Benazir Bhutto

Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1953 – Rawalpindi, 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician who served as prime minister of the country from 1988 and 1990 and again from 1993 and 1996. She was the leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), a leftist party founded by her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had been prime minister of Pakistan in the 1970s. Her return to Pakistan in late 2007 was brokered by the U.S., with the expectation that elections scheduled for Jan. 8, 2008, would confirm democracy in Pakistan. She was assassinated at a rally in Rawalpindi; authorities blamed al-Qaeda, which took responsibility. Her Pakistan Peoples Party is now led by the son and the widower of Ms. Bhutto.

Benazir was born in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, as the oldest of four children born to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Nusrat Ispahani Bhutto. Because of her fair complexion, Benazir was called “Pinky” by family members. Although she came from a Muslim family, she studied at schools run by the Catholic Church in Pakistan.

In 1969, at the age of 16, Benazir moved to the United States, where she studied at Radcliffe College (part of Harvard University), where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in comparative government. As a student in the United States, she took part in demonstrations against the Vietnam War and for women’s rights. From 1973 and 1977 she studied political science, economics and diplomacy at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University. She joined the Oxford Union, the famous debating society, and became the first Asian woman to be elected its president.

In 1977 she returned to Pakistan, where she was given a minor post in the government. However, some days after her arrival her father was deposed by General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, who became the country's dictator until 1988. Ali Bhutto was arrested and hanged on 4 April 1979 and Benazir and her mother succeeded him as leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party. Regarded as a threat, Benazir was placed under house arrest by the dictatorship. In 1984 she was allowed by the government to travel to London to receive medical treatment for an ear injury she had suffered during an arrest. While she was in the United Kingdom, her brother Shahnawaz, who was living in Paris, was poisoned. Benazir brought her brother’s body to Pakistan to be buried and accused the government of being responsible for his death – an act that led to her exile from the country.