The Hindu : Front Page : Together we’ll save Pakistan, Benazir said at last rally

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 28, 2007
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Together we’ll save Pakistan, Benazir said at last rally

Nirupama Subramanian

— Photo: AFP

MOMENTS BEFORE DEATH: The former Pakistan Premier, Benazir Bhutto, leaves the stage after her last election campaign rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday.

Rawalpindi: The election rally that turned out to be Benazir Bhutto’s last was a thinly attended and unremarkable meeting. Among her last lines was a pledge that she and the people would together save Pakistan from the ravages of terrorism and extremism, which minutes later took her own life.

Liaquat Bagh is one of Pakistan’s most historic venues for political rallies. It was at the same venue that Liaquat Ali khan, Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, was killed by an assassin’s bullet in 1951.

The park seemed like it could squeeze in tens of thousands of people. The turnout for a rally at the park is seen as an important indicator of the popularity of a political leader. Nawaz Sharif was scheduled to address a rally at the same venue on January 4, and Sheikh Rashid, the Railways Minister in the just dissolved government, on the last day of the campaigning, on January 6.

For Ms. Bhutto on Thursday, a fine winter afternoon, it was barely half full.

At first I positioned myself well away from the crowd, outside the park, on top of a fountain that was not turned on. Lots of people had the same idea and squeezed on to the structure, which offered a vantage view of the park and the stage. I asked a man standing next me if he too thought the turnout was low for a leader of the stature of Ms. Bhutto. “What to do Bibi, people are scared of suicide bombings. The situation is not good at all,” said the man, who identified himself as Sheikh Adnan, a PPP activist in his younger days.

Later, I made my way into the park. Policemen were frisking men at the gates. There was a separate entrance for women and for journalists. But there did not seem to be a heavy security presence. Below the stage stood armed PPP bodyguards. There were a few policemen in the crowd.

Rhythmic applause

The crowd that had gathered to hear Ms. Bhutto seemed not very enthused, breaking into a rhythmic applause only when someone on the stage began chanting an old slogan from the days of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

When Ms. Bhutto, dressed in a purple salwar-shirt and her trademark white dupatta, arrived at the venue, PPP activists on the stage whipped up the crowd with the “Prime Minister Benazir!” She delivered her speech with a passion, heaving her shoulders, gesturing with her hands as she spoke, her voice raspy from days on the campaign trail. She talked mainly about her father’s achievements — how he had turned Pakistan into one of the most important countries of the Muslim world, how he had launched Pakistan’s nuclear programme in response to India’s 1974 blasts.

“He said we would eat grass, but we will make the bomb,” she said, recalling Bhutto’s words. She was interrupted at times by scattered applause.

She then moved on to militancy and extremism in the country. “Look at what is happening in our tribal areas, in north Waziristan, in south Waziristan, in Swat, in Balochistan. This land is calling out to you and it is calling out to me. You and I have to save Pakistan together,” she said.

Earlier in the day, she had met visiting Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and the two discussed the threats of extremism, terrorism and militancy that their countries jointly face.

At the public meeting, Ms. Bhutto also talked about the bomb attacks on her homecoming parade in Karachi on October 18, and said it was carried out by those out to prevent the forces of democracy from reclaiming the country. After finishing what was to be her last-ever speech, she waved to the crowd and, descending from the stage, slipped out of view behind it to where her car was parked. No one knew that an assassin was awaiting her a few feet away.

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