It was none other than Benazir herself who laid down the grounds for an independent judiciary in Pakistan by ordering the separation of the legal system from the executive. Her invitation to the Indian prime minister, the late Rajiv Gandhi, and his wife was testimony to her desire to address the most sensitive issues in the region and to begin to sort out the diplomatic and military mess that had been allowed to accumulate, and which indeed had actively been cultivated under successive military regimes.
The religious far right, the pro-jihadist elements in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the corpulent generals were busy for a long time knitting plots to get rid of Benazir Bhutto and they continuously spread disinformation about her. Yet her elevation to the realm of power as the first-ever female head of state in the Muslim world sent a strong signal to the Muslim as well as to the western world that the Pakistani people are not a bunch of cultish Wahhabi-Salafist fanatics but have deep-rooted and heterodox secular and Sufi values.
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