Two cyclones

The India-Pakistan Crisis of 1971

Ever since it had come into being, Pakistan had sought a sustained legitimacy. No government after the death of the founder of the state had served out its term. Every change had occurred through some sort of coup; military and civilian governments alternated with the military dominant. The year 1970 was expected to see a constitutional government. Elections would finally take place in December. Pakistan’s President Yahya Khan visited Nixon in October during the United Nation’ twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations, when Nixon gave him the message to Chou En-lai. I took the opportunity to ask Yahya what would happen to the powers of the President after the election. Yahya could not have been more confident. He expected a multiplicity of parties to emerge in both West and East Pakistan, which would continually fight each other in each wing of the country and between the two wings; the President would therefore remain the arbiter of Pakistan’s politics.

Before his prediction could be tested a devastating cyclone struck East Pakistan over November 12-13. By most accounts, I wrote Nixon, this was the greatest disaster of the century in terms of destruction of property and human life; over 200,000 were thought to have died. The all-out relief program that Nixon ordered could only touch the surface of the suffering. Recovery efforts were chaotic and ineffective. The opposition charged the Yahya government with gross incompetence and worse. The political storm turned out in the end to be even more destructive than the natural one.

Whether the cyclone crystallised opposition to the central government and enhanced East Pakistan’s sense of grievance and identity, or whether Yahya had misjudged the mood all along, the elections held on December 7, 1970, turned into a plebiscite on Yahya’s handling of the crisis and produced a catastrophe for the military rulers. The Awami League, dedicated to East Pakistan autonomy, won 167 out of 169 seats contested in the East, giving it a majority of the 313 seats in the National Assembly. Its leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (known as Mujib), was thus bound to be an unchallengeable figure in East Pakistan and a powerful influence in the entire country. To heighten the political drama, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, emerged in a comparably dominant position in West Pakistan. While opposed to military rule, Bhutto was an advocate of a strong central government and of a united Pakistan; he fiercely resisted Mujib’s insistence on East Pakistani autonomy and in this he was certain to be supported by the military. (Indeed, he may well have adopted this position in order to become more acceptable to the military.) The Awami League had put forward a six-point program for full provincial autonomy for East Pakistan that left the central government some vague responsibility only in the fields of foreign policy and defense. Each of the two constituent units of Pakistan, it proposed, would have its own currency, keep its own separate account for foreign exchange, raise its own taxes, set its own fiscal policy, and maintaòin its own militia and paramilitary units. Yahya and Bhutto rejected this as tantamount to secession. A stalemate-or crisis-was imminent.

On February 16, 1971, I requested an interagency study of the alternatives should East Pakistan try to make a break; on February 22, I sent my own analysis to the President:

[Mujib and Bhutto] have failed so far to forge even the beginning of an informal consensus on the new constitution. President Yahya remains committed to turning his military government over to the civilian politicians, but maintains that he will not preside over the splitting of Pakistan . . .[Mujib] is now planning to stick with his demands for the virtual autonomy of East Pakistan and if he does not get his way– which is very likely– to declare East Pakistan independence.

Yahya was caught between his reluctance to make common cause with Bhutto and his resistance to the quasi-independence of East Pakistan demanded by Mujib. He postponed the convening of the National Assembly set for early March to give the political leaders more time to sort out their differences, but this move further antagonised the East. Yahya ultimately rescheduled the Assembly for March 25, gambling that the two civilian antagonists, faced with a deadlock that might break up the country, would choose to compromise. In this judgement, too, Yahya proved to be mistaken. Bhutto was undoubtedly the most brilliant man in Pakistan politics; he was also arrogant and strong-willed. Later on, he would preside over the recovery of his dismembered country with statesmanship and courage. In early 1971, he feared that compromise would bring down on him the wrath of the very masses in West Pakistan whose support had swept him to the threshold of power. Mujib, for his part, could not arrest the forces he had unleashed. He was far less inclined to do so than Bhutto, and more prone to believe in his own rhetoric. Like figures in a Greek tragedy, each of these two popular Pakistani leaders refused to let the other cross the threshold beyond which lay power for both of them; they would yield to necessity but not to each other.

As the tension increased, our government reviewed its options. The Senior Review Group met on March 6 to consider the interagency study I had requested on February 16. Our consensus was that Pakistan would not be able to hold the East by force. I made it clear to the agencies that the President would be reluctant to confront Yahya, but that the White House would not object to other countries’ efforts to dissuade him from using force. If Pakistan broke up, it should be the result of its internal dynamics, not of American pressures. All agencies agreed that the United States should not get involved. This was also the policy of Great Britain, which had a much longer historical relationship.

During March we experienced the confusions that mark the onset of most crisis. In a major speech on March 7, Mujib stopped short of a total break with West Pakistan, but he demanded an end to martial law and a return to popular rule, making clear his goal remained the “emancipation” of the East. Yahya announced he was flying to Dacca, capital of East Pakistan to negotiate with Mujib on March 15. Meanwhile, in India in early March, Prime Minister Gandhi scored an enormous victory in the Indian general elections. Until then events in Pakistan had been the internal problems of a friendly country; we might have our view but they were not a foreign policy issue. Busy with the election campaign and its immediate aftermath, Mrs. Gandhi adopted a hands-off policy. As late as the middle of March, the permanent head of the Indian Foreign Office, T.N. Kaul, told our ambassador in New Delhi, Kenneth Keating, that India wanted Pakistan to remain united. On March 17, the Indian Ambassador in Washington, the skilful L.K. Jha, spoke in the same sense to me. Neither gave the slightest indication that India would consider the troubles in neighbouring East Pakistan as affecting its own vital interests.

But sometimes the nerves of public figures snap. Incapable of abiding events, they seek to force the pace and lose their balance. So, it was that Yahya Khan, with less than 40,000 troops, decided to establish military rule over the 75 million people of East Pakistan, to suppress the Awami League, and to arrest Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The crisis in Pakistan then became international.

By courtesy:

Origins of Tragedy

The India-Pakistan Crisis of 1971

In every administration some event occurs that dramatizes the limits of human foresight. In the year of uncertainty on Vietnam, the opening to China, and the evolving relationship with the Soviet Union, there was almost nothing the Administration was less eager to face than a crisis in South Asia. And as if to underscore the contingent quality of all our planning, it was triggered by, of all things, a cyclone.

Bordered on the south by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Himalayas, and on the west by the Hindu Kush mountains that merge with the heavens as if determined to seal off the teeming masses, and petering out in the east in the marshes and rivers of Bengal, the Indian subcontinent has existed through the millennia as a world apart. Its northern plains simmer in enervating heat in summer and are assailed by incongruous frost in winter; its lush south invites a life of tranquility and repose. Its polyglot peoples testify to the waves of conquerors who have descended upon it through the mountain passes, from the neighbouring deserts, and occasionally from the sea. Huns, Mongols, Greeks, Persians, Moguls, Afghans, Portuguese, and at last Britons have established empires and then vanished, leaving multitudes oblivious of either the coming or the going.

Unlike China, which imposed its own matrix of law and culture on invaders so successfully that they grew indistinguishable from the Chinese people, India transcended foreigners not by co-opting but by segregating them. Invaders might raise incredible monuments to their own importance as if to reassure themselves of their greatness in the face of so much indifference, but the Indian peoples endured by creating relationships all but impervious to alien influence. Like the Middle East, India is the home of great religions. Yet unlike those of the Middle East, these are religions not of exaltation but of endurance; they have inspired man not by prophetic visions of messianic fulfilment but by bearing witness to the fragility of human existence; they offer not personal salvation but the solace of an inevitable destiny. Where each man is classified from birth, his failure is never personal; his quality is tested by his ability to endure his fate, not to shape it. The caste system does not attract civilisations determined to seek fulfilment in a single lifetime. It provides extraordinary resilience and comfort in larger perspectives. The Hindu religion is proud and self-contained; it accepts no converts. One is either born into it or forever denied its comforts and the assured position it confers. Foreign conquest is an ultimate irrelevancy in the face of such impermeability; it gives the non-Indian no status in Indian society, enabling Indian civilisation to survive, occasionally even to thrive, through centuries of foreign rule. Of course, so many invasions have had to leave a human, not only an architectural, residue. The Moslem conquerors, representing a proselytizing religion, offered mass conversion as a route for lower-caste Hindus to alleviate their condition. They succeeded only partially, for once converted the new Moslems lost the respect to which even their low-caste status had entitled them. Here were sown the seeds of the communal hatred that has rent the subcontinent for the past generations.

Britain was but one of the latest conquerors, replacing Moslem Mogul and some Hindu rulers in the north and propping up indigenous Hindu rulers in the south– carrying out the cycle, it seemed of the ages. But in one important respect Britain’s conquest was different. True, it was made possible precisely because the British replaced one set of rulers by another in a pattern that had become traditional; its psychological basis was that the concept of nationhood did not exist. But it was Britain that gave the subcontinent– heretofore a religious, cultural, and geographic expression– a political identity as well. The British provided for the first time a homogenous structure of government, administration, and law. They then supplied the Western values of nationalism and liberalism. Paradoxically, it was their implanting of values of nationalism and democracy that made the British “foreign,” that transformed a cultural expression into a political movement. Indian leaders trained in British schools claimed for their peoples the very values of their rulers. And the half-heartedness of Britain’s resistance demonstrated that it had lost the moral battle before the physical one was joined.

As the prospect of nationhood appeared, the polyglot nationalities that the flood of invasions had swept into India now were left alone with their swelling numbers, their grinding poverty, and above all with one another. Nearly a third of the total population was Moslem, concentrated in the West Punjab and East Bengal but with important pockets all over India. Many of these peoples, by now outcasts of Indian society, found it unacceptable to live in a secular state dominated by those who through the centuries had disdained them. The British solution in 1947 was partition along religious lines.

Thus was born, amidst unspeakable horrors and communal riots, the states of India and Pakistan. Pakistan was composed of two units: the West, dominated by the Punjab; and the East Bengal*, separated by a thousand miles of Indian territory, with no common language, held together not by economics or history but by Islam and a common fear of Hindu domination. Pakistan’s very existence was an affront to Indian nationalists who had, like other leaders of independence movements, dreamed of claiming all the territory ruled by the former colonial power. And India saw in the neighbouring Moslem state a potential threat to its own national cohesion. Since more than fifty million Moslems remained under India’s rule, either they would sooner or later claim their own national existence, or else the creation of Pakistan had been in fact the needless British imposition that some Indian nationalists never tired of proclaiming it was. For its part, Pakistan conscious that even the lowest-class Hindus believed themselves part of a system superior to the Moslems, looked on its larger neighbour with fear, with resentment, and occasionally with hatred.

* Bengal was split by the 1947 partition. The eastern portion became East Pakistan; West Bengal remained part of India.

Few old neighbours have less in common, despite their centuries of living side by side, than the intricate, complex Hindus and the simpler more direct Moslems. It is reflected in the contrasts of their architecture. The finely carved Hindu temples have nooks and corners whose seemingly endless detail conveys no single view or meaning. The mosques and forts with which the Moguls have covered the northern third of the subcontinent are vast, elegant, romantic, their resplendent opulence contrasting with the flatness of the simmering countryside , their innumerable fountains expressing a yearning for surcease from a harsh environment and a nostalgia for the less complicated regions that had extruded the invader.

In the 1950s and 1960s, America, oblivious to these new countries absorption with themselves, sought to fit them into its own preconceptions. We took a face value Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s claim to be neutral moral arbiter of world affairs. We hardly noticed that this was precisely the policy by which a weak nation seeks influence out of proportion to its strength, or that India rarely matched its international pretensions with a willingness to assume risks, except on the subcontinent where it saw itself destined for pre eminence. And we treated Pakistan simply as a potential military ally against Communist aggression. There was no recognition that most Pakistanis considered their real security threat to be India, the very country that we had enshrined in the pantheon of abstract morality and that in turn viewed our arming Pakistan as a challenge undermining our attempt to nurture its favour.

At one and the same time we overestimated the feasibility of obtaining India’s political approbation and misjudged the target of Pakistan’s military efforts. We were overly sensitive to the “world opinion” that India purported to represent. But we also sought to include Pakistan in a conception of containment that it did not share. The legal obligation to the common defense was thought to represent a deterrent to Communist aggression even when the members of the alliances in question could do little to reinforce each other’s strength or had a few shared objectives. Pakistan became our ally in the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and in the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO). Pakistan thus became eligible for US arms aid, which was intended for use against Communist aggression but was suspected by India of having other more likely uses.

The military alliances formed in the Eisenhower Administration became controversial in America when the Democratic opposition attacked them as examples of overemphasising on military considerations. India became the special favourite of the American liberals, who saw in its commitment to democracy the foundation of a notional partnership and in its hoped-for-economic success the best refutation of Communist claims to represent the wave of the future. No wonder that after a change of administrations in 1961, Washington’s interest in Pakistan cooled noticeably; verbal assurances of American protection came increasingly to be substituted for military hardware. (The multiplication of these assurances came back to haunt in 1971). And all the while India worked tenaciously and skilfully to undermine the military relationship between Pakistan and the United States even after India had built up a significant weapons industry of its and established a substantial military supply relationship with the Soviet Union.

The 1965 India-Pakistan war furnished us a pretext to disentangle ourselves to some degree. The United Sates stopped the supply of all military equipment to both sides (this policy was modified somewhat in 1966-1967, to permit the provision of non-lethal items and spares for all equipment). The seeming even-handedness was deceptive, the practical consequence was to injure Pakistan, since India received most of its arms either from Communist nations or from its own armouries. President Johnson, aware of the one-sidedness of the action, promised to arrange a transfer to Pakistan of some obsolescent American tanks through a third party such as Turkey. But he never completed the transaction, in part because he did not want to spend his waning Congressional support on what must have appeared to him a marginally important decision, in part because the third parties developed second thoughts.

Henry Kissinger

My own experience with the subcontinent should have forewarned me of its fevered passions. In January 1962, while I was still technically a consultant to President Kennedy, the United States Information Agency arranged a series of lectures for me on the subcontinent. Our Ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, a good friend of mine, was not a little disquieted about the impact on his presumptively sensitive and pacifist clients of a Harvard professor whose chief claim to fame at that time was a book called Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. I promptly put his mind at ease by getting myself embroiled with Pakistan upon my arrival at the New Delhi airport. At the inevitable press conference, I replied to a question about Kashmir with what I thought was a diplomatic answer–that I did not know enough about it to form a judgement. When queried bout Pakistan’s budding flirtation with China, I was loath to admit my ignorance of a development that, in the light of the prevalent view of China’s congenital aggressiveness, seemed preposterous. I therefore opined that I could not imagine Pakistan doing such a foolish thing. Pakistan’s leaders already felt discriminated against because a Harvard professor had been assigned as Ambassador to New Delhi while Islamabad rated “only” a career appointment. But they had been too circumspect to attack a personal friend of Kennedy. My airport interview was a godsend. It enabled the Pakistani press to vent its disappointment against another Harvard professor and lesser associate of Kennedy. My confession of ignorance about Kashmir was transmuted into a symbol of American indifference. Using the word “foolish” in the same sentence as “Pakistan”–even to deny that Pakistan was foolish–became a national insult. There was one compensation. The Pakistani press campaign turned me fleetingly into a figure of consequence in India. Thus in 1962, at least, the charge was that I was tilting toward India.

Matters eventually calmed down enough so that I could show my face in Pakistan on the same trip. I proved immediately that I had not lost my touch. Returning to Peshawar from sight-seeing at the Khyber Pass, I was waylaid by a Pakistani journalist who asked me whether I had seen any sign of Pushtoon agitation.* on the theory that the subcontinent had been deprived of my wisecracks long enough, I replied: “I would not recognise Pushtoon agitation if it hit me in the face.” the resulting headline, “Kissinger Does Not Recognise Pushtoonistan,” triggered an official Afghan protest in Washington, but at least it made me a momentary hero in Pakistan. There is no telling what else I might have achieved had I followed my wanderlust to visit Afghanistan. But the USIA judged that it had more than gotten its money’s worth of cultural exchange and that home was a safer place for my talents.

*this referred to a movement to detach the border region from Pakistan and connect it with people speaking a similar language on the Afghan side of the Khyber Pass. Thus, perhaps I should have known better than to become involved in the frenzies of the subcontinent in 1971.

When the Nixon Administration took office, our policy objective on the subcontinent was quite simply to avoid adding another complication to our agenda. In their uneasy twenty-two years’ coexistence India and Pakistan had fought two wars. We sought to maintain good relations with both of them. Nixon, to put it mildly, was less susceptible to Indian claims of moral leadership than some of his predecessors; indeed he viewed what he considered their alleged obsequiousness toward India as a prime example of liberal soft headedness. But this did not keep him from having a moderately successful visit to New Delhi in 1969 on his round-the-world trip. He quickly abandoned his vision of crowds comparable with Eisenhower’s in 1956. The reception was restrained; crowds were merely adequate; the discussions were what in communique language would be called “constructive” and “businesslike.” Nixon gave a very eloquent dinner toast, paying tribute to the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi and ruminating thoughtfully on the nature of peace in the modern wold.

But Nixon and Mrs. Gandhi, Indian Prime Minister and daughter of Nehru, were not intended by fate to be personally congenial. Her assumption of almost hereditary moral superiority and her moody silences brought out all of Nixon’s latent insecurities. Her bearing toward Nixon combined a disdain for a symbol of capitalism quite fashionable in developing countries with a hint that the obnoxious things she had heard about the President from her intellectual friends could not all be untrue. Nixon’s comments after meetings with her were not always printable. On the other hand, Nixon had an understanding for leaders who operated on an unsentimental assessment of the national interest. Once one cut through the strident, self-righteous rhetoric, Mrs. Gandhi had few peers in cold-blooded calculation of the elements of power. The political relationship in substance was thus far better than the personal one.

Whatever Nixon’s personal qualms about its Prime Minister, India continued throughout his first Administration to enjoy a substantial constituency in the Congress and within the US government. Mrs. Gandhi had not yet disillusioned Americans by her nuclear test and assumption of authoritarian rule.
Emotional ties with the world’s most populous democracy remained. Large annual aid appropriations were proposed by the Administration and passed by the Congress with little opposition. Between 1965 and 1971 India received $4.2 billion of American economic aid, about $1.5 billion of it during the Nixon years.

If India basked in Congressional warmth and was subject to Presidential indifference, Pakistan’s situation was exactly the reverse. Pakistan was one of the countries where Nixon had been received with respect when he was out of office; he never forgot this. And the bluff, direct military chiefs of Pakistan were more congenial to him than the complex and apparently haughty Brahmin leaders of India. On the other hand, Pakistan had never found the sympathy in America that India enjoyed, at least among opinion-making groups. It did not represent principles with which Americans could identify as readily as with the ” progressive” slogans and pacifist-sounding morality of the world’s largest democracy. Moreover, India was much larger and had four or five times the population of Pakistan. There were thus hard headed reasons for the priority attached to our relations with India.

Nixon made few changes in the policies he inherited on the subcontinent except to adopt somewhat warmer tone toward Pakistan. He and I–as the only senior officials who knew the facts- were profoundly grateful to Pakistan’s role as the channel to China. It was a service for which Pakistan’s leaders, to their lasting honour, never sought any reciprocity or special consideration. The only concrete gesture Nixon made– and it was also to maintain the promise of his predecessor–was to approve in the summer of 1970 a small package of military equipment for Pakistan. This was to be a “one-time exception to the US arms embargo. It included some twenty aircraft and 300 armoured personnel carriers, but no tanks or artillery. The package amounted to $40 to $50 million (or somewhat more, depending on the type of aircraft chosen). India, which was increasing its military procurement at the average rate of $350 million a year–nearly ten times this amount– raised a storm of protest. At the same time,  India was accusing us of interfering in its domestic affairs because some of our Embassy personnel–in perhaps the most overstaffed Embassy of our diplomatic service– occasionally saw opposition leaders. This was not fulfilling a Washington-designed strategy but was a natural activity in a country with free institutions; it was an old accusation for the leaders of a democracy to make. But the storm soon blew over.

By 1971 our relations with India had achieved a state of exasperatedly strained cordiality, like a couple that can neither separate nor get along. Our relations with Pakistan were marked by a superficial friendliness that had little concrete content. On the subcontinent, at least, alliance with the United States had not been shown to produce significant benefits over non-alignment.

At the beginning of 1971 none of our senior policy makers expected the subcontinent to jump to the top of our agenda. It seemed to require no immediate decisions except annual aid programs and relief efforts in response to tragic natural disasters in late 1970. It appeared to be the ideal, subject for long-range studies. I ordered three of these in late 1970. Two addressed Soviet naval strength in the Indian Ocean and its implications; the third examined our long- term policy onward India and Pakistan, including the objectives of the Soviet Union and Communist China and the interplay between them.. Each of these studies was given a due date far ahead; no serious crisis was expected.

By Courtesy:

The Memoirs of Richard Nixon

The Presidency 1971
On the morning of November 4,  I met in the Oval Office with the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi. Her visit to Washington came at a critical time. Eight months earlier there had been a rebellion in East Pakistan against the government of President Yahya Khan. Indian officials reported that nearly 10 million refugees fled from East Pakistan into India. We knew that Yahya Khan eventually would have to yield to East Pakistan’s demands for independence, and we urged him to take a more moderate and conciliatory line. We could not have known the extent to which India would seize this opportunity not just to destroy Pakistan’s control of East Pakistan but to weaken West Pakistan as well.
Mrs. Gandhi complimented me highly on the way I was winding down the war in Vietnam and on the boldness of the China initiative. We talked about the uneasy situation in Pakistan, and I stressed how important it was that India not take any actions that would exacerbate it.

She earnestly assured me that India was not motivated in any way by anti-Pakistan attitudes. “India has never wished the destruction of Pakistan or its permanent crippling,” she said. “Above all, India seeks the restoration of stability. We want to eliminate chaos at all costs.”

I later learned that, even as we spoke, Mrs. Gandhi knew that her generals and advisers were planning to intervene in East Pakistan and were considering contingency plans for attacking West Pakistan as well.

Even though India was officially neutral and continued to receive foreign aid from us, Mrs. Gandhi had gradually become aligned with the Soviets, and received substantial economic and military aid from Moscow. President Ayub Khan and his successor, Yahya Khan had responded by developing Pakistan’s relations with the People’s Republic of China. With Moscow tied to New Delhi and Peking tied to Islamabad, the potential for the subcontinent’s becoming a dangerous area of confrontation between the Communist giants was great.
In our conversation that morning I was disturbed by the fact that although Mrs. Gandhi professed her devotion to peace, she would not make any concrete offers for de-escalating the tension. Yahya Khan had agreed to move his troops away from the border if India would do the same, but she would not make a similar commitment.

I said, “Absolutely nothing could be served by the disintegration of Pakistan. For India to initiate hostilities would be almost impossible to understand.” I said that in some respects the situation was similar to that in the Middle East: just as American and Soviet interests were involved there, so Chinese, Soviet and American interests were at stake in South Asia and the Indian subcontinent. “It would be impossible to calculate precisely the steps which other great powers might take if India were to initiate hostilities,” I said.
A month later, primed with Soviet weapons, the Indian army attacked East Pakistan. Fighting also erupted along the border with West Pakistan, but it was impossible to tell whether the Indian objective there was to pin down Pakistani forces or whether the action was the prelude to a full-scale attack. Battle plans of such dimensions are not formulated in less than a month, and I could not help thinking that Mrs. Gandhi had purposely deceived me in our meeting. I was also concerned that the Soviets had ignored several, clear signals from us that we would react very unfavourably if they supported India in an invasion of Pakistan. I felt that one of the primary Soviet motives was to show the world that, despite the much-heralded Sino-American rapprochement, the U.S.S.R. was still the premier Communist power. In fact, the Soviets moved troops to the Chinese border in an unsubtle attempt to tie up Chinese forces and prevent them from going to the aid of Pakistan.

In the Lincoln Sitting Room with Henry Kissinger

I felt it was important to discourage both Indian aggression and Soviet adventurism, and I agreed with Kissinger’s recommendation that we should demonstrate our displeasure with India and our support for Pakistan. To coordinate our planning, Kissinger convened a meeting of the Washington Special Action Group (WSAG), composed of representatives from State, Defense, CIA, and the NSC. He found that the State Department felt that independence for East Pakistan was inevitable and desirable, and that India had limited aims in East Pakistan and no designs on West Pakistan. The risk of Soviet or Chinese intervention, according to this reasoning, was small. The State Department, therefore, argued that we should keep calm, sit back, and let the inevitable happen.

In the Oval Office in 1970 with staff aides John Ehrlichman, Henry Kissinger and Bob Haldeman (seated)

I completely disagreed with this bland assessment. I wanted to let the Soviets know that we would strongly oppose the dismemberment of Pakistan by a Soviet ally using Soviet arms. Kissinger, therefore, summoned Soviet Charge Vorontsov to the White House and told him that this crisis had once again brought our relations to a watershed because we considered that promoting a war in the Indian subcontinent was inconsistent with improved relations with us.
Kissinger said that we wanted a cease-fire and the withdrawal of all Indian troops from Pakistan. Once the fighting had stopped, the parties could begin to negotiate a political settlement of the problem. We recognized that political autonomy for East Pakistan would be the probable outcome of a political solution, and we were willing to work in that direction. The main point was that the fighting should stop and the danger of a great power confrontation should be removed.

The next day I wrote a letter to Brezhnev that left no doubt about my feelings:

The objective fact now is that Indian military are being used in an effort to impose political demands and to dismember the sovereign state of Pakistan. It is also a fact that your government has aligned itself with this Indian policy . . .
I am convinced that the spirit in which we agreed that the time had come of us to meet in Moscow next May requires from both of us the utmost restraint and the most urgent action to end the conflict and restore territorial integrity in the subcontinent.

At eleven that night, Vorontsov delivered a note replying to the points Kissinger had made the day before. It accused the United States of not being active enough in maintaining peace, and it proposed an immediate cease-fire coupled with a demand that Pakistan immediately recognise the independence of East Pakistan. The Soviets clearly intended to play a hard line. What we had to do, therefore, was remain absolutely steadfast behind Pakistan. If we failed to help Pakistan, then Iran or any other country within the reach of Soviet influence might begin to question the dependability of American support. As Kissinger put it, “We don’t really have any choice. We can’t allow a friend o ours and China’s to get screwed in a conflict with a friend of Russia’s.”

On December 9 Vorontsov arrived with a long letter from Brezhnev. In an attempt to put the shoe on the other foot, he said that the crux of the problem lay in finding ways to exert influence on Yahya Khan to give up East Pakistan. Kissinger felt that the cordial tone of the letter at least indicated some responsive movement on the Soviet side, but I expressed my doubts.

In the meantime, the crisis had taken a disturbing turn. Through intelligence sources we learned that at a meeting of the Indian Cabinet Mrs. Gandhi had led a discussion of plans to expand the war on the western front and to invade West Pakistan. Kissinger called the Indian Ambassador, virtually told him that we knew his government’s plans, and demanded that the Ambassador urge New Delhi to reconsider any precipitate action.

The Soviet Minister of Agriculture happened to be visiting Washington at this time. I knew he was a close friend of Brezhnev’s, so I asked him to carry back a personal message to Brezhnev from me, conveying my seriousness in saying that it was incumbent upon the two of us as the leaders of the two nuclear superpowers not to allow our larger interests to become embroiled in the actions of our smaller friends.
Late that afternoon I authorised Admiral Moorer to dispatch a task force of eight ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Enterprise, from Vietnam to the Bay of Bengal.

The military situation in East Pakistan was hopeless. The numerically superior Indians had been joined by fierce Bengali rebels, and Yahya Khan’s forces were in total retreat. The almost unbelievable cruelty of the fighting on both sides had turned the situation into a nightmare. Millions of people were left homeless before the fighting ended.
Finally, Yahya recognised that he should follow the course of action we had been recommending: that he could no longer defend East Pakistan and that he should concentrate his forces in the defence of West Pakistan, in which event I indicated he would have my complete support. On December 9 Pakistan accepted the UN General Assembly’s call for a cease-fire. India rejected it, however, and tension was still rising along the border in West Pakistan, as I wrote another letter to Brezhnev calling on him to join me in ending the crisis before we ourselves were dragged into it. I began by stating that, in our view, his proposal for the political independence of East Pakistan had been met by Pakistan’s own action. Then I wrote:

This must now be followed by an immediate cease-fire in the West. If this does not take place, we would have to conclude that there is in progress an act of aggression directed at the whole of Pakistan, a friendly country toward which we have obligations.
I therefore propose an immediate joint appeal for a complete cease-fire. Meanwhile, I urge you in the strongest terms to restrain India with which, by virtue of your treaty, you have great influence and for whose actions you must share responsibility.

On December 11 we waited all day for a reply from Brezhnev. This delay was intolerable, since the possibility of an Indian attack on West Pakistan increased with each passing hour. On December 12, shortly before I was to fly to the Azores for a Franco-American Summit with President Pompidou on the international monetary crisis, a brief reply arrived from Moscow, stating simply that the Government of India had no intention of taking any military action against West Pakistan.
I immediately sent back a message that the Indian assurances lacked any concreteness. In view of the urgency of the situation and the need for concerted action, I proposed that we continue consultations through the secret Kissinger-Dobrynin channel. I added that I could not emphasise too strongly that time was the essence to avoid consequences that neither of us wanted.
Despite the urgent tone of my message, the hot-line wires were cold until 5 A.M. the next day, when a three-sentence message arrived that the Soviets were conducting a “clarification” of the circumstances in India and would inform us of the results without delay.
In Washington on December 14, Vorontsov handed Haig another message from the Kremlin. Once again it offered only vague assurances that India had no intention of taking any military action against Pakistan. Since this reply offered no improvement over the earlier message, I agreed with Kissinger that Haig should call Vorontsov and tell him so.
On the flight from Azores back to Washington, Kissinger talked to the three pool reporters flying aboard Air Force One. One of them asked if there was any danger that the crisis might deteriorate to the point that it would affect my plans to go to the summit. “Not yet,” Kissinger replied, “but we will have to wait and see what happens in the next few days.” the reporters immediately realised that they just been given a big story. “Should we infer from statement that if the Russians don’t begin to exercise a restraining influence very soon, the plans for the President’s trip might be changed?” one asked.
Kissinger replied, “We are definitely looking to the Soviets to become a restraining influence in the next few days, and if they continue to deliberately encourage military actions, we might have to take a new look at the President’s plans.”
As soon as the plane landed, the reporters rushed to share their notes with their colleagues and file their stories. The early evening news programs flashed the report around the country and around the world.

Kissinger summoned Vorontsov to the White House and told him that I had been concerned that the Soviet leaders were not doing everything possible to arrive at a settlement. In view of their continued delays, I had begun to believe that they were dealing only in words, with the intention of letting events on the ground dictate the ultimate outcome.
“It is not President Nixon’s style to threaten, ” Kissinger said. “He has long sought a genuine exchange in U.S.-Soviet relations. Despite his desire, however, your government has proceeded to equip India with great amounts of sophisticated armaments. If the Soviet government were to support or to pressure other foreign leaders to dismember or to divide an ally of the United States, how can they expect progress in our mutual relationships?”

The next day, Kissinger called Vorontsov back and showed him the text of a letter I had written to Kosygin urging that our countries take prompt and responsible steps to ensure that the military conflict not spread and that assurances be given against territorial acquisition by either side.

Vorontsov complained that the Indians were proving very resistant to Soviet pressure. Kissinger replied, “There is no longer any excuse. The President has made any. Umber of personal appeals, all of which have been rejected, and it now time to move.”

Vorontsov said that the Soviets were prepared unconditionally to guarantee that there would be no Indian attack on West Pakistan or on Kashmir. But to do this publicly would mean that they were, in effect speaking for a friendly country. In other words, the Soviets would urge the Indians to accept a cease-fire as long as they did not have to do so publicly. Without the prospect of Soviet support and aid, the Indians were almost certain to agree to a settlement.

The next day Yahya Khan’s forces in East Pakistan surrendered unconditionally. On December 17, the explosive situation on the western front was also resolved when Pakistan accepted the Indian offer of a cease-fire there. By using diplomatic signals and behind-the-scenes pressures we had been able to save West Pakistan from the imminent threat of Indian aggression and domination. We had also once again avoided a major confrontation with the Soviet Union.

The Indo-Pakistan war involved stakes much higher than the future of Pakistan–and that was high enough. It involved the principle of whether big nations supported by the Soviet Union would be permitted to dismember their smaller neighbours. Once that principle was allowed the world would have become more unstable and unsafe.

The Chinese played a very cautious role in this period. They had troops poised on the Indian border, but they would not take the risk of coming to the aid of Pakistan by attacking India, because they understandably feared that the Soviets might use this action as an excuse for attacking China. They consequently did nothing, but the presence of their forces probably had a deterrent effect on India.
Three days after the cease-fire was arranged, we sent the Chinese a brief description of its major points. We concluded, “It is the U.S. view that recent events in South Asia involve sobering conclusions. The governments of the People’s Republic of China and the United States should not again find themselves in a position where hostile global aims can be furthered through the use of proxy countries.”
As a result of the Indo-Pakistan crisis, my respect and regard for Mrs. Gandhi diminished. A few months later, in March 1972, after having seen a film biography of Mahatma Gandhi–who was no relation to her–during a weekend at Key Biscayne, I dictated a brief reflection in the diary I had begun keeping in November 1971.

Diary
As I saw Gandhi’s assassination and heard his words on violence, I realised how hypocritical the present Indian leaders are, with Indira Gandhi talking about India’s victory wings being clipped when Shastri went to Tashkent and her duplicitous attitude towards us when she actually made up her mind to attack Pakistan at the time she saw me in Washington and assured me she would not. Those who resort to force, without making excuses, are bad enough– but those who resort to force while preaching to others about their use of force deserve no sympathy whatever.

One of the most serious incidents of the Indo-Pakistan crisis occurred on our domestic front. On December 14, while we were still uncertain whether India would attack West Pakistan, syndicated columnist Jack Anderson published verbatim excerpts of the minutes of the WSAG meetings of December 2,4, and 6. The minutes revealed Kissinger’s statements to the group relaying my strong pressure to “tilt” toward Pakistan, which differed from the posture that had been adopted by some State Department sources as well as from the more neutral public position we embraced in order to exercise greater leverage on all parties. From a diplomatic point of view, the leak was embarrassing; from the point of view of national security, it was intolerable.
The leak came as a shock because WSAG meetings had been attended by only the highest-ranking members of the military intelligence organisations and the State Department. We learned that Rear Admiral Robert O. Welander believed that one of the leaked documents had to have come from his office, which handled liaison between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Security Council. Bud Krogh and David Young were assigned to investigate.
Suspicion centred on a young Navy yeoman assigned to Welanders’s office. In the course of questioning, Young learned that for some time the yeoman has been making copies of secret NSC documents. He had rifled burn bags for carbon or xerox copies, and in some cases, he actually took documents for copying out of Kissinger’s and Haig’s briefcases. On one occasion, he copied a memo of Kissinger’s conversation with Chou En-lai during the first secret mission to Peking. He passed the documents to his superiors in the Pentagon.
We were not able to establish beyond doubt that the yeoman was Anderson’s source. However, circumstantial evidence was strong. They were personally acquainted and had met on several occasions. Whether or not he had disclosed classified information to Anderson, the fact remained that he had jeopardised the relationship of the JCS to the White House.
I was disturbed–although not perhaps really surprised–that the JCS was spying on the White House. But I was, frankly, very reluctant to pursue this aspect of the case because I knew that if it were explored, like so many other sensitive matters it would wind up being leaked to the media where it would be completely distorted, and we would end up doing damage to the military at a time when it was already under heavy attack.
The yeoman himself presented a similar problem. I felt the circumstantial evidence that he had provided information to Anderson was convincing, and I knew that such actions could not be tolerated.

Diary
What concerns me about this story is the Ellsberg complex that drove the yeoman to put out the information. His spying on the White House for the Joint Chiefs is something that I would not particularly be surprised at, although I don’t think it’s a healthy practice. But his proceeding to put out top secret information to a newspaper columnist, because he disagreed with the policy on India is the kind of practice that must, at all costs, be stopped.

I felt, however, that it would be too dangerous to prosecute the yeoman. He had travelled with Kissinger and others on a number of secret missions and had had access to other top-secret information, which if disclosed, could have jeopardized our negotiations with China and with North Vietnam. In this respect, he was a potential time bomb that might be triggered by prosecution. We had him transferred to a remote post in Oregon and kept him under surveillance, including wiretaps for a time, to make sure that he was not dispensing any more secret information. It worked: there were no further leaks from him.

