I am an older member of the party than Benazir: Murtaza Bhutto

ldrees Bakhtiar and Hasan Iqbal Jafri

Updated 25 Apr, 2019 12:58am

It was 9:05 p.m. on June 5 when Mir Murtaza Bhutto stepped out of the District East Jail. As his Land Cruiser appeared before a restless crowd of over 2000, the only surviving son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto waved his fist in the air in jubilation. After seven months of imprisonment and 16 years of exile, Murtaza Bhutto was finally free.

However, just as his return from exile and subsequent arrest last year had unleashed a flood of controversy, Murtaza’s recent release has provoked a fresh bout of intense speculation. Within 24 hours of his release, Murtaza Bhutto launched a blistering attack on his sister and brother-in-law. He called Asif Zardari and his friends, “Asif baba and 40 thieves,” and alleged that Zardari and his “cronies” were siphoning off billions of rupees in shady deals. He then went as far as to suggest that his sister’s government should be replaced with a “national government for five years”.

The Bhuttos have always been a controversial lot, but Murtaza is fast becoming the most controversial of them all …

It is becoming increasingly clear that Murtaza does not want to share power with his sister. It is also becoming apparent that the Pakistan People’s Party is heading towards some kind of a split. This division may not be as serious as the split within the Muslim League, but many political pundits are predicting that before long there will be two PPPs – one led by Benazir Bhutto and the other faction by her brother.

Murtaza’s comments on the army’s role in politics has also caused several eyebrows to be raised and many see his comments as an indication that Murtaza desires a reconciliation with the people whom he struggled against for the last 16 years.

In an exclusive interview with the Herald, Bhutto maps out his plans for the future of Pakistan and the Pakistan People’s Party and spells out his differences with the prime minister …

Herald. Are you or are you not a member of the Pakistan People’s Party?

Murtaza Bhutto. We formed the Shaheed Bhutto Committee for the purpose of getting a single election symbol, since I was running as an independent candidate and the party had not given me a ticket. I am a char anna member of the PPP and an older member of the party than Benazir.

Herald. In your last interview to the Herald you said there were no differences between you and your sister. But in your recent press conference you publicly accused Asif Zardari of corruption. Why have you changed your mind on this issue?

Bhutto. Earlier, there were constant questions as to whether there were any differences between me and Zardari. There were no personal differences. I had only met him twice and had not developed any relationship with him. But as events occurred, I realised to what extent he and his group have hijacked the party. That is when political differences arose. We do not want cronies, we want democracy in the party. We felt that the party had gone through a long struggle and many deserving people were not given tickets for the October elections.

Those who had struggled for the party deserved to sit in the assembly. But they were superseded by Zardari ‘s cronies. Party funds were usurped, these had to be accounted for. These political differences became more pronounced as time passed.

Herald. Do these differences with Zardari translate into differences with Benazir?

Bhutto. I am finding it more and more difficult to differentiate between the two. Either she wholeheartedly endorses the misdeeds going on within party ranks or she does not have a say in running the party. In either case, she has made herself the chairperson of the party, she has to take the ultimate blame and responsibility.

Herald. You say you are with the party that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto founded. Could you elaborate what that means?

Bhutto. The party that has emerged now has no resemblance to the party that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto founded, neither in principle nor in politics. The party ideology has been watered down. All sorts of adventurers and muckrakers have been brought into its ranks.

Old faithfuls have been sidelined. Policies are made in an arbritary manner. Forget that, the Karachi PPP’s president has been complaining that policies have been made without consulting him. The whole country’s policies have been formulated without any consultation. They have been decided by Mohtarma and a few of her cronies. This is not the way a modern democratic government functions.

Herald. But which party will you be working with?

Bhutto. I am with the PPP which has been mutilated by the people who have hijacked the party. We will reform this party and bring it in line with the party that Shaheed Bhutto founded.

Herald. Do you mean with the same type of ideology or the same type of people?

Bhutto. Ideology matters to us. Ideology is not a fashion. Roti, kapra aur makan is not out of fashion. At best you can progress beyond that stage. But our basic needs are not being fulfilled. In America, there was the debate of two chickens in a pot and two cars in every garage. Perhaps we could reach that stage.

I have not been in the country, but intuitively, I could tell that the basic needs of the people were not being met. Perhaps if Shaheed Bhutto was alive he would have said that roti, kapra aur makan, and now water, are important. You talk about a social revolution, pie in the sky theories and abstract notions. We have not crossed the stage of roti, kapra aur makan. In fact we have fallen behind. Our infrastructure is falling apart.

Herald. How do you intend to reform the party when the CEC is the decision making body …

Bhutto. Where does the CEC come from? Yaari dosti main to nahi banti. We will go to the people, we will give them a programme. We will start a face to face contact with the people after Moharram. We will hold elections and there will be a membership drive from the ward and unit level to the CEC level. It will take some time.

Herald. You said in August that you will announce a socioeconomic package and that it was ready. What is the delay?

Bhutto. We have announced this many times. We have not put it in the form of a manifesto which we don’t think is necessary. But if it were to be committed to paper, it could be done in a few hours. We have stressed on the development of infrastructure rather than silly things like social contract because the infrastructure has completely collapsed.

Whatever was made 30 or 40 years ago is falling apart. We have stressed things like developing chicken farms, fisheries, increasing production by drip irrigation which has been successful in countries like Libya and Israel. We have stressed basic development and then we can talk about motorways, bullet trains and mass transit systems.

