Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto ( Moncloa Palace , 1994)

Benazir Bhutto ( Urdu بینظیر بھٹو[ beːnəziːr bʱʊʈːoː ]; * June 21, 1953 in Karachi , Sindh Province ; † December 27, 2007 in Rawalpindi , Punjab Province ) was a Pakistani politician. She was Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1996 . After returning from exile in Dubai in October 2007 , she established herself as an opposition leader . Two weeks before the parliamentary election scheduled for January 8, 2008, she was killed in an assassination attempt. After the elections on February 18, 2008 , Bhutto's Pakistani People's Party came to power .

Life

Education

Benazir Bhutto was the daughter of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto , her mother was an Iranian Kurd from Isfahan . She studied at Harvard University (Bachelor of Arts degree in comparative government, 1973) and the University of Oxford (Philosophy, political science, and economics; BA, 1977). In 1971 she temporarily left Harvard when India sent troops to East Pakistan and her father was visiting the United Nations in New York City as Defense Minister of West Pakistan . Benazir Bhutto, not yet twenty years old, supported her father as an assistant in New York.

Opposition leader in exile

Benazir Bhutto, 1989

After graduating from Oxford, Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan. Her father was deposed in a 1977 coup in Zia ul-Haq , imprisoned and hanged in 1979 . Thereafter, Benazir Bhutto was placed under house arrest. When she was allowed to leave in 1984, she went into exile in Great Britain , where she became the leader of her father's party.

After the death of Zia ul-Haq in 1988, free elections were held for the first time since 1977 , from which on November 16, 1988, Benazir Bhutto, for the first time in the history of an Islamic state, emerged victorious. On December 2nd, she was sworn in as the first head of government in the Islamic world. The election was seen in the West as a sign of a democratic awakening of Islam.

Prime minister

During their tenure, Islamists called for a "holy war" against them, which in 1990 killed hundreds of people. In 1990, Bhutto's government was disbanded on allegations of corruption . Bhutto denied these allegations, and they never led to charges in Pakistan. In 2003, however, a Swiss court sentenced her in absentia to six months in prison and to return $ 11.9 million to the State of Pakistan, which she appealed. Her successor in office was Nawaz Sharif . In the election on October 6, 1993, Bhutto was re-elected. Three years later, President Farooq Leghari dissolved her government on charges of corruption. The Supreme Court upheld Leghari's dissolution of parliament. It has never been definitively established whether the allegations against her husband and she were justified, but detailed allegations have been made in the press that both of them have appropriated a total of up to 1.5 billion US dollars. Bhutto received domestic political criticism from the camp of the Panjab elite and wealthy landowners and private industry, against whom Bhutto's father had taken a political position with his nationalization reforms. The Bhutto family themselves did not come from the dominant large estates in Punjab, but from a wealthy family of the feudal aristocracy of Sindh . In October 1990, the Islamic Democratic Alliance led by Nawaz Sharif, dominated by the Muslim League , won the parliamentary elections against Benazir Bhutto's Pakistani People's Party (PPP) and replaced Benazir Bhutto's father's nationalization policy, which it had not pursued itself, with a privatization policy. In April 1993, Nawaz Sharif was sacked by President Ishaq Khan . Now Benazir Bhutto was again Prime Minister, whereby she retained the privatization policy as a whole. Militarily it promoted the nuclear weapons program of Pakistan, foreign policy, she let the secret service ISI in Afghanistan and its anti-Indian Kashmir policy a free hand. In the 1997 parliamentary elections after its removal, the Muslim League under Nawaz Sharif again received an absolute majority.

exile

From 1999 to 2007 she lived with her family in exile in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates . She returned to Pakistan despite being threatened with attacks.

Tried going back to politics

Benazir Bhutto, 2004

In 2002, President Pervez Musharraf initiated a constitutional amendment - apparently specifically tailored to Benazir Bhutto - which limited the term of office of prime ministers to two terms.

