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Home , Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto, Fatima Bhutto, House arrest, Nusrat Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

THE EXILE’S RETURN

BEFORE HER HISTORIC HOMECOMING, BENAZIR , THE FIRST TO HEAD A MODERN MUSLIM STATE, SPOKE WITH AMY WILENTZ ABOUT WHY SHE HAS BEEN WILLING TO RISK DEPORTATION, ARREST AND EVEN TO GET BACK TO

Illustration by CHANG PARK

144 145 soon be lifted with the approval of Pakistan’s current president, General . Bhutto, who is the chairwoman of the prominent , is seizing on a very low moment in Musharraf’s popularity to bargain with him. His long alliance with George Bush, his failed attempt at fi ring Pakistan’s popular supreme court chief last March and his authorization of a raid last July on an mosque, which killed 100 people, all weigh heavily in her favor. An independent poll conducted in late August showed Musharraf with only a 38 percent approval rating, George Bush with nine percent—and with 46 percent. Bhutto held a 63 percent Caesar is barking in the courtyard. When I pass approval rating, however. She hopes to use that him, he pulls at his chain, trying to reach me, and advantage to restore democracy in her country with Cnot for a pat on the head. He’s not a big dog, but he’s herself at the helm, and then convince the Pakistani fi erce and muscular, with a mouth full of long, sharp people that America’s antiterrorism agenda is teeth. Caesar is ’s dog. He’s snarling preferable to the al-Qaeda alternative. in the background as I proceed on an afternoon in When I wonder out loud to her about the dangers early September to the front door of one of Bhutto’s of returning to Pakistan and about what could houses, this one in a Middle Eastern country that she possibly motivate her, she tells me, “In the last has asked me not to identify. election, my party took the largest number of votes, Caesar, it occurs to me, is a richly ironic name for FROM LEFT the pet of someone who considers herself a freedom Bhutto, at 19, at fi ghter and democracy advocate. But then, Bhutto’s an historic - pets have run the gamut of appellations, and it is Pakistan summit. Bhutto’s brothers, perhaps unwise to come to conclusions, ironic or not, Shahnawaz (in based on what she chooses to name them. When she turtleneck) and Mir was a fi ery opposition leader in Pakistan in 1986, two (with mustache), leading a 1979 years before she was fi rst elected prime minister, her protest of General cat was called Sugar. Zia’s decision to “Be sure to take Sugar to the vet.” execute their father. Zulfi kar Ali Those are the last words Bhutto is reported to have Bhutto, 1972. spoken to her staff back then, as she was whisked off to jail in a police car, and not for the fi rst time. When I get past Caesar and into the house, Bhutto is in one of the broad downstairs receiving rooms giving a formal interview to reporters from Al Arabiya television. I can hear her cultured voice despite all the mudslinging that has taken place. going on in English about the need for democratic I feel I owe a debt to the people to go back.” She AFTAB

government in Pakistan and about the problems mentions too that it’s not just her role in Pakistan / of the country’s increasingly active Islamic she misses, but the country itself. “I miss the scent PHOTO

fundamentalist enclaves. (Extremist militias now of the rain when it falls on the dusty roads,” she AP , control much of Pakistan’s 1,500-mile border with says. “And the wheat crops in fl ower. I miss the CORBIS

Afghanistan.) people; I miss all of our rituals—visiting the graves / After nearly nine years of self-imposed exile, of our forefathers.” Clearly one of the national rituals Bhutto is making plans to go home. At presstime, she Bhutto also pines for is the ritual of the push and BETTMANN had set a date of October 18. Because long-standing pull, the high-stakes dealmaking that constitutes ,

corruption charges against her may end up being Pakistani politics. IMAGES

dropped, she will probably not risk another arrest Caesar is a better pet for Bhutto than Sugar right GETTY or deportation upon arrival. Indeed, she may well now. During her 20-year political career, she has / AFP be allowed to run for prime minister, an offi ce from been a victim of several assassination attempts; even : LEFT which she was twice ousted on a variety of charges outside Pakistan she is wise to take precautions. She

