Bhutto Stressed Her Belief `in Freedom’

Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007 | 4:28 a.m.

Quotations from Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, assassinated Thursday in Rawalpindi.

"I told him on my oath in his death cell, I would carry on his work." - Recalling a visit to her father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, before his execution in 1979.

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"The primary message of the visit and the talks will be that freedom has returned to Pakistan. It is not only a success for the people of Pakistan but for all those who believe in freedom." - Preparing for a visit to the United States in 1989, a few months after she first took office as prime minister.

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"The voter has gotten more demanding. In 1988, the voters just wanted democracy. Our campaign was much more general then. Now we are more specific." - 1993 Associated Press interview on her ultimately successful bid for re-election. She had been ousted in 1990.

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"I never influenced the awarding of a contract, and until my dying day I'll stand by it. They have tried to ruin me because they want to ruin the concept of a pluralistic, liberal Pakistan. To be accused of robbing, that really pains me." - In 1999, shortly after her conviction on corruption charges.

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"I haven't given myself away. I belong to myself and I always shall." - Vowing in 1987 that her arranged Islamic marriage to Karachi businessman Asif Ali Zardari would not upstage her political career.

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"Democracy needs support and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies. Democratic nations should ... come together in an association designed to help each other and promote what is a universal value - democracy." - 1989 speech at Harvard University.

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"Pakistan is at a crossroads. We citizens are faced with a decisive choice this January 8th, election day. We can turn our backs on the years of dictatorship, fundamentalism, and economic decline." - Statement issued Wednesday with an appeal for donations to Web site.

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"We have to modify our campaign to some extent because of the suicide bombings. We will continue to meet the public. We will not be deterred." - In October, shortly after narrowly escaping a suicide bombing on her return to Pakistan from an eight-year exile.