“But, Prime Minister…”: Interactions with Benazir Bhutto, the world's first Muslim woman Prime Minister

The responsible entities include the PPP’s own leadership and internal arrangements for their leader’s security; the Rawalpindi Police; the civil and military intelligence agencies; the Government of Punjab, and the Federal Government of the time and the succeeding PPP Government as well, and even

I have reproduced my review of Getting Away With Murder: Benazir Bhutto’s Assassination and the Politics of Pakistan by Heraldo Munoz, published by W.W. Norton & Company, New York – London 2014. Herald Munoz, a distinguished diplomat from Chile, the Assistant UN Secretary-General for Latin America and the Caribbean was chosen by the UN Secretary-General to lead the UN Inquiry Commission formed on the request of the Government of Pakistan to investigate the violent death of Benazir Bhutto.
Unrestricted by the protocols of observing official limits to the expression of personal opinions that applied to the UN Commission’s report, the book by Heraldo Munoz written in his individual capacity lists disturbing facts and raises vital questions that still await answers. While a reading of the whole book is ideal, the review at Annexure summarizes the extraordinary features surrounding her death which remain unexplained to date

To the contrary, there is a revealing sense of almost feudalistic proprietorship about the Government and the civil and military officers that she led. There is also a fundamental factual omission. This is reflected in how she blames the ISI and the Army for covert actions against her even in the December 1988-August 1990 period when her own selected appointee, Lt. General (r) Shamsur Rahman Kallu headed the ISI after her removal of his predecessor Lt. General Hameed Gul. There is too little humility. Perhaps for most individuals who have held power or aspire to power, self-centredness is an occupational hazard. One finds this facet also in General Pervez Musharraf ’s autobiography. The whole charge of corruption is dismissed by Benazir Bhutto as being part of a planned “politics-of-destruction” conducted against her and her husband by the ISI and by her political foes. For a woman and a leader of exceptional ability and courage, these facets of Daughter of the East are disappointing.

August 1990, Benazir Bhutto held a meeting with Ghulam Ishaq Khan in the third week of August 1990. This writer is not privy to the content of that discussion except what she briefly shared in the post-mortem meeting held in end-August 1990. She had urged him to ensure that the conduct of the pre-poll phase of elections in October 1990 as also the polling itself be free and fair. On being assured by him that such would be so–– and while retaining strong doubts that this would actually be the case — she had proceeded to prepare for the campaign. As it turned out, Ghulam Ishaq Khan did exactly the opposite to any assurance of impartiality that he gave. Both the pre-poll phase and the election-day phase were blatantly rigged against Benazir Bhutto and the PPP, as referred to earlier in this book.
However, in one of those startling changes that occur in Pakistan’s history, less than three years after the October 1990 polls, Benazir Bhutto and Ghulam Ishaq Khan became allies in their shared objective to remove Nawaz Sharif from the office of Prime Minister

Reconciliation is written with a Western readership as the principal audience: to rightly or exaggeratedly depict herself as the sole advocate in Pakistan for a modernist, secular approach opposed to religious extremism.
She also wrote the book: Daughter of Destiny published in 1988. It is often a compelling narrative, particularly poignant and powerful in the passages that describe the last few months of her father’s life and their final meeting. the East — an Autobiography was published in 2007. She wrote the Preface in London in April 2007. This version covers the period of about 19 years between 1988 and 2007 including her second term of office 1993-96. When she lists work rendered in her second term, projects that had only been initiated or proposed are listed in a manner to suggest that they were completed. Daughter of the East is noticeably inadequate and very pronounced in its one-dimensional view of her role during those 19 years, and the roles of other actors and factors.

Being new to the system, as a justification, she was neither intimately familiar with all the subtle under-currents that shape processes within the system nor did she have the benefit of a network of officials who she had led over the previous decade or so. In contrast, Nawaz Sharif as the Chief Minister of Punjab had the advantage of having served as Finance Minister of the country’s largest Province for several years and had established personal and working relationships with a large number of civil and military officers both at the Centre in Islamabad and in Lahore.

As a political leader, Benazir Bhutto dealt — indirectly or directly — with four Presidents of Pakistan: Ziaul Haq, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Farooq Leghari, Pervez Musharraf. Her interactions with a fifth President, Rafiq Tarrar who served from 1st January 1998 to 20th June 2001 were not substantive or significant. Her interactions with Nawaz Sharif up to 12th October 1999 and with Pervez Musharraf up to 20th June 2001 (both of whom served as Heads of Government while Rafiq Tarrar was President) were more relevant to this book’s scope.

She then referred to the regional situation with regard to Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan and with India. She was most anxious about the potential dangers for Pakistan in the form of a possible spill-over of the Taliban’s approach to Islam. She cited the way in which General Musharraf, despite the different outlook claimed for him by this writer, had allowed religious extremists to influence discourse and even official actions when some hijackers forcibly landed an Indian airliner at Kandahar in Afghanistan and secured the release of a Pakistani

Benazir Bhutto expressed strong criticism of the Kargil misadventure even while acknowledging that India had, several years earlier, violated the Simla Agreement while secretly moving troops to advantageous new heights in Siachin. That, while she understood the valid reasons why the Pakistan Army wanted to settle scores for India’s aggression in Siachin, the Kargil strategy and its execution were severely flawed. She recalled that, as Director-General, Military Operations, then-Major General Pervez Musharraf had briefed her in 1994-5 about the potentiality for a Kargil operation to achieve a military advantage with major possible gains, and that she had vetoed the suggestion. She said she could understand why, with Nawaz Sharif ’s limited capacity to appreciate grave implications, her successor as Prime Minister had failed to categorically rule out the move when he had been

her father, she apprehended that General Pervez Musharraf would also extend his rule to the detriment of democracy, notwithstanding his being of a liberal, modernist mind-set entirely different from that of General Ziaul Haq.