Just Hours Before Her Death, Benazir Bhutto Expressed Concerns About Curbing Extremism
December 27, 2007 by Guest Author
Reprint of a VOA article. A heartfelt Thank You to VOANews.com for allowing Sirens to reprint this in it’s entirety. - Dusty
By Sayed Hassan
Islamabad
27 December 2007
Watch Bhutto Interview report / Windows Broadband - download
Watch Bhutto Interview report / Windows Broadband
Watch Bhutto Interview report / Windows Dialup - download
Watch Bhutto Interview report / Windows Dialup
Hours before her death, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was visiting Islamabad. After the meeting, Bhutto told VOA reporter Sayed Hassan that she and Mr. Karzai expressed concerns about curbing extremism in the region.
Benazir Bhutto: “I explained to President Karzai that the Pakistan People’s Party hoped to win the elections and form the government and we look forward to
working very closely with Afghanistan. We too believe it is essential for us both of our countries and indeed the large Muslim world to work to protect the interests of the Islamic civilization by eliminating extremism and terrorism. I touched upon the need to - I asked him about madrassas [Islamic schools] in Afghanistan and I said we discussed about madrassas and they have only the traditional madrassas.
You know there are two types of madrassas. One is the traditional madrassas, which teaches Islamic teachings and which are very good and which are very noble and on the other hand there are these training institutes that brainwash young children and turn them into warriors and fighters for no cause- for creating anarchy and chaos but they pose as madrassas which they’re not. So I asked him, he said ‘we don’t have that problem in Afghanistan’, I said well we have that problem in Afghanistan and we discussed about trade in the region.
Trade had gone up really high in 2006. It’s come down now and I suggested that might be due to the fact that there is destabilization going on the frontier province. We’ve had the incident in Swat with Alpuri, the bomb blasts on Eid ul Azha, as I was in Charsadda yesterday’s bomb blasts were in Peshawar. So the destabilization is now by the extremists, is not now relegated to the tribal areas of Pakistan but they have descended into not only the settled areas of frontier province they have descended into Peshawar. So there is an absolute need for both our countries to cooperate closely on terrorism related issues and also on issues of how we can enhance the quality of life of our people by improving economic ties.
I was pleased to read in the newspapers today that Pakistan and Afghanistan are forming a committee for intelligence sharing. I think this is a good and positive move and I mentioned to the Afghan president that we in the PPP were desirous of seeking good relations with Afghanistan as well as with India.
I mentioned that while we were trying to control the extremists and the militants they had turned their guns inward but I said it was still very necessary for us to dismantle these groups; because while some of them may have been formed in a noble cause, for example, some may have taken up the cause of fighting the occupation of Afghanistan or others might have taken up the cause of Kashmir but nonetheless once such people were trained they could always turn their guns on other objects and therefore it was important in the PPP’s view that we should seek peaceful means of conflict resolution so that our people did not suffer, our countries did not suffer and our Islamic civilization did not suffer.”
Bhutto at the rally, minutes before her death. Photo courtesy of Guardian UK
[...] Just Hours Before Her Death, Benazir Bhutto Expressed Concerns … Reprint of a VOA article. A heartfelt Thank You to VOANews.com for allowing Sirens to reprint this in it’s entirety. - Dusty By Sayed Hassan Islamabad 27 December 2007 Watch Bhutto Interview report / Windows Broadband - download Watch … [...]
[...] Just Hours Before Her Death, Benazir Bhutto Expressed Concerns About Curbing Extremism Just Hours Before Her Death, Benazir Bhutto Expressed Concerns About Curbing Extremism Filed under Benazir Bhutto, Fear, Human Rights, Pakistan, Religion, politics Reprint of a VOA article. A heartfelt Thank You to VOANews.com for allowing Sirens to reprint this in it’s entirety. - Dusty By Sayed Hassan Islamabad 27 December 2007 Watch Bhutto Interview report / Windows Broadband - download Watch Bhutto Interview report / Windows Broadband Watch Bhutto Interview report / Windows Dia [...]
