Bhutto was killed on 27 December 2007 while leaving a political rally for the PPP at Liaquat National Bagh. She had just given a campaign address to party supporters in the run-up to the January 2008 parliamentary elections. After getting into her bulletproof vehicle, Bhutto stood up through the sunroof of the vehicle to wave to the crowds. A Lashkar i Jhangvi assassin on a motorcycle took this opportunity to shoot at her with a pistol. The assassin then detonated explosives on his body, killing about 20 others. Bhutto, who was critically wounded, was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital and into surgery at 17:35 local time. She was pronounced dead at 18:16. Bhutto was buried the next day in her hometown of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in Larkana District, Sindh, next to her father in the family mausoleum amid hundreds of thousands of mourners.
On December 2, 1988 Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as Prime Minister of
Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islamic
State.
In the preceding decade of
political struggle, Ms. Bhutto was arrested on numerous occasions; in
all she spent nearly 6 years either in prison or under detention for
her dedicated leadership of the then opposition Pakistan Peoples Party.
Throughout the years in opposition, she pledged to transform Pakistani
society by focusing attention on programs for health, social welfare
and education for the underprivileged.
Since assuming the office of
Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto has emphasized the need to heal past
wounds and to put an end to the divisions in Pakistani society -
including reducing discrimination between men and women. Ms. Bhutto has
launched a nationwide program of health and education reform.
Benazir Bhutto was born in
Karachi in 1953. After completing her early education in Pakistan, she
attended Radcliffe College and Oxford University. As well as obtaining
a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, she also completed a
course in International Law and Diplomacy at Oxford.
Ms. Bhutto is the author of
"Foreign Policy in Perspective" (1978) and her autobiography, "Daughter
of Destiny" (1989). She received the Bruno Kreisky Award for Human
Rights in 1988 and the Honorary Phi Beta Kappa Award from Radcliffe in
1989.
Benazir Bhutto is a woman of courage and conviction and we are proud to acknowledge her with the International Leadership Award.
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