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December 27th, 2007

With so much tragedy around us, you’d think we’d be used to it — but I find it very painful this morning to wrap my mind around the assassination of the brilliant and courageous Benazir Bhutto. She was a glowing example of Goddess energy, a woman who sacrificed for her people and their desire for democracy — and her death today is an example of the darkness seeking to make its last stand against the growing Light.

“It was not the life I planned, but it is the life I have,” said this remarkable woman who went back into her troubled country because “Pakistan is truly at a turning point.” She saw her responsibility to the whole, rather than only to her own family, unable to remain in her peaceful, and evidently fulfilling, life in exile.

You can read her thoughts in the last article, here, blogged for Huffington Post.

Benazir Bhutto pays the price of martyrdom today … and let us hope her sacrifice will bring a determinism to her people, and to the world, to make right what is so clearly and obviously wrong-minded across the face of our global community.

Here is also a bit of what Mars moving quickly now to oppose Pluto brings us — violence for violence sake … mindless and fanatical, cruel and shocking.

Prayers for us all — and a renewed sense of dedication to end the mindlessness and madness. This is not the truth of humanities path … but this is what we have allowed it to become. Only we can change it.

Jude

Pakistan’s Bhutto assassinated at rally
SADAQAT JAN and ZARAR KHAN, AP
12 minutes ago

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack at a campaign rally that also killed at least 20 others, aides said.

Bhutto’s supporters erupted in anger and grief after her death, attacking police and burning tires and election campaign posters in several cities. At the hospital where she died, some smashed glass and wailed, chanting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf.

The death of the charismatic 54-year-old former prime minister threw the campaign for the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections into chaos and created fears of mass protests and violence across the nuclear-armed nation, an important U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.

Musharraf convened an emergency meeting with his senior staff where they were expected to discuss whether to postpone the election, an official at the Interior Ministry said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

No one claimed responsibility for the killing. But suspicion was likely to fall on resurgent Islamic militants linked to al Qaida and the Taliban who hated Bhutto for her close ties to the Americans and support for the war on terrorism. A local Taliban leader reportedly threatened to greet Bhutto’s return to the country from exile in October with suicide bombings.

The attacker struck just minutes after Bhutto addressed thousands of supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, 8 miles south of Islamabad. She was shot in the neck and chest by the attacker, who then blew himself up, said Rehman Malik, Bhutto’s security adviser.

Sardar Qamar Hayyat, a leader from Bhutto’s party, said he was standing about 10 yard away from Benazir Bhutto’s vehicle at the time of the attack.

“She was inside the vehicle and was coming out from the gate after addressing the rally when some of the youths started chanting slogans in her favor. Then I saw a smiling Bhutto emerging from the vehicle’s roof and responding to their slogans,” he said.

“Then I saw a thin, young man jumping toward her vehicle from the back and opening fire. Moments later, I saw her speeding vehicle going away,” he added.

Bhutto was rushed to the hospital and taken into emergency surgery. She died about an hour after the attack.

“At 6:16 p.m., she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto’s party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital.

“The surgeons confirmed that she has been martyred,” Bhutto’s lawyer Babar Awan said.

Bhutto’s supporters at the hospital exploded in anger, smashing the glass door at the main entrance of the emergency unit. Others burst into tears. One man with a flag of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party tied around his head was beating his chest.

“I saw her with my own eyes sitting in a vehicle after addressing the rally. Then, I heard an explosion,” Tahir Mahmood, 55, said sobbing. “I am in shock. I cannot believe that she is dead.”

Many chanted slogans against Musharraf, accusing him of complicity in her killing.

“We repeatedly informed the government to provide her proper security and appropriate equipment … but they paid no heed to our requests,” Malik said.

As news of her death spread, angry supporters took to the streets in the northwestern city of Peshawar as well other areas, chanting slogans against Musharraf. In Rawalpindi, Bhutto’s supporters burned election posters from the ruling party and attacked police, who fled the scene.

In Karachi, shop owners quickly closed their businesses as supporters from Bhutto’s party burned tires on the roads.

Nawaz Sharif, another former premier and opposition leader, arrived at the hospital and sat silently next to Bhutto’s body.

“Benazir Bhutto was also my sister, and I will be with you to take the revenge for her death,” he said. “Don’t feel alone. I am with you. We will take the revenge on the rulers.”

Speaking to the BBC, Sharif also questioned whether to hold the elections.

“I think perhaps none of us is inclined to think of the elections,” he said. “We would have to sit down and take a very serious look at the current situation together with the People’s Party and see what we have to do in the coming days.”

Hours earlier, four people were killed at a rally for Sharif when his supporters clashed with backers of Musharraf near Rawalpindi.

Bhutto’s death will leave a void at the top of her party, the largest political group in the country, as it heads into the parliamentary elections. It also fueled fears that the crucial vote could descend into violence.