(all of which she maintains were politically motivated lives now with her younger daughter, Aseefa, in FROM and false). Technically, she is not eligible to serve a the house Caesar guards; her son and older daughter ,

third term as premier, but that prohibition may be are off at university. Her husband, PHOTOS

146 (from whom Bhutto is reportedly estranged), lives Maybe V. S. Naipaul and Pakistani novelists like with his dog, Maximilian, in New York. Today, her Mohsin Hamid and Hanif Kureishi. But then, when household is in fl ux, with furniture moved here she is not in her role as a former and possibly future and there to accommodate the television crew and world leader, Benazir is surprisingly unpretentious. sofas turning up in strange places, like the foot of Perhaps this is because during her life, she has the stairs. But a life spent in Pakistani politics has been not only celebrated but also humbled, as a accustomed Benazir Bhutto to chaos and disarray. central actor in a family saga that seems sometimes She thrives on it. like a Greek tragedy—with zeniths of political power and nadirs of violent death—and at other moments like a lowbrow soap opera. I remember visiting Benazir with Mir back In the front sitting room, where I’m waiting for in college, at Eliot House, a big brick dormitory Bhutto, is a little library with shelves of books labeled next to the Charles River. Her room was splashed by category: not just BIOGRAPHIES, FICTION, SPEECHES, with bright, mirrored fabric and bedspreads made RELIGION and SOUTH ASIA but also COOKING BOOKS, in Pakistan. Her nickname, given to her by her YOGA, SELF-HELP, HEALTH and ASTROLOGY. I see one father, was Pinkie, because of her fair skin. Mir section called FAMILY. Based on the quantity of was a little awed by his big sister, but they had self-help and health titles—such as Facial Workout, an easy, teasing relationship. The writer Anne The Little Book of Stress and Eat to Beat Your Age—I Fadiman, who roomed next door to Benazir then, expect the family shelves to include books on how later noted that when Bhutto arrived in Cambridge, to listen to your kids so your kids will talk to you. Massachusetts, a prodigy at the age of 16, “She Instead I discover that the 60 to 70 volumes there are had never cooked a meal, washed a blouse, walked either about the Bhutto family or include chapters more than a block without being picked up by

Of herself in college, Bhutto tells me, “I give thanks to God that I was in the U.S. in those hippie days and we were all so informal. I learned to look after about a member of the family, most often her father, myself. I came a chauffeur or lifted a ringing Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto, a progressive, democratically from so privileged telephone.” She had been elected prime minister who was ousted, imprisoned a background; raised like an Indian princess and hanged in 1979 by General Zia- during the Raj, surrounded ul-Haq, one of the presidents who preceded there, I became by lackeys and ayahs. Musharraf. Open on a small table next to the self-suffi cient. Of herself at that time, bookcases is How to Know God: The Soul’s Journey In the face of what Bhutto told me later, “I have into the Mystery of Mysteries, by Deepak Chopra. later happened, lived a life of contrasts, I knew Benazir Bhutto slightly when she and I and I give thanks to God that were at Harvard together in the early 1970s. I met I would have crum- I was in the U.S. inthose her through her younger brother, Mir, my friend and bled otherwise.” hippie days and we were all classmate. This is not exactly the library—especially so informal. I learned to look the public library—I would have expected of a after myself. I could go to graduate of Harvard and Oxford University who was airports and pick up my own luggage and make elected president of the prestigious my own bed. I came from so privileged a background; debating society back in 1977. I would have expected there, I became self-suffi cient. In the face of what Shakespeare, John Stuart Mill, Milton, Carlyle and later happened to me, I would have crumbled Disraeli perhaps, and possibly Trollope or Dickens. otherwise.” w

