Draft:Benazir Bhutto
| Name | Benazir Bhutto |
|---|---|
| Titles and other names | In Urdu: بینظیر بهٹو |
| Born | 21 June 1953 Karachi • Sindh |
| Died | 27 December 2007 (age 54) Rawalpindi • Punjab |
| Religion and Denomination | Islam • Shia Islam |
| Occupations | Politician • Prime Minister of Pakistan |
Benazir Bhutto (born 21 June 1953 – died 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician. She served as Prime Minister of Pakistan from the Peoples Party during two terms, from 1988 to 1990 and also 1993 to 1996. She was the first Muslim woman in the history of the Islamic world to reach the position of Prime Minister in an Islamic country. During her political career, she faced allegations of financial corruption multiple times and was removed from the position of Prime Minister for this reason. She was eventually assassinated in December 2007 in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto's mother, Nusrat Bhutto, was originally Iranian and Kurdish-speaking.
Biography
Benazir Bhutto was born on June 21, 1953, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan, into a noble and renowned family with an Iranian-born mother. She was the child of a distinguished political family, one who inherited the mantle of power from her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party.
When Benazir was four years old, her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was sent by "Iskander Mirza", the then President of Pakistan, as the country's representative to the United Nations.
Zulfikar Bhutto's successive government posts as Minister of Commerce during the presidency of "Ayub Khan", Minister of Energy, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and leader of the delegation of Pakistan representatives to the UN at various times, caused both father and mother of Benazir to be away from the family most of the time, and the children grew up alongside nannies and servants.
Benazir's childhood and adolescence were guided by a father who believed in no discrimination between sons and daughters and provided all welfare, educational, and cultural facilities equally to his children.
Benazir's Iranian-origin mother was Shia like most Iranians; however, her life alongside other Sunni members of the family and husband's relatives proceeded smoothly, and there was no tension or conflict among them.
Entry into Politics
Benazir's father often involved his children in his political meeting sessions, and although Benazir's childhood was spent mostly in peace and special welfare due to her family conditions, her adolescence coincided with conditions where political-economic inflammations and crises affected not only Pakistan but many points of the world.
At the age of 16, she left her homeland to continue education at "Radcliffe Harvard College" and after completing her bachelor's degree, entered Oxford University England to continue studies in law.
She, who in the first years of youth showed no tendency to create convergence and activity towards her father's political ideals, experienced new horizons upon entering the Western world. The most important motivation that later opened Benazir's way to the political arena in Pakistan was her inner desire for "breaking and destroying many traditions" through her presence as a Muslim woman in the country's political scene.
Benazir says in this regard: "Looking at the history of the world, one can reach this belief and conclusion that in fact, the number of individuals who have succeeded in causing changes in the world is not that many; individuals who can bring an era of progress, innovation, and civilization to a country that is merely at the beginning of the path and following basic principles, and the role of women there is not very significant."
After years of studying abroad, when her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was Prime Minister, she returned to Pakistan; a few days after her arrival in Pakistan, the army seized power and took control of the government and imprisoned her father. Her father was hanged in 1979 by the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq. Benazir was arrested several times in subsequent years and was under detention and arrest for three years before obtaining permission to leave the country in 1984. She then left the country and resided in London; there, along with her two brothers, she initiated a secret organization to oppose and fight against the current despotic military government.
Prime ministership
The public reaction to her return was turbulent, and she generally demanded the resignation and stepping down of Zia-ul-Haq, who was responsible for her father's death. Zia's death in an airplane crash in August 1988 led to a reduction in military violence across the country, such that Bhutto became Prime Minister in December of the same year through free public elections.
At the age of 35, she was one of the youngest leaders and lawmakers in the world, the first woman to serve as Prime Minister in a Muslim country. Only two years after her first term as Prime Minister, President "Ghulam Ishaq Khan" removed Bhutto from her position.
In 1993, she launched an election campaign and also a movement against corruption for the second time and was elected Prime Minister again. During these years, she brought electricity to remote neighborhoods and the suburbs of Pakistan's cities. Fighting poverty and hunger, providing housing and shelter, public health, and combating bribery and financial corruption were among the priorities of her actions.
Additionally, the release of political prisoners, expanding relations with India, lifting the ban on the activity of student unions, legalizing the rights of labor unions, creating facilities for the activity of human rights groups and women's organizations, free and uncensored printing of news on radio, television, and publications, separating the judicial system from the country's executive system, decentralizing the economy and reviving the private sector, implementing extensive development projects in the country, launching fiber optic cables and permitting the entry of mobile phones into the country, creating a Ministry of Women in the cabinet, etc., are among the unique activities during her prime ministership.
Her presence as a woman and at the head of the Pakistan government cabinet当然 had its own troubles; some religious scholars of Pakistan and some other Muslim countries, by issuing various fatwas stating that running a Muslim country by a woman is un-Islamic, tried to force the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to suspend Pakistan's membership in this institution, and even Bin Laden — who had not yet established al-Qaeda at that time — sought to fund the overthrow of her government, but the support of the masses and national institutions for Benazir rendered these actions ineffective.
In 1996, the President of Pakistan removed Benazir Bhutto from her position, citing reasons such as mismanagement, and dissolved the National Assembly. The proposal to re-elect Bhutto to the position of Prime Minister in 1997 failed, and the next elected government with the conservative Nawaz Sharif came to power, who was himself overthrown by the army. Bhutto's husband was imprisoned, and she was forced to leave the homeland once again.
Assassination
She spent 9 years in exile in London, along with her children, where she engaged in defending and supporting and re-establishing democracy in Pakistan. The memory of her return in October 2007 was revived similar to the welcome received by hundreds of thousands of her supporters in April 1986, and despite death threats from radical Islamists, she returned to the homeland. In the early hours of her arrival, she was welcomed by a crowd of enthusiasts; the crowd of demonstrators expressed the largest scene of dissatisfaction with the Zia government.
During the national elections planned for January 2008, the Pakistan People's Party nominated Benazir Bhutto for another victory in the position of Prime Minister, but only a few weeks before the elections, extremists struck again.
While Benazir Bhutto was striving to assume the post of Prime Minister in the 2008 elections, finally, after several unsuccessful assassination attempts, on 27 December 2007, she was killed in a terrorist-suicide attack in the city of Rawalpindi.
Following her assassination, the Government of Pakistan held Taliban and al-Qaeda responsible for this operation, and it was announced that an individual named "Karamatullah Bilal", a member of al-Qaeda, had carried out this Assassination, but subsequently, al-Qaeda announced that it had no role in Bhutto's assassination, and Maulvi Umar, spokesperson for al-Qaeda, said in this regard: "Native tribes have their own traditions; we do not attack women".
Benazir Bhutto's body was buried in the Sindh province of Pakistan, in the village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, next to the burial place of her father and two brothers, while at the time of her burial, thousands of her supporters were shouting "Benazir is alive".
Following her death, 3 days of public mourning were declared in Pakistan. She is survived by two daughters and one son named Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari, and Asifa Bhutto Zardari.
Senior members of the Pakistan People's Party in the elections and determination of the future leader of this party, chose "Bilawal Bhutto", the nineteen-year-old son of Benazir who was a law student at the University of Oxford, as the leader of the party and Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's husband (current President), as the caretaker of the party.
References
Taken from the site A Look at the Life of Benazir Bhutto +Images - Tabnak TABNAK