Pakistan is considered a vital U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaida and other Islamic extremists including the Taliban. Osama bin Laden and his inner circle are believed to be hiding in lawless northwest Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan.

In Washington, the State Department condemned the attack.

“It demonstrates that there are still those in Pakistan who want to subvert reconciliation and efforts to advance democracy,” deputy spokesman Tom Casey said.

The United States has for months been encouraging Musharraf to reach an accommodation with the opposition, particularly Bhutto, who was seen as having a wide base of support in Pakistan. Her party had been widely expected to do well in next month’s elections.

Educated at Harvard and Oxford universities, Bhutto served twice as Pakistan’s prime minister between 1988 and 1996. Her father, who also served as prime minister, was executed in 1979 two years after his ouster in a military coup.

Bhutto had returned to Pakistan from an eight-year exile on Oct. 18. On the same day, she narrowly escaped injury when her homecoming parade in Karachi was targeted in a suicide attack that killed more than 140 people.

At the scene of Thursday’s bombing, an Associated Press reporter saw body parts and flesh scattered at the back gate of the Liaqat Bagh park, where Bhutto had spoken. He counted about 20 bodies, including police, and could see many other wounded people.

Police cordoned off the street with white and red tape, and rescuers rushed to put victims in ambulances as people wailed nearby.

The clothing of some victims was shredded and people put party flags over their bodies. Police caps and shoes littered the asphalt.

Hundreds of riot police had manned security checkpoints around the venue. It was Bhutto’s first public meeting in Rawalpindi since she came back to the country.

In November, Bhutto had also planned a rally in the city, but Musharraf forced her to cancel it, citing security fears.

In recent weeks, suicide bombers have repeatedly targeted security forces in Rawalpindi, where Musharraf stays and the Pakistan army has its headquarters.

Life in pictures: Benazir Bhutto
BBC News, UK - 37 minutes ago

Bullets cut short a life of epic sweep
Associated Press
20 minutes ago

The suicide attack that killed Benazir Bhutto cut short an epic life, one bathed in blood and awash with controversy.

Bhutto’s father was hanged and a brother was shot to death. She had risen to become the Muslim world’s first female prime minister, only to lose office and flee Pakistan for most of a decade in the face of accusations she was corrupt.

And when, finally, she returned in October to marshal the opposition against President Pervez Musharraf, her homecoming parade in Karachi was targeted by a suicide attacker. More than 140 people, died, but the 54-year-old Bhutto escaped injury and threw herself into the campaign.

“We have to modify our campaign to some extent because of the suicide bombings. We will continue to meet the public. We will not be deterred,” she said then.

Her father was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, scion of a wealthy landowning family in southern Pakistan and founder of the populist Pakistan People’s Party. The elder Bhutto was president and then prime minister of Pakistan before his ouster in a 1977 military coup; two years later, he was executed by the government of Gen. Zia-ul Haq after being convicted of engineering the murder of a political opponent.

A year later, her youngest brother, Shahnawaz, had died under mysterious circumstances in France; the family insisted he was poisoned, but no charges were brought.

The elder Bhutto had sent his daughter to study politics and government at Harvard and then at Oxford, where she was elected to lead the prestigious debating society, the Oxford Union.

Bhutto returned to Pakistan after he father’s death, swearing to continue his work. She was detained several times before being exiled to England in 1984. Two years later, she returned again to lead rallies for the restoration of civilian rule.

After Zia’s death in a mysterious plane crash in 1988, Bhutto gave birth to the first of her three children. Beautiful, charismatic and articulate, she led her party to an election victory and became the first woman to lead a modern Muslim nation.

Her first administration was clouded by allegations of corruption and clashes with Pakistan’s powerful military; her administration was dismissed after 20 months.

She was re-elected in 1993. But three years later, her brother Murtaza died in a gunbattle with police in Karachi; Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was charged with his murder. The charges eventually were overturned, but Zardari spent eight years in prison on those accusations and others involving corrupt dealings allegedly amounting to millions of dollars.

Benazir accused President Farooq Leghari of involvement in Murtaza’s death, and Leghari dismissed her second government amid fresh allegations of misrule. She sought to lead a third government, but lost to archrival Nawaz Sharif in 1996.

She left Pakistan in 1999, just before a court convicted her of corruption and banned her from politics.

The verdict was later quashed, but she stayed away until Musharraf signed an amnesty, halting any corruption charges against her and others.

Her return was triumphant, but fraught with peril. She was defiant to the end.

“Bhutto is alive! Bhutto is alive! Bhutto is alive!” she shouted at a rally in December.

