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She came, she saw...

* Tearful Benazir mobbed on return
* Former PM ‘overwhelmed’ at being back, vows to fight extremists
* Leads procession amidst hundreds of thousands of supporters
* Muhammad Ali Durrani says rally smaller than expected

KARACHI: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto ended eight years of self-imposed exile here on Thursday, being greeted by hundreds of thousands of jubilant supporters as she lead a homecoming parade through Karachi.
Ms Bhutto, dressed in the green and white of the Pakistani flag, sobbed as she descended from Emirates flight EK-606 in Karachi at around 2:00pm, accompanied by senior leaders of her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). She kissed a Quran and raised her hands to the sky.
Benazir overwhelmed: “It’s a historic and very emotional moment for me, I am overwhelmed,” Ms Bhutto told AFP. “I have learned a lot over the last 20 years but we are still fighting a dictatorship, we want to isolate extremists and build a better Pakistan.” “I counted the hours, the minutes and the seconds just to see this land, sky and grass,” she told AP Television News at the airport.
The 54-year-old two-time former prime minister, who flew in from Dubai, said she was fighting for democracy and to help Pakistan defeat the extremism that gave it the reputation as a hotbed of international terrorism. “That’s not the real image of Pakistan. The people that you see outside are the real image of Pakistan. These are the decent and hardworking middle-classes and working classes of Pakistan who want to be empowered so they can build a moderate, modern nation.”
Ms Bhutto said she doubted the Supreme Court judges would stop either the presidential election or the National Reconciliation Ordinance, but acknowledged her talks with Musharraf had a way to go. “The big thing is I’m back home and I’m glad that Gen Musharraf’s regime has not interrupted my welcome,” she said. “While there has been some small progress, there is a lot more yet that needs to be done.”
Procession: At around 3:30pm, Ms Bhutto left the airport and embarked on a snail-paced procession atop a specially modified lorry, eschewing its bullet-proof screens and waving to flag-waving PPP supporters as they chanted “Long live Bhutto” and “Prime Minister Benazir”.
At the time this report was filed, her cavalcade had moved about three or four kilometres from the airport and reached Natha Khan. Huge billboards with her picture lined the route from the airport to Quaide-e-Azam’s mausoleum, where she was to give a speech.
Authorities had urged her to delay her return, warning of possible suicide attacks by militants linked to Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Baitullah Mehsud of North Waziristan, but Ms Bhutto brushed off the concerns. “I am not scared. I am thinking of my mission,” she told an AP reporter on the plane.
More than 20,000 police and troops, backed up by bomb squads with sniffer dogs, patrolled the road and snipers manned surrounding rooftops. Police used electronic jammers to prevent anyone detonating a remote-controlled bomb near her convoy.
Police said more than 250,000 people had jammed the streets awaiting her return. Her loyalists put the teeming crowd at more than one million, while a provincial government spokesman told AP that 150,000 people had turned up.
The PPP supporters were peaceful, the only minor disruption coming when some tried to enter Jinnah International Airport when Ms Bhutto landed. Police baton-charged them and were able to control the situation comfortably, city police chief Azhar Farooqi said. The PPP activists reportedly broke some windows in the airport lounge.
Hundreds of buses had disgorged crowds of supporters ranging from members of the minority Christian and Hindu communities to Baloch tribesmen with flowing white turbans.
Men banged on drums, shook maracas and performed traditional dances along her planned route to the tomb of Quaid-e-Azam.
Ms Bhutto, who waved and smiled, was squeezed between other party bigwigs at the front of the truck rather than in the bulletproof cubicle toward the rear. Still, as darkness fell, armed guards began escorting the truck.
She was accompanied by PPP leaders Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Yusuaf Raza Gillani, Naheed Khan, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Shah Mohammed Qureshi and others.
Rally a flop: Gen Musharraf spent the morning at his army offices in Rawalpindi, with no official engagements scheduled, an aide said. A government spokesman claimed her rally was a flop.
“It is the PPP workers’ response and not the public response and even the workers’ response is much less than
what she was expecting,” Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani said.
Earlier, before boarding her flight from Dubai, Bhutto told reporters that her homecoming felt like a miracle.
“I hope that, as this miracle is happening, that a miracle will happen for the impoverished and poverty-stricken people of Pakistan who are desperate for change, who want safety, who want security, who want opportunity, who want empowerment and employment,” she said.
She described Pakistan as being at a crossroads between democracy and dictatorship. “Now that the people have given their verdict, it is necessary that the elections should be free and fair,” she said. agencies

n Sobs and smiles for
homecoming Benazir —Page A2

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