By courtesy:

Constructing a Portrait of Pakistan through the Stories of Its People

During her travels across Pakistan, Pamela Constable, a veteran foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, dropped in on the campus of Punjab University in Lahore, a city of 10 million, the scene of terrorist bombings and the cultural capital of the nation. By cultural capital, residents generally refer to the fading Mughal monuments and, to a lesser extent, the lively contemporary art scene at the National College of Arts.

The university, the country’s largest, has little to do with these two attributes of Lahore.   The campus has been a crucible of Islamic radicalism for a decade. Ms. Constable’s visit, she recounts in her new book, “Playing With Fire: Pakistan at War With Itself,” was spurred by the news that students belonging to Jamiat-e-Tulaba, a radical Islamic group affiliated with a national religious party, had beaten a dean who dared to expel some of its members.

She had not been on the campus for two years. When she arrived in the spring of 2010, she was amazed, she writes, by how much power the group wielded. A student told her: “We are good Muslims, so when on campus boys cross the limits, we have to check them. Some of the values that come from the West do not belong in our society, and we cannot allow them to be practiced on our campus.” When pressed, the student listed: “Things like drugs, music, media, relations with girls.”

This was not the secular place Ms. Constable once knew. The student’s argument, she noted, “came straight from the Taliban worldview.” Less than a year later an extremist bodyguard assassinated the governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, a man who belonged to the old Lahore of tolerance.

The killing was bad enough. More disturbing was the celebration of the killer among lawyers, police officers and clerics as a defender of the faith. “A so-called moderate Muslim society was proving far more fanatical than either its political elite or Western backers had suspected, while its authorities were too intimidated to take on the religious mob,” she writes.

Ms. Constable meets and talks with many different kinds of Pakistanis — students, landowners, clerics, government ministers, poor women, factory managers, even strangers at bus stops — in a book that she says is designed to introduce the general reader to a complex, little understood nation of immense importance to the United States. She does not seek, she explains at the outset, to ferret out “the secrets of powerful institutions or radical movements” or to delineate the complex, and now rapidly sinking, relationship between Pakistan and the United States.

Instead, she focuses on the main themes of Pakistani society. She deals with feudalism, the deplorable situation of most Pakistani women, the rotten justice system, the powerful military, the relentless march of religious extremism, and she weaves in interviews, news events and a touch of history.

For newcomers to Pakistan Ms. Constable’s method may well be satisfying. With deft choices, she illuminates some of the shocking truths about a Muslim country that emerged at the end of Britain’s Indian empire in 1947 with the stated intention of honoring other religions.

In the well-titled chapter “Hate,” she points out that only one Pakistani has won a Nobel Prize. Abdus Salam, a theoretical physicist, received the honor in 1979. But because he belonged to the Ahmadi Muslim sect, a small minority that is basically outlawed in Pakistan, Mr. Salam is an unknown in Pakistan. “To his homeland Salam’s achievements were an embarrassment and a glitch in the official narrative that Ahmadis are enemies of Islam — infidels to be avoided, mistrusted, and despised.” In contrast A. Q. Khan, a scientist who stole nuclear secrets and then peddled them to rogue states, is hailed as a national hero.

An intrepid reporter, Ms. Constable is at her best when she ventures among the underclass, the vast majority of the population trapped, she notes, at the bottom of a deeply hierarchical society. At a brick kiln she uncovers violence and desperation. In heat and dust the laborers reap little but mounting indebtedness to the harsh owners. Some of the workers resort to selling their kidneys to the underground organ trade. One man said he was 45 but, after having sold his kidney, looked 60. “The worst part,” he said, “is that I still haven’t paid off my debt.”

Ms. Constable does not ignore the elite. She writes in general about the corruption of President Asif Ali Zardari and the mixed signals of the chief of army staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. She interviews parliamentarians who for the most part are feudal landowners with an interest in perpetuating the status quo rather than seriously working toward a real democracy. She discusses the support given to Lashkar-e-Taiba and other proxy militant groups that the military uses against India and that foment extremism at home.

But her resolve to ignore the long, tortured Pakistani-American relationship, and her decision to avoid drawing conclusions about why Pakistan is on such a downward spiral, sells the reader short. Pakistani society is important for Americans to understand because the United States has a strategic interest in a country fraught with the toxic mix of nuclear weapons and Islamic militancy. That radical Islam is growing so rapidly has much to do with the refusal of the civilian leaders to push back against extremism, to run government for the benefit of the citizens rather than themselves. President Zardari was too afraid to attend the funeral of his friend Mr. Taseer, the murdered governor of Punjab. General Kayani did not appear either. It was an ideal moment for one, or both, to appeal to sanity.

These two leaders have yet to take such a firm stand, and given the anecdotal evidence of the gains of radical Islam accumulated with energy and detail by Ms. Constable, it may be too late.

Constructing a Portrait of Pakistan through the Stories of Its People by Jane Perlez, Aug. 8, 2011

Courtesy of New York Times

———————————————————————

Pakistan at war with itself

Pakistan is a vast and diverse society of some 175 million people who inhabit scattered pockets of clan and class, religion and ethnicity, poverty and power. It has a thousand separate worlds that may coexist at close quarters but never intersect. Pakistan is a country of existential as well as cultural contradictions, some of which have not been resolved since it was founded six decades ago. It is a constitutional democracy in which many people they have no access to political power or justice. It is an Islamic republic in which many Muslims feel passionate about their faith but are confused and conflicted over what role Islam should play in their society.

In all these issues lurks the same central question: why is Pakistan, with its huge military establishment, democratic form of government, and tradition of moderate Muslim culture, failing to curb both the growing violent threat and the popular appeal of radical Islam?

The most important thing that I have learned is that many Pakistanis feel they have no power. They see the trappings of representative democracy around them but little tangible evidence of it working in their lives. They feel dependent on, and often at the mercy of forces more powerful then them: landlords, police, tribal jirgas, intelligence services, politicized courts, corrupt bureaucrats, and legislators tied to local power elites. People do not trust the system, so they feel they need a patron to get around it. This in turn makes everyone complicit in corruption, especially its victims.

The second most important thing I learned is that in Pakistan, truth is an elusive and malleable commodity. Many things are gray and murky, and people survive by playing the angles, ducking their heads, and reinventing themselves. Truth is elastic, fleeting, and subject to endless political manipulation.

When those at the top of a society routinely prevaricate and obfuscate, hypocrisy becomes a way of life and the state cannot expect or demand that ordinary citizens will behave honestly. When political pressure and corruption filter down to the pettiest legal case or the smallest bureaucratic transaction, a government cannot ask its citizens to rise above them.

The third thing I began to understand was the deeply–sometimes frighteningly–emotional nature of many Pakistanis attachment to their religion. Pakistan is not a theocracy, but it was founded as a Muslim nation, its laws written in conformity with Islam, and the vast majority of its inhabitants are Muslims. Yet its citizens receive a barrage of confused messages about what it means to be a Muslim, what is the correct meaning of sharia or jihad, and what is the proper relationship between the state and religion.

Many Pakistanis are extremely passionate about Islam and easily roused to anger in its defence. To an extent the fervour correlates with class and education. In a society where millions are barely literate, raised to revere rather than question, and exposed to limited sources of information, they can be easily swept up in mob hysteria against anyone accused of insulting their religion. Police, courts, and political leaders are often reluctant to intervene, either from sympathy or from fear of backlash by powerful Islamic groups and their followers.

There are also influential people in Pakistan, including highly educated opinion makers, who deliberately equate national pride and patriotism with unquestioned support for Islam, no matter what form it takes. Some seem to be promoting a dangerous clash of civilizations with the West for purely domestic political or religious purpose.

This deliberate conflation of religion and state, famously rejected by Jinnah in 1947, was revived and promoted heavily during the Cold War era of the 1980s, when military ruler Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq launched a campaign to “Islamize” the nation. It has continued to filter through society ever since, accompanied by the proliferation of Islamic seminaries, of which there are now more than twenty thousand across the country, teaching an estimated two million students. Many of these establishments are moderate and mainstream, but others are unregulated, unregistered nurseries of hate.

Since the attacks of 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been a growing tendency toward a more muscular or conservative religious attitude among Pakistanis as well as Muslims elsewhere, from pop singers and politicians to cricket players and TV hosts. Many Pakistanis today abhor the primitive extremism of the Taliban, yet they deeply resent the West and feel stridently defensive about Islam.

In the first four months of 2011, a series of events brought Pakistan’s internal contradictions into sharply dramatic relief. They highlighted the violent divergence of religious convictions among ordinary Muslims, the cultural divide between rural and urban notions of justice, the abysmal level of mistrust between allied military and intelligence establishments in Islamabad and Washington, and the official incompetence or perfidy that allowed al Qaeda’s fugitive leader, Osama bin Laden, to live for years just a few blocks from Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point, where he was killed in a secret raid by US Navy Seals.

The first issue exploded just after the New Year, with the successive, hate-driven assassinations of two liberal Pakistani officials, Punjab Province governor Salman Taseer and the Federal Minister for Minority Religious Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti. The two men had little in common: Taseer was a brash, wealthy, and secular Muslim politico; Bhatti, a devout Christian advocate from a Punjabi village. What they shared was an outspoken commitment to religious tolerance, a cornerstone of Jinnah’s founding vision for Pakistan.

Another growing source suspicion and tension between the United States and Pakistan–despite their official partnership in the war on Islamic terrorism–was the role of covert American military and intelligence operations inside Pakistan. They included a campaign of missile strikes by CIA drone planes on military targets near the Afghan border and rumoured ground operations to spy on extremist groups. American officials had long suspected Pakistan of secretly shielding some militants, despite its adamant denials, thus necessitating covert action.

These tensions erupted in a nationwide furor in January, when Raymond Davis, a burly CIA contractor, shot dead two young men who were following his vehicle on motorbikes in Lahore; a third was struck and killed by a US embassy vehicle. The incident confirmed Pakistan’s worst suspicions about US spy activities and created an awkward dilemma for Washington, which needed to placate its allies in Islamabad but prevent Davis from being publicly tried in Pakistan.

Yet for every enduring problem in Pakistan, feudalism or corruption, militancy or injustice–there are signs of change and pockets of hope. Unfortunately forces for change can also become compromised, or work against themselves. The independent judiciary, destroyed by military rule and then restored by the extraordinary lawyer’s movement, has set an inspiring example in some cases but it has proven hidebound in others or provoked political and institutional confrontations that Pakistan can ill afford.

The remarkable rise of the independent media, especially private TV news channels, has exposed sandals and abuses, and it has made officials more accountable than ever before. Yet often news and commentary stray into sensationalism and ad hominem attacks, and influential talk show hosts frequently pander to public fears and prejudices rather than calling for fairness and facts.

But change is not coming fast enough. The majority of Pakistanis still feel excluded from politics, educational opportunities, jobs, and justice. They have become accustomed to paying bribes instead of taxes, and to seeking favour from corrupt politicians instead pf demanding service from the state. They look to someone to blame for their plight, and it is easy for them to be persuaded that foreign enemies of Pakistan and Islam are the cause, when often the problem starts at home.

Most major news in Pakistan comes from its volatile, densely packed cities–suicide bombings in Karachi, protest marches in Lahore, teeming refugee camps in Peshawar. But almost two-thirds of Pakistan’s inhabitants, more than 120 million people, still live in rural areas, and 87 million make their living straight from the land.

Agriculture dominates the national economy, with crop production and livestock contributing 31% of the total gross domestic product (GDP). Of the four provinces, Punjab and Sindh are the big breadbaskets and export producers, with hundred s of thousands of acres planted in cotton and food crops. In 2008-09, Pakistan produced 50 million tons of sugar cane, 24 million tons of wheat, 11.7 million bales of cotton, and 6 million tons of rice.

Much of Pakistan is extremely arid, and its crops are heavily dependent on man-made irrigation, including an elaborate system of canals built by the British a century ago. It also faces a chronic water shortage that is becoming more acute each year and that could seriously jeopardize its ability to feed a population that continues to grow at more than 3% a year. Some analysts call water scarcity the single greatest threat to Pakistan’s stability and survival.

At the time of Partition, land ownership in Pakistan was highly concentrated among a few families, with about 7% of farms occupying more than half the arable land and a handful of vast feudal estates accounting for one-third. In the 1950s and 1970s, two modest land reform programs broke up many large holdings, and today 93% of Pakistani farms are less than 10 acres in size. Yet many wealthy landowning families were able to skirt these limitations by parceling out property among dozens of relatives. Today large plantations still occupy 40% of the total cultivated area, and the power of the landlord class is reinforced by their continued dominance in regional and national politics.

Despite the formal break up of feudal lands, the feudal mind-set persists–especially in southern Punjab and northern Sindh–perpetuating the wide social gulf between the peon and the patron, and reinforcing the bonds of paternalism and loyalty that keep many illiterate villagers trapped on the land rather than seeking education and opportunities elsewhere.

Most rural Pakistanis live and die in small circumscribed worlds that have barely changed for generations. Often their children do not attend school, or drop out after a few years. Families need them to work in the fields and may see little benefit in sending them to class. Girls are married off early to keep them chaste and safe within the clan. Teachers are hard to recruit and keep in remote areas, and thousands of rural “ghost” schools sit empty, while bureaucrats collect their operating fees.

The result is abysmal rural literacy rates and a burgeoning population of unskilled young people who will probably never rise above their parents learning or earning levels. The national literacy rate is officially 57%, but it is only 36% for women. In some rural areas of Sindh and Balochistan, less than 20% of women are able to read, add and subtract, or even write their name. The situation is even worse in the northwest tribal areas, where militant groups often recruit unoccupied young men from poor villages.

Rural life has other priorities. It is ruled by the changing seasons and by unquestioned traditions of honour,duty, and vengeance. Villagers are subject to the decisions of the waderas, hereditary rural chiefs, and sardars, hereditary tribal leaders. In the rural areas, people are bound together by the traditions and kinship of their biraderi, a word whose definition lies somewhere between “caste” and “brotherhood”. The old nomenclature persists too, although it represents a dying way of life. Landless peasants are still known as haris and landowners as zamindars, although some zamindars are also waderas, which makes them responsible for handling the problems of haris in their area: property disputes, illness, debts, crimes, and family crisis.

Even today, many haris have never been to school, never owned a plot of land, and never earned more than a few hundred dollars or a few sacks of grain for a years hard toil. They may own a cow or a buffalo, which they have borrowed heavily to purchase, but their only luxuries are likely to be an electric fan or a bicycle. They turn to their biraderi elders for advice and to the landlord for loans. At election time, they usually vote for the candidate their elders support, and in return they are guaranteed a patron to intervene on their behalf with the police and unblock bureaucratic hurdles. They do not make news, hold protests, travel farther than the nearest city, or dare imagine any other life.

While Pakistan’s rural society remains trapped in the past, its urban class is careering toward a dynamic but perilous future. The population of its cities–especially the large metropolitan magnets such as Karachi and Lahore, and the gritty industrial zones such as Faisalabad and Sialkot–has expanded seven-fold since 1950. Karachi, a sprawling port city on the Arabian Sea is home to 18 million.

The most volatile problem facing the cities is the population explosion. More than half of Pakistanis today are under age fifteen. The number of inhabitants has doubled since the 1960s and increased by 50 million in the last twelve years alone, to an estimated 176 million. Even though families are larger in the countryside, competition for space, jobs, and basic amenities is much greater in the cities.

With formal employment market expanding much more slowly than the population, Pakistan faces an imminent youth explosion that will trap many young people in dead-end urban jobs and may push others into the arms of criminal gangs or Islamic guerrillas.

Bhutto founded the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in 1967, which championed the idea of Islamic socialism, and as prime minister, he proposed a variety of reforms aimed at reducing the power of the wealthy elite. But the antagonisms of class and ideology he aroused were seen as a dangerous threat by the permanent military and civilian establishment.

Excerpts from: Playing with Fire by Pamela Constable, Random House Inc. 2011 New York

 

 

 

General Yahya Khan; The First Free and Fair Elections; The PPP and Pakistan’s Year of Crisis; Reconciliation; In Fairness to Yahya

Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan

یحییٰ خان

Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan (‎4 February 1917 – 10 August 1980), known as Yahya Khan was Pakistan’s  military leader, martial law administrator, and  President of Pakistan. He served as President from 1969 until 1971. His presidency witnessed the breakup of Pakistan,

He participated in WWII with the British Indian Army  in the Mediterranean theatre, and opted for Pakistan’s military after Britain partitioned India in 1947. He abetted in the covert infiltration in Indian Kashmir that led to the 1965 war with India.

After  being appointed to the army command, Yahya Khan took over the presidency,  and enforced martial law by suspending the Constitution in 1969. He held the first nationwide election in 1970 but delayed transferring power to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman;  this started the civil unrest in East-Pakistan.  He authorized the military to suppress the rebellion and at the same time tried to restore order within West-Pakistan.

The crisis deepened following reports of:

• the Bhola disaster
• widespread genocide by Pakistan military, and
• persecution of Western Pakistanis by Mukti Bahini (rebel army)
• This allowed India to consolidate its moral and political position.

Pakistan suffered a decisive defeat from India in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, with loss of geopolitical influence in the Muslim world. The secession of East Pakistan as Bangladesh broke up Pakistan.  Following these events, Yahya Khan handed power to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and resigned from the army. He was disgraced when the service honours were revoked, and he was put under house surveillance for the 1970s decade. After release of restrictions in 1977, he died in 1980 in Rawalpindi.

He is viewed negatively by Pakistan’s historians, and is considered the least successful of the country’s leaders.

 Early life

Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan was born in Chakwal, Punjab in British India on 4 February 1917. He and his family were Pashtuns (Pathans).

Few Pakistanis knew anything about Yahya Khan when he was vaulted into the presidency two years ago. The stocky, bushy–browed Pathan had been the army chief of staff since 1966… Editorial, Time, 2 August 1971

 Military career

Yahya Khan was commissioned from Indian Military Academy Dehra Dun on 15 July 1939. As an infantry officer in the 4th Battalion of the 10th Baluch Regiment, he saw action during World War II in North Africa with the 4th infantry division, and was captured by the Axis Forces in June 1942. He was interned in a prisoner of war camp in Italy but  escaped. He served in Iraq, Italy, and North Africa.

1965 war and Commander-in-chief

After World War II, he joined Pakistan Army in 1947, and was instrumental in preventing the Indian officers from shifting  books from the British Indian Army Staff College Library at Quetta. He was the only Muslim instructor at the time of partition of India. At age 34, he was promoted to Brigadier and appointed commander of the “105 Independent Brigade” that was deployed at the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir in 1951-1952. He was described as a “hard drinking professional soldier” who liked both his women, and wine. Later as Deputy Chief of General Staff, he was selected to head the army’s planning board set up to modernize the army in 1954-57.

Yahya was Chief of General Staff from 1958 to 1962; he went on to command an infantry division from 1962 to 1965. He co-founded the Command and Staff College in Quetta, Balochistan. He played a pivotal role supporting President Ayub Khan’s campaign in 1965 presidential elections against Fatima Jinnah. In recognition for this, he was promoted to Major-General and made GOC of 7th Infantry Division. He commanded the division during the 1965 war with India. He was not instrumental in planning the military infiltration operation (Operation Gibraltar). Operation Grand Slam which followed failed miserably as there was a change of command and resultant delay on part of Yahya Khan as the new commander to push operations. This allowed the Indian Army to cross the intentional border and make for Lahore.

It is interesting that in response to a question by a student at the Staff College where he served as an instructor after the war, he replied that he had no orders to continue operations after relieving Major General Akhtar Hussain Malik of command.

Yahya Khan was promoted to Lieutenant-General and his promotion was approved by President Ayub Khan in 1966; he was appointed Deputy Army Commander in Chief and later Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Army in March 1966. At promotion, he superseded two of his seniors: Lieutenant-General Altaf Qadir and Lieutenant-General Bakhtiar Rana.

He energetically started reorganizing the army in 1965; post 1965  saw major organizational and technical changes in the army. Till 1965 it was thought that divisions could function effectively while taking orders from the GHQ. This planning failed in the 1965 war and the need to have an intermediate corps headquarters between the GHQ and the combat divisions was recognized as an operational necessity. In the 1965 war, the army had only one corps headquarters (i.e. the 1st Corps Headquarters).

Soon after the war started,  the U.S. imposed an embargo on military aid to both India and Pakistan. This embargo did not affect the Indian Army but produced major changes in the Pakistan Army’s technical composition. US Secretary of State Dean Rusk well summed it up when he said, “Well if you are going to fight, go ahead and fight, but we’re not going to pay for it”.

Pakistan turned to China for military aid and the Chinese T-59 tank started replacing the US M-47/48 tank from 1966 as the army’s main battle tank (MBT).  The first batch of 80 T59 tanks,  a low-grade version of the Russian T-54/55 series were delivered to Pakistan in 1965-66.

The 1965 War had signaled that the army’s tank to infantry ratio was lopsided and more infantry was required. Three infantry divisions (9, 16 and 17 Divisions) largely equipped with Chinese equipment and referred to as “The China Divisions” were raised by the beginning of 1968. Two more corps headquarters i.e. 2nd Corps Headquarters (Jhelum-Ravi Corridor) and 4th Corps Headquarters (Ravi-Sutlej Corridor) were raised.

President of Pakistan

President Ayub Khan handed power on 25 March 1969 because of increasing public resentment against him. Yahya Khan imposed martial law. Yahya inherited a twenty year constitutional problem of inter-provincial ethnic rivalry between the Punjabi-Pashtun-Mohajir dominated West Pakistan province and the ethnic Bengali Muslim East Pakistan province. Yahya also inherited an 11 year old problem of transforming an essentially one man ruled country to a democratic country, which was the basis of the anti-Ayub movement of 1968-69. As an Army Chief, he had the capabilities, qualifications and potential but he inherited a complex problem and was forced to perform multiple roles of:

• caretaker head of the country,
• drafter of a provisional constitution,
• resolving the One Unit question,
• satisfying the frustrations and the sense of exploitation and discrimination successively created in the East Wing by a series of government policies since 1948.

All these were complex problems. The seeds of Pakistan Army’s defeat and humiliation in December 1971 lay in the fact that Yahya Khan blundered unwittingly into the thankless task of fixing problems of Pakistan’s political and administrative system which had been accumulating for 20 years and had their origins in the pre-1947 British policies towards the Bengali Muslims.

The American author Ziring observed that, “Yahya Khan has been widely portrayed as a ruthless uncompromising insensitive and grossly inept leader…While Yahya cannot escape responsibility for these tragic events, it is also on record that he did not act alone…All the major actors of the period were creatures of a historic legacy and a psycho-political milieu which did not lend itself to accommodation and compromise, to bargaining and a reasonable settlement. Nurtured on conspiracy theories, they were all conditioned to act in a manner that neglected agreeable solutions and promoted violent judgements”.

The tragedy of the whole affair was the fact that all actions that Yahya took, although correct in principle, were too late, and served only to further intensify the political polarization between the East and West wings. He dissolved the one unit restoring the pre-1955 provinces of West Pakistan, and promised one man one vote, fair elections on an adult franchise basis, This was a basic human right which had been denied to the Pakistani people since the 1946 pre-independence elections by political inefficiency, double play and intrigue by civilian governments, from 1947 to 1958 and by Ayub’s dictatorship from 1958 to 1969.

However dissolution of One Unit did not lead to results that  might have happened had this been done earlier. Yahya made an attempt to accommodate the East Pakistanis by abolishing the parity principle; hoping that the greater share in the assembly would redress their wounded ethnic regional pride and ensure the integrity of the country. This this not satisfy the Bengalis;  it intensified their separatism, since they felt that West Pakistan had politically suppressed them since 1958 and anti-west wing sentiment increased in East Pakistan.

During 1968, political pressure exerted by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had weakened President Ayub Khan, who had earlier sacked him when he disagreed with the President’s decision to implement on Tashkent Agreement. To ease the situation, President Ayub tried reaching out to Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Awami League (AL), but was unsuccessful. In poor health, President Ayub abrogated his own Constitution and  resigned from the presidency.

On 24 March 1969, President Ayub via a directive invited General Yahya Khan to deal with the situation as it was “the beyond the capacity of (civil) government to deal with the… complex situation.”

On 26 March 1969, General Yahya appeared on national television and announced martial law all over the country. The 1962 Constitution was abrogated, the parliament dissolved and civilian officials dismissed. In his first nationwide address, Yahya maintained: “I will not tolerate disorder. Let everyone remain at his post.”The immediate effect was a military government and featured military officials:

Yahya Khan Administration

Ministers	Portraits	Ministries and departments	Inter–Services
General Yahya Khan		President and Chief Martial Law Administrator; Information and Broadcasting; Law and Justice; Foreign and Defence	Pakistan Army
Lieutenant-General Abdul Hamid Khan		Deputy CMLA; Interior and Kashmir Affairs	Pakistan Army
Vice-Admiral Syed Mohammad Ahsan		Deputy CMLA; Finance and Planning Commission; Statistics, Commerce, and Industry	Pakistan Navy
Air-Marshal Nur Khan		Deputy CMLA; Communications and Health; Labour and Science and Technology	Pakistan Air Force

National Security Council and LFO

President Yahya was well aware of this explosive situation and decided to bring changes all over the country. His earlier initiatives directed towards establishing the National Security Council (NSC) with Major-General Ghulam Omar as the first adviser. The NSC was formed to analyze and prepare assessments of issues relating to political and national security.

In 1969, President Yahya promulgated the Legal Framework Order No. 1970 which disestablished the One Unit programme and West Pakistan was formed. The decree had no effect on East Pakistan. Following this, President Yahya announced nationwide general elections in 1970, and appointed Judge Abdus Sattar as Chief Election Commissioner of the Election Commission of Pakistan. Changes were carried out by President Yahya to reverse the country back towards parliamentary democracy.

1970 general elections

By 28 July 1969, President Yahya had set a framework for elections that were to be held in December 1970. Finally, the general elections were held all over the country. In East Pakistan, the Awami League led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman won almost all the mandate, but had no seat in any of four provinces of West Pakistan. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won the mandate in the four provinces of West Pakistan, but none in East-Pakistan. The Pakistan Muslim League (PML) led by Nurul Amin was the only party to have representation all over the country, though it failed to gain the mandate to run the government. The Awami League had 160 seats, all won from the East-Pakistan; the PPP had secured 81; the conservative PML had 10 seats in the National Assembly. The general elections’ results truly reflected the ugly political reality:

the division of the Pakistani electorate along regional lines and political polarization of the country between the two states, East Pakistan and Pakistan.

In political terms, Pakistan as a nation stood divided.  Bilateral talks between PPP and the Awami League of Mujibur Rahman produced no results and they were unable to come to an agreement of transfer of power to East-Pakistan’s representatives on the basis of the Six-Point programme. In West Pakistan, the people felt that the six-point agenda was a step towards secession. In media reports, it has since emerged that Mujib met Indian diplomats in London in 1969 according to his daughter and agreed to secede from Pakistan.

 Genocide in East-Pakistan

The political deadlock remained between the Awami League, PPP, and the military government after the general elections of 1970. During this time, Yahya began coordinating several meetings with his military strategists over this issue in East Pakistan.

On 25 March 1971, President Yahya initiated Operation Searchlight to restore the writ of the government. Partially successful but the situation in East-Pakistan worsened. The gulf between the two wings was too wide to be bridged. Agitation was transformed into an insurgency as Bengali elements of the Pakistan armed forces and police mutinied, and along with the people launched hit and run operations. Operation Searchlight ordered by Yahya was a planned military pacification carried out by the Pakistan Armed Forces to curb the Bengali nationalist movement in East Pakistan in March 1971;  this was a sequel to Operation Blitz which had been launched in November 1970.

The original plan envisioned taking control of the major cities on 26 March 1971, and then eliminating all opposition, political or military, within one month. The prolonged Bengali resistance was not anticipated by Pakistani planners. The main phase of Operation Searchlight ended with the fall of the last major town in Bengali hands in mid May.

The total number of people killed in East Pakistan is not known with any degree of accuracy. Bangladesh authorities claim that 3 million people were killed, while the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, an official Pakistan Government investigation, put the figure at 26,000 civilian casualties. According to Sarmila Bose, between 50,000 and 100,000 combatants and civilians were killed on both sides during the war. A 2008 British Medical Journal study by Ziad Obermeyer, Christopher J. L. Murray, and Emmanuela Gakidou estimated that up to 269,000 civilians died as a result of the conflict; the authors note that this is far higher than a previous estimate of 58,000 from Uppsala University and the Peace Research Institute, Oslo. According to Serajur Rahman, the official Bangladesh estimate of “3 lakhs” (300,000) was wrongly translated into English as 3 million.

Yahya Khan had Sheikh Mujibur Rahman arrested on charges of sedition. He appointed Brigadier Rahimuddin Khan (later General) to preside over a special tribunal dealing with case. He was awarded the death sentence, and President Yahya put the verdict into abeyance. Yahya’s crackdown, however, led to a Bangladesh Liberation War within East Pakistan. This drew India  into the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. The result was the establishment of Bangladesh as an independent republic. Yahya Khan apologized for his mistakes and voluntarily stepped down.

US role

The United States had been a major sponsor of President Yahya’s military government, as noted in a reference written by Gary Bass in the “The Blood Telegram”: “President Nixon liked very few people, but he liked General Yahya Khan.” Personal initiatives of President Yahya had helped in establishing  a communication channel between the United States and China, which would be used to set up Nixon’s trip in 1972.

Since 1960, Pakistan was perceived in the United States as a bulwark against Communism in the Cold War. The United States cautiously supported Pakistan during 1971, although Congress kept in place an arms embargo. India with a heavily socialist economy entered in a formal alliance with the Soviet Union in August 1971.

Nixon relayed several written and oral messages to President Yahya, strongly urging him to restrain Pakistan forces. His objective was to prevent a war and safeguard Pakistan’s interests, though he feared that an Indian invasion of Pakistan would lead to Indian domination of the subcontinent and strengthen the the Soviet Union. Similarly, President Yahya feared that an independent Bangladesh could lead to the disintegration of West Pakistan. Indian military participation and support to Bengali guerrillas led to war between India and Pakistan.

In November 1971, Richard Nixon met Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He did not believe that she would not invade Pakistan. Kissinger pointed out that Nixon made specific proposals to Prime Minister Gandhi on a solution for the crisis, some of which she heard for the first time, including a mutual withdrawal of troops from East Pakistan borders.

Nixon also expressed a wish to fix a time limit for Yahya about political accommodation for East Pakistan. Nixon asserted that India could count on US endeavors to ease the crisis within a short time.  Both Kissinger and Gandhi’s aide Jayakar maintained that she did not respond to these proposals. Kissinger noted that she “listened to what was in fact one of Nixon’s better presentations with aloof indifference” but “took up none of the points.” Jayakar pointed out that Gandhi listened to Nixon “without a single comment, creating an impregnable space so that no real contact was possible.” She also refrained from assuring that India would follow Pakistan’s suit if it withdrew from India’s borders. As a result, this agenda was “dropped altogether.”

On 3 December, Yahya preemptively attacked the Indian Air Force bases and Gandhi retaliated, pushing into East Pakistan. Nixon issued a statement blaming Pakistan for starting the conflict and blaming India for escalating it because he favored a cease-fire. The United States was secretly encouraging the shipment of military equipment from Iran, Turkey, and Jordan to Pakistan, reimbursing those countries despite Congressional objections. The US used the threat of an aid cut-off to force Pakistan to back down, while its continued military aid to Islamabad. The US  prevented India from launching incursions deeper into West Pakistan. Pakistan forces in East Pakistan surrendered on 16 December 1971 leading to the creation of the independent state of Bangladesh.

Fall from power

When the news of surrender of East Pakistan reached through the national television, an overwhelming public anger rose over Pakistan’s defeat by Bangladeshi rebels and the Indian Army, followed by the breakup of Pakistan The anger boiled into street demonstrations throughout Pakistan. Rumours of an impending coup d’état by junior military officers against President Yahya swept the country. Yahya became the highest-ranking casualty of the war. On 20 December, 1971,  to forestall further unrest, he handed over the presidency and government to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto— the leader of Pakistan People’s Party.

Within hours of Yahya stepping down, President Bhutto reversed judge advocate general’s (JAG’s) verdict against Mujibur Rehman and released him to go to London. President Bhutto also signed orders for Yahya’s house confinement, the man who imprisoned Mujib in the first place.

Death

Yahya remained under house arrest until 1979 when he was released from the custody by martial law administrator General Fazle Haq. He remained away from public events and died on 10 August 1980 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan

• 3rd President of Pakistan: 25 March 1969 – 20 December 1971
• Commander in Chief of Pakistan Army: 18 June 1966 – 20 December 1971

Personal details

• Born: Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan
• 4 February 1917, Chakwal, Punjab, British Indian Empire (now in Punjab, Pakistan)
• Died: 10 August 1980 (aged 63)
• Rawalpindi, Pakistan
• Resting place: Westridge

Citizenship

• British Indian Empire
• Pakistan

Nationality    

• British Subject (1917–1947)
• Pakistan (1947–1980)
• Political party: None
• Domestic partner: Akleem Akhtar

Alma mater

• Punjab University
• Indian Military Academy
• Command and General Staff College

Religion: Islam

Civilian awards         

• Nishane-e-Pakistan (withdrawn)
• Hilal-e-Pakistan (withdrawn)
• Order of Pahlavi (Iran).gif Neshan-e-Pahlavi

Military service

Service/branch

• British Indian Army
• Pakistan Army
• Years of service: 1939–1971
• Rank    OF-9 Pakistan Army.svgUS-O10 insignia.svg General
• Unit: 4/10th Baluch Regiment (S/No. PA–98)

Commands    

• Deputy Chief of Army Staff
• GOC 7th Division (Peshawar)
• 15th Division, Sialkot
• 14th Division, Dacca
• 105th Independent Brigade

Battles/Wars

• World War II-Mediterranean theatre
• Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
• Battle of Chawinda
• Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
• Bangladesh Liberation War

Military awards

• Hilal-e-Jurat (withdrawn)

By courtesy Wikipedia.org (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15585926).

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The First Free and Fair Elections

 

october 13, 2016 by smhusain1, posted in history, ind-pakistan, pakistan

The tales of the refugees were harrowing, their plight truly pitiful. Important visitors came to see them. One was the American senator Edward Kennedy, his handsome face and shirt sleeves translucent amidst the sea of human misery. George Harrison sang in Bengali, ‘O bhagaban khodatallah, moder chhaira kotha gela’ (O Lord God, where have you gone abandoning us). A Bengali singer sang ‘ Shono ekti Mujborer theke lakkha Mujiborer kanthaswarer dhwani pratidhwani akashe batase othe roni—Bangladesh, amar Bangladesh!’ (Listen, from the voice of one Mujib a lakh Mujib’s voices speak and echo around the wind and sky—Bangladesh, my Bangladesh!).

Finally full-fledged war broke out between India and Pakistan. There had been a war between India and Pakistan just a few years before, when I was very small. At that time the people of East Pakistan were fighting against India. “The war was short-lived, however. India won, Bangladesh became free. There was euphoria all round. The Indian army was led by Sam Manekshaw, who exuded a dashing ‘can do’. But the man of the moment was the commander of the Eastern command, General Jagjit Singh Aurora, a smartly turbaned Sikh, framed for history as he sat with a large man in a beret called General A.A.K. Niazi, who signed the surrender documents on behalf of Pakistan. Sheikh Mujib, a prisoner in West Pakistan for nine months, returned to Dhaka to a hero’s welcome.

Twenty years later I was recording a radio interview for the BBC in Bush House in London, where I was one of the presenters of a South Asia news programme. My interviewee, in Delhi, was General Jagjit Singh Aurora. As we tried to get the sound right, I talked to General Aurora. I told him that I was from Calcutta and remembered him as a war- hero. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ said a kindly voice from the other end of a crackly line. For the most part, however, General Aurora was agitated. His interview was about human rights violations against Sikhs in Indian Punjab and draconian laws like TADA*.
* Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act.

I was sympathetic to the issue and the interview went smoothly. Later I heard that it had not gone as well with an Indian language program and General Aurora had gone upset. Here was a war- hero of 1971 pitted against the very state he had served, on the grounds of violation of the rights of his people. I thought I might write something of the irony.

Another decade passed before the spark became a full- fledged research project on 1971. In the meantime General Aurora’s public status as a war- hero did not correspond to the view of some of his fellow officers. One wrote that ‘his command did not take him seriously as a fighter because he did not display the flamboyance of a soldiers’ general’. Another sneered that he ‘was not regarded in the Army as a commander of any distinction, and that ‘he had failed to win the trust and confidence of most field commanders’. A third, not content with a book’s worth of disparaging remarks, even sniped at his wife. General Aurora did not write his memoirs. By the time I met him face to face, it was no longer possible to discuss the details of 1971 with him.