Herald. Do you have any personal differences with your sister over the family inheritance?

Bhutto. No not at all. The PM said that my mother will go to Switzerland for the Davos Conference. Immediately people said, ha! what does Switzerland have – chocolates and secret accounts. The impression was that there was this horde of gold or billions of dollars stashed there. There is nothing like that. My father had already distributed his property between us and our income is from agriculture. There is no dispute.

Herald. You said earlier that you have nothing to do with the PPP. That was taken by many as an indication that you are going your separate way.

Bhutto. At that stage our situation was different. Even now I am an independent member of the Sindh Assembly. They (PPP leaders) just didn’t want to give me a ticket. Each time they would choose some character and say vote for him because this seat is Murtaza Bhutto’s amanat. If it is Murtaza Bhutto’s amanat, at least consult Murtaza Bhutto.

They used a dual policy of threats and guilt. They said, “if you return, there are many cases against you. We will not be able to protect you.” The second tactic was guilt: “If you come home my government will fall. My struggle, my sacrifice, my jail, and house imprisonments will go to waste, now when we have a chance to serve the people.”

So I said serve the people.

Herald. But can you deny that Benazir has gone through a great deal of suffering?

Bhutto. I am not discrediting her. I am not at all belittling her role. She played a heroic role.

That’s why I agreed not to return. She said, if you come back we will forfeit the chance of serving the people. Then I thought, is my personal comfort or discomfort not important at all? How long should I stay out of the country? She said ‘when we can call you, we will call you.’ They wanted to dust me under the rug, that is what the policy was.

The main thing is that they entered into an alliance with the MQM, and the MOM goes on a rampage and massacres people. There were 212 private criminal cases filed against the MQM. And when the MQM said that they will withdraw their support, the government, with one stroke of the pen, withdrew all the cases. Then I realised that it is not my interest that they are looking out for. They are afraid for their own powers.

As I said Benazir underwent a heroic struggle. She was sent to prison in Sukkur and in Karachi, but the rest of the time was spent in this house (70 Clifton) and in AI Murtaza which is not exactly lacking in luxury – it is quite comfortable.

The ideal situation would be that Benazir remains unchallenged in party affairs. They can tango and cross horns with Nawaz Sharif till the end of the world. As long as I stay in Syria, I should not return to the country.

Herald. You stated very confidently that the government would not last beyond December? What lies behind this confidence?

Bhutto. I don’t see the government as staying beyond December. The rot has set in. When the decline comes, it is a Herculean task to reverse the rot and change things.

Herald. Since you are so confident that Benazir will not last beyond December, would you rather see Nawaz Sharif running the country?

Bhutto. No, they are both corrupt and inefficient.

Herald. Is that why you are pushing the “national government” line?

Bhutto. Absolutely. Benazir has come to power twice. The second time round her government is even more corrupt and inefficient. I don’t see any redeeming quality in Nawaz Sharif’s government either.

Herald. So where will the country find these honest people to head a national government?

Bhutto. In a country of 120 million people, I am sure they can find some people who can run the government efficiently and honestly for a full period of five years with the help of the establishment and the army. A caretaker [governement] cannot do anything.

Herald. Do you see yourself as part of this “national government?”

Bhutto. My decision to participate will depend on a·series of factors. Factors such as the agenda the government sets for itself, the timing as well as who the other members of the government are.

Herald. You have recently praised the role of the army in very glowing terms. How did you reach this verdict?

Bhutto. I praised the army’s nonintervention in politics.

Herald. Do you really believe that the army is not intervening in politics?

Bhutto. At least the army is not blatantly intervening in politics. At most our politicians are running to the army. They are dragging the army into politics.

Herald. During the recent strife, the army and the civilian government were taking decisions in consultation with each other. Who do you think is running this province?

Bhutto. The army has been given a constitutional role for this operation clean-up. I have been demanding that the operation should come to an end. Not that there is no problem, but the sooner it can be solved, the sooner the provincial government will learn to handle its affairs on its own. It would be better for the whole country.

Herald. You have just secured bail in a case in which you were charged by the navy, and the army too has lodged many cases against you. Why have you developed so much sympathy for an organisation that has been hounding you?

Herald. Because you have to differentiate between the army as an institution and martial law. When martial law was imposed in the country, we opposed it and will oppose it and continue to oppose it. But we do not oppose the institution of the army as such.

So, these cases were instituted by the martial law regime, these are not army cases. The Shahbander case was registered by the navy at the insistence of the interior ministry. It was Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s case against me. lt just happened to involve the navy.

I want to assure you that I am not backed by any intelligence agency nor do I seek any backing . I am not backed by the army, I only have regard for their professionalism.

Herald. So you are saying that as far as the army is concerned, their professionalism is admirable but their involvement, even covertly, in national politics is not acceptable?

Bhutto. I did not say that. If some things have become a fact of life because of 11 years of martial law … I am opposed to martial law. It has never served the national interest.

Herald. Some people have been of the view that your return to Pakistan, the cases against you and family dispute is nothing more than noora kushti?

Bhutto. Have you seen the World Wrestling Federation matches? That is noora kushti. Wrestlers will be slamming each other and beating each other up, but blood will not flow. In our case, blood was shed on the streets of Larkana. Once blood is shed, you can be sure that this is no noora kushti.

Herald. But even after that incident, Begum Nusrat Bhutto was sitting comfortably with Benazir Bhutto. The differences between them seemed to have fizzled out?

