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UNITED NATIONS: Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto was remembered at the 72nd UN General Assembly by Britain’s Theresa May who also reminded world leaders that no country had suffered more at the hands of terrorists than Pakistan.
“This year is the tenth anniversary of the death of the woman who introduced me to my husband, and who was known well to many of us in this United Nations,” said the British prime minister in her address to the General Assembly on Wednesday night. “Benazir Bhutto was brutally murdered by people who actively rejected the values that all of us here in this United Nations stand for,” she said.
She recalled that Ms Bhutto, who was killed in a terrorist attack in December 2007, stood against terrorism “in a country that has suffered more than most at the hands of terrorists”. The popular Pakistani leader, she added, was “murdered for standing up for democracy, murdered for espousing tolerance, and murdered for being a woman”.
While praising Ms Bhutto’s courage and defiance, the British leader warned that “defiance alone is not enough” in the fight against terrorism.
As leaders, “we have all visited too many hospitals, and seen too many innocent people murdered in our countries” and now was the time to fight back, she said. “In the last decade, hundreds of thousands have been killed by terrorists across the world,” said Ms May. “This is a truly global tragedy that is increasingly touching the lives of us all.”
“When I think of the hundreds of thousands of victims of terrorism in countries across the world, I think of their friends, their families, their communities, devastated by this evil, and I say enough is enough.”
Ms May emphasised the need to take the fight to these terrorist groups by staying together and rejecting their false beliefs. “For, as the threat from terrorists evolves, so must our cooperation,” she said.
Ms May noted that for the first time in the UN, governments and industry came together through the Global Internet Forum for Counterterrorism to coordinate their efforts to fight terrorism.
“The challenges we face today are vastly different from those of previous eras,” said the British leader.
Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2017
