Adil Najam
News is just breaking that former Prime Minister and head of the Pakistan People’s Party, Benazir Bhutto was killed in Rawalpindi in a terrorist attack.
She was gunned down by an assasin who then blew himself up in a suicide attack. This happened at teh end of her rally in Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi; the same place where Liaqat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s first Prime Minister was assassinated. Major news networks are now reporting that following bomb blasts at Benazir Bhutto’s rally in Rawalpindi, shots were fired directly targeting her. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari says that one of these shots hit her in the neck and killed her.
According to early BBC reports:
Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack, a military spokesman has announced on TV. Earlier reports said Ms Bhutto had only been injured and taken to hospital.
Ms Bhutto had just addressed a pre-election rally in the town of Rawalpindi when the bomb went off. At least 15 other people are reported killed in the attack and several more were injured. Ms Bhutto had twice been the country’s prime minister. She was campaigning ahead of elections due in January.
‘She expired’
The explosion occurred close to an entrance gate of the park in Rawalpindi where Ms Bhutto had been speaking. Benazir Bhutto had been addressing rallies in many parts of Pakistan
PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar initially said that Ms Bhutto was safe. But later he told the BBC that Ms Bhutto had died. Another member of the PPP, Wasif Ali Khan, told the Associated Press news agency from the Rawalpindi General Hospital: “At 6:16 pm (1316 GMT) she expired.”
I, like most Pakistanis, am still too numb with shock and grief to think coherently about what has happened or what the implications of this are for teh country and for the world. But this I know, whether you agreed with her political positions or not you cannot but be in shock. Even as I type these lines I am literally shaking. Hers was a tragic life story. So tragic that had it not been real no one would have believed it.
At this point all sorts of thoughts float through the politics of this. Why did this happen? Why was it not stopped? What could have been done to stop this senseless murder? Maybe she should not have come back? Who did this? What will this mean for the elections? What will this mean for the PPP? What will this mean for Gen. Musharraf? What will this mean for Pakistan? But all of these are paled by thoughts about Benazir as a person. The woman. The wife. The mother. The human being. What about her?
I have not always agreed with her politically but there was always a respect for her political courage. I had met her many times, first as a journalist covering her when she had just returned to Pakistan in the Zia era and before she became Prime Minister. Later a number of times in her two stints as Prime Minister and thena few times during her exile. In that last period she toll to referring to me as “Professor sahib” and some of our exchanges were more candid (at least on my part) than they had been earlier.
At a human level this is a tragedy like no other. Only a few days ago I was mentioning to someone that the single most tragic person in all of Pakistan - maybe all the world - is Nusrat Bhutto. Benazir’s mother. Think about it. Her husband, killed. One son alledgedly poisoned. Another son assasinated. Daughter rises to be Prime Minister twice, but jailed, exiled, and finally gunned down.
Today, in shock, I can think only of Benazir Bhutto the human being. Tomorrow, maybe, I will think of politics.
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This is a sad moment for everyone. As a non-Pakistani I was very impressed by the original blogpost and particularly its ending. That spirit of humanism is what the world needs.
I can understand teh anger of some people in thecomments and frustration that must lead from this sad event but I hope that there are many more in Pakistan and the world like the writer of this blogpost who think in human terms before they think in political terms.
JK,
When BB was attacked on Oct. 18th and when a lot of people were blaming her for the real cause of the deaths of so many people (and, worse, for actually staging the attack!!) I accused BB of naivette of high order: Her long absence from Pakistan has made her oblivious of the ‘changed realities’ of Pakistan where there are so many suicide-bombers-for-hire roaming around, ready to be co-opted.
I say with full conviction that Pakistan has a pretty healthy supply of suicide-bombers-for-hire who can be co-opted (or hired) by anyone. These are very effective tools for various purposes.
BB should NOT have come back to Pakistan. If she indeed stole $1.5 BILLION then that should be all she could need? But, NO, she was ‘greedy’, either for power or money, right?