From 2007 Bhutto again sought the office of Prime Minister. Parliamentary elections were to be held in January 2008. The most important questions concerned the legality of the re-election of President Musharraf on October 6, 2007 and whether Musharraf, who was also army chief, was allowed to run in the presidential election at all. The al-Qaeda terrorist network had threatened a possible return of Bhutto. Benazir Bhutto returned to her hometown of Karachi on October 18, 2007 after eight years of exile , against the opposition of President Musharraf.

Bhutto's return from exile was highly acclaimed, but the celebrations came to an abrupt end in one of the bloodiest attacks in Pakistani history. Shortly after midnight on October 19, 2007, two explosive devices exploded in the immediate vicinity of Bhutto's convoy. At that time, their motorcade was halfway from the airport to the mausoleum of state founder Jinnah in Karachi's city center. 139 people were killed in the suicide attack, but Bhutto himself was uninjured. Bhutto blamed supporters of the former military ruler and President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq for the attack.

Bhutto and Musharraf negotiated a compromise whereby Bhutto would become Prime Minister again and Musharraf could remain President. For this he should give up his dual role as president and military chief, drop the corruption allegations against Bhutto and withdraw the constitutional amendment of 2002. She criticized it as a breach of trust that Musharraf declared a state of emergency on November 3, 2007. Attempts by Bhutto to organize a joint protest by the opposition parties were rejected, citing their previous negotiations with Musharraf. After Bhutto called for mass protests in Rawalpindi , she was placed under temporary house arrest on November 9, 2007 .

attack

On December 27, 2007, two weeks before the scheduled date for the general election on January 8, 2008, Bhutto was assassinated after an election rally in Rawalpindi. Besides her, 23 other people were killed.

According to the Pakistani Ministry of the Interior, at the end of the event, the assassin first shot three times into the crowd before blowing himself up. According to government information, Bhutto was thrown with her head against a lever on the convertible top by the pressure wave - she had previously looked out of the armored vehicle through the sunroof. She suffered a fractured skull from which she eventually died. Bhutto's supporters, on the other hand, argued that she was killed by a shot in the head. A spokesman for her Pakistani People's Party (PPP) spoke of a "targeted murder by a sniper". Two alleged assassins can be seen in an amateur video . It can be seen that Bhutto was most likely killed by the gunshots and not by the consequences of the pressure wave.

The Pakistani government blamed the regional extremist Baitullah Mehsud for the attack. Al-Qaida, however, rejected these allegations and denied involvement in the attack. Mehsud's spokesman suspected "a conspiracy by the government, the army and the secret services" behind the act. Bhutto's party also had doubts about the government's statements: the story was fabricated and the government was trying to distract with it. There is no clear letter of confession or independent confirmation of the perpetrator. An international investigation has been requested by US politicians, among others. President Pervez Musharraf granted this request and announced in a televised address the "immediate" entry of a team from Scotland Yard . He also thanked British Prime Minister Gordon Brown .

It was feared that Bhutto's assassination could have a destabilizing effect on the entire region. On the day of the attack, there was unrest in several cities in Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands attended her funeral on December 28, 2007.

Senator Latif Khosa, one of her supporters in the PPP, reported that on the day of the attack, Bhutto wanted to publicize plans by the secret service and the electoral commission for counterfeiting in the parliamentary elections at a press conference. She also wanted to hand over the evidence in the form of a dossier to two US MPs. The government wanted to intimidate the opposition, organize rioting in polling stations and forge election lists and ballot papers.

Posthumous

After her murder, the parliamentary elections planned for January 8th were postponed for six weeks by the electoral commission. It took place on February 18, 2008 . Pakistan's main opposition parties, the Pakistani People's Party (PPP) and the Muslim League of Pakistan (N) (PML-N) won a majority of the seats. The PPP, the PML-N and the Awami National Party formed the new coalition government with Yusuf Raza Gilani as prime minister.

After the election, the (still) military ruler Pervez Musharraf admitted the defeat of his Muslim League of Pakistan (Q) (PML-Q).

