美国之音报道,巴基斯坦前总理和反对派领袖贝.布托的助手说,贝.布托被刺杀。西方在巴基斯坦的新闻机构也报导说,贝.布托在首都伊斯兰受到杀手袭击,受重伤后身亡。
爆炸发生的时候,贝.布托当时刚在首都附近的拉瓦尔品第的一个公园发表了讲话。还有报导说,现场发生了枪战。
今年10月,贝.布托结束流亡返回巴基斯坦的时候,她的支持者举行欢迎游行,当时发生连续两次的自杀炸弹杀手爆炸, 几十人被炸死。
中新网12月27日电,据路透社报道,巴基斯坦反对派领导人贝-布托所在的政党安全官员及巴警方透露说,贝-布托在巴东北部城市拉瓦尔品第27日发生的自杀式袭击事件中受了枪伤。最新的消息说,贝-布托已经不治身亡。
贝-布托所在的政党安全官员拉赫曼·马力克说:“她受了伤。”目前,贝-布托已经被送往医院治疗。
路透社派往现场的一名目击记者说,爆炸发生前不久,他听到了两声枪响。在爆炸现场负责维持秩序的警官亚辛说:“包括贝-布托在内的政党领导人开始往外走时,一名男子试图靠近他们。接着,他开了几枪,然后把自己炸死了。”
巴基斯坦警方称,大约15人在这次爆炸事件中丧生。早先的消息说,贝-布托所在政党官员称她安然无恙。
路透社的一名现场目击者说,他看到一条马路上躺着大约8具死者尸体,还有一具被炸弹炸得面目全非的人头。
巴内务部发言人称,初步报告表明,这是一起自杀式袭击事件,至少10人被炸死。
今年10月18日,贝-布托在结束8年政治流亡生活回到国内后,在巴南部城市卡拉奇也遭遇过一次自杀式炸弹袭击,近150人被炸死。
BBC报道,来自巴基斯坦的消息称,曾两任总理的反对派人民党领袖贝·布托在竞选集会时遭涉嫌自杀攻击身亡。
据巴基斯坦人民党资深人士表示,事发时,一名男性自杀攻击手首先趁乱开枪击中贝·布托的头部、颈部和胸部,随后引爆绑在身上的炸弹包。
人民党资深成员瓦西夫·阿里·汉(Wasif Ali Khan)稍早对国际通讯社记者表示,贝·布托在拉瓦尔品第市总医院"抢救无效",于当地时间18点16分过世。
消息称,攻击事件中也至少有另外15人遇难。人民党一些支持者在事发后痛哭流涕,也有一些支持者则在街道上点燃篝火以示抗议。
国际反应
美国政府在事发后,迅速谴责这次自杀袭击事件;美国国务院表示,事件破坏了巴基斯坦国内和解的努力。
俄罗斯外交部也迅速谴责了爆炸事件, 并警告说,此举可能导致更多的恐怖事件。
中国政府目前还没有就事件发表评论。
竞选集会
据悉,事发时布托刚刚结束一次竞选演讲;在她与随从准备离开演讲地某公园时遭遇自杀攻击。
今年10月,布托结束流亡、刚刚归国时,欢迎她的民众队伍就曾遭到自杀攻击,当时至少130人遇难。
巴基斯坦全国和各省议会大选即将在1月8日举行;分析人士已经开始预测,事件很可能导致总统穆沙拉夫再次宣布戒严、推迟大选。
罪魁祸首?
多数分析人士认为,基于贝·布托长期支持美国反恐以及反塔利班的言论,并长期提倡巴基斯坦回归民主宪政,因此连续发生的针对贝·布托发动的自杀攻击很可能是巴基斯坦境内的塔利班和基地组织势力所为。
巴基斯坦政府在贝·布托归国时就曾经表示,有情报显示伊斯兰极端主义组织准备利用自杀攻击形式刺杀贝·布托。
不过,也有一些分析人士指出,穆沙拉夫政府是否完全与刺杀事件无关也很难说。
这些分析人士认为,尽管贝·布托最初是与穆沙拉夫达成分享权力协议后才回国参政的,但是她回国后不久便因抵制戒严和要求恢复民主选举而与穆沙拉夫决裂。
早间,此次巴基斯坦大选另一位主要反对党竞选人、前总理谢里夫的一次竞选集会召开前也发生过暴力袭击事件,当时有4名谢里夫支持者被打死。
- posted on 12/28/2007
Washington Post's featured obituaries are typically well-researched and elegantly written. This one is no exception.
