IndiaPost.com - Benazir's last address: Pakistan is in danger

ISLAMABAD: Minutes before she was assassinated, former premier Benazir Bhutto had said her Pakistan People's Party would "save the country" from extremists and terrorists if it was voted to power. "The country is in danger-- bomb blasts are taking place everywhere, be it Swat, South Waziristan or the Eid prayers in Charsadda.

We have to save the country with the power of the people," Bhutto told thousands of PPP supporters at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on Thursday. "I appeal all of you to vote for us to save the country," she repeatedly said in her address. The 54-year-old PPP chairperson praised her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, saying he had made Pakistan's defense impregnable and put the country on the path of prosperity and democracy. "Nobody could dare to think of breaking the country or doing terror and extremist acts when the People's Party was in power.

But the country had to suffer whenever a dictator took over," she said. Bhutto said that PPP would never let its workers down after coming to power and there would be rule of law in the country. She referred to reports that foreign troops would be sent to help fight resurgent Taliban and al Qaida in the area bordering Afghanistan.

"Why should foreign troops come in? We can take care of this, I can take care of this, you can take care of this," she said. "Political orphans tried hard to delay the polls. They planned the proclamation of emergency rule in the country and wanted President (Pervez) Musharraf to stay in uniform for five more years but all such bids failed miserably," she said.

The 54-year-old leader, who died a few minutes later after she was shot by a suicide attacker, regretted that the year 2007 had witnessed the removal of the Chief Justice of Pakistan "twice", detention of judges of the superior judiciary and the military operation on Islamabad's Lal Masjid that resulted in the loss of over 100 lives.

She said that addressing unemployment, rising inflation and lack of healthcare and education facilities would top the PPP's agenda if it was elected to power.