Pakistan, 2008

I come before the Assembly

today in the name of my late wife, Shaheed Mohtarma

Benazir Bhutto, as a victim of terrorism representing a

nation that is a victim of terrorism. I am a husband who

has seen the mother of his children give her life

fighting the menaces of terrorism and fanaticism,

which haunt the entire civilized world. In her place and

in her honour, I come before the Assembly as the

elected President of a democratic Pakistan who

received a mandate from two thirds of our Parliament

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and assemblies. That extraordinary mandate of support

was a vote of confidence in her, in her doctrine and in

her message. The vote was an act of love and a demand

for a democratic, moderate, modern, tolerant and

economically just Pakistan — the essence of the Bhutto

doctrine.

It has been 11 months since the first attack on my

wife, on 18 October 2007, was followed by the

adoption of a United Nations resolution calling for an

inquiry into that crime against humanity. That United

Nations resolution has so far been ineffective. After her

assassination, on 27 December, the international

community demanded an independent inquiry — a

demand supported by resolutions adopted in Pakistan’s

Parliament and four provincial legislatures.

Today, we still do not know what forces and

institutions were involved — who plotted and planned

and coordinated and trained and paid for the murder of

my wife, my nation’s beloved leader. A United Nations

investigation into the murder of the leader of the

people of Pakistan would reassure them that the

international community cares about them and that the

United Nations Charter of justice is more than rhetoric.

We owe it to her. We owe it to history. If a country’s

President and his children cannot obtain justice through

the United Nations, how will the poor and the

dispossessed around the world find reassurance that the

United Nations is capable of protecting the weak and

the suffering?

In the name of humanity and in the name of

justice, the Organization must move forward quickly

with the investigation into the assassination of Shaheed

Benazir Bhutto so that, once and for all, the people of

Pakistan and the rest of the world will know whose

bloody hands took away one of the greatest women in

history.

My wife courageously returned to Pakistan last

year, openly confronting the forces of terror. Three

million people turned out to welcome Benazir and the

return of democracy to Pakistan. She was a brave

woman who understood the dynamics of our region and

the world — who understood the interrelationship

between politics and economics, between social

injustice and political dictatorship. For years, she told

world leaders that dictatorship fuels extremism and that

poverty fuels fanaticism. She outlined the Bhutto

doctrine of reconciliation, so brilliantly presented in

her last book. The Bhutto doctrine sets out a dual

mission of combating dictatorship and terrorism while

promoting social and economic reform and justice for

the people of Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto understood that

democracy was not an end, but a beginning; that a

starving child has no human rights; that a father who

cannot support his family is someone ripe for

extremism.

Mr. Win (Myanmar), Vice-President took the

Chair.

The Bhutto doctrine of reconciliation is a road

map not only to a new Pakistan, but to a new era of

peace and cooperation between East and West and

among people of all faiths. It is a road map that, if

followed, will enable us to avoid the clash of

civilizations and the clash of religions, which is the

terrorists’ ultimate goal.

The Bhutto doctrine is the new century’s

equivalent of the Marshall Plan, which saved Europe

after the Second World War. While the Marshall Plan

was based on the principle that an economically sound

Europe could and would resist communism, the pillar

of the Bhutto doctrine is that an economically viable

Pakistan will be the centrepiece of the victory of

pluralism over terrorism. The Bhutto doctrine will

ultimately prove to be as critical to the victory of

freedom in this century as the Marshall Plan was

critical to the triumph of liberty in the last. Ours is the

doctrine of reconciliation; theirs is the doctrine of

death.

Her killers thought that her elimination would

end her dream of a democratic Pakistan and that the

Balkanization of our region would enable the forces of

darkness to prevail. But our nation rallied in the

aftermath of her brutal and tragic assassination. If

Al-Qaida and the Taliban believed that, by silencing

Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, they were

silencing her message, they were very wrong. We have

picked up the torch and will fight against terrorists who

attack us and terrorists who use our territory to plan

attacks against our neighbours or anywhere in the

world.

Ours is a bloody fight, and neither the personal

pain that my children and I feel nor the pain of a nation

that has been robbed of its greatest asset, its greatest

leader, can be fully expressed. But the terrorists’ lust

for blood and hate has not been satisfied. Only last

week, the forces of evil struck again in a bloody and

cowardly attack against my people. A suicide truck

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bomb destroyed a great building in our capital, barely a

stone’s throw away from my office and the House of

Parliament.

