Word: benazir
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...country staggered through its grief, seeking a unified identity out of dozens of feuding ethnic divisions, history continued to deal blow after blow. Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan's first Prime Minister and Jinnah's political heir, was shot dead in 1951 by a Pashtun separatist. Fifty-six years later, Benazir Bhutto died in the very same park. One of her attending doctors was the son of the physician who tried, and failed, to save Khan's life...
...When Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 1986 to resume her father's mantle, the nation responded with joy, and a landslide democratic victory. The daughter was accorded her father's adoration, but she also inherited his flaws. Her two truncated terms in office were plagued by incompetence and allegations of corruption. Twice she was ousted, and in 1999 she chose exile over remaining in Pakistan under the rule of yet another military dictator, Pervez Musharraf. Her return eight years later was supposed to herald a new beginning for the traumatized nation...
...Benazir Bhutto's assassination is a body blow to the troubled but strategically vital state of Pakistan. It removes from the scene a secular, liberal, pro-Western leader. It gives momentum to Pakistan's jihadis in their campaign to Talibanize the country, and it edges Pakistan closer toward Islamic revolution. Her death is also, of course, a tragedy for her family, including the three children she leaves motherless. But the horror of Bhutto's end should not blind us to her mediocre legacy, and it is misleading to depict her as any sort of martyr for freedom and democracy...
Bhutto's instincts were highly autocratic. Within her Pakistan People's Party, she had herself declared the lifetime president and refused to let her brother Mir Murtaza challenge her for its leadership. He was shot dead by police officers while Benazir was Prime Minister; his wife Ghinwa and daughter Fatima believe Benazir was complicit in having him killed. She colluded in wider human-rights abuses. Amnesty International accused her government of having one of the world's worst records of custodial deaths, abductions, killings and torture...
...This is Edwards' message to caucus-goers distilled. There is no talk of foreign policy. No mention of the war in Iraq. Nothing on Pakistan and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto or illegal immigration. He hardly even mentions health care or education. Edwards' final message is simple: "to make absolutely certain that our kids have a better life than we had. That's what this is all about, at the end of the day, to live up to our responsibility, to live up to what our folks did for us," Edwards said in a two-minute speech, his voice breaking...