Benazir Bhutto, Charismatic but Controversial Leader
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 27, 2007; 7:26 PM
With her luminous eyes and strong features framed by a flowing white head scarf, Benazir Bhutto was the face of Pakistan's democratic hopes -- a face that had been thrust into the limelight with the execution of her father in 1979 and that remained there, aging gracefully, until her assassination by a suicide bomber in Pakistan on Thursday.
Bhutto, 54, was a charismatic but controversial political leader whose highly magnified life was marked by vertiginous twists of fate -- family tragedies, political triumphs and defeats, accusations of corruption and autocracy -- that often led to comparisons with the Kennedy clan in the United States and the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty of India.
Following in the footsteps of her father, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, she was twice chosen as Pakistan's prime minister in the 1990s but was also twice driven from office amid charges of corruption and incompetence. This winter, after years of self-imposed exile, Bhutto was attempting to stage a high-risk political comeback that could have led to a third term as premier in elections next month.
Instead, Bhutto's slaying, which occurred at the site where Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was gunned down in 1951, seemed destined to plunge her fragile homeland into political free fall, vulnerable both to the predations of increasingly violent Islamic extremist forces and to the resulting temptations of military control.
Benazir Bhutto was a woman of many contradictions. Her complex personality and tumultuous career reflected the deep social schisms and paralyzing political power struggles of the vast, impoverished country she briefly governed and long represented as a flawed but passionate advocate for change.
She was born June 21, 1953, into a life of feudal privilege and wealth in a highly stratified society, then sent to boarding schools and on European vacations in sports cars while millions of her illiterate countrymen toiled in brick kilns and wheat fields for pennies a day. Yet she went on to became a champion of popular democracy who headed her country's closest equivalent to a secular Western movement, the Pakistan People's Party.
Nicknamed "Pinkie" for her rosy complexion, she was a graduate of Radcliffe College and Oxford University who spoke cultured English and moved easily through the drawing rooms of Georgetown and London. Yet she also submitted to a traditional arranged marriage and, while speaking up for the rights of women in Muslim societies, was always careful to publicly observe the stylistic dictates of her religion.
Bhutto broke with family tradition by not covering her face with a veil in public. Instead, her white head scarf, known as a dupatta, became her political trademark -- a symbolic bridge between tradition and modernity. She was often shown in photographs adjusting the scarf modestly over her hair as she delivered ringing, impassioned speeches on foreign policy or economic reform.
She was a highly disciplined and wily politician who kept an iron grip on her party, remaining its lifelong president and making all its decisions, even during her long exile in London and Dubai. Despite her cult status as a democratic leader, she flirted opportunistically with military power-sharing and attempted rapprochement with Afghanistan's Islamic Taliban rulers when it seemed expedient.
Above all, she was her father's daughter, inspired by his stories of Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and raised with foreign democratic leaders at the dinner table. Then in 1977, a military coup plucked Pinkie from carefree college life. Her father was thrown into prison, tried on dubious charges of corruption and murder conspiracy and finally hanged in 1979 on orders from Pakistan's dictator, Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq.
In an autobiography, "Daughter of Destiny," Bhutto described in revealing detail her youthful visits to her father in prison, especially her memories of his dignity and determination under squalid, humiliating conditions and in the face of death. His own autobiography, written from prison, was titled "If I Am Assassinated."
Later, Bhutto faced her own ordeal of house arrest, prison and exile, but she emerged toughened and determined to carry on her father's legacy as a secular reformer. It was a goal she pursued, with deviations into unsavory political intrigue and the temptations of personal power, for the rest of her life.
"There was a kind of fatalism about Benazir. She saw herself as being on a mission, to carry forward the message of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and she was determined to carry that mission out, come what may," said Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistani American scholar in Washington who knew her well. "People accused her of being an opportunistic politician, but she was also very religious. She was resigned to doing what she had to do, and it must have taken a great deal of inner strength."
The high point of Bhutto's career came in 1988, when she returned to Pakistan after a decade of military rule, welcomed by tumultuous mobs as the leader who could deliver the country from the darkness of the Zia years. "It is almost impossible to exaggerate the weight of expectation which her return aroused," author Ian Talbot wrote of her election as prime minister that year.
Yet even though she was an inspiration to Pakistan's poor voters, Bhutto proved a disappointing ruler. She traveled widely abroad and was extremely popular in Washington, and she enacted economic policies aimed at attracting foreign investment and reducing Pakistan's appalling poverty.
But she failed to control a series of domestic conflicts, especially a spiral of ethnic and sectarian violence in Karachi, her native city. She was accused of trying to manipulate the courts and the press and of stooping to multiple acts of petty self-enrichment while in power. She was forced from office after two years, then reelected in 1993 and forced out a second time after three more years.
