Home > Benazir Bhutto

The daughter of former Pakistani premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir was educated in the west, notably at Harvard University and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She temporarily left Harvard for New York City in 1971, when India sent troops into East PakistanEast Pakistan which is now Bangladesh, was the eastern region of Pakistan, created from the eastern half of the Bengal region of British India in 1947. After division of British India, East Pakistan was dominated and neglected by West Pakistan. The freque -- soon to be called BangladeshThe People's Republic of Bangladesh is a country in South Asia that forms the eastern part of the ancient region of Bengal. Bangladesh literally means "The Country of Bengal". Lying north of the Bay of Bengal, on land it borders India almost exclusively, -- and her father, as Pakistan's foreign minister, traveled to the United NationsFlag of the United Nations The United Nations or UN is an international organization made up of states. Almost all countries are members. It was established in San Francisco on October 24, 1945, following the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, DC, b to resolve the issue. Benazir Bhutto joined her father in New York CitySkyline, with Statue of Liberty New York, New York" redirects here. For alternate meanings, see New York, New York (disambiguation). New York — officially named City of New York and often called New York City to distinguish it from the state of New York, and acted as a kind of assistant to him. This seems to have been a formative experience for her, in that watching her father in action brought her out of the academy and showed her the ways of power politicsPower politics is a state of international relations in which sovereigns protect their own interests by threatening one another with military, economic, or political aggression. Power politics is essentially a way of understanding the world of internation. Her remaining years in the United States included active participation in various social causes.

During her time at Oxford, she was the first Asian woman to be President of the Oxford UnionThe Oxford Union Society commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union is a private debating society whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. The Oxford Union was founded in 1823 using the Cambridge Union as a model. It has gai, after the election had to be re-run because she accused her rival of illegal canvassing. Her entire undergraduate career was fuelled by controversy, coming in the middle of a period when her father's administration was being challenged both at home and abroad.

After graduating, she returned to Pakistan, but, in the course of her father's imprisonment and execution, she was placed under house arrest. Having been allowed, in 1984, to go back to the UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state in Western Europe, usually known simply as the United Kingdom the UK Britain or less accurately as Great Britain . The UK was formed by a series of Acts of Union which united the formerly, she was leader in exile of the Pakistan Peoples Party, her father's party, but was unable to make her political presence felt in Pakistan until the death of General Zia ul-Haq.

Then in the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan elected Benazir on November 16, 1988 to be Prime Minister. Bhutto was sworn-in on that December 2 becoming the first woman to head the government of an Muslim-majority state in modern times.

Bhutto has lived in self-imposed exile since 1999 when she left Pakistan to avoid arrest in a corruption case. While she still heads the Pakistan People's Party and says she wants to return to office, most people in Pakistan are convinced that she and her husband were indeed extremely corrupt. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, served an seven-year prison term in Pakistan on charges of taking kickbacks. He was released in November 2004 [1]. It is alleged that they stole hundreds of millions of dollars by demanding 'commissions' on all types of government contracts and other dealings.

It was during Bhutto's rule that the repressive Taliban gained prominence in Afghanistan with the financial assistance of her government. The Taliban took power in Kabul in September 1996, and Bhutto's government became one of only three nations to recognize it. In the administrations following Bhutto's, Pakistan remained a key supporter of the regime until the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Benazir Bhutto at a Party event in Newark, CA, 9/28/04 In 2002 Pakistan's current military president, Pervez Musharraf introduced a new amendment to Pakistan's constitution, banning Prime Ministers from serving more than two terms. This disqualifies Bhutto from ever holding the office again, and some said it was largely implemented due to the President's own fear of maintaining his power once democracy returned to the country.

Bhutto is currently (as of September 2004) based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where she cares for her children and mother , who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and from where she travels around the world giving lectures and keeping in touch with the Party faithful (see photo at left).