So she comes back to Pakistan and faces an attack on day 1 of her return. She and her top leadership barely miss their death. But remains defiant and chooses to talk to people not in a ‘Pope Mobile’ but through open air interaction all too often.
Why would she do it? If you read what I say above and establish a reasonble basis you may come to the opinion that BB lived too much in the past where the ‘power of the people’ can be supreme and that she has seen so much deaths in her immediate family that it would not matter much for her.
Yes, many would say ‘foolish’. I, too, am seething with anger at her: “Why didn’t you stay back in exile?!! Don’t you know what Pakistan has become now?!!”
But then my heart melts and my eyes pour out: She just did not know that Pakistan has become a very cruel society. Or she really was willing to die for whatever she believed in!
This is a sad day for the world. Big loss. My heart goes out to all Pakistanis.
Someone tell Americans Bhutto was not most popular candidate in Pakistan. But it was Sharif by looking at the crowed he was attracting.
I agree if some one threatens me before I go to Pakistan , I will cancel my trip to Pakistan. And BB was threaten over and over and she was saved from 1st attack at least she should have taken some precautions. I mean when she was telling these extremists who were threatening her that I will take care of you once I am elected and then getting out of sun roof was not smart thing to do. With all Honesty I am not belong to PPP. But i did not want this to happen.I was even happy to see process moving forward and spoke to my wife last night telling her I hope these elections are free and clear.
But was concerned for something like this can happen.
As an outsider and a person of Indian origin, I saw Ms. Benazir Bhutto as a strong female leader who towered above all other political leaders in Pakistan. As a woman, she had to fight harder to get ahead in a male dominated Asian society. Every time she was pulled down by men, she survived and came back again with greater vigour. She had a vision for Pakistan and for the region, a picture obviously not shared by many traditional men in the country. In the end, men who are not able to win at the polls killed her. It is too early to say if she was killed for being a woman leader amongst men or for her ‘vision’. All I can say is that Pakistan and the region have lost a great leader.
This heinous event also calls to question the roll of those who were supposed to have protected her. Why were her assassins allowed to get so close to her? Why were they not stopped before they got to her? Why was she allowed to address the public from the sunroof of her car? How could this event have happened in a garrison town without the knowledge of the Army or the all-powerful Pakistani Intelligence Agency? We may never find the real answers to these questions.
To many in the region, Benazir was the final hope for bringing lasting peace in Pakistan and the sub-continent. Now that hope seem to have been so cruelly extinguished - it maybe decades before another leader with the same calibre and stature is able to take-up what she has initiated. The people who killed her may have a narrow game plan but her death may yet trigger greater consequences for Pakistan and the region. Although my instinct tells me that Pakistan is now facing the greatest challenge in her history, standing at the final edge of an abyss, I sincerely hope and pray that sanity will prevail and people of good intention will finally get together to pull back the country from self destruction. Ms. Benazir Bhutto was a patriot and she would never want the break-up of her country through civil war or mindless internal conflicts.
This is also not the time for the Generals to take a backseat, play fiddle while the country burns. They need to go after the shadowy groups who are responsible for this assassination and ensure Benazir Bhutto is fully avenged. Justice must be done. In the meantime, the democratic process must go on. The elections must not be stopped.
The people of Pakistan are now the keepers of Benazir Bhutto’s ‘vision’ for the country, that dream must not be allowed to die with her. Otherwise, she would have died in vain.
Extremists all over , in my most honest opinion should be captured , castrated and be torched , starting with Bush.
Noone deserves to take a bullet in the neck.A sad day for “democracy” on the whole.
@RE:couldn’t agree more. Illogical and senseless people like Mazhir Abaas is the dilemma for Pakistan. I also heard him accusing Govt not to gave a tip about this suicide attack. Guess what they are the leadening journalists and so called champions of democracy in Pakistan.
Besides this I also just heard the news that angry mob burned a bank in Pakistan and six security guards inside the bank died because of this fire; what kind of people live in our country. Do they really deserve the democracy. God bless my country.