147 One of the things that happened to her was General Bhutto never doubted that a woman could be Zia, the man who orchestrated the 1986 arrest during elected in Pakistan. “I thought it was the most natural which she had to leave her cat Sugar behind, the thing in the world,” she says. “My father never made same tin-pot, mustachioed dictator who had a discrimination between the girls and the boys in the ordered the execution of her father. After Zulfi kar family. He never said, ‘Because you’re a girl, you’re Ali Bhutto was hanged, Benazir, then 26 years old, not going to be considered the eldest.’ I sat at the took up the reins of his political organization and head of the table because I was the eldest. I thought became an important opposition fi gure during those it was the same all over Pakistan. It was a big shock turbulent days. when I found out it wasn’t so.” General Zia sensed her potential immediately; In the end, though, her gender was not the Muslim South Asia is a place where dynastic power important liability. The structure of Pakistan’s is still considered natural, even if the inheritor of government has been part of the problem: The the mantle turns out to be a young woman. As soon president has the right to dismiss the premier. What as her father was imprisoned, Zia placed Benazir this has meant is that political or military pressure under . He liked arresting her, it turned exerted on the president can and frequently does out. It became a habit. In 1981, he had her jailed on result in the dismissal of a prime minister. the invented suspicion that she and a group run by And there is also the matter of Bhutto’s character. Mir had participated in the hijacking of a Pakistan She is, as she titled her 1989 autobiography, a International Airlines plane. All told, Zia kept Benazir “daughter of destiny,” the inheritor of her father’s in jail, under house arrest or in exile for eight years. legacy. Her beloved papa was not only a visionary

Bhutto’s younger daughter, Aseefa Zardari, 14, fl ounces in from school, throws herself onto the sofa and lolls there. “They are threatening to send me back Benazir’s younger brother, Shahnawaz Bhutto, to Pakistan if my leader, an avatar of progressive political was poisoned on the French Riviera in 1985. grades don’t get ideals in South Asia and a hypnotic Although his murder was never solved, many believe better,” she says. and eloquent orator, but he was also it was masterminded by Zia. Three years later, in a legendary scrapper, an inveterate IMAGES one of the Bhutto story’s hairpin turns of fate, Zia wheeler-dealer and a cobbler of GETTY

himself died when his jet crashed under mysterious baroque, smoke-fi lled back room arrangements. / AFP

circumstances, killing all 31 people on board, While her father was in Pakistan, pushing to / including the American ambassador to Pakistan, reform the constitution and to consolidate his politi-

Arnold Raphel. (An under-ground group run by Mir cal power, Benazir was in graduate school, studying STRINGER / ALI

Bhutto was suspected in the crash.) politics, philosophy and economics, and doing—in

Four months after Zia died, Benazir Bhutto was miniature—political gymnastics similar to his in ARIF , elected prime minister of Pakistan at the age of order to become president of the Oxford Union. After SIPA 35, the fi rst woman to lead an Islamic country in one of her Oxford Union campaigns, detractors said / ZADA modern history. she had violated campaign rules. Whatever the , SIPA

“In 1987 and 1988, within 12 months, she got truth, it was early evidence of her hardheaded deter- / married, wrote a book, built a house, had a baby, ran mination. When she wanted something—no matter ALFRED a nationwide election campaign and took her fi rst job: the odds, no matter the ethics—she would work very : LEFT as prime minister of a country of a hundred million hard to get it.

people. Not bad,” says , author of In 1987, she entered a fateful alliance. Her mother, FROM The End of and a Harvard and Oxford classmate Begum , arranged her marriage to ,

