Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister and popular political leader of Pakistan was assassinated at a political rally in Rawalpindi today. This is horrible news for Pakistan as well as the entire troubled region of Pakistan-Afghanistan.
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) — Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday outside a large gathering of her supporters where a suicide bomber also killed at least 14, doctors and a spokesman for her party said.
While Bhutto appeared to have died from bullet wounds, it was not immediately clear if she was shot or if her wounds were caused by bomb shrapnel.
President Pervez Musharraf held an emergency meeting in the hours after the death, according to state media.
Police warned citizens to stay home as they expected rioting to break out in city streets in reaction to the death.
Police sources told CNN the bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, blew himself up near Bhutto’s vehicle. Bhutto was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital — less than two miles from the bombing scene — where doctors pronounced her dead.
Bhutto’s obituary from BBC here.
Benazir, a musical tribute to Bhutto by Brazilian singer Chico Cesar is translated below by reader Narayan Acharya who had previously contributed the Portuguese – English translation of another Brazilian song.
BENAZIR
Chico César
Não aponte a dedo Don’t point your finger
Para Benazir Butho At Benazir Bhutto
Seu puto She’s hopping mad (???)
Está de luto In mourning
Pelo morte do pai. For the death of her father.
Não aponte a dedo Don’t point your finger
Para Benazir At Benazir
Esse dedo em riste This pointed finger
Esse medo triste This sad fear
É vocé Is you.
Benazir resiste Benazir endures
O olho que existe The eye that lives
É o que vé Is what one sees
Accidental Blogger 
5 responses to “Benazir Bhutto Assassinated”
Poignant words from a blog post by Benazir on The Huffingtonpost.com
” It was not the life I planned, but it is the life I have. My husband and children accept and understand that my political responsibilities to the people of Pakistan come first, as painful as that personally is to all of us. I would like to be planning my son’s move to his first year at college later this month, but instead I am planning my return to Pakistan and my party’s parliamentary election campaign.
I didn’t choose this life. It chose me.”
This morning, death chose her, in a violent burst, as it has done in the past for so many others thrust into political prominence in the Indian subcontinent.
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This morning, death chose her, in a violent burst, as it has done in the past for so many others thrust into political prominence in the Indian subcontinent.
Sujatha, this is what is so sad and demoralizing. For all the talk of democracy and economic boom, assassination, the medieval means of settling political differences is repeatedly chosen over other political discourse. If my accounting is correct, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal have experienced more political and dynastic killings and attempted assassinations of national leaders (and their family members) in the last three decades than the rest of the world combined. What a shame! And what a tragedy.
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Actually, I think that it was less about political differences than some conspiracy to remove a possible front-runner to replace Musharraf. Who benefits if Benazir is out of the equation? I suspect it might be any of the following: (a) Musharraf (b) Hard-liners who would prefer Nawaz Sharif or some other person more amenable to ignoring the extremist madrassas that Benazir had reviled in many of her recent writings and pronouncements.
Evidently, they were unwilling to let the people speak through the ballot box and decided to remove her from the Pakistani political scene as the last surviving representative of the Bhutto family who could rally people behind her.
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Whether done for a specific political end, because of a general political difference, or because of a politically realized more personal discontent, what’s so demoralizing about this kind of violence is its endless effectiveness at silencing more moderate voices and derailing political processes. On reading this news, some part of me couldn’t help but feel that it was more a question of “when” than “whether” the assassination would happen (irrespective of the open question of whether or not Musharraf should have provided more security to Benazir)– and that’s a pretty horrifying reaction. Whether they individually supported Benazir as a candidate, it seems to me a very sad day for the people of Pakistan.
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On reading this news, some part of me couldn’t help but feel that it was more a question of “when” than “whether” the assassination would happen (irrespective of the open question of whether or not Musharraf should have provided more security to Benazir)– and that’s a pretty horrifying reaction.
Depressing, isn’t it that it was almost predictable? I had very little political agreement with Benazir Bhutto and for that matter any other Pakistani leader. Perhaps this time around Bhutto would have become the face of real democracy in Pakistan and a hopeful symbol for the rights of women and girls whose status under the threat of extremism is becoming increasingly precarious. Also, other than being a political figure, Bhutto was the mother of three young children. But that’s really not the point. What really frustrates me is to wonder when violence will at last cease to be an easy and common currency of political dialogue in that part of the world.
The US saw a spate of killings in the 1960s. But fortunately, subsequent elected leaders saw the legacy of JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr as something to perpetuate and keep alive. But in Pakistan the outcome is more likely to be chaos leading to even more repressive regimes. Let’s hope not but I see little else on the horizon.
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