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.
This is a direct result of the mandarins in the State Dept sitting 10,000 miles away deciding what is good for Pakistan. Some moron of an analyst at State or some DC Think tank decided the best course of Pakistan is to import a corrupt BB from her comfortable exile and bring democracy to the land - not recognizing that Pakistan is an extremely dangerous place and “ground realities” do matter. Even Mush - with his phalanx of body guards and State security machinary barely survived assasinations attempts against him. Too bad she decided to serve as prop for the “revised” US policy for Pakistan. Another sad tragedy for the corrupt Bhutto clan.
Bad,Bad,worst,
@I am shocked to see our country heading
towards political assasinations, I was expecting
this to happen as she never stopped provoking
some quarters with her pro-American, very western
tendencies, backing , and support in “imposing ” her
on Pakistani Politics. But Why now ?? after being
isolated from Aitizaz, she was sufficiently warned.
PPP should ponder over such set back imposed.
Inna lilah-e-wa-inna elaih-e-rajeoon.
Greed for power?! When she was attacked on Oct. 18th she refused to hide behind the bullet proof screen and stood out exposed. That was her defiance again and again, even to the point that recently she criticized PPP management for making her presence from more secure Pubbi then Nowshera because, in our own words, she wanted to closer to people being in Nowshera and that ‘I am not afriad of death’.
Give what is due to her! With the alleged $1.5 billion loot she did not have to go back to Pakistan where her chances were dim anyway due to powerful forces arrayed against her. But she did go back and addressed people from the front.
As Atia says above, this is the most shocking day since the exeuction of ZAB. The consequences can be horrendous unless a radical change is made. Already Altaf Hussain–not allied with PPP, by the way–has just stated that PMs from Sindh get killed in Rawalpindi (Liaqat, ZAB, and now BB). Already there are slogen mongering in interior Sindh to break-away from Pakistan.
To me she was the best–and I expressed my views after the 18th October attack–because she was the best to unite Pakistanis from all parts of Pakistan. This one single potential was enough for me to overlook her alleged flaws.
She died a brave woman and will be remembered for generations as an icon of resistance starting her career in 1977.
Immediately after September 11, Pakistan stood at a fork in the road: whether to ally with the US against the Taliban, or whether to continue to support the Taliban and not offer the US any assistance. At that time the right choice for Pakistan seemed clear to me, and Musharraf made the right choice (in my opinion).
In the light of the events of today it can be argued that Musharraf’s attempts to beat back extremism have been ineffective at best, and may have been misleading (the NY Times reports that a lot of the aid meant to go towards fighting extremism in the NWFP was diverted to help develop weapons systems designed to counter India).
Pakistan is once again at a crossroads. Which way we go as a nation will determine how (and if) we survive. But the options are not clear to me. The only thing that is clear is that there is no magical answer to our predicament. There is no “hero” who is going to fly in and save us. We have to save ourselves.
The question is, how?
May be she should not have returned to Pakistan. I would call it a greed for power - may be i am wrong - may be she wanted to help the people of Pakistan. From here, where to? The incident a couple of months ago when there was an assasination attempt on her life and when 130 people were killed should have prompted her to go back. Was it worth continuing in Pakistan good for her. Even today nearly 25 persons were killed - what about their families & near and dear ones. The only lesson to be learnt is - Eradicate terrorism from all over the world if you want the world to be a happy place to live in.
Dear Adil, I wish everyone will pay heed to the last line and paragraphs in your post: “Today, in shock, I can think only of Benazir Bhutto the human being. Tomorrow, maybe, I will think of politics.”
May she rest in peace. May her family have the strength to bear yet another tragic death. May Pakistan survive this great loss.
Even though I hated her as a politician this cowardly act signifies the lows we as a country have reached. We have no value of human life nor do we have any sense of deceny left in us. Pakistani society as a whole has disintegrated to the point that we are a bunch of animals running wild. We can blame anyone we want but the truth is we are all to blame for our complaceny in allowing our social structures to decay.
another one bites the dirt