Bhutto

Documentary

Antidote Films

All Interactive

R4 DVD

Pakistan is one of the world’s most unlucky countries. Partitioned off from India in 1947 by the departing British in an attempt to cut violence by separating Moslems from Buddhists, it inherited a brace of problems, few resources and a large enemy, India, next door. Most of the population was illiterate and had no electricity or clean water. Under the extremist Islamic law and Shariya system the female half of the population was suppressed. The extremist Jihadi element believed it should extend Islamic rule by force, starting with India and Kashmir. Under these conditions political power was dependent on shifting alliances between the major players and democracy was just a word that few understood.

This documentary traces the development of Pakistan by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter, Benazir Bhutto. Zulfikar was the fourth President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973. He was genuinely concerned about improving life for his people, but he had many problems to overcome first. India developed nuclear weapons so the Pakistan military had to have them too. This tremendously expensive program, while successful, left many other problems unaddressed. A military government ruled Pakistan when he entered politics and its loss of a number of minor skirmishes with India rankled with the Pakistani people. When a civilian government was finally formed Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) won many seats. He made political and military enemies from this, however. He nationalized industries, seized land from wealthy landowners and divided it up among peasants, dismissed over 2,000 public servants for corruption, and refused to support religious leaders’ demands for a full Islamic republic. The list of enemies grew. He also now faced demands for independence from some Pakistani provinces. Assassination is a popular way of expressing your political opinion in these countries. General Zia took over the country in 1977 in another military coup. Bhutto was arrested on a trumped-up conspiracy to murder charge and hanged in 1979.

These were the events that shaped Benazir Bhutto’s future. She always had a deep distrust of the military and a reluctance to do too much too soon – one problem at a time so as not to disturb people with the speed of change, a lesson her father hadn’t learnt. She led the PPP to power in civil elections in 1988 and set about reforms that would benefit her people. She opened more than 48,000 non-religious schools, extended the Pakistani power system to as much of the country as possible, and appointed a Minister specifically to eradicate polio. These gentle reforms endeared her to the people but not to the military. She finally was able to begin empowering women who had suffered under the male-dominated Shariya system, although she followed a number of Islamic religious customs herself..

After only twenty months in office she was arrested at the orders of President Khan on corruption charges. This was a popular way to sideline dangerous political enemies. She was released and won the 1993 elections and again became Prime Minister. In 1996 she was again arrested for corruption by the new president Leghari. Her husband was also arrested on corruption charges and spent eleven years in prison, fighting the charges one by one and being found innocent each time. With her husband effectively held as a hostage Benazir entered voluntary self-exile in Dubai in 1998.

In 2007 she reached an arrangement with new president Musharraf. All corruption charges were dropped and she was granted an amnesty. She reentered Pakistan to a huge welcome from the people. In December 2007 she was leaving a PPP rally in Rawalpindi for the forthcoming election. She was shot by a gunman and the car was blown up by a suicide bomber. A previous attempt on her life had been unsuccessful. This one succeeded. The Musharraf government blamed an extremist Moslem militant group. An Al-Qaeda group claimed responsibility. The crime scene was hosed down, destroying evidence. There were conflicts in the medical evidence. The people of Pakistan blamed the government and went on a massive series of riots.

Now a third generation of the Bhutto family has entered the arena. Benazir’s son Bilawal was elected as the PPP’s leader. He is only 19 and will complete his studies in Britain before returning to Pakistan. Will he succeed where his mother failed?

The documentary explains a lot about the tortured history of Pakistan. The Bhutto family has done their best to improve the condition of their people, especially in the fields of education and womens rights, but it remains to be seen whether the powerful forces antagonistic to change will allow the will of the people to be heard.

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