Arkansas friend calls Bhutto a tireless ‘spirit’
Posted on Friday, December 28, 2007
During his last conversation with former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto last Friday, Benton resident Larry Wallace said he spoke with his old friend about the danger she faced as she campaigned for parliamentary elections.
On Christmas Eve, she sent him a note wishing him a happy holiday. On Thursday morning, he heard the news that Bhutto had been killed when his wife turned on the television.
“It’s just a tragic situation for the people of Pakistan,” he said.
Despite a previous assassination attempt in October and a constant fear that she would be murdered by someone close to her, Wallace said, Bhutto could not be dissuaded from her zeal for bringing democracy to Pakistan.
“She was burning with a passion for freedom,” he said. “She really wanted to [bring democracy to Pakistan ], even though it was risky, even though it was a huge burden on her and her family and her kids. You couldn’t have stopped her.”
Wallace, a lawyer who said he has been friends with Bhutto for 10 years since being introduced by mutual friends, flew into Pakistan with her Oct. 18, her first trip home after eight years in exile. Hundreds of thousands of supporters came out in the streets to greet her, he said.
“Instantly, I realized that my friend was much bigger than a human being — she was a spirit over there,” Wallace said.
Later that day two explosions went off near a truck carrying Bhutto, killing 126 people and wounding 248 others. Wallace said he holed up with Bhutto in her house for nine days.
“She was extremely calm and collected that whole night. We talked until 6 or 7 in the morning,” he said. “She was undeterred the entire discussion, and had she lived through this assassination, within 30 minutes she would have been right back on her mission.”
Pakistanis living in Arkansas said Thursday that they hope the national elections set for Jan. 8 are held as scheduled to maintain stability in their home country.
“Whenever something like this happens, it creates a vacuum in the country, and when there is a vacuum, it gets filled — sometimes with elements that could be undesirable,” said Dr. Kaleem Sayyed, a Pakistani physician who has lived in Little Rock since 1999. “There is an aura of uncertainty whenever something like this happens. It is really concerning.”
Also of concern is the violence breaking out across Pakistan in the wake of Bhutto’s death, said Dr. Saif Siddiqui, a Pakistani physician who has lived in Little Rock for 10 years. On Thursday, there were reports of riots, fires and other violence.
Siddiqui, said he has spoken with relatives who have been stuck in their offices or homes in Pakistan since the news broke.
“Some of our friends were at work, and they could not get out of their offices, so they are stranded there,” he said. “Whoever was traveling, they just took refuge at the nearest home they knew of. Many people have not made it home.”
Siddiqui said he worries that some people are using Bhutto’s death as an excuse to create upheaval.
“The reaction seems like some of the people are trying to get more advantage of the situation. They want to create more unrest in Pakistan,” he said. “They are trying to burn the buildings and the banks and the cars and damaging the property, which I think should not be part of mourning at all.”
Siddiqui said if the violence continues and elections aren’t held, he believes it would be damaging to his country’s stability.
“After so much unrest, we were so relieved that we could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel — that all of the mainstream political parties were moving along and were taking part in the election process,” he said.
Zahid Naqvi, a Pakistani native who has lived in Little Rock since 2001, agreed, saying it is important that new political leaders step up and that elections are held so that people have faith in the legitimacy of their leaders.
“Although you have to have sympathy for what happened with her... Pakistan is more important than any of the political leaders,” Naqvi said.
Bhutto, who visited Arkansas for the first time in 1991 to speak at Harding University in Searcy, returned several times while touring the U. S. to promote democracy in Pakistan. In addition to the visits to Harding and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Bhutto also spoke at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in October 2002, asking for U. S. intervention in elections in Pakistan.
Wallace said though Bhutto would want the elections to go on in Pakistan, he doesn’t know who will be able to fill the void she has left there.
“You have al-Qaida operating right there, funded and trained right there,” Wallace said. “Here was a leader that wanted to come in and change that and stand by us and the people of America for justice and democracy. We have lost that. There is no one else there that could do that.”
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