A. A. SUVOROV

Doctor of Philological Sciences

Benazir Bhutto Keywords:, murder, Pakistan, terrorism

In the midst of red burnt fields and mud buildings of the village of Garhi Khudabakhsh, near the Pakistani city of Larkana, stands a white marble mausoleum, which in its splendor, unexpected in this harsh landscape, resembles a mirage woven by the hot air of Sindh. Inside the mausoleum, four members of Pakistan's most famous Bhutto family - a father and his three children, all of whom died tragically-lie in eternal sleep.

His father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1928-1979), President and Prime Minister of Pakistan, was hanged on the orders of a military dictator. The youngest son, Shahnavaz (1956-1985), was poisoned, the eldest, Mir Murtaza (1954-1996), was shot, and both died under unclear circumstances. Their sister Benazir (1953-2007), who twice served as Prime Minister and built the family mausoleum, died in front of the whole world, because her murder, you can say, was broadcast live. However, the names of her killers, as well as the names of those who killed her brothers, remain unknown to this day.

Like the Kennedy clan tragedies in the United States and the Nehru-Gandhi clan tragedies in India, the Bhutto family murders are among the unsolved mysteries of modern history that have led to political and geopolitical cataclysms that have affected the destinies of entire nations.

THE HEAD OF GOVERNMENT OF THE ISLAMIC STATE IS A WOMAN!

Benazir Bhutto , the world's first female head of government in a Muslim country, one of the most respected political leaders in the third world, was the hope of many Pakistanis for a better life and the hope of the West to curb terrorism. However, despite the nearly three years since her death and the $5 million spent by the UN commission on the investigation, her murder remains a mystery to which, however, every Pakistani has his own answer.

There are many unsolved political assassinations in Pakistan's history, but in the case of Benazir, the situation is completely inexplicable. After all, her widowed husband, Asif Ali Zardari, became president of Pakistan after her death and, therefore, received unlimited power to conduct an investigation. However, he chose to seek help from the UN and Scotland Yard, admitting that "this case is beyond our capabilities" .1
In 2009, while collecting material for a book about Benazir Bhutto in the UK, where she studied at Oxford and lived in exile for many years, I met people from her inner circle, including Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, her son. It was obvious that the tragic death of Bibi (in Urdu - a respectful address to a woman, as well as the English abbreviation of the first and last name Benazir Bhutto - VV) was a profound shock for her family and friends, because they not only loved her, but also associated with her the greatest expectations and hopes for the future of the country. My understanding of the last days of this remarkable woman was largely influenced by the stories of Victoria Scoffield, a well-known journalist and her close friend from Oxford, and Wajid Shamsul Hassan, the current Pakistani ambassador to the UK, who knew Benazir as a child.

Bhutto has twice lost her post as prime minister over allegations of corruption, but this is not unusual in Pakistan, where such accusations are sometimes unfounded against many political figures. In January 2007, Benazir Bhutto and then-President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf held their first face-to-face meeting in Abu Dhabi to establish contacts. Musharraf signed a decree granting her and other opposition figures amnesty from corruption charges.2
Benazir was strongly discouraged by close friends from returning to Pakistan. "You've been prime minister twice, so why push your luck a third time?" said Peter Galbraith, an American politician they had been friends with since 1969, when Benazir arrived to study at Harvard. Mark Siegel, who co-authored Bhutto's latest book, Reconciliation (2007), recalled that Benazir had told him about the danger that threatened her before returning to Pakistan: "I know people who want to kill me to prevent the restoration of democracy. But by believing in God and the people of Pakistan, I hope that the party members and our supporters will be able to protect me. " 3
On October 16, on the eve of her departure to Pakistan, the UAE and Saudi intelligence agencies warned Bhutto about a plot being prepared against her. She immediately sent a letter to Musharraf stating the names of the three victims.-

This article, as well as A. A. Suvorova's article "Honor Killing as a Social phenomenon and Modern Barbarism" published in our journal (2010, No. 6), were prepared with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for National Science and Development (RGNF) within the framework of the project "A Woman Leader in a Traditional Muslim Society: the Benazir Bhutto phenomenon", No. 10 - 03 - 00014a.

