 | Bhutto lived a life full of contrasts Benazir Bhutto was the Harvard- and Oxford-educated child of landed gentry and daughter of a martyred political father, but she drew her strongest political support from among Pakistan's impoverished masses. When elected prime minister of Pakistan in 1988, she was the world's first female leader of a Muslim nation. Yet in her personal life, she entered a marriage arranged by her mother. It was her husband from that marriage, Asif Ali Zardari, whose ethics problems helped force her from power in 1996 and into self-exile in 1999. "I have lived a life of contrasts," she told magazine writer Amy Wilentz earlier this year, reflecting on her life in a male-dominated culture. "She was a very complicated person," says John Echeverri-Gent, associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia and an authority on Pakistan politics. "You can say that she had a certain courage and commitment to democracy, even if … she didn't always follow through." Benazir Bhutto was the oldest daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who served as Pakistan's first prime minister from 1973 to 1977. Tragedy plagued Bhutto's family. Her father was ousted in a 1977 military coup and hanged in 1979. Benazir Bhutto's younger brother, Shahnawaz, was poisoned in France in 1985; her brother, Murtaza, was shot to death in 1996. From 1979 to 1984 she was variously in jail or under house arrest. She returned from political exile in London in 1986. She became the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, or PPP, which had been founded by her father. After her marriage in 1987, Bhutto and Zardari had a son and two daughters. Bhutto was first elected prime minister in 1988, but removed in 1990 on alleged corruption charges. Taking power again in 1993, she was forced out on corruption charges again three years later. Her husband earned the pejorative nickname, "Mr. 10 Percent," while serving as his wife's investment minister. Bhutto and Zardari were convicted in 1999 of accepting kickbacks, though the case was later overturned. Bhutto, however, remained in exile in Dubai and London. Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October. She began campaigning for prime minister and despite a bitter rivalry with President Pervez Musharraf, worked with him on a transition to civilian rule. Bhutto had changed from a politician who sought power for its own sake, says Hassan Abbas, a Harvard research fellow and ex-Pakistani government official. While her government in the 1990s was close to Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban government, Bhutto "became quite convinced that the religious extremist forces have to be taken head on," Abbas says. Bhutto's death thrusts Pakistan into chaos http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-12-28-pakistan-bhutto_N.htm Pakistan — The best hope of Pakistan becoming a stable democracy anytime soon may have died with Benazir Bhutto. She was the closest thing Pakistan had to a Kennedy. Regal, heir to a tragedy-stricken political dynasty, her rhetorical skills sharpened at Harvard and Oxford, the two-time prime minister was the public face of the democratic, pro-Western leadership the U.S. government wants to see running Pakistan. But Bhutto on Thursday became a victim of the extremist violence she deplored, killed by a suicide bomber as she left a political rally in her car. Her death ignited rioting across Pakistan, dashed hopes for a smooth transition from a military dictatorship to democracy and raised the possibility of lasting chaos in a nuclear-armed Muslim nation that is on the front lines of the U.S. war on terror. An opportunity for Musharraf? The uncertainty comes at a time when Pakistan is already one of the shakiest fronts in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Taliban militants have seized territory along the lawless northwestern frontier and often cross the border to fight U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, where violence this year reached its highest level since the U.S. invasion in 2001. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, also is thought to be hiding in the mountains along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Meanwhile, extremists have terrorized moderate Muslims, carrying out suicide attacks, torching girls' schools and shutting down video stores, barbershops and other places they believe promote a lifestyle that violates their brand of Islam. Musharraf cited the extremist threat when he suspended the constitution in October and rounded up thousands of political opponents, silenced independent television stations and purged the courts of judges he didn't like. The state of emergency ended two weeks ago. "It was very unstable in Pakistan before this assassination," said Anthony Cordesman, military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Certainly in virtually every area, things are likely to get worse." Markey described a "worst-case scenario" in which "the level of violence in the streets gets out of hand," the army can't regain control and Pakistan "conceivably melts down." Even if chaos continues, Cordesman said, the military is unlikely to lose control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal: Such weapons "are not where public riots or demonstrations can affect them, and there is no reason the military should become unstable or their security should be compromised." Washington has long promoted democracy in Pakistan as a way of limiting the appeal of Islamist extremists. But the United States had been criticized by Bhutto and others for steadfastly supporting Musharraf since he joined the U.S. war on terror after the 9/11 attacks. Musharraf sidelined secular democratic parties, such as those led by Bhutto and Sharif, and allowed fundamentalist parties to gain influence in a nation where they have received little public support. America's "bad policy choices are coming home to roost," political analyst Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha said. Musharraf could use Bhutto's death as a chance to reach out to political foes, said Wendy Chamberlin, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan. Either way, Musharraf must find a way "of picking up the pieces of this situation so that it doesn't lead to repression, doesn't lead to a military dictatorship and doesn't lead to less freedom."
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