To: Benazir Bhutto

Ms. Bhutto. I read your autobiography, Daughter Of The East, when I was at high school, because that is when it came out. You have always been an aspiring presence to me and to numerous others. I also sent you an email in 1999 when I was part of a Philadelphia-based dot com company that was trying to become the leading South Asian online community at the time, and received a form response!

But today I write to you as a Nepali democrat. Democracy has been hijacked in Nepal and the Musharraf regime has been reaching out to the junta in Kathmandu, and we feel an urgent need to strike back. We would like to express solidarity to you so as to cement an ongoing relationship of moral as well as logistical support to each other to the point of reestablishing democracies in our respective countries, and also beyond. If democracy is a superior concept to autocracy, as I believe it is, we democrats should be able to beat the autocrats in terms of our message, reachout, organization and communication efforts. Where autocrats offer monotones, since only the person at the top has to call the shots, we democrats tend to offer a cacophony of voices among ourselves. That is our wealth of ideas and opinions and not disunity. And we have to forge unity for all our divergent viewpoints. The idea of a common minimum program has to be brought forth.

We democrats are right. We also need to become strong to displace the wrong and strong. We need to become more effective in our efforts to take back our respective countries. We need to outdo them with a superior sense of organization. We need to prepare for power, we need to think up ways to place a firm, irreversible civilian control over our respective militaries. In the case of Nepal, I have broached the possibility of totally doing away with it.

And, I believe, we need to collaborate to implement concepts of Total Democracy, Transparent Democracy, and Human Capital, talked about elsewhere at this blog. We have to counter propaganda with propaganda. We have to hit back.

I give Gyanendra 1-2 years max, Musharraf maybe 2-3. The challenge is to tighten their nooses and shorten that span. Let's get to work. Let's rally our efforts. Let's send them into exile and permanent oblivion.

With much respect and admiration.

Paramendra Bhagat

(sent to webmaster@ppp.org.pk, ppp@comstats.net.pk, smhq@hotmail.com)

• Ms Bhutto's Message on 26th Anniversary of Shaheed Z.A Bhutto Today unfortunately tyranny and despotic rule once again reigns in our land. Democracy has been vandalized and state institutions systematically destroyed....... as people slip into abject poverty the speaker national Assembly has ordered for himself a new Mercedes costing over 11 million rupees ...... National assets have been doled out to the favorites at cheaper prices robbing the employees and people. Corruption is widespread. The people of Pakistan can judge that dictatorship has given the kalishnikov culture and politics of ethnicity and baradarism whereas democracy has brought respect, honour, progress and prosperity in social and economic terms..... On this day I urge all the democratic forces in the country to renew their determination to fight for the restoration of the Constitution of 1973 and democracy in the country. I also urge the people to forge unity in their ranks to fight for rule of law, for justice, for equity and for a return of the military to their professional duties ....... The survival of the country and the federation lies in Constitutional rule, in Federalism, Democracy, provincial autonomy for the provinces and economic opportunity for our people
• Zardari Returns A Hardened Politician. Benazir Bhutto's is like the Shakespearean tragedy. The people of Pakistan want her, the world appreciates her, her qualifications are beyond comparison in Pakistan, yet some feel they can do without her. She has managed to keep herself intact, her charisma intact, me intact in prison, the party intact, and the public support intact..... There is nothing that the establishment didn't do against us.
• The Story Of Benazir Benazir Bhutto June 21, 2003 I wonder: when will I be free/To return to Larkana ...... When will I walk home from Arab lands/To my own sweet Motherland ..... Although the tyrants do not care/Strands of white my hair now shows/My face is gaunt with sadness/I to my people want to go/I came in the winter of repression ...... Let Mother’s sickness not worsen in exile/Trapped in a mind wanting to forget/A heart weeping for young sons killed ...... O where is my husband gone?/His life's prime and his grace?/Prison Walls confine him ...... Pakistan, my health is worn/My joy is gone/And yet my heart is strong ....... Each day I smile for the world/For my children and my self/They ask: when can we return? ...... I speak of justice fled/From hearts of men/Into the breasts of beasts ....... I think of the poor people/A better fate they deserve/Than the military conqueror's boots ....... Plazas and Plots for the elite lot ... All on starving backs of people robbed ...... Mug shots and finger prints are demanded/Worshippers live in fear and dread/Tenants are ejected/Soldiers in snows abandoned ........ Democracy is for those in Mufti/Dictatorship the dream of Generals in Khaki ...... Away I live in a mansion grand/But I long to campaign/On long and rocky roads/In bumpy jeep rides ....... My spirit is in one place/My body in another/My mind torn asunder ...... The Elections were so Unfair ..... Billions spent in marketing/A dictatorship as a democracy .... Boxes were filled/Ballots torn ...... The presidential palace is ugly/In a land with widespread poverty/Parliament has yet to dress itself/With Constitutional power/The phoenix rises from the ashes/Peoples Power will be born again ..... The rulers offer comfort/In return they demand conscience .... The Kurds fought for decades/The Kashmiris do too/The Palestinians refused to surrender ..... One has might/The other right/One has the sword/The other the pen/Guns rust and fall apart/Ideas live forever ...... The cranes fly to their native hills/My heart longs to fly with them/Invisible chains/Hold me prisoner .... They thought it generous/To offer freedom for abandonment/The abandonment of a people, of a land/Of a struggle, of a dream/Of principles and of conscience ....... I know I will return ...... My enemies wish I never was born/For them it was a torture and a shame/That I became/The first woman leader of a Muslim State/Crumbling centuries of control/Triumphantly proclaiming/The equality of men and women/The pristine message of Islam ..... Better a life of test/Than a worthless life of rest ....... I hear of miseries/Of families without income/Of fear of hunger/I hear/And my own suffering retreats ....... Unhappy are the days/Far from Malir and Multan/Far from Mardan and Makran ....... I think of those exiled/from their homelands/In Los Angeles, London, Dubai ..... For the homeland/I was born in/Buried my Father/Buried my brother/Married/Had my children/Served a Nation/Helped a people/Without telephone or electricity/Computers or emails/Polio drops or iodine/Enter the modern age ....... Billions spent on false cases /On propaganda /Psy war and special operations ..... Have faith/We will win.