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alleged conspirators, his arch-enemies Pervez Ilahi, then Chief Minister of Punjab, and retired Pakistani intelligence chiefs General Hamid Gul and Brigadier Ejaz Shah. Musharraf treated Benazir's letter as another attempt to attract increased Western attention, and, of course, no sanctions were imposed on the people named by her. Moreover, security measures were not strengthened, but relaxed, and Benazir was banned from driving around Pakistan in cars with darkened windows, as this allegedly violates the rules of anti-terrorist control.

return

Ignoring the danger, Benazir Bhutto returned to her homeland on October 18, 2007 after 8 years of exile. She made no secret of her joy at the Karachi airport: "I am deeply moved. I've been dreaming about this day for so many years... I counted the hours, minutes, seconds until I could see this grass, this sky... I am overwhelmed with feelings"4. As Victoria Scoffield, who accompanied Benazir to Karachi, recalls, tens of thousands of people lined up along the roads along which the ex-prime minister's motorcade was traveling. They greeted her with cheers, waved their hands, laughed and cried. But on one of the streets in front of Bhutto's escort cars, two explosions occurred. The last one was very powerful - more than 130 people were killed. About 500 were injured 5. It was a dress rehearsal for a murder.

Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have repeatedly threatened to launch terrorist attacks as soon as Bhutto sets foot on Pakistani soil. However, the most likely organizers of the bombings in Karachi are considered radical followers of the late dictator Zia-ul-Haq. Bhutto's main political opponents, like her late father, have tried to prevent Benazir and her Pakistan People's Party from returning to power.

The country's parliamentary elections were scheduled for January 2008, and Benazir expected to win. Under the law initiated by Musharraf, the post of Prime Minister cannot be held more than twice. Bhutto has been prime minister just twice. However, many believed that President Musharraf, who signed an agreement with the former exile in October, would agree to lift the ban. Bhutto would then resume the post of prime Minister, provided that Musharraf retains his presidency.

This was the original essence of the deal, which also involved the United States, which supported Bhutto's candidacy for the post of prime minister: it was official Washington that initiated Bhutto's return to his homeland and to big politics.

Benazir's return came at a time of heightened political crisis: on November 3, 2007, Musharraf declared a state of emergency in the country. The need for this step was explained by "rampant terrorism and extremism", which threatened the sovereignty of the state, as well as "sabotage" of presidential decrees by the judicial authorities. The Constitution and the courts were suspended during the state of emergency.

Benazir Bhutto, breaking the terms of the deal with the president, immediately joined the fight against the state of emergency, the introduction of which, in her opinion, was explained by Musharraf's attempts to appropriate unlimited powers.

On November 9, law enforcement officials in Pakistan prevented the former prime minister from leaving his mansion in Islamabad and delivering a speech at a rally in Rawalpindi. Thus, against its own will, the Musharraf regime may have delayed her death by more than a month.

The next day, Bhutto was released from house arrest, but a few days later she was arrested again, already in Lahore. The arrest was made after her statement, in which she called on Pervez Musharraf to resign and announced that she was ruling out the possibility of working under his leadership in the new government. Bhutto called the President of Pakistan "an obstacle to democracy" and stressed that his resignation is necessary to "save Pakistan" .6
Coincidentally, during the 2007 state of emergency, I found myself in Pakistan and could watch Benazir's triumphant march across the country every day, first on television and then in person when she arrived in Lahore. Countless crowds of cheering people tightly surrounded her slowly moving motorcade through the streets. Lahore, the former Mughal capital, was literally shaking with cheers of " Long live Bhutto!", " Bhutto to Prime Minister!", " Benazir is with us!"