of Bhutto’s. Zardari, a good-looking playboy from a wealthy PHOTOS

148 merchant family in , Bhutto’s home province. or by her husband or his family. A Swiss court found “[Benazir] was running for president and she against Zardari and Bhutto in 2003. She is appealing felt she couldn’t really run as a single woman in that conviction. a Muslim country, so she quite deliberately had Bhutto remembers well article that her mother fi nd her a suitable husband,” said one outlined the charges against her and her husband, observer. “She would have been better off marrying and all the stories that followed. “None of it was for love.” true,” she tells me later. “These things would come Soon after his wife became prime minister, Zardari on the television, and I would be so ashamed in allegedly became involved in schemes to skim front of my family and my staff. The worst thing is money from the national coffers. In the Pakistani to have your character attacked. If they assassinate press, he was known as Mr. Ten Percent for the your physical being, you’re just dead. But character amount he reportedly demanded from contractors assassination is the killing of your personality and seeking business with the government. Also, your reputation.” during Bhutto’s second administration, Zardari She feels the decline in her international was accused of masterminding the death of Benazir’s reputation keenly. “Look,” says Irfan Khawaja, a brother Mir, who was gunned down by Pakistani doctoral candidate at the University of Notre Dame police outside the family house at 70 Clifton Road who frequently writes about Pakistani politics, in . At the time, Mir had been attempting, “she has never fully vindicated herself. Of course weakly but insistently, to chip away at his sister’s she’s not guilty for things her husband may have power base within the Pakistan Peoples Party. None done, but to claim she didn’t know what he was doing is absurd. There is a cloud over her head FROM FAR LEFT Bhutto’s 1987 wherever she goes.” wedding to As she sits calmly in her suburban living room, wealthy playboy talking quietly in front of the Al Arabiya cameras, Zardari. In Karachi in 1999, with her it’s hard to remember her earlier, triumphant return son and older to Pakistan in 1986, just before Zia had her arrested, daughter wearing but I happen to have recently looked at a photograph T-shirts featur- ing their mother from that day. She is in a motorcade. It’s a bright and grandfather. sunny day in . She’s wearing a sari and shawls, Bhutto support- a head covering and sunglasses. Almost a million ers in Lahore, demonstrating have come out to greet her. Rose petals are against President fl ung at her like confetti. She’s waving from the car— Musharraf’s dis- her face turned down slightly to avoid the shower of missal of the chief justice last May. petals—and she’s smiling broadly. of the offi cers who participated in his assassination was ever arrested. In fact, some were even promoted. While I’m sitting in the little library area, Bhutto’s After Bhutto was ousted as prime minister for the younger daughter, Aseefa Zardari, 14, fl ounces in second time, Zardari served more than seven years in from school and throws herself onto the sofa that on charges of corruption and of involvement is sitting improbably near the bottom of a spiral in his brother-in-’s murder, although none of the staircase. Aseefa lolls there with a notebook in charges against him were ever proved. hand; she’s a tall girl, an imposing fi gure, with thick Like her father, Bhutto has several times risked straight, black hair; dramatic eyebrows; a quick, safety and freedom for the people of Pakistan; ironic smile and intelligent eyes. She adores rap so far, all her striving has meant little improvement in music, according to her mother, and—also according their daily lives. (Bhutto herself points out that two to her mother—spends too much of her time online or three Pakistanis commit suicide every day because in rap chat rooms. Today, Aseefa is wearing a black- they cannot feed their families.) Her detractors insist and-white teenager’s getup that looks vaguely rapper that her corrupt administration has gotten in the style; on one of her fi ngers is a huge, fl ashy ring that way of her loftier goals. According to a 1998 story covers two knuckles. by John Burns in , Pakistani “Real?” asks Narmeen, a childhood friend of investigators discovered a pattern of illegal payments Benazir’s who is like an aunt to Aseefa. Narmeen by foreign companies seeking contracts with Pakistan points to the ring. when Bhutto was in offi ce. They traced more than Aseefa rolls her expressive eyes. $100 million from such payments deposited in “No, it’s fake, of course,” she says. “I only get real foreign bank accounts controlled by Bhutto’s family if I get A’s.” She listens continued on page 222

