Published: December 29, 2007 07:49 pm         

Assassinated former Pakistani leader spoke at DePauw in ’97

GREENCASTLE — Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated last week, lectured at DePauw University a decade ago to talk about Pakistani and international issues.

Bhutto’s 1997 visit to DePauw featured a lecture and a question-and-answer session with students from the private liberal arts college in Greencastle, said Sunil Sahu, chairman of the political science department who also moderated the question and answer session. She visited from Pakistan shortly after serving as the country’s prime minister, Sahu said.

“She is very well-educated,” Sahu added. “In fact, I was very impressed by her. She didn’t really act like a regular politician.”

Sahu said that only a few people accompanied Bhutto during her visit, none of which were security personnel. He spent several hours with her, including driving her back to an airport in Indianapolis.

“She connects very well with the masses, especially with the poor people,” Sahu said, because “she makes them feel comfortable and she could talk in their own language. She could talk in English. It doesn’t matter what language she is using, people feel comfortable.”

Since 9/11, the United States has factored into southern Asia, and relations have improved between Pakistan and India, said Sahu, who is from India.

Bhutto’s assassination creates several problems, both in Pakistan and for the United States, Sahu said. She was the leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, the only national party in the country.

Her assassination also will cause political instability in the short-term, Sahu said.

“She was also the leader of a party which is kind of a moderate party, as opposed to a more Islamacist party in Pakistan,” Sahu said, “so she had the backing of the U.S.”

The United States tends to support individual leaders in power, Sahu said. Now, the U.S. has no other leader to support, since the only other prominent one, Nawaz Sharif, doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the U.S., Sahu added.

The professor said he was shocked when he learned of her assassination.

“It surprised me and it didn’t surprise me,” Sahu said. “If you are a politician in South Asia, it is almost impossible to fully protect yourself against a group like al-Qaida, which is bent upon killing you.”

Bhutto’s assassination reminded him of the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, a former prime minister of India. Gandhi was killed when a bomb hidden in a basket of flowers exploded, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported on its Web site for a date marking the anniversary of the attack.

Gandhi was campaigning at the time of his assassination, the BBC reported.

Bhutto’s assassination was not the first time she was targeted. Bhutto had returned to Pakistan from exile on Oct. 18, and a suicide attacker targeted her homecoming parade and killed more than 140 people, though Bhutto escaped injury, the Associated Press reported.

The AP also reported that she had blamed al-Qaida, the Taliban and “homegrown militants” for the attack.

Austin Arceo can be reached at (812) 231-4214 or austin.arceo@tribstar.com.

     

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