Paper: Tennessean, The (Nashville, TN) Title: Ex-leader: Pakistan losing fight for progress Date: November 9, 2002

By MAURA SATCHELL

For The Tennessean MURFREESBORO - Pakistan is losing the battle for progress, modernization, and ultimately, democracy, a former prime minister of Pakistan recently told an audience in Murfreesboro. Benazir Bhutto, the first and only woman prime minister of Pakistan and head of the Pakistan People's Party, said governments such as the current dictatorship provoke extremism. "A democratic Pakistan could have marginalized extremists," she told about 900 people at a lecture Wednesday at Middle Tennessee State University. An outspoken detractor of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military leader, Bhutto said Musharraf has rewritten laws to prevent her from seeking office a third time. She cited several terrorist-related tragedies that have taken place recently and cautioned the audience not to become complacent about democracy. "While this happens, a military dictator stifles free discussion in my homeland," she said. Bhutto, the daughter of one of her country's most popular leaders, told the crowd about her six-year imprisonment, about twice being elected prime minister of Pakistan only to be deposed, and about her exile with her three children while her husband remains behind, imprisoned. "Traditionalists hold my husband responsible," she said before the lecture. Before becoming prime minister in 1988, Bhutto became an international symbol for democracy from her prison cell, said Dr. Amir Arain, vice president of the Pakistani Association of Nashville. "She has faced the most hostile political environment in the world." Dr. Anne Sloan, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts at MTSU, introduced Bhutto and said that the former prime minister began her college studies at Harvard University before she was 16 and became her country's leader at the age of 35. "I was told I couldn't be prime minister of a Muslim country," Bhutto said to the crowd, "I won because I refused to take no for an answer." "Don't accept the status quo," she urged women in the audience and said that while women have made tremendous headway in the world there are "thousands of glass ceilings left to break." Bhutto also spoke of the Islamic faith and urged the audience not to prejudge Muslims because of the actions of al-Qaida and the 9/11 terrorists.

Copyright (c) The Tennessean. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc.

Author: MAURA SATCHELL Section: Local Page: 2B Copyright (c) The Tennessean. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc.

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