Bhutto. You will have to ask her about that. I was opposed to any kind of contact like this. Many efforts were made to establish contact. First it was done at the children’s level. My children were invited to birthday parties. But they are cousins, I don’t want to continue this conflict to the next generation.

But at the same time I don’t want to confuse my supporters either. It sends wrong signals. If Benazir wants to meet me, she has to come up with a serious political agenda.

Herald. I am slightly confused on one issue. You have said that there will be reforms within the party starting with the elections?

Bhutto. We will have a mass contact drive and then elections.

Herald. Who do you think you can trust amongst the present PPP leadership?

Bhutto. I trust all the people who are with us.

Herald. Who can you not trust?

Bhutto. In the false PPP, the most prominent minister is the one without a portfolio. He has not even been declared a minister. He runs the finance ministry, the interior ministry, home ministry and the province of Sindh. Hamara chief minister bhi to Islamabad mein hai!

Herald. So in the end, you are saying that you will form another party?

Bhutto. No, no, We are reforming the Pakistan Peoples Party.

Herald. But this would be a different PPP?

Bhutto. It will be different from the one which now holds power.

---

This article was published in the Herald’s June 1994 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

https://herald.dawn.com/news/1398865

Special Report: After the assassination 2008-2013

Though he held the rather ceremonial office of the President of the State, there was no doubt in any mind that Asif Ali Zardari was himself the government. In the photograph above, he is seen in a solemn mood soon after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto that changed the world upside down and inside out for him, his party and for the country at large.

The accidental president

By S. Akbar Zaidi

IT would be quite fair to say that not a single person, including Asif Ali Zardari himself, in Pakistan or anywhere else could have imagined in December 2007 that by September 9, 2008, he would become the president of Pakistan. Moreover, as Pakistan’s 11th head of state, Asif Zardari is amongst the handful of individuals who have been democratically elected to the high office, and is only the second to have completed his full five-year term.

Zardari also presided over as many as three prime ministers. For someone who was, in an earlier life, known as a playboy, had little education or any work experience, was called ‘Mister Ten Percent’ in Benazir Bhutto’s first government, far worse in her second, and for someone who has constantly been maligned and accused publicly of an unimaginable scale of corruption (for which our impartial courts have always found him innocent), this is quite an extraordinary evolution.

The circumstances which led up to Asif Zardari becoming president are well known. After Benazir’s assassination on December 27, 2007, he appeared in public at first as the grieving widower who had lost someone who was expected to become prime minister in the elections that were scheduled for January 2008 by General Pervez Musharraf.

THE burial of Benazir Bhutto at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh was an emotionally draining moment not just for the PPP supporters but for people across the land. It triggered the sympathy wave which produced tangible results in the elections that were held not much later.

Zardari was in voluntary semi-exile in Dubai at the time, and, after spending numerous years in jail in Pakistan, was living a life of festive freedom. While the victory of Benazir, who had agreed to be subservient to Musharraf as president, had been much anticipated, it was unclear what Zardari would do once his wife became prime minister.

There was speculation as to whether the former ‘Mister Ten Percent’ would return and once again become a minister in her government as he had done in her second term, or whether he would capitalise on the situation through other means, perhaps even staying on in Dubai, especially since the president of Pakistan with whom Benazir was expected to work, Gen Musharraf, was not particularly fond of him.

All that changed with Benazir’s assassination, and the first public appearances of the widower subdued a strong, particularly Sindhi, sentiment by saying Pakistan khappe at a time when the PPP jiyalas were unable to come to terms with such a monumental loss. He gave stability and reassurance to their emotions and sentiments, gave them a sense of hope, changed Bilawal Zardari’s name publically to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, claiming that Shaheed Bibi had left a will in which the very young Bilawal and Zardari were to be co-chairmen of the party.

BENAZIR Bhutto receiving some last-minute brief from her close aide Naheed Khan as local party leader Sultan Qazi looked on. It was moments before Benazir Bhutto addressed a rally at the Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on that fateful day of December 27, 2007, at the end of which she was no more and her husband Asif Ali Zardari became the new uniting force behind the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Zardari emphasised the policy of reconciliation, rather than one of revenge, which he claimed was the nazria of Shaheed Bibi. With elections postponed till February 2008, it was not surprising that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won a large number of seats riding a sympathy wave following Benazir’s assassination. With Nawaz Sharif emerging as a voice against Musharraf’s military dictatorship and in support of the deposed judges of the Supreme Court, we will never know whether Benazir would have won if she had lived and contested the elections announced for January 2008. Nevertheless, the PPP had more seats than anyone else, and Musharraf asked the party to form the government.

After the elections, it was Sherry Rahman who introduced Asif Zardari as ‘Mister Sonia Gandhi’, implying that, like Gandhi, Zardari would not contest public office and would simply be the party co-chairman playing a role from the outside. The first PPP government formed after the February elections was, in fact, a coalition with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), clearly a rather unique and ironic confluence of two rival parties compared to the 1990s.

Not only was Zardari suggesting the policy of reconciliation, but following the Charter of Democracy between Nawaz and Benazir in London in 2006, and so was Nawaz and his party. Despite the presence of a military dictator as president, who had since been forced to shed his military uniform for civilian attire, this was democratic consensus at work. After Benazir’s assassination, this could not have happened without Zardari’s consent.

A CONSEQUENTIAL PRESIDENT

President Asif Zardari administering oath of office to the cabinet led by Mian Nawaz Sharif whose PML-N won the elections in May 2013.