This enthusiasm of the crowd was somewhat puzzling, as when Bhutto was Prime Minister, the Sindh native was not so popular in the Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital (the result of the eternal rivalry between the main ethnic groups inhabiting Pakistan).

Almost at the same time as Bhutto, her political opponent Nawaz Sharif, who had once succeeded her as prime minister, returned to Pakistan from exile. Sharif, an ethnic Punjabi resident of Lahore, seemed like he could expect the warmest possible welcome in his hometown. He also gathered supporters and organized rallies, but Benazir's success among Punjabis exceeded the expectations of her supporters and skeptical forecasts of critics.

A slender woman in a flowing white veil, whose burning eyes and passionate speeches literally mesmerized Tol-

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pu, people now perceived not just as a political leader, but as the mother of the nation-an image that has always been particularly in demand in South Asia. Her fearlessness, her disregard for danger, was shocking.

My Pakistani friends, watching her lean out of the car window up to her waist each time to shake hands, shook their heads sadly: "Why take such a risk? She's like a live target." In the dark days of November 2007, those who sympathized with Benazir lived with a heavy premonition that something was bound to happen to her.

If there are predictable and expected political assassinations, then the assassination attempt on Bhutto is one of them. Benazir's days were numbered from the moment she decided to break her self-imposed exile and return home. The deal with Musharraf formally cleared her and her husband, Zardari, of corruption and abuse charges and gave her the right to run in the elections, but neither party trusted the other, and Musharraf, despite flirting with Vkhutto and her party, vowed to keep them out of real power.7
TOWARDS THE INEVITABLE

On December 26, 2007, on the eve of the murder, Bhutto spoke at a rally in Peshawar, where a suspected suicide bomber was detained in the crowd. During the night, Zardari called her, insisting that he would come to Pakistan and run the election campaign in her place: "Stay at home, and I will speak at the rallies. After all, you are a mother." She said, "No, I must see my people, and the people must hear me," Wajid Shamsul Hassan told me. On Christmas Day, December 25, the ambassador spoke to Benazir for the last time by phone from London, pleading with her to keep her bulletproof vest on and speak behind bulletproof glass. "Those who fully trust in the will of Allah do not need a bulletproof vest," she replied. In general, according to friends, Benazir, who has always been a devout Muslim, has become especially religious in the last years of her life.

On December 27, Bhutto spoke at a rally in Rawalpindi, the city with the darkest memories of her life, where her father was executed in 1979. The rally was held in Liaqat Bagh Park , a place that commemorates another high-profile political assassination: On October 17, 1961, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, was killed during a speech at a rally here.

Ironically, in the last hours of her life, she discussed the terrorism issues she had fallen victim to with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was on an official visit to Islamabad. After the meeting, Benazir Bhutto answered questions from the Voice of America correspondent. According to her, President Karzai expressed concern about the growth of extremism in the region.: "I told President Karzai that the Pakistan People's Party hopes to win the election and form a government. We look forward to working very closely with Afghanistan. We are convinced that such cooperation is of great importance for both our countries and for the entire Muslim world, which faces the global task of protecting Islamic civilization by putting an end to extremism and terrorism."8
When the rally in Rawalpindi ended, Benazir was about to leave and got into an armored car, but at the last moment she got up from the car's hatch to wave goodbye to supporters. Then shots rang out. "All of a sudden, I felt it falling on me," said Nahid Khan, Bhutto's political secretary, who worked with her for 23 years. "She was unconscious, and her blood was pouring down my knees." 9
Everyone who was in Bhutto's jeep and her spokeswoman, Sherri Rahman, who was riding in her car in the back, claim that Benazir fell first, and then there was an explosion. The police car accompanying the motorcade mysteriously disappeared. Bhutto's jeep was damaged by the explosion, so the bodyguards moved her to Sherry Rahman's car and rushed to the hospital.