Many of the corruption charges involved her husband, businessman Asif Ali Zardari, who was snidely referred to as "Mr. 10 Percent." The pair were accused of taking kickbacks for government contracts, on items from imported tractors to steel mill improvements, and of hiding their gains in international bank accounts and real estate.
Zardari was also accused of drug trafficking and of involvement in the 1996 murder of Bhutto's brother Murtaza, who was widely described as creating political problems for her. In 1999, husband and wife were sentenced to five years in prison; Zardari spent eight years behind bars, but Bhutto, who was abroad at the time, did not return.
Bhutto consistently denied the charges and claimed they were politically motivated, but the scandals disillusioned many of her followers. Meanwhile, her lofty ideals gradually sank to the level of a petty rivalry with her political nemesis, Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League, who was elected prime minister twice, partly because of her failures in office.
Bhutto spent much of the last decade living abroad with her three children, largely to avoid prosecution. But early this year, she began quietly negotiating to return to her troubled homeland, where she still harbored dreams of returning to power and where some Western officials viewed a co-government headed by Bhutto and Pakistan's military president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, as the best option for short-term stability.
Bhutto had been warned by friends and advisers not to return to Pakistan. Islamic terrorism was on the rise there, and the country's increasingly emboldened Islamic militants viewed her as a dangerously secular figure who was essentially the Western candidate for prime minister.
The degree of danger became starkly clear just hours after Bhutto's triumphant homecoming Oct. 18. As her caravan crawled through welcoming crowds in the port city of Karachi, a massive bomb exploded, sparing her life but killing an estimated 145 other people.
On Nov. 3, Musharraf declared emergency rule and Bhutto was placed under house arrest twice in the days that followed. But despite the restrictions and the risks, she continued speaking out against both military dictatorship and Islamic extremism.
Once elections were announced for next month, she toyed briefly with the idea of a boycott but soon began campaigning in earnest, seeking out the crowds that idolized her and attempting to stage events that would echo her past political triumphs. In was in such a place, Liaquat Garden in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, that Bhutto met her fate.
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- Re: Benazir Bhutto, Charismatic but Controversial Leaderposted on 12/28/2007
穆沙拉夫有没关系,我更倾向没有。不然就政治小儿科了。
又想到这有点不适时“民主”四不象,“民主”在某些历史场合就是
“革命”,动枪动炮的。我个人信仰“人权”。
布托真勇者,死得其所,善哉善哉!
- Re: Benazir Bhutto, Charismatic but Controversial Leaderposted on 12/28/2007
向勇敢的布托夫人致哀致敬。女人从政不容易。希望世界上更多的国家有女第一把手,漂亮更好。
我相信女政治家多一点,世界上疯狂事情会少不少,最多化妆品衣服高跟鞋多卖一点。 - Re: Benazir Bhutto, Charismatic but Controversial Leaderposted on 12/28/2007
xw wrote:
布托真勇者,死得其所,善哉善哉!
我看不太善,政治家一个比一个黑。
布托做人民党终身领袖这事儿是一个,她老公搞官倒也是一个。
利益害死人。
干两届了,过瘾就得了,不行,还要干。
对权力的欲望太大。 - posted on 12/28/2007
xw wrote:
穆沙拉夫有没关系,我更倾向没有。不然就政治小儿科了。
I second xw on this. 穆沙拉夫 is a very calculated politician. The cost of doing this would far outweigh the benefit.
又想到这有点不适时“民主”四不象,“民主”在某些历史场合就是For a country rife with political division, religious conflict, and nulclear warheads, strongman's rule is proably the right formula, at least for the time being.
“革命”,动枪动炮的。我个人信仰“人权”。
布托真勇者,死得其所,善哉善哉!From today's newspaper:"Bhutto's life was like an epic Greek drama. All Greek dramas ended in tragedy."
- Re: Benazir Bhutto, Charismatic but Controversial Leaderposted on 12/28/2007
wukong wrote:
For a country rife with political division, religious conflict, and nulclear warheads, strongman's rule is proably the right formula, at least for the time being.
great. - posted on 12/28/2007
"Failed state" Pakistan raises nuclear threat
By Luke Baker
Fri Dec 28, 11:54 AM ET
Security experts fear Pakistan's nuclear materials could fall into the hands of Islamic militants as the country's instability deepens in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination.
In early 2005, a joint security assessment by the CIA and the U.S. National Intelligence Council predicted Pakistan would become "a failed state, ripe with civil war, bloodshed, inter-provincial rivalries and a struggle for control of its nuclear weapons and complete Talibanisation" by 2015.