If this was the fate of the winning commander, I wondered what had become of the one who had lost. The result was a revelation. General A.A.K. Niazi turned out to have a distinguished past and a tragic fate. Honoured by the British with the Military Cross for his performance on the Burma front during the Second World War, he was a general who had literally fought his way up from the ranks of a humble background. In his book and his discussions with me, he condemned the way in which General Tikka Khan had conducted the military action in Dhaka on 25 March 1971, but also criticised General Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, the previous Governor, for copping out at the eleventh hour of the crisis. The Bengal insurgency was wiped out within a few weeks of Niazi’s arrival in East Pakistan in April 1971. But in the continuing absence of any political settlement, his men ended up fighting a weary war against Indian assisted guerillas for months and then a full scale invasion by India from all directions, helped by the population,  largely hostile to the Pakistan army. By all accounts the Pakistan army performed astonishingly well against India in East Pakistan under almost impossible odds. Nevertheless, suffering the humiliation of becoming the face of Pakistan ‘surrender’, Niazi found himself vilified by his own people for losing to India.

Much of the literature on 1971 is preoccupied with the conflict between India and Pakistan, with the Cold War as backdrop, marginalising the people of the land where it was fought. Indian accounts are predictably triumphal with regard to victory over Pakistan, with the memoirs of a few officers peppered with self- promotion and derogation of others. Most of the key players did not publish memoirs. Pakistani discussions on 1971 are full of bitter recriminations, mostly with regard to losing to India, with deafening silence from the majority of those who served in East Pakistan. The Bangladeshi refrain, by contrast, plays volubly and melodramatically on the theme of Pakistani ‘villains’ and Bengali ‘victims’, often with scant regard for factual accuracy or analytical sophistication. The material from all parties to the conflict is relentlessly partisan, with the Bangladeshi ones infused with a deep sense of grievance that their suffering has not been given due acknowledgement in the world. Yet, in spite of the passage of three decades, Bangladeshis collectively failed to produce well-researched, documented and thoughtful histories of 1971 which might influence world opinion with any degree of credibility.

I started the study with enormous sympathy for the Bangladeshis as ‘victims’ in a conflict in which they had justice on their side- the other side, after all, was a military regime that had refused to let a legitimately elected party assume the powers of government and tried to suppress the Bengali rebellion by military force. I agreed with the complaint that the traumatic birth of Bangladesh had been quickly marginalised in the discourse on world politics, but was less sure of the reasons. Perhaps, it was because Bangladesh was a poor ‘brown’ country, as many Bengals believe, with no role to play in the remainder of the Cold War. However, Bangladeshis were clearly responsible for their own marginalization, having failed to produce well-documented and analytical histories of the 1971 conflict in thirty years of independence. I expected my work to start the process of filling that void, by careful chronicling and thoughtful analyses of a few events on the ground that would provide insights on the conflict as a whole.

By the end of the study, I still had enormous sympathy for those who had truly suffered in the 1971 conflict, but who they were had changed substantially along with the story- line. The Bengalis splintered into many fragments- those who wanted an independent Bangladesh, those who supported a united Pakistan, those who desired autonomy but not secession, those who actively fought for whichever side they supported, and those who like Dr. Zhivago wanted to ‘just live’ but got caught in the upheaval nevertheless. There were combatants and non- combatants, victims of violence and its perpetrators. The West Pakistanis did not present a united front either, politically or militarily, and the armed forces ranged widely in the manner in which they carried out martial law duties or counter- insurgency operations in East Pakistan.

In the terrible violence of fratricidal war the victims were from every ethnic and religious group and from both sides of the political divide, and so were the perpetrators, as is normal. Humanity was just as normally distributed. Both sides had legitimate political arguments and their idealistic followers, along with those who indulged in opportunism, expediency and inhumanity. Many Bengalis- supposed to be fighting for freedom and dignity- committed appalling atrocities; many Pakistani Army officers, carrying out a military action against a political rebellion, turned out to be fine men doing their best to fight an unconventional war within the conventions of war. Moreover, the war turned out not to have been a battle between East and West Pakistan, nor between democracy and authoritarianism. It defies all such easy dichotomies, particularly those aspiring to be approximations of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. If some of this seems but natural in conflicts of this nature, it is yet to touch the discourse on the 1971 war. Many things taken to be established facts in the dominant narrative with which I grew up were demonstrated to be either false or seriously distorted; equally, the study revealed events and aspects that were entirely missing from the discourse so far.

A longstanding theme of the 1971 conflict, confirmed by the study in unexpected ways, is the state of denial in Pakistan: a refusal to confront what really happened in East Pakistan. However, the study revealed a greater state of denial in Bangladesh and to some extent in India with regard to the true nature of the conflict. In many ways the subsequent political formations in Bangladesh have been fighting out the battles of 1971 ever since, each constructing its own version of history. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this trend is the tendency on the part of pro-liberation Bangladeshi to deny, minimise or justify the brutalities committed by Bengali nationalists against non-Bengalis and non- nationalists during 1971. The culture of violence fomented by 1971 explains much of what happened in Bangladesh subsequently and the cultivated mythologies of all sides aim to bequeath the legacies of hatred to successive generations.

By the end of the study I had a far better understanding as to why the fairy- tale ending of 1971 for Bangladesh went so horribly wrong. As Sheikh Mujib arrived in Dhaka on 10 January 1972 via London and Delhi to a collective euphoria, Peter Hazelhurst reported in The Times on public resentment towards the Indians, the’ liberators‘ greeted with flowers only a few days before, disillusionment with the new government, and ‘a xenophobia so deep that only those who speak East Bengali with a pure dialect are considered sons of the soil’. Within months of the creation of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujib and his party,  the Awami League, who had fought the war in the name of democracy, turned the country into a personal autocracy formalised later as a one party state. In August 975 Bengali army officers who had supported the liberation movement assassinated Mujib and massacred his entire family except for two daughters who were away at the time. Several former ‘freedom fighters’ and Mujib’s cabinet colleagues were imprisoned and then murdered in jail. Bengali army officers who had fought for Bangladesh’s liberation then fought each other in coups and counter coups until Zia- ur Rahman prevailed.  Zia was assassinated in a coup in 1981 and Bangladesh remained under military rule until the 1990s. A new era of democratic politics thereafter manifested itself as an implacable rivalry between the daughter of one slain leader and the widow of another. Violence as the answer to political difference remains the dominant political currency.

Meanwhile, the remaining part of Pakistan also returned to lengthy periods of military rule and is still fighting armed rebellion in its other provinces. India intervened with military force in a neighbouring country again in 1975, annexing the kingdom of Sikkim, and Indira Gandhi–‘deliverer’ of freedom and democracy in Bangladesh-tried to impose personal dictatorship in India. Both wings of the ‘Muslim nation’ broken by the 1971 war- Pakistan and Bangladesh- remain dogged by concerns that they are ‘failed’ or ‘failing’ states and are perceived to be involved on both sides of the ‘global war on terrorism’.

By courtesy: Dead Reckoning by Sarmila Bose, Columbia University Press, New York 2011

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The PPP and Pakistan’s Year of Crisis

The elections of 1970 opened up the possibility of a major re-alignment of power in Pakistan, both downward to new social groups and outward to regionalist parties. In giving unexpected majorities to the Awami League in East Pakistan and the Pakistan People’s Party in the West, the elections rocked the elite institutions and power groups in control of the Centre. Instead of finding themselves in a position neatly to manipulate a plethora of competing minority parties, they found themselves faced by two parties, both of which could claim to speak for mass constituencies demanding democratic institutions and economic reforms. In East Pakistan, of course, a substantial degree of autonomy was seen as crucial to the introduction of necessary reforms; and it was this question of the ‘quantum of autonomy’ for East Pakistan that came to dominate the three months of negotiations after the elections. Nineteen seventy-one became Pakistan’s year of deepest crisis. The elections were barely over when what was hoped would be a period of negotiations leading to a new constitution turned into one of bitter and intense confrontation in which the future of Pakistan’s survival as a united state came to hang in the balance. This was the year that saw the failure of the Yahya-Mujib-Bhutto negotiations, the de facto Awami League government of East Pakistan (night of 25-26 March), the proclamation of an independent Bangladesh, growing foreign involvement in the crisis, the India-Pakistan War (20 November to 18 December) the fall of Dhaka (16 December), the dismemberment of Pakistan and the replacement of the Yahya Regime in West Pakistan by a PPP government (20 December). It was a year of extra-ordinary complexity and controversy, of monumental miscalculations by all the major parties and of cataclysmic human tragedy. Much has been written about the circumstances surrounding the emergence of Bangladesh, and more can be expected. Here, we want to avoid too deep an entanglement in the crisis, though at least an overview of it is unavoidable.

For Bhutto and the PPP, the elections were a major victory. Under normal parliamentary conventions, the PPP could expect to control both the Sindh and Punjab Assemblies and lead the opposition in the National Assembly, where it held 82 to 85 of 300 seats-about half of the Awami League’s majority of 162. But Bhutto was not content to sit in the opposition. He insisted that the PPP’s holding of the majority of West Pakistan NA seats gave his party the right not only to speak for all of West Pakistan, but also to have a share of power at the Centre. He also insisted that after the elections only three major power centres existed in Pakistan: the Yahya Regime, representing the military, the Awami League, representing East Pakistan, and the PPP, representing West Pakistan. Undoubtedly, Bhutto, who always claimed to understand ‘the facts of power,’ realized the PPP was very much the junior partner in this triad of power centres, but he also understood that, at the very least, a political and constitutional settlement would have to be arrived at between two of the power centres. His statements and maneuvers during the post-election period become much more explicable if it is understood that he was attempting to position the PPP to be one of them. For Bhutto, the politician and party leader, to gain political power was sufficient to greatly augment it, but to lose the game would jeopardize his hold over the PPP and open the way for its more opportunistic elements to be bought off by the winners.

It is important, during this period, to keep in mind the political situation in West Pakistan. There the elites industrial, landed and bureaucratic- had begun to pull together to face the PPP threat to their interests. Shocked at the defeat they had not expected, they reacted strongly to prove that while an election may be a measure of opinion, it is not finally a measure of power and influence. This process had begun even before the holding of the Provincial Assembly elections (17 December), but it continued with growing force during the first three months of 1971. The elite-counter movement was most successful in the countryside, where, aided by the bureaucracy and the police, it produced a spate of tenant ejections. Out of power during the long months while the East Pakistan situation was being decided, the PPP had to rely on its party organizations to counter the attacks on its rural support base l ( property less kammis and tenants and small landholder-cum- tenant farmers). But, while there were exceptions, the highly touted kissan communities, implanted in the countryside by urban based PPP left wing, proved unable to stem the quiet ‘counterrevolution’ in the countryside. In the cities, where PPP organizations were stronger, the rapid rise of prices after the elections and a wave of worker retrenchments, in the large and medium industrial sectors, created more palpable tensions. Buoyed by the PPP election victory, the party left wing and its worker’s committees demanded the immediate transfer of power to a Kisan-Mazdur-Raj (‘Peasant-Worker-Rule’). Increasing incidents of factory takeovers, strikes (hartals), blockades (gheraos) occurred in all of the major industrial cities, but it was in Lyallpur that the most serious outbreak occurred. There on 25 March 1971, after the arrest of Mukhtar Rana, PPP MNA and Lyallpur party Chairman, worker-led mobs went on a city-wide rampage of arson and looting. People’s guards fought pitched battles with the police, destroying the Jhang Bazaar Police station. By nightfall the city was put under a curfew and the army called in to maintain civil order. This kind of incendiary outbreak was not entirely unwelcome to the elites, for it strengthened their own efforts to convince the military junta of the dangers of PPP radicalism. Bhutto, who was aware of the elite lobby’s attempt to turn the military regime into the savior of their interests, found it necessary to bring the PPP left wing under greater control. This as we shall note shortly, had a distinct impact on party organization and the balance of its internal factions.

But, to return to the larger national crisis, Bhutto was prepared to negotiate with either of the two other power centres, though in both cases there were risks as well as advantages. In the flush of the election victory, his first effort was to seek a settlement with Mujib on the basis of a democratic alternative to military rule. But Bhutto’s approach to Mujib was a public one, made from a position that emphasized the PPP’s strengths rather than its weaknesses. The PPP Chairman thus portrayed himself as the leader of West Pakistan and insisted that the constitution could neither be framed nor a government formed at the Centre without the cooperation of the PPP. Speaking before the Punjab Assembly Chambers on 20 December 1970, Bhutto declared that the PPP was not prepared to occupy the opposition benches in the National Assembly. The party could not wait for another five years to hold power, redeem its pledges to the people and solve the country’s problems. He took the position that a ‘majority alone doesn’t count in national politics,’ that the PPP had won the Punjab and Sindh- the two provinces where the ‘real power’ of the centre lay, -and that therefore no government at the Centre could be run without the cooperation of his party. The next day he told a news conference that the ‘quantum of autonomy’ ( for East Pakistan) could not be determined by the force of a majority in the House, as in that case the National Assembly would not be able to give a Constitution acceptable to both wings of the country. Pointing to the extreme regional bifurcation of the country along party lines, Bhutto called for a ‘grand coalition’ between the PPP and Awami League at the Centre so that both ‘majority’ parties could fulfill their promises to the people in their respective wings. During this early post-election period, the PPP Chairman emphasized his party’s program of social and economic reform, denounced the industrial and business sectors for an ‘artificial inflation of prices,’ and promised ‘oppressive feudal lords’ that the day would soon come when they would have to answer to the People’s Party. These themes were fully consistent with his post-election strategy of pressing for the transfer of power from the military junta to a PPP-Awami League coalition at the Centre. Behind Bhutto’s demand for a share of power and a broader constitutional settlement was his expressed desire to safeguard the interests not only of West Pakistan, but of Pakistan as a whole. Hence some concession by the Awami League on the Six Points was crucial to the success of a ‘grand coalition’ strategy. Writing later in his own explanation of the events of this period, Bhutto noted the dilemma for the PPP was:

whether to surrender to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Six Point demand which would have led to constitutional secession within a few months, or to resist the demand, which would endanger the return to democracy and civilian rule, and carry with it the possibility of a violent parting of the ways. It was therefore essential to make every endeavor to find a political compromise on Six Points so that democracy could be restored and Pakistan saved from disintegration.

Perhaps because the stridency of its tone masked its real purpose, Bhutto’s initial push for a ‘grand coalition’ was greeted with outrage and derision in East Pakistan. More importantly, it was rejected by Mujib, who pointed out that under normal parliamentary convention the PPP would lead the opposition in the National Assembly and that Bhutto would have to be content with that and the PPP’s control of the Sindh and Punjab Assemblies. But, while spurning Bhutto, Mujib made a mistake of also alienating the other ‘power centre’ the Yahya Regime. This he accomplished by adopting an uncompromising position on the Six Points, despite his earlier promises to Yahya that these would be modified after the elections. Needless to say, President Yahya felt personally betrayed by Mujib. Not only had his position within his own power group been undermined by his failure to moderate Mujib’s demands, but his hope to retain the Presidency of Pakistan under the new constitution was now unlikely. He had begun his post-election trip to Dhaka observing that he was going for consultations with the man who would be the next Prime Minister of Pakistan, but returned to West Pakistan a disillusioned and embittered man.

On his return, his first stop after Karachi was Larkarna, where on 17 January he met with Bhutto. It was here, Professor G.W. Chaudhury and others believe, that a ‘new and sinister alliance . . . between the military junta and Bhutto  ….’ was formed. The nature and extent of this ‘alliance’ is difficult to judge. Certainly, both Bhutto and the military hawks- a group that did not include Yahya-believed that the Six Points demand was more than a plan that would emasculate the Central Government and cut the economic ground from under the military, but was in reality a ‘concealed formula for secession.’ There is ample evidence that during the next month (17 January to 17 February) Bhutto developed closer understandings and relationships with the hard line element of the GHQ. Undoubtedly these contacts were directed at gaining a power sharing role for Bhutto, or, at the very least, giving him a veto over the constitutional formula. It is interesting that in this period the main emphasis in Bhutto’s public statements shifted from socialist to nationalist themes. Also, on the day before he met Yahya at Larkarna, he moved to cool the class confrontationist atmosphere inside West Pakistan by forcing an end to the tense hunger strike at the Progressive Papers Limited in Lahore, in which the left wing of the Punjab PPP was deeply involved. These were signs that Bhutto was acting to make himself more palatable to the junta by toning down his socialist rhetoric, proving that he could control the radicals in his party, and shifting the attention of Punjabis away from local issues and toward the East Pakistan-West Pakistan confrontation.

By mid-February, the political situation began to mob rapidly. At his 12 February meeting with Yahya, Bhutto evidently received assurances that the President was now backing him. On 13 February at a reception in Peshawar, he is reported to have said:

Bhutto is once again in the saddle. It had been decided by the powers that are. Mujib is out. I’m to be Prime Minister.

But, on 14 February Yahya, who had little love for Bhutto, announced that the National Assembly would meet on 3 March thus disregarding Bhutto’s demand that the sessions be postponed until a PPP-Awami League agreement on a constitutional formula had been achieved.

Needless to say, Mujib had been consistently demanding an immediate summoning of the NA. Bhutto’s response to the Yahya move was to declare a PPP boycott of the National Assembly sessions. This declaration was made at Peshawar on 15 February and ratified by a meeting of the PPP Central Committee, provincial party leaders, MNAs and MPAs, at Karachi on 22 February. Despite efforts by Bhutto to bring leaders like Daultana, Wali Khan and Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan behind the PPP, only one other party in West Pakistan supported the boycott. This was the QML, the party with the closest ties to the GHQ. There were also reports that some of the hawks in the GHQ lobbied in favour of the boycott with the MNAs of other West Pakistan parties. The hawks were also exerting great pressure on Yahya. On 17 February Yahya’s civilian cabinet was dissolved and a meeting of the top echelons of the military–Military Governors, Chief Martial Law Administrators, Chief of Staff, service chiefs and the Presidential circle- was held in Rawalpindi. It was at this meeting where the decision to confront the Awami League was taken. Those who protested-Admiral Ahsan, E.P. Governor, and Lt. Gen. Sahibzada Yakub Khan, E.P. Chief Martial Law Administrator- were shortly removed from their positions.

The machinery of confrontation was put into effect and the build-up of troops in East Pakistan begun.

On 28 February unable to persuade any other party but the QML to support his boycott an facing an incipient rebellion from a group of PPP MNAs who wanted to attend the NA, Bhutto raised the ante by threatening a ‘people’s movement’ from Khyber to Karachi unless (1) the National Assembly session were postponed or (2) the 120 day deadline for completing the constitution were removed. He also threatened to ‘break the legs’ of anyone who went to Dhaka from West Pakistan. The next day Yahya obliged- some would say ‘rescued’- the PPP Chairman by announcing the indefinite postponement of the NA session due to the internal political stalemate and external (I.e., Indian) interference. He Awami also gave Bhutto a veto over the constitution making process by agreeing that ‘both East and West Pakistan have an adequate sense of participation in the process of constitution making.’ According to Professor Choudhury:

Yahya’s announcement on 1 March . . . could not have been more provocative or tragic. When I asked him about it on 5 March he looked vacant and helpless; I was convinced he had only been a signatory to it. Bhutto and Peerzada were reported to have drafted the statement. Yahya, unlike on previous occasions, did not broadcast it; it was only read out over the radio.

The reaction in East Pakistan was galvanic. Blamed for the deadlock by the President’s 1 March statement, the Awami League was now certain that the PPP and junta had combined to deny the majority party its right to rule and make the new constitution. Calls were heard for an independent Bangladesh and the Awami League moved to assert de facto control over the civil and economic life of the province. After bloody clashes in the streets between mobs and the army, the troops were withdrawn to their cantonments (5 March), where they came under a social and economic boycott. At the same time the Awami league organized its own irregular forces. In parts of East Pakistan, the killings of West Pakistanis and Biharis and the settling of old scores between Bengalis began.

The unprecedentedly massive reaction in East Pakistan–Bhutto called it an ‘overreaction’-put something of the initiative back into Yahya’s hands. On 14 March Bhutto, now in danger of being pushed to the periphery of events, made the extraordinary demand that power be transferred to the PPP in West Pakistan and the Awami League in East Pakistan, after which the two parties should be left alone to settle the constitutional problems between themselves. He also re-emphasized his party’s socialist program. On the same date, Yahya and Mujib began their final dialogue in Dhaka, a city under Awami League control. On 19 March they reached a tentative agreement on the holding of the National Assembly. It would be divided abd initio into two committees, one comprising all West Pakistan MNAs, the other of all those from East Pakistan, each of which would formulate the special provisions for its own area. The NA would then meet as a body to frame constitution. In the meantime martial law would be lifted and cabinet governments formed at the Centre and in the provinces by the relevant majority or coalition. These proposals were placed in a Draft Proclamation for the President’s signature prepared by the Awami League team in the form of a final offer on 24 March. A perusal of this document shows that Yahya, as he admitted in his broadcast on 26 March, made a number of important concessions on the Six Points. But Yahya made his agreement contingent on that of the other political leaders, principally Bhutto, and the latter was called to Dhaka, where he arrived on 21 March with a PPP delegation. Bhutto and his delegation found the Yahya-Mujib agreement impossible to accept, as did the military hard liners in the GHQ, the QML politicians and now those in the CML. The PPP rejection was made known on 22 March, but it was assumed the talks would continue. This they did on 23 March, ‘Pakistan Day,’ the day on which Pakistan flags and pictures of Jinnah were burned throughout East Pakistan an replaced by the flag of Bangladesh. On 24 and 25 March in an atmosphere of explosive tensions, contacts and talks continued. But by the time the die was cast and the army was gathering to move, the preparatory signal having been given by Yahya on 24 March. Indeed, many have argued that the last round of talks was merely a charade, carried on to give the army time to complete its build- up. Claiming later to have acted to pre-empt an imminent armed uprising by Awami League irregulars, the police, the East Pakistan Rifles and the East Bengal Regiment, the army began its ‘crackdown’ about midnight on 25 March. The final, most horrendous miscalculations was that of the military hawks. Believing that they could ‘fix up’ the situation in 72 hours, the generals struck with savagery at the classes and social groups that were the backbone of the Awami League. But it would be more than a month before the army regained a tenuous ‘daylight’ control over the East Pakistan countryside. By then the army’s action had precipitated a growing international crisis and a man-made human disaster, the like of which had not been seen in the post war era. For the Awami League, there was no turning back. Even as the army moved but before his own arrest, Mujibur Rahman recorded a Declaration of Independence of Bangladesh. A formal proclamation was made on 10 April 1971 by the ‘government of Bangladesh’ (later the Government-in -Exile under Tajuddin Ahmad) from ‘Mujeeb Nagar’ on the East Bengal-West Bengal border.

The army action in East Pakistan did not end the pressure for a transfer of power in West Pakistan. Yahya may have contributed to these expectations when he promised in his speech of 26 March:

In the end let me assure you that my main aim remains the same, namely transfer of power to the elected representatives of the people. As soon as the situation permits it, I will take fresh steps towards the achievement of this objective.

In the meantime, however, all political activities were banned throughout the country and the Awami League was completely banned as a political party. Despite Yahya’s assurances, the army action and the banning of the Awami League threw the politics of the country into uncertainty and abruptly halted the movement toward ‘popular rule’ under way since the fall of Ayub.

Perhaps it was this uncertainty about the direction the country was taking that accounted for Bhutto’s sombre mood on his return from Dhaka. Nevertheless, Bhutto’s post-25 March public statements reveal an expectation, possibly based on his understandings with hard line elements in the GHQ that the Regime would shortly transfer power to the PPP in West Pakistan. The PPP Chairman supported the army crackdown in East Pakistan saying that it had acted only hours before a planned Declaration of Independence, and asked his party men to ‘strengthen Yahya’s hands’ by keeping an eye on ‘anti Pakistan elements’ in West Pakistan. He defended his pre-25 March demand for a share in power and constitution making by saying that he did not trust the intentions of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his party vis a vis the country’s integrity.

Bhutto’s sense of optimism proved to be false. He met Yahya on 28 April and was told that no move towards transfer of power could be made until the political situation in East Pakistan was ‘normalized.’ it was evident that he junta had little need for the PPP for the time being. Mujib had warned the PPP Chairman not to trust the army, pointing out that ‘if they destroyed him first, they will also destroy me.’ Bhutto cannot have been unaware of an element of truth in this statement, though any move against the PPP would be political and not military, for the army was West Pakistan. Some officers, using the Jama’at-i-Islami as their spokesman, already were attempting to blame the PPP for the failure in East Pakistan and demanding that in no case should the PPP be given a share in power.

The PPP Chairman now found himself in a difficult position. Without the assurance of immediate political power, his party would come under centrifugal strains. Yet, in acting to maintain its unity by re- emphasizing its ‘revolutionary’ nature, he had to keep from too directly threatening the junta. He refused to ‘rock the boat’ by undertaking a ‘people’s’ movement as some in the party wanted, and instead started a two-month long tour of Punjab and Sindh ‘to consult his party’. This enabled him to deal with party organizational matters, explain the events in East Pakistan, re- emphasize his image as the ‘people’s choice,’ and gradually build up pressure for a transfer of power to the PPP so that the ‘people’s representatives’ could solve the country’s problems. Bhutto’s demands became more insistent as the scope of the army’s action in East Pakistan became apparent and the international situation turned against Pakistan. He urged the placing of ‘political responsibility in political leaders’ and said he was in ‘a terribly shocked state of mind and a tremendous state of agony ‘on seeing ‘my country kicked around.’

In mid- July, the junta decided to negotiate a limited transfer of power with the political parties. Bhutto’s talks with Yahya on 16 July were ‘satisfactory’ and the PPP leader continued to point out that with the Awami League banned; the PPP was the majority party in the National Assembly. Bhutto had the backing of the hard liners in the GHQ, but others in the high command and the upper bureaucracy were hostile to the appointment of Bhutto as Prime Minister. The period between 16 July and 7 December when a civilian cabinet was formed, was one of frenetic manoeuvring both inside and outside the junta. The Yahya group attempted to obstruct Bhutto by producing a draft constitution that was even more restrictive than that of 1962. It also acted to destroy Bhutto’s ‘majority.’ This was accomplished by negotiating with the Awami League MNAs still in East Pakistan, most of who were willing to attend the NA, and by unseating those who had joined the Bangladesh Government-in-Exile in Calcutta. The latter, who numbered 79, were replaced in thoroughly rigged elections. The PPP was allowed’ to win 4 of the 79 NA seats in the by- elections, enabling it to present itself as a truly ‘national’ party.

Nevertheless, there was still strong elite resistance to the appointment of Bhutto as Prime Minister, a resistance which is visible in the character of Bhutto’s speeches and statements during this period. Indeed, to have appointed a man so deeply disliked in East Pakistan would have been provocative at a time when efforts at reconciliation with various groups in East Pakistan were being made. In the end, Nur uL Amin, a venerable East Pakistani politician who had lost in 1970, but won in the 1971 by-elections, and who had put together a loose coalition of parties and MNAs called the United Coalition Party, was made Prime Minister on 7 December. Bhutto, who was regarded as the real power in the cabinet, took up the posts of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.

By the time this government was named, India and Pakistan were engaged in full scale hostilities all along their common borders in both the East and West. This was a war that involved the interests of major powers, most particularly those of the USSR and the People’s Republic of China, and was quickly taken to the United Nations Security Council by the United States. Bhutto spent most of the thirteen days the Amin-Bhutto cabinet was in existence at the UN Security Council, where outraged and helpless, he watched the Soviet Union stall a ceasefire resolution until the Indian Army had won its victory in East Pakistan. Then, as Dhaka was falling, Bhutto made his dramatic and tearful exit from the Security Council. After consultations with Chinese representatives in New York and a visit to the White House, he headed for London and then flew on to Rawalpindi.. There, a stunned nation, heretofore kept ignorant about the real happenings in East Pakistan, awaited him as the only viable political alternative. The political power of the army lay buried, for the moment, in the ruins of defeat and dismemberment. In the last ten days of the Yahya Regime, various initiatives to keep Bhutto out of power failed. Backed by the younger officers, Lt. Gen. Gul Hasan and Air Marshal Rahim Khan held Yahya a virtual prisoner in the President’s House and kept the way open for a transfer of power to the PPP, now, in reality, the majority party in Pakistan. At about noon on 20 December Yahya resigned the Presidency and appointed Bhutto to the two positions of President and Chief Martial Law Administrator.

By courtesy: The Pakistan People’s Party by Phillip E. Jones. Oxford University Press Oxford, New York 2003

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Reconciliation

december 17, 2014 by smhusain1, posted in history, ind-pakistan, pakistan

Benazir Bhutto

Against the background of the escalating demonstration of people’s power, General Ayub did what generals do best: he conducted a coup d’état against his own parliament and government by declaring martial law for the second time. But the anger of the people did not die down. It increased. Ayub Khan refused to lift the martial law and turn over the power under the provisions of his hand-drawn Constitution. Instead, on March 25, 1968, he stepped down, handing power to his second in command in the military, General Yahya Khan. The national and provincial assemblies were dissolved, the Constitution was abrogated, and political activities were banned. The artificially constructed Ayub “decade of development” collapsed into ruins, and Pakistan now had a second martial law administrator.

The martial law continued until November 1969, when General Yahya announced that he would hold direct elections the following October. Conceding to the opposition’s demand that the parliamentary representation be determined by the size of the population, Yahya did away with representational parity between East and West Pakistan in the national assembly. Given the population distribution, this meant a quantum leap in representation to East Pakistan. In March 1970, Yahya issued the Legal Framework Order (LFO). Under the terms of the LFO, the new assembly would be both a constituent assembly and a parliament.

Although Sheikh Mujib, the leader of the majority party, had the sole right to form the government (even though he had no representation from the western wing in Pakistan), he did not have the right to impose a constitution on all the people and federating units of Pakistan. He did not have one member representing the remaining four federating units and the people elected on his ticket. General Yahya ordered that the constitution must be completed within 120 days or the assembly would be dismissed. It would have 120 days in which to draw up a constitution. Many feared that the term limit was imposed to set the new Parliament up for failure. If the new parliament failed to write a constitution within 120 days, the dictator had an excuse to say “democracy has failed” and go back to dictatorship. If the Constitution were bulldozed by some of the parties, the dictator would reject it on the grounds that it was “against the unity and integrity of Pakistan.”

General Yahya planned to script to scare the Pakistani Army and the West into acquiescing to his continued leadership. The LFO established a 313 member National Assembly with an outright majority of seats going to the Bengalis in the East. Free elections for the new National Assembly and five new provincial assemblies concluded in December 1970. With Mr. Bhashani’s party boycotting the elections, it was a clean sweep for Sheikh Mujib and the Awami league in East Pakistan. The Awami League won 160 of the 162 seats allocated to East Pakistan in the National Assembly. Mujib’s win had a lot to do with pent-up East Pakistani grievances against West Pakistan, whose elite had exploited its resources and insulted its people.This first set of true multiparty democratic elections was a big step forward for the development of Pakistan democracy. The jubilation was, sadly short-lived. The Awami League’s six point constitutional proposal frightened the daylights out of the Pakistan security establishment, just as Yahya had planned. It threatened West Pakistan with disintegration. The newly created state of Pakistan was confronted with an ugly reality striking at the core of its security, stability, and unity. Mujib insisted that since he had the majority in the National Assembly he would reject the views the federating units of Pakistan and impose his unilateral constitution on the country. This was contrary to the spirit of constitution making. A constitution is drawn up as an agreement setting the terms under which federating units voluntarily agree to live together. The PPP argued that a constitution could not ignore representatives from the rest of the country, where the Awami league had been totally rejected, failing to win even a single seat.

On January 3, 1971, Mujib once again rejected the right of other federating units to have a say in the framing of the constitution. He said he would form a constitution based on his six points:
1. The constitution should construct a federal state with supremacy of parliamentary legislature (in other words, Bengali domination of West Pakistan in the formulation of all laws and resources to pay West Pakistan back for its domination of East Pakistan)
2. The national legislature should deal only with foreign affairs and defense. All other rights should states’ rights.
3. Two currencies should be introduced, one for East Pakistan and one for West Pakistan
4. The federal government should have no taxing power. The power should be reserved for the provincial governments (in other words, there was no money to maintain an army or conduct either a foreign or defense policy).
5. The two wings should have separate accounts for foreign exchange.
6. East Pakistan should be allowed to maintain its own separate militia force (interpreted to mean that East Pakistan should have its own army).

Separate armies, separate currencies, separate central bank accounts, and no federal income to administer a federal government: Mujib’s six points were akin to signing the dismissal orders for the entire civil service and military command. The state of Pakistan would be constitutionally dismantled through the Awami League’s six points, letting the cat free among the pigeons. Neither the military nor the West nor the people of West Pakistan could countenance the breakup of a country for which so many had sacrificed their lives and suffered hardships just twenty-three years earlier.

Yahya’s script was playing out perfectly. “Pakistan in danger” was a cry he could exploit to scuttle the whole process. He could declare that “the country was not ready for democracy.” Meanwhile, he had to go through the motions. So in mid-January, he travelled to Dacca to see Mujib to work out an agreement. On Jan 17, he travelled to Larkana, the ancestral home of my family, to meet with my father. My father asked Yahya to either delay the holding of the Constituent Assembly or lift the 120-day limit for drawing up a constitution to enable legislators to arrive at a consensus. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto continued to work for a constitution that would reflect the wishes of all five federating units of Pakistan. But Yahya was adamant. He would neither lift the 120-day ban for arriving at a constitution nor postpone the session to provide more time to thrash out a consensus. However, he said he was ready to consider if Mujib agreed.

My father travelled to Dacca on Jan 27, hoping to persuade Mujib, but the meeting bore no fruits. Mujib insisted that he would show no flexibility on the six points, or on the 120 –day limit to pass the constitution. At that point, Yahya announced that the National Assembly would convene on March 3. My father represented the federating units in West Pakistan. For them Mujib’s constitutional prescription was a recipe for the disintegration of Pakistan. As leader of West Pakistan my father concluded he had two bad choices. He could go to Dacca, attend the Constituent Assembly session, and acquiesce to an imposed six-point constitution, thus legitimizing it. Or he could boycott the session to visibly demonstrate the PPP’s opposition to a unilateral constitution imposed on the nation by Sheikh Mujib. He declared that he and his supporters would not attend the constituent session of the National Assembly. He would not be a party to the disintegration of all Pakistan through the dismantling of the federal state structure. He wanted consensus on the future constitution worked out before the Assembly’s meeting, while conceding that Sheikh Mujib had every right to form a government on his own once the Constituent Assembly session was over. There was little point in showing up for a session of the National Assembly, where the only point on the agenda would be to endorse Mujib’s six point constitution. Still Mujib remained adamant. He was ready to go it alone. He played into Yahya’s hands, surrounded by advisers, some of whom had been infiltrated by security agencies.

On March 1, General Yahya postponed the convening of the National Assembly session. Meanwhile, Sheikh Mujib had formed a militia that started dismantling the state from within. His Mukti Bahini militants took on police duties and provoked the army. It seemed a matter of time before Sheikh would announce a unilateral declaration of independence. Separately Yahya Khan and my father attempted to negotiate a realistic compromise with Mujib, but the Awami league wanted all or nothing. My father was in Dacca the night General Yahya Khan ordered a military crackdown*. General Yahya then suspended the formation of the national assembly, and Mujib and the Awami league responded with a general strike in East Pakistan. Responding to this military crackdown, a Bengali officer by the name of Major Ziaur Rahman declared independence for East Pakistan. India taking advantage of the situation and always fearing a strong united Pakistan allowed the leaders of the Awami league into India to form a government in exile. Relations between India and Pakistan, always bad, deteriorated as millions of Bengali refugees poured across the border into India. In early December, Indian troops attacked Pakistan. As the brutal military crackdown began to crush the insurgents, Bengali women were raped and their male children slaughtered. Violence was met with counter violence in a horrifying sequence of unfolding events. A million refugees fled from their homes across the border to India. In mid-April, a Bangladesh government in exile was formed in Calcutta, India, indicating a role the Indian government would play in the conflict.

