'Parade' Posts Interview with Bhutto to Appear in January 8 Edition

By: E&P Staff Parade magazine rushed today to post on its Web site the entire interview with slain Pakistan leader Benazir Bhutto, conducted by Gail Sheehy, and scheduled for its January 8 edition.

It opens with an editor's note: "We are all saddened by the murder this morning of Pakistan?s Benazir Bhutto. The assassination adds more danger and confusion to the already chaotic situation in the region.

"In late November, PARADE sent Contributing Editor Gail Sheehy to Pakistan. Sheehy traveled with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto as she campaigned through her home provinces. Sheehy had two long interviews with her?the first in Bhutto?s home in Islamabad, a second at her residence outside Karachi. Bhutto told Sheehy that she had long been a target of terrorists. She knew she was also now a target of the Musharraf government. Today?s suicide bombing mirrors the earlier attempt on her life that Bhutto described to Sheehy."

The entire piece is posted at www.parade. com. Here is an excerpt.
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Today I saw you campaigning essentially unprotected, I say. How do you do it?

In answer, she invokes her late father, Zulfikar Bhutto, a populist reformer and the nation?s first democratic prime minister. ?From the day my father was hanged?I was 25?whenever there is a crisis, I go into a kind of detachment. ?What should I be doing?? I just start ticking off steps. I don?t feel.?

Like her country, Bhutto is a riddle. Brilliant, beautiful, fearless, she is also ruthlessly ambitious, devious and corrupt. ...Bhutto maintains that the Pakistani army?s decision to overthrow her in 1996 came after she announced plans to crack down on terrorism. ?I am what the terrorists most fear,? she tells me, ?a female political leader fighting to bring modernity to Pakistan. Now they?re trying to kill me."

Talat Masood, a retired general who has advised Bhutto, foresees his nation breaking in half. ? The only option left to the people of Pakistan,? he says, ?is the military or the militants.?

Or another try at democracy under Bhutto.