She negotiated to stay in the running right until the end. Then, she lost her battle to those elements she vowed to cleanse.
It’s hard to believe that Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated. She was only 54, a twice-elected and twice-expelled prime minister, the only woman to have led a Muslim country as head of state, and a mother of three. Pakistan might have lost the only woman leader with guts and unparalleled energy, a brave, secular democratic, who despite her barely shielded flaws vowed openly, without fear to combat militancy. Her fiery and candid press conferences post-October 18 persistently addressed the continuing plague of terrorism that has gripped Pakistan in its nightmarish tentacles.
Islamic militants put her on their hit list because she had close connections with Washington; she had previously paid attention to madressahs when she was in power and this time around had returned with a stark message to cleanse Pakistan of militancy. She pledged that her party, if given the opportunity would find a way out to ensure that the politics of hatred and intolerance was eradicated. Posing to be the darling of the west and speaking about how she would tackle militancy in her country, but if given yet another chance, one would have hoped Ms Bhutto could have delivered a fraction of what she promised. Listening to her latest speeches during her campaign trail, I discovered an articulate, striking politician who didn’t mince her words and who obviously angered many possibly party to her death. She had time and again emailed western politicians, including an American senator about how she feared certain elements within the establishment, were out to get her. Those fears could simply be exaggerated; but there must be a morsel of truth somewhere.
Who killed Bhutto? Interestingly, the question that comes to mind is not only who did it, but why and what they would have to gain in her absence, especially with the forthcoming elections around the corner. For militants with Al-Qaeda linkages, murdering a westernised, secular woman leader who they saw as a traitor to their faith, culture and society would be incentive enough in itself. The elections would be left in jeopardy with President Musharraf’s position even shakier than before. Commenting on Bhutto’s assassination, Jason Burke, a senior journalist with The Observer and author of “Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam” suggests that this kind of high-profile assassination, which has never really been al-Qaeda’s style until now, would be exactly the sort of spectacular attack they have been seeking for some period without getting and knowing it would receive media attention. American experts have also pinned the blame thus far on al-Qaeda linked elements with close ties to Taliban leaders within Pakistan’s embattled northern belt.
Endorsing the above, the Pakistani interior ministry has announced the hand of Baitullah Mehsud, an influential Taliban leader fighting against the state in South Waziristan. His spokesman denies the involvement. If these linkages are authentic, then one would say that an entire cluster of cells could have had a role in Bhutto’s assassination including internal jihadi groups flourishing under the auspices of certain elements within Pakistani intelligence coupled with connections to al-Qaeda’s.
Ms Bhutto was undoubtedly a fearless woman with conviction, or else, this daughter of the east wouldn’t have returned to a very turbulent Pakistan after eight years in self-exile. The threats to her life didn’t scare her, she said. “It’s all in God’s hands,” Benazir told reporters when returning on October 18. The Pakistan she left in the late nineties was not the same country she returned to after years wooing the west to support her politics of return, alongside raising her children, between doing the lecture circuit in America and Europe. She claimed on numerous occasions that she was aware of the political risks she would take in the near future.
Benazir wrote in her memoir, of what life as a young woman at Harvard felt like. “I was amongst a sea of women who felt as unimpeded by their gender as I did.” At Oxford, she adopted a westernised way of life, spending winters at the Swiss ski resort of Gstaad. Her passions at the time included Bendick’s Bittermints and gin and tonic, reading royal biographies and woozy romances, and shopping at Harrods in London — a habit she maintained throughout the rest of her life. It was right after her Oxford years that Benazir was thrust into the heart of Pakistani politics after her father was imprisoned and later hanged by General Zia-ul-Haq.
She writes of her last meeting with her father, through a metal lattice at the Rawalpindi central prison. “But I did not cry. Daddy told me not to,” she recalled. There is pathos in her life’s story: it almost reminds of this woman of contradictory and complex behaviour. Years spent under house arrest and even in jail left no time for her to fall in love with a life partner and so an arranged marriage. She was destined, albeit reluctant to adopt the Bhutto political mantle, her politics included her father’s popular slogans, roti, kapra and makan (bread, clothing and shelter) and then recently, her promise of employment and education to the masses. Pinky, as Benazir was named, always enjoyed the finer things in life, attributing this penchant to her sense of entitlement as the daughter and heir of a feudal land-owning family.
Was she a saviour this time around for the lost people of Pakistan or a wily politician who thought she might be invincible, despite warnings that her security could not be guaranteed. Why did she flirt with danger and death? Was she simply courageous and stubborn? In an interview in the nineties to the BBC, Ms Bhutto, once said that watching her father, ZAB die, in many ways prepared her for the turbulent and in the end violent political career that destiny had planned. Murdered three decades later, and only a few yards from where her own father was imprisoned at Rawalpindi’s central prison in 1976, her end adds to the doomed Bhutto legend. Which allows comparison to the Kennedy’s, for their contribution to Pakistani politics and the price they continue to pay for it.
No one will ever know who killed Benazir. The range of suspects vast, yet the most obvious ones remain militants with links to al-Qaeda. On October 18, Ms Bhutto’s homecoming rally was highly charged with supporters but the end result that night: a horrific suicide attack with blood, gore and mayhem killing more than 130 Pakistan People’s Party loyalists. It will take a long time to forget the heart-wrenching footage showing injured and dead children that violent October night. I sat through the early hours of the morning talking to reporters who barely saved their lives returning with blood stains on their clothing, as I stifled emotions to bring forth an unbiased broadcast to our viewers.
No stranger to violence it seemed, BB sounded even more determined to fight terrorism and not give in to the extremists by staying away from the thousands of supporters who thronged at rallies to hear her speak (her last speech was emotive, highly stirring and reminiscent of her fathers’ manner of gripping the crowds), to catch a glimpse of her smiling, waving and acknowledging their presence often through the sunroof of her bullet-proof vehicle. One could say Benazir was the people’s politician: she loved to touch hearts, to make her supporters feel they were not alone in their struggle for a better life. That was Ms Bhutto’s triumph. She kept the PPP alive all these years with her charisma, her resolve and leadership that eventually earned her the status of an international icon. One must admit despite her government’s dismissal on corruption charges in the past and the accusations that were not buried through the decades of her self-exile, BB strove to win the hearts of her western friends and ensured her own people knew she was committed in her resolve: to bring democracy back.
Her popularity was worthy of accolade and it threatened many who witnessed it escalate despite her previous years spent out of the country. She was western educated, and a glamorous woman with brains in a male-dominated society. One wonders if she had changed for the better; whether her politics had changed this time around. Even if she had decided to negotiate with the ruling government for the tentative sake of restoring democracy to have a third go, one might have given her the benefit of the doubt. With her detractors claiming she had done nothing in her past tenures but wreck the economy and make more enemies within the military, one questions why then did Ms Bhutto not live the life of Riley abroad, than risk her life at home. She said somewhere around the time of her return that her country was not created for militants but for those who aspired towards peace and tolerance.
In the wiser Benazir, Pakistan has lost a woman politician who drew people into her fold with her courage to stand up to those forces that persist in wrecking the stability and sanity of this country, openly challenging the writ of the state through unprecedented acts of violence. For future generations, I wonder whether Pakistan will work to reveal a semblance of stability, normality or even modernity and progression.