Pakistan People's
Party and close friend of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Some attribute this is her
dislike of "muhajirs" whilst others attribute it to Dr Hasan being
unhappy with PPP's move away from traditional socialism and anti US spirit. From
the inception of the party, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had enjoyed a strong relations
with Urdu-speaking communities and muhajirs had strong base in
People's Party of Pakistan, and remained supporter of her father until the end.
Many attribute Benazir's hatred towards Muhajir, was the imposition of martial
law and then hanging of her father by General Zia-ul-Haq, a
Punjabi muhajir from Jalandhar.
U.S. attempt for a Musharaff-Bhutto deal
By mid-2007, the U.S. appeared to
be pushing for a deal in which Musharraf remained president and step down as
military head, and either Bhutto or one of her nominees became prime minister.
On 11 July 2007, the Associated
Press, in an article about the possible aftermath of the Red Mosque
incident, wrote:
Benazir Bhutto, the former prime
minister and opposition leader expected by many to return from exile and join
Musharraf in a power-sharing deal after year-end general elections, praised him
for taking a tough line on the Red Mosque.
"I'm glad there was no cease-fire with
the militants in the mosque because cease-fires simply embolden the militants,"
she told Britain's Sky TV on Tuesday. "There will be a backlash, but at
some time we have to stop appeasing the militants."
This remark about the Red Mosque
was seen with dismay in Pakistan as reportedly hundreds of young students were
burned to death and remains are untraceable and cases are being heard in
Pakistani supreme court as a missing persons issue. This and subsequent support
for Musharraf led Elder Bhutto's comrades like Khar to criticise her publicly. Benazir
Bhutto however advised Musharraf in an early phase of the latter's quarrel with
the Chief Justice, to restore him. Her PPP did not capitalise on its
influential CECstatesman, Aitzaz Ahsan, the chief Barrister for the
Chief Justice, in successful restoration. Rather, he was seen as a rival of
Benazir Bhutto, and was isolated on that issue with PPP.
2002 election
The Bhutto-led PPP secured the
highest number of votes (28.42%) and won eighty seats (23.16%) in the national
assembly during theOctober 2002 general elections. Pakistan Muslim League
(N) (PML-N) managed to win only eighteen seats. Some of the elected
candidates of PPP formed a faction of their own, calling it PPP-Patriots, which
was being led by Faisal Saleh Hayat, the former leader of Bhutto-led PPP.
They later formed a coalition government with Musharraf's party, PML-Q.
Return to Pakistan
Possible deal with the Musharraf government
In mid-2002 Musharraf implemented
a two-term limit on prime ministers. Both Bhutto and Musharraf's other chief
rival, Nawaz Sharif, had already served two terms as prime minister.
In July 2007, some of Bhutto's
frozen funds were released. Bhutto continued to face significant charges
of corruption. In an 8 August 2007 interview with the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation, Bhutto revealed the meeting focused on her desire to
return to Pakistan for the 2008 elections, and of Musharraf retaining the
Presidency with Bhutto as Prime Minister. On 29 August 2007, Bhutto announced
that Musharraf would step down as chief of the army. On 1 September 2007,
Bhutto vowed to return to Pakistan "very soon", regardless of whether
or not she reached a power-sharing deal with Musharraf before then.
On 17 September 2007, Bhutto
accused Musharraf's allies of pushing Pakistan into crisis by their refusal to
permit democratic reforms and power-sharing. A nine-member panel of Supreme
Court judges deliberated on six petitions (including one from Jamaat-e-Islami,
Pakistan's largest Islamic group) asserting that Musharraf be
disqualified from contending for the presidency of Pakistan. Bhutto stated that
her party could join one of the opposition groups, potentially that of Nawaz
Sharif. Attorney-general Malik Mohammed Qayyum stated that, pendente lite,
the Election Commission was "reluctant" to announce the
schedule for the presidential vote. Bhutto's party'sFarhatullah Babar stated
that the Constitution of Pakistan could bar Musharraf from being
elected again because he was already chief of the army: "As Gen. Musharraf
was disqualified from contesting for President, he has prevailed upon the
Election Commission to arbitrarily and illegally tamper with the Constitution
of Pakistan."
