See other Editorial Articles
Title: Benazir Bhutto: From the Oxford Union to her Last Rally in Rawalpindi
Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington
URL Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arian ... -bhutto-from-the-_b_78488.html
Published: Dec 27, 2007
Author: Arianna Huffington
Post Date: 2007-12-28 14:09:38 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 164
Comments: 14
The world is debating the political fallout from Benazir Bhutto's assassination -- from fear of chaos in Pakistan to the impact of her death in Iowa. There is already no shortage of analysis about the national security implications of her death, but I want to write about the young woman I met in England before she became a player on the world stage. She was at Oxford. I was at Cambridge. And by a strange coincidence I became president of the Cambridge Union and she became president of the Oxford Union. The anomaly of two foreign women heading the two unions meant that we ended up debating each other around England on topics ranging from British politics to broad generalities about the impact of technological advance on mankind. When I checked my blackberry this morning at 5:28 am LA time there was an e-mail from our news editor Katharine Zaleski: "Benazir Bhutto killed by bombing." Just as the news was filled with the details of her death, my mind was filled with how full of life she had been every time I had seen her, including the last time in 1998 when she came to my home in Los Angeles for a dinner (which Harry Shearer, also there, wrote about). She was in exile, her husband in jail, and she was separated from her children. Three years earlier, I had seen her at the height of her power and fullness of life when she was staying at Blair House in Washington, DC as the visiting prime minister of Pakistan -- the first woman prime minister in the Muslim world. She had her third child with her and took me to her bedroom to meet her. Then she sat on the bed with her baby in her arms while we laughed about our lives on the debating circuit, and talked about her life now. (Including how much she loved her husband. She was trying to convince me that even though it was a marriage arranged by her mother, she had fallen in love with him, as if she had spotted him herself across a crowded room.) She had arrived at Oxford from Harvard, where she had gone at 16 after her convent school in Karachi. But wherever she was, she was at home because she was always at home in her own skin. I wrote a book about fearlessness last year, long before the rally in Rawalpindi, where she went against everyone's advice and despite the fact that there had already been a failed attempt at her life. She was fearlessness epitomized. Many will debate her political successes and failures, her personal probity in public office, the charges of corruption against her and of course the national security implications of her death, but for now I'm just filled with a profound sadness about the end of a woman that was always brimming with life. I asked her to blog before she returned to Pakistan and blog she did. Here's a portion of what she wrote this fall: Arianna Remembers Benazir Bhutto on Larry King: 
But still, there was an incredible life force about her, a sense that no matter what life brought her way, whether a tough debating argument, or exile, or her father's death by hanging, or the deaths of her two brothers -- she could deal with it, and she would prevail. Until the rally in Rawalpindi. I long ago realized that my personal life was to be subjugated to my political responsibilities. When my democratically elected father, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was arrested in 1977 and subsequently murdered, the mantle of leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party, our nation's largest, nationwide grassroots political structure, was suddenly thrust upon me. It was not the life I planned, but it is the life I have. My husband and children accept and understand that my political responsibilities to the people of Pakistan come first, as painful as that personally is to all of us. I would like to be planning my son's move to his first year at college later this month, but instead I am planning my return to Pakistan and my party's parliamentary election campaign.
I didn't choose this life. It chose me.
Read more reactions from HuffPost bloggers on Benazir Bhutto's assassination
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: robin (#0)
I forget .... was she dumped right after Pakistan became a nuclear power, or right before?
I'll use this post to follow-up on my own question, probably adding to the discussion in stages with editing here. Search result: "Pakistan First nuclear test: 1998 Most recent nuclear test: 1998 Total tests: 6 In 1972, following its third war with India, Pakistan secretly decided to start a nuclear weapons program to match India's developing capability. Pakistan responded to India's nuclear tests in 1998 by announcing it exploded six underground devices in the Chagai region (close to its border with Iran)." Search result: "Bhutto 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." The sources here are easily found. I'm going far out on a limb here and guessing she probably thought she had terminal cancer, rather than that she was merely being suicidal.
