By: Murtaza Solangi
She would have been 67 this year if her glorious life was not put to an abrupt end. We lost her twelve years ago.As my country floats in the historical arena like a ship in high waters with a lost compass and no captain, we think of her how she would have led us today.
We think of her as a leader, stateswoman, mother, wife, sister, and a human being.
I bumped into her first in a diplomatic reception in Karachi in 1991 as a young diplomatic correspondent. She was darling of the media. Everybody will be eyes and ears when she entered the events. Zia Ispahani used to be her diplomatic liaison then.
One day in 1992, as I entered Reporters’ Room of daily, The News International, at the fifth floor, a letter from her awaited me. It was about “Suicide Wave in Sindh”, a cover story for the WE magazine of The News, edited by late Najma Sadique. The story was about a dozen educated young men of her home province Sindh who had committed suicide due to joblessness. She had waved the magazine on the National Assembly floor urging the government to look into the problem. The letter thanked me for bringing up the issue to the fore and telling me that Nisar Khuhro will be in touch with me about the story. This was my first formal introduction to the first Muslim and the first woman Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Next year she would be the Prime Minister again.
I met her after many years in Washington D.C during Musharraf government when she was in exile again. She would come every year to US, meet people at the Hill, think tanks, journalists, visit media houses, and her party supporter. She would visit VOA every year when she would come to the US. That is where we met out of the country as I worked there.
After 9/11, the security got really tightened in the US. One day, as I entered the Cohen Building where VOA is housed, I saw her entering the security gate. She was asked to put her things including her handbag in the tray. Finally she had to take her shoes off and put them in the tray as well. She walked barefooted through the gate without a grin on her face. I was hit a by a storm of conflicting feelings. Till day, I can’t figure out what went through me. However, I did convey my protest to VOA authorities NOT to treat her like that in future.
She would keep me posted about her major engagements, as I would interview her more often just like Nawaz Sharif who was living in Jeddah then. She told me in early January of 2006 that by the month end she would be in DC. I and Farah Ispahani, who used to head VOA Urdu TV, suggested it to her to have a major press conference at VOA involving not only 44 languages it broadcasts but also inviting major US and international media outlets to cover it. The date was fixed. Thursday, January 26, 2006. David Jackson, the then VOA Director was in the loop and everybody was excited for a major event.
Then out of the blue, Shaukat Aziz, the then Prime Minister of Gen Musharraf visits US and meets President Bush on Tuesday January 24. All hell breaks loose. The State Department put a tremendous pressure on VOA to cancel Benazir Bhutto’s event scheduled two days later. The rationale was that it would send conflicting signals to Pakistan government that two days after the Prime Minister visits White House, VOA was inviting Benazir Bhutto who would blast the Pakistan government on more than one issues including harbouring terrorism and getting paid for it by Washington. Pakistan Embassy too was putting pressure via the State Deptt. David Jackson stood the ground and didn’t cancel the event. Benazir Bhutto later in her email told me that she really thought that the VOA might cancel the event but they did not. The compromise decision at VOA happened to be that she would not be received by Director Jackson but by the head of the Urdu Service Dr. Brian Silver.
Few days prior to her visit to the event we organized, a story was doing rounds that her marriage was on the rocks and she and Asif Zardari were living separate lives.
Interpol was pressured by Musharraf govt to issue Red Notices to her and Asif Zardari. Washington was rife with rumours that she might be arrested as she lands for the press conference. Journalists we had invited, kept calling me asking if she would really show up. She is more familiar with handcuffs than the bangles she wears, I told an anxious journo, the day before the event.
Thursday afternoon on January 26, Cohen Building opened its Independence Avenue gates after a long time, a practice reserved only for the heads of states and very very high profile visitors. As her car pulled up and the doors were opened, she and Asif Zardari alighted from the car. Holding hands, they walked into the building.
We had put just one chair on the podium for her but she insisted a second chair for Asif Zardari. We had to scramble in the last minute to put another chair for him. Only then she would address the presser blasting Musharraf regime about Interpol notices. “ Show me the court that wants me in Pakistan, I will catch the next flight and be there”, she roared from the podium while taking questions from the international media. They way she brought Asif Zardari into the limelight rejecting the rumours was novel and powerful.
