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Letter to the editor

A life full of blood and controversy

Benazir Bhutto lived out a pledge to her condemned father.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Benazir Bhutto was many things - zealous guardian of her dead father's legacy, aristocratic populist, accused rogue, even one of People magazine's 50 most beautiful people. And in the end, she was a victim of roiling passions in the nation she sought to lead for a third time.

To the West, she was the appealing and glamorous face of Pakistan - a trailblazing feminist, the first woman to lead a Muslim nation in modern times - though her aura was dimmed by accusations of corruption.

But to many Pakistanis, she was a leader who spoke for them, their needs and their hopes.

Even her worst critics would say that "she was a masterful politician," said Zaffar Abbas, an editor for the respected Dawn newspaper. She knew "what the people of this country wanted.

"If you asked an ordinary person what they achieved when Benazir Bhutto was in power, they would say at least she gave us a voice and she talked about us and our problems. That was her real achievement."

Her life was a sprawling epic. Her father, Pakistan's president and then prime minister, was hanged; one brother died mysteriously, the other in a shootout. She spent five years imprisoned by her father's tormentors, mostly in solitary confinement, before rising twice to the office of prime minister.

She fled before her conviction on corruption charges, living abroad for eight years. She could have lived there comfortably, far from the cauldron of Pakistani politics, but chose not to. And when she returned in October to marshal opposition to President Pervez Musharraf, a suicide attacker targeted her homecoming parade in Karachi. More than 140 people died.

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The Bhuttos have held a central role in Pakistan for nearly a half century.

Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was the son of a wealthy landowning family in southern Pakistan and founder of the Pakistan People's Party. With a populist, pro-democracy message, he rose to power in 1971.

But in 1979 he was executed by the government of Gen. Mohammad Zia-ul Haq after his much-disputed conviction on charges of arranging the murder of the father of a political opponent.

A day before he was hanged, his daughter visited him in prison.

"I told him on my oath in his death cell, I would carry on his work," Bhutto would recall.

But at the time and for years after, Benazir Bhutto could not fight for her father's cause - she was in jail or under house arrest.

The elder Bhutto had sent his daughter to study politics and government at Harvard and then at Oxford. Beautiful, charismatic and articulate, she was a dangerous opponent for the military government.

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Her youngest brother, Shahnawaz, organized opposition from France, but he died under mysterious circumstances in his apartment on the Riviera in 1980. The family insisted he was poisoned, but no charges were brought.

Released in 1984 to seek medical treatment for a serious ear infection in London, Benazir established a People's Party office there and waited for an opportunity to strike back.

Two years later, she returned to lead mass rallies calling for Zia to step down and allow a civilian government and elections. He refused. But in 1988, the strongman died in an explosion on his plane.

Benazir rallied her father's party, only to find that she was being opposed by her brother, Murtaza - and that her mother was backing him. Still, Benazir Bhutto won on a platform of "food, clothing and shelter for all." And just months after giving birth to her first child, she took the office taken from her father.

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Twenty months later, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dissolved Parliament and removed her from office, citing abuse of power. The new army-backed government filed charges of corruption against her.

She lost the 1990 election to Nawaz Sharif (who, years later, also would be exiled and return to challenge the Musharraf government). His time in office was also short-lived because of more accusations of corruption. Under pressure, he resigned in 1993; Bhutto, by then a mother of three children, won a second term as prime minister in October 1993.

In 1996, her government fell in the face of accusations of nepotism and economic mismanagement.

Around the world, Bhutto was a feminist heroine. And in her campaigns, she advocated new services for women and opposed sexual discrimination, though few measures were adopted under her government.

She was a survivor, and proud of it. Once , when a reporter suggested that her life was the stuff of Greek tragedy, she laughed.

"Well, I hope not so tragic," she said. "Don't all Greek dramas end in tragedy?"

Key events:

June 21, 1953:Benazir Bhutto is born in Karachi.

1977:Bhutto returns from England after graduating from Harvard and Oxford universities.

1979: Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, is hanged after being deposed as prime minister because of corruption charges.

1984:Bhutto is released from detention and moves to London.

1986:Bhutto returns to Pakistan to join demonstrations against the military government that had executed her father.

1987:Bhutto enters into an arranged marriage with businessman Asif Ali Zardari.

1988:Bhutto, at age 35, becomes prime minister for the first time after defeating her brother in the elections.

1990:Bhutto is dismissed from office on corruption charges. She loses new elections to Nawaz Sharif, who also recently returned to Pakistan from exile to oppose President Pervez Musharraf.

1993:After Sharif resigns, Bhutto is elected to her second term as prime minister.

1996:Bhutto's government collapses due to accusations of nepotism and economic mismanagement.

1999:Bhutto loses in a bid for a third term and leaves Pakistan just before being convicted of corruption charges.

2007:Bhutto returns to Pakistan to oppose Musharraf.

Thursday:Bhutto is assassinated in Rawalpindi.

[Last modified December 28, 2007, 01:12:12]