149 THE EXILE’S RETURN continued from page 149 “Some of my friends ticket. To get back into the country, think I’m mad to be she’s had to make arrangements with as her mother’s voice continues on in Musharraf, even though, for solid the other room. Bhutto was late for going back,” Bhutto political reasons, she doesn’t want her television interview because she’d says. “Even my relatives, to be seen as propping up a military been called into school to discuss because they don’t dictator. Aseefa’s grades. want to lose me. They’ve “I’m not making deals with the “Now look!” Aseefa complains, military,” she says. “I’m having a shaking her head. “I can’t even get seen what happened dialogue with them about how we can up to my bedroom to begin to study to my brothers and get a transition to democracy. Look, because of her.” The stairway is in my father. They keep the military is one aspect of Pakistan; the view of the Al Arabiya cameras. telling me, ‘Think the people are another aspect of “The school took me aside to say Pakistan. So, yes, I’m talking to the there must be no distractions at again!’ But it’s my military about how we can move into home, and now they won’t even let country.” the future with a political system me upstairs.” Aseefa throws herself that can guarantee the security of back down across the couch. She the country and bring the people of fi nds the whole situation funny and is Pakistan into the country’s decision- playing it for Narmeen and me. “They I didn’t want to send the wrong making.” are threatening to send me back to signals. I wrapped myself in all these Still, Bhutto may fi nd herself Pakistan if my grades don’t get better,” layers of clothing to protect myself. astride a beast she can’t control: For she tells Narmeen. “Both of them: Now that I’m fat and 50, I’m a mother so long, the Pakistani army has Mummy and Papa.” fi gure. I fi nd that aspect of aging done what it feels necessary, often Does Aseefa want to go back to liberating; there’s no danger of without consulting the civilian Pakistan? people misunderstanding you.” Of government. Already the deal she “Are you kidding?” course, she’s not fat, even if she’s struck with Musharraf is showing She asks me for help writing her no longer a slender wraith. And she’s signs of falling apart. “Here are the application to , still seductive. Of course, she’s also people, struggling against Musharraf, in New York. She wants to major in not exactly 50. I point this out. She and here she comes, thinking she’ll English literature. laughs. She’s 54. be able to prevail and take charge of “For my essay, maybe I should write Narmeen sits with us while we the military,” says Khawaja. “She’s about today,” she says, gesturing to talk; every once in a while Bhutto being taken for a ride. What is she the room where the interview is still turns to her for confi rmation, or going to do when she’s there and going on. to have Narmeen remind her of a suddenly the army starts arresting Later, when the Al Arabiya crew name, or to ask her to deal with people? How will she be able to has fi nally gone, Bhutto settles into some small household problem. In intervene?” a corner of a couch in a back sitting this well-appointed house in a nice I ask Bhutto whether she thinks room. She crosses her legs. neighborhood, where—with the about what would happen to She’s very different from the help of trusted staff and childhood her children if harm should come tall, slender girl I fi rst knew. First of friends—Bhutto leads the life of a to her now. all, she’s not wearing jeans and a mother and adult daughter (she takes “I block out such thoughts,” she T-shirt. I point this out. “Well, care of her 78-year-old mother, who says, but her face registers distress. I am not a teenager any longer, you suffers from Alzheimer’s disease), one “When the time comes that I have know,” she says, laughing. She is does wonder again why she would to die, I’ll die. There’s a day that wearing an elegant black shalwar choose to thrust herself back into you’re born and a day when you’re kamiz—a long tunic over matching the turmoil of political leadership in supposed to die. I could die crossing loose trousers. She’s got on sensible Pakistan. the street—especially in Pakistan.” heels. Around the neckline of the “Some of my friends think I’m mad She laughs. Pakistani drivers are tunic is draped an airy beige chiffon to be going back,” she says. “Even my notoriously unsafe. “So that’s that.” scarf that she can easily shift to relatives, because they don’t want to As we talk, staffers come in to cover her head if necessary. Her eye lose me. They’ve seen what happened attend to me and Bhutto. Do we shadow is blue, and her earrings to my brothers and my father. They want tea? Diet Coke? Here is some the bright, deep gold one sees espe- keep telling me, ‘Think again!’ But it’s fruit on a platter. Do we want cookies? cially in the , probably my country.” Here comes a tray of tiny elephant- 24 karat. It’s not easy, though, for a person ear pastries and pink candies. One “I fi nd 50 liberating,” she says. “I of Bhutto’s stature to go back to of her assistants brings me a copy of was always so careful being young. Pakistan. She can’t just buy a plane Bhutto’s autobiography. w

