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2007
Pakistan Election: Bhutto must take responsibility for blast
deaths: niece KARACHI
(AFP) — Benazir Bhutto bears the responsibility
for the deaths of 139 people in an attack on her homecoming
parade by exposing them to danger for the sake of her
own "personal theatre", her estranged niece
said.
Newspaper
columnist and poet Fatima Bhutto, the
granddaughter of late Pakistani premier
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, also told AFP in an interview that
her aunt's return from exile would plunge the country
further into turmoil.
"She
insisted on this grand show, she bears a responsibility
for these deaths and for these injuries," the 25-year-old
said at her plush family home in Karachi
two days after the bombings.
Fatima
Bhutto is the daughter of former prime minister
Benazir's late brother Murtaza, who was killed by police
in Karachi in 1996 amid murky circumstances that led to
the collapse of her second term in government.
Murtaza
led a left-wing extremist group after military ruler Zia-ul-Haq
executed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1979
and then fell out with his sister over what he felt was
her betrayal of their father's political legacy.
Murtaza's
daughter, often heralded in the Pakistani media
as an inheritor of the dynasty's heavy crown and bears
a family resemblance to Benazir Bhutto,
has recently launched a series of salvos against her aunt.
In
the latest Fatima Bhutto accused the
opposition leader of protecting herself on her return
to Pakistan with an armoured truck, while
bussing in hundreds of thousands of supporters despite
warnings of an attack.
"They
died for this personal theatre of hers, they died for
this personal show," she said.
The
suicide and grenade blast happened hours after Benazir
Bhutto, a two-time premier, flew to Karachi from
Dubai. She has blamed Islamic extremists, possibly with
links to rogue or former intelligence agents, for the
attack.
Her
Pakistan People's Party dismissed "senseless
accusations" that the 54-year-old was responsible
for the deaths, saying it was the government's job to
protect its citizens.
"Those
who have died, their families are proud of them. The attack
was against Benazir Bhutto. All those
including ourselves who went there took the risk knowingly,"
senior party leader Taj Haider said.
Speaking
in a sitting room decked with oil paintings of her grandfather,
father and other family members -- although not her aunt
-- Fatima Bhutto also said her aunt was
not the enemy of militancy that she claims to be.
Benazir
Bhutto's return to Pakistan was heavily
backed by the United States, which sees the Islamic world's
first female premier as a potential partner for President
Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally in the
"war on terror".
"She
talks about extremism and nobody else points out that
the Taliban was created under her last government,"
Fatima Bhutto said, referring to the
hardline Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan from 1996
until 2001.
Fatima,
educated like her aunt at universities in the United States
and Britain, meanwhile condemned the amnesty on corruption
charges given to Benazir Bhutto by Musharraf
that enabled her to return to the country.
"What
this (amnesty) means for this country is very, very frightening,"
she said.
The
younger Bhutto, whose house in the city's
seaside Clifton neighbourhood is next door to her grandfather's
home, said however that she was not likely to enter Pakistan's
turbulent politics any time soon.
She
said her newspaper column, which often focuses on political
and rights issues, was itself a "political act."
"But
as for running for elections, just because
I have this last name, I don't think I am entitled to
it. I don't think it is a birthright," she said.
"I
can't rule anything out for the future, but I think there
are a lot of other ways to be political and right now
I am choosing this way."
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