*on March 25, General Yahya ordered a military crackdown in a bid to forcibly keep East Pakistan part of Pakistan. As the crackdown began, students at Dacca University, in the capital reacted. The army fired back, killing students and enraging Bengalis even further. The uprising was intense. The people, the police, and the paramilitary forces had all risen up against what they called “the Punjabi Army.” Even as the army tried to quell the uprising, units of the army revolted against GHQ in faraway Rawalpindi. Major Ziaur Rahman (who would go on to become President of Bangladesh and his wife prime minister) was the first to mutiny. With the military defections adding to defections that had taken place in the police and paramilitary forces, the armed resistance for the formation of the independent state of Bangladesh was established.”

Excerpts: Reconciliation by Benazir Bhutto, Harper Collins New York 2008

Photo by courtesy of Wikipedia.org

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In Fairness to Yahya

 december 20, 2014 by smhusain1, posted in history, ind-pakistan, pakistan

 

When Ayub Khan wrote to Yahya that he was stepping aside and expressed his belief that he (Yahya) had the capacity, patriotism, dedication and imagination to deal with the formidable problems facing the country and called upon him to discharge his legal and constitutional responsibility to defend the country, not only against external aggression but also to save it from internal disorder and chaos, I am inclined to believe he meant what he said. Ayub was aware of Yahya’s weaknesses and knew he was an extrovert and bon vivant appreciative of the good things of life. What Ayub failed to realize was that he was giving Yahya an impossible task for which he was ill-suited both by experience and temperament. Ayub was leaving behind a mess of his own creation. How could Yahya succeed where Ayub had failed? Yahya’s only advantage over Ayub was that his hands were clean and his record untainted. Ayub knew that Yahya would be pitted against two most unscrupulous politicians and that he was no match for them. After eleven years of absolute rule, he was leaving behind a country on the verge of total collapse, and deserted his post saying, ‘I could not sign away the future of the country.’ He conveniently left that to Yahya, knowing that the task was beyond him.

Yahya started very well. The disturbances in the country came to an abrupt end; law and order was restored without any difficulty; the country rallied round him and gave him full support. His initial moves were very popular. He dissolved One Unit, which had been imposed on the people of West Pakistan, and earned the gratitude of at least three minority provinces. He sacked most corrupt officers. He held the first free, fair, and impartial election Pakistan ever had. He allowed the government controlled media, both radio and television, to cover the election without any interference from the government. Within twenty-four hours of his accession to power on 25 March 1969, Yahya pledged to transfer power to the elected representatives of the people, elected on the basis of direct adult franchise, and announced that it would be for the representatives of the people to give the country a workable Constitution. This was, in a sense, a revolutionary development in the politics of Pakistan.

Yahya did not ban political parties when he imposed martial law on 25th March, 1969. In one of his speeches in 1970, he said, ‘This caused both surprise and relief. The first action of any martial law regime is to ban political parties, for the existence of martial law regime side by side with political parties is a most unusual phenomenon.’ There were guidelines for political activity contained in Martial Law Regulations (MLR 60), but these were honoured more in the breach than in the observance.

‘The Government decided to give facilities to the leaders of various parties to project their political manifestos and policies through radio and television. This was the first time that politicians were freely and impartially given the chance to use the government-controlled radio and television for their political activities.’

Political broadcasts began on 28 October and continued until 19 November 1970. The series began with Mujib who was given the chance to speak first, and ended with the leader of the Sindh United Front, G.M. Syed. Bhashani alone spoke in the two national languages, in Bengali from Dhaka, and in Urdu from West Pakistan. His speech was a masterpiece and it met with very good reception in both Wings, especially West Pakistan. Bhashani spoke not as an East Pakistani or a West Pakistani, but as a true Pakistani. Mujib emphasized regionalism. Bhutto’s main emphasis was on Islamic socialism, confrontation with India, etc.

I met all the political leaders and discussed their scripts with them. I met Mujib at his residence in Dhan Mandi in Dhaka. This was my very first meeting with him. He gave the impression of being an angry young man in a hurry. His script contained references to Bangladesh. I suggested their deletion, because it clashed with the guidelines and Legal Framework Order. He did not agree. I suggested its substitution by East Bengal. This too was unacceptable to him. In the end, he was allowed by Rawalpindi to have his own way. He threatened not to say anything on the radio and television if the government insisted on the deletion of the word Bangladesh. He was otherwise very courteous and very hospitable. He entertained me to tea and mishti. When the tension eased, I suggested that, being a national leader, he should come to West Pakistan, tour the four provinces and meet the people who, I was sure, would welcome him. His reply stunned me. He said, ‘West Pakistan is too far away and it costs a lot of money to go there.’ Mujib seemed uninterested in visiting West Pakistan. Whatever the reasons, Mujib had lost faith in a united Pakistan. Next on my list was the ‘Red Maulana’. I met Bhashani in his village. When I got there, he was lying on a cot. He sat up, shook hands, and began the conversation in a very weak, inaudible voice. I thought he was seriously ill and did not expect the conversation to last too long. Very soon, he warmed up and gave me a brilliant expose of the political situation in chaste Urdu, punctuated with verses from Iqbal and the Quran, for one whole hour.

My Minister, Major General (retd) Sher Ali, was a great champion of the Islam Pasand (Islam-loving) parties (as they were then known). He was most upset at the turn of events when I met him in his office. He told me, almost prophetically, that the election results would lead to the breakup of the country and must therefore be scrapped. His prophecy unfortunately turned out to be correct, but how could the result of an election universally recognized as free, fair, and impartial be scrapped with a stroke of a pen?

Yahya had redeemed the pledge to hold free and fair elections on the basis of direct adult franchise. The Awami League led by Sheikh Mujib obtained 160 out of the 162 seats allotted to East Pakistan. In West Pakistan, it could not secure a single seat. The Pakistan People’s Party headed by Mr. Bhutto won 82 out of the 138 seats for West Pakistan. It had not nominated a single candidate in East Pakistan.

Yahya did not have the political vision or capacity to handle the complex situation arising out of the election results and the emergence of two unscrupulous politicians, who had neither political honesty nor any broad vision and statesmanship. The result was the total collapse of his plan to transfer power to the elected representatives of the people, eventually culminating in a bloody civil war and the secession of East Pakistan. I never had any doubt that Yahya genuinely wanted to transfer power to the elected representatives of the people within the framework of a single, undivided Pakistan. In fairness to Yahya, it must be said that he had inherited from Ayub a discontented, disillusioned, and highly agitated Bengali population, and an explosive political situation, not of his making.

Neither Ayub nor Yahya had the statesmanship or political skill required to resolve the East Pakistan crisis in accordance with the aspirations of the people of East Pakistan. Commenting on President Ayub, a ‘Muslim de Gaulle,’ The Economist wrote that the President wanted essentially what his brother soldier sought for France. But faced with a similar situation in Algeria, de Gaulle ‘realizing that whatever aspirations of grandeur he might hold for France, it would come to nothing as long as the nation remained mired and locked in the draining and divisive Algerian crisis,’ in a moment of inspiration, took off for Algeria to ‘grasp the Algerian nettle’ and to speak to the people himself. By the end of the afternoon a crowd of 20,000, almost entirely European, had massed in the open square, the Forum, in front of the Government General Building to greet de Gaulle with a mighty roar when at last he stepped out on a balcony, arms outstretched and fist clenched in the defiant gesture of exhortation that was his permanent hallmark. But he responded to the cheers with one of the most famous and most elusive utterances of his life. ‘Je vous ai compris’—I have understood you.

On his return to Paris, de Gaulle held a referendum on the future of Algeria in the teeth of opposition from hawkish generals, the so called ultras. In June 1962, 99.7 per cent of Algerians voted for independence and Algeria emerged as an independent state on 3 July 1962. Without settling the Algerian crisis, all else for de Gaulle would have been failure. ‘Of all the services de Gaulle rendered to France, extraction from Algeria was the most difficult and decisive. It was his masterpiece in the skilled exercise of political power, and if he had failed, history would have been far different and his stature diminished.’

Both Ayub, the ‘Muslim de Gaulle,’ and Yahya, his fun-loving successor who used to describe himself as a part-time President, failed to comprehend the rising tide of Bengali nationalism and failed to meet the challenge in a realistic and flexible manner, with disastrous consequences for Jinnah’s Pakistan. This was their greatest failure, and this, in my view, was also their greatest disservice to Pakistan.

Yahya was a true hedonist and believed that the art of life was to crowd in as much enjoyment as possible into each moment. His detractors and enemies charged that he was drunk day and night and that, in his scheme of things, all good things had reference to his belly. This is an unfair assessment of the man. There are innumerable instances of Yahya’s unsurpassable kindness. He was devoted to his family, generous and gentle to his servants, loyal to his friends, and he lived without pretence. Yahya derived a lot of happiness from friendship and human relationships. His creed was a likeably honest creed. His friendships were proverbial for their permanence.”

By courtesy: Pakistan—A Dream Gone Sour by Roedad Khan, Oxford University Press Karachi 1998.

 

 

General Mirza Aslam Beg

General Mirza Aslam Beg (left, in blue beret and glasses) visiting a Pakistan Army Unit in 1990s.

 Mirza Aslam Beg, born 2 August 1931, is a retired four-star rank general of the Pakistan Army, who served as its Chief of Army Staff from 1988 until his retirement in 1991. His appointment as chief of army staff came when his predecessor, President General Zia-ul-Haq, died in an air crash on 17 August 1988.

Beg’s tenure witnessed Benazir Bhutto being elected Prime Minister in November 1988, and the restoration of democracy and civilian control of the military in the country. Controversial accusations were leveled against him of financing the Islamic Democracy Alliance (IDA), the conservative and right-wing opposition alliance against left-wing PPP, and of rigging in the subsequent general elections in 1990. As a result of the general elections, Nawaz Sharif was elected Prime Minister in 1990, but fell out with Beg when the latter recommended support for Iraq during the Gulf War. Beg was denied an extension by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan soon after in 1991, and replaced by General Asif Nawaz Janjua as chief of army staff. Apart from his military career, Beg briefly tenured as professor of security studies at the National Defence University (NDU) and regularly writes columns in The Nation.

Beg’s post-retirement has been characterized by controversies: first he was accused of playing an internal role in the airplane crash that killed President Zia, and, second, he was summoned to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2012 for his alleged role in the Mehran scandal, for bribing opposition politicians with millions of rupees prior to general elections in 1990.

Early life in India and education: Mirza Aslam Beg was born in the small village, Muslimpatti, in Azamgarh district, Uttar Pradesh of British India, to a Urdu-speaking Turk Mughal Barlas family on 2 August 1931. His father, Mirza Murtaza Beg, was an advocate and practicing lawyer, whose name was well known and respected name in the law circles of the Allahabad High Court. The Beg family traced a long ancestral history and roots to the Mughal Royals who were once the rulers of India from the early 15th century to the early 18th century. He was educated at Azamgarh where he graduated from a local high school, and enrolled at the Shibli National College for undergraduate studies in 1945. Subsequently, he earned the Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Liberal Arts from Shibli National College in 1949. During his college years, Mirza played field hockey and was a  member of the college hockey team who were mainly Muslims. According to his memoirs, Beg sought revenge on a Hindu politician of the Congress Party after the politician had beaten up a member of his hockey team. Egged on by a mob of students, Beg used his hockey stick to beat him at a public meeting. The incident came after his graduation from college in 1949, and Beg’s family decided to move to Pakistan in 1949 after India’s partition.

Career in the military: The Beg family sailed for Karachi from Mumbai via a Pakistan Navy ship in 1949. His elder brother was already a commissioned officer in the Pakistan Army and encouraged young Beg to follow his path and seek a career in the army. Beg recalled in his memoirs to his Indian interviewer and called Pakistan as “my dream country”. In 1950, Beg was accepted at the Pakistan Military Academy and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in war studies in 1952 from the 6th PMA Long Course

In 1952, he was commissioned as second lieutenant in the Baloch Regiment and initially assisted in the command of an infantry platoon. From 1952-1958, he progressed in the military ranks being promoted to army lieutenant in 1956; and army captain in 1958. He received recommendation from his field commanding officer and was selected to join the Special Forces; in 1958, he passed the physical and psychological tests for this. Beg departed to the United States to complete Special Forces training with the US Army Special Forces in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In 1960, he returned to Pakistan and was inducted in the Special Service Group (SSG) and  being promoted to the rank of Major. His new assignment was in the field, and he commanded a commando company of the SSG. His first combat experience took place in 1960 in Western Pakistan, when with his commando company, he  helped remove the Nawab of Dir in Chitral in the northern part of North-West Frontier Province. He served in 1965 war with India and commanded a SSG counter-initiatives company against the Indian Army.

Ehsan Sehgal and General (Retd.) Mirza Aslam Beg in Baghdad, Iraq in 1994.

Academia and professorship: After the 1965 war, Mirza was promoted as Lieutenant-Colonel in 1967 and entered in the National Defence University (NDU) to continue his higher education. Among the course mates was Lieutenant-Colonel Zahid Ali Akbar who would later direct the Program-706 in the 1970s.

He earned Master of Science in War Studies from NDU and published his master’s thesis, titled, “A journey of pain and fear” which provides a critical analysis of state sponsored terrorism and its effects on geo-military position(s) of  country (s). In 1971, he was recalled and commanded a SSG regiment during the war with India. After the war, he left the SSG after being promoted to the rank of Brigadier, and moved onto to accept the war studies professorship at NDU. From 1975–78 Brigadier Mirza Aslam Beg tenured as the professor of war studies and remained Chief Instructor of Armed Forces War College at the National Defence University until January 1978.

About the 1971 war, Baig maintained that Pakistan Armed Forces “learned a valuable strategic lesson” and quoted that the government also learned that “there is no point in going to war unless you are absolutely certain you have the capability to win”. From 1994–99, Baig continued his teaching at NDU and published his two books on national security, nuclear weapons development, defence diplomacy and international relations.

Senior command appointments: In 1978, Baig left the university after being promoted to Major-General in the army. He became the GOC of the 14th Army Division, stationed at the Okara Military District of Punjab Province in Pakistan. On March 1979, Chief of Army Staff, General Zia-ul-Haq, directed the II Strike Corps’ “to ascertain the likely reaction of the Pakistan Armed Forces officers if Bhutto was hanged”, in accordance to the Supreme Court’s verdict. During this meeting Baig objected to Bhutto’s hanging, and stated to his senior commanders that:

The hanging of Bhutto would be an unwise act, as it could cause very serious “political aberrations” that will be difficult to correct.”

Beg was relieved of his command as a result and posted as Adjutant-General at the GHQ in Rawalpindi, where he served until 1980. He was later elevated as the Chief of General Staff (CGS) of the Pakistan Army until 1985. As CGS, Beg was in charge of planning the counter-offensive to the 1984 Indian invasion of Siachen marking the beginning of the ongoing Siachen conflict. After serving at the GHQ, he was promoted to lieutenant-general in 1985 and appointed field operations commander of the XI Corps stationed in Peshawar, which had been facing indirect war with Soviet Army in Afghanistan, since 1980.

Chief of Army Staff: In March 1987, Beg was promoted to four-star general , and was appointed as Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCOAS) of Pakistan Army, though he remained under President General Zia-ul-Haq, who had been the Chief of Army Staff since 1976. He succeeded General Zia-ul-Haq as the new chief of army staff when President General Zia-ul-Haq’s plane crashed on 17 August 1988. American military authors regarded Beg as “mild but bookish general” keen to drive the country towards the tracks of democracy.

The United States military regarded Beg as an “unpredictable General” , who could not be counted on to continue close military cooperation with the United States as Zia did in the 1980s. The Pentagon comments on Beg:  “a professional soldier with no political ambitions, but independent-minded and unpredictable.” In 1988, one Pentagon military official added that “Beg is hard to figure out and difficult to read his mind unlike other Pakistan army generals; he hasn’t been particularly friendly with the US.” Against the popular perception of a takeover, Beg endorsed Ghulam Ishaq Khan as President and called for new general elections which resulted in a peaceful democratic transfer of government to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) with Benazir Bhutto as the Prime minister. Beg did not consult any of his corps commanders or principal staff officers (PSOs) and called on the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Iftikhar Sirohey, and Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Hakimullah, to discuss the matter briefly and within three hours of General Ziaul Haq’s death, restored the Constitution and handed over power to Ghulam Ishaq Khan. It was an unprecedented decision in favour of democracy and the rule of law. Mirza Aslam Beg was endorsed by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who confirmed his four-star appointment as Chief of Army Staff until 1991; he was replaced by General Asif Nawaz Janjua.

Unlike General Zia, Beg initiated a massive re-evaluation and education training program for the inter-services officers. In 1988, Beg’s personal initiatives led to sending of hundreds of inter-services officers to Western universities for advanced degrees. By 1991, several of the inter-services officers had gained post-graduate degree in operational and technical training.

In 1988, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto conferred Beg with specially designated civil award for restoring democracy, Tamgha-e-Jamhuriat (Medal of Democracy). In fact, Baig is the only Pakistani and four-star general officer to have been decorated with such honor. Although Benazir Bhutto was criticized for decorating a four-star general with a civilian award, she justified her decision by saying that Beg deserved the honour because he had refrained from indulging in another military adventure like Zia and instead helped Pakistan to a peaceful transition of power through general elections. He retired from the army on 16 August 1991 after completing 39 years of military service. As COAS, General Beg is credited by an Australian expert for encouraging “wider thinking about tactics within the Pakistan Army, particularly for establishing a much improved logistics chain and “contributed immensely to the army’s war fighting capabilities.”

Civil War in Afghanistan (1989–1992)

Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Pakistan-Soviet Union relations: As Chief of the Army Staff, Beg determinedly kept the military’s control over policies regarding the national security, and dictated Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s role in in their formulation.. Beg testified that the “real causes behind the “Pressler amendment was significant so  long as Pakistan was considered an important entity in weakening Soviet Union’s influence in South Asia.”  Various writers greatly questioned his idea of “strategic depth”, which aimed the transfer of Pakistan’s military science command to Afghanistan against a war with India.

Beg supported the role of his deputy, Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul in Afghanistan’s war who had masterminded the Jalalabad operation; which failed. Gul was deposed by Prime Minister Bhutto soon after this action.  Beg’s role remained vital during and after the Soviet Union’s troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and he showed no intent of coordinating joint efforts with the U.S. to end the war in the country. In late 1989, Pakistan and U.S. floated the idea of bringing a clerical government to the departing communist order. Authors and media reporters maintained that Beg controversially proposed an intelligence plan between Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran that would grow into a “core of the Muslim world.” This was met with hostility in the government and Foreign Minister Yaqub Khan and Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto objected and opposed this idea.

Gulf war: In 1989, Beg drafted a contingency plan and organized a massive military exercise, Exercise Zarb-e-Momin, to prove the military solidarity contentions. One notable event of his career as chief of army staff at the end of the Cold War took place in 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in the political tension prevailing between the two Arab countries; Beg endorsed the United States-led military campaign against Iraq. In a briefing given to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Beg gave his assessment that once the ground battle with Iraqi Army began, they would defeat the American Army. The Iraq War with Kuwait was a polarizing political issue in Pakistan and Beg was careful in the deployment of the Pakistan Armed Forces’ contingent during Operation Desert Storm in 1991; he calculated that the popular opinion would favour Iraq, as the anti-American sentiment in the Middle East would rise with time. Neither did his strategic predictions come true nor did he get an extension, and soon after the end of Gulf war, Beg proceeded to retirement on 18 August 1991.

Although Beg accused the Western countries for encouraging Iraq to invade Kuwait, he kept his armed forces fighting against Iraq in support of Saudi Arabia. In 1990, he held a state dinner for United States Central Command (US CENTCOM) commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf, and with Chairman Joint Chiefs Admiral Iftikhar Sirohey, he briefed the US CENTCOM of the Pakistan Armed Forces operational preparedness and capability in the Saudi contingent.

Controversies

Mehran Bank scandal

Soon after his retirement, Beg earned public criticism for his alleged personal involvement in the Mehran Bank scandal which was made public in 1990. His rival and critic, former Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Asghar Khan filed a petition in the Supreme Court against Beg, and also implicated the former director of ISI,  Lieutenant-General (retired) Asad Durrani and his civilian accountant Younis Habib. This was done after Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s Interior minister, Naseerullah Babar, had apprised the national parliament of the issue in 1994. Baber maintained that the ISI had disbursed funds to purchase the loyalty of the  conservative masses and nationalist public figures to manipulate the 1990 general elections and bring the conservatives in race to compete with leftist forces in the country. As Chief of Army Staff, General Beg managed to get ₨. 140 million from civilian accountant Younis Habib and deposited this in the Survey Section,  account 202 of Military Intelligence (MI). Approximately ₨. 6 million were channeled to the election cell of President Ghulam Ishaq Khan— the election cell including Syed Rafaqat, statesmen Roedad Khan and Ijlal Haider Zaidi.

Nuclear proliferation controversy

Beg was widely criticized internationally for his alleged involvement in the nuclear program of Iran. In a report published by Khaled Ahmed in “The Friday Times”; he contended that after taking over as Chief of Army Staff, General Aslam Beg began lobbying about “[cooperation with Iran] on nuclear technology as a part of his [strategy of defiance] of the United States. As chief of army staff, Beg had initiated lectureship programs on physics, chemistry, mathematics and engineering for inter-services officers, by the Pakistani scientists serving as their professors, to have better understanding on nuclear matters and policy development. Earlier, Baig had calculated that cooperation with Iran was popular and that, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf Arabs were less popular being American clients in the region. General Baig had encouraged Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan to proliferate technology to Iran and North Korea. The speed with which he maintained the [new nuclear policy] leads one to speculate whether he simply wanted the “obstacle” of General Zia to disappear from the scene. General Zia did not know / receive any payment of this agreement; in fact, Zia did not know if Beg was in it with Iran. Zia was deeply committed to the Arabs, especially to Saudi Arabia, to restrain the Iranian influence.

According to Khaled Ahmed, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was shocked that Beg had signed a secret nuclear deal with Iran without telling him; therefore he (prime minister) abrogated this cooperation and tightened the security watch on A.Q. Khan. However, in a 2004 interview to PBS, Beg clearly denied his involvement with Iranian program and quoted:

“If [Benazir] government wasn’t aware, how was I aware? I was army chief from 1988 to 1991. If we were not told what was happening beneath the surface when the Americans knew, the British agencies knew, and their to have penetrated the entire system including Pakistan— so are they not guilty?”— Mirza Aslam Beg, 2004

In 2005 interview to NBC, Beg defended himself and A.Q. Khan, maintaining that “Nuclear Proliferators can’t be stopped.” Beg added that the Americans and Europeans have been engaged in nuclear proliferation as part of a concept, called “outsourcing nuclear capability,” to friendly countries as a measure of defense against nuclear strike. Beg pointed out that the “nuclear non-proliferation regime, therefore, is dying its natural death at the hands of those who are the exponents of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.” Beg also theorized that “nuclear deterrent is what holds the strategic balance between the two or more belligerents”.

Accusation of role in Zia’s death: In an article written by prominent columnist, Khaled Ahmed, in the Express Tribune, Beg was in contact with senior scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan for bringing Iran into the fold of “nuclear prowess” much to the annoyance of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.  At this point, without a green signal from the President, Beg got acquainted with Dr. A.Q. Khan to secretly proliferate the nuclear fuel technology.

On 1 December 2012, President Zia’s son, Ijaz-ul-Haq maintained that it was Beg who conspired in the death of his father. At the GEO News interview, Haq added that General Baig:

• Caused the wreckage of the plane to be removed to hide the effects of a missile fired into the plane from another plane.
• General Beg also prevented autopsies of the dead to hide the fact that everyone on the plane had died from gas poisoning.

Earlier in 1988, the Shafi-ur-Rehman Commission responsible for establishing the cause of the crash of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s plane,  concluded that because of the Army’s obstruction in the investigation, the real perpetrators behind the attack could not be brought forward.

Post-military career: After failing to persuade the government for grant of extension, Beg’s political ambitions forced president Ghulam Ishaq Khan to nominate General Asif Nawaz Janjua as the designated chief of army staff three months prior to his retirement. After his retirement he continued the professorship at National Defence University in Islamabad, and remained active in country’s political and military affairs.

Political activism: On returning to civilian life, General Beg founded and established a policy think-tank institute in Islamabad, known as Foundation for Research on International Environment,  National Development and Security (Friends).  He is the current founding chairman of the Friends think-tank. He  later founded the nationalist political party, the Awami Qaiyadat Party (National Leadership Party) which continued to be a powerful part of right-wing . Though, his party gained no political prominence and failed to compete in national general elections; it remains registered in the Election Commission with gun as its election symbol.

Criticism by President Musharraf: President General Pervez Musharraf served under General Baig and Lt. General Gul. General Beg was one of many professors under whom Musharraf had studied at the National Defence University; he had high regards for Beg as one of his “significant professors” in the university years but after September 11, 2001, they gradually drifted apart, and differences surfaced for the first time in 2001. In a television press conference, Musharraf spoke about the negative role of a few high-ranking officers which included Beg. He was labelled as one of many professors at NDU who were “pseudo-intellectuals.” Later in January 2008, General Aslam Beg as member of  the Pakistan ex-Servicemen Society (ESS) urged President Musharraf to voluntarily step down in the greater interests of Pakistan.

Books authored by Beg

• Beg, Mirzā Aslam (1999). 1st, ed. National security: diplomacy and defence. Rawalpindi: FRIENDS Publication. p. 93. ISBN 969-8199-13-6. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
• Beg, Mirza Aslam (1994). Development and security : thoughts and reflections. Rawalpindi, Pakistan: Foundation for Research and National Development and Security, FRIENDS. p. 252. ISBN 969-8199-01-2.

Articles and works by Beg

• Beg, Mirza A. (July 10, 2011). “The superpower under siege”. The Nation. Retrieved 24 March 2013.
• Beg, Mirza A. (August 21, 2011). “Pak-US relations: Terms of engagement”. The Nation. Retrieved 24 March 2013.

General Mirza Aslam Beg

Birth Name	Mirza Aslam Baig
Nickname(s)	General Beg
Born	2 August 1931(age 85), Azamgarh district, Uttar Pradesh, British Indian Empire (Present day, India)
Allegiance	Pakistan
Service/branch	Pakistan Army
Years of service	1952–1991
Rank	General; OF-9 Pakistan Army.svg; US-O10 insignia
Service number	PA – 4064
Unit	Baloch Regiment
Commands held	Chief of Army Staff; Adjutant General (AG); Chief of General Staff (CGS); XI Corps, Peshawar; Vice Chief of Army Staff; Chief Instructor (CI) at NDU; 14th Army Division, Okara
Battles/Wars	Indo-Pakistani War of 1965; Indo-Pakistani War of 1971; Siachen conflict; Afghanistan war of 1991; Operation Desert Storm

 Awards

By courtesy Wikipedia.org

 

General Pervez Musharraf

General Musharraf’s Five Years in Power

In the elections of 2002, the General felt that it was important for him to secure a majority in parliament in order to be able to rule effectively and satisfy national and international public opinion,  that Pakistan was moving towards a democratic order. In order to acquire the majority, the Inter Service Intelligence Agency (ISI), which over the years, largely by collaboration of political parties, has grown into a powerful parallel government, was used to advise and browbeat politicians to join the King’s Party. In order to keep on the right side of the religious parties, the religious educational qualifications of their candidates for elections were recognized as equivalent to a Bachelor of Arts degree which was a requirement for contesting elections. Moreover, the alliance of religious parties was allowed to keep the ‘Book ‘, (which to the majority of the people symbolized the ‘Quran’) as their election symbol. They were thus helped to secure a large number of assembly seats, particularly in the North West Frontier Province and in Balochistan, which they could otherwise not have done. It was hoped- probably correctly- that they would live up to their past and support the military regime on vital issues.

Selectivity rather than impartiality became the norm in the accountability of politicians. This was done sparingly before the 2002 election and widely before the formation of the elected government. Important principles were sacrificed to secure a majority and known criminals were made ministers. In order to secure majorities in the National and Sindh assemblies, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was inducted into the government in the centre and in Sindh. It is generally believed that its leader Altaf Hussain, who has become a British national and has not visited Pakistan for more than twelve years, advises and influences the central government and the government of Sindh. His nominee, who is allegedly an accused in a murder case, has been made the governor of Sindh.

Corruption has been on the increase and has assumed epidemic proportions. General Pervez Musharraf is not known to be involved in corruption and is generally regarded personally as clean. However, when I said this to someone the other day, he retorted that it is only after they leave that we learn the truth.

Musharraf’s desire to satisfy different political groups that support the King’s Party has led him to form a government of the largest number of ministers in Pakistan’s history. Very soon, everyone in the government party or supporting it, is likely to occupy some ministerial or other position in government. It is an unjustified burden on the country’s finances.

It cannot be expected that a government comprising a large number of corrupt elements who are in politics to serve their personal interests could change the destiny of the country. It is clear that the steps that General Musharraf has taken or the deviations that he has made in his seven points program have been motivated by his desire to stay in power with a facade of democracy.

Courtesy: We’ve Learnt Nothing From History, M. Asghar Khan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York 2005

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Pervez Musharraf in November 2004 پرویز مشرف

Pervez Musharraf born on 11 August 1943 in Delhi (British India) is a Pakistani politician and a retired four-star army general who was the tenth President of Pakistan from 2001 until tendering resignation, to avoid impeachment, in 2008.

He grew up in Karachi and Istanbul, and studied mathematics at the Forman Christian College in Lahore, and continued his professional academics at the Royal College of Defence Studies in 1991. Musharraf entered the Pakistan Military Academy in 1961 and was commissioned in the Pakistan Army in 1964. He went on to play an active role in the Afghan Civil War, and saw actions as a second lieutenant in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. By the 1980s, Musharraf was commanding an artillery brigade. In the 1990s, he was promoted to major general and assigned to an infantry division, and later commanded the Special Services Group. Later he served as deputy military secretary and the director general of military operations.

Musharraf rose to national prominence when he was appointed as four-star general by then-Prime Minister Sharif in October 1998, making him the head of the armed forces. In 1999, he led the Kargil infiltration that brought India and Pakistan to a full-fledged war. After months of contentious relations with Prime Minister Sharif who unsuccessfully attempted to remove Musharraf from the leadership of the army in retaliation, the army staged a coup d’état in 1999. This allowed Musharraf to take-over Pakistan and he subsequently had Prime Minister Sharif arrested and placed in detention before Sharif’s  trial in Adiala Prison.

Musharraf became the head of the military government while remaining the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 2001 and the Chief of the Army Staff. He relinquished the position of chairman of joint chiefs in 2001, but remained the Army Chief until retiring in 2007. He became the President of Pakistan on 20 June 2001, and won a controversial referendum on May 1, 2002 which awarded him five years of presidency.  In October 2002, he oversaw a general election which gave victory to the army backed PML-Q.

During his presidency, he advocated a third way in the synthesis of conservatism and left wing ideology, and appointed Shaukat Aziz in place of Sharif. He directed polices against terrorism, becoming a key player in the American-led war on terror. Over the next several years, Musharraf survived a number of assassination attempts. He reinstated the constitution in 2002, though it was amended with the Legal Framework Order. He also saw a process of social liberalism under his enlightened moderation program, while also promoting economic liberalization; he banned trade unions. He oversaw a rise in overall gross domestic product of around 50%, however domestic savings declined, and economic inequality grew. Musharraf has been accused of human rights abuses.

Shaukat Aziz left the job of Prime Minister, and after approval in 2007 of the suspension of judicature branch, Musharraf’s position dramatically weakened in early 2008. Tendering his resignation under  threat of potential impeachment led by the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party in 2008, Musharraf moved to London in self-imposed exile; returning to Pakistan to participate in the general elections held in 2013. While absent from Pakistan, Musharraf engaged in legal battles, and the country’s high courts issued warrants for him and Aziz for their alleged involvement in the assassinations of Benazir and Bugti. Upon his return in April 2013, Musharraf was disqualified from taking part in the elections by High Court judges. On 31st March 2014, Musharraf was booked and charged with high treason for implementing emergency rule and suspending the constitution in 2007.

His legacy is mixed; his era saw the emergence of a more assertive middle class, but his disregard for civilian institutions weakened the country.

Early life (British India)

Pervez Musharraf was born on 11 August 1943, to an Urdu-speaking family in Delhi. He is the son of Syed and Zarin Musharraf. His father, Syed Musharraf, graduated from Aligarh Muslim University, in Aligarh, India and was a civil servant of the Government of India. His mother, Zarin, born in the early 1920s, also worked as an academic and graduated from Aligarh Muslim University.

Musharraf’s first childhood home was called ‘neharwali haveli’, literally ‘house by the canal’. Syed Ahmed Khan’s family lived next door indicative of “the family’s western education and social prominence”, the home’s title deeds were written entirely in Urdu except for his father’s English signature.

Pakistan and Turkey

Musharraf and his family left for Pakistan on one of the last safe trains in August 1947, a few days before independence.  His father joined the Pakistan Civil Services; later he joined the Foreign Ministry, taking up an assignment in Turkey.  Musharraf’s family moved to Ankara in 1949, when his father became part of a diplomatic deputation to Turkey. He learned to speak Turkish. He had a dog named Whiskey that gave him a “lifelong love for dogs”. He often played sports in his youth. In 1956 he left Turkey and returned to Pakistan. In 1957, he attended Saint Patrick’s School in Karachi. He was accepted at Forman Christian College University in Lahore, where he had major in mathematics and performed extremely well, and developed an interest in economics.

Initial military career

In 1961, at age of 18, Musharraf entered the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul. During his years at PMA and initial combined military training, Musharraf shared a room with P.Q.  Mehdi of PAF and Abdul Aziz Mirza of Navy (both reached four-star assignments and served with Musharraf later on).   In 1964, Musharraf graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in the 29th PMA Long Course together with Ali Kuli Khan and his lifelong friend Abdul Aziz Mirza. He was commissioned in the artillery regiment as second lieutenant and posted near the Indo-Pakistan border. During this time, he maintained his friendship and contact with Mirza via letter and telephone even in difficult times when Mirza was stationed in East-Pakistan as a military advisor after joining the Navy SSG.

Indo-Pakistani conflicts (1965–1971)

His war experience started with an artillery regiment in the fighting in Khemkaran sector in the Kashmir War of 1965. He also participated in the Lahore and Sialkot zones during the conflict. During the war, Musharraf developed a reputation for sticking to his post under shellfire. He received the Imtiaz-i -Sanad medal for gallantry.

Shortly after the end of the 1965 War, he was selected to join the Special Forces school on the recommendation of his commanding officer in Sialkot. After passing the rigorous exams and tough physical training, he joined the elite Special Service Group (SSG) and trained with then-lieutenant Shahid Karimullah (also later a four-star admiral) for joint operations. He served in the SSG from 1966–1972, and was promoted to captain and major during this period. During the 1971 war with India, he was a company commander of a SSG commando battalion, and was scheduled to join the army-navy joint military operations in East Pakistan; the deployment did not materialize after the Indian Army advanced towards Southern West Pakistan.

Professorship and military assignments (1972–1990)

Musharraf was a lieutenant colonel in 1974; and a colonel in 1978. As staff officer in the 1980s, he studied political science at NDU, and then briefly tenured as assistant professor of war studies at the Command and Staff College; then assistant professor of political science at the National Defense University. One of his professors at NDU was General Jehangir Karamat who served as his guidance counselor and instructor and had a significant influence on his philosophy and thought. He did not play any significant role in Pakistan’s proxy war in the 1979–89 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1987, he became a brigade commander in the SSG and posted near Siachen Glacier. He was personally chosen by then-President and Chief of Army Staff General Zia-ul-Haq for this assignment due to Musharraf’s experience in mountain and Arctic warfare. In September 1987, an assault was launched under his command at Bilafond La but it was pushed back.

In 1990–91, he studied at the Royal College of Defense Studies (RCDS) in Britain. His course-mates included Major-Generals B. S. Malik and Ashok Mehta of the Indian Army, and Ali Kuli Khan of Pakistan Army. In his studies, Musharraf performed well and submitted his master’s degree thesis, titled “Impact of Arm Race on the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent”, and earned good remarks. His commandant, General Antony Walker regarded Musharraf as one of the finest students he had seen in his career. Walker described Musharraf as: “A capable, articulate and extremely personable officer, who made a valuable impact at RCDS. His country is fortunate to have the services of a man of his undeniable quality.”

He graduated with a master’s degree from RCDS and returned to Pakistan in the 1980s soon after. Upon returning, he took interest in the emerging popular rock music, and often listened to this music after getting off from duty. Musharraf was reportedly into popular western fashion in the 1980s, which was also popular in the government and public circles in the country at the time. In the Army, he earned the nickname “Cowboy” for his westernized ways and his interest in western clothing.

