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 assassin who then blew himself up in a suicide attack. This happened at the 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 the 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 assassinated. 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.
Not since 9-11 has any news moved me like the death of Benazir Bhutto. On 9-11 I had cried out loud, “Oh, God, NOOOOOOOO”. Again yesterday I cried out the same thing. I cry for her family and children.
I am saddend by the loss of a human being who was a major player in pushing for a democratic process in Pakistan. I have no opinion on who hould have won the election, only that a fair election took place. What now? In 1967, Robert F. Kennedy was shot down while running for President in the US. Although the assassination was not by a terrorist group, it affected the outcome of our democratic process. We ended up with Richard Nixon – not so good. No one in the Democrat Party really filled in the void for Kennedy. I hope and pray that all of the people in Pakistan learn from the mistake of others. Despite allegations of corrupt security, you must move on … so I think the violence should stop. And, despite what I read that no one in Ms. Bhutto’s party, the PPP, can rise up to take her place, some one must. The democratic process must survive and defeat the facists or Pakistan will surely end up like other states lead by dictators. Pakistan is better than that.
1) I can hardly classify her death as an ‘accident’ even if she was killed by the lever of the car: She was attacked then! That’s plain murder. Not accident.
2) The $1.5 BILLION corruption remain unproved. There was a $13 million conviction in a Swiss court which was taken back after BB contested.
3) NS himself has said that there were a lot of politically-motivated cases between BB/NS in the 90s.
4) In today’s ‘AAJ TV’ show all 4 participants (one was Talat Hussain, one a certain Paracha), incidentally all non-Sindhis, gave me great heart: They addressed the issues of BB’s corruption (many others have made billions since 1977) and her rejection by the Establishment. According to them, even before BB came to power in 1988 (and had chance to do her alleged loot), all kinds forces were assembled against her (formation of IJI etc). Then she was systematically hounded between 1988-1990 to the point that it was more for survival of her govt. then to have a functioning govt.
5) Yes, Altaf Hussain is wise enough to never go back. Pakistani politics is steeped with bloodshed and unsolved murders starting from Liaqat Ali’s murder. So A.Hussain too be will be taken care of. But I also think that there is a strong realization in MQM that their fate lies with Sindh and Sindhis and even the events of May 12 have not changed that stance. MQM, ANP, and PPP remain the 3 prominent anti-Establishment parties of Pakistan. I would like to include PML-N in that but it is a bit premature for that.
I find it laughable that some people on this site are demanding that mush give up power as a result of BBs death and associated violence. if anything, these events support the argument that mush should stay in power. We can now see first hand what the PPP thugs are capable of – destroying public property and infrastructure.
Anyone who is honest and loves Pakistan needs to be clear: Bhutto, like her husband and her party, was a crook. She was not the “best hope for Pakistan” or anything close to it. It is unfortunate that she was killed and not defeated electorally but Pakistan is better off in either case.
@Zia M
Surely one root cause of the entire problem is Musharraf and his cronies who must now be shown the door.