Benazir Bhutto won a small victory last week in her long-running battle with the government of Prime Minister Mian Mohammed Nawaz Sharif over charges of corruption: a Pakistani court unfroze her declared assets, which had been frozen at the government's request in April. But there have been setbacks for her as well. A judge in Switzerland two weeks ago recommended that Bhutto be prosecuted on charges of money laundering. And for nearly two years her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, has languished in a Karachi jail on accusations of involvement in the 1996 death of Bhutto's brother Mir Murtaza. Pakistani prosecutors have been poring over her finances as well as the record of her two terms as Prime Minister for evidence of wrongdoing. Throughout the ordeal, Bhutto has stoutly maintained her innocence. In a lengthy May 18 story, TIME detailed the government's seemingly relentless campaign against the former Prime Minister and her husband. That account did not please Bhutto. So we asked her to write an article giving her side of the story. Her response:

In 1988, at the age of 35, I became the first woman leader of the Muslim world when I was democratically elected as Prime Minister of Pakistan. My victory at the polls was no fluke, but rather the product of 11 long years of struggle. My role in the fight to restore democracy following its overthrow and the death of my father at the hands of the military dictator General Zia ul Haq is now part of history.

I twice held the office of Prime Minister--between 1988 and 1990, and again from 1993 to 1996. During these two stints in office, the government of my Pakistan People's Party (PPP) greatly enhanced the standing of Pakistan both internally and in the eyes of the world. Among other accomplishments, my government projected Islam as a religion of moderation. My speeches at major international conferences--on population planning in Cairo and on women's rights in Beijing--united women in the East and the West. I galvanized the economy by encouraging foreign investment and actually paid off some of the principal on the country's huge foreign debts. My programs to eliminate polio and reduce the population growth rate from a staggering 3.1% to 2.6% earned the gratitude of my countywomen. I restored the writ of government in Pakistan, giving the country stability, peace and prosperity, with an economic growth rate that hit 6%. All of this is now forgotten.

When my government ended in 1996, one of the complaints against it was corruption. A similar charge had been leveled against the government of Mian Mohammed Nawaz Sharif when he was dismissed as Prime Minister in 1993. Unsubstantiated allegations of corruption are simply a convenient catch-all phrase thrown in among many other reasons whenever a government in Pakistan is dismissed.

The current regime assumed office in February 1997. It is headed by Mr. Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), the other main political party in Pakistan and the bitter rival of the PPP. Since assuming office, notwithstanding the enormous economic and other problems facing the country, the Nawaz Sharif government has adopted a one-point agenda: the elimination of the opposition party in Pakistan, with a view toward promoting one-party rule and thwarting the democratic process that I had done so much to guarantee. This agenda has focused on leveling false allegations against me and my husband, Senator Asif Ali Zardari, accompanied by a well-orchestrated media trial that a celebrity-hungry press finds exciting.

I am being tried under laws that did not exist when I was Prime Minister. The allegations largely involve unsubstantiated charges of corruption under the new Ehtesab (Accountability) Act 1997, passed with retroactive effect. Such laws are against the principles of natural justice. Complaints of alleged corruption under the Act are routed through the chairman of the Ehtesab Bureau, Saifur Rehman, who conveniently happens to be both a Senator from the PML and a close associate of the current Prime Minister. Hence the legal maxim that no man should be a judge in his own cause has been thrown out the window. Some Pakistanis have gone to the courts and to the press in attempts to expose the Senator's brutal efforts to coerce them into committing perjury.

Ninety percent of cases investigated have been against my party workers and me. The real irony, however, is that the chairman of the Ehtesab Bureau is himself a loan defaulter whose company in the last budget benefited from the reduction in the duty imposed on the import of luxury cars, which happens to be his business. No doubt this was his reward for his campaign of victimization against my party and me under the guise of the Ehtesab Act.

Despite all the misleading statements emanating from the government, no investigations are being carried out against me by authorities in Britain. In Switzerland, authorities are investigating false allegations leveled against me by the Pakistani government. The High Court of Sindh province has stayed the Pakistani government from either corresponding with Swiss officials or pursuing the inquiry there until its legality has been determined. The government of Pakistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, has reportedly spent around $18 million in these desperate attempts to implicate me in false cases abroad. Yet the efforts have so far proved unsuccessful.

In Pakistan itself, only a few complaints have been filed against me under the Ehtesab Act, even though government investigators have gone through nearly every executive action of my two periods in office with a fine-tooth comb. Let me summarize these accusations, for which charges have not yet been framed:

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