Command and staff appointments (1991–1995)

• In 1988-89, Brigadier Musharraf proposed the Kargil infiltration to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto but she rebuffed the plan.
• In 1991–93, he was promoted to major general and commanded the 40th Army Division stationed in Okara Military District in Punjab
• In 1993–95, he worked closely with the Chief of Army Staff as Director-General of Pakistan Army’s Directorate General for the Military Operations (DGMO).

During this time, Musharraf came close to engineering officer and Director General of ISI, Lieutenant-General Javed Nasir, and had worked with him while directing operations in Bosnian war. His political philosophy was influenced by Benazir Bhutto who mentored him on various occasions, and Musharraf generally agreed with her on military policy issues with India.

From 1993 to 1995, Musharraf visited the United States as part of Benazir Bhutto’s  delegation. Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman lobbied for his promotion to Benazir Bhutto, and got it approved by her, which led to his appointment in her key staff. In 1993, Musharraf assisted the prime minister during a secret meeting at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, D.C. with officials from Mossad and special envoy of Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin. It was during this time that Musharraf developed a cordial relationship with Shaukat Aziz, who at the time was serving as Citibank’s executive president of global financial services.

After the collapse of the fractious Afghan government, Musharraf assisted General Babar and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in devising a policy of supporting the newly formed Taliban in the Afghan Civil War against the Northern Alliance government. On policy issues, Musharraf befriended senior justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan Justice Rafiq Tarar (later president) and shared beliefs with the latter.

His last operational posting was in the Mangla region of Kashmir in 1995 when Benazir Bhutto approved his promotion to Lieutenant-General. Between 1995 and 1998, he was the corps commander (CC-I) of I Strike Corps stationed in Mangla Military District.

Chief of Army Staff and Chairman Joint Chiefs (1998-2007)

In October 1998, Nawaz Sharif and General Jehangir Karamat shared common beliefs concerning national security, but problems arose between the Prime Minister vs. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and General Jehangir Karamat. While addressing the officers and cadets at the Naval War College, General Karamat stressed the creation of National Security Council, which would be backed by a “team of civil-military experts” for devising policies to seek resolution to ongoing problems relating to the civil-military issues; and recommended a “neutral but competent bureaucracy and administration at federal level; the establishment of local governments in the four provinces.” This proposal was met with hostility, and led to the dismissal of General Karamat. This reduced Nawaz’s stature in public circles, and led to criticism from the Leader of the Opposition, Benazir Bhutto.

There were three lieutenant-generals in line to succeed General Karamat as chief of army staff. Lieutenant-General Ali Kuli Khan, a graduate of PMA and RMA, Sandhurst, was an extremely capable staff officer and well liked in public circles, but was seen as close to the former chief of army staff General (retired) Abdul Waheed; and was not promoted. Second in line was Lieutenant-General Khalid Nawaz Khan who was known for his ruthlessness in the army; particularly for his unforgiving attitude to junior officers. He was known for his anti-muhajir sentiment, and was a hardliner against the MQM.

Musharraf was in third-in line, and was well regarded by the general public and the armed forces. He also had an excellent academic standing from his college and university studies. Musharraf was  strongly favoured by the Prime Ministers colleagues: a straight officer with democratic views;  Nisar Ali Khan and Shahbaz Sharif recommended Musharraf and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif personally promoted him to the rank of four-star general to replace Karamat.

After the Kargil incident, Musharraf did not wish to continue as Chairman of  Joint Chiefs. He favoured Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Bokhari to take on the role, and said, “He did not care.” Prime Minister Sharif was displeased by this suggestion, due to his negative relationship with the Admiral. Musharraf further exacerbated his divide with Nawaz Sharif after recommending the forced retirement of senior officers close to the prime minister, including Lieutenant-General Tariq Pervez (or TP), commander of XII Corps, who was a brother-in-law of a high profile cabinet minister. According to Musharraf, Lieutenant-General TP was an ill-mannered, foul-mouthed, ill-disciplined officer who caused a great deal of dissent within the armed forces. Nawaz Sharif’s announcement of General Musharraf’s the promotion as Chairman Joint Chiefs caused an escalation of tensions with Admiral Bokhari, who upon hearing the news, launched a strong protest with the Prime minister; he relieved him of his duties the next morning. It was during this period as Chairman of Joint Chiefs that Musharraf began to build friendly relations with the United States Army establishment, including General Anthony Zinni, USMC, General Tommy Franks, General John Abizaid, and General Colin Powell, all of whom were four-star generals in the military.

Kargil Conflict

The Pakistan Army conceived the Kargil plan after the Siachen conflict but the plan was rebuffed repeatedly by senior civilian and military officials. Musharraf was a leading planner behind the Kargil Conflict. From March to May 1999, he ordered the secret infiltration of Kashmiri forces in the Kargil district. After India discovered the infiltration, a fierce Indian offensive nearly led to a full-scale war. However, Sharif withdrew support to the insurgents in July because of heightened international pressure. His decision antagonized the Pakistan Army and rumors of a possible coup began emerging soon afterwards about Sharif and Musharraf’s dispute; responsibility for the Kargil conflict and Pakistan’s withdrawal.

This military operation was met with great hostility in the public, and wide scale disapproval in the media. Musharraf had a confrontation and became involved in serious altercations with his senior officers; Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Fasih Bokhari, Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal P.Q.  Mehdi and Lieutenant-General Ali Kuli Khan. Admiral Bokhari demanded a joint-service court martial against General Musharraf, while on the other hand General Ali  Kuli Khan lambasted the war as “a disaster bigger than the East-Pakistan tragedy”, adding that the plan was “flawed in terms of its conception, tactical planning and execution” that ended in “sacrificing so many soldiers.” Problems with his lifelong friend, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Pervez Mehdi also arose when the air chief refrained to authorize any air strike to support the army operations in the Kargil region.

During a last meeting with the Prime minister, Musharraf faced criticism on the results of the Kargil infiltration by the military intelligence (MI) director, Lieutenant-General Jamshed Gulzar Kiani who maintained in the meeting: “(…) whatever has been written this is against logic. If you catch your enemy by the jugular vein he will react with full force…. If you cut enemy supply lines, the only option for him will be to ensure supplies by air… (sic).. . and that situation the Indian Army was unlikely to confront and it had to come up to the occasion. It is against wisdom that you dictate to the enemy to keep the war limited to a certain front….”

Nawaz Sharif has maintained that the Operation was conducted without his knowledge. However, details of the briefing given by the military before and after the Kargil operation became public. Between January and March before the operation, Sharif was briefed  in three separate meetings:

1. In January, the army briefed him about the Indian troop movement along the LOC in Skardu on 29 January 1999,
2. On 5 February at Kel,
3. On 12 March at the GHQ and
4. Finally on 17 May at the ISI headquarters.

During the end of the June DCC meeting, a tense Sharif turned to the army chief and said “you should have told me earlier“, Musharraf pulled out his notebook and repeated the dates and contents of around seven briefings he had given him since beginning of January.

Chief Executive, 1999 coup

Military officials from Musharraf’s Joint Staff Headquarters (JS HQ) met with regional corps commanders three times in late September in anticipation of a possible coup. To quell rumours of fallout between Musharraf and Sharif, Sharif officially certified Musharraf’s remaining two years of his term on 30 September.

 

Musharraf left for a weekend trip to take part in Sri Lanka’s Army’s 50th-anniversary celebrations. When he was returning from this official visit to Colombo,  his flight was denied landing permission at Karachi International Airport on orders from the Prime Minister’s office. On hearing the announcement of the replacement of Pervez Musharraf with Khwaja Ziauddin, the third replacement of the top military commander of the country in less than two years, local military commanders began to mobilize troops towards Islamabad from nearby Rawalpindi. The military placed Sharif under house arrest, but in a last-ditch effort Sharif privately ordered Karachi air traffic controllers to redirect Musharraf’s flight to India. The plan failed after soldiers in Karachi surrounded the airport control tower. At 2:50 am on 13 October, Musharraf addressed the nation with a recorded message.

• On 13 October, Musharraf met with President Rafiq Tarar to deliberate on legitimizing the coup.
• On 15 October, Musharraf terminated hopes of a quick transition to democracy after he declared a state of emergency, suspended the Constitution, and assumed power as Chief Executive. He also quickly purged the government of political enemies, notably Ziauddin and national airline chief Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.
• On 17 October, he gave his second national address and established a seven-member military-civilian council to govern the country.
• On 21 October, he named three retired military officers and a judge as provincial administrators.
• Finally, Musharraf assumed executive powers. He did not assume the office of Prime minister and the secretariat (official residence of Prime Minister of Pakistan) was closed by the military police and staff was dismissed immediately.

There were no organised protests within the country to the coup which was widely criticized by the international community. Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations. Sharif was put under house arrest and later exiled to Saudi Arabia on his personal request and under a contract.

First days

The senior military appointments in the inter-services were important for Musharraf to keep the legitimacy and support for his coup in the services. In the PAF, Musharraf pressured President Tarar to appoint the junior most air marshal to four-star rank, particularly someone with whom Musharraf had experience of working during the inter-services operations. Once Air-Chief Marshal Pervez Mehdi was retired, Air Marshal Mushaf Mir (who worked with Musharraf in 1996 to assist ISI in Taliban matters) was appointed to four-star rank as well as elevated as Chief of Air Staff. There were two important appointments made by Musharraf in the Navy.  Admiral Aziz Mirza, a lifelong friend of Musharraf who was appointed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was retained. Mirza remained extremely supportive of Musharraf’s coup and was also his close friend since 1971 when both had participated in a joint operation against the Indian Army. After Mirza’s retirement, Musharraf appointed Admiral Shahid Karimullah, with whom he had trained in Special Forces school in the 1960s, to four-star rank and Chief of Naval Staff.

Musharraf’s first foreign visit was to Saudi Arabia on 26 October where he met King Fahd. After meeting senior Saudi royals, the next day he went to Medina and also performed Umrah in Mecca. On 28 October, he went to United Arab Emirates enroute to home.

By the end of October, Musharraf appointed many technocrats and bureaucrats in his Cabinet, including former Citibank executive Shaukat Aziz as Finance Minister and Abdul Sattar as Foreign Minister. In early November, he released details of his assets to the public. In late December 1999, Musharraf dealt with his first international crisis when India accused Pakistan of involvement in the Indian Airlines Flight 814 hijacking. Though President Bill Clinton of the United States pressured Musharraf to ban the alleged group behind the hijacking — Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Pakistani officials refused because of fears of reprisals from political parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami.

In March 2000, Musharraf banned political rallies. In a television interview given in 2001, Musharraf openly spoke about the negative role of a few high-ranking officers in the Pakistan Armed Forces in state’s affairs. Musharraf labelled many of his senior professors at NDU as “pseudo-intellectuals”, including the NDU’s notable professors, General Aslam Beg and Jehangir Karamat under whom Musharraf studied and served well.

Sharif trial and exile

The Military Police held former Prime Minister Sharif under house arrest at a government guesthouse and opened his Lahore home to the public in late October 1999. He was formally indicted in November on charges of hijacking, kidnapping, attempted murder, and treason for preventing Musharraf’s flight from landing at Karachi airport on the day of the coup. His trial began in early March 2000 in an anti-terrorism court, which is designed for speedy trials. He testified Musharraf had begun preparations for a coup after the Kargil conflict.

Sharif was placed in Adiala Jail, notorious for the hosting Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s trial, and his leading defence lawyer, Iqbal Raad, was shot dead in Karachi in mid-March. Sharif’s defense team blamed the military for intentionally not providing their lawyers with adequate protection. The court proceedings were widely accused of being a farce. Sources from Pakistan claimed that Musharraf and his military government’s officers were in full mood to exercise tough conditions on Sharif, and intended to send him to gallows to face a similar fate as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979. It was pressure on Musharraf exerted by Saudi Arabia and the United States to exile Sharif after it became clear that the court would convict Nawaz Sharif on the charges, and sentence him to death. Sharif signed an agreement with Musharraf and his military government and his family was exiled to Saudi Arabia in December 2000.

Constitutional changes

Shortly after Musharraf’s takeover, he issued Oath of Judges Order No. 2000, which required judges to take a fresh oath of office swearing allegiance to the military. On 12 May 2000, the Supreme Court asked Musharraf to hold national elections by 12 October 2002. The residing President Rafiq Tarar remained in office until his voluntary resignation in June 2001. After his resignation, Musharraf formally appointed himself as President on 20 June 2001. In August 2002, he issued the Legal Framework Order No. 2002, which added numerous amendments to the Constitution.

2002 general elections

Musharraf called for nationwide elections in the country after accepting the ruling of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He was the first military president to accept the rulings of the Supreme Court and the holding of free and fair elections in 2002 in accordance with his vision to return democracy to the country. In October 2002, Pakistan held general elections, which the pro-Musharraf PML-Q won by a wide margin, though it had failed to gain absolute majority. The PML-Q, formed the government with far-right religious parties coalition, the MMA and the liberal, MQM; the coalition legitimised Musharraf’s rule.

After elections, the PML-Q nominated Zafarullah Khan Jamali for the office of Prime minister, which Musharraf also approved. After first session at the Parliament, Musharraf voluntarily transferred the powers of chief executive to Prime Minister of Pakistan Zafarullah Khan Jamali. Musharraf succeeded in passing the XVII amendment, which granted powers to dissolve the parliament, with approval required from the Supreme Court. Within two years, Jamali proved to be an ineffective prime minister to implement his policies in the country and problems with business class of Pakistan surfaced. Musharraf accepted the resignation of Jamali and asked his close colleague Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to appoint a new prime minister in place. Hussain nominated Finance minister Shaukat Aziz, who had been impressive due to his performance as finance minister in 1999. Musharraf regarded Aziz as his right hand and preferable choice for the office of Prime minister. With Aziz appointed as Prime minister, Musharraf transferred all executive powers to Aziz who proved capable in running the government and the economic growth reached a maximum level, which stabilised Musharraf’s presidency. Aziz quietly undermined the elements seeking to negate Musharraf. During 2004–07, Aziz approved many projects that did not required permission from Musharraf, who trusted Shaukat Aziz

In 2010, all constitutionals changes carried out by Musharraf and Aziz’s policies were reverted by the 18th Amendment, which put  the  country back to its initial position and gave powers to Prime minister according to the constitution.

Presidency

The presidency of Pervez Musharraf helped bring the liberal forces at the national level and into prominence, for the first time in the history of Pakistan. He granted national amnesty to the political workers of the liberal parties like MQM and PML (Q), and supported MQM in becoming a central player in the government. Musharraf disbanded the cultural policies of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and quickly adopted those of Benazir Bhutto after disbanding the Indian media channels in the country.

His cultural policies liberalized the Pakistan’s media, and many television licenses were issued to the private-sector to open television centers and media houses. The television dramas, film industry, theatre, music and literature activities, were personally encouraged by Pervez Musharraf. Under his policies, the rock music bands gained approval in the country and many concerts were held each week. The cultural policies promoted the national spirit in the country. In 2001, Musharraf got on stage with the rock music band, Junoon, and sang national song with the band.

On political front, Musharraf faced fierce opposition from the ultraconservative alliance, the MMA, led by clergyman Maulana Noorani. In Pakistan, Maulana Noorani was remembered as a mystic religious leader who had preached the spiritual aspects of Islam all over the world as part of the World Islamic Mission.  Although, the political deadlock posed by Maulana Noorani was neutralized after his death, Musharraf continued to face the opposition from ARD led by Benazir Bhutto of the PPP.

Support for the War on Terror

Musharraf allied with the United States against the Afghan Mujahideen in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. The Afghan Mujahideen, Al-Qaeda operatives, and other fundamentalist groups had  been consolidated and endorsed by the U.S.-backed President General Zia-ul-Haq, and initial financial funding was  endorsed by the United States against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

A few months after the September 11 attacks, Musharraf gave a speech against extremism. He instituted prohibitions on foreign students’ access to the study of Islam within Pakistan, an effort that began as an outright ban but was later reduced to restrictions on obtaining visas. On 18 September 2005, Musharraf made a speech before a broad based audience of Jewish leadership, sponsored by the American Jewish Congress’s Council for World Jewry, in New York City. In the speech, he denounced Islamic ideology and opened the door to relationships between his secular ideology and Israel. He was widely criticised by Middle Eastern leaders, but was met with some praise within the  Jewish leadership.

Relations with India

After the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, Musharraf expressed his sympathies to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and sent a plane load of relief supplies to India. In the 2004, Musharraf began a series of talks with India to resolve the Kashmir dispute.

Relations with Saudi Arabia

In 2006, King Abdullah visited Pakistan for the first time as King, and Musharraf honoured him with the Nishan-e-Pakistan. Musharraf received the King Abdul-Aziz Medallion in 2007.

Nuclear scandal

From September 2001 until his resignation in 2007 from the military, his presidency suffered controversial atomic scandals than any other government in the history of the country. These scandals badly affected his authority legitimacy in the country and in the international community. In October 2001, Musharraf authorised a sting operation led by FIA to arrest two physicists Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudhry Abdul Majeed due to their alleged connection with Taliban after they secretly visited Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2000. The local Pakistani media widely circulated the reports that “Mahmood had a meeting with Osama bin Laden where Bin Laden had shown interest in building a radiological weapon.”Later, it was revealed that neither of the scientists was capable of building designs of the bomb and lacked scientific knowledge of such weapons. The credibility of these two scientists was put in doubt of their role in country’s atomic bomb program. In December 2001, he authorized the security hearings of the two scientists who were taken in the custody by the JAG Branch (JAG) and the hearings continued until early 2002.

Another controversial scandal during Musharraf’s presidency arose as a consequence of the disclosure of atomic proliferation by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. On 27 February 2001, Musharraf spoke highly of Abdul Qadeer Khan in a farewell state dinner in Islamabad; personally approving of his appointment as Science Advisor to the Government.

In 2004, Musharraf relieved Qadeer Khan from his post and initially denied knowledge of government’s and the armed forces role in nuclear proliferation; in spite of Qadeer Khan maintaining that Musharraf was the “Big Boss” of the proliferation ring. Following this, Musharraf authorized national security hearings of Qadeer Khan, which continued until his resignation from the army in 2007. According to Zahid Malik, Musharraf and the military establishment at the time exercised abuse in actions against Qadeer Khan to prove their loyalty to the United States and Western world.

 

The investigations back fired on Musharraf and  public opinion turned against him soon after. The massive and populist ARD movement, containing the major political parties especially the rivals PML and the PPP, used the issue politically to malign Musharraf and to bring down his presidency.

In the public circles, the interrogation of Abdul Qadeer Khan had severely damaged Musharraf’s public image and his political prestige in the country. Musharraf faced bitter domestic criticism for singularly attempting to vilify Qadeer Khan, specifically from opposition leader Benazir Bhutto who issued harassing statements of Musharraf’s role. In an interview with Daily Times, Benazir Bhutto maintained that Abdul Qadeer Khan was made “scapegoat” in this nuclear proliferation scandal and she didn’t “believe that such a big scandal could have taken place under the nose of General Musharraf“. The long standing ally of Musharraf, the MQM, gave bitter and public criticism of Musharraf over his handling of Qadeer Khan. The ARD movement and the political parties further politicized this issue after tapping public anger and mass demonstrations all over the country against Musharraf took place. The credibility of the United States was also badly damaged over this issue; the United States refrained from pressuring Musharraf to take further actions against Qadeer Khan due to their calculations. While Qadeer Khan remained popular in the country, on the other hand, Musharraf could not sustain the political pressure and his presidency was weakened, being harassed by Benazir Bhutto over this issue. In a quick move, Musharraf quickly pardoned Qadeer Khan in exchange for cooperation and issued confinement orders against him that limited Khan’s movement. Musharraf wasted no time to hand over the case of Abdul Qadeer Khan into the hands of Prime minister Aziz who had been supportive towards Qadeer Khan and spoke highly of him in public in 2007; personally, “thanking” Qadeer Khan, and quoting: “The services of Dr. Qadeer Khan are unforgettable for the country.”

On 4 July 2008, in an interview, Qadeer Khan laid the blame on President Musharraf and later on Benazir Bhutto for transferring the technology, claiming that Musharraf was aware of all the deals and he was the “Big Boss” for those deals. Abdul Qadeer Khan said that, “Musharraf gave centrifuges to North Korea in a 2000 shipment supervised by the armed forces. The equipment was sent in a North Korean plane loaded under the supervision of Pakistan security officials.“Nuclear weapons expert David Albright of the ISIS agrees that Qadeer Khan’s activities were government-sanctioned. After Musharraf’s resignation, Qadeer Khan was finally released from house arrest by the executive order of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. After Musharraf departed from the country, the successive Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Tariq Majid terminated all further debriefings of Abdul Qadeer Khan. A complicating factor is that, few believed that Qadeer Khan acted alone and the affair gravely damaged the Armed Forces, which oversaw and controlled the nuclear weapons development and of which Musharraf was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, until his resignation from military service on 28 November 2007.

Corruption issues

When Musharraf came to power in 1999, he promised that the corruption in the government bureaucracy would be cleaned up. However, some claimed that the level of corruption did not diminish throughout Musharraf’s time.

Domestic politics

In December 2003, Musharraf made a deal with MMA, a six-member coalition of far-right Islamic parties, agreeing to leave the army by 31 December 2004. With that party’s support, pro-Musharraf legislators were able to muster the two-thirds majority required to pass the Seventeenth Amendment, which retroactively legalised Musharraf’s 1999 coup and many of his decrees. In late 2004, Musharraf went back on his agreement with the MMA and pro-Musharraf legislators in the Parliament passed a bill allowing Musharraf to keep both offices. Constitution Article 63 clause (1) paragraph (d), read with proviso to Article 41 clause (7) paragraph (b), allows the President to hold dual office.

On 1 January 2004, Musharraf had won a confidence vote in the Electoral College of Pakistan, consisting of both houses of Parliament and the four provincial assemblies. Musharraf received 658 out of 1170 votes, a 56% majority, but many opposition and Islamic members of parliament walked out in protest . As a result of this vote, his term was extended to 2007.

Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali resigned on 26 June 2004, after losing the support of the Musharraf’s party, PML (Q). His resignation was at least partially due to his public differences with the party chairman, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. This was rumored to have happened at Musharraf’s directive. Jamali had been appointed with the support of Musharraf and the pro-Musharraf PML (Q). Most PML (Q) parliamentarians formerly belonged to the Pakistan Muslim League party led by Sharif, and most ministers of the cabinet were formerly senior members of other parties, joining the PML (Q) after the elections upon being offered positions. Musharraf nominated Shaukat Aziz, the minister for finance and a former employee of Citibank and head of Citibank Private Banking as the new prime minister.

Women’s rights

President Musharraf is greeted by President Bush in Washington in September 2006.

The National Assembly voted in favour of the “Women’s Protection Bill” on 15 November 2006 and the Senate approved it on 23 November 2006. President General Pervez Musharraf signed into law the “Women’s Protection Bill”, on 1 December 2006. The bill places rape laws under the penal code and allegedly does away with harsh conditions that previously required victims to produce four male witnesses and exposed the victims to prosecution for adultery, if they were unable to prove the crime. However, the Women’s Protection bill has been criticised heavily by many for paying continued lip service and failing to address the actual problem by its roots: repealing the Hudood Ordinance. In this context, Musharraf has also been criticized by women and human rights activists for not following up his words by action. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said that “The so-called Women’s Protection Bill is a farcical attempt at making Hudood Ordinances palatable” outlining the issues of the bill and the continued impact on women.

His government increased reserved seats for women in assemblies, to increase women’s representation and make their presence more effective. Compared with 1988 seats in the National Assembly were increased from 20 to 60. In provincial assemblies 128 seats were reserved for women. This situation has brought an increase participation of women for 1988 and 2008 elections.

In March 2005, a couple of months after the rape of a Pakistani physician, Dr. Shazia Khalid, who worked on a government gas plant in the remote Balochistan province, Musharraf was criticised for pronouncing, Captain Hammad, a fellow military man and the accused in the case, innocent before the judicial inquiry was complete.  Following the rape, riots erupted in the local Bugti clan of the province, where the rape took place. They saw a rape in their heartland as being a breach of their code of honour and attacked the gas plant. In an uncompromising response Musharraf sent tanks, helicopters and extra 4,500 soldiers to guard the installation. If the tribesmen failed to stop shooting, he warned on television, “They will not know what hit them.” Shazia was later forced and threatened by the government to leave the country.

In an interview to The Washington Post in September 2005 Musharraf said that Pakistani women, who were the victims of rape, treated rape as a “moneymaking concern” and were only interested in the publicity in order to make money and get a Canadian visa. He subsequently denied making these comments, but The Washington Post made available an audio recording of the interview, in which Musharraf could be heard making the quoted remarks. Musharraf also denied Mukhtaran Mai, a Pakistani rape victim, the right to travel abroad, until pressured by US State Department. The remarks made by Musharraf sparked outrage and protests both internationally and in Pakistan by various groups i.e. women groups, activists. In a rally, held close to the presidential palace and Pakistan’s parliament, hundreds of women demonstrated in Pakistan demanding Musharraf apologise for the controversial remarks about female rape victims.

Assassination attempts

In 2000 Kamran Atif, an alleged member of Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alami, tried to assassinate Musharraf. Atif was sentenced to death in 2006 by an Anti Terrorism Court. On 14 December 2003, Musharraf survived an assassination attempt when a powerful bomb went off minutes after his highly guarded convoy crossed a bridge in Rawalpindi. It was the third such attempt during his four-year rule. On 25 December 2003, two suicide bombers tried to assassinate Musharraf, but their car bombs failed to kill him; 16 others died instead. Musharraf escaped with only a cracked windshield on his car. Amjad Farooqi was an alleged mastermind behind these attempts, and was killed by Pakistani forces in 2004 after an extensive manhunt.

On 6 July 2007, there was another assassination attempt, when an unknown group fired a 7.62 submachine gun at Musharraf’s plane as it took off from a runway in Rawalpindi. Security also recovered 2 anti-aircraft guns, from which no shots had been fired. On 17 July 2007, Pakistani police detained 39 people in relation to the attempted assassination. The suspects were detained at an undisclosed location by a joint team of Punjab Police, the Federal Investigation Agency and other Pakistani intelligence agencies.

On 8 October 2007, a military helicopter escorting President Musharraf, on his visit to the earthquake-affected areas on its second anniversary, crashed near Muzaffarabad, killing four people, including a brigadier. The Puma helicopter crashed at Majohi near Garhi Dupatta in Azad Kashmir at 11:15 am due to technical fault. Those killed included Brigadier Zahoor Ahmed, Naik Ajmal, Sepoy Rashid and PTV cameraman Muhammad Farooq, while President’s Media Advisor Maj Gen (R) Rashid Qureshi sustained injuries. Twelve people were on board the helicopter.

Fall from the presidency

By August 2007, polls showed 64 percent of Pakistanis did not want another Musharraf term. Controversies involving the atomic issues, Lal Masjid incident, unpopular operation in West, suspension of popular Chief Justice, and widely circulated criticisms from rivals, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, had scarred the personal image of Musharraf in public and political circles. More importantly, with Shaukat Aziz departing from the office of Prime Minister, Musharraf could not sustain his presidency any longer and dramatically fell from it within a matter of eight months, after popular and mass public movements successfully called for his impeachment for actions taken during his term.

Suspension and reinstatement of the Chief Justice

On 9 March 2007, Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and pressed corruption charges against him. He replaced him with ally Acting Chief Justice Javed Iqbal.

Musharraf’s moves sparked protests among Pakistani lawyers. On 12 March 2007, lawyers started a campaign called Judicial Activism across Pakistan and began boycotting all court procedures in protest against the suspension. In Islamabad, as well as other cities such as Lahore, Karachi, and Quetta hundreds of lawyers dressed in black suits attended rallies, condemning the suspension as unconstitutional. Slowly the expressions of support for the ousted Chief Justice gathered momentum and by May, protesters and opposition parties took out huge rallies against Musharraf and his tenure as army chief was also challenged in the courts.

Lal Masjid siege

Lal Masjid had a religious school for women and the Jamia Hafsa madrassa, which was attached to the mosque. A male madrassa was only a few minutes’ drive away. The mosque was often attended by prominent politicians including prime ministers, army chiefs, and presidents.

In April 2007, the mosque administration started to encourage attacks on local video shops, alleging that they were selling porn films, and massage parlours, which were alleged to be used as brothels. These attacks were often carried out by the mosque’s female students. In July 2007, a confrontation occurred when government authorities made a decision to stop the student violence and send police officers to arrest the responsible individuals and the madrassa administration.

This development led to a standoff between police forces and armed students. Mosque leaders and students refused to surrender and kept firing on police from inside the mosque building. Both sides suffered casualties.

Return of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif

On 8 August 2007, Benazir Bhutto spoke about her secret meeting with Musharraf on 27 July, in an interview on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

On 14 September 2007, Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim stated that Bhutto won’t be deported, but must face corruption suits against her. He clarified Sharif’s and Bhutto’s right to return to Pakistan. Bhutto returned from eight years exile on 18 October. On 17 September 2007, Bhutto accused Musharraf’s allies of pushing Pakistan to crisis by refusing to restore democracy and share power. Musharraf called for a three-day mourning period after Bhutto’s assassination on 27 December 2007.

Sharif returned to Pakistan in September 2007, and was immediately arrested and taken into custody at the airport. He was sent back to Saudi Arabia. Saudi intelligence chief Muqrin bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and Lebanese politician Saad Hariri arrived separately in Islamabad on 8 September 2007, the former with a message from Saudi King Abdullah and the latter after a meeting with Nawaz Sharif in London. They met President General Pervez Musharraf for two-and-a-half hours and discussed Nawaz Sharif’s possible return. On arrival in Saudi Arabia, Nawaz Sharif was received by Prince Muqrin bin Abdul-Aziz, the Saudi intelligence chief, who had met Musharraf in Islamabad the previous day. This meeting was followed by a rare press conference, at which he had warned that Sharif should not violate the terms of King Abdullah’s agreement of staying out of politics for 10 years.

Resignation from the Military

On 2 October 2007, Musharraf appointed General Tariq Majid as Chairman Joint Chiefs Committee and approved General Ashfaq Kayani as vice chief of the army starting 8 October. When Musharraf resigned from military on 28 November 2007, Kayani became Chief of Army Staff.

2007 presidential elections

In a March 2007 interview, Musharraf said that he intended to stay in office for another five years.

A nine-member panel of Supreme Court judges deliberated on six petitions (including Jamaat-e-Islami’s, Pakistan’s largest Islamic group) for disqualification of Musharraf as presidential candidate. Bhutto stated that her party may join other opposition groups, including Sharif’s.

On 28 September 2007, in a 6–3 vote, Judge Rana Bhagwandas’s court removed obstacles to Musharraf’s election bid.

2007 state of emergency

On 3 November 2007 Musharraf declared emergency rule across Pakistan. He suspended the Constitution, imposed State of Emergency, and fired the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court again. In Islamabad, troops entered the Supreme Court building, arrested the judges and kept them under detention in their homes. Troops were deployed inside state-run TV and radio stations, while independent channels went off air. Public protests mounted against Musharraf.

2008 general elections

General elections were held on 18 February 2008, in which the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) polled the highest votes and won the most seats.  On 23 March 2008, President Musharraf said an “era of democracy” had begun in Pakistan and that he had put the country “on the track of development and progress“. On 22 March, the PPP named former parliament speaker Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani as its candidate for the country’s next prime minister, to lead a coalition government united against him.

Impeachment movement and resignation

On 7 August 2008, the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) agreed to force Musharraf to step down and begin his impeachment. Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif announced sending a formal request or joint charge sheet that he step down, and impeach him through parliamentary process upon refusal. Musharraf refused to step down. A charge-sheet had been drafted, and was to be presented to parliament. It included Mr Musharraf’s first seizure of power in 1999—at the expense of Nawaz Sharif, the PML(N)’s leader, whom Mr Musharraf imprisoned and exiled—and his second last November, when he declared an emergency as a means to get re-elected president. The charge-sheet also listed some of Mr Musharraf’s contributions to the “war on terror.”

Musharraf delayed his departure for the Beijing Olympics, by a day. On 11 August, the government summoned the national assembly.

Exile

Pervez Musharraf led Pakistan from 1999 to 2008. On 18 August 2008, Musharraf announced his resignation. On the following day, he defended his nine-year rule in an hour-long televised speech. On 23 November 2008 he left for exile in London where he arrived the following day.

Academia and lectureship

After his resignation, Musharraf went to perform holy pilgrimage to Mecca. He then went on a speaking and lectureship tour through the Middle East, Europe, and United States. Chicago-based Embark LLC was one of the international public-relations firms trying to land Musharraf as a highly paid keynote speaker. According to Embark President David B. Wheeler, the speaking fee for Musharraf would be in the $150,000–200,000 range for a day plus jet and other V.I.P. arrangements on the ground.  In 2011, he also lectured at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on politics and racism where he also authored and published a paper with George Perkvich.

Return to politics and formation of All Pakistan Muslim League

Since quitting politics in 2008, Musharraf has been in London since 24 November 2008in self-imposed exile. Musharraf launched his own political party, the All Pakistan Muslim League, in June 2010.

Legal threats and actions

 

The PML-N has tried to get Pervez Musharraf to stand trial in an article 6 trial for treason in relation to the emergency on 3 November 2007. The Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousaf Raza Gilani has said a consensus resolution is required in national assembly for an article 6 trial of Pervez Musharraf.

“I have no love lost for Musharraf … if parliament decides to try him, I will be with parliament. Article 6 cannot be applied to one individual … those who supported him are today in my cabinet and some of them have also joined the PML-N … the MMA, the MQM and the PML-Q supported him … this is why I have said that it is not doable,” said the Prime Minister while informally talking to editors and also replying to questions by journalists at an Iftar-dinner he had hosted for them. Although the constitution of Pakistan, Article 232 and Article 236, provides for emergencies, and on 15 February 2008, the interim Pakistan Supreme Court attempted to validated the Proclamation of Emergency on 3 November 2007, the Provisional Constitution Order No 1 of 2007 and the Oath of Office (Judges) Order, 2007, after the Supreme Court judges were restored to the bench, on 31 July 2009, they ruled that Musharraf had violated the constitution when he declared emergency rule in 2007.

Saudi Arabia exerted its influence to attempt to prevent treason charges, under Article 6 of the constitution, from being brought against Musharraf, citing existing agreements between the states, as well as pressuring Sharif directly. As it turned out, it was not Sharif’s decision to make.

Abbottabad district and sessions judge in a missing person’s case passed judgment asking the authorities to declare Pervez Musharraf a proclaimed offender. On 11 February 2011 the Anti Terrorism Court,  issued an arrest warrant for Musharraf and charged him with conspiracy to commit murder of Benazir Bhutto. On 8 March 2011, the Sindh High Court registered treason charges against him.

Views on Pakistani police commandos

Regarding the Lahore attack on Sri Lankan players, Musharraf criticized the police commandos’ inability to kill any of the gunmen, saying “If this was the elite force I would expect them to have shot down those people who attacked them, the reaction and their training should be on a level that if anyone shoots toward the company they are guarding, in less than three seconds they should shoot the man down.”

Views on the blasphemy laws in Pakistan

Regarding the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, Musharraf said that Pakistan is sensitive to religious issues and that the blasphemy law should stay.

Return to Pakistan

Since the start of 2011, news had circulated that Musharraf would return to Pakistan before the 2013 general election. He himself vowed this in several interviews. On Piers Morgan Tonight, Musharraf announced his plans to return to Pakistan on 23 March 2012 in order to seek the Presidency in 2013. The Taliban and Talal Bugti threatened to kill him should he return. On 3 April 2014, Musharraf escaped the fourth assassination attempt, resulting in an injury of a woman, according to Pakistani news.

Electoral disqualification

On 24 March 2013, after a four-year self-imposed exile, he returned to Pakistan. He landed at Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, via a chartered Emirates flight with Pakistani journalists and foreign news correspondents at around 12:40 PM PST. Hundreds of his supporters and workers of APML were at Karachi airport to welcome him. He also delivered a short public speech outside the airport lounge.

On 16 April 2013, an electoral tribunal in Chitral declared Musharraf disqualified from candidacy there, effectively quashing his political ambitions (several other constituencies had previously rejected Musharraf’s nominations). A spokesperson for Musharraf’s party said the ruling was “biased” and they would appeal the decision.

House arrest

While Musharraf had technically been on bail since his return to the country, on 18 April 2013 The Islamabad High Court ordered the arrest of Musharraf on charges relating to the 2007 arrests of judges. Musharraf escaped from court with the aid of his security personnel, and went to his farm-house mansion. The following day Musharraf was under house arrest but was later transferred to police headquarters in Islamabad. Musharraf characterized his arrest as “politically motivated “and his legal team has declared their intention to fight the charges in the Supreme Court. Further to the charges of this arrest, the Senate also passed a resolution petitioning that Musharraf be charged with high treason in relation to the events of 2007.