Perhaps it is inconsequential that the coalition arrangement between the PML-N and (now Zardari’s) PPP broke down, with the former parting ways from the government over the issue of the reinstatement of Supreme Court judges, for this was a rare experiment in Pakistan’s political history without precedent where the two main opposition rival parties were part of the government together. At least on one thing both parties were in agreement: on removing Musharraf as president and both started impeachment proceedings against him soon after forming the government.

Eventually, Musharraf was forced out and the chairman of the Senate became the acting president. In September 2008, Zardari, backed by the PML-N, became president of Pakistan and thus began a presidency and government which made critical interventions in Pakistan’s political structure, a fact which was emphasised on numerous occasions.

ONE of the parting acts of the PPP government was the initiation of legal proceedings against Pervez Musharraf for high treason. The former army chief subsequently had to appear in court, as seen here, for a few times before he was allowed to proceed abroad apparently for medical treatment.

If ever there was a constrained political office, constrained by the burden of the past and by circumstances that he himself was not responsible for, it was Zardari’s presidency when the PPP was in power.

There was the issue of the reinstatement of the judges, dismissed by his predecessor, and Zardari was afraid that, if reinstated, they might start proceedings against him and many other politicians. There was also the question of the Pakistan army, despite Musharraf’s resignation, which forced Zardari to spend five years looking over his shoulder for creeping military ambitions.

This was also the period when Osama bin Laden was found and killed in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011. Months earlier, Salman Taseer, the Punjab governor and a friend of Zardari, had been assassinated. Both these incidents, while they happened under Zardari’s watch, were not on account of him or his government. Moreover, during this period, judicial activism was at its zenith, questioning all forms of authority – civilian, political, and even military.

To make matters far worse, following the global economic crisis in 2008, there was an oil price boom, with prices touching $140 a barrel, as well as food price inflation where the price of essential items increased many times over. On all fronts, like many countries in the global South, Pakistan was facing critical problems, but, unlike the rest, Pakistan was also dealing with a democratic transition after almost a decade of military rule.

Yet, there were numerous key political and policy interventions by Zardari’s PPP government, well supported by the so-called ‘friendly opposition’ of Nawaz Sharif, that resulted in progress being made towards key issues. The two parties, led by the two leaders, were working for the collective democratic good.

ONCE in office, Asif Zardari surprised many with his calm politics. He is seen here receiving a pen from National Assembly speaker Fehmida Mirza and Senate chairman Farooq H. Naek before signing on the dotted line to ratify a constitutional amendment. Army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was also present on the occasion in a symbolic gesture of acknowledging parliamentary supremacy.

For instance, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution not only reversed and removed many of Musharraf’s interventions, but went far further, and for the first time in Pakistan’s history, and probably a few decades too late, genuine devolution in the form of more powers to provincial governments took place. This was a far cry from Musharraf’s sham devolution of power which was merely symbolic.

Moreover, there was finally consensus on honouring the wishes of the people of the NWFP to name their province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and on giving Pakistan’s Northern Areas a semi-provincial status by renaming the region as Gilgit-Baltistan and giving the region its own political representation. Attempts were also made to redress Musharraf’s adventurism and folly in Balochistan, where locals had become further alienated, through a Balochistan Package, offering financial resources for development.

Adding to the foundational step of the 18th Amendment, which altered the nature of Pakistan’s federation by getting rid of the Concurrent List, was the reformulation of the long overdue National Finance Commission (NFC). Not only that, but for the first time, the NFC Award recognised criteria other than just population, giving weightage to poverty, underdevelopment and special conditions – the effects of terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – which allowed for a more representative distribution of resources to be made.

Moreover, it was through a democratic moment of reconciliation and equity by which Shahbaz Sharif’s government in the Punjab reduced its share in the NFC, giving a greater share to the less-privileged provinces, again unprecedented in Pakistan’s political economy where the Punjab has continued to dominate without concern for other provinces. Clearly, Zardari must personally be given credit for many of these achievements.

THE BAGGAGE OF HISTORY

Asif Zardari completed his presidential term and left with due decorum. Like his predecessor Pervez Musharraf, he was a president who called the shots – all the shots – in a parliamentary dispensation.

Asif Zardari, as president of Pakistan, had to deal with many of his own ghosts and much personal baggage from the past, but, not unlike his deceased father-in-law Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, he had to come to terms with, and negotiate, a democratic transition following almost a decade of military rule.

While Bhutto was much experienced in the art of politics, was proud and arrogant and ruled a country defeated in war where the majority province won its brutal independence, Zardari was not a politician, and had little experience of direct public responsibility. But he quickly mastered the task he was forced into.

However, 2008 was not as triumphant a democratisation as was 1970-71, when not just the country but, importantly, the military stood defeated. Although there were many important openings after 2008 to put Pakistan’s military spectre permanently to rest – the Bin Laden killing, Mehrangate, and, as a result, open and public criticism of the military, something that happens only once every few decades – but Pakistan’s newly emergent democratic forces lost a particularly important historical opportunity.

Incidents like the Memogate destroyed any credibility civilian political forces had accumulated, and other events and incidents reinstated the hegemony of the military. Furthermore, the consequences of Musharraf’s policies in the way he dealt with militants resulted in scores of suicide attacks killing tens of thousands of civilians, triggering an almost complete collapse of the economy. Even a military dictator, had he been in power, would have struggled with such formidable challenges.