Musharraf prepared to switch to a
strictly civilian role by resigning from his position as commander-in-chief of
the armed forces. He still faced other legal obstacles to running for
re-election. On 2 October 2007, Gen. Musharraf named Lt. Gen. Ashfaq
Kayani, as vice chief of the army starting 8 October with the intent that if
Musharraf won the presidency and resigned his military post, Kayani would
become chief of the army. Meanwhile, Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed stated
that officials agreed to grant Benazir Bhutto amnesty versus pending
corruption charges. She has emphasised the smooth transition and return to
civilian rule and has asked Pervez Musharraf to shed uniform. On 5 October
2007, Musharraf signed the National Reconciliation Ordinance, giving amnesty to
Bhutto and other political leaders—except exiled former premier Nawaz Sharif—in
all court cases against them, including all corruption charges. The Ordinance
came a day before Musharraf faced the crucial presidential poll. Both Bhutto's
opposition party, the PPP, and the ruling PMLQ, were involved in negotiations
beforehand about the deal. In return, Bhutto and the PPP agreed not to
boycott the Presidential election. On 6 October 2007, Musharraf won a
parliamentary election for President. However, the Supreme Court ruled that no
winner can be officially proclaimed until it finishes deciding on whether it
was legal for Musharraf to run for President while remaining Army General.
Bhutto's PPP party did not join the other opposition parties' boycott of the
election, but did abstain from voting. Later, Bhutto demanded security coverage
on-par with the President's. Bhutto also contracted foreign security firms for
her protection.
Return to Pakistan and the assassination attempt
.jpg)
While under house
arrest, Benazir Bhutto speaks to supporters outside her house.
Bhutto was well aware of the risk
to her own life that might result from her return from exile to campaign for
the leadership position. In an interview on 28 September 2007, with reporterWolf
Blitzer of CNN, she readily admitted the possibility of attack on
herself.
After eight years in exile
in Dubai and London, Bhutto returned to Karachi on 18
October 2007, to prepare for the 2008 national elections.
En route to a rally in Karachi on
18 October 2007, two explosions occurred shortly after Bhutto had landed and
left Jinnah International Airport. She was not injured but the explosions,
later found to be a suicide-bomb attack, killed 136 people and injured at
least 450. The dead included at least 50 of the security guards from her PPP
who had formed a human chain around her truck to keep potential bombers away,
as well as six police officers. A number of senior officials were injured.
Bhutto, after nearly ten hours of the parade through Karachi, ducked back down
into the steel command center to remove her sandals from her swollen feet,
moments before the bomb went off. She was escorted unharmed from the scene.
Bhutto later claimed that she had
warned the Pakistani government that suicide bomb squads would target her upon
her return to Pakistan and that the government had failed to act. She was
careful not to blame Pervez Musharraf for the attacks, accusing
instead "certain individuals within the government who abuse their
positions, who abuse their powers" to advance the cause of Islamic
militants. Shortly after the attempt on her life, Bhutto wrote a letter to
Musharraf naming four persons whom she suspected of carrying out the attack.
Those named included Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, a rival PML-Q politician and chief
minister of Pakistan's Punjab province, Hamid Gul, former director of
the Inter-Services Intelligence, and Ijaz Shah, the director general
of the Intelligence Bureau, another of the country's intelligence agencies. All
those named are close associates of General Musharraf. Bhutto had a long
history of accusing parts of the government, particularly Pakistan's premier
military intelligence agencies, of working against her and her party because
they oppose her liberal, secular agenda. Bhutto claimed that the ISI has for
decades backed militant Islamic groups in Kashmir and in Afghanistan.
She was protected by her vehicle and a "human cordon" of supporters
who had anticipated suicide attacks and formed a chain around her to prevent
potential bombers from getting near her. The total number of injured, according
to PPP sources, stood at 1000, with at least 160 dead (The New York
Times claims 134 dead and about 450 injured).
A few days later, Bhutto's lawyer
Senator Farooq H. Naik said he received a letter threatening to kill
his client.