Court arrest orders

On Friday 26 April 2013 the court ordered house arrest for Musharraf in connection with the death of Benazir Bhutto. On 20 May, a Pakistani court granted bail to Musharraf. On 12 June 2014 Sindh High Court allowed him to travel abroad.

Murder cases investigations

On 25 June 2013, Musharraf was named as prime suspect in two separate cases, first Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and second being Akbar Bugti case by Federal Investigation Agency for masterminding the assassinations of Benazir Bhutto and Akbar Bugti. On 20 August 2013, a Pakistani court indicted Musharraf in the assassination of Bhutto. On 2 September 2013, a FIR was registered against Pervez Musharraf for his role in the Lal Masjid Operation 2007. The FIR was lodged after the son of slain hard line cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi (who was killed during the operation) asked authorities to bring charges against Musharraf.

Musharraf in four-star army uniform

• 10th President of Pakistan: 20 June 2001 – 18 August 2008
• Chief Executive of Pakistan: 12 October 1999 – 21 November 2002
• Minister of Defence: 12 October 1999 – 23 October 2002
• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee: 8 October 1998 – 7 October 2001
• Chief of Army Staff: 6 October 1998 – 28 November 2007

Personal details

• Born: 11 August 1943 (age 73), in Delhi, British India
• Nationality: Pakistani
• Musharraf is the second son with two brothers, Javed and Naved. Javed retired as a high-level official in Pakistan’s Civil Service. Naved is an anesthesiologist who has lived in Chicago since completing his residency training at Loyola University Medical Center in 1979.
• Spouse: Musharraf married Sehba from Karachi on 28 December 1968. They have a daughter, Ayla, an architect married to film director Asim Raza, and a son, Bilal.
• Religion: Islam
• Political party: All Pakistan Muslim League
• Other political affiliations: Pakistan Muslim League (Q)
• Musharraf published his autobiography — In the Line of Fire: A Memoir  in 2006.

 Alma mater

• Forman Christian College
• Command and Staff College
• National Defence University
• Royal College of Defense

 Awards

• Order of Excellence Nishan-e-Imtiaz.png Nishan-e-Imtiaz
• Medal of Good Conduct Tamgha-e-Basalat.png Tamgha-e-Basalat
• Star of Good Conduct Sitara-e-Basalat.png Imtiazi Sanad
• Spange des König-Abdulaziz-Ordens.png Order of al-Saud

 MILITARY  SERVICE

Nickname(s)

• “Cowboy”,”Mush”,”Palloo”
• Allegiance: Pakistan
• Service/branch : Pakistan Army
• Years of service: 1964–2007
• Rank; OF-9 Pakistan Army.svg; US-O10 insignia.svg General
• Unit: Regiment of Artillery

 Commands

• I Corps
• XII Corps
• Special Services Group
• DG Military operations
• 40th Army Division, Okara

 Battles/Wars

• Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
• Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
• Siachen conflict
• Kargil War
• Civil war in Afghanistan (1996–2001)
• 1999 Pakistani coup d’état
• 2001–2002 India-Pakistan standoff
• War in North-West Pakist

By courtesy Wikipedia.org

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General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq [ محمد ضیاءالحق‎] ( 12 August 1924 – 17 August 1988) was a four-star General who served as the 6th President of Pakistan from 1978 (after declaring martial law in 1977) until his death in 1988. He was Pakistan’s longest-serving head of state. Educated at Delhi University, Zia saw action in World War II as a British Indian Army officer before opting for Pakistan in 1947. He fought in the war against India in 1965 and in 1970 led Pakistan’s military training mission in Jordan which was instrumental in putting down the Black September insurgency against King Hussein. In recognition, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto approved his four-star appointment as general in the Pakistan Army, and appointed him as its chief in 1976.  During civil disorder, Zia deposed Bhutto in a military coup and on 5 July 1977 declared martial law. Bhutto was tried by the Supreme Court and executed less than two years later for authorizing the murder of a political opponent.

Assuming the presidency in 1978, Zia played a major role in the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Assisted by the United States and Saudi Arabia, Zia coordinated the Afghan mujahideen against Soviet occupation throughout the 1980s.  The Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989; millions of Afghan refugees came to the NWFP province in Pakistan with associated drugs and weaponry problems.

Zia increased ties with China, the European Economic Community, the United States, and emphasized Pakistan’s role in the Islamic world. Relations with India worsened with the Siachen conflict and accusations of aid to the Khalistan movement.

At home, Zia passed broad-ranging legislation as part of Pakistan’s Islamisation which were criticized for promoting religious intolerance. He escalated the atomic bomb project, and increased industrialization and deregulation, helping the economy to become one of the fastest-growing in South Asia. On average, the GDP growth was the highest in the country’s history in his tenure.

After lifting martial law and holding non-partisan elections in 1985, Zia appointed Muhammad Khan Junejo as the Prime Minister. He acquired greater powers as president via the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Junejo signed the Geneva Accords in 1988 against Zia’s wishes, and called for an inquiry into the Ojhri Camp disaster.

Zia dismissed the Junejo government and announced fresh elections in November 1988. He was killed along with several of his top military officials and two American diplomats in a mysterious plane crash near Bahawalpur on 17 August 1988.

Zia remains a polarizing figure in Pakistan’s history, credited for preventing wider Soviet incursions into the region as well as economic prosperity, but decried for weakening democratic institutions and passing laws encouraging religious intolerance.

Early life: he was born in a Punjabi Arain family in Jullunder, Punjab, India, on 12 August 1924,  being the second child of Muhammad Akbar who worked as a staff clerk in the Indian Army GHQ of British Armed Forces in Delhi prior to independence in 1947.

Zia completed his initial education in Simla and attended St. Stephen’s College, Delhi,  for his graduation in History in 1943. He joined the British Indian Army the same year. He married Shafiq Jahan in 1950 who died on 6 January 1996. Zia is survived by his sons and daughters:

• Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq, (born 1953): who went into politics and became a cabinet minister in the government of Nawaz Sharif
• Anwar-ul-Haq (born 1960)
• Daughter Zain (born 1972), a special needs child
• Daughter Rubina Saleem married to a Pakistani banker and lives in the United States since 1980
• Daughter Quratulain Zia who currently lives in London, and is married to Pakistani doctor, Adnan Majid.

Military service

 

General Zia-ul-Haq (centre-left, second row) marching with Chairman Joint Chiefs General Muhammad Sharif at PMA, 1977

Zia was commissioned in the British Indian Army with the 25th Cavalry on 12 May 1943 after graduating from the Officer Training School Mhow, and fought against Japanese forces in Burma in World War II. After Pakistan gained its independence in 1947, Zia joined the newly formed Pakistan Army as a Major in the Guides Cavalry,  Frontier Force Regiment. He trained in the United States during 1962–1964 at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He returned to take over as Directing Staff (DS) at Command and Staff College, Quetta. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Zia was a tank commander.

He was stationed in Jordan from 1967 to 1970 as a Brigadier, helping in the training of Jordanian soldiers, as well as leading the training mission into battle during the Black September operations against the Palestine Liberation Organization as commander of Jordanian 2nd Division. This proved crucial to King Hussein’s remaining in power. By 1973, as Major General Zia was commanding the 1st Armoured Division at Multan.

On promotion as Lieutenant General, he was appointed commander of the II Strike Corps at Multan in 1975. It was during this time that Zia invited Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as the Colonel-in-Chief of the Armoured Corps at Multan, using his tailor to stitch the army blue patrol uniform for him. The next day, Bhutto climbed into a tank and engaged a target which he obviously did not miss. After the function, Zia expressed his loyalty to Bhutto. On 1 March 1976, Bhutto approved Lieutenant-General Zia as Chief of Army Staff and elevated to four-star general rank.

This promotion was ahead of a number of more senior officers and was politically motivated by Bhutto, who saw Zia as firmly religious and an apolitical military figure. This was the motive of future Prime minister Nawaz Sharif when he promoted Pervez Musharraf as Chief of Army Staff in 1998.

At the time of nomination of the successor to outgoing Chief of Army Staff General Tikka Khan, the Lieutenant Generals in order of seniority were:

1. Muhammad Shariff
2. Akbar Khan
3. Aftab Ahmed
4. Azmat Baksh Awan
5. Ibrahim Akram
6. Abdul Majeed Malik
7. Ghulam Jilani Khan
8. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.

Bhutto chose the junior most, superseding seven senior lieutenant-generals. However, the senior most at the time, Lieutenant-General Mohammad Shariff was promoted to General, and made the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, a constitutional post. Zia never called Bhutto “Mr. Prime Minister” but called him “sir” when speaking to him.

Planning of coup: Bhutto began facing considerable criticism and increasing unpopularity as his term progressed; the democratic socialists alliance which had previously allied with Bhutto began to ease off as time progressed, initially targeting leader of the opposition Wali Khan and the opposition National Awami Party (NAP). Despite the ideological similarity of the two parties, the clash of egos both inside and outside the National Assembly became increasingly fierce, starting with the Federal government’s decision to oust the NAP provincial government in Balochistan Province for alleged secessionist activities and culminating in the banning of the party and arrest of much of its leadership after the death of a close lieutenant of Bhutto, Hayat Sherpao, in a bomb blast in Peshawar.

Civil disorder against Bhutto: Dissidence increased within the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and the murder of Ahmed Raza Kasuri’s father led to public outrage and intra-party hostility as Bhutto was accused of masterminding the crime. PPP leaders such as Ghulam Mustafa Khar openly condemned Bhutto and called for protests against his regime. The political crisis in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan intensified as civil liberties remained suspended, and an estimated 100,000 troops were deployed there who were accused of abusing human rights and killing large numbers of civilians.

1977 Parliamentary elections: On 8 January 1977 a large number of opposition political parties grouped to form the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA). Bhutto called fresh elections, and PNA participated fully in those elections. They managed to contest the elections jointly even though there were grave splits in views within the party. The PNA faced defeat but did not accept the results, alleging that the election had been rigged. They proceeded to boycott the provincial elections which were held amidst low voter turnout. Amidst an opposition boycott, the PNA declared the newly elected Bhutto government as illegitimate.

Coup d’état (Operation Fair Play): Soon, all the opposition leaders called for the overthrow of Bhutto’s regime. Political and civil disorder intensified, which led to more unrest. On 21 April 1977, Bhutto imposed martial law in the major cities of Karachi, Lahore and Hyderabad. However, a compromise agreement between Bhutto and opposition was ultimately reported. Zia planned the coup d’état carefully, as he knew Bhutto had inside intelligence in the Pakistan Armed Forces, and many officers, including Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Zulfiqar Ali Khan and Major-General Tajammul Hussain Malik, GOC of 23rd Mountain Division, Major-General Naseerullah Babar, DG of Directorate-General for the Military Intelligence (DGMO) and Vice-Admiral Syed Mohammad Ahsan, were loyal to Bhutto.

The coup, (Operation Fair Play) occurred in the small hours of 5 July 1977. Before the announcement of any agreement, Bhutto and members of his cabinet were arrested by the military police under the order of Zia. Bhutto tried to call Zia but all telephone lines were disconnected. When Zia spoke to him later, he reportedly told Bhutto that he was sorry that he had been forced to perform such an “unpleasant task”. Zia and his military government portrayed the coup as a “spontaneous response to a difficult situation“, but his response was a complete contradiction. Soon after the coup, Zia told the British journalist Edward Behr of Newsweek:

I [Zia] am the only man who took this decision [Fair Play] and I did so on 1700 Hrs on 4[th] July after hearing the press statement which indicated that the talks between Mr. Bhutto and the opposition had broken down. Had an agreement been reached between them, I would certainly never had done what I did.— General Zia-ul-Haq, statement given to Newsweek.

However, Zia’s Chief of Army Staff General Khalid Mahmud Arif contradicted Zia’s statement when Arif noted that the coup had already been planned, and the senior leadership of Pakistan Armed Forces had solid information. Arif met with Bhutto on an emergency basis, stressing and urging Bhutto to “rush negotiations with the opposition“. By all independent experts, the talks had not broken down even though the coup was very much in the offing. Zia further argued that Fair Play against Bhutto had been necessitated by the prospect of a civil war that Bhutto had been planning, by distributing weapons to his supporters. However, Arif strongly rejected Zia’s remarks  and stated that no evidence of weapons was found or recovered at any of the party’s election offices. The military junta did not prosecute Bhutto on the charge of planning civil war.

Immediately, the Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Mohammad Shariff announced his and the navy’s strong support for Zia and his military government. But the Chief of Air Staff Air Marshall Zulfikar Ali Khan remained unsupportive while the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Muhammad Shariff remained neutral, but he silently expressed his support to Prime minister Zulfikar Bhutto.In 1978, Zia pressured President Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry to appoint General Anwar Shamim as Chief of Air Staff, and Admiral Karamat Rahman Niazi as Chief of Naval Staff in 1979, making the Admiral the highest ranking officer and principal military adviser overlooking all of the inter-services, including the Chiefs of Staff of the respected forces.  In 1979, the Chiefs of Army, Navy, and the Air Force, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff validated the coup as constitutional and legal under the circumstances, pledging their support to Zia as well.

United States sponsorship

President Ronald Reagan and Bill Clark meeting with President Zia-ul-Haq, 1982.

The United States, notably the Reagan Administration, was an ardent supporter of Zia’s military regime and a close ally of Pakistan’s conservative-leaning ruling military establishment. The Reagan administration declared Zia’s regime as the “front line” ally of the United States in the fight against the threat of Communism. American legislators and senior officials most notably were:

• Zbigniew Brzezinski
• Henry Kissinger
• Charlie Wilson
• Joanne Herring

the civilian intelligence officers:

• Michael Pillsbury
• Gust Avrakotos

and senior US military officials:

• General John William Vessey
• General Herbert M. Wassom

had been long associated with the Zia military regime and  had made frequent trips to Pakistan. The American conservatism of Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party influenced Zia to adopt the idea of Islamic conservatism as the primary focus of his military government, enforcing the Islamic religious practice in the country.

The socialist orientation had greatly alarmed the capitalist forces in Pakistan as well as alarm in United States which feared the loss of Pakistan as a cold war ally. Many of Pakistan’s political scientists and historians widely suspected that the riots and coup against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was orchestrated with help of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the United States Government because of the United States growing fear of Bhutto’s socialist policies which were seen as sympathetic towards the Soviet Union and had built a bridge allowing Soviet Union to be involved in Pakistan; access through Pakistan’s warm water port.

The United States was unable to gain this access since Pakistan’s establishment in 1947. Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark widely suspected United States’ involvement in bringing down the Bhutto’s government, and  accused the United States’ Government after attending the trial. On the other hand, the United States denied any role in Bhutto’s fall, and argued that it was Bhutto who had alienated himself with them for five years. Witnessing the fall of Bhutto, one US diplomat in American Embassy in Islamabad wrote that:

During Bhutto’s five years in Pakistan’s helm, Bhutto had retained an emotional hold on the poor masses who had voted him overwhelmingly in 1970s general elections. At the same time, however, Bhutto had many enemies. The socialist economics and nationalization of major private industries during his first two years on office had badly upsets the Business circles … An ill-considered decision to take over the wheat-milling, rice-husking, sugar mills, and cotton-gaining, industries in July of 1976 had angered the small business owners and traders. Both leftists – socialists and communists, intellectuals, students, and trade unionists— felt betrayed by Bhutto’s shift to centre-right wing conservative economics policies and by his growing collaboration with powerful feudal lords, Pakistan’s traditional power brokers. After 1976, Bhutto’s aggressive authoritarian personal style and often high-handed way of dealing with political rivals, dissidents, and opponents had also alienated many…

Postponement of elections and call for accountability: After assuming power as Chief Martial Law Administrator, Zia shortly appeared on national television promising to hold new and neutral parliamentary elections within the next 90 days.

My sole aim is to organize free and fair elections which would be held in October this year. Soon after the polls, power will be transferred to the elected representatives of the people. I give a solemn assurance that I will not deviate from this schedule.

He also stated that the Constitution of Pakistan had not been abrogated, but temporarily suspended. Zia did not trust the civilian institutions and legislators to ensure the country’s integrity and sovereignty therefore, in October 1977; he announced the postponement of the electoral plan and decided to start an accountability process for the politicians. On television, Zia strongly defended his decision for postponing the elections and demanded that “scrutiny of political leaders who had engaged in malpractice in the past“. Thus, the PNA adopted its policy of “retribution first, elections later“. Zia’s policy severely tainted his credibility as many saw the broken promise as malicious.

Another motive was,  Zia widely suspected that once out of power, the size of the Pakistan Peoples Party rallies would swell and better performance in elections was possible. This led to a request for postponement of elections by the right-wing Islamists as well as left-wing socialists, formerly allied with Bhutto, who displaced Bhutto in the first place.

Zia dispatched an intelligence unit, known as ISI’s Political Wing, sending Brigadier Taffazul Hussain Siddiqiui, to Bhutto’s province of Sindh, to assess whether people would accept martial law. The political wing (ISI) also contacted several right-wing Islamists and conservatives, promising an election with PNA power sharing the government with Zia. Zia successfully divided and separated the secular forces from right-wing Islamists and conservatives, and later purged each member of the secular front.

A Disqualification Tribunal was formed, and several individuals who had been members of parliament were charged with malpractice and disqualified from participating in politics at any level for the next seven years. A white paper document was issued, incriminating the deposed Bhutto government on several counts. It is reported by senior officers that when Zia met federal secretaries for the first time as leader of the country after martial law, who  said “he does not possess the charisma of Bhutto, personality of Ayub Khan or the legitimacy of Liaquat Ali Khan” thereby implying how can he be marketed.

Reign as Chief Martial Law Administrator: After deposing Prime Minister Bhutto on 5 July 1977, Zia-ul-Haq declared martial law, and appointed himself Chief Martial Law Administrator, which he remained until becoming president on 16 September 1978.

The Doctrine of Necessity: Nusrat Bhutto, the wife of the deposed Prime Minister, filed a suit against Zia’s military regime, challenging the validity of the July 1977 military coup. The Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled, in what would later be known as the Doctrine of Necessity (not to be confused with the 1954 Doctrine of Necessity) that, given the dangerously unstable political situation of the time, Zia’s overthrowing of the Bhutto government was legal on the grounds of necessity. The judgement tightened the general’s hold on the government. When Bhutto appeared personally to argue his appeal in the supreme court, he almost affirmed his concurrence with the judges present for not letting off a judgement without imposing some conditions on ruling military government.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Trial: Former elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was arrested during the coup but released shortly afterwards. Upon his release, Bhutto travelled the country amid adulatory crowds of PPP supporters. On 3 September 1977, he was arrested again by the Army on charges of authorizing the murder of a political opponent in March 1974. The trial proceedings began 24 October 1977 and lasted five months. On 18 March 1978, Bhutto was declared guilty of murder and was sentenced to death. In the words of Aftab Kazi and Roedad Khan, Zia hated Bhutto and had used inappropriate language and insults to describe him and his colleagues. The Supreme Court ruled four to three in favour of execution. The High Court had given him the death sentence on charges of the murder of the father of Ahmed Raza Kasuri, a dissident PPP politician. Despite many clemency appeals from foreign leaders requesting Zia to commute Bhutto’s death sentence, Zia dismissed the appeals and upheld the death sentence. On 4 April 1979, Bhutto was hanged, after the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence as passed by the Lahore High Court.

The hanging of an elected prime minister by a military was condemned by the international community and by lawyers and jurists across Pakistan. Bhutto’s trial was controversial.

Bhutto’s last personal appearance and statements in the Supreme Court were not a long defence of his conduct; he also made some matters clear. He mentioned:

• the words of “heir” for his son “Mir Murtaza Bhutto”.
• He remarked that he has views similar to a Sunni, though he was Shia albeit a non-practicing one.
• He effectively cast doubt on the reliability of the “star” witness against him i.e. Masood Mahmood who was a UK-trained lawyer and not merely a police officer and FSF chief.
• He mentioned repeatedly the Lahore Ahmedi connection of Masood Mahmood in his testimony.
• He repeatedly brought the subject of his maltreatment in the death cell.
• Bhutto made it abundantly clear, even though indirectly that he wanted either freedom or death, and appreciated Khar and his lawyer Yahya Bakhtiar.

Appointment of Martial Law Administrators: The adhoc appointments of senior justices at the Supreme Court of Pakistan were one of the earliest and major steps taken by the military government under General Zia-ul-Haq. Zia recognized that since, Bhutto had good equations with the governments of Soviet Union, China, and all important western countries, excluding the United States. It was a formidable array of sovereigns, presidents and prime ministers and the PPP can be forgiven for making a political miscalculation.

After calling for martial law, Zia pressured President Fazal Illahi to appoint Justice Sheikh Anwar-ul Haq as Chief Justice of Pakistan on 23 September 1977.  Chief Justice Yaqub Ali was removed from the office after the latter agreed to re-hear the petition filed at the Supreme Court by the Peoples Party’s Chairwoman Nusrat Bhutto on 20 September 1977. After Justice Yaqub Ali’s removal, Bhutto objected to the inclusion of the new Chief Justice, Sheikh Anwar-ul-Haq, as chief justice of the Bench on the grounds that by accepting the office of acting president during the absence of Zia-ul-Haq from the country, he had compromised his impartial status. Bhutto also stated that the Chief Justice in his public statements had been critical of his government in the recent past.

The objection was over-ruled by the Chief Justice Anwar-ul Haq himself, and Bhutto’s case was again heard by him as the Bench’s lead judge, and who presided over the whole case. Shortly, after Zia’s return, another judge Mushtaq Ahmad gained Zia and Anwar-ul-Haq’s support, and was elevated as the adhoc Chief Justice of Lahore High Court; he was  part of the bench which retained the death sentence  given to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto even though he was not declared guilty of the murder of the political opponent. In 1979, when Zia departed for Saudi Arabia, Justice Haq served as interim president of Pakistan.

Martial law governors:

Zia presenting the Hilal-i-Imtiaz to Shamim Alam Khan.

Martial Law Administrator of Baluchistan: The Zia regime largely made use of installing high-profile military generals to carte blanche provincial administration under martial law. Zia’s Guides Cavalry comrade and foul-mouth Lieutenant-General Fazle Haque was appointed Martial Law Administrator of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province (NWFP). Lieutenant-General Fazle Haque was considered vocal and a strong.

• General Haque, commander of the XI Corps, and commanding general responsible for fighting a secret war against Soviet Union.
• Lieutenant-General S.M. Abbasi appointed Martial Law Administrator of Sindh Province; his tenure too saw civil disorder amid student riots.
• Lieutenant-General Ghulam Jilani Khan Martial Law Administrator Punjab province made headway in beautifying Lahore extending infrastructure, and muting political opposition. The ascent of Nawaz Sharif to Chief Minister of Punjab was largely due to General Jilani’s sponsorship.
• Lieutenant-General Rahimuddin Khan was appointed Martial Law Administrator of Balochistan Province; saw the disbanding of the Baloch insurgency, the containment of Afghan Mujahideen, as well as the construction of nuclear test sites in the Chagai District.

Zia’s tenure saw the influx of heroin, sophisticated weaponry and countless refugees in from neighbouring Afghanistan. Law and order deterioration worsened after he appointed Mr. Junejo as Prime minister in 1985. The government did not find any evidence of Zia having a relationship in the heroin trade, but it has been considered.

Zia benefited from the extremely capable martial law administrators who previously had worked with the military governments of former president Yahya Khan and Ayub Khan in the 1960s. Of the notable officers was General Khalid Mahmood Arif, Chief of Army Staff, and Admiral Mohammad Shariff, Chairman Joint Chiefs. Both were noted by Western governments as highly capable and had wide experience from the military government of the East-Pakistan and remained General Zia’ confidential members.

Both Admiral Sharif and General Arif handled the matters efficiently if the matters were out of control by Zia. In 1979, Zia influenced the Navy’s Promotion Board several times after he succeeded first in the appointment of Admiral Karamat Nazi as Chief of Naval Staff in 1979, and Admiral Tarik Kamal Khan, also as  chief of naval staff, in 1983.  On his request, President Fazal Illahi approved the appointment of General Anwar Shamim as Chief of Air Staff and following President Fazal Illahi’s resignation, Zia appointed Shamim as the Deputy Chief Martial Law Administrator. In matters of  national security, General Zia took chief of air staff and chief of naval staff in confidence. Zia’s appointment in inter-services was crucial for his military government and measures to ensure the loyalty of Navy and Air Force to himself and his new military government.

Assumption of the post of President of Pakistan

General Zia-ul-Haq during a meeting with United States dignitaries

Despite the dismissal of most of the Bhutto government, President Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry was persuaded to continue in office as a figurehead.After completing his term, and despite Zia’s insistence to accept an extension as President, Chaudhry resigned, and Zia took the office of President of Pakistan on 16 September 1978. Thus his position was cemented as the undisputed ruler of the country. Over the next six years, Zia issued several decrees which amended the constitution and greatly expanded his power. Most significantly, the Revival of Constitution of 1973 Order granted Zia the power to dissolve the National Assembly virtually at will.

The Military Government of General Zia-ul-Haq

Presidential cabinet	Officer holder	Term
President	General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq	1978–1988
Prime Minister	Mohammad Khan Junejo	1985–1988
Foreign Affairs	Agha Shahi	1977–1982
	Lt.General Yaqub Khan	1982–1992
Treasury	Ghulam Ishaq Khan	1977-1985
	Dr. Mahbub-ul-Haq	1985-1988
Law, Justice	Sharifuddin Pirzada	1977–1988
Interior	Air Marshal Inamul Haq Khan	1977-1978
	Mahmoud Haroon	1978-1984
	Lt.General Farooq Lodhi	1984-1985
	Aslam Khan	1985-1987
	Wasim Sajjad	1987-1988
Defence	Lt.General Ghulam Jilani Khan	1977–1980
	Maj.General Rahim Khan	1980-1988
Science Advisor	Zahid Ali Akbar	1977-1983
	Munir Ahmad Khan	1983-1988
Health  Lt.General	Lt.General Vajid Ali Khan	1977–1988
Media broadcasting	Brig.General Siddique Salik	1977–1988
Internal Security	Roedad Khan	1977–1988
Public Service	Admiral Mohammad Sharif	1980–1988
Communications	Admiral Tariq Kamal Khan	1986–1988
Economic	Admiral Karamat Rahman Niazi	1983–1988
Intelligence	Maj.General Rao Farman Ali	1983–1988

Political structural changes

Although ostensibly only holding office until free elections could be held, General Zia, like the previous military governments, disproved of the lack of discipline and orderliness that often accompanies multiparty “parliamentary democracy.” He preferred a “presidential” form of government and a system of decision making by technical experts, or “technocracy”. His first replacement for the parliament or National Assembly was a Majlis-e-Shoora, or “consultative council.” After banning all political parties in 1979 he disbanded Parliament and at the end of 1981 set up the majlis, which was to act as a sort of board of advisers to the President and assist with the process of Islamisation. The 350 members of the Shoora were to be nominated by the President and possessed only the power to consult with him, and in reality served only to endorse decisions already taken by the government. Most members of the Shoora were intellectuals, scholars, ulema, journalists, economists, and professionals in different fields.

Zia’s parliament and his military government reflect the idea of “military-bureaucratic technocracy” (MBT) where professionals, engineers, and high-profile military officers were initially part of his military government. His antipathy for the politicians led the promotion of bureaucratic-technocracy which was seen a strong weapon of countering the politicians and their political strongholds. Senior statesman and technocrats were included,

• Physicist-turned diplomat Agha Shahi
• Jurist Sharifuddin Peerzada
• Corporate leader Nawaz Sharif
• Economist Mahbub ul Haq
• Senior statesman Aftab Kazi, Roedad Khan
• Chemist-turned diplomat Ghulam Ishaq Khan were a few of the leading technocratic figures in his military government.

Referendum of 1984: After Bhutto’s execution, momentum to hold elections began to mount both internationally and within Pakistan. But before handing over power to elected representatives, Zia-ul-Haq attempted to secure his position as the head of state. A referendum was held on 19 December 1984 with the option being to elect or reject the General as the future President, the wording of the referendum making a vote against Zia appear to be a vote against Islam. According to official figures 95% of votes were cast in favour of Zia, however only 10% of the electorate participated in the referendum.

1985 elections and constitutional amendments: After holding the 1984 referendum, Zia succumbed to international pressure and gave permission to election commission to hold national wide general elections but without political parties in February 1985. Most of the major opposing political parties decided to boycott the elections but election results showed that many victors belonged to one party or the other. Critics complained that ethnic and sectarian mobilization filled the void left by banning political parties (or making elections “non-partisan”), to the detriment of national integration.

The General worked to give himself the power to dismiss the Prime Minister dissolve the National Assembly, appoint provincial governors and the chief of the armed forces. His Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo was known as unassuming and soft spoken but was a Sindhi.

Before handing over the power to the new government and lifting the martial law, Zia got the new legislature to retroactively accept all of Zia’s actions of the past eight years, including his coup of 1977. He also managed to get several amendments passed, most notably the Eighth Amendment, which granted “reserve powers” to the president to dissolve the Parliament. However, this amendment considerably reduced the power he’d previously granted himself to dissolve the legislature, at least on paper.The text of the amendment permitted Zia to dissolve the Parliament only if the government had been toppled by a vote of no confidence and it was obvious that no one could form a government or the government could not function in a constitutional manner.

Economic policy: In general Zia gave economic development and policy a fairly low priority (aside from Islamisation) and delegated its management to technocrats such as Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Aftab Qazi and Vaseem Jaffrey.

However, between 1977 and 1986, the country experienced an average annual growth in the GNP of 6.8%—the highest in the world at that time—thanks in large part to remittances from the overseas workers, rather than government policy. The first year of Zia’s government coincided with a dramatic rise in remittances, which totalled $3.2 billion/year for most of the 1980s:

• this accounted for 10 percent of Pakistan’s GDP
• 45 percent of its current account receipts
• 40 percent of total foreign exchange earnings

By the time General Zia had initiated the coup against Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto, the economic cycle process of nationalization program was completed. The socialist orientation and nationalization program was slowly reversed; the idea of corporatisation was heavily favoured by President Zia-ul-Haq to direct the authoritarianism in the nationalized industries. One of his well-known and earliest initiatives were aimed to Islamize the national economy which featured the interest-free economic cycle. No actions towards privatizing the industries were ordered by President Zia; only three steel mill industries were returned to its previous owners. By the end of 1987, the finance ministry had begun studying the process of engaging the gradual privatization and economic liberalization.

Soviet-Afghan War and Strategic initiatives: On 25 December 1979, the Soviet Union (USSR) ‘intervened’ in Afghanistan. Following this invasion, Zia chaired a meeting and was asked by several cabinet members to refrain from interfering in the war, owing to the vastly superior military power of the USSR. Zia, however, was ideologically opposed to the idea of communism taking over a neighbouring country, supported by the fear of Soviet advancement into Pakistan, particularly Balochistan, in search of warm waters, and made no secret about his intentions of monetarily and militarily aiding the Afghan resistance (the Mujahideen) with major assistance from the United States.

During this meeting, the Director-General of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) then-Lieutenant-General Akhtar Abdur Rahman advocated for a covert operation in Afghanistan by arming Islamic extremists. During this meeting, General Rahman was heard saying: “Kabul must burn! Kabul must burn!”, and mastered the idea of a proxy war in Afghanistan. After this meeting, Zia authorised this operation under General Rahman, and it was later merged with Operation Cyclone, a programme funded by the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA.

In November 1982, Zia travelled to Moscow to attend the funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, the late General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and new Secretary General Yuri Andropov met with Zia there. Andropov expressed indignation over Pakistan’s support of the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union and her satellite state, Soviet Afghanistan. Zia took his hand and assured him, “General Secretary, believe me, Pakistan wants nothing but very good relations with the Soviet Union”. According to Gromyko, Zia’s sincerity convinced them, but Zia’s actions didn’t live up to his words.

Zia reversed many of Bhutto’s foreign policy initiatives by first establishing stronger links with the United States, Japan, and the Western world. Zia broken off relations with the Socialist state and State capitalism became his major economic policy. US politician Charlie Wilson claims that Zia directly dealt with the Israelis, working to build covert relations with them, allowing the country to actively participate in the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Helped by ISI, the Mossad channeled Soviet reversed engineered weapons to Afghanistan. In Wilson’s own word, Zia is reported to have remarked to the Israeli intelligence service: “Just don’t put any stars of David on the boxes”.

Consolidation of atomic bomb programme: One of the earliest initiatives taken by Zia in 1977, was to militarise the integrated atomic energy programme which was founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1972. During the first stages, the programme was under the control of Bhutto and the Directorate for Science, under Science Advisor Dr. Mubashir Hassan,who was heading the civilian committee that supervised the construction of the facilities and laboratories. This atomic bomb project had no boundaries with Munir Ahmad Khan and Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan leading their efforts separately and reported to Bhutto and his science adviser Dr. Hassan who had little interest in the atomic bomb project. Major-General Zahid Ali Akbar, an engineering officer, had little role in the atomic project; Zia responded by taking over the programme under military control and disbanded the civilian directorate when he ordered the arrest of Hassan. This whole giant nuclear energy project was transferred into the administrative hands of Major-General Akbar who was soon made the Lieutenant-General and Engineer-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers to deal with the authorities whose co-operation was required. Akbar consolidated the entire project by placing the scientific research under military control, setting boundaries and goals. Akbar proved to be an extremely capable officer in the matters of science and technology when he aggressively led the development of nuclear weapons under Munir Ahmad Khan and Abdul Qadeer Khan in a matter of five years

By the time, Zia assumed control, the research facilities became fully functional and 90% of the work on atom bomb project was completed. Both the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) had built the extensive research infrastructure started by Bhutto. Akbar’s office was shifted to Army Combatant General Headquarters (GHQ) and Akbar guided Zia on key matters of nuclear science and atomic bomb production. He became the first engineering officer to have acknowledged Zia about the success of this energy project into a fully matured programme. On the recommendation of Akbar, Zia approved the appointment of Munir Ahmad Khan as the scientific director of the atomic bomb project, as Zia was convinced by Akbar that civilian scientists under Munir Khan’s directorship were at their best to counter international pressure. This was proved when the PAEC conducted the cold-fission test of a fission device, codename Kirana-I on 11 March 1983 at the Weapon-Testing Laboratories-I, under the leadership of weapon-testing laboratory’s director Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad. Lieutenant-General Zahid Akbar went to GHQ and notified Zia about the success of this test. The PAEC responded by conducting several cold-tests throughout the 1980s, a policy also continued by Benazir Bhutto in the 1990s. According to the reference in the book, “Eating Grass”, Zia was so deeply convinced of the infiltration of Western and American moles and spies into the project, that he extended his role in the atomic bomb, which reflected extreme “paranoia”, in both his personal and professional life. He virtually had PAEC and KRL separated from each other and made critical administrative decisions rather than putting scientists in charge of the aspects of the atomic programmes. His actions spurred innovation in the atomic bomb project and an intense secrecy and security culture permeated PAEC and KRL.

Nuclear diplomacy: Unlike Bhutto, who faced rogue criticism and a heated diplomatic war with the United States throughout the 1970s, Zia took different diplomatic approaches to counter the international pressure. From 1979 to 1983, the country was made a subject of attack by international organisation for not signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); Zia deftly neutralised international pressure by tagging Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme to the nuclear designs of the neighbouring Indian nuclear programme. Zia, with the help of Munir Ahmad Khan and Agha Shahi, Foreign Minister, drew a five-point proposal as a practical rejoinder to world pressure on Pakistan to sign the NPT; the points including the renouncing of the use of nuclear weapons:

“(sic)…Either General Zia did not know the facts about country’s atomic bomb project… Or General Zia was the “most superb and patriotic liar I have ever met….”— Vernon Walters, 1981

Following the success of Operation Opera— in which an Israeli Air Force strike took place to destroy the Iraqi nuclear programme in 1981— suspicion grew in Pakistan that the Indian Air Force had similar plans for Pakistan. In a private meeting with General Anwar Shamim, then-Chief of Air Staff, Zia had notified General Shamim that the Indian Air Force had plans to infiltrate Pakistan’s nuclear energy project, citing solid evidence. Shamim felt that the Air Force was unable to divert such attacks, therefore, he advised Zia to use diplomacy through Munir Ahmad Khan to divert the attacks. At Vienna, Munir Ahmad Khan met with Indian physicist Raja Ramanna and notified him that such an attack would provoke a nuclear war between the two countries. In the meantime, Shamim decided to start the programme to acquire the F-16 Falcons and A-5 Fanton jets for the Pakistan Air Force. Shamim launched Operation Sentinel- a counter operation that thwarted the Israeli Air Force attempt to sabotage Pakistan’s nuclear energy project— forced Indian Premier Indira Gandhi to held talks with Pakistan on nuclear issues and directed a high delegation to Pakistan where both countries pledged not to assist or attack each other’s facilities. In 1985, following the induction of the F-16 Falcons and A-5 Fantons, Shamim commissioned the Air Force Strategic Command to protect and battle the weapons of mass destruction.

