Who was Benazir Bhutto?

POSTED BY Kristin Linder, 27 December 2007

The blogs and papers are filling up with stories of the assassinated Bhutto, and the only thing certain is that people do not agree on her past, nor on Pakistan's future. For some, her death is apparently the end to a Bush-implanted Westernized woman who only served to further destabilize Pakistan. To others, the murder of Bhutto is the loss of the best chance Pakistan had at escaping tyranny. So, Veracifier hopes to cover a brief history of Benazir's very complicated and controversial past.

The Bhutto family is a Pakistani version of the Kennedy's. Their past is full of murder, corruption, glamour, and opposition. Benazir is the daughter (she always claimed favorite) of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto founded the Pakistan Peoples Party in 1967, with the creed: "Islam is our faith; democracy is our politics; socialism is our economy; all power to the people."

Zulfikar Ali was charged with corruption - something that would twice haunt his daughter's terms - and executed. Benazir was preparing herself to follow in her father's steps and lead the PPP from a young age.

Excerpt from Telegraph's obituary worth reading in full:

In 1969, aged 16, Benazir was admitted to study comparative government at Harvard, aided by a recommendation from the economist JK Galbraith, a friend of her father’s. "I was amongst a sea of women," she later wrote, "who felt as unimpeded by their gender as I did."

From there she went to Oxford, where she is remembered as a glamorous and cosmopolitan Asian girl about town, known to her friends as Bibi or Pinky. She drove to lectures in a yellow MG, and spent her winters in Gstaad and summers on the Cannes lido. She had a penchant for royal biographies, slushy romances and 1970s easy listening, and she liked nothing better than browsing in Harrods - a habit she kept throughout her life. Telegraph

Upon Benazir's return to Pakistan, she led the PPP to win the largest bloc of seats in the National Assembly in 1988 - the first open election in over a decade. Benazir was sworn in as Prime Minister, becoming the youngest person (35) and first woman to head a modern Muslim-majority state.

By 1990, Bhutto's government was dismissed on charges of corruption for which she was never tried. Benazir was reelected in 1993, but again dismissed on charges of corruption in 1996. There is still no consensus on her corruption charges. Ample evidence was presented against Benazir and her husband, however Benazir claimed it was fraudulent.

Benazir lived in exile for years, reportedly caring for her children and aiding the PPP from afar, but announced her desire to return to Pakistan in 2007. Musharraf was strongly against this, as he knew she could lead the PPP to oppose the upcoming election and his dual Military and Governmental leadership.

In steps the United States:

The NYT reported that US Secretary of State Condi Rice tried to fix Musharraf's subsequent dwindling legitimacy by arranging for Benazir to return to Pakistan to run for prime minister, with Musharraf agreeing to resign from the military and become a civilian president. When the supreme court seemed likely to interfere with his remaining president, he arrested the justices, dismissed them, and replaced them with more pliant jurists. This move threatened to scuttle the Rice Plan, since Benazir now faced the prospect of serving a dictator as his grand vizier, rather than being a proper prime minister.



With Benazir's assassination, the Rice Plan is in tatters and Bush administration policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan is tottering.Informed Content

So, Benazir was a shoe-in for America. Rice had planned to bring Musharraf in check by returning Bhutto to run as Prime Minister. Benazir even made multiple compromises with Musharraf, one of which was aimed at Musharraf's immediate concern over the elections:

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. Wiki

Today, she was assassinated. What does this mean for Pakistan? Benazir was a Westernized woman, which many consider to mean she was wielding the torch of democracy and female intelligence into the harsh Muslim world. Others consider her to be a US backed destabilizer that caused much more harm than good for Pakistan.

To her opponents she was more English than Pakistani, more Western than Eastern. Her Urdu, although fluent, was ungrammatic, while her Sindhi, her family’s mother tongue, was almost non-existent.

It was also said that she lacked a coherent political philosophy and tended to dissipate her energies on party politicking. Telegraph

So what do you think? Was she the savior or the snake?

One thing is certain, her death complicates US plans in Pakistan tremendously. The upcoming elections are now positioned to either be postponed, canceled, or fraudulent. Stay tuned for further coverage.Pakistan, bhutto, assassination, benazir