[...] Bhutto gave to VOANews.com. She expresses concern about about curbing extremism in the region.read more | digg story by TDL Source - Info digg_url = [...]
[...] Just Hours Before Her Death, Benazir Bhutto Expressed Concerns About Curbing Extremism [...]
Benazir is getting a rehabilitation in death that her life probably didn’t merit. NONE of which is to say that what happened to her isn’t reprehensible; it is. But her populism was every bit as fake as Chimpy’s is, insofar as how she actually conducted herself in life.
I’ve wondered on Reconstitution more than once about how she’d have addressed the rampant corruption and authoritarianism that marked her last go-round as Pakistan’s leader, and I get a feel from her more recent interviews that she recognized her past mistakes and wanted to correct them. Sadly, we will never know for sure what road she would have taken.
Bhutto’s husband was the opportunist. There were several key improvements that Bhutto brought to the lives of Pakistani’s, electricity is one that comes to mind right now.
The bulk of the complaints and corruption charges were politically motivated in large due to her sex imho. The elite rich mutha fuckas were not happy with her ideals to make things better for the unwashed masses.
As for going home knowing full well her ass might get capped..I think few people among us would do the same. Even Sharif is scared shitless that he will be next and so he states he will boycott the elections..no doubt to make sure he is still breathing after they are held.
This attempt was the second of course, the first coming within hours of her arrival in Pakistan..that first shot over the bow would of been enough for most folks to keep a low profile.
Another woman in this mold is Suu Kyi in Burma..she didn’t tuck tail and run when most of her fellow radicals exiled somewhere else a couple of decades ago. At great personal sacrifice too I might add.
I disagree that she’s a Syu Kyi-she had to have overlooked a lot of stuff. Some of the corruption charges may have been politically motivated, but the corruption was very real, and rampant. And things like freedom of the press and assembly were actually much less under Bhutto then than they are under Busharraf now.
As I said, she may have gone a different direction this time. We’ll never know.
Then feel free to disagree with me JR. The NYT even stated that Bhutto’s mother and husband were behind the alleged corruption and not Bhutto. “While the Times inquiry confirmed some of the allegations made by the Pakistani investigators, other matters remained unresolved. For example, none of the documents for the foreign bank accounts or offshore companies uncovered thus far bear Ms. Bhutto’s name, nor do any of the letters promising payoffs make any mention of her.”
MSNBC states: Switzerland froze more than $13 million in the couple’s accounts and convicted Bhutto of money laundering. The conviction was thrown out when she contested it.It was seen as a politically motivated case
She wasn’t perfect but I believe she would of done a better job at ridding Pakistan of Al-Qaeda than Musharraf.
The past does not bother me so much as the now.A scary place with weapons of mass destruction is now that much less stable,farther away from Democracy than ever. The aftermath reminds me a hearing kids fighting,going and finding a broken toy and the darlings claiming the other one did it..except her life is no toy.
Dusty,
It may be that she overlooked a lot of stuff, and her mother was definitely well-schooled in thievery. As I said before, Benazir was a work in progress, and we simply do not know where she’d have headed this time. Whether or not the clamps on freedom of the press and assembly would have returned would have been interesting to see as well.
As far as Benazir having been able to restrain the radicals in the northwest…. I doubt it. Thanks to our setting up (with the Saudis) the religious madrassa system in that part of Pakistan, the country has changed a great deal since the last time she was the PM. I don’t believe that Waziristan would ever have accdepted Benazir Bhutto’s writ, and would eventually have killed her, no matter how hard she tried. Actually, I think that this is the fate of any PM who actually tries to rein in Waziristan.
Waziristan doesn’t have to accept it. Musharraf can’t or won’t deal with it. A secular government is the only way to straighten that shit out. Bhutto would of went that route.