Later, the investigation, according to eyewitnesses, considered several versions of Bhutto's murder. According to one version, two motorcyclists opened fire on Bhutto's Jeep with AK-47s. At the same time, a suicide bomber blew himself up, getting close. According to another version, the same person shot and exploded.

Initially, according to the doctor's opinion, the immediate cause of death of Bhutto was called a gunshot wound to the neck. In the evening of the same day, Pakistan's Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz said that Bhutto died not from bullets, but from a shrapnel wound. Later, this information was refuted: it was established that Bhutto allegedly died from a severe blow to the head on the sunroof of the car after being thrown back by the blast wave. The latest version of the authorities did not believe either relatives or friends.

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Benazir supporters. In the chaos that followed the attack, no autopsy was performed and there was no official report on the cause of Bhutto's death.

In Dubai, the Benazir family watched on television. When her death was officially announced, Zardari ordered a plane to be prepared, and at about one o'clock in the morning he arrived with the children in Pakistan. Benazir's coffin was flown to Mohenjodaro Airport and then taken by car to Larkana. In accordance with Muslim tradition, she was buried the next day in the family tomb in Garhi Khudabakhsh.

AFTERWORD

On December 30, three days after Benazir's death, Zardari met with the central executive committee of the Pakistan People's Party, where his son Bilawal read out a handwritten letter from her to the party's members, the authenticity of which is not disputed.

In this letter, which is considered her political will, Bhutto stated: "I would like my husband Asif Ali Zardari to lead you in this transition period until you and he decide what is best for you. I say this because he is a brave and honest man."10 Zardari made a very smart move by announcing Bilawal as his co-chairman and adding the name "Bhutto" to his son's surname. In addition, Zardari admitted that he would never have agreed to lead the party if by that time his son was of legal age.

Bilawal was only 19 in 2007, studying at Christ Church College, Oxford University, and did not deny that he was more interested in American cinema and the social network Facebook than in politics. However, two years later, when I asked him if, at his young age, he would like to travel or continue his education, Bilawal replied that he sees the meaning of his life in restoring democracy in Pakistan and continuing the work of his grandfather and mother.

Meanwhile, in Islamabad, the Musharraf regime was gripped by panic. An hour after the attack, the crime scene was thoroughly cleaned with water hoses, which destroyed all evidence. The Rawalpindi police chief said he had received the order because the government was concerned about "kites not taking human remains".

Mass riots were growing in the country, and real popular indignation was rising, caused by the powerlessness of the authorities, who failed to prevent the murder of Bhutto. In Islamabad and Rawalpindi, riots and clashes between the opposition and the police began immediately after Bhutto's death. In Sindh province, at least 10 people were killed and one policeman was killed. Police opened fire on protesters in Hyderabad on the morning of December 28. On the same day, representatives of the Pakistani opposition reported that four activists of the opposition wing of the Muslim League of Pakistan party were killed by unknown persons. According to the opposition, a procession of Nawaz Sharif supporters was fired upon by unknown gunmen near Islamabad 11.

Fuel to the fire was added by the statement of the British newspaper "Daily Mail"that the deceased knew who was preparing an attempt on her. Journalists obtained an email that she sent to the then British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, a couple of months ago. Bhutto was sure that the three high-ranking officials from Musharraf's entourage, mentioned earlier, were trying to kill her. The British, according to the newspaper, should have used diplomatic channels to put pressure on the Pakistani authorities and thwart the plot, in which they apparently did not succeed.

To defuse the situation, the government hastened to present the results of the investigation to the public and name Bhutto's killer. Official TV channels reported on the day of the attack that the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the murder of the leader of the Pakistani opposition. "We killed an American spy in Pakistan, "al-Qaeda official Mustafa, a well-known field commander, allegedly said.

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abu al-Yazid 12. "One of the leaders of al-Qaeda, Baitullah Mahsud, is behind the murder. Intelligence intercepted a radio message sent by the terrorist. He was congratulating his accomplices on the success of the operation, " said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry of Pakistan 13.

