 Benazir
Bhutto (June 21, 1953 – December 27, 2007) was a Pakistani politician who
chaired the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), a centre-left political party in
Pakistan affiliated to the Socialist International. Bhutto was the first woman
elected to lead a Muslim state, having been twice elected Prime Minister of
Pakistan. She was sworn in for the first time in 1988 at the age of 35, but was
removed from office 20 months later under the order of then-president Ghulam
Ishaq Khan on grounds of alleged corruption. In 1993 Bhutto was re-elected but
was again removed in 1996 on similar charges, this time by President Farooq
Leghari.
Bhutto went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998, where she remained until
she returned to Pakistan on 18 October 2007, after reaching an understanding
with President Musharraf by which she was granted amnesty and all corruption
charges were withdrawn.
She was the eldest child of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a
Pakistani of Sindhi descent, and Begum Nusrat Bhutto, a Pakistani of
Iranian-Kurdish descent. Her paternal grandfather was Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, who
came to Larkana Sindh before partition from his native town of Bhatto Kalan,
which was situated in the Indian state of Haryana.
She was assassinated on 27 December 2007, in a combined shooting and suicide
bomb attack during a political rally of the Pakistan Peoples Party in the
Liaquat National Bagh in Rawalpindi. Ex-government spokesman Tariq Azim Khan
said, although it appeared she had been shot, it was unclear whether her wounds
had been caused by a shooting or shrapnel from the bomb. Eyewitnesses to the
assassination stated to various news agencies that Ms. Bhutto had stood up
through the sunroof of the white Toyota Land Cruiser that ferried her to the
rally to wave at supporters who were cheering her. It was then a "thin man" on a
motorcycle, carrying an AK-47 rifle, fired two shots, one into Bhutto's neck,
and she collapsed, falling down into the vehicle. After this, the assailant
proceeded to detonate an explosive which resulted in the deaths of himself and
at least 22 others, while many others were injured. Bhutto was rushed to
Rawalpindi General Hospital where she died at 6:16 p.m. local time (1316 UTC).
The gunshot to the neck was reported as the cause of death, according to the
Pakistani Interior Ministry. FBI stated it had seen claims by the Al-Qaida
taking responsibility for the attack. Her burial is in her hometown in Larkana
in Sind next to her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's grave.
Education and personal life
Benazir Bhutto was born in Karachi, Dominion of Pakistan on 21 June 1953. She
attended the Lady Jennings Nursery School and then the Convent of Jesus and Mary
in Karachi. After two years of schooling at the Rawalpindi Presentation Convent,
she was sent to the Jesus and Mary Convent at Murree. She passed her O-level
examination at the age of 15. She then went on to complete her A-Levels at the
Karachi Grammar School.
After completing her early education in Pakistan, she pursued her higher
education in the United States. From 1969 to 1973 she attended Radcliffe
College, and then Harvard University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts
degree cum laude in comparative government. She was also elected to Phi Beta
Kappa.
The next phase of her education took place in the United Kingdom. Between 1973
and 1977 Bhutto studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Lady Margaret
Hall, Oxford. She completed a course in International Law and Diplomacy while at
Oxford. In December 1976 she was elected president of the Oxford Union, becoming
the first Asian woman to head the prestigious debating society.
On 18 December 1987 she married Asif Ali Zardari in Karachi. The couple had
three children: Bilawal, Bakhtwar, and Aseefa.
Family
Benazir Bhutto's father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was
dismissed as Prime Minister in 1975, on charges similar to those Benazir Bhutto
would later face. Later, in a 1977 trial on charges of conspiracy to murder the
father of dissident politician Ahmed Raza Kasuri, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was
sentenced to death.
Despite the accusation being "widely doubted by the public", and despite many
clemency appeals from foreign leaders, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged on 4 April
1979. Appeals for clemency were dismissed by acting President General Muhammad
Zia-ul-Haq. Benazir Bhutto and her mother were held in a "police camp" until the
end of May, after the execution.
In 1985, Benazir Bhutto's brother Shahnawaz was killed under suspicious
circumstances, in France. The killing of another of her brothers, Mir Murtaza,
in 1996, contributed to destabilizing her second term as Prime Minister.
Prime Minister
Bhutto, who had returned to Pakistan after completing her studies, found herself
placed under house arrest in the wake of her father's imprisonment and
subsequent execution. Having been allowed in 1984 to return to the United
Kingdom, she became a leader in exile of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), her
father's party, though she was unable to make her political presence felt in
Pakistan until after the death of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. She had succeeded
her mother as leader of the Pakistan People's Party and the pro-democracy
opposition to the Zia-ul-Haq regime.
On 16 November 1988, in the first open election in more than a decade, Bhutto's
PPP won the largest bloc of seats in the National Assembly. Bhutto was sworn in
as Prime Minister of a coalition government on 2 December, becoming at age 35
the youngest person — and the first woman — to head the government of a
Muslim-majority state in modern times. That same year, People Magazine included
Ms. Bhutto in its list of The Fifty Most Beautiful People. In 1989, she was
awarded the Prize For Freedom by the Liberal International.
Bhutto's government was dismissed in 1990 following charges of corruption, for
which she never was tried. Zia's protégé Nawaz Sharif subsequently came to
power. Bhutto was re-elected in 1993 but was dismissed three years later amid
various corruption scandals by then president Farooq Leghari, who used the
Eighth Amendment discretionary powers to dissolve the government. The Supreme
Court affirmed President Leghari's dismissal in a 6-1 ruling. In 2006, Interpol
issued a request for arrest of Bhutto and her husband.
The criticism against Bhutto came largely from the Punjabi elites and powerful
landlord families who opposed Bhutto as she pushed Pakistan into nationalist
reform, opposing feudals, whom she blamed for the destabilization of Pakistan.
Assassination
On 27 December 2007, Benazir Bhutto was killed while entering a vehicle upon
leaving a political rally for the Pakistan People's Party in Rawalpindi,
Pakistan. A suicidal assassin reportedly fired shots in Bhutto's direction just
prior to detonating an explosive pellet-ridden vest, killing approximately 22
people and wounding many more.
The attack occurred just after Bhutto left the rally, where she had given a
campaign address to party supporters in the run-up to the January 2008
parliamentary elections. She was pronounced dead at 5:15 p.m. local time at
Rawalpindi General Hospital.
Conflicting news stories led to a confusion regarding whether she suffered from
gunshot wounds or received her wounds due to shrapnel. AFP quoted Javed Cheema
as saying she may have been killed by pellets packed into the suicide bomber's
vest. However, the AP quoted a PPP security adviser as saying she was shot in
the neck and chest as she got into her vehicle, before the explosion.
Early reports from the hospital stated that Bhutto had a bullet in the back of
the neck that damaged her spinal cord before exiting from the side of her head.
Another bullet pierced the back of her shoulder and came out through her chest.
Bhutto was given an open heart massage, but the main cause of death was damage
to her spinal cord.
No official announcement has yet been made. No claims of responsibility were
initially reported.
The PPP’s Makhdoom Amin Fahim stated that Bhutto could have survived the blast
if she had not stood up in her vehicle. Fahim was sitting in the back seat when
she was attacked. She was shot when she stood up by her vehicle’s door.
Some news reports include video purported to be Bhutto's departure from the
rally, already secured in her bulletproof Toyota Mega Cruiser.
Video shows the last moments of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan. Video
from the scene also shows several people being loaded into ambulances. There
were quite a few cameras rolling, but as of yet, no video has been shown of the
actual shooting.
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