Benazir courted chaos

A day after the shocking news of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhuttos assassination in a gun and suicide attack at a rally in Rawalpindi, journalists and others are trying to deconstruct Pakistans one of the most charismatic political leader, who created a history by becoming the premier of an Islamic country at the age of 35.

New York, Dec 28 : A day after the shocking news of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination in a gun and suicide attack at a rally in Rawalpindi, journalists and others are trying to deconstruct Pakistan's one of the most charismatic political leader, who created a history by becoming the premier of an Islamic country at the age of 35.

Steven R. Weisman, who covers international economics for The New York Times, states: "Benazir not only understood that Pakistan was a chaotic country, she often seemed almost to court chaos as an ally."

"I believe that, in effect, was her strategy in her current return," Weisman writes in The Lede.

Weisman was the daily's New Delhi bureau chief in the mid-1980s when Bhutto made her second homecoming to Pakistan and was assigned to report it.

Recounting his conversation with Bhutto in 1986, he writes: "She pulled me aside at a dinner party and explained, off the record, that she well remembered the chaotic election of 1977 called by her father. He 'won' in a landslide, but virtually every political group took to the streets, fomented chaos and forced the army to act, remove Bhutto and take over. Benazir told me that her strategy then [in 1986] was to bring people into the streets and divide Zia from the army."

"It's a risk, but it's the only route we can take. The government will never let us into power any other way," he quoted her, as saying.

Recently he asked one of Bhutto's close political associates about her courting with chaos.

Weisman writes, "He seemed to agree: That in returning to her native soil, she was in effect hoping that the people would rise up to support her, there would be violence, and the army would step in and remove President Pervez Musharraf for her and bring her into power, perhaps in tandem with another general. Of course she supported elections, but she knew that this route would propel her ahead,"

ANI