Pakistan Sad Return

• Share

For Benazir Bhutto, daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former Pakistani Prime Minister who was executed in 1979, it was a grim homecoming. The 32- year-old graduate of Harvard and Oxford universities returned to Pakistan last week after 19 months of self-imposed exile in Britain. With her she brought the body of her brother Shahnawaz to be buried at the family cemetery near Larkana (pop. 123,000) in Sind province. Shahnawaz, 27, the youngest of Bhutto's four children, was found dead in his French Riviera apartment on July 18. He had once helped organize a terrorist group dedicated to overthrowing the regime of President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, and the Bhutto family insists that he was murdered. His funeral turned into a defiant show of opposition to Zia's military rule.

About 10,000 cheering supporters greeted Benazir when she arrived from Karachi at Larkana's Moenjodaro airstrip near the Bhutto family compound. She was received warmly along an 18-mile motorcade route into the city by peasants waving black flags of mourning as well as the red, black and green banner of the outlawed Pakistan People's Party, which her father founded and which remains the most popular party in Pakistan. Final prayers for her brother, held in a Larkana sports stadium, were attended by an estimated 25,000 people, many of whom cheered, "Long live Benazir!" Several thousand more supporters went to the cemetery at Garhi Khuda Baksh for Shahnawaz's interment.

Benazir, who is regarded as the heir to her father's leadership of the Pakistan People's Party, spent three years under house arrest in Pakistan before being allowed to travel to Britain. Zia allowed her to return only on condition that Shahnawaz's funeral not be used to rally antigovernment sentiment. The regime ordered an extraordinary show of force at Karachi airport for the arrival of the plane from Zurich bearing Benazir and her brother's remains. Nearly 1,000 heavily armed Pakistani security personnel, backed by armored paramilitary vehicles, set up roadblocks.

After Shahnawaz's burial last week, Benazir promised her supporters, "I will not abandon my political responsibilities." At the same time, however, she conceded, "I will not be able to stay very long in Pakistan." The question being asked by her followers was how long she would dare to stay.