Updated on
Summary
President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) members and others would fight in the courts a litany of ancient corruption charges that threatens to undermine his governments legitimacy. My ministers, my party, leaders of other parties and thousands of civil servants across our nation will defend themselves in the courts if necessary, he said in an article published in a major American newspaper on the occasion of the second death anniversary of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. I have spent almost 12 years in prison on trumped up charges never proven, even by a court system manipulated by dictators and despots, the president wrote in The Wall Street Journal.But like Benazir, I refuse to be intimidated, he said in the op-ed piece: Democracy is the Greatest Revenge. So let the legal process move forward. Those of us who have fought for democracy against dictatorship for decades do not fear justice; we embrace it. President Zardari said some forces who were allied with dictatorship in the past now hope that the judicial process could undo the will of a democratic electorate and destabilize the country. A litany of ancient charges of corruption the modus operandi of past plots against every democratically elected government in Pakistan now threatens to undermine the legitimacy of our government, he added. Benazir Bhutto stood up and defeated the forces of military dictatorship, he said, adding: She freed all political prisoners. She ended press censorship. She legalized trade and student unions, built 46,000 primary and secondary schools and appointed the first female judges in our history. And she showed the women of Pakistan and the world that they must accept no limits on their ability and opportunity to learn, to grow and to lead in modern society.The target of two assassination attempts by Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, Benazir repeatedly warned a skeptical world of the impending danger from extremists and militants. In her last campaign even on the very day of her death, by the hands of such extremists she mobilized and rallied the people of Pakistan against the terrorist threat. President Zardari said, Benazirs murderers didnt kill her dreams.Benazir Bhutto died confronting the forces of tyranny and terrorism, and Pakistan remains committed to the struggle that she led. We have reclaimed Swat and Malakand from the militants and rehabilitated the displaced persons back into their homes. We have taken the fight against militants to other areas, including South Waziristan in our Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and to our major cities, and we will win this war against them, he added. We will not let militants violently impose their political agenda on the people. Political ownership of the war against terrorism rests with the people of Pakistan for the first time. We are in the front trenches of this war while the community of nations stands with us. Much has been accomplished, but it has not been easy for my nation, for my party or for my family. The forces in Pakistan that have resisted change, modernity and democracy for 30 years still attempt to derail progress. Continuing, the president said, Democracy has come a long way in Pakistan, and the Peoples Party has always been at the vanguard of the fight.