2007 state of emergency and response
On 3 November 2007, President
Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency, citing actions by the Supreme
Court of Pakistan and religious extremism in the nation. Bhutto returned to the
country, interrupting a visit to family in Dubai. She was greeted by supporters
chanting slogans at the airport. After staying in her plane for several hours
she was driven to her home in Lahore, accompanied by hundreds of
supporters. While acknowledging that Pakistan faced a political crisis, she
noted that Musharraf's declaration of emergency, unless lifted, would make it
very difficult to have fair elections. She commented that "The extremists
need a dictatorship, and dictatorship needs extremists."
On 8 November 2007, Bhutto was
placed under house arrest just a few hours before she was due to lead
and address a rally against the state of emergency.
The following day, the Pakistani
government announced that Bhutto's arrest warrant had been withdrawn and that
she was free to travel and to appear at public rallies. However, leaders of
other opposition political parties remained prohibited from speaking in public.
Preparation for 2008 elections
On 2 November 2007, Bhutto
participated in an interview with David Frost on Al Jazeera,
stating Osama Bin Laden had been murdered by Ahmed Omar Saeed
Sheikh, who is one of the men convicted of kidnapping and killing U.S.
journalist Daniel Pearl. Frost never asked a follow up question regarding
the claim that Bin Laden was dead. Her interview could later be viewed
on BBC's website, although it was initially altered by the BBC as her
apparent claim about Bin Laden's death was taken out. But, once people
discovered this and started posting about her statement on YouTube, the
BBC replaced its version with the version that was originally aired on Al
Jazeera. Several commentators have noted that as she had just been
speaking about one of the sons of bin Laden, in all likelihood, Bhutto simply
misspoke and instead intended to say, "Omar Sheikh, the man who
murdered Daniel Pearl," rather than "...the man who murdered bin
Laden" - such an important revelation about bin Laden's fate would
certainly not have been stated so casually. Additionally, in subsequent
interviews, Bhutto spoke about bin Laden in the context of him being alive.
On 24 November 2007, Bhutto filed
her nomination papers for January's Parliamentary elections; two days later,
she filed papers in the Larkana constituency for two regular seats. She did so
as former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, following seven years of
exile in Saudi Arabia, made his much-contested return to Pakistan and bid
for candidacy.
When sworn in again on 30
November 2007, this time as a civilian president after relinquishing his post
as military chief, Musharraf announced his plan to lift the Pakistan's state of
emergency rule on 16 December. Bhutto welcomed the announcement and launched a
manifesto outlining her party's domestic issues. Bhutto told journalists
in Islamabad that her party, the PPP, would focus on "the five
E's": employment, education, energy, environment, equality.
On 4 December 2007, Bhutto met
with Nawaz Sharif to publicise their demand that Musharraf fulfill his promise
to lift the state of emergency before January's parliamentary elections,
threatening to boycott the vote if he failed to comply. They promised to
assemble a committee that would present to Musharraf the list of demands upon
which their participation in the election was contingent.
On 8 December 2007, three
unidentified gunmen stormed Bhutto's PPP office in the southern western
province of Balochistan. Three of Bhutto's supporters were killed.
Assassination
On 27 December 2007, Benazir
Bhutto was killed while leaving a campaign rally for the PPP at Liaquat
National Bagh in the run-up to the January 2008 parliamentary elections.
After entering her bulletproof vehicle, Bhutto stood up through its sunroof to
wave to the crowds. At this point, a gunman fired shots at her, and
subsequently explosives were detonated near the vehicle killing approximately
20 people. Bhutto was critically wounded and was rushed to Rawalpindi
General Hospital. She was taken into surgery at 17:35 local time, and
pronounced dead at 18:16. The cause of death, whether it was gunshot
wounds, the explosion, or a combination thereof, was not fully determined until
February 2008. Eventually, Scotland Yard investigators concluded that
it was due to blunt force trauma to the head as she was tossed by the
explosion. She was buried alongside her father inNaudero near
Larkana.
The events leading up to Benazir
Bhutto's death correlated with the protest in 1992. In the month of December,
Bhutto met with Nawaz Sharif and expressed frustration with their
government. In response, a rally was conducted in Rawalpindi, the same
place as 1992. Alternatively, these events resulted in her death in 2007.