Why I’m Returning To Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto
September 1, 2007

I was looking forward to a quiet family holiday in New York this summer with my three children, our dog Maxmillian and my husband, who is being treated for a heart condition that developed while he was a political prisoner in Pakistan from 1996 to 2004. I thought we would go to the theatre and spend time walking in Central Park, as well meeting up with friends for nice, long chatty dinners. But in this surprisingly momentous summer of 2007, our quiet family vacation disappeared as we found ourselves caught up in the media attention on my country Pakistan, and its fast changing political situation.

It is clear to those following events in South Asia that Pakistan is truly at a turning point. Almost a decade of military dictatorship has devastated the basic infrastructure of democracy. Political parties have been assaulted, political leaders arrested, and the judicial system manipulated to force party leaders into exile. NGOs have been under constant attack, especially those that deal with human rights, democratic values and women’s rights. The press has been intimidated, with some reporters — even those that work for papers like the New York Times — arrested, beaten or made to disappear. Student and labor unions have not been allowed to function. The electoral institutions of the nation have been manipulated by an Election Commission that could not stop rigging and fraud. And in the battle against terrorism, we look on with dismay as the government of Pakistan ceded sections of our nation that previously had been governed by the rule of law to Taliban sympathizers and to Al Qaeda, making Pakistan the Petri dish of the international terrorist movement.

But the most dangerous manifestation of this retreat from democracy has been a growing sense of hopelessness of the people of Pakistan, and a total disillusionment with the political system’s ability to address their daily problems. The social sector has festered — underfinanced and relegated to the back burner of national policy. All the indicators of quality of life have spiraled down, from employment to education to housing to health care. And as people’s sense of disillusionment has grown, there has been a corresponding growth in the spread of religious and political extremism. The failure of the regime has made our citizens open to extra-governmental experimentation with fanaticism. This has clearly been manifest in the spread of politicized madrassas, schools in which the curriculum incorporates xenophobia, bigotry and often para-military terrorist training. But poor parents who cannot feed or clothe their children entrust them to these kinds of schools, so their children may be fed and housed.

The growth of the madrassas is but one important signal that extremism has been making inroads against moderation amongst the Pakistani polity. I have always believed that the battle between extremism and moderation is the underlying battle for the very soul of Pakistan. Yet moderation can prevail against the extremists only if democracy flourishes and the social sector improves the quality of life of the people. In 2007, I sensed that the decade of dictatorship was threatening to undermine the moderate majority of Pakistan, those people committed to pluralism, to education, to technology — in other words, those committed to Pakistan taking its place among the community of civilized nations as a leader in the 21st century. Under democracy, the extremists had been marginalized in the past, never receiving more than 11% of the vote in an election. But under dictatorship, Pakistan was edging toward extremism, chaos, and sliding towards a failed state.

My party [the Pakistan Peoples Party] was engaged in a dialogue with the regime of General Musharraf, but discussions didn’t move the regime concretely toward democratic reform. In the summer of 2007, after the reinstatement of the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the birth of judicial activism, the dialogue with General Musharraf took a more substantive turn. It seemed now that the country had an opportunity to peacefully transition to democracy, which is critical for the other war — the war of moderation against extremism — to succeed. I had a choice. Engage in dialogue, or turn toward the streets. I knew that street protests against the Musharraf dictatorship could lead to the deaths of hundreds. I thought about the choice before me very carefully. I chose dialogue; I chose negotiation; I chose to find a common ground that would unite all the moderate elements of Pakistan for a peaceful transfer to a workable political system that was responsive to the needs of the 160 million people of Pakistan whose empowerment is critical to the success of both governing and the fight against terrorism.

I know that some in Pakistan, including those in political parties were so embittered with the military regime that they wanted the door of dialogue shut. But from the very beginning my goal was and remains to guarantee a free and open electoral process that would provide for a legitimate Parliament and provincial assemblies that would then select, in a constitutional process, a civilian President who understands that in a parliamentary democracy, the parliament is supreme. I wasn’t negotiating for a guaranteed outcome, I was negotiating for a guaranteed process. That was the goal at the beginning. That is the goal now. Are we making progress towards that goal? I still am unable to say.

There are many elements, in particular those sympathisers in the ruling Party and Government who enabled the extremists and militants to expand their influence in my country who are fearful of the return of the PPP and a rollback of the terrorist forces that have gained strength since my government was overthrown in 1996. They want to scuttle a process that could see the emergence of a moderate Pakistan. So it has been a roller coaster ride. Some times the dialogue moves forward with General Musharaf . But then he consults his colleagues in the ruling alliance and retracts from confidence building measures promised for a fair electoral process.

As the presidential and parliamentary elections approach, I am making plans with my supporters to return to Pakistan. I know that it is critical for Pakistan to return to a democratic way of life so that the people’s problems can be addressed. When people are partners with government, they stand up to defend their communities against terrorists, criminals and negative forces.

My stay in New York wasn’t exactly the family vacation I had planned, but it was a critical period of weeks that could very well determine the future of Pakistan. 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.

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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