Bhutto digs up her past

Each day, a queue of mourners forms at the grave of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Some lean over to kiss the silk cloth that shrouds the remains of Pakistan's most explosive leader. Others raise their cupped hands in prayer, or sprinkle rose petals.

Born to one of Sindh's wealthiest landowning families, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto emerged as Pakistan's first democratically elected leader.

His fiery speeches won him prestige among the poor. In 1977, he was toppled in a military coup and, two years later, he was hanged on trumped-up murder charges.

At a distance to Zulfikar's body lie those of his two sons. In 1985, Shahnawaz was poisoned while on holiday. In 1996, policemen gunned down Murtaza outside his home.

And now, lying beside her father are the bones of his political heir, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whose assassination in December 2007 convulsed the country.

The dates are ordered in chilling sequence on the cover of Fatima Bhutto's memoir, Songs of Blood and Sword. "It was after my aunt was killed," Fatima, Murtaza's daughter, recently told an interviewer, "when suddenly the numbers just lined up in a column."

The book has triggered controversy. The columnist Nadeem F. Paracha accused the author of "naivety", and declared her book to be "frequently punctuated with half-truths".

For all their differences, Fatima shared much with her aunt: confidence, striking features, an education in America and Britain, and a powerful devotion to a father who was violently taken away from his young daughter. But Fatima believes Benazir bore "moral responsibility" for her father's death.

The idea for the book was born moments before the tragedy that shook her life. Murtaza had been sitting at home, recalling the days when he and his brother battled the regime of General Zia-ul-Haq, who overthrew, imprisoned and hanged Zulfikar.

Murtaza and his brother had established Al-Zulfikar, an underground guerrilla outfit accused of orchestrating a series of shootings, bombings, and hijackings.

Aged 14, Fatima said he should record his life in a book. "You'll do it for me," Murtaza told his daughter. "You can write it after I'm dead."

Two days later, Murtaza was gunned down by Benazir's police officers. Within six weeks Benazir's government was sacked. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was behind bars, accused of the murder. And after a new election, her party was reduced to just over a dozen seats. In 1999, she fled into exile.

Benazir saw her brother's murder as a "conspiracy" hatched by the family's enemies, the purpose of which was to "kill a Bhutto to catch a Bhutto". In his 1996 obituary of Murtaza, Tariq Ali suggested that Pakistan's intelligence agencies might have been involved.

Fatima concludes that Murtaza's murder could not have taken place without approval from "the highest" authority. But in Pakistan, that has never meant the prime minister's office.

Unsurprisingly, Fatima inherited her father's dislike of Benazir and her husband. She repeats familiar charges of corruption that triggered the collapse of Benazir's two stints in government.

The battle over Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's legacy is not over. Benazir's son and heir, Bilawal, is poised to return to Pakistan after completing his studies at Oxford. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto jnr, Fatima's younger brother, has gone abroad to complete his studies, as his family was fearful of his status as the sole surviving paternal male heir.

Fatima has shrugged off suggestions that she may enter politics. "Not only have I seen power being ugly, but I have also seen it doing nothing." And yet her book demonstrates one fact above all others: she is not prepared to let her father's legacy die.

- INDEPENDENT