The international airport of Islamabad in June 2008. Benazir Bhutto International Airport renamed.

In February 2011, it became known that a Pakistani court had issued an arrest warrant for Musharraf. In connection with the assassination of Bhutto, he was accused of not having taken sufficient care of their personal protection. Pakistan's state investigative agency FIA had named the ex-president a few days earlier as a suspect in the murder case.

On May 3, 2013, the main investigator in the murder case Benazir Bhutto, prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar , was killed in an assassination attempt in Islamabad . On the day of his murder, Zulfiqar was supposed to take part in the trial of the Bhutto murder in an anti-terrorist court in the garrison town of Rawalpindi .

family

In 1987 Bhutto married the politician Asif Ali Zardari . The marriage resulted in three children, the son Bilawal and the daughters Bakhtawar and Asifa. The birth of their daughter in 1990 was the first and, until 2018, the only motherhood in the world for a current head of government.

After the assassination, 19-year-old Bilawal was appointed Bhutto's successor as party leader on December 30, 2007. Until the end of Bilawal's studies, however, the current party leadership was temporarily carried out by his father, who was given the position of deputy party chairman.

Bhutto's brother Murtaza Bhutto , who had previously fallen out with his brother-in-law Asif Ali Zardari and had publicly accused him of corruption and who was increasingly perceived politically as a competitor within the party with a strong base in Sindh (especially since, as the son of Zulfikar Bhutto, he claims his political legacy could), was killed by police under unknown circumstances during her tenure in 1996.

Awards

• 2005: Women's World Award - World Tolerance Award
• 2008: Tipperary International Peace Award 2007 ( posthumous )
• 2008: United Nations Human Rights Award (posthumous)

Works

• Pakistan. The gathering storm. Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi 1983, ISBN 0-7069-2495-9 .
• Daughter of the East. (To Autobiography). Hamish Hamilton, London 1988, ISBN 0-241-12398-4 (or: Daughter of Destiny. An Autobiography. Simon & Schuster, New York NY et al. 1989, ISBN 0-671-66983-4 ).

literature

• Katherine M. Doherty, Caraig A. Doherty: Benazir Bhutto (= Impact Biographies Series ). Franklin Watts, New York NY 1990, ISBN 0-531-10936-4 .
• Rafiq Zakaria: The Trial of Benazir Bhutto. An Insight into the Status of Women in Islam. Pelanduk Publications, Petaling Jaya 1990, ISBN 967-978-320-0 .
• M. Fathers: Biography of Benazir Bhutto. WH Allen / Virgin Books, London 1992, ISBN 0-245-54965-X .
• Christina Lamb: Waiting for Allah. Pakistan's Struggle for Democracy. Penguin Books, London a. a. 1992, ISBN 0-14-014334-3 .
• Syed Afzal Haidar: Bhutto trial. 2 volumes. National Commission on History & Culture, Islamabad 1996.
• Mercedes Anderson: Benazir Bhutto (Women in Politics) , Chelsea House Publishers, Philadelphia PA 2004, ISBN 0-7910-7732-2 .
• Mary Englar: Benazir Bhutto. Pakistani Prime Minister and Activist. Compass Point Books, Minneapolis MN 2006, ISBN 0-7565-1798-2 .
• Schoresch Davoodi, Adama Sow: The Political Crisis of Pakistan in 2007 (PDF; 509 kB) (= EPU Research Papers. Issue 08/07). European University Center for Peace Studies (EPU), Stadtschlaining 2007.
• Tariq Ali : Daughter of the West - Benazir and the Bhutto Clan. In: Lettre. No. 80, spring 2008, ISSN  0945-5167 , p. 27, (German).

