KARACHI, 19 October 2007 — At least 139 people were killed when two bombs rocked a procession to welcome Benazir Bhutto who returned from eight years of exile yesterday.
Initial reports said both bombs exploded on Shara Faisal as the procession wended its way to the Quaid-e-Azam mausoleum. Police said at least 500 people were injured. Most injuries resulted from a stampede that followed the second blast. The explosions were minutes apart.
The second blast shook the armored truck carrying the two-time prime minister and her close aides and security forces reacted quickly, whisking Benazir away to safety. The whereabouts of Benazir were known only after the area was secured. Benazir later praised the quick response of the security forces.
Earlier in the day, Benazir returned home to a tumultuous welcome even as a Swiss investigative judge completed a long-running probe into alleged money laundering by the former Pakistani prime minister and her husband.
She was mobbed by her supporters at the airport in Karachi on arrival. From the airport, the two-time prime minister embarked on a procession through the streets of this southern port city as she launched a political comeback. Over 250,000 ecstatic supporters cheered her as the procession snailed through the city.
Benazir wept as she emerged from the plane that brought her from Dubai to Karachi. “I counted the hours, the minutes and the seconds just to see this land, sky and grass,” Benazir told reporters at the airport.
“It’s a historic and very emotional moment for me, I am overwhelmed,” said Benazir, the first woman ever to lead an Islamic nation. “I have learned a lot over the last 20 years but we are still fighting a dictatorship, we want to isolate extremists and build a better Pakistan,” she said.
Benazir fled Pakistan in 1999 to avoid corruption charges arising from her two previous terms in power, but they were quashed by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf earlier this month in an apparent gesture of reconciliation. She said she was fighting for democracy and to help this nuclear-armed country of 160 million people defeat the extremism that gave it the reputation as a hotbed of international terrorism.
“That’s not the real image of Pakistan. The people that you see outside are the real image of Pakistan. These are the decent and hardworking middle-classes and working classes of Pakistan who want to be empowered so they can build a moderate, modern nation.”
Benazir has returned at a moment of great political uncertainty. With parliamentary elections due in January, she hopes to campaign for a record third premiership. However, analysts say she has risked her popularity by compromising with its unpopular president, Gen. Musharraf.
Authorities deployed thousands of security forces to protect the 54-year-old leader of the secular, liberal Pakistan People’s Party from possible attack by Islamic radicals. But the precautions failed to deter her party from mounting a spirited street party.
Hundreds of buses had converged on Karachi on Wednesday night, disgorging crowds of supporters ranging from members of Pakistan’s minority Christian and Hindu communities to Baloch tribesmen with flowing white turbans. Men banged on drums, shook maracas and performed traditional dances along her planned route to the tomb of Pakistan’s founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
“Our great leader has come home. It’s the first step to democracy in Pakistan,” laborer Waqar Shah said as Benazir parade passed. Pakistani police said more than 250,000 people had jammed the streets awaiting her return. Her loyalists put the teeming crowd, many of whom were dancing to a frenzy of pounding drums, at more than one million. More than 20,000 police and troops, backed up by bomb squads with sniffer dogs, patrolled the road and snipers manned surrounding rooftops.
Speaking to Arab News at the Dubai airport earlier, PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar exuded confidence that “Mohtarma” would usher in democracy in the country.
On the issue of the court rulings on the amnesty provided to Benazir, he said: “We are fully prepared to face all problems — legal or political. We will respect the ruling of the court. But we do not expect the courts to rule against the amnesty. Others have benefited from the government amnesty, so why shouldn’t Benazir and PPP?”
Regarding her recent remarks to The Guardian that she feared for her life following threats from ex-army personnel, Babar said: “There’s a definite threat from extremists — Taleban and Al-Qaeda — and their sympathizers, among whom are some former army members. But Benazir and the PPP are ready to fight for democracy in Pakistan.”
In Karachi, Azad Bhatti, a 35-year-old poultry farmer from the southern city of Hyderabad, said he had “blind faith” in Benazir’s leadership. “When Benazir Bhutto is in power there is no bomb blast because she provides jobs and there is no frustration among the people,” he said.
Benazir paved her route back in negotiations with Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup. Musharraf is promising to give up his command of Pakistan’s powerful army if he secures a new term as president.
The talks have yielded an amnesty covering the corruption cases that made Benazir leave Pakistan in the first place, and could see the archrivals, encouraged by Washington, form an alliance against Al-Qaeda and the Taleban.
In Geneva, Judge Vincent Fournier, who is investigating alleged money-laundering by Benazir and her husband, said he would hand over his confidential findings next week to Geneva chief prosecutor Daniel Zappelli for action.
Zappelli has three options — to bring the case to trial, suspend it, or dismiss it. Fournier conceded that money-laundering allegations would be harder to prove under Swiss law after Musharraf granted an amnesty to protect Benazir from corruption charges at home. “It is not impossible, but much more difficult,” he said. “The fact that Pakistan has withdrawn its own prosecution does not help the Swiss.”
At least $13 million remains frozen in bank accounts in the Swiss city in connection with the criminal case, which relates to alleged kickbacks from Swiss cargo inspection companies in the 1990s, officials said.
“I regard my investigation as completed and the case is ready for the prosecutor,” Fournier said.
— Additional input from agencies
