THE ASSASSINATION of Benazir Bhutto yesterday was a tragedy for her family, a devastating blow for her Pakistan
Bhutto, who served as prime minister from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996, had returned home to lead her party in parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8. She did so knowing that Islamist extremists were vowing to kill her. She suspected that Pakistan's notorious intelligence services were complicit with the fanatics behind a suicide bombing that killed 134 people and wounded more than 400 who turned out for a daylong procession upon her return in October.
There was an operatic quality to her career, her return to Pakistan, and even her death. In public and private, she spoke of a deeply felt duty to help revive secular, civilian democracy in Pakistan. Toward that end, she explored a deal with General Pervez Musharraf, the president who seized power in a 1999 coup and recently imposed emergency rule, sacking supreme court judges so that he could have himself reelected by compliant legislators. The courage Bhutto showed in returning from the luxury and safety of exile in London and Dubai attested to her seriousness.
Her political mission was intertwined with personal motives. She never hid her sense of obligation to carry on for her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a landed aristocrat and prime minister who was hanged in 1979 by an earlier military ruler, General Zia ul-Haq. By returning, she also hoped to efface the stain on her reputation, and her husband's, from corruption charges they faced in Switzerland, Spain, and Britain as well as Pakistan.
Nonetheless, Bhutto's assassination counts as but one act in the tragedy of Pakistan. Pakistanis have not had the leadership they need either from elected politicians or from the generals who seized power by force. While Bhutto and her husband were accumulating hundreds of millions of dollars in office, Pakistanis were suffering from a lack of jobs, education, and healthcare.
Her civilian rival, Nawaz Sharif, served the country no better during his two terms as prime minister in the 1990s. He was the first to enable the ascension of Islamists, declaring sharia as the law of the land before the judiciary rebuffed him. He also presided over Pakistan's first testing of a nuclear device.
Bhutto's murder is a desolating reminder that the people of Pakistan have not had the government they deserve or the leaders they need. They need a legitimately elected, honest government, true rule of law, and schools that are able to overcome high rates of illiteracy and indoctrination by Islamist reactionaries.
