Local lawyer knew Benazir Bhutto's family

“I feel like when American politicians go there, theyre in this little bubble,” says Ruhi Maker, a community development attorney in Rochester. Maker works for the Empire Justice Center of Rochester.

Maker says most people do not clearly understand Pakistan’s importance to the United States when it comes to foreign policy.  

“Especially trying to make them understand whats really happening on the ground in Pakistan,” says Maker who has rallied locally in Rochester to raise awareness of the need for civil liberties in Pakistan. Maker came to the United States in 1985.

“Its very linked American foreign policy and Pakistan.”

The foreign policy matters are linked due to Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists who live in Pakistans ungoverned tribal areas. Twenty years ago those extremists were funded by the U.S. Currently, U.S. officials say they are trying to help Pakistan create a democracy adding that popular leaders like Bhutto are the key to that policy. However, Pakistan is plagued by extremist terrorist violence and political factions which led to Bhuttos assassination.

“How do we have an American foreign policy that keeps American policy safe but that also keeps Pakistan safe?” says Maker, “for me, I have to have hope and Im hopeful that Pakistan will be safe if not in my lifetime, but in my childrens lifetime, my grandchildrens lifetime.”

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto however hits home for maker in more than just a political way…Makers family was friends with Benazir Bhuttos family growing up in Pakistan. Bhutto’s sister went to school with Maker and Bhutto’s father, who was also assassinated, was a long-time friend of Maker’s family.

“Today, we have to honor her life and we have to mourn her in death and pray that as a martyr, thats what she will be--a shaheed as we call it in Pakistan--she will be a unifying force that she will bring Pakistanis together,” says Maker, “the path will emerge and I hope that the path will be that people will unite behind her memory to create a stable Pakistan.”