Remembering Benazir Bhutto
By Naheed Khan

Remembering and paying tributes to late Benazir Bhutto bring tears and emotions in me in the same manner as it did two years ago. From that fateful evening of 27th of December when she lay still in my lap, to the utter desperation which followed in trying to get her to the hospital on burst tires with no other vehicle in sight, transferring her in a C-130 plane to her family house in Naudero, and saying goodbye to her coffin to her eternal abode in Garhi Khuda Bux Bhutto at exactly the same place which she had professed a week before her death, she leaves behind in me the feelings of emptiness, powerlessness and emotions beyond my control.

The past two months and 10 days from October 18th onwards when she returned to Pakistan to a tumultuous welcome by a sea of humanity, then holding my hand in the basement of the welcoming truck and warning me of a second blast after the first one near the Naval Headquarters of Karsaz, witnessing 175 dead on that day. Yet, having the courage to go out of Bilawal House (Karachi) the very next day to condole with the families of the martyrs in the narrow lanes of Lyari and visiting the injured at the Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre. Her courage had no bounds.

When she raised her hands to pray, standing a step above me while alighting from the airplane, the entire nation raised its hands and prayed to fulfill the hopes and desires she brought. When she cried, the entire nation cried with her. Pakistan knew that here was the unmatchable Benazir that they were waiting for nine years. She had returned to answer the prayers of the old and the young, the poor and the downtrodden, the worker and the peasant. She was the epitome of courage, chivalry, defiance, binding emotions and charisma that no one can match.

It was the third of November 2007. The word had started to spread in the streets of Pakistan that General Musharraf was not happy with the way the petition challenging his election in uniform was going on in the Supreme Court. After enduring a lot of pressure on this count, he panicked in the evening of the same day and imposed emergency rule and asked the judges of the superior judiciary to take fresh oath under the PCO. More than 60 judges declined to do so. The judges were out of office by the evening. Suddenly, my mobile rang. It was Bhutto calling from Dubai where she had gone to spend time with her children for a few days. “Where are you Naheed,” she asked. “I am in Peshawar busy in an electoral exercise as instructed by you,” I replied. “Rush to Karachi immediately as I am coming back tonight. People should not have a feeling that I am out of the country as part of any bargain.” I was in Karachi by 9 pm that night waiting for my leader to return. Her flight was delayed for two hours and she was made to sit in the lounge at airport while apprehensions were growing that may be the Pakistani authorities were trying to prevail upon the UAE to stop her from coming back to the country in the wake of the Emergency in Pakistan.

With soaring confidence, she hit the campaign trail knowing that she could make history by being elected prime minister for the third time not withstanding the legal bar which General Musharraf had imposed upon her and Nawaz Sharif. In her thirty years of politics, which started with martyrdom of Zulfikar Bhutto, she just had a stint of four years in the PM office. Rest of her political life is a long chapter of struggle for democracy, fight against dictatorship and forced exile. Yet the visionary in her mesmerized the masses of Pakistan by her truthful, democratic, egalitarian, courageous approach to politics.

Her prophetic words about the Pakistan flag falling in Swat under the onslaught of the Taliban on the last day of her life at Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi, still resound in my years. I just kept watching the intense expressions on her face when she was roaring like a lioness and telling the people, “Kaun Bachaega Pakistan -- Aap Bachaoge Pakistan -- Main Bachaongi Pakistan” or “Who will save Pakistan – You will save Pakistan -- I will save Pakistan”. Nobody had imagined the Malakand and Swat like situation on that fateful day which developed only a year after her martyrdom. It has been a truly trying two years since Liaquat Bagh.

Of course, the PPP government has some weaknesses like they should have reinstated the higher judiciary on time, remained allied with the independent media, and applied the Charter of Democracy and its attendant political alliances to strike fear in the hearts of those who have never been able to accept the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) as a popular political reality. When Bhutto promised all of this on the campaign trail, it was the only brave common sense solution to break the cycle of failed and foiled governance and providing leadership to our besieged country. With her gone, it was incumbent upon us to do all this to realize her promises and bring stability to Pakistan. Since the PPP is a federal party, its support is in all the four provinces, NAs and AJK, it is unfortunate that some of the party members from the great province of Sindh, home of the martyrs, are trying to confine the party to a province.

I strongly feel the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is no small matter. If her killers cannot be found out now, while her party is ostensibly in power, it is less likely that they will ever be unmasked. The inquiry led by Chile’s ambassador to the UN began in earnest only last June. The mandate given to the UN Commission is only to find out the facts and circumstances under which she was killed. They have not been assigned the task to fix criminal responsibility. Who were the financiers, planners, perpetrators and executors of this heinous crime? Will the UN commission be able to get to the bottom of the conspiracy against Pakistan? Will the instinct to sweep under the rug or set aside damaging truths that could further undo our party’s grip on government override our wish for justice?

The government has some creditable successes under its belt that its detractors do not wish to acknowledge but mark my words, none of these achievements will matter if Bhutto’s assassins are not found.

Never ever has the world reacted to a death of a leader as they did on 27th of December 2007. Bhutto’s assassination transcended all the countries, all the regions, all the continents. For the first time in the world’s history each human being was receiving condolences or offering condolences. The world had united in the grief of the followers of the Bhutto legacy.

Today when we are mourning her death, all eyes are fixed on the legacy and the asset which she had protected for 30 years after her father’s judicial murder. The movement for the protection of the legacy and asset left by her is on. On her second death anniversary, tens of thusands of loyal workers of PPP pledge to the graves of two great leaders that they are committed to the protection of this legacy.

The writer has been the closest associate of Benazir Bhutto until she was assassinated.

(Source: The News)

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