Web links

Commons : Benazir Bhutto  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

 Wikinews: Benazir Bhutto  - on the news

• Literature by and about Benazir Bhutto in the catalog of the German National Library
• Benazir Bhutto. In: FemBio. Women's biography research (with references and citations).
• Benazir Bhutto: When I Return to Pakistan ; in: Washington Post, September 20, 2007, page A21
• Benazir Bhutto Interview, London October 2000 Academy of Achievement

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Begum Nusrat Bhutto. The Telegraph, November 1, 2011
2. ^ Tariq Ali : Pakistan. A state between dictatorship and corruption, license issue for the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 2008, p. 212 f.
3. ↑ Inter-parliamentary Union : Pakistan: Parliamentary Chamber: National Assembly, Elections held in 1993
4. ↑ so Tariq Ali in: Pakistan. A state between dictatorship and corruption, license issue for the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 2008, p. 213
5. ↑ Schoresch Davoodi & Adama Sow: The Political Crisis of Pakistan in 2007 ( Memento of February 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) - EPU Research Papers: Issue 08/07, Stadtschlaining 2007, p.41ff
6. ↑ BBC : Bhutto convoy bombs kill dozens (October 18, 2007)
7. ↑ dradio.de: Bhutto blames supporters of the former military ruler Zia for the attack ( Memento from March 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (October 19, 2007)
8. ↑ Tagesspiegel: Bhutto: "I know exactly who wanted to kill me" (October 19, 2007)
9. ↑ Die Welt : Bhutto seeks an open power struggle with Musharraf (November 8, 2007)
10. ↑ http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/29/bhutto.death/index.html
11. ^ Assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Anatomy of an attack on Spiegel Online , by Barbara Hans
12. ↑ Dispute over cause of death: Bhutto party accuses government of concealment on Spiegel Online
13. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Bhutto cause of death: New video feeds doubts about government version on Spiegel Online
14. ↑ Islamist leader rejects involvement in Bhutto murder on Spiegel Online
15. ↑ n24 .de: Bhutto apparently did not die of gunshot wounds ( Memento from January 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
16. ↑ Scotland Yard helps with investigations into the Bhutto murder (tagesschau.de archive) on tagesschau.de
17. ↑ Gero von Randow: Now the violence is escalating . In: Die Zeit Online, December 27, 2007 ( online )
18. ↑ Britta Petersen : Victims of Terrorism . In: Die Zeit Online, December 28, 2007 ( online )
19. ↑ Burial in Pakistan: Hundreds of thousands give Bhutto their final escort on Spiegel Online
20. ↑ New allegations by the opposition put Pakistan's government in trouble on Spiegel Online
21. ↑ ^{a b} International investigators should clear up Bhutto murder - new elections postponed by six weeks on Spiegel Online
22. ^ In Pakistan, Musharraf's Party Accepts Defeat - New York Times . In: The New York Times , February 20, 2008. 
23. ↑ PM names Islamabad Airport as Benazir Bhutto International Airport ( Memento of the original from July 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
24. ↑ cf. Arrest warrant against Pakistan's ex-President Musharraf ( memento from May 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) at dw-world.de, February 12, 2011
25. ↑ cf. Ex-President Musharraf accused in the Bhutto murder case at zeit.de, February 7, 2011 (accessed on February 12, 2011)
26. ↑ ZEIT ONLINE: Chief investigator in the Bhutto murder case shot on May 3, 2013
27. ↑ faz.net May 3, 2013: Chief investigator shot dead in the Bhutto case
28. ↑ Real-Life Dynasty; Benazir Bhutto in the New York Times, May 15, 1994, by Claudia Dreifus (English)
29. ↑ Spiegel photo gallery
30. ^ Spiegel Online : New Zealand: Jacinda Ardern ends baby break - after six weeks
31. ↑ Bhutto's son Bilawal will be the new PPP boss in Pakistan ( memento of the original from December 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
32. ↑ United Nations Human Rights Prize 2008. United Nations Human Rights, April 2, 2008, accessed December 30, 2008 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Muhammad Khan Junejo Moinuddin Ahmad Qureshi	Prime Minister of Pakistan 1988–1990 1993–1996	Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi Miraj Khalid