In 1977, Zia ultimately adopted the policy of “Nuclear opacity” to deliberately deny the atomic bomb programmes. This policy of nuclear ambiguity was adopted after witnessing the success of Israel’s nuclear programme and on multiple occasions Zia broke his words and promises concerning the nature of the country’s atomic bomb project. On nuclear policy issues, Zia deliberately misguided the United States and concealed classified information from the outside world. The United States trusted Zia’s sincerity and his promises made to the United States; Zia gave assurances to the United States not to produce weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) above a 5% level.  However, the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Vernon Walter, confronted Zia on his secret trip to Pakistan in October 1981. Confronted with the evidence, Zia acknowledged that the information “must be true,” but then denied everything, leading Walters to conclude that: “either Zia “did not know the facts” or was the “most superb and patriotic liar I have ever met...”

Nuclear proliferation: Soon after the coup, the clandestine nuclear energy project was no longer a secret to the outside world. Part of his strategy was the promotion of nuclear proliferation in anti-western states (such as North Korea, Iran, and China) to aid their own nuclear ambitions, to divert international attention which was difficult.

In 1981, Zia contracted with China when he sent weapon-grade uranium there and built the centrifuge laboratory which increasingly enhanced the Chinese nuclear programme. This act encouraged Abdul Qadeer Khan, who allegedly tried to aid the Libyan nuclear programme but because Libya–Pakistan relations were strained, Khan was warned of serious consequences.  This policy envisaged the deflection of  international pressure onto these countries, and Pakistan would be spared the international community’s wrath.

After Zia’s death, his successor General Mirza Aslam Beg, as Chief of Army Staff, encouraged Abdul Qadeer Khan and gave him a free hand to work with some like-minded nations such as North Korea, Iran and Libya which also wanted to pursue their nuclear ambitions for a variety of reasons. In 2004, Abdul Qadeer Khan’s dismissal from the nuclear weapons programme was considered a face saving exercise by the Pakistan Armed Forces and political establishment under Chief of Army Staff and President General Pervez Musharraf.

Zia’s nuclear proliferation policy added an impetus to the anti-western states, North Korea and Iran. In the 2000s (decade), North Korea was targeted by the international community for its on-going nuclear programme.  DRNK attempted to aid the Syrian and Iranian nuclear programmes in the 1990s. The North Korean connection to the Syrian nuclear programme was exposed in 2007 by Israel in its successful strategic operation, Orchard, which resulted in the sabotage of the Syrian nuclear programme as well as deaths of 10 senior North-Korean scientists who were aiding the nuclear program.

Expansion: While Zia had removed the Bhutto element in the nuclear energy project, he did not completely disband Bhutto’s policy on nuclear weapons. After the retirement of Zahid Ali Akbar, Zia transferred control of the nuclear weapons programme to Bhutto’s close aide Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. Soon, Zia promoted Khan as the technical director of the entire programme as well as appointing him the science adviser. With support of handpicked  Prime Minister Muhammad Juneijo, Zia sanctioned the launch of the 50 Megawatt (MW) heavy water plutonium production reactor, known as Khushab-I, at Khushab in 1985.

He took initiatives to launched the space projects as spin-off to nuclear project. Zia appointed nuclear engineer Salim Mehmud as the Administrator of the Space Research Commission. Zia also launched the work on the country’s first satellite, Badr-1, a military satellite. In 1987, In 1985, Zia launched a clandestine aerospace project, the Integrated Missile Research Programme under General Anwar Shamim, and later under Lieutenant-General Talat Masood in 1987.

International standing enhancement and resumption of aid: Zia’s international standing greatly rose after his declaration to fight the Soviet invaders. Pakistan–United States relations took a much more positive turn. US President Jimmy Carter and his Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance cut off US aid to Pakistan on grounds that Pakistan had not made sufficient progress on the nuclear issue. On 25 December 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and Carter offered Pakistan $325 million in aid over three years. Zia rejected this as “peanuts.” Carter also signed the funding in 1980 that allowed less than $50 million a year to go to the Mujahideen.

After Ronald Reagan came to office in 1980, all this changed, due to the President’s new priorities and remarkably effective effort by Congressman Charles Wilson, Joanne Herring, and CIA Afghan Desk Chief Gust Avrakotos to increase the funding for Operation Cyclone. Aid to the Afghan resistance, and to Pakistan, increased substantially, finally reaching $1 billion. The United States faced a rival superpower looking to create another Communist bloc, now engaged Zia to fight a US-aided war by proxy in Afghanistan against the Soviets.

Fighting the war by proxy: Zia now found himself in a position to demand billions of dollars in aid for the Mujahideen from the Western states, famously dismissing a United States proposed $325 million aid package as “peanuts“. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and Special Service Group now became actively involved in the conflict, and in co-operation with the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Army Special Forces supported the armed struggle against the Soviets.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan succeeded Jimmy Carter as President of the United States. Reagan was completely against the Soviet Union and its communist satellites, dubbing it “the evil empire“. Reagan now increased financial aid heading for Pakistan. In 1981, the Reagan Administration sent the first of 40 F-16 jet fighters to the Pakistanis. But the Soviets kept control of the Afghan skies until the Mujahideen received Stinger missiles in 1986. From that moment on, the mujahedeen’s strategic position steadily improved.

The Soviets declared a policy of national reconciliation. In January they announced that a Soviet withdrawal was no longer linked to the makeup of the Afghan government remaining behind. Pakistan, with the massive extra-governmental and covert backing from the largest operation ever mounted by the CIA and financial support of Saudi Arabia, therefore, played a large part in the eventual withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1988.

The war legacy: The rise of the illicit drug trade and its spread through Pakistan to the rest of the world increased tremendously during the Soviet-Afghan war. Afghanistan’s drug industry began to take off after the Soviet invasion in 1979. Desperate for cash with which to buy weapons, various elements in the anti-Communist resistance turned to the drug trade. This was tolerated if not condoned by their American sponsors such as the CIA.

‘Sharia‘ in Pakistan: In 1977, prior to the coup, the drinking and selling of wine by Muslims, along with nightclubs, and horse racing was banned by Prime Minister Bhutto in an effort to stem the tide of street Islamisation.

Zia went much further, committing himself to enforce Nizam-e-Mustafa (“Rule of the prophet” or Islamic System, i.e. establishing an Islamic state and sharia law), a significant turn from Pakistan’s predominantly secular law, inherited from the British.

In his first televised speech to the country as head of state Zia declared that

Pakistan which was created in the name of Islam will continue to survive only if it sticks to Islam. That is why I consider the introduction of [an] Islamic system as an essential prerequisite for the country.

In the past he complained, “Many a ruler did what they pleased in the name of Islam.”

Zia established “Sharia Benches” in each High Court (later the Federal Sharia Court) to judge legal cases using the teachings of the Quran and the Sunna, and to bring Pakistan’s legal statutes into alignment with Islamic doctrine.[Zia bolstered the influence of the ulama (Islamic clergy) and the Islamic parties. 10,000s of activists from the Jamaat-e-Islami party were appointed to government posts to ensure the continuation of his agenda after his passing. Conservative ulama (Islamic scholars) were added to the Council of Islamic Ideology. Islamisation was a sharp change from Bhutto’s original philosophical rationale captured in the slogan, “Food, clothing, and shelter”.In Zia’s view, socialist economics and a secular-socialist orientation served only to upset Pakistan’s natural order and weaken its moral fibre. General Zia defended his policies in an interview in 1979 given to British journalist Ian Stephens:

The basis of Pakistan was Islam. … Muslims of the subcontinent are a separate culture. It was on the Two-Nation Theory that this part was carved out of the Subcontinent as Pakistan…. Mr. Bhutto’s way of flourishing in this Society was by eroding its moral fiber. … by pitching students against teachers, children against their parents, landlord against tenants, workers against mill owners. [Pakistan has economic difficulties] because Pakistanis have been made to believe that one can earn without working. … We are going back to Islam not by choice but by the force of circumstances. It is not I or my government that is imposing Islam. It was what 99 percent of people wanted; the street violence against Bhutto reflected the people’s desire …— General Zia-ul-Haq

How much of Zia’s motivation came from piety and how much from political calculation is disputed. One author points out that Zia was conspicuously silent on the dispute between the heterodox Zikri and the ‘Ulama in Balochistan where he needed stability. Secular and leftist forces accused Zia of manipulating Islam for political ends. According to Nusrat Bhutto, former First Lady of Pakistan:

The … horrors of 1971 war … are (still) alive and vivid in the hearts and the minds of people of [Pakistan]…Therefore, General Zia insanely … used Islam … to ensure the survival of his own regime….— Nusrat Bhutto

How much success Zia had using state-sponsored Islamisation to strengthen national cohesion is also disputed:

• Religious riots broke out in 1983 and 1984.
• Sectarian divisions between Sunnis and Shia worsened over the issue of the 1979 Zakat ordinance
• Differences in fiqh jurisprudence also arose in marriage and divorce, inheritance and wills, and imposition of hadd punishments.
• Sunni Muslims; Deobandis and Barelvis also had disputes.. Zia favoured Deobandi doctrine and the Sufi pirs of Sindh (who were Barelvi) joined the anti-Zia Movement for the Restoration of Democracy.

Hudood Ordinance: In one of his first and most controversial measures to Islamize Pakistani society was the replacement of parts of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) with the 1979 “Hudood Ordinance.” (Hudood meaning limits or restrictions, as in limits of acceptable behaviour in Islamic law.) The Ordinance added new criminal offences of adultery and fornication to Pakistani law, and new punishments of whipping, amputation, and stoning to death.

For theft or robbery, the PPC punishments of imprisonment or fine, or both, were replaced by amputation of the right hand of the offender for theft, and amputation of the right hand and left foot for robbery. For Zina (extramarital sex) the provisions relating to adultery were replaced by the Ordinance with punishments of flogged 100 lashes for those unmarried offenders, and stoning to death for married offenders.

All these punishments were dependent on proof required for hadd being met. In practice the Hudd requirement—four Muslim men of good repute testifying as witness to the crime—was seldom met. As of 2014, no offender has been stoned or had limbs amputated by the Pakistani judicial system. To be found guilty of theft, zina, or drinking alcohol by less strict tazir standards—where the punishment was flogging and/or imprisonment—was common, and there have been many floggings.

More worrisome for human rights and women’s rights advocates, lawyers and politicians was the incarceration of thousands of rape victims on charges of zina.The onus of providing proof in a rape case rested with the woman herself. Uncorroborated testimony by women was inadmissible in Hudood crimes. If the victim/accuser was unable to prove her allegation, bringing the case to court was considered equivalent to a confession of sexual intercourse outside of lawful marriage. Despite this the ordinance remained in force until the Women’s Protection Bill was passed in 2006.

Although the Sharia punishments were imposed, the due process, witnesses, law of evidence, and prosecution system remained Anglo-Saxon. The hybridization of Pakistan penal code with Islamic laws was difficult because of the difference in the underlying logic of the two legal systems. PPC was kingly law, Hudood is a religious and community-based law.

Other sharia laws: Under Zia, the order for women to cover their heads while in public was implemented in public schools, colleges and state television. Women’s participation in sports and the performing arts was severely restricted. Following Sharia law, women’s legal testimony was given half the weight of a man’s, according to critics. Unlike men, women entering into legal contracts were required to have their signature witness by another person.

In 1980 the “Zakat and Ushr Ordinance, 1980” was implemented. The measure called for a 2.5% annual deduction from personal bank accounts on the first day of Ramadan, with Zia stating that the revenues would be used for poverty relief. Zakat committees were established to oversee distribution of the funds.

In 1981 interest payments were replaced by “profit and loss” accounts (though profit was thought to be simply interest by another name). Textbooks were overhauled to remove un-Islamic material, and un-Islamic books were removed from libraries. Eating and drinking during Ramadan was outlawed, attempts were made to enforce praying of salat five times a day.

Blasphemy ordinances: To outlaw blasphemy, the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) were amended through ordinances in 1980, 1982 and 1986. The 1980 law prohibited derogatory remarks against Islamic personages, and carried a three-year prison sentence. In 1982 the small Ahmadiyya religious minority were prohibited from saying or implying they were Muslims. In 1986 declaring anything implying disrespect to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Ahl al-Bayt (family members of Muhammad), Sahabah (companions of Muhammad) or Sha’ar-i-Islam (Islamic symbols) was made a cognisable offence, punishable with imprisonment or fine, or both.

Madrassa Expansion: Traditional religious madrassass in Pakistan received state sponsorship for the first time, under the General Zia-ul-Haq’s administration; their number grew from 893 to 2,801. Most were Deobandi in doctrinal orientation, while one quarter of them were Barelvi. They received funding from Zakat councils and provided free religious training, room and board to impoverished Pakistanis. The schools, which banned television and radio, have been criticised by authors for stoking sectarian hatred between Muslim sects and against non-Muslims.

Cultural policies: In a 1979 address to the nation, Zia decried the Western culture and music in the country. Soon afterwards the national television network ceased playing music videos and only patriotic songs were broadcast. New taxes were levied on the film industry and most of the cinemas in Lahore were shut down. This was despite strong support from the United States, and cordial meetings between Zia and President Ronald Reagan. It was under Zia and the economic prosperity of the era, that the country’s urban middle and lower-middle-classes expanded. Western 1980s fashion wear and hairstyle spread in popularity, and rock music bands gained momentum, according to leftist cultural critic Nadeem F. Paracha.

Welfare of the people with disabilities: During his tenure, he oversaw passing of an ordinance for the welfare of people with disabilities. The ordinance is called “The Disabled Persons (Employment and Rehabilitation) Ordinance, 1981” and it was passed into law on 29 December 1981. It provides the measures for the employment, rehabilitation and welfare of the people with disabilities.

Dismissal of the Junejo government and call for new elections: As time passed, the legislature wanted to have more freedom and power and by the beginning of 1988, rumours about the differences between Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo and Zia were rife. It is said by some that Zia-Junejo rift was encouraged by late Mahboob-ul-Haq and Junejo’s insistence on signing Geneva pact without deciding the composition of next government of Afghanistan before Soviet withdrawal. Junejo also gave Benazir a seat next to him in parleys before that. Junejo did not strengthen the Islamisation drive and rather weakened it. His era led to serious disturbances in Karachi and ultimately Karachi went into the secular control of MQM from the clutches of Sunni Jamaat-e-Islami.

Ojhri Camp blast had irreversibly weakened Zia: On 29 May 1988, Zia dissolved the National Assembly and removed the Prime Minister under article 58(2)b of the amended Constitution. Apart from many other reasons, Prime Minister Junejo’s decision to sign the Geneva Accord against the wishes of Zia, and his open declarations of removing any military personnel found responsible for an explosion at a munitions dump at Ojhri Camp, on the outskirts of army headquarters in Rawalpindi, earlier in the year, proved to be some of the major factors responsible for his removal.

Zia promised to hold elections in 1988 after the dismissal of Junejo government. He said that this would be done within the next 90 days. The late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s daughter Benazir Bhutto had returned from exile earlier in 1986, and had announced that she would be contesting the elections. With Bhutto’s popularity somewhat growing, and a decrease in international aid following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Zia was in an increasingly difficult political situation.

Death: Zia died in a plane crash on 17 August 1988.After witnessing a US M1 Abrams tank demonstration in Bahawalpur, Zia had left the small town in the Punjab province by C-130B Hercules aircraft. The aircraft departed the Bahawalpur airport but the control tower lost contact with the aircraft shortly after. Witnesses  who saw the plane in the air, claimed afterwards that it was flying erratically, and then nosedi ved and exploded on impact. Besides Zia, 31 others also died in the plane crash, including Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Akhtar Abdur Rahman, aclose associate of Zia, Brigadier Siddique Salik, the American Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Lewis Raphel and General Herbert M. Wassom, the head of the US Military aid mission to Pakistan.

Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the Senate chairman announced Zia’s death on radio and TV. Conditions surrounding his death have given rise to many conspiracy theories. There is speculation that the United States, India, the Soviet Union (in retaliation for Pakistani support of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan) or an alliance of them and internal groups within Zia’s military were behind the incident. A board of inquiry was set up to investigate the crash. It concluded ‘the most probable cause of the crash was a criminal act of sabotage perpetrated in the aircraft’. It also suggested that poisonous gases were released which incapacitated the passengers and crew, which would explain why no Mayday signal was given. There was also speculation into other facts involving the details of the investigation. A flight recorder (black box) was not located after the crash and previous C-130 aircraft did have them installed.

Maj. Gen. (retd) Mahmud Ali Durrani claimed later that reports of Israeli and Indian involvement in Zia’s plane-crash were only speculations and he rejected the statement that was given by former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan that the presidential plane was blown up in the air. Durrani stated that Zia’s plane was destroyed while landing.

Legacy

Zia’s Tomb

“Well, he was a great loss…

He is a martyr,

and was a great man.”— George P. Shultz, 1988,

His funeral was held on 19 August 1988 in Islamabad. A 21-gun salute of light artillery resounded off the lush Margalla Hills; nearly 1 million mourners joined in chants of “Zia ul-Haq, you will live as long as the sun and moon remain above.” His remains were laid to rest in a 4-by-10-foot dirt grave in front of the Faisal Mosque that Zia had built as a symbol of Pakistani-Saudi friendship. Also in attendance were his successor President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, chiefs of staff of armed forces, chairman joint chiefs, and other high military and civil officials. Former US Secretary of State George P. Shultz also laid a floral wreath at Zia’s grave.

Public image: Even after his death, Zia-ul-Haq remained a highly polarizing and widely discussed figure in the country’s intellectual and political circles. In the country’s short history, Zia-ul-Haq’s legacy remains toxic, enduring, and tamper-proof  according to an editorial written in Dawn. Historians and political scientists discussed and studied his policy making skills, some noting him as “The Ringmaster”, “Master of Illusion” and “Master Tactician”. However, his most remembered and enduring legacy was his indirect involvement and military strategy; supporting by proxy the Mujahideen, against the USSR’s war in Afghanistan. His reign also helped the conservatives to rise in national politics against Benazir Bhutto. He is noted as one of the successful general in making the armed forces a key planner in country’s affairs. During his regime, western styles in hair, clothing, and music flooded the country. The 1980s gave birth to Pakistani rock music, which expressed nationalism in the country.

Removal of name from the Constitution of Pakistan: With the passing of Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, General Zia’s name was permanently deleted from the Constitution of Pakista

Honours: Knight of the Order of the Rajamitrabhorn (Thailand).

Books about Haq’s time period

• The Leopard and the Fox by Tariq Ali (2007)
• Breaking the Curfew by Emma Duncan (1989) ISBN 0-7181-2989-X
• Working with Zia by General Khalid Mahmud Arif
• Khaki Shadows by General Khalid Mahmud Arif
• Desperately Seeking Paradise by Ziauddin Sardar
• Waiting for Allah by Christina Lamb
• Ayub, Bhutto, and Zia by Hassan Iftikhar
• Journey to Disillusionment by Sherbaz Khan Mazari
• Ghost Wars by Steven Coll
• General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq Shaheed: A Compilation by various authors
• Charlie Wilson’s War by George Crile III
• The Bear Trap: Afghanistan’s Untold Story by Mohammed Yousaf, Mark Adkin (1992) ISBN 0-85052-267-6
• A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
• Pakistan’s Politics The Zia Years by Mushahid Hussain Syed
• Pakistan Under Martial Law 1977-1985 by Muhammad Waseem
• Songs of Blood and Sword by Fatima Bhutto
• Ayub, Muhammad (2005). An army, Its Role and Rule: A History of the Pakistan Army from Independence to Kargil, 1947–1999. RoseDog Books. ISBN 9780805995947.

Portrayals in popular culture

Zia has been portrayed in English language popular culture a number of times including:

• In the comic Shattered Visage, it is implied that Zia’s death was orchestrated by the same intelligence agency that ran The Village from the show The Prisoner.
• Zia was portrayed by Indian actor Om Puri in the 2007 film Charlie Wilson’s War.
• Zia is caricatured as one of the main protagonists in Mohammed Hanif’s 2008 satirical novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes which is loosely based around the events of his death.
•  Zia is the basis for the character General Hyder in Salman Rushdie’s novel Shame (1983), which describes Zia’s long-lasting relationship with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (here known as Iskander Harrapa), the president whom he would later overthrow and “put to death”.
• Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s takeover of Pakistan and circumstances of his death were referenced in the Star Trek novel The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One. In a prelude to the fictional Eugenics Wars, it is implied that genetically engineered “superman” Khan Noonien Singh arranged the crash.
• The oppressive regime of Zia-ul-Haq and the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was referenced in the book “Songs of Blood and Sword”, a non-fiction memoir by Murtaza Bhutto’s daughter Fatima Bhutto with chilling intensity

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq

• 6th President of Pakistan                                         
• In office 16 September 1978 – 17 August 1988
• Chief of Army Staff 1 March 1976 – 17 August 1988

Personal details

• Born: 12 August 1924 Jalandhar, Punjab, British India (now in Punjab, India)
• Died: 17 August 1988 (aged 64) Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan
• Resting place: Faisal Mosque
• Nationality: Indian (1924–1947) Pakistani (1947–1988)
• Political party: None
• Spouse: Begum Shafiq Zia (1950–1996)

Children 

1. Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq
2. Anwar-ul-Haq
3. Zain Zia
4. Rubina Saleem
5. Quratulain Zia

Alma mater

• St. Stephen’s College, Delhi
• United States Army Command and General Staff College

Nickname(s)

• Mard-i-Momin

Allegiance

• British India
• Pakistan

Service/branch

• British Indian Army
• Pakistan Army

Years of service: 1943–1988

Rank

• OF-9 Pakistan Army.svg
• US-O10 insignia.svg General

Unit

22 Cavalry, Army Armoured Corps (PA – 1810)

Commands

• 2nd Independent Armoured Brigade
• 1st Armoured Division
• II Strike Corps
• Chief of Army Staff

Battles/Wars

• World War II
• Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
• Black September in Jordan
• Soviet war in Afghanistan

By courtesy of Wikipedia.org

Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto  بينظير بھٹو 

21 June 1953-27 December 2007

Benazir Bhutto  was the 11th and 13th Prime Minister of Pakistan, serving two non-consecutive terms in 1988–1990 and then 1993–1996. A scion of the politically powerful Bhutto family, she was the eldest daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former prime minister who founded the centre-left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). In 1988 she became the first democratically elected woman leader of an Islamic nation. Earlier as chairperson of the PPP in 1982, she became the first woman in Pakistan to head a major political party. Noted for charismatic authority and political astuteness, Bhutto drove economic and national security initiatives, and implemented capitalist policies for industrial development and growth. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasized deregulation, particularly of the financial sector, flexible labour markets, denationalization of state-owned corporations, and the withdrawal of subsidies to others. ^. Bhutto’s popularity waned amid recession, corruption allegations and high unemployment. Eventually conservative President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed her government.

Bhutto was elected for a second term in the 1993 parliamentary elections. She survived an attempted coup d’état in 1995. Her hard line against the trade unions and tough rhetorical opposition to domestic political rivals and to India earned her the nickname “Iron Lady.” She was also referred to as “BB”. In 1996 more charges of corruption led to another dismissal of her government by President Farooq Leghari. Bhutto conceded her defeat in the 1997 Parliamentary elections and went into exile in Dubai in 1998. Nine years later, in 2007, she reached an understanding with President Pervez Musharraf, and returned to Pakistan. He granted her amnesty and withdrew all corruption charges against her.

Bhutto was assassinated in a bombing on 27 December 2007, after leaving a PPP rally in Rawalpindi two weeks before the scheduled 2008 general election. She was the leading candidate, and projected winner. She is buried next to her father in the Garhi Khuda Baksh, the Bhutto family graveyard. Her party won the election and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, served as President of Pakistan from 2008 to ’13.

Her son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari presently leads the PPP, which as of 2016 was the second largest party in the National Assembly, and the largest in the Senate.

Early Life, 1953-77

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir’s father, was Prime Minister of Pakistan and founding chairman of the PPP.

Benazir Bhutto was born at Karachi’s Pinto Hospital on 21 June 1953.  She was the eldest child of Sindhi Rajput Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Begum Nusrat Ispahani, of Iranian Kurdish descent. She had three younger siblings, Murtaza, Shahnawaz and Sanam. According to Benazir, her mother’s Kurdish culture played a big role in Bhutto becoming Prime Minister.

Bhutto grew up speaking both English and Urdu, with English her first language. While she spoke fluent Urdu, it was often colloquial rather than formal. According to various interviews given by former household servants, she and her father would speak to them in their native Sindhi.

Schooling

• Lady Jennings Nursery School Karachi
• Convent of Jesus & Mary Karachi
• Presentation Convent Rawalpindi
• Convent of Jesus & Mary Murree-O-Level
• Karachi Grammar School-A-Level

Higher Education

•  1969-73, Radcliffe College at Harvard University United States–BA with cum laude honours in comparative government; also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Bhutto later called her time at Harvard “four of the happiest years of my life” and said it formed “the very basis of her belief in democracy”. In 1995, as Prime Minister, she arranged a gift from the Pakistani government to Harvard Law School.
• 1973-77, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (LMH); studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Additional courses in International Law and Diplomacy.
• Attended St Catherine’s College, Oxford
• December 1976, elected President of the Oxford Union. President of Oxford Majlis Asian Society

Marriage: On 18 December 1987, Bhutto married Asif Ali Zardari in Karachi. The couple had three children: two daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa, and a son, Bilawal. When she gave birth to Bakhtawar in 1990, she became the first modern head of government to give birth while in office.

Zia’s Pakistan, 1977-88

Zulfikar’s assassination and her arrests

Bhutto’s father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was removed from office in a 1977 military coup led by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the Chief of Army Staff. Zia imposed martial law and promised to hold elections within three months. But instead Zia charged her father with conspiring to murder the father of dissident politician Ahmed Raza Kasuri. Zulfikar’s family opposed Zia’s imposition of the ultra-conservative military dictatorship, despite the consequences to themselves drawn by their opposition. Benazir Bhutto and her brother Murtaza spent the next eighteen months in and out of house arrest while she worked to rally political support and attempted to pressure Zia to drop the murder charges against her father.

On behalf of Zulfikar Bhutto the Bhutto family filed a petition at the Chief Martial Law Administrator Office asking reconsideration of his sentence as well as the release of his friend Mubashir Hassan.The application was initiated by former law ministers Abdul Hafeez Pirzada and Fakhruddin Ibrahim,

General Zia said he misplaced the petition. Although the murder charge remained “in doubt by the public”, and many foreign leaders appealed for clemency, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was convicted; then hanged on  4 April 1979 under the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Bhutto and her immediate family were held in a “police camp” until May 1979.

Benazir and Murtaza were arrested after a PPP victory in local elections. General Zia postponed national elections indefinitely and moved Benazir, Murtaza, and their mother Nusrat from Karachi to Larkana Central Jail. This was the seventh time Nusrat and her children had been arrested in the two years since the coup. After repeated placement of  the family in house detention, in March 1981, the regime finally imprisoned Benazir in solitary confinement in  Sukkur Jail in Sindh.

In her autobiography, Daughter of Destiny, she described conditions in her wall-less cage in that prison: “The summer heat turned my cell into an oven. My skin split and peeled, coming off my hands in sheets. Boils erupted on my face. My hair, which had always been thick, began to come out by the handful. Insects crept into the cell like invading armies. Grasshoppers, mosquitoes, stinging flies, bees and bugs came up through the cracks in the floor and through the open bars from the courtyard. Big black ants, cockroaches, seething clumps of little red ants and spiders. I tried pulling the sheet over my head at night to hide from their bites, pushing it back when it got too hot to breathe.”

She was provided even an air conditioner and medical check up trips to Karachi by air at the Mideast Medical Centre in Clifton

After six months of this,  Bhutto spent months in the hospital, and then was moved to Karachi Central Jail, where she remained until 11 December 1981. She was then placed under house arrest in Larkana for eleven months, and transferred to Karachi where she spent  another 14 more months under detention.

Release and self-imposed exile

In January 1984, after six years of house arrest and imprisonment, General Zia bowed to international pressure and allowed Bhutto and her family to leave Pakistan for medical reasons. After surgery, she remained abroad and resumed political activities, raising awareness about mistreatment of political prisoners in Pakistan at the hands of the Zia regime. In exile in the United Kingdom, Bhutto became a leader in exile of the populist Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Bhutto’s efforts intensified political pressure on Zia, forcing him to holding a referendum to prove his government’s legitimacy. The vote held 1 December 1984, was a farce. Despite the best efforts of the government, only 10% of the electorate turned out to vote. In 1985 Benazir’s brother Shahnawaz died, apparently poisoned. The Bhutto family believed the murder was ordered by Zia and went into hiding.

 Jamshed Marker, Pakistan ‘s Ambassador to France has stated in his autobiography that General Zia had no hand in this. It was a drug overdose. Her brother who was a user.

Further pressure from the international community forced the president to hold elections; he scheduled them on a non-party basis for a unicameral legislature. Bhutto called for a boycott of this election because it was not in accordance with the constitution. She continued to raise her voice against the human rights violations of the Zia regime, and addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 1985. In retaliation for this speech, Zia pronounced death sentences against 54 members of her party, through a military court in Lahore that he headed himself.

Zia died in a plane crash in August 1988. In November Pakistan held the first open general elections in more than a decade. Bhutto’s PPP won several provinces and won the largest percentage of seats in the National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan’s parliament. As head of her party, Bhutto therefore became Prime Minister of Pakistan.

First Term as Prime Minister, 1988-90

Benazir Bhutto on a visit to Washington, D.C. in 1989

Benazir Bhutto became the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan on 2 December 1988.  Bhutto formed a coalition government on December 2 with the liberal Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party, an ally she required as head of a minority government. Over time, Bhutto quietly isolated MQM from power, later ousting them to establish a single-party government that claimed a mandate from all of Pakistan. The effects of Zia’s domestic policies began to reveal themselves, and she found them difficult to counter. Bhutto had vowed to repeal the controversial Hudood Ordinance in her first term, and also to revert the Eighth Amendment, General Zia’s modification of the Constitution giving himself the power to dissolve Parliament and call for fresh elections. Bhutto also promised to shift Pakistan’s semi-presidential system to a parliamentary system. But none of these reforms were implemented and Bhutto began to struggle with conservative president Ghulam Ishaq Khan over issues of executive authority.

Relations with India and Afghanistan War

Bhutto took office at the end of the Cold War, and aligned herself closely to United States President George H. W. Bush based on their shared distrust of communism. However she strongly opposed US support for the Afghan Mujahideen, and told George W. Bush he was creating a Frankenstein. Bhutto’s government oversaw major events in the alignment of the Middle East and South Asia. In the west, the Soviet Union withdrew from  Afghanistan in 1989-1990, and in 1990, the US-Pakistan alliance broke off due to US government’s suspicions about Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons program.

Bhutto attempted to revive good relations with neighbouring India and met with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. She negotiated a trade agreement when the Indian premier paid a farewell visit to Pakistan. The goodwill in Indian-Pakistani relations continued until 1990, when V. P. Singh succeeded Gandhi as premier. The influence of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Singh forced him to abrogate the agreements. Tensions also began to rise with Pakistan after the BJP enforced hardline policies inside Kashmir which the Pakistani government denounced. Soon the Singh administration launched a military operation in Kashmir to curb secessionists. In response, Benazir allegedly authorized covert operations to support secession movements in Indian Kashmir. In 1990 Major General Pervez Musharraf, then head of the Directorate-General for the Military Operations (DGMO), proposed a strategy against India to Bhutto that called for Kargil infiltration, but she declined because he didn’t have a contingency plan for dealing with any international fallout that might result. In 1988, Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), met with Bhutto and advocated for supporting the Khalistan movement, a Sikh nationalist movement. Gul justified this as the only way to pre-empt new Indian threats to Pakistan’s territory. Bhutto disagreed and asked him to stop playing this card.

Bhutto also authorized further aggressive military operations in Afghanistan to topple the fragile communist regime and Soviet influence in the region. One nota authorization was military action in Jalalabad in Soviet Afghanistan to retaliate for the Soviets’ long unconditional support for India, a proxy war in Pakistan and Pakistan’s loss in the 1971 War. This operation was “a defining moment for her government”, proof of the loyalty to the armed forces. Planned by Hamid Gul and U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Robert B. Oakley and known as the Battle of Jalalabad, it intended a conventional victory over withdrawing Soviet troops. The mission brutally failed within a couple of months with effectively no results. The morale of the involved Mujahideen slumped and many local commanders ended truces with the government.

Angered and frustrated by the outcome of the operation, Bhutto, already displeased with Gul, now sacked him. The decision to dismiss Gul was an authoritative move that surprised many senior statesmen, although they did back her. Gul’s replacement, Lieutenant General Shamsur Rahman Kallu, proved a more capable officer. Bhutto favoured a political settlement between all the Afghan Mujahideen factions and hence international legitimacy for the new government. This was never achieved and the factions began fighting each other, further destabilising the country.

Science policy: Bhutto followed the science and technology policy her father laid out in 1972, and promoted military funding of science and technology as part of that policy. However, in 1988, Bhutto was denied access to the classified national research institutes run by the military, which remained however under the control of the civilian president Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the Chief of Army Staff. Bhutto was kept unaware about the progress of the nuclear complexes, even when the country passed the milestone in 1986 of fissile core manufacturing capability U.S. Ambassador Robert Oakley was the first diplomat notified about the complexes, in 1988. Shortly afterwards Bhutto summoned chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Munir Ahmad Khan to her office; Khan brought Abdul Qadeer Khan with him and introduced him to the Prime Minister.At that meeting Bhutto learned the status of this program which had matured since its beginnings in 1978, and on request of A. Q. Khan, visited Khan Research Laboratories for the first time in 1989, much to the anger of Ishaq Khan. Bhutto also responded to Khan when she moved the Ministry of Science and Technology’s office to the Prime Minister Secretariat with Munir Ahmad Khan directly reporting to her. Bhutto had successfully eliminated any possibility of Khan’s involvement and prevented him from having any influence in science-research programmes, a policy which also benefited her successor Nawaz Sharif. During both her prime-ministerial terms Bhutto funded many projects entirely devoted to the country’s national defence and security. The dismissal of Lieutenant-General Gul by Benazir Bhutto had played a significant role on Chief of Army Staff General Mirza Aslam Beg, who did not interfere in matters pertaining to science and technology, and remained supportive towards Benazir Bhutto’s hard-line actions against the President.

In 1990 Benazir declined to allot funds to any military-science projects that would be placed under Lieutenant-General Zahid Ali Akbar, despite Akbar’s being known to have been close to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. In 1990 she forced Akbar to resign from active duty, and as director-general of Army Technological Research Laboratories (ATRL); she replaced him with Lieutenant-General Talat Masood as E-in-C of ATRL as well as director of all military projects.

“If we don’t, India will go ahead and adopt aggressive designs on us . . . To preserve the minimum deterrence, tests should be performed this month or year . . . —Benazir Bhutto, 1998

In the 1980s, Benazir Bhutto started aerospace projects such as Project Sabre II, Project PAC, Ghauri project under Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan in 1990 and the Shaheen programme in 1995 under Dr. Samar Mubarakmand.

During her second term, Benazir Bhutto declared 1996 as a year of “information technology” and envisioned her policy of making Pakistan a “global player” in information technology. One of her initiatives was the launching of a package to promote computer literacy through participation from the private sector.

Nuclear weapons program

In opposition to her conservative opponent Nawaz Sharif, whose policy was to make nuclear weapons program to benefit the economy, Benazir Bhutto took aggressive steps to modernize and expand the integrated atomic weapons program begun by her father in 1972, who was one of the key political administrative figures of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent development. During her first term, Benazir Bhutto established the separate but integrated nuclear testing program in the atomic bomb program, requiring the authorization of the Prime minister and the military leadership. Despite Benazir’s denial that she authorized the nuclear testing program in her second term she continued to modernize the program which she termed a “contractual obligation”.

