Benazir Bhutto English - Research Paper Example

Born to a comfortable lifestyle Benazir had an exemplary primary education in Pakistan that eventually qualified her to be educated in the United States’ Radcliffe College at Harvard University where she graduated cum laude in Comparative Government. She continued her studies in the United Kingdom’s Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford eventually completing additional courses in International Studies and Diplomacy. An astute speaker she eventually led the prestigious debating society as the president of the Oxford Union Debating Society.

Benazir’s rude awakening to the tumultuous Pakistan politics was when her father Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was removed from office by a military coup in 1977. Coup leader General Zia-ul-Haq imposed martial law and placed on house arrest the entire family of Benazir. The death of Benazir’s father in 1979 by hanging at the hands of the coup plotters despite international pressure for clemency also exposed Benazir to the heavy cost of public service. In one of her memoirs she described her time under house arrest.

“The summer heat turned my cell into an oven. My skin split and peeled, coming off my hands in sheets. Boils erupted on my face. My hair, which had always been thick, began to come out by the handful. Insects crept into the cell like invading armies. Grasshoppers, mosquitoes, stinging flies, bees and bugs came up through the cracks in the floor and through the open bars from the courtyard. I tried pulling the sheet over my head at night to hide from their bites, pushing it back when it got too hot to breathe.

” (Bhutto) In the first quarter of 1984, under pressure from the international community General Zia allowed Benazir Bhutto to travel abroad for medical consideration. After her surgery Benazir, resumed her political activities outside Pakistan to raise international concerns about the abuses political prisoners are suffering at the hands of General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime. The effectiveness of Benazir’s strategy forced General Zia to respond by holding a referendum to provide local and international legitimacy to his government.

However, the referendum failed to achieve its purpose for General Zia, who was furthered pressure by the international community to hold general elections to restore the Parliamentary Government of Pakistan. In response Benazir’s People’s Party boycotted the elections because it violated certain provisions of the Pakistan Constitution. In November 16, 1988, in the first open election in more than a decade, Bhutto’s Peoples Party of Pakistan won the majority seats in the National Assembly.

Consequently the first term of Benazir Bhutto as the first and to date only woman Prime Minister of Pakistan also started. (Hughes) Her term lasted until 1990 amidst corruption charges. In the October 1993 elections Benazir’s People Party of Pakistan again gained most of the seats in the National Assembly. However, due to the mounting pressures of the mounting corruption allegations against the people in her immediate circle of friends and family she was again forced to resign. Her reign eventually ended in 1996.

Benazir Bhutto’s crusades include the repeal of controversial laws that curtail the rights of women in Pakistan that would include the Hudood and Zina ordinances. These ordinances make it legal for rape victims to be stoned to death. The