FATIMA BHUTTO SEEKS JUSTICE FOR SLAIN FATHER

By P. Vijian

NEW DELHI, April 12 (Bernama) -- It is poignant tale of a daughter born into
one of world's renowned political dynasties, still seeking justice for her
slain father and emotionally grappling with three other horrific deaths in
Pakistan's Bhutto family.

When her father, Murtaza Bhutto, was gunned down in the restive Karachi in
1996, Fatima Bhutto was only 14.

A decade later, she mourned the death of her estranged aunt, Pakistan's
two-time prime minister Benazir Bhutto, assassinated in Rawalpindi in December
2007.

(Her grandfather, Pakistan president and prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,
was executed in 1979, while Shahnawaz, Fatima's uncle and Murtaza's brother,
died mysteriously in France in 1985).

Today at 27, Fatima, one of the country's feisty critics and a political
writer, castigates the Pakistani leadership, including her uncle, Pakistan
President Asif Ali Zardari, for doing little to bring her father's killers to
justice.

On a crispy Indian summer evening, on a lawn built within a five-star hotel,
surrounded by curious book enthusiasts from Delhi, Fatima, draped in a nice
green sari, launched her latest book, 'Songs of Blood and Sword'.

During her book rendition, the soft-spoken pretty writer unfurled the long
line
of tragedies of the Bhutto clan, the family feud, Pakistan's volatile politics
and of her own choppy relations with Benazir while growing up.

"I was very close to her (Benazir), she would bring me books and read them
to
me. She would buy me ice-cream. I had a close relationship with her. She was a
brave woman, but also cruel (when in power)," said Fatima, during a conversation
with historian and author William Dalrymple.

In a candid dialogue with Dalrymple, Fatima narrated her chilling emotions
upon
hearing Benazir's death, although their relationship was an estranged one,
since the death of her father.

"I didn't believe it was her, she was such as huge figure. It didn't occur
to me it happened again, it was a sense of deja vu. How can it happen again?
Benazir was the fourth member to die a violent death.

"It was another family death. In the region, assassination was the answer.
It's a legacy of South Asian politics. They don't vote people out,
they...[eliminate] them off," said the Colombian scholar, now based in Karachi
and works as a columnist.

Her writings are often inundated with deep political traces, so much so even
her publishers had recently asked her to tone down -- suggesting Fatima to
focus on travel writings, instead.

"They asked me to go to Malaysia and write about Malaysian food. But I am
not going to Malaysia to write about food," she jibed.

Despite growing up in an influential political dynasty in Pakistan, Fatima
doesn't seem keen to enter politics, although her writings may be political.

Instead, she wants to purse her long cherished dream of becoming a writer.

"Since a child, I wanted to be a writer. Certainly, my writing is political,
but politics, no...," she said.

'Songs of Blood and Sword', which talks about the Bhutto clan, her personal
quest for justice and Pakistan's explosive politics, was launched in Delhi last
week.

-- BERNAMA