I am willing to negotiate, depending on the plan: Benazir
Former Prime Minister
tells of her ordeal after the Interpol warrant
By Ashraf Shad Bureau Chief of
Sada-e-Watan in UAE
Dubai: Benazir
Bhutto, the former Pakistani Prime Minister, told an interviewer about her
ordeal after hearing about red corner Interpol permit against her and Asif
Zardari, saying her family was devastated thinking she would be arrested and
extradited to Pakistan.
“It was very hard on the children. I was in the United States … when I first
heard about it. My daughter was in school and her teacher told her, ‘I am
surprised you turned up in school. Don't you know what's happened to your
parents, it's all in the newspapers?’ My daughter was worried the whole night,
thinking something dreadful had happened to her parents,” The PPP leader told
Gulf News in an exclusive interview published here in Dubai.
Benazir said she was afraid and skipped her house the first night after hearing
that a warrant was issued, but later on, she shrugged of the threat.
“Back in the US, I was told that I would be arrested and extradited to Pakistan.
So I spent that night with a relative. But the following day I had to deliver a
lecture. I said to myself, whatever is going to happen, will happen. I decided
to attend the lecture,” she said.
In a wide ranged interview to Dubai daily she said she was willing to talk to
the government but contrary to newspaper reports, no emissary from Gen.
Musharraf ever came to see her.
“The fact is that not once has any one approached me. I am willing to negotiate,
but it depends on what the plan is. So far, the offer is that I should remain
out of the country, that I should not even return to campaign for my party, that
I should not contest the next election,” Said Ms. Bhutto who lives in self exile
between Dubai, London and New York.
“If I don't agree to these things, they will ruin me, they will ruin my family,
they will take away my liberty and property ... that's not a plan, that's a
threat,” she added.
The PPP Chairperson said she never got a reconciliation plan and instead the
government telling her party leaders to remove her as a precondition to talk to
the party.
She also vowed to return to Pakistan whether the regime allows her to contest
elections or not.
“I am definitely going back, not because I want to become prime minister. I have
already been prime minister twice. I want to go back because I have a commitment
towards the people of Pakistan,” she said.
She described the campaigned of Pakistan governments against her as awful and a
nightmare for 10 long years saying her whole life has been usurped and it's
still being held hostage