It was not the inexperience of president Zardari which was to blame for the revival of Pakistan’s military and the challenges to democracy, for he had learnt the ropes of governing in difficult and contentious, even confrontational, times. And he did that rather quickly. The fact that Asif Ali Zardari became the first (and, so far, the only) civilian president who passed on power from one democratic government to another, without the military rigging or predetermining the election results, itself speaks volumes of his ability and sanguineness to stabilise Pakistan’s democratic ship.

What happens next in his (or Pakistan’s) political career remains uncertain, but what is clear is that the Asif Zardari presidency of 2008-13 needs a far more measured and impartial analysis than has been the case generally. A more honest assessment would suggest that his role as president has had a particularly significant and positive impact on Pakistan’s process of democratisation and that Zardari played a pivotal role in stabilising Pakistan’s political fortunes after Musharraf.

---

The writer is a political economist based in Karachi. He has a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. He teaches at Columbia University in New York, and at the IBA in Karachi.

---

This story is part 14 of a series of 16 special reports under the banner of ‘70 years of Pakistan and Dawn’. Visit the archive to read the previous reports.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1374113/special-report-after-the-assassination-2008-2013

FIRST LADY BEGINS TOUR OF SOUTH ASIAN REGION

By Molly Moore March 27, 1995

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton today began a 10-day South Asian tour highlighting women’s and children’s issues in a region where oppression of women and girls is considered more prevalent than almost anywhere in the world.

The first lady’s trip — which is to include visits to villages, schools and an orphanage run by Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity — is designed to put a more human face on U.S. policy in socially troubled South Asia after recent trips by Clinton cabinet members focusing primarily on national security and trade issues.

White House officials also hope the tour through Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will provide the first lady some political rehabilitation after the battering she took with the defeat of the health care reform program that she oversaw during her husband’s first two years in the White House.

In a region where the United States has some of its weakest national security, business and social links, and where anti-American sentiment is always a component of domestic political agendas, the first lady is studiously attempting to avoid any potential controversies.

Her staff said repeatedly today that she does not plan to initiate discussions involving the sensitive issues of nuclear proliferation or human rights. In interviews prior to her departure from Washington, Clinton said, “I’m not about to go and try to tell anybody what to do.”

That may prove difficult on a trip focused on women’s issues to an area where three governments are led by women who are frequently criticized by women’s organizations for doing too little to help the oppressed women of their Third World nations. There are few parts of the world that can match South Asia for the pervasiveness of social discrimination against women, ranging from female infanticide, dowry deaths and bride burnings to the practice in Islamic Pakistan of jailing women on charges of adultery when they report they have been raped.

Even Clinton’s low-key agenda is far more substantive than that pursued by Jacqueline Kennedy when she toured Pakistan and India as first lady in 1962. The local press commented primarily on Kennedy’s wardrobe and camel-riding skills.

Today, the first day of her tour, Clinton basked in the symbolism of powerful women sharing mutual concerns. In a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Clinton ate a lobster lunch with some of the most successful women politicians, artists and leaders of a country where repression of women is endemic. The first lady donned a scarf and discarded her shoes to tour one of the Islamic country’s largest mosques.

In opening remarks at a lunch hosted by Bhutto, Clinton said she hoped her trip to Pakistan would “reaffirm the partnership and friendship between our two countries.”

That friendship has been severely strained in the last several years by U.S. criticism of Pakistan’s nuclear program and Washington’s 1990 decision to sever all military and most social aid to a country that had served as its front-line facilitator in the 1979-89 Soviet-Afghanistan war. The U.S. State Department also has been highly critical of Pakistan’s failure to control drug trafficking and terrorism, at one point threatening to declare its old ally a terrorist state.

Bhutto, who will visit the United States next month, has recently said she would welcome U.S. efforts to assist Pakistan in apprehending terrorists, especially in the aftermath of the shooting two weeks ago in Karachi in which two American consulate employees were killed and a third injured.

Today, however, Bhutto stressed her kinship with Clinton and the barbs both have endured in their roles as strong women in politics.

“Women who take on tough issues and stake out new territory are often on the receiving end of ignorance,” said Bhutto, wearing over her head the trademark scarf her father warned her always to wear in public in this strict Muslim society that discourages women from assuming public roles.

Bhutto skipped references to other things the Bhutto and Clinton administrations have in common: Both are under extreme pressure from opposition parties and are in deep political trouble in their respective countries. At the luncheon table, Clinton was sandwiched between Bhutto and her mother, Nusrat Bhutto. The two Bhutto women have engaged in an acrimonious public feud since the mother sided with Benazir Bhutto’s brother — who opposes the prime minister politically — during Bhutto’s election bid 1 1/2 years ago.

At today’s lunch, Nusrat Bhutto began devouring a salad with her fingers before the guest of honor sat down, and then made a show of reading the menu during Clinton’s brief speech, drawing embarrassed looks from others seated at the table. According to White House and regional embassy officials, the Clinton journey across the subcontinent was conceived by Elizabeth Moynihan, the wife of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), a former ambassador to India. Elizabeth Moynihan pressed the first lady for the past year to make a trip to India to examine women’s issues.

In the protocol of regional U.S. diplomatic relations, however, Hillary Clinton could not visit India without calling on India’s neighbor and longtime enemy, Pakistan. To those two stops, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were added.