Although I and Asif Zardari hail from the same area of Sindh but we never met till 2006 when she brought him to VOA after she introduced me to him. I will call him on his New York Cell number or he would call me. We would barely talk politics. Mostly we would talk about poetry and music, specially Sindhi poetry and music. There is a lot of propaganda that he would be disrespectful of BB but mine observation was on the opposite. When BB would be in New York, he would always say, “Boss is in town!” Who commanded whom too has been talked about a lot but two encounters, explained later in this piece would direct the readers as to who was really the Incharge.
People usually talk about her great father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his photogenic memory but Benazir probably inherited that from her dad too. In my years at VOA, hardly there was a month that she would not be interviewed. One day in her interview that was to be aired later, she was too harsh against Iftikhar Chaudhry. An hour later, her staffer Mr. Narejo called from Dubai and said BB wants to talk to you. “ Answering your question number 7, I was too harsh about Iftikhar Chaudhry. Can you please edit it out?”, that was Benazir.
In the summer of 2006, I went to her New York apartment where Asif Zardari resided. It was a hot afternoon. The lights were on and the interview progressed. In the middle of the interview as she finished answering one of my questions, she said, “ Can you please turn off the camera?” I thought she was annoyed by any of my questions but she said she would be right back.
She just moved to a side, pulled her cell phone and called a doctor, giving the doctor the details about Aseefa who needed some treatment. After a few minutes conversation she was back in the interview mode. “ I had told the doctor that I will call him at 3.30, so I had to”, she said. On my way back sitting in Acela Express train going back to Washington, DC, I kept thinking how she would smoothly move from her role as a politician to a mother.
On Thursday, August, 9, 2007, I came back after doing my show around 11. 30 AM in my office as my work phone rang. The caller ID had 212 area code telling me the call was from New York. As I picked up the phone, it was she on the line.
“This is BB calling”, she said. When did you get here, I asked as I had no prior information about this visit. I am here, she said. How can I help you, I asked. “ Come over tomorrow, Amaranth restaurant in Manhattan, 5 PM. I will be waiting”, she almost summoned me. I said it was a working day for me, but she just repeated what she already told me. I said, OK, I will be there.
Next day, I was back on Acela Express to New York. As I entered the restaurant, I saw Asif Zardari sitting right by the entrance. I met him and asked him where she was. He pointed me to the back of the restaurant, as she was busy talking to somebody while having ice cream. Many would confirm that she had a sweet tooth.
In a little while Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Aseefa too came in holding bags of the shopping they had done. That was the day when she told me about her plans to return to Pakistan on October 18.
“ I am going back. Asif will look after my mom, kids and his business and stay in Dubai. Tell me if you want to go with me. I will ask FB ( Farhatullah Babar) to put your seat on the plane. My party needs me for elections. We will win. I will be the Prime Minister. You have to return and help us”, she said.
Asif Zardari asked to me to persuade her not to go as there were serious threats to her life. I said I agreed on the threats but the void was too big to be filled by anybody else other than her. At that point BB intervened and said Murtaza is right about it and poked him further by saying, you had gone back to Lahore with much fanfare. What happened?, she said. Zardari was silenced after her final punch. She signed me her second edition of her book “Daughter of the East” and that was it.
My last meeting with her was exactly three months before her assassination. On September 27, 2007, she texted me to come to Ritz Carlton Hotel at 2 PM. When I got there, Senator Akbar Khwaja, Shuja Nawaz, Asif Zardari and few other people were sitting there. They were discussing the details of her return. Refusal by Musharraf to get international security did figure in the conversation and so did the conversation with Condoleezza Rice. She did mention the obstructions created by Musharraf who did not want her to travel to Pakistan on October 18. She was adamant. With everything announced, I can’t renege on my commitment, already announced and it is vital for my party to be there, she stressed. The environment was a bit tense.
Little did I know that she had a rough conversation with Musharraf on the phone. All those details came out after he assassination.