222 / More / December 2007/January 2008 THE EXILE’S RETURN continued from page 222 we’re both women and that both our about what to pack—except how many fathers were killed. The similarities books to bring. Another brings Bhutto her cell end there. I promise.” “Am I going to be arrested?” she phone. It’s her calling. She Benazir seems resigned to the says. “If so, I will need a lot of books chats with him in , then turns estrangement. “Anyhow,” she says, to read.” to me. “I hope for your sake you adopting a wistful tone, “I still send If she is not deported or arrested, never have to deal with ,” she them love and prayers, because I she will go back to live in Bilawal says. While we are talking, all over think that’s the important thing to do. House, which was broken into during the world, lawyers are fi ghting her Send love and prayers and hope that the years she was away. “We don’t corruption cases; and in Pakistan, one day, their eyes will open.” know what things will be like there,” lawyers and judges are reconsidering she says. the charges against her and her desire She’ll be returning to Pakistan to run for prime minister again. So without her immediate family (unless much of Bhutto’s future is in the When a person has been living in she makes good on her threats to hands of lawyers and judges. exile for a long time, she can Aseefa, which is unlikely). She and Among her fi ercest detractors are forget where her possessions are her husband have not lived together members of her own family. This is located—especially if she is lucky for 10 years. “He’s not well,” she not a singular phenomenon among enough to be the sort of refugee who says. “He’s had heart problems; he’s Pakistan’s political class, in which has a lot of stuff. When Bhutto left got diabetes.” Also, of course, the sons regularly abandon fathers, Pakistan in 1999, she fl ed in a hurry. threat of further for mothers publicly reject daughters, “I took one suitcase to America,” she Zardari could be used to tie her hands and brothers attack brothers. recalls. She left more than one house politically. Particularly adamant is her 25-year- full of belongings in Pakistan: There She’s reading a novel now about old niece, —daughter is the family residence in Lahore, Catherine de’ Medici. “It’s amazing of the murdered Mir. Fatima, a another family manse in , how everyone around her died,” she published poet and journalist who one in Islamabad, and also Bilawal says. “How she must have suffered! graduated from House, where she and Zardari lived But life is full of suffering. It’s the and the University of ’s School in Karachi. Bhutto also has houses moments in between that count: your of Oriental and African Studies, outside of Pakistan, fi lled with more kid getting into college, your husband lives in the Bhutto family home at things: an apartment in London, a surprising you with a gift. I just hope 70 Clifton, in Karachi, with her house in , Zardari’s New York life will continue with its hurly-burly.” mother, Ghinwa Bhutto, Mir’s widow. apartment, and other houses—in “Hurly-burly” should certainly be Part of the fi ght within the family France and in England—that the on the list of things Bhutto can expect in recent years has been over the Zardaris own. (Bhutto and Zardari upon her return to Pakistan. ownership of that house. are estimated to be worth more than But I feel, as I’m leaving, that “I feel so sad that Fatima doesn’t $400 million, much of it inherited, perhaps Bhutto’s life—for all the have anything to do with us,” says part of it without such clear staff and assistants—is a little lonely. Benazir, her eyes downcast. “She’s provenance.) She has spent the past decade fl ying a sweet girl, she’s very nice and But Bhutto has been thinking around the world, keeping her name everybody says she’s just like me.” mostly about campaign routes, not alive and, essentially, plotting her “I’m amused that she’s ‘saddened’ return. Her father is dead, her mother that I do not talk to her,” Fatima tells is ill, her brothers are dead, her me in an e-mail. (Fatima is known husband is a liability, and two of her in Pakistan for her barbed irony.) I feel, as I’m leaving, that children are already in college. “I have regular contact with my aunt She asks me whether I can stay through the courts of Pakistan, where perhaps Bhutto’s life—for for dinner, but I have a plane to she has fi led a number of cases— all the staff and assistants— catch. As we walk out to my waiting [involving] property, inheritance, is a little lonely. Her father car, it’s quiet except for the hum of custody—against my family and is dead, her mother is ill, traffi c on a not-too-distant highway. me. I have been on the other side of Narmeen has gone to check on Benazir’s vindictive, litigious streak her brothers are dead, Aseefa, ostensibly studying in her since I was 14—for 11 years. I think her husband is a liability, room upstairs. My car pulls away, and that’s plenty of contact. and two of her children I see Bhutto’s imposing fi gure in her “Also, just for the record—I am are in college. She asks shalwar kamiz, silhouetted by the nothing like Benazir,” Fatima writes. yellow light in her doorway. She gives “I cannot emphasize that enough. if I can stay for dinner but me a little wave, and I think to myself, People just seize upon the facts that I have a plane to catch. soon she’ll be waving to millions. M

226 / More / December 2007/January 2008