Spurns Vengeance, Sees Election as Hope for True Democracy : Bhutto Calls on Pakistanis to ‘Bury the Past’

KARACHI, Pakistan — Declaring “let’s bury the past,” opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said Sunday that she seeks no vengeance against the government that ordered the execution of her father and the persecution of her family. She also indicated that her party will confine its targets during the coming national election campaign to the damaged institutions left behind by the late President Zia ul-Haq.

In her first public appearance since giving birth to her first child two weeks ago, Bhutto blamed the interim government that took power after Zia died in an Aug. 17 air crash for hundreds of deaths in violence and flooding that have recently shaken Pakistan.

“Absolutely no preventive measures have been taken by the administration, either in Punjab or in Sind,” Bhutto said of the two provinces most seriously affected by the floods and widespread ethnic violence. Together, they have left more than 300 dead in the past seven days.

People ‘Terrified’

“People are now so terrified that they don’t know whether they can return to their homes safely,” she said.

Bhutto, 36, widely seen as the leading opposition figure in parliamentary elections scheduled Nov. 16, made her comments during a press conference at her home in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and the center of its political opposition.

Aides said the press conference was aimed at setting the stage for the elections and showing that Bhutto is strong enough after the birth of her child by Caesarean section to lead her Pakistan People’s Party in what most analysts predict will be the freest and fairest election in the nation’s 40-year history. Campaigning is expected to begin in a week. Bhutto had not been seen in public for nearly two months.

Bhutto tried Sunday to cast herself as a pragmatic yet visionary political leader. She discussed in detail the Byzantine world of Pakistani politics, in which her party is one of three competing forces. A new Parliament and a new prime minister will emerge from the elections, and Bhutto spoke often in her press conference about how she would lead Pakistan “into the next millennium.”

She said that the elections “provide for the first time a hope for Pakistan and its people to achieve true democracy . . . but we would like to see not only the dawn of democracy but also the assertion of a Pakistani spirit.”

“We see these elections as a key to transforming the socioeconomic situation of our people . . . and as an opportunity not only of building institutions and unity but also of striving for consensus in our society.”

Battle Between Ghosts

Although she spoke of Pakistan freeing itself from “the shadow of Zia,” Bhutto refused to respond to assertions by analysts who have said that the election, in effect, will be a battle between two ghosts--those of Zia and of Bhutto’s father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom Zia overthrew in a 1977 military coup and later ordered hanged.

“I don’t want to speak about it at all,” Bhutto said. “Time itself will show what the people of this country think.

“Let’s bury the past. Let’s bury the shadows of the past. Let us enter the 21st Century as a strong and unified Pakistan with a clearly defined Pakistani spirit.”

Bhutto took pains to direct many of her comments to the country’s powerful armed forces, which have ruled the nation under martial law for nearly half its history and which analysts say remain suspicious of Bhutto, who was kept under house arrest for many years after her father’s government fell.

She praised the army for resisting the temptation to take power after Zia and 10 of his senior officers were killed in the crash of his presidential plane, and she stressed several times, “We do not believe in vengeance.”

Bhutto said that Zia had made military men the object of controversy and debate and that their professional standards had fallen.

Since Zia’s death, the army has withdrawn from politics and “strengthened their name and image,” she added. “Now there is praise for them, and the people want to support them.”

In all of her political appearances before pregnancy forced her off the campaign trail two months ago, Bhutto distanced herself from her father’s socialist policies. She has said that she favors private industry, a strong military and strong ties with the United States, which is among Pakistan’s closest allies.

Position on Nuclear Pact

Bhutto said Sunday that her party’s campaign manifesto, which will be published early this week, clearly will say that, under her leadership, Pakistan would not sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty because neighboring India, which has tested a nuclear device, refuses to sign it. But she added that Pakistan would be open to bilateral discussions with various nations on this country’s nuclear program, which U.S. official sources have said goes beyond simply using nuclear energy for electricity and economic development.

“On the broader level,” Bhutto added, “the challenge that we see is to take Pakistan into the next millennium and to transform (it) into the new economic miracle of Asia.”