Once again, Pakistan is the great victim in the

war on terror. And once again, our people wonder

whether we stand alone. Thousands of our soldiers and

civilians have died fighting against the common

enemies of humanity. We have lost more soldiers than

all the 37 countries combined that have forces in

Afghanistan.

The roots of today’s terrorism can be traced to a

war involving the world’s super-Powers in Afghanistan

during the 1980s. Afghanistan and Pakistan — and,

increasingly, the entire world — are reaping the bitter

harvest sown towards the end of the cold war. The

world turned its back on Afghanistan after the Soviet

defeat. In Pakistan, we were left with 3 million

refugees within our borders. Their camps soon became

breeding grounds for intolerance and violence. The

world left South and Central Asia. We were left to live

with the consequences. And one of the greatest of those

consequences was the birth of Al-Qaida and the

Talibanization of Afghanistan and parts of our tribal

areas.

Yet, we do not look back at history. We are

victims, but we will never be vanquished. On the

contrary, the more of our children’s blood they spill,

the stronger is our determination to defeat them. We in

Pakistan stand united and in defiance. We are resolved

that our future will not be dictated by those who distort

the spirit and laws of Islam for their sordid politics and

political goals.

We may be the targets of international terrorism,

but we will never succumb to it. Towards that end, we

reach out to this Assembly and to the entire civilized

world. Terrorism cannot be fought by military means

alone. Fighting it requires political will, popular

mobilization and a socio-economic strategy that wins

the hearts and minds of nations afflicted by it.

Unilateral actions of great Powers should not

inflame the passions of allies. Violating our nation’s

sovereignty is not helpful in eliminating the terrorist

menace. Indeed, such actions could have the opposite

effect.

Many participants in this great Hall today read

about terror, while we live it. We do not learn about

terror from reading newspapers or watching the

evening news. We see our children and our wives being

blown up before us. Our cities, neighbourhoods,

streets, hotels and offices bear the brunt of the terrorist

fanatic rage every single day.

A democratic Pakistan is in the process of

reaching the national consensus necessary to confront

and defeat the terrorists. Only a democratic

Government can win this war. We are fighting the

menace and we will continue to do so. But this fight is

for the peace of the world. This fight is for the future

of generations to come. Yes, we fight for ourselves, for

our children, for our very soul. Yes, this war is our war,

but we need the moral, political and economic support

of the international community. In our stability lies the

world’s security. Globalization is not just economic; it

is also political. The terrorist vision strikes out at all

nations. We must draw a line on their rampage. And we

must draw that line in Pakistan.

The question I ask the world’s leaders in this

august Hall is whether they will stand with us, just as

we stand for the entire civilized world on the frontlines

of this epic struggle of the new millennium.

I stand before this Assembly as the President of a

great nation that just recently, in a decade of brutal

military dictatorship, suffered human rights abuses and

the systematic destruction of the foundations of

democracy and civil society. Sadly, all too often, the

world stood silent as dictators ruled our people with a

bloody fist. Nations that were founded on democracy

were silent for reasons of expediency. My wife would

say that they danced with dictators.

Today, as we meet here in New York, the

democratically elected leader of Myanmar, Aung San

Suu Kyi, continues to be imprisoned in Yangon. She

has suffered year after year under house arrest. The

world must demand that that great woman finally be

freed. We appreciate the efforts of Mrs. Laura Bush in

that regard.

Today, the horror of terrorism that plagues our

nation and threatens the world is a by-product of the

lack of commitment to the values of democracy. When

the world betrays democracy, it sets the table for

disaster. We will all continue to pay the price.

In these early years of the new millennium, there

are two great battles before mankind. First, there is the

battle for democracy and liberty against dictators, the

fight for universal human rights. That is the hallmark

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of this Organization. At the same time, we are fighting

in the trenches of the battle that will determine the

course of this century — the battle against extremism

and terrorism, between the forces of ignorance and the

forces of education, between bigotry and tolerance,

between justice and discrimination, between

confrontation and reconciliation.

Democracy is not like a switch that can be turned

on and off when it is convenient. It is a universal value

guaranteed to all men and women. The outcome of

these struggles will determine whether the noble

experiment embodied in the hallowed halls of the

United Nations will succeed or fail. The struggle

between the Bhutto doctrine of reconciliation and the

terrorists’ doctrine of death will determine the future of

mankind. Let not the extremists who would manipulate

Islam for their political ends define us to the world.