Chelsea Clinton accompanied her mother, and the 15-year-old stole some of the show today. During a tour of the Faisal Mosque tucked against the Margalla Hills on the edge of the capital city, the Clintons’ daughter peppered the tour guide with detailed questions about the mosque and Islam. The first lady explained that her 10th-grade daughter recently had been studying Islamic history at Sidwell Friends School. As for the first lady’s homework, Hillary Clinton stayed up last night to read parts of Bhutto’s autobiography, “Daughter of Destiny,” before meeting the prime minister this morning. CAPTION: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto talk at lunch in Islamabad. The first lady’s visit to Pakistan was the first stop of a 10-day, five-nation tour of South Asia that will include visits to villages, schools and an orphanage run by Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity. CAPTION: First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter Chelsea line up for a photo with Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto holds, her son Bilawal and daughter Bakhtawar during visit to Islamabad, Pakistan. The first lady’s visit to five South Asia nations will focus on women’s and children’s issues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/03/27/first-lady-begins-tour-of-south-asian-region/06b1ace7-ebc9-4f85-b7fb-e16e3edf8022/?utm_term=.0ed8f6594424

Hillary Clinton Finding a New Voice

By TODD S. PURDUM

Published: March 30, 1995

NEW DELHI, March 29— Halfway around the world from the battles that haunt her, an outspoken American woman found a new voice today in the words of an Indian schoolgirl, who composed a poem called “Silence” and sent it to Hillary Rodham Clinton with the handwritten exhortation: “More power to you.”

” ‘Too many women in too many countries speak the same language — of silence,’ ” Mrs. Clinton said in a speech, quoting the poem by Anasuya Sengupta, a senior at the Lady Sri Ram College here. ” ‘My grandmother was always silent, always aggrieved, only her husband had the cosmic right (or so it was said) to speak and be heard.’

” ‘They say it is different now,’ ” Mrs. Clinton read on, her voice catching just a bit at the end of her speech at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, a research institute here. ” ‘But sometimes, I wonder. When a woman gives her love, as most do, generously, it is accepted. When a woman shares her thoughts, as some women do, graciously, it is allowed.’

” ‘When a woman fights for power, as all women would like to, quietly or loudly, it is questioned,’ ” Mrs. Clinton continued, still quoting the poem. ” ‘And yet, there must be freedom, if we are to speak. And yes, there must be power, if we are to be heard. And when we have both (freedom and power), let us not be misunderstood.’ ”

The poem had special resonance here in the world’s largest democracy, where the birth of a daughter can still be an occasion for dread, where some brides are beaten or burned if their families resist in-laws’ demands for a higher dowry and where sexual harassment is commonplace.

But the First Lady, who has so often felt misunderstood and who has kept her own counsel in the months since the collapse of her health-care drive, seemed to be speaking as much to herself and her fellow Americans as to the students in the balcony who exploded in applause.

“I read it and I was just overwhelmed by it,” Mrs. Clinton said later of the poem, which was given to her by the college’s principal, Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath, at a women’s luncheon at the United States Embassy on Tuesday. “And so I was thinking last night about the speech today, and I rewrote large parts of it so that I could use the poem. I think it expressed the feelings that all of us share, that women’s voices should be heard and that silence is not appropriate for women in their own lives, and women in the larger world.”

Silent is one thing Mrs. Clinton has not been on this official goodwill visit to five South Asian countries, a journey that her Wellesley classmate Martha Teichner, who is covering the tour for CBS News, described jocularly on the air as a “chick trip.” It blends the giddiness of a sorority spring break with the sober feel of a graduate seminar on the responsibilities of sisterhood.

Traveling with her entourage of senior aides, almost all of them women, the First Lady has sought to straddle the dichotomies of a region where most women remain subjugated, and where others have become pioneers in high political office only at the price of widowhood or parental assassination.

Mrs. Clinton has steered clear of some policy problems like nuclear proliferation that have long bedeviled United States relations with India and Pakistan, focusing instead on the importance of educating girls and women. An hourlong meeting today with Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao produced only the word that they had discussed how to improve Government performance and economic development.

In her speech today, she said the first installment in a new 10-year international aid program for educating girls and women would come to India, and the amount, $500,000, was modest enough that she did not even mention it.

At the same time, the First Lady has appeared both freer — and a good deal funnier — than she has seemed at home in some time. The South Asia she has seen is a freshly paved, tightly secured and somewhat sanitized version of the real thing.

In Pakistan Mrs. Clinton, a Midwestern-born Methodist, awoke at dawn to the prayer call of a muezzin over the loudspeaker of a mosque, and shared with schoolgirls her thoughts on the politics of meaning and her worries that the “rampant materialism and consumerism” of Western countries is now poised to threaten developing ones.

Asked by one ninth-grade English student in the middle-class village of Burki, outside Lahore in eastern Pakistan to name her idol, Mrs. Clinton replied, “At my age, I don’t think I have anyone anymore.” Asked by another girl if she had any nicknames, the First Lady replied dryly: “Some people have, I would imagine, quite rude nicknames for me.”

Radiant in a billowy red silk shalwar kameez, the traditional Pakistani pajama-style pants suit, she joked to reporters after a moonlight official dinner in the red stone ruins of the Mogul fort at Lahore that she was thinking of experimenting with such a wardrobe back home, in place of the much-remarked past changes in her hairstyle.

In Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity orphanage in New Delhi, she cuddled and cooed at months-old babies with the ease of an experienced mother, never blanching when one little girl tugged at the large gold-and-pearl eagle pinned on her lapel. If she misses a sight or misremembers a story, her 15-year-old daughter Chelsea is there to point it out or correct her with exquisite poise and an air of friendship that would be the envy of most mothers.

“Educating girls is not something that is seen as something to put in banner headlines,” she told a group at the Islamabad College for Girls in Pakistan, but “it is something that will change a country if it is done.”

Photo: Hillary Rodham Clinton tried on a mask that she received yesterday at the Crafts Museum in New Delhi. (Reuters)

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/30/world/hillary-clinton-finding-a-new-voice.html

Benazir Bhutto accused by critics in brother’s death

Troubled Bhutto family reunites after tragedy

September 21, 1996
Web Posted at: 10:35 p.m. EDT (0235 GMT)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — Benazir Bhutto’s political opponents Saturday rushed to condemn her in the death of her estranged brother Murtaza, and a high court judge was appointed to investigate the bizarre gunfight that took his life in the posh Clifton Road neighborhood of Karachi.

Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, in a speech in parliament, accused the government of “state terrorism” against its political opponents. Leaders of the Lahore High Court Bar Association in Punjab were quoted as describing Murtaza Bhutto’s killing as a murder.

Murtaza’s killing “is part of a conspiracy to make Pakistan a police state and crush democratic freedom,” said Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Pakistan’s fundamentalist party leader.

According to police, the trouble started after Murtaza and his supporters refused to allow their vehicles to be searched as part of security checks imposed following recent bombings.

Suddenly, the scene was ablaze in gunfire.

Police said they were fired on first. In the ensuing battle Murtaza and six of his supporters were killed.

Family with a troubled history

Murtaza Bhutto had long been a political opponent of his sister Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, and his death is another twist in a tragic family history.

Benazir Bhutto’s father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former Prime Minister and wealthy landowner, was toppled in a coup in 1979 and hanged two years later.

Another of her brothers, Shanawaz, died in suspicious circumstances in France in 1985.

Murtaza Bhutto lived in exile in Syria for 16 years following the 1977 military coup that ousted his father.

Murtaza was thrown in jail after returning to Pakistan, accused of masterminding the 1981 hijacking of a Pakistani Airlines plane that left one passenger dead.

During the 1993 elections, he campaigned as an independent candidate and won a seat in the assembly governing Sindh province.

Last year, Murtaza Bhutto led a group that split from the ruling Pakistan People’s Party.

Although few observers considered him a serious political threat to his sister, he was a constant thorn in her side, accusing her government of widespread corruption.

Bhutto family reunites in tragedy

Her mother, Nusrat, had sided with Murtaza in the public dispute, but that didn’t stop the family from reuniting after the latest Bhutto death.

A weeping Benazir Bhutto — barefoot, as a sign of mourning and respect — visited the hospital in Karachi where her brother died.

As the Prime Minister and her mother attended Murtaza’s funeral in the Bhutto family home in Larkana, north of Karachi, the atmosphere seemed to be one of reconciliation, rather than domestic and political wrangling.

Hours before he was shot, Murtaza held a press conference that seemed to foreshadow his final clash. He accused police of targeting his organization, and denied any role in the recent spate of bombings in Karachi, a city plagued by political violence.

“I have denied from the beginning we are a political party,” he said. “We will face this present government politically. I am not ordering anybody to go underground, arrest anybody you want from my people, we will face you politically.”

His Palestinian born wife Ghinwa appealed to his supporters to remain calm and pursue his goal of political reform peacefully.

“I hope to God that the blood we sacrifice we have made for Pakistan and for all its problems,” she said.

 

---

“I hope to God that the blood we sacrifice we have made for Pakistan and for all its problems.”

— Ghinwa Bhutto
(29 sec./255K AIFF or WAV sound)

---

Benazir, Ghinwa, and Nusrat — sister, wife and mother, mourn their loss while the rest of the country waits to see what will unfold.

Reuters contributed to this report.

http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9609/21/pakistan.bhutto/

Bhutto vs Bhutto

The family squabble paralyses the Government.

Zahid Hussain

January 31, 1994 | UPDATED 17:11 IST

A +A –

On the morning of January 5, a heavy contingent of armed police surrounded Al Murtaza, the Bhuttos’ ancestral home in Larkana, where Nusrat Bhutto was staying with 200 of her supporters.

The entrance was sealed with barbed wires and no one was allowed to enter or leave the house. At about 9 a.m., an angry Nusrat got into her Mitsubishi Pajero and ordered the driver to break the barricade.

“How can you stop me from going to my husband’s mazaar?” she shouted. As her Pajero started moving towards the barricade, the police lobbed several teargas shells to push the advancing loyalists back.

In the ensuing scuffle and shoot-out, one person was killed and several were seriously injured, one of whom died later. Nusrat held her daughter, Benazir, responsible for the killing. “The police could not have fired without orders from the prime minister,” said Nusrat bitterly.

For the past 15 years, January 5, the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s birthday has been a special political occasion for the Bhutto family. Thousands of Bhutto loyalists gather at the former prime minister’s grave in Garhi Khudabaksh, 20 km from Larkana, to pay homage to the executed leader.

But the bloody incident at Larkana this year has led to what could well be a permanent split in the Bhutto family. The battle between Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her mother has virtually paralysed the three-month-old Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Government. “My mother has become my main political rival and is trying to destabilise my Government,” says Benazir.

