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Fatima Bhutto - Source: Close Up -
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Fatima Bhutto, an outspoken member of the Pakistani political Bhutto dynasty, believes the killing of Osama bin Laden in her homeland shouldn't have surprised anyone.
In New Zealand for the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, the poet and writer told Close Up that the operation that killed the world's most wanted man earlier this month must have had involvement from the Pakistani state.
"Pakistan gave America the right to come into our country, launch, kill and capture, all the while reserving the right to pretend that we knew nothing about it.
"An operation like this couldn't have been carried out without assistance from the Pakistani state. Which is something they continue to deny," she said.
"We (the Pakistani people) are as much in the darkness everyone else," she added.
Although active in supporting her mother Ghinwa Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party, Fatima Bhutto says she no desire to run for political office.
Bhutto, 28, told Close Up of the political corruption and violence that is an intricate part of her county, including within her own extended family.
Her grandfather was executed after a military coup, her uncle was then murdered.
Her father was then also murdered by what she believes was on the orders of his sister, then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, also murdered four years ago.
Fatima Bhutto says this type of political assassination is not unique in Pakistan.
"In Pakistan, we see violence carried out on a daily basis, sometimes it's towards a family, but everyday it's Pakistanis."
She says her own aunt was heavily involved in corruption well as involved in the death of thousands of her own people, something she labels her "enduring legacy".
"All the evidence we have of Benazir Bhutto's two governments point to massive corruption," she said.
"She was prosecuted along with her husband in Swiss courts for corruption, courts in the United Kingdom. And she also was named in the oil for foods scandal, giving kick backs to Saddam Hussein's regime for oil contracts."
She tells of the "genocidal campaign in Karachi, Operation Clean Up" the then Prime Minister ordered on the streets of Karachi, leaving thousands of men dead.
"In that period in which the security agencies and police force were charged with cleaning up Karachi of dissidents and activist, of people that opposed the government, some 3,000 men were killed."
However, she said it is very difficult for Pakistanis to provide democratic alternatives to government or politicians that have "billions of dollars at their disposal".
"They are propped up and aided by foreign money, by money by the White House, 10 Downing St and the European Union to the tune of billions."
As for her own safety, she says life for her is as safe in Karachi as for anyone else.
"Certainly it has meant that I have to be more careful about living in Pakistan, and it has changed how I live in Pakistan.
She said silence is always more dangerous there, than speaking out.