They are rabid but they are few. It is time for the world

to take notice. We are not the cause of the problem of

terrorism; we are its victims.

We are an aggrieved nation, not one that has

caused grief. We have largely fought this battle alone.

We have shared our airbases, our airspace, our

intelligence and our armed forces in a coordinated

effort to contain terrorism.

It is time for the developed world to step up to

the plate to help us and in turn help itself. The fight

against terrorism and extremism is a fight for the hearts

and minds of people. It cannot be won by guns and

bombs alone. The fight must be multifaceted. The

battleground must be economic and social as well as

military.

We will win when people are mobilized against

fanatics. To mobilize them, we have to give them hope

and opportunity for their future. They need jobs. Their

children need education. They must be fed. They must

have energy. We must give people a stake in their own

government and we must demonstrate to them that

democracy works, that democratic governance can

improve their everyday life.

An economically viable Pakistan will be a stable

Pakistan. And a stable Pakistan will suck the oxygen

out of the terrorist agenda. Economic justice and

political democracy are the worst nightmares of

terrorists. We must all fight this epic battle together as

allies and partners.

But just as we will not let Pakistan’s territory be

used by terrorists for attacks against our people and our

neighbours, so we cannot allow our territory and our

sovereignty to be violated by our friends. Attacks

within Pakistan that violate our sovereignty actually

serve to empower the forces against which we fight

together.

I am a democratic President of a democratic

country that intends to be a model to our region and to

our religion. I am the President of a vibrant, modern,

tolerant, peaceful, moderate democracy committed to

economic and social justice. People, including my

wife, died for this movement. We will not waste their

sacrifices.

We will work patiently to convince leaders in the

Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and our

Pakhtunkhwa province to accept the writ of the

Government and turn their back on terrorists. The

terrorists may blow up our girls’ schools but we will

rebuild them, brick by brick, inch by inch. We are in

this battle to win and we know how we have to do it.

We will work together with our neighbours in

Afghanistan and with the NATO forces stationed there

to ensure security for our common border. We will

continue the composite dialogue with India so that our

outstanding disputes are resolved. As I discussed with

the Indian Prime Minister yesterday, whether it is the

core issue of Jammu and Kashmir or cooperation on

water resources, India and Pakistan must and will

accommodate each other’s concerns and interests. We

must respect and work with each other to peacefully

resolve our problems and build South Asia into a

common market of trade and technology.

Better relations between Pakistan, Afghanistan

and India would help create a regional environment

more conducive to reducing militancy in our region.

But let me be clear to those in this Hall and to the

terrorists lurking in their caves, plotting their next

assault on humanity. If necessary, we will confront evil

with force — our police, our army and our air force.

We will turn the power of the State against the stateless

terrorists. We will turn the power of justice against the

chaos of anarchists. We will turn the power of right

against the darkness of evil.

I did not come to the office of President, to this

moment, by design. As my wife once said about

herself, I did not choose this life — it chose me. An

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extraordinary combination of circumstances brought

me to this moment. It has not been an easy road.

I spent nine years in prison, in solitary

confinement, as a hostage to my wife’s struggle for

democracy and to our party’s future. I was unjustly

imprisoned under a judicial system manipulated and

controlled by the forces of dictatorship. I refused to

break under pressure. My years in prison made me a

stronger person and hardened my resolve to fight for

democracy and justice. Those years prepared me for

this moment.

Terror took my wife’s life, but the terrorists

cannot kill my wife’s dream. Her vision, her passion

and her force are now our common task. The Benazir

Bhutto doctrine of reconciliation lives on; it guides us

in our endeavours. Her reconciliation is the mantra of

the new era. I am dedicated to implementing what she

proposed. I wish I could do it at my wife’s side, but

now I will do it in my wife’s place.

Pakistan will prove wrong all the negative

predictions about its future. We will show the way by

overcoming suspicions towards and from our

neighbours and building a future for our people.

Throughout her life, my wife struggled to make

the world a better place for our children, the children

of Pakistan and the children of the world. I owe it to

her memory and to all of the martyrs of democracy to

continue to do the same until the Bhutto doctrine of

reconciliation is not just her dream but the world’s

reality.