‘She’s sleeping’: Ex-Singapore diplomat recalls call to Benazir Bhutto’s house during plane hijacking

Former Singaporean diplomat Bilahari Kausikan has recalled that former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto flatly refused to talk to him during a hijacking of a passenger plane. He said that her household told him that she was sleeping and put down the phone.

In an interactions with journalists hosted by the National Press Foundation, Kausikan narrated the anecdote while explaining that Pakistani politicians, whom he described as a "waste of time", are the reason the country is on the brink of failure.

In 1991, Kausikan said, a group of Pakistani terrorists hijacked a Singaporean aeroplane and, as part of the negotiations, demanded to speak with former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was out of office at the time and living in Sindh province.

Kausikan said he called Bhutto's estate in Sindh at around 3 am or 4 am with the help of Pakistan's high commissioner, and there was a scramble in her household to find someone who could speak English.

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Finally, he said, someone who could speak English was brought to the phone, but he flatly stated that Bhutto would not speak to him and put the phone down.

"I don't know who it was. It was some servant or some member of the household, right? So, I explained to him carefully what's the situation: there are four or five hijackers, we're not sure what they want, but they want to speak to Madam Benazir Bhutto, and they have told us if they can speak to her, they will surrender. If they cannot speak to her, they will start killing the passengers. So, I explained this to the person three times. And he said, 'Ma'am is sleeping, cannot be disturbed.' And put down the phone," said Kausikan.

Flagging the recent US-Pakistan bonhomie and the country's rising profile owing to its mediation in the West Asia conflict, Kausikan said the diplomatic success does not change the fundamental reality that Pakistan is "teetering on the brink of failure".

Eventually, security personnel moved into the aeroplane and shot dead the hijackers to rescue the passengers and crew. But Kausikan stressed that Bhutto refused to cooperate.

"We still do not know —and we'll never know— what they really wanted because they're all dead. None of our passengers were injured. I tell you this story to show that this is a very feudalistic society you have in Pakistan," said Kausikan.

'You can't blame your neighbours'

Kausikan also dismissed politicians' attempts to blame their neighbours for the country's problems as an excuse for decades-long mismanagement.

"I don't think you can blame your location on everything. That's an excuse. The fact is that Pakistan from the very beginning of Pakistan has been mismanaged terribly. The military is both part of the problem and what holds the country together. Your civilian politicians are a waste of time—all of them regardless of party," said Kausikan, a former Singaporean envoy to the Soviet Union, Australia, and the United Nations (UN).

Flagging the recent US-Pakistan bonhomie and the country's rising profile owing to its mediation in the West Asia conflict, Kausikan said the diplomatic success does not change the fundamental reality that Pakistan is "teetering on the brink of failure".