Following Bhutto's death in Rawalpindi on Thursday, some experts believe the timeframe on that assessment may now have been brought forward, with political upheaval pitching Pakistan, a nuclear-armed power since 1998, towards breakdown.
"It's a very, very valid risk," said M.J. Gohel, the head of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London-based security and intelligence think-tank, describing the possibility that parts of Pakistan's nuclear technology could fall into militant hands.
"It's only a matter of time before al Qaeda or somebody sympathetic to them gets hold of nuclear weapons, and if al Qaeda or its sympathisers are to get hold of them, then Pakistan is at this point the weakest link in the chain.
"It is the most unstable country in the world that has nuclear weapons. Iran may want nuclear weapons, but it doesn't have them today. Pakistan does."
Despite the concerns frequently raised by nuclear experts, especially since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Washington believes Pakistan's arsenal remains secure.
U.S. military and defence officials say the weapons are safely under the control of the Pakistani military, and the Pentagon on Friday counselled calm despite recent turmoil.
"Our assessment is that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is under control," spokesman Colonel Gary Keck said. "At this time we have no need for concern."
PROLIFERATION THREAT
The security of Pakistan's nuclear programme, begun in the early 1970s, has, however, been of international concern since the 1990s when suspicions emerged that A.Q. Khan, the head of the programme, was trading know-how with China and North Korea.
Khan confessed on national television in 2004, admitting that Iran and Libya had been among his clients. The next day he was pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf. Despite the proliferation breach, the United States imposed no sanctions.
Musharraf, a former head of the army who came to power in a military coup in 1999, once said that "not an army bolt" could go missing without his knowledge, and yet Khan managed for years to export sophisticated technology with little restraint.
Given that Musharraf, an important U.S. ally in the battle against militants, also has to juggle the fact that elements of his military have sympathy with the Taliban and al Qaeda, the possibility of nuclear security being compromised exists.
"In the long run, if you have all these nuclear assets and a government that's having to pander to extremists to stay in power, it's not a good look," Henry Sokolski, the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a Washington-based nonprofit organisation, told Reuters.
"These weapons and these assets are a potential headache wherever they are, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that they are a threat somewhere like Pakistan."
If Pakistan's nuclear arsenal were to be compromised, experts are not suggesting that whole nuclear bombs or armed missiles, of which Pakistan is estimated to have up to 100, would somehow pass into militant hands.
More probable is that nuclear material, such as small quantities of radioactive uranium, would be passed on, allowing groups such as al Qaeda to develop so-called "dirty bombs".
Al Qaeda's desire to get hold of such weapons is long held -- Gohel says the group has had a Weapons of Mass Destruction committee for several years, with most members still at large.
Paul Wilkinson, the former head of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University, said an unstable Pakistan could lead to a "nightmare scenario".
"We could have a situation where extremists were able to control the nuclear facilities of Pakistan," he told the UK's Press Association. "That would be a very dangerous, nightmare scenario, and one that we really ought to be concerned about
- posted on 12/28/2007
wukong wrote:
布托真勇者,死得其所,善哉善哉!From today's newspaper:"Bhutto's life was like an epic Greek drama. All Greek dramas ended in tragedy."
我觉得阿拉伯世界有更传奇的比喻,就说飞蛾扑焰吧:
The moths and the flame
Moths gathered in a fluttering throng one night
To learn the truth about the candle's light,
And they decided one of them should go
To gather news of the elusive glow.
One flew till in the distance he discerned
A palace window where a candle burned -
And went no nearer; back again he flew
To tell the others what he thought he knew.
The mentor of the moths dismissed his claim,
Remarking: "He knows nothing of the flame."
A moth more eager than the one before
Set out and passed beyond the palace door.
He hovered in the aura of the fire,
A trembling blur of timorous desire,
Then headed back to say how far he'd been,
And how much he'd undergone and seen.
The mentor said: "You do not bear the signs
Of one who's fathomed how the candle shines."
Another moth flew out - his dizzy flight
Turned to an ardent wooing of the light;
He dipped and soared, and in his frenzied trance
Both Self and fire were mingled by his dance -
The flame engulfed his wing-tips, body, head;
His being glowed a fierce translucent red;
And when the mentor saw the sudden blaze,
The moth's form lost within the glowing rays,
He said: "He knows, he knows the truth we seek,
That hidden truth of which we cannot speak."
To go beyond all knowledge is to find
That comprehension which eludes the mind,
And you can never gain the longed-for goal
Until you first outsoar both flesh and soul;
But should one part remain, a single hair
will drag you back and plunge you in despair -
No creature's Self can be admitted here,
Where all identity must disappear.
from The Conference of the Birds -- Farid ud-Din Attar (Translation by
Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis)
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