On May 28, 1998 Pakistan announced that it had successfully conducted five nuclear tests. Elected first in 1988, she was removed 20 months later by Pakistan’s president under a cloud of accusations of corruption. Elected a second time in 1993, her government was again dissolved in 1996 after similar charges emerged. She entered a self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998 to avoid prosecution. By the terms of her agreement with Musharraf, all charges were dropped and she was granted amnesty from prosecution upon her return. On September 17, while still in exile, Bhutto began making arguments that Musharraf was ineligible for re-election to the presidency due to his position with the army, accusing his supporters of creating a constitutional crisis. On the day she returned to Pakistan, flying into Karachi airport, two suicide bombers attempted to assassinate her, which Bhutto attributed not to terrorist elements, but to government agents. Bhutto was unharmed, but 136 others were killed, and 450 wounded. Same year she left Pakistan, I cannot find the month. But her govt was dissolved in '96. There have been three assassination attempts on Musharraf, two in 2003, and the most recent in July of 2007. His popularity has always been marginal, with religious extremists opposed to his more moderate secular agenda, and liberals opposed to his use of military power to enforce his regime. In an attempt to increase popular support for his government, in July 2007 Musharraf began talks with exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who remained a very popular figure despite allegations of corruption in her administration, with a view to bringing her back within the government to shore up his political position. I guess a dead Bhutto won't help Musharraf's popularity.
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today! Because she was from Oxford, maybe? No reason given.
Here I go, sort of answering my own questions again. What was so great about her father, I have no clue. Search result: "Bhutto was executed in 1979 following a controversial trial for authorizing the murder of a political opponent."
The day of Pakistan's first nuclear test I was working for a company owned by Pakistani who was (and probably still is) on of the most serious Anglophiles I have ever encountered. Benazir was beautiful, intelligent, well-educated, eloquent and from good family. Why shouldn't she be popular? Look at the competition, an ugly fascist, who does whatever Cheney's crew tells him too.
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today! He had power (?) Honestly, I don't know much about their policies or histories.
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today! He was supposedly guilty of trying to kill an opponent, or I'm giving you some old malarkey from wiki.
One less politician. Mixed feelings here. If this catches on, the laws of chance would appear to be in the public's favor.
Bhutto killing blamed on al-Qaeda This is all that we are to come away with, nothing more. Not her own stated belief that if she was assassinated it would be by Musharraf.
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today! I'm sorry, but as far as I can see, AQ is what it has always been: the zionist's paper frankenstein on a zionist paper plasma drip.
"...a deal was cut to make it officially possible that U.S. troops may "return" into Pakistan: ...Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning... Now, as this new agreement has been finalized, the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early 2008, according to Pentagon sources. " blog.washingtonpost.com/e...harrafs_woes_have_opened_ a.html?nav=rss_blog
al-CIA-duh
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today! At the url you gave is a second link to an article outlining allegations of corruption, of theft of Billions of dollars from Paki gov't funds, of possibly murdering her brother. Benazir Bhutto is dead and I think there's an instinctive effort not to speak ill of the dead. However many people are going to the opposite extreme - they're lionizing her career despite the fact that there are serious questions about her conduct in the past. Bhutto's own niece had not spoken to Bhutto for 10 years because she felt so strongly that Bhutto should be put on trial for murder and corruption.
#2. To: robin (#0)
(Edited)
#3. To: nobody (#1)
Pakistan's nuclear weapons program was established in 1972 by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
The Revolution will not be televised!
#4. To: robin (#3)
who remained a very popular figure
#5. To: robin (#3)
(Edited)
"my democratically elected father, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was arrested in 1977 and subsequently murdered, the mantle of leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party, our nation's largest, nationwide grassroots political structure, was suddenly thrust upon me"
#6. To: nobody (#4)
The Revolution will not be televised!
#7. To: nobody (#5)
The Revolution will not be televised!
#8. To: robin (#6)
#9. To: robin (#7)
(Edited)
#10. To: nobody (#9)
The Revolution will not be televised!
#11. To: robin (#10)
(Edited)
#12. To: robin (#10)
BHUTTO SACRIFICED AT THE MOMENT WHEN DEAL WAS CUT BETWEEN U.S.MILITARY&MUSHARRAF
#13. To: nobody (#11)
The Revolution will not be televised!
#14. To: angle (#12)
www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=115858
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest