By DPA
Islamabad : The political party of Pakistani pro-democracy icon Benazir Bhutto Tuesday launched a book completed by her just days before her Dec 27 assassination as she campaigned for upcoming elections.
Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) began a global launch of Bhutto’s scholarly book “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West” in an Islamabad hotel ballroom packed with supporters, dignitaries and journalists.
The book, published in English, was also due to be launched Tuesday in London and Washington.
“This is now a message from the grave – she makes a powerful argument,” said Sherry Rehman, the PPP’s information secretary, during the launch programme. “This book is basically an appeal for the world to understand where she is coming from.”
“Reconciliation” explores the relationship between military dictatorship in Pakistan and its increasing problem with Islamic militancy.
Bhutto argues in the book that democracy and Islam are compatible, citing examples within Pakistan and around the world.
In the book, Bhutto explores the so-called “clash of civilizations” between the Muslim and Western worlds, the shaky US and Pakistani anti-terrorism alliance following Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and the country’s current political crisis as it prepares for parliamentary polls next month.
Bhutto, who returned from self-exile abroad last October, had been campaigning for an unprecedented third term as prime minister when she died in a gun and suicide bombing attack following a political rally in the city of Rawalpindi.
Her PPP currently leads independent polls with some 50 percent support among voters.
Bhutto wrote in depth about her failed arrangement with embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who recently retired as army chief, to return home and lead a civilian government to restore democracy, parliamentary supremacy and enhance the ongoing battle against Taliban and Al Qaeda militancy in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
Bhutto was an outspoken critic of radical Islam, and also chastised Muslims around the world for blaming the West for the current problems within the religion today.
“We cannot blame the (US security service) CIA, the (British security service) MI6, and India for everything that goes wrong with this country,” Ahmed Rashid, a prominent Pakistani journalist and terrorism analyst, told the audience during the book launch while recounting his years of interviewing Bhutto.
Pakistan suffered dozens of suicide bombings, mostly aimed at security forces, government targets and political figures, in the past 13 months that have killed more than 1,000 people.
In her book, Bhutto writes that she had been warned that suicide bomb squads, including one led by the son of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, were targeting her.
Forced to postpone elections until Feb 18 amid plummeting popularity after Bhutto’s slaying, Musharraf’s government claims a militant Taliban commander in the country’s lawless tribal areas with ties to Al Qaeda was behind her assassination.