In response to the accusations, Al-Qaeda spokesman Maulawi Omar said he "strongly rejects "his organization's involvement in the attack:" Tribal people have their own customs. We don't attack women. " 14
In addition to Bhutto, 22 other people were killed in the attack in Rawalpindi. Most of them belonged to the so - called "Martyrs for Benazir" - young volunteers, members of the Pakistan People's Party, who followed her motorcade everywhere and formed a human chain around her car every time to prevent terrorists from approaching her. None of these murders were investigated, and no autopsies were performed on the victims of the terrorist attack, although this is required by law.

None of the officials responsible for Benazir's security and later for the investigation were punished or even lost their posts. Baitullah Mahsud, on whom Musharraf wanted to blame the murder, was killed. Musharraf himself, whose entourage Benazir pointed out during his lifetime, settled comfortably in London. The UN Commission of Inquiry into Bhutto's murder concluded that the failure of the Pakistani police to conduct an effective investigation was deliberate. (Much the same thing happened in September 1996, when her older brother Mir Murtaza was shot dead outside the Bhutto family mansion at 70 Clifton Road in Karachi. Just like the crime scene was cleaned with water hoses, just like all the evidence was destroyed, just like no autopsy was performed. But at that time, Bhutto herself was at the head of the country's government.) It is obvious that the weakness of state power in Pakistan in the absence of civil society and with the leadership of the military prevents solving the most high-profile political murders.

It is still unclear how Bhutto died, and the answer to the main question of who killed her, especially remains the subject of speculation, rumors and speculation. Under domestic and international pressure, Musharraf asked Scotland Yard to investigate. British investigators supported the Pakistani official version. One can only hope for a new investigation launched by President Zardari, who said in an interview:: "I don't want nine people to be hanged for her death - the whole system is to blame. Only when we become a prosperous country like Singapore will she be avenged. " 15
In Rawalpindi, where she died, a portrait of her was painted, painted in garish aniline colors and executed in a naive, rude manner typical of Pakistani posters and movie posters. A dried wreath lay on top of the portrait, which was covered with pink tiles. Modest as the memorial was, it was a reminder that a woman who had everything - beauty, extraordinary intelligence, power, wealth, fame, and the love of millions-is as vulnerable to terror in our world as a mere mortal.

Lamb Christina. 1 Who Murdered Benazir Bhutto? // The Sunday Times, May 2, 2010.

2 Why Bhutto and the Elites Hate Musharraf - http://www.mqm.org/English-News/Jun-2007/news070616.htm

Dalrymple William. 3 Bhutto's Deadly Legacy // The New York Times, January 4, 2008.

4 "Benazir Bhutto killed" - Wikinews.

Gall Carlotta, Masood Salman. 5 After Bombing, Bhutto Assails Officials' Ties // The New York Times, October 20, 2008.

6 Benazir Returns to Pak, Faces no Problem - http://ibnlive.in.com/news/bcnazir-returns- to-pak-faces-no-problem/51692 - 2.html

7 Corruption Amnesty May Release Millions for Bhutto - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2652808.ece

8 "Voice of America". 27.12.2007 -http://www1.voanews.com/russian/news/a-33 - 2007 - 12 - 27-voa12.html

Lamb Christina. 9 Who Murdered Benazir Bhutto...

10 Bhutto's Son named as Successor - http://news.bbc.co.Uk/2/hi/south_asia/7164968.stm

11 Bhutto's Murder: Key Questions -http://news.bbc.co.Uk/2/hi/south_asia/7165892.stm

12 Al-Qaida claims Bhutto killing -http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id-NEWEN20070037061&ch-12/ 28/2007%208:21:00%20AM

13 "The Murder of Benazir Bhutto" - Wikipedia.

Fletcher Martin. 14 Named: The Al-Qaeda Chief who 'Masterminded' Murder // The Times, December 29, 2007.

Lamb Christina. 15 Who Murdered Benazir Bhutto...

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