On the death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto – Pakistan’s only female prime minister and the world’s first Muslim prime minister – senior journalist Hamid Mir reflects on their most recent meeting. Speaking on HUM News’ morning show, Mir shared details of his last encounter with ‘BB’ before her tragic assassination on December 27, 2007.
“She is a very brave woman. She is one of the few Pakistani politicians from whom we actually learned a lot,” Mir said. Here is how Hamid Mir remembers the woman who shaped Pakistani politics and the legacy she left behind in historical context:
“During her last days, she kept saying that she was going back to Pakistan to die. She knew she would be assassinated here but she said she did not want to die in Pakistan.”
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“I still remember the last time I saw her. It is still a painful memory for me,” Mir said of the time in 2007 when Pervez Musharraf was president of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was in exile and Hamid Mir was banned from appearing on screen. “In November 2007, [Benazir Bhutto] called me early in the morning to have breakfast at Zardari’s house. It was very cold but she set up a breakfast table outside in the garage and car porch.”
“She told me with conviction that she was going to be killed. And she wanted me to investigate her murder.”
Mir recalled a conversation in which Benazir Bhutto said she would leave a letter with Hamid Mir naming people she believed posed a threat to her life. “We discussed many names, and then the name of CNN journalist Wolf Blitzer came up as the right person to hold the letter and investigate.”
“She then decided to give the letter [American author and publisher] Mark Siegel. She said that if anything happened to her, Siegel would tell Blitzer.” Mir recalls BB asking him to ‘expose’ it if anything happened to her.
“That’s when I said ‘if you’re sure they’re going to kill you, why don’t you leave the country for a while? To this, she said that she came back here to die.
Hamid Mir shared that he did not support her negotiating with the military dictator-president at that time. “She was negotiating with the Musharraf government at that time and I was against it because I thought it would not benefit her. A senior member of [BB’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)] Naseerullah Babar also thinks so. But other PPP leaders supported the talks. But when BB returned to Pakistan in 2007 and there was an attack on her in Karachi, she told me I was right.”
The PPP government in the name of BB, after her assassination, tried a lot to punish those behind her murder, Mir said, adding, “But it failed for many reasons. I believe the state did not do justice to her. PPP has not been able to get justice for her.”
She will not accept a military tribunal
Speaking on what he thinks she would do in today’s political climate, Mir said, “If you consider power-holding as the only goal of politics, then Zardari’s politics have been very successful. But if BB’s political views are considered, then I would not hesitate to say that she would never be a member of a government that is using military courts to get back at political opponents. ”
“Because she herself had been a victim of a military tribunal,” Mir recalls.
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She predicted exactly what Imran Khan would do
“When Imran Khan was discussing organizing a party, I met Asif Zardari and BB. She said to me “Do you know your friend Imran Khan wants to form a political party?” I said: “I met him and advised him to stay away from politics. I told him it was none of your business.”
“BB then asked me what Imran had said and I told her he said ‘Your advice is correct and I will act on it’. BB laughed loudly at my answer and said: “No no no, he is lying. He will definitely announce a new political party.” I said “If you think so, I believe it is his right to have a party but I don’t think he will do that.”
“Just a few days later, Imran announced his party [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf].”
A few days after I met her, she said, “Sometimes your news is right, sometimes mine is right.”
She wants to become a journalist
Being able to accurately predict what Imran Khan will do in politics is no coincidence. It also fits her career ambitions.
Hamid Mir shares that in 1975-1976, Benazir Bhutto wanted to become a journalist. “She also started a show on PTV called Encounter, where she invited guests and interviewed them,” he said, adding, “but circumstances brought her into politics.”