The build-up to last fortnight’s clash in Larkana started when Benazir’s jailed brother Murtaza declared that none of the ruling PPP central committee members would be allowed to enter his father’s mausoleum on his birth anniversary.

Nusrat, who was unceremoniously removed from the post of PPP chairperson by her daughter, endorsed Murtaza’s statement and arrived in Larkana along with 72 supporters a day before the anniversary.

Benazir, who had based herself in her ancestral village, saw it as a challenge to her claim of being the sole heir to the Bhutto legacy and ordered the administration to crack down on the Murtaza loyalists.

Nawaz Sharif’s open support to Nusrat has given the conflict a sharper edge.

The administration deployed more than 10,000 policemen in Larkana district and rounded up scores of party dissidents. The shoot-out provided Nusrat with a much-needed political ploy to undermine Benazir’s Government.

“Four people were killed and several were wounded,” she claimed. “There was an order to kill me as well. I’ll raise the issue in the National Assembly.” Benazir, however, denied her mother’s charges. “Armed and well-trained terrorists had taken shelter inside Al Murtaza and fired at the police,” Benazir maintained. “She is lying,” retorted Nusrat.

Nusrat is in absolutely no mood to make peace with her daughter unless she is reinstated as the party’s chairperson: “She wants to belittle me and concentrate all powers in herself.” Benazir sees her mother’s support for Murtaza as a reflection of a society dominated by male chauvinism.

“Throughout my life I have had to battle male prejudices in our society. I never thought I would have to battle it in my own family,” says Benazir.

It has been over three months since Benazir’s return to power, but the split in the family has kept her so preoccupied that her Government has failed to deliver anything. For almost 10 days this month, Benazir was in her home constituency in Larkana trying to control the damage.

A senior bureaucrat in Islamabad says: “The power struggle has paralysed her Government.” So much so that Benazir is yet to form her full cabinet and define her Government’s agenda. Worse, the family squabbles and the Government’s non-performance have provided the Opposition, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, with an opportunity to hit out at it.

“The Larkana incident has brought disgrace to the country,” says Sharif. He has also announced his decision to back Nusrat’s move to take the Government to task over the Larkana incident. With Sharif behind Nusrat, will Benazir want to make peace with her mother after all?

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/battle-between-benazir-bhutto-and-her-mother-paralyses-ppp-government/1/292700.html

Bhutto found guilty of corruption

By Richard Galpin in Islamabad

Wednesday 21 April 1999 16.18 BST

Pakistan’s former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, was last week sentenced in her absence to five years’ imprisonment for corruption, disqualified from holding public office and fined more than $8 million.

The high court in the city of Rawalpindi handed the same sentence to her senator husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who has been held at a Karachi jail since 1996. He faces other charges, including involvement in the murder of his brother-in-law.

The court also found Bhutto – daughter of the late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Pakistan’s only woman prime minister – and Zardari guilty of receiving kickbacks on a government contract with a Swiss firm during her second term of office in 1994. The prosecution alleged that the contract was awarded for illegal monetary gain, leading to huge financial loss to the national exchequer.

The verdict was the first reached in a series of trials on charges of widespread corruption during Bhutto’s two terms in office. It was not clear if she had been immediately stripped of her membership of the national assembly.

Bhutto’s second government was dismissed abruptly by President Farooq Leghari in 1996 amid allegations of widespread corruption and economic incompetence. Her first term as prime minister came to a similar end in 1990.

In all, Bhutto and her husband have been accused of stealing as much as $100 million – charges they deny.

Bhutto, who was visiting London at the time of the verdict, said that although she would be arrested on her return to Pakistan, she would go back. It is expected that her lawyers will lodge an appeal with the supreme court.

In Islamabad officials of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s party denounced the high court in Rawalpindi, saying: “It was a kangaroo trial by a kangaroo court.”

But the government of Nawaz Sharif – her arch rival – was delighted with the verdict.

Senator Saifur Rehman, a senior member of the ruling party and the man who has spearheaded the campaign to have Bhutto convicted of corruption, said it was a “foolproof case of corruption and money-laundering”, which they would have no difficulty defending at appeal hearings.

The information minister, Mushahid Hussain, said the verdict was a crucial judgment “because for the first time a ranking politician has been convicted for corruption”, setting the precedent for a new culture of accountability within Pakistan’s notoriously corrupt political Žlite.

Public reaction is likely to be mixed. Many Pakistanis, including Bhutto’s traditional supporters, have felt let down by her during her time in office.

When she first took power there were high expectations that she would introduce reforms to establish democracy and the rule of law in the country after a decade of military rule. But few progressive measures were introduced, and public anger mounted as allegations of corruption emerged. Zardari was particularly disliked.

The devastating defeat of Bhutto’s party in the 1997 elections bore testimony to the extent of public disillusionment. But many people sympathise with Bhutto’s claims that the allegations of corruption against her were part of a “political witchhunt” by the government to eliminate the opposition.

Despite winning a huge majority in the elections two years ago, the prime minister, Mr Sharif, has systematically removed anyone he believes threatens his grip on political power.

So far the chief justice of the supreme court, the president and the chief of the army staff have all been forced to resign and have been replaced by candidates believed sympathetic to the regime.

There has also been a vicious campaign against sections of the press perceived as being too critical of the government.

More importantly for the opposition, however, Mr Sharif has changed the organisation of the body set up to investigate corruption cases, to ensure that his right-hand man, Senator Rehman, has been able to control which cases have gone to trial in the courts.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/apr/21/benazirbhutto