During the discussion, she asked me a question. As I started to answer, a phone rang. That was Asif Zardari’s small Motorolla flip phone. He picked up the call and started talking. I never saw BB so angry. “Pinky” she already was but in anger she got almost red. “Do you know that I asked Murtaza a question? It is important for me to listen to his answer. If you have to take care of your personal business, please go outside, finish your call and come back”, said BB. Asif Zardari got up, went out and came back. That again showed to me who was calling the shots and who was the real boss.
She remained in contact with me by phone and email till her last weeks of life. One day, Ahmed Rashid, a mutual friend and one of the top Afghanistan experts, said she was busy talking to many people including himself when I called from Washington, she took the phone call. Rashid later cracked the joke with her that it might be a Sindhi connection from Washington. She would be very kind and accommodative. One time, she was in town but didn’t meet me, so I shot an email about it. Her confidante Senator Akbar Khwaja called me and gave me the time to see her at 6.30 AM for breakfast. I was shocked but that is the time she had and she did come and had breakfast with me while apologizing at the same time.
The Thursday morning of December 27, 2007, didn’t start too bad. Woke up by the purring of my Coffeemaker set for 3 AM. As the coffee was brewing, I went down from my apartment to the parking lot to turn my car on to warm it up. By the time I come down, it would be nice and warm.
Brrr. It was below zero outside.
In my apartment, it was back to my daily routine. Quick glance at the Pakistani news websites, email check, breakfast, wore warm clothes, filled my tall coffee tumbler and I was out. The show I hosted LIVE at 8 PM Pakistan time, the time in Washington, DC was 10 AM. I had to be in my office at 5 AM five days a week (Monday thru Frdiay) to prepare for the show. It was just a two member team. I and my producer Shehnaz Nafees, a Pakhtoon young lady, who was not much liked by most snobbish staffers of the Urdu Service who didn’t like her Urdu accent. She would come by 8 AM and help me with some of the work.
That day too there was barely any traffic on I-395 and in 20 minutes I was in my office.
As I passed the red eyed security guards, I went straight to the studio. In the studio I had small TV monitors with audio on the mute. We had Geo TV on one of the monitors, to keep us updated on what was happening in the country where our broadcasts were beaming to.
The first call was of course to Ayaz Gul whose numbers I had memorized. So what is new Ayaz, I asked. He gave me a rundown of the major stories and events taking place that day. He did tell me about the rally of Benazir Bhutto in Liaquat Bagh Rawalpindi.
Political heat was on as both former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were back. Both were supposed to address rallies in Rawalpindi area that day. Nawaz Sharif was coming to town via GT Road and mobilize the city to support Javed Hashmi and Hanif Abbasi who were contesting against Sheikh Rasheed.
I started calling different politicians and analysts to record short interviews that I would later use during my show. Then I called Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Benazir’s close confidante in London. As I started recording him, I also kept an eye on the TV monitors to keep me abreast of what was going on.
As I was recording the interview, I saw a ticker on Geo saying that there was a blast outside Liaquat Bagh after the rally but it did say, Benazir was safe. Later I saw a news ticker quoting her Chief of Security Rehman Malik saying she was alright. As I was talking to “Wajid Bhai”, we used to call him, I saw a missed call on my cell phone, that I would always take inside the studio but would keep it on Vibrating mode. It was Asif Zardari’s UAE cell number ending on*** 835.
I apologized to Wajid Shamsulhasan and told him that I missed a call from Asif Zardari. Let me call him back and then I will call you, I told him.
As I called Asif Zardari back on his cell phone, he said, “she has been hit. Pray for her life”. I told him that Rehman Malik had said she was OK and so was the media. He used some profanity and told me in Sindhi if I would believe them or him. I kept quiet. After a little while, the news was out. She was no more.
I still remember that day a call from prominent Op Ed writer Ayaz Amir leaving me a voice message on my work phone. “ My heart is torn apart. Please call me and take me online”, the message said. For days we cried. People in Washington would stop and ask if we were Pakistanis and then would say that they were sorry for our loss.
One wonders if she was alive how she would have dealt the issues Pakistan, the region and the world faces today. I can say with a bit of confidence that she was on top of her maturity and would have provided much better alternative than provided by others, her party government included.