Al-Qaeda commander Mustafa
Abu al-Yazid claimed responsibility for the attack, and the Pakistani
government stated that it had proof that Baitullah Mehsud, affiliated
with Lashkar i Jhangvi—an al-Qaeda-linked militant group—was the
mastermind. However
this was vigorously disputed by the Bhutto family, the Pakistan Peoples Party
that Bhutto had headed, and by Mehsud. On 12 February 2011, an Anti-Terrorism
Court in Rawalpindi issued an arrest warrant for Musharraf, claiming he was
aware of an impending assassination attempt by the Taliban, but did not pass
the information on to those responsible for protecting Bhutto.
After the assassination, there
were initially a number of riots resulting in approximately 20 deaths, of which
three were of police officers. President Musharraf decreed a three-day
period of mourning.
Bhutto's 19-year-old son Bilawal
Bhutto Zardari succeeded his mother as titular head of the PPP, with his
father effectively running the party until his son completes his studies
at Christ Church, Oxford.
On Friday 26 April 2013 a court
ordered house arrest for Musharraf in connection with the death of Benazir
Bhutto.
On the morning of 3 May 2013,
Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, special prosecutor in charge of the investigation of Mrs
Bhutto's murder was killed in Islamabad when attackers on a motorcycle sprayed
his car with bullets as he drove to the courthouse.
Domestic challenges
Original cabinet members of
Zulfikar Bhutto did not join Benazir's government, most notably Dr. Mubaschir
Hassan who declined to work with Benazir Bhutto supposedly due to
disagreement with her policies, notably the issue nationalization. Critics
accused Benazir Bhutto of sidelining Urdu-speaking sentiment in the party,
feudal leaders, and notable Sindhi nationalists from her party during both
terms in government.
Assessment of 1997 elections
For some observers, it was the
worst parliamentary defeat of People's Party and Bhutto since the party's
inception where People's party secured only 21.8% of the vote.
Honors and eponyms
In spite of criticism, Benazir
Bhutto, the Iron Lady, remains respected among her rivals, and is often
remembered with good wishes. Her rivals always referred to her
as B.B. and have never called her by her actual name in accordance to
her respect. Benazir Bhutto is often seen as a symbol of women empowerment and
participation in national politics as many parties ranging from Liberal-secular,national
conservatives to the religious society have now allowed women to
be part of their political ideology and fully participate in elections.
Her efforts and struggle to save
her father and democracy remain a lasting legacy that is deeply respected among
her rivals. The
Pakistan government honored Bhutto on her birthday by renaming the Islamabad
International Airport as Benazir Bhutto International Airport, Muree
Road of Rawalpindi as Benazir Bhutto Road and Rawalpindi General Hospital as
Benazir Bhutto Hospital. Prime MinisterYousaf Raza Gillani, a member of Bhutto's
PPP, also asked President Pervez Musharraf to pardon convicts
on death row on her birthday in honour of Bhutto. The city
of Nawabshah in Sindh was renamed Benazirabad in
her honour. A university in the Dir Upper district of NWFP was founded in her
name.Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), a program which provides
benefits to the poorest Pakistanis, is named after Bhutto.
Benazir Bhutto's books
·
Benazir Bhutto (1983). Pakistan: the
gathering storm. ISBN 978-0-7069-2495-4.
·
Benazir Bhutto (1989). Daughter of the East.
Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 978-0-241-12398-0.
·
Daughter of the East was also released as: Benazir
Bhutto (March 1989). Daughter of Destiny: An Autobiography. Simon &
Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-66983-6.
At the time of Bhutto's death,
the manuscript for her third book, to be called Reconciliation: Islam,
Democracy and the West, had been received by HarperCollins. The book,
written with Mark Siegel, was published in February 2008.
Benazir Bhutto (2008). Reconciliation:
Islam, Democracy, and the West. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-156758-2.
MAY HER SOUL REST IN PEACE
Posted in: Political
.jpg){kind=link}
0 comments:
Post a Comment