“It took only two weeks and three days for Pakistan to master the [atomic [field . . . and (detonate) the nuclear devices of our own . . .”—Benazir Bhutto on first nuclear tests in May 1998

It was during her regime that the Pressler amendment came into effect, an attempt to freeze the programme. During frequent trips to the United States, Bhutto refused to compromise on the nuclear weapons programme, and attacked the Indian nuclear programme on multiple occasions. Benazir Bhutto misled the U.S. when she told them that the programme had been frozen; the programme was progressively modernized and continued under her watch. Under her regime, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) conducted series of improvised designs of nuclear weapons designed by the Theoretical Physics Group (TPG) at PAEC. Benazir Bhutto also carried messages to Munir Ahmad Khan from her father and back in 1979 as her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had instructed his daughter to remain in touch with the Chairman of PAEC. In this context, Bhutto had appointed Munir Ahmad Khan as her Science Adviser, and he kept her informed about the development of the programme. In all, the nuclear weapons and energy program remained a top priority, along with the country’s economy. During her first term, the nuclear program was under attack and under pressure from the Western world, particularly the United States. Despite economic aid offered by the European Union and the United States in return for halting or freezing the program, Benazir continued the program in both her first and second terms.

During her first term, Bhutto approved and launched the Shaheen programme and advocated for the programme. Bhutto also allotted funds for the programme. On 6 January 1996, Bhutto publicly announced that if India conducted a nuclear test, Pakistan could be forced to “follow suit”. Bhutto later said that the day will never arise when we have to use our knowledge to make and detonate a [nuclear] device and export our technology.

The People of (Pakistan) … are “security conscious” because of the (1971) severe trauma, and the three wars with (India). Our (Pakistan) nuclear development was peaceful … but was “an effective deterrence to India” … because (New Delhi) had detonated a nuclear device. She (Pakistan) …, thus, had to take every step to ensure its territorial integrity and sovereignty…-— Benazir Bhutto, on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons

Space program

Benazir Bhutto continued her policy to modernise and expand the space programme and as part of that policy, she launched and supervised the clandestine project integrated research programme (IRP), a missile programme which remained under Benazir Bhutto’s watch and successfully ended in 1996. Benazir established the National Development Complex and the University Observatory at Karachi University and expanded facilities for space research. Pakistan’s first military satellite, Badr-I, was also launched under her government through China, while the second military satellite Badr-II was completed during her second term. With launching of Badr-I, Pakistan became the first Muslim country to launch and place a satellite in Earth’s orbit. She declared 1990 a year of space in Pakistan and conferred national awards on scientists and engineers who participated in the development of this satellite.

1989 military scandal

In 1989, the media reported a sting operation and political scandal, codenamed Midnight Jackal, in which former members of ISI hatched a plan to topple the Bhutto government. Midnight Jackal was a political intelligence operation launched under President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and army Chief General Mirza Aslam Beg, whose objective was to pass a no-confidence motion in Parliament by bribing PPP members. Lieutenant-General Asif Nawaz had suspected the activities of Brigadier-General Imtiaz Ahmed, therefore, a watch cell unit was dispatched to keep an eye on him. This operation was exposed by ISI when it obtained a VHS tape containing the conversation between two former army officers and former members of ISI, from the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The tape was confiscated by ISI director-general Lieutenant-General Shamsur Rahman Kallu, who showed it to Benazir the next day. The video tape showed the conversation of Major Amir Khan and Brigadier-General Imtiaz Ahmad ; revealed that Chief of Army Staff General Mirza Aslam Baig wanted to end the government. Though the Brigadier failed to prove General Beg’s involvement, General Mirza, on the other hand, sharply denied the accusation and started full-fledged court martial of these officers, with Benazir being the civilian judge of JAG Branch to proceed the hearings. The officers were removed from their positions and placed at Adiala military correctional institute in 1989. The officers were released from the military correctional institute by order of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1996.

Dismissal

By 1990 the revelation of Midnight Jackal lessened President Ghulam Ishaq Khan’s influence in national politics, government and the military. Bhutto was thought by the president to be a young and inexperienced figure in politics, though highly educated. But he miscalculated her capabilities; she emerged as a ‘power player’ in international politics. Bhutto’s authoritative actions frustrated the president; he was not taken in confidence when decisions were made. By 1990 a power struggle between the prime minister and president ensued. Because of the semi-presidential system, Bhutto needed permission from Khan to impose new policies. Khan vetoed many, as he felt they contradicted his point of view. Bhutto, through her legislators, also attempted to shift to a parliamentary democracy from the semi-presidential system, but Khan always used his constitutional powers to veto Bhutto’s attempts.

Tales of corruption in public-sector industries began to surface, which undermined the credibility of Bhutto. The unemployment and labour strikes began to take place which halted and jammed the economic wheel of the country, and Bhutto was unable to solve these issues due to the cold war with the President. In November 1990, after a long political battle, Khan used the Eighth Amendment to dismiss the Bhutto government following charges of corruption, nepotism, and despotism. Khan called for new elections in 1990, where Bhutto conceded defeat.

First term as leader of the opposition, 1990-93

The Election Commission of Pakistan called for the new parliamentary elections in 1990. The Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, or Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA), under the leadership of Nawaz Sharif, won a majority in the Parliament. For the first time in the history of Pakistan, conservatives had a chance to rule the country. Sharif became the 12th prime minister of Pakistan and Bhutto was the leader of the opposition for the next five years.

In November 1992, Bhutto attempted to perform a 10-mile march from Rawalpindi to Islamabad. However, she was forced to discontinue the rally due to a threat of arrest from Prime Minister Sharif. The demonstration was an anti-government rally that upset Pakistan officials.  She was placed under house arrest and vowed to bring down the Pakistani government. In December 1992, a two-day march was conducted in protest of Nawaz Sharif. In July 1993, Nawaz Sharif resigned from his position due to political pressure.

From 1990 to 1993 Bhutto began to regularly attend lunches at the Institute of Development Economics (IDE), a think tank founded in the 1950s; she had been visiting IDE and reading its publications since the mid-1970s. During that time, the Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA) launched a secret campaign against Benazir Bhutto’s image to demoralize party workers; the campaign brutally backfired on Nawaz Sharif when the media exposed the campaign and its motives. More than ₨. 5 million were spent on the campaign and it undermined the credibility of conservatives, who also failed to resolve issues between them.

Despite an economic recovery in late 1993, the IDA government faced public unease about the direction of the country and an industrialization that centered only in the Punjab Province. Amid protest and civil disorder in Sindh Province following the imposition of Operation Clean-up, the IDA government lost control of the province. The Peoples Party attacked the IDA government’s record on unemployment and industrial racism.

President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed the conservative government when Sharif attempted to revert the 8th Amendment and was unsuccessful. Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto would unite to oust the president who lost the control of the country in a matter of weeks. Khan was forced to resign along with Nawaz Sharif in 1993, and an interim government was formed until the new elections. A parliamentary election was called after by the Pakistan Armed Forces. Both Sharif and Benazir Bhutto campaigned with full force, targeting each other’s personalities. Their policies were very similar but a clash of personalities occurred, with both parties making many promises but not explaining how they were going to pay for them.

Sharif stood on his record of privatisation and development, and pledged to restore his taxicab/taxi giveaway program. Bhutto promised price supports for agriculture, pledged a partnership between government and business, and campaigned strongly for the female vote.

Second term as Prime Minister, 1993-96

Benazir Bhutto being greeted by supporters.

Though the PPP won the most seats (86 seats) in the election but fell short of an outright majority, with the PML-N in second place with 73 seats in the Parliament. The PPP performed extremely well in Bhutto’s native province, Sindh, and rural Punjab, while the PML-N was strongest in industrial Punjab and the largest cities such as Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. On 19 October 1993, Benazir Bhutto was sworn as Prime Minister for second term allowing her to continue her reform initiatives.

Benazir Bhutto learned valuable lessons from the presidency of Ghulam Ishaq Khan, and presidential elections were soon called after her re election. After carefully examining the candidates, Benazir Bhutto decided to appoint Farooq Leghari as her president. Leghari was sworn in as the  8th President of Pakistan on 14 November 1993 as well as the first Baloch to have become president since the country’s independence. Leghari was an apolitical figure who was educated Kingston University London receiving his degree in same discipline as of Benazir Bhutto. But unlike Khan, Leghari had no political background, no experience in government running operations, and had no background understanding the civil-military relations.

She appointed Julius Salik as Minister for Population Welfare which was the first time a  main ministry was given to the minority community. The previous government had only appointed a minister of state or parliamentary secretary for them. Julius Salik,  a very popular leader among minorities won the seat to the National Parliament (MNA) by getting highest votes in Pakistan.

Domestic affairs

Benazir Bhutto was prime minister at a time of great racial tension in Pakistan. In confidential official documents Benazir Bhutto had objected to the number of Urdu speaking class in 1993 elections, in context that she had no Urdu-speaking sentiment in her circle and this discrimination was continued even in her government. Her stance on these issues was perceived as part of rising public disclosure which Altaf Hussain called “racism”. Due to Benazir Bhutto’s stubbornness and authoritative actions, her political rivals gave her the nickname “Iron Lady” of Pakistan. No response was issued by Bhutto, but she was soon associated with the term. The racial violence in Karachi reached a peak and became a problem for Benazir Bhutto to counter. The MQM attempted to make an alliance with Benazir Bhutto under her own conditions, but Benazir Bhutto refused. Soon the second operation, Operation Blue Fox, was launched to wipe the MQM from country’s political spectrum. The results of this operation remained inconclusive and resulted in thousands killed or  missing, with the majority being Urdu speaking. Bhutto demanded the MQM to surrender to her government unconditionally. Though the operation was halted in 1995, but violence continued and, Shahid Javed Burki, a professor of economics, noted that “Karachi problem was not so much an ethnic problem as it was an economic question.” Amid union and labour strikes beginning to take place in Karachi and Lahore, which were encouraged by both Altaf Hussain and Nawaz Sharif to undermine her authority, Benazir Bhutto responded by disbanding those trade union and issuing orders to arrest the leaders of the trade unions, while on the other hand, she provided incentives to local workers and labourers as she had separated the workers from their union leaders successfully. Benazir Bhutto expanded the authoritative rights of Police Combatant Force and the provisional governments that tackled the local opposition aggressively. Bhutto, through her Internal Security Minister Naseerullah Babar, intensified the internal security operations and steps, gradually putting down the opposition’s political rallies, while she did not completely abandon the reconciliation policy. In her own worlds, Benazir Bhutto announced: “There was no basis for (strikes)… in view of the ongoing political process…”

In August 1993, Benazir Bhutto narrowly escaped an assassination attempt near her residence in the early morning. While no one was injured or killed, the culprits of this attempt went into hiding.  In December 1993, news began to surface in the Swat valley when Sufi Muhammad, a religious cleric, began to mobilise the local militia calling for overthrow of the “un-Islamic rule of [Iron] Lady”. Benazir Bhutto responded quickly and ordered the Pakistan Army to crack down n the militia; leading to the movement being crushed by the Army and the cleric was apprehended before he could escape.

However, corruption grew during her government, and her government became increasingly unpopular amid corruption scandals which became public. One of the most internationally and nationally reported scandal was the Agosta Submarine scandal. Benazir Bhutto’s spouse Asif Ali Zardari was linked with former Admiral Mansurul Haq who allegedly made side deals with French officials while acquiring the submarine technology. It was one of the consequences that her government was dismissed and Asif Ali Zardari along with Mansurul Haq was arrested and a trial was set in place. Both Zardari and Haq were detained due to corruption cases and Benazir Bhutto flew to Dubai from Pakistan in 1998.

Women’s issues

During her election campaigns, she had promised to repeal controversial laws (such as Hudood and Zina ordinances) that curtail the rights of women in Pakistan. Bhutto was pro-life and spoke forcefully against abortion, most notably at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, where she accused the West of “seeking to impose adultery, abortion, intercourse education and other such matters on individuals, societies and religions which have their own social ethos.” However, Bhutto was not supported by the leading women organisations, who argued that after being elected twice, none of the reforms were made; instead controversial laws were exercised more toughly. Therefore, in 1997 elections, Bhutto failed to secure any support from women’s organisations and minorities also gave Bhutto the cold-shoulder when she approached them. It was not until 2006 that the Zina ordinance was finally repealed by a Presidential Ordinance issued by Pervez Musharraf in July 2006.  Bhutto was an active and founding member of the Council of Women World Leaders, a network of current and former prime ministers and presidents.

Economic issues

The total GDP per capita stood between 8.4% (in the 1970s) and 8.3% (in 1993–96), periods of nationalization.

Pakistan suffered a currency crisis when the government failed to arrest the 30% depreciation in the value of the Pakistani Rupee from ₨. 21 to ₨.30 compared to the United States dollar. Soon economic progress became her top priority but her investment and industrialization programs faced major setbacks due to impressions formed earlier by investors of the People’s Party nationalization program in the 1970s. By the 1990s, Khan and Bhutto’s government had also ultimately lost the currency war with the Indian Rupee,  which beat the value of Pakistan rupee for the first time in the 1970s. Bhutto’s denationalization program also suffered from many political setbacks, as many of her government members were either directly or indirectly involved with the government corruption in major government-owned industries, and her appointed government members allegedly sabotaged her efforts to privatize the industries.

“Justice is economic independence. Justice is social equality . . .”—Bhutto, 1996, cited source

Overall, the living standard for people in Pakistan declined as inflation and unemployment grew at an exponential rate particularly as UN sanctions began to take effect. During her first and second term, the difference between rich and poor visibly increased and the middle class in particular were the ones who bore the brunt of the economic inequality. According to a calculation completed by the Federal Bureau of Statistics, the rich were statistically were improved and the poor declined in terms of living standards. Benazir attributed this economic inequality to be a result of ongoing and continuous illegal Bangladeshi immigration. Bhutto ordered a crackdown on and deportation of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. Her action strained and created tensions in Bangladesh–Pakistan relations, as Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia refused to accept the deportees and reportedly sent two planeloads back to Pakistan. Religious parties also criticised Bhutto and dubbed the crackdown as anti-Islamic.

This operation backfired and had devastating effects on Pakistan’s economy. President Khan saw this as a major economic failure despite Khan blamed Bhutto for this extensive economic slowdown and her policies that failed to stop the illegal immigration. Khan attributed Bhutto’s government members corruption in government-owned industries as the major sink hole in Pakistan’s economy that failed to compete with neighbouring India’s economy

Privatization and era of stagflation

 

The GDP growth rate was at ~4.37% in 1993, which fell to ~1.70% in 1996, before Bhutto’s dismissal

During the periods of 1993–96, the local production of coal remained steady.

During her second term, Bhutto continued to follow former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s privatisation policies, which she called a “disciplined macroeconomics policy”. After the 1993 general elections, the privatisation programme of state-owned banks and utilities accelerated; more than ₨ 42 billion was raised from the sale of nationalised corporations and industries, and another US$20 billion from the foreign investment made the United States. After 1993, the country’s national economy again entered in the second period of the stagflation and more roughly began to bite the country’s financial resources and the financial capital. Bhutto’s second government found it extremely difficult to counter the second era of stagflation with Pressler amendment and the US financial and military embargo tightened its position. After a year of study, Bhutto implemented and enforced the Eighth Plan to overcome the stagflation by creating a dependable and effective mechanism for accelerating economic and social progress. But, according to American ambassador to Pakistan, William Milam’s bibliography, Bangladesh and Pakistan: Flirting with Failure in South Asia, the Eighth Plan (which reflected the planned economy of the Soviet Union) was doomed to meet with failure from the very beginning of 1994, as the policies were weak and incoherent.

On many occasions, Bhutto resisted the privatisation of globally competitive and billion-dollar-worth state-owned enterprises (such as Pakistan Railways and Pakistan Steel Mills). Instead the grip of nationalisation in those state-owned enterprises was tightened in order to secure the capital investment of these industries. The process of privatization of nationalized industries was associated with the marked performance and improvement, especially the terms of labour productivity. A number of privatized industries such as gas, water supply and sanitation, and electricity general, were natural monopolies for which the privatization involved little competition. Furthermore, Benazir did not privatize Pakistan Railways in spite of the calls made in Pakistan, and was said to have told the Planning Commission chief Naveed Qamar, “Railways privatization will be the ‘blackhole’ of this government. Please never mention the railways to me again”. Bhutto also resisted privatization of United Bank Limited Pakistan (UBL), but its management sent a recommendation for  privatisation which dismayed the labour union. The United Group of Employees Management asked Bhutto for issue of regulation sheet which she denied. The holding of UBL in government control turned out to be a move that ended in “disaster” for Bhutto’s government.

Foreign policy: Benazir Bhutto’s foreign policy was controversial. In her second term, Bhutto expanded Pakistan’s relations with the rest of the world. Like her father, Benazir Bhutto sought to strengthen relations with socialist states, and her visit to Libya strengthened the relations between the two countries. Benazir also thanked Muammar al-Gaddafi for his tremendous efforts and support for her father before and during Zulfikar’s trial in 1977. Ties continued with Libya but deteriorated after Nawaz Sharif became prime minister in 1990 and again in 1997. Gaddafi was said to be very fond of Bhutto and was a family friend of Bhutto family, but disliked Nawaz Sharif due to his ties with General Zia in the 1980s.

Benazir Bhutto is said to have paid a state visit to North Korea in early 1990 and again in 1996. According to journalist Shyam Bhatia, Bhutto smuggled CDs containing uranium enrichment data to North Korea on a state visit that same year in return for data on missile technology. According to the expert Benazir Bhutto acted as a female “James Bond”, and left with a bag of computer disks to pass on to her military from North Korea.

Benazir Bhutto in the United States, 1989

Major-General Pervez Musharraf worked closely with Bhutto and her government in formulating an Israel strategy. In 1993 Bhutto ordered Musharraf, then Director-General of the Pakistani Army’s Directorate-General for the Military Operation (DGMO), to join her state visit to the United States, an unusual and unconventional participation. Bhutto and Musharraf chaired a secret meeting with Israeli officials who travelled to the US especially for the meeting. Under Bhutto’s guidance Musharraf intensified the ISI’s liaison with Israel’s Mossad. A final meeting took place in 1995, which Musharraf also joined. Bhutto also strengthened relations  with communist Vietnam, and visited Vietnam to sign an agreement for mutual trade and international political cooperation the two countries. In 1995 Benazir Bhutto made another state visit to the United States and held talks with U.S. President Bill Clinton. Bhutto urged him to revise the Pressler Amendment and launch a campaign against extremism. She criticized US non proliferation policy and demanded that the United States honour its contractual obligation.

During her second term, relations with Indian Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao further deteriorated. Like her father, Benazir Bhutto used rhetoric to oppose to India and campaign in the international community against the Indian nuclear programme. On 1 May 1995 she used harsh language in her public warning to India that “continuation of [Indian] nuclear programme would have terrible consequences”. India responded to this saying she was interfering in an “internal matter” of India, and the Indian Army fired a RPG at the Kahuta, which further escalated events. When this news reached Bhutto, she responded by alerting the Air Force Strategic Command. It ordered  armed Arrows, Griffins, Black Panthers and the Black Spiders to begin air sorties to patrol the Indo-Pakistan border on day-and-night regular missions. All of these squadrons are part of the Strategic Command. On 30 May, India test-fired a Prithvi-1 missile near the Pakistan border, which Bhutto condemned. She responded by deploying Shaheen-I missiles; however, they were not armed. Benazir Bhutto permitted the PAF to deploy the Crotale missile defence and the Anza-Mk-III near the Indian border, which escalated the conflict, but effectively kept the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force from launching any surprise attack.

In 1995 the ISI reported to Bhutto that Narasimha Rao had authorised nuclear tests, and that they could be conducted at any minute. Benazir put the country’s nuclear arsenal program  on high-alert made emergency preparations, and ordered the Pakistani armed forces to remain on high-alert. However the United States intervened, Indian operations for conducting the nuclear tests were called off and the Japanese government attempted to mediate. In 1996, Benazir Bhutto met with Japanese officials and warned India about conducting nuclear tests. She revealed for the first time that Pakistan had achieved parity with India in its capacity to produce nuclear weapons and their delivery capability. She told the Indian press, that Pakistan “cannot afford to negate the parity we maintain with India”. These statements represented a departure from Pakistan’s previous policy of “nuclear ambivalence.” Bhutto issued a statement on the tests and told the international press that she condemned the Indian nuclear tests. “If (India) conducts a nuclear test, it would forced her (Pakistan) to..”follow suit…” she said.

Bhutto also ratcheted up her policy on Indian Kashmir, rallying against India. At an Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting at the United Nations, Bhutto, who was accompanied by her then-Speaker and future prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani (future prime minister) upset and angered the Indian delegation, headed by prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, with a vehement criticism of India. Vajpayee responded, saying: “It is Pakistan which is flouting the United Nations resolution by not withdrawing its forces from Kashmir…You people create problems every time. You know the Kashmiri people themselves acceded to India. First, the Maharajah, then the Kashmiri parliament, both decided to go with India”.

Bhutto described Indian held-Kashmir as the worst example of “Indian intransigence” and dismissed Indian allegations of putative Pakistani nuclear tests as “baseless”. Bhutto criticized India’s bid to hide its plan to explode a nuclear device, and failure to cover up its domestic problems including its failure to suppress the freedom struggle in Kashmir.

Relations with military

Benazir at Social International’s 50th Anniversary held at Lisbon, Portugal

During her first term, Benazir Bhutto had strained relationship with the Pakistan Armed Forces, especially with Pakistan Army. Army Chief Mirza Aslam Beg had cold relations with the elected prime minister, and continued to undermine her authority. As for the military appointments, Benazir Bhutto refused to appoint General Beg as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, instead invited Admiral Iftikhar Ahmed Sirohey to take the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1988, Benazir Bhutto appointed Air Chief Marshal Hakimullah as the Chief of Air Staff and Admiral Jastural Haq as the Chief of Naval Staff. In 1988, shortly after assuming the office, Benazir Bhutto paid a visit to Siachen region, to boost the morale of the soldiers who fought the Siachen war with India. This was the first visit of any civilian leader to any military war-zone area since the country’s independence in 1947. In 1988, Benazir appointed Major-General Pervez Musharraf as Director-General of the Army Directorate General for Military Operations (DGMO); and then-Brigadier-General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani as her Military-Secretary.  In 1989, the Pakistan Army exposed the alleged Operation Midnight Jackal against the government of Benazir Bhutto. When she learned the news, Benazir Bhutto ordered the arrest and trial of former ISI officer Brigadier Imtiaz Ahmad and Major Amir Khan, it was later revealed that it was General Beg who was behind this plot. General Beg soon paid the price in 1993 elections, when Benazir Bhutto politically destroyed the former general and his career was over before taking any shifts in politics. During her first term, Benazir Bhutto had successfully removed senior military officers including Lieutenant-Generals Hamid Gul, Zahid Ali Akbar Khan, General Jamal A. Khan, and Admiral Tariq Kamal Khan, all of whom had anti-democratic views and were closely aligned to General Zia, replacing them with officers who were educated in Western military institutes and academies, generally the ones with more westernised democratic views.

During her second term, Benazir Bhutto’s relations with the Pakistan Armed Forces took a different and pro-Bhutto approach, when she appointed General Abdul Waheed Kakar as the Chief of Army Staff. General Abdul Waheed was an uptight, strict, and a professional officer with views of Westernized democracy. Benazir also appointed Admiral Saeed Mohammad Khan as Chief of Naval Staff; General Abbas Khattak as Chief of Air Staff. Air Chief Marshal Farooq Feroze Khan was appointed chairman Joint Chiefs who was the first (and to date only) Pakistani air officer to have reached to such 4 star assignment. Benazir Bhutto enjoyed strong relations with the Pakistan Armed Forces, and President who was hand-picked by her did not question her authority. She hand-picked officers and promoted them based on their pro-democracy views while the puppet President gave constitutional authorisation for their promotion. The senior military leadership including Jehangir Karamat, Musharraf, Kayani, Ali Kuli Khan, Farooq Feroze Khan, Abbas Khattak and Fasih Bokhari, had strong Western-democratic views, and were generally close to Bhutto as they had resisted Nawaz Sharif’s conservatism. Unlike Nawaz Sharif’s second democratic term, Benazir worked with the military on many issues where the military disagreement, solving many problems relating directly to civil–military relations. Her tough and hardline policies on Afghanistan, Kashmir and India, which the military had backed Benazir Bhutto staunchly.

After the assassination attempt, Benazir Bhutto’s civilian security team headed by Rehman Malik, was disbanded by the Pakistan Army whose X-Corps‘ 111th Psychological Brigade— an army brigade tasked with countering the psychological warfare— took control of the security that directly reported to Chief of Army Staff and the Prime Minister. Benazir Bhutto ordered General Abdul Waheed Kakar and the Lieutenant-General Javed Ashraf Qazi director-general of ISI, to start a manhunt to hunt down the ringmaster, Ramzi Yousef. After few arrests and intensive search, the ISI finally captured Ramzi before he could flee the country. In matter of weeks, Ramzi was secretly extradited to the United States, while the ISI managed to kill or apprehend all the culprits behind the plot. In 1995 she personally appointed General Naseem Rana as the Director-General of the ISI, who later commanded the Pakistan Army’s assets in which came to known as “Pakistan’s secret war in Afghanistan“. During this course, General Rana directly reported to the prime minister, and led the intelligence operations after which were approved by Benazir Bhutto. In 1995, Benazir also appointed Admiral Mansurul Haq as the Chief of Naval Staff, as the Admiral had personal contacts with the Benazir’s family. However, it was the Admiral’s large-scale corruption, sponsored by her husband Asif Zardari that shrunk the credibility of Benazir Bhutto by the end of 1996 that led to end of her government.

Policy on Taliban

1996 was crucial for Bhutto’s policy on Afghanistan when Pakistan-backed  religious group Taliban took power in Kabul in September. She continued her father’s policy on Afghanistan taking aggressive measures to curb the anti-Pakistan sentiments in Afghanistan. During this time, many of the international community at the time, including the United States government, viewed the Taliban as a group that could stabilise Afghanistan and enable trade access to the Central Asian Republics, according to author Steve Coll. He claims that her government provided military and financial support for the Taliban, even sending a small unit of the Pakistan Army into Afghanistan. Benazir had approved the appointment of Lieutenant-General Naseem Rana who she affectionately referred to him as “Georgy Zhukov“; and he reported to her while providing strategic support to Taliban. During her regime, Benazir Bhutto’s government had controversially supported the hardline Taliban, and many of her government officials were providing financial assistance to the Taliban. Fazal-ur-Rehman, a right-wing cleric, had a traditionally deep influence on Bhutto and he convinced and later assisted her to help the Taliban  regime as she established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In a reference written by American scholar, Steve Coll in Ghost Wars, he dryly put it: “Benazir Bhutto was suddenly the matron of a new Afghan faction—the Taliban.”

Under her government, Pakistan had recognised the Taliban regime as legitimate government in Afghanistan, allowing them to open an embassy in Islamabad. In 1996. The newly appointed Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef presented his diplomatic credentials while paying a visit to her. Other authors also wrote extensively on Bhutto’s directives towards Taliban. According to one author it became a fact that it was Bhutto, a Western-educated woman, who set in motion the events leading to the September 11 attacks in the United States.  However, in 2007, she took an anti-Taliban stance, and condemned terrorist acts allegedly committed by the Taliban and their supporters.

Coup d’état attempt

In 1995, Benazir Bhutto’s government survived an attempted coup d’état hatched by renegade military officers of the Pakistan Army. The ringleader of the coup was a junior level officer, Major-General Zahirul Islam Abbasi, who had radical views. Others included Brigadier-Generals Mustansir Billa, and Qari Saifullah. The ISI learned of this plot and tipped off the Pakistan Army and at midnight before the coup could take place, it was thwarted. The coup was exposed by Ali Kuli Khan, the Military Intelligence chief, and Jehangir Karamat, Chief of General Staff. The Military Intelligence led the arrest of 36 army officers and 20 civilians in Rawalpindi; General Ali Kuli Khan reported to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto early morning and submitted his report on the coup. After learning this, Benazir was angered and dismayed, therefore a full-fledged court martial was formed by Benazir Bhutto. Prime Minister Benazir issued arrests of numbers of religiously conservative leaders and denied  amnesty and clemency calls made by the Army officers. By 1996, all of the dissident officers were either jailed or killed by the Pakistan Army and a report was submitted to the Prime minister. General Kuli Khan and General Karamat received wide appreciation from the prime minister and were decorated with the civilian decorations and awards by her.

Death of younger brother: Since 1989, Murtaza and Benazir had a series of disagreements regarding the PPP’s policies and Murtaza’s opposition towards Benazir’s operations against the Urdu-speaking class. Murtaza also developed serious disagreement with Benazir’s husband, Zardari, and unsuccessfully attempted to remove his influence in the government. Benazir and Murtaza’s mother, Nusrat, sided with Murtaza which also dismayed the daughter. In a controversial interview, Benazir declared that Pakistan only needed one Bhutto, not two, though she denied giving or passing any comments. Her younger brother increasingly made it difficult for her to run the government after he raised voices against Benazir’s alleged corruption. Alone in Sindh, Benazir lost the support of the province to her younger brother. At the political campaign, Murtaza demanded party elections inside the PPP, which according to Zardari, Benazir would have lost due to Nusrat’s backing Murtaza and many workers inside the party willing to see Murtaza as the country’s Prime minister as well as the chair of the party. More problems arose when Abdullah Shah Lakiyari, Chief Minister of Sindh, and allegedly her spouse created disturbances in Murtaza’s political campaign. On 20 September 1996, in a controversial police encounter, Murtaza Bhutto was shot dead near his residence along with six other party activists. As the news reached all of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto hurriedly returned to Karachi, and an emergency was proclaimed in the entire province. Benazir Bhutto’s limo was stoned by angered PPP members when she tried to visit Murtaza’s funeral ceremonies. Her brother’s death had crushed their mother, and she was immediately admitted to the local hospital after learning that her son had been killed. At Murtaza’s funeral, Nusrat accused Benazir and Zardari of being responsible, and vowed to pursue prosecution.

President Farooq Leghari, who dismissed the Bhutto government seven weeks after Murtaza’s death, also suspected Benazir and Zardari’s involvement. Several of Pakistan’s leading newspapers alleged that Zardari wanted his brother-in-law out of the way because of Murtaza’s activities as head of a breakaway faction of the PPP. In all, after this incident, Benazir Bhutto lost all support from Sindh Province. Public opinion later turned against her, with many believing that her spouse was involved in the murder, a claim her spouse strongly rejected.

Second dismissal: In spite of her tough rhetoric to subdue her political rivals and neighbouring India and Afghanistan, the Bhutto government’s corruption heightened and exceeded its limits during her second regime; the most notable figures among those suspected were Asif Ali Zardari and Admiral Mansurul Haq. Soon after the death of her younger brother, Bhutto  became widely unpopular and public opinion turned against her government. In Sindh, Bhutto lost all the support from the powerful feudal lords and the political spectrum turned against her. In 1996, the major civil–military scandal became known internationally and nationally when her spouse Zardari was linked with the ex-navy chief and former Admiral Mansurul Haq. Known as Agosta class scandal, many of the higher naval admirals and government officials of both France and Pakistan governments were accused of getting heavy commissions when the deal was disclosed to sell this sensitive submarine technology to Pakistan Navy.

On 20 July 1996, Qazi Hussain Ahmed of Jamaat e Islami announced the start of protests against government alleging corruption. Qazi Hussain resigned from senate on 27 September and announced the plan to start a long march against Benazir government. Protests started on 27 October 1996 by Jamaat e Islami and opposition parties. On 4 November 1996, Bhutto’s government was dismissed by President Leghari primarily because of corruption and Murtaza’s death, who used the Eighth Amendment discretionary powers to dissolve the government. Benazir was surprised when she discovered that it was not the military who had dismissed her but her own hand-picked President. She turned to the Supreme Court in the hope of charging Leghari’s actions unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court justified it and affirmed President Leghari’s dismissal in a 6–1 ruling. Many military leaders who were close to Prime Minister than the President, did not want Benazir Bhutto’s government to fall, as they resisted the Nawaz Sharif’s conservatism. When President Leghari, through public media, discovered that General Kakar (Chief of Army Staff), General Khattak (Chief of Air Staff), and Admiral Haq (Chief of Naval Staff) had been backing Benazir to come back in the government; President Leghari aggressively responded by dismissing the entire military leadership and bringing pro-western but neutral military leadership that would supervise the upcoming elections. This was the move that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (elected in 1997) repeated in 1999, when Nawaz Sharif deposed General Jehangir Karamat after developing serious disagreement on issues of national security.

Criticism against Benazir Bhutto came from the powerful political spectrum of the Punjab Province and the Kashmir Province who opposed Benazir Bhutto, particularly on the nationalisation issue that led to losses in Punjab’s privatised industries under the hands of her government. Bhutto blamed this opposition for the destabilisation of Pakistan. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Jehangir Karamat at one point intervened in the conflict between President and the Prime Minister, and urged Benazir Bhutto to focus on good governance and her ambitious programme of making the country into a welfare state, but the misconduct of her cabinet ministers continued and the corruption she was unable to strike down with full force. Her younger brother’s death had devastating effect on Benazir’s image and her political career that shrunk her and her party’s entire credibility. At one point, Chairman of Joint Chiefs General Jehangir Karamat noted that:

In my opinion, if we have to repeat of past events then we must understand that Military leaders can pressure only up to a point. Beyond that their own position starts getting undermined because the military is after all is a mirror image of the society from which it is drawn— General Jehangir Karamat commenting on Benazir’s dismissal

Soon after her government was terminated, the Naval intelligence led the arrest of Chief of Naval Staff and convicted him through a running court-martial set up at the Naval Judge Advocate General Corps led by active duty 4-star admiral.  Many of her government members and cabinet ministers including her spouse were thrown in jail and the trials were set up at the civilian Supreme Court. Faced with serious charges by the Nawaz Sharif’s government, Bhutto flew to Dubai with her three young children while her spouse was thrown in jail. Shortly after rising to power in a 1999 military coup, General Pervez Musharraf characterized Bhutto’s terms as an “era of sham democracy” and others characterized her terms a period of corrupt, failed governments.

Second term as leader of the opposition, 1996–99: Benazir Bhutto faced wide public disapproval after the corruption cases became public, and this was clearly seen in Bhutto’s defeat in the 1997 parliamentary elections. Bhutto left for Dubai soon afterwards taking her three children with her, while her husband was set for trial.

Bhutto acted as Leader of the Opposition despite living in Dubai, and worked to enhance her public image while supporting public reforms. In 1998, soon after India’s Pokhran-II nuclear tests, Bhutto publicly called for Pakistan to begin its own nuclear testing program, rallying and pressuring Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to make this decision. Bhutto learned from sources close to Sharif that he was reluctant to carry out the nuclear tests. Therefore, she felt, her public call for the test would increase her popularity. However, the strategy backfired—Nawaz authorized and ordered the scientists from PAEC and KRL to perform the tests. It was another political setback for Bhutto and her image gradually declined in 1998.

However, 1999 brought dramatic changes for Bhutto as well as the entire country. Bhutto criticized Sharif for violating the Armed Forces’s code of conduct when he illegally appointed General Pervez Musharraf as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan also criticised the Prime Minister.  In early 1999 Sharif enjoyed widespread popularity as he tried to make peace with India. However, all this changed when Pakistan became enmeshed with an unpopular and undeclared war with India. Known as the Kargil war, the conflict brought international embarrassment to Pakistan, and the prime minister’s prestige and public image was destroyed in a matter of two months. Bhutto criticised the prime minister, and called the Kargil War, “Pakistan’s greatest blunder”. Ali Kuli Khan, Director-General of ISI at that time, also publicly criticised the prime minister and labelled the fighting “a disaster bigger than East Pakistan”. Religious and liberal forces joined Bhutto in condemning Sharif for the conflict, and she made a tremendous effort to destroy his prestige and credibility, says historian William Dalrymple. Then in August 1999, an event completely shattered the remains of Sharif’s image and support. Two Indian Air Force MiG-21 fighters shot down a Pakistani Navy reconnaissance plane, killing 16 naval officers. Bhutto criticized Sharif for having failed to gather any support from the navy. The Armed Forces began to criticise the prime minister for causing the military disasters. Bhutto’s approval ratings were favourable and the Armed Forces chiefs remained sympathetic towards Bhutto as she continued to criticize the now-unpopular Sharif.

Bhutto was highly confident that her party would secure an overwhelming victory in the coming Senate elections in 1999, due to the prime minister’s widening unpopularity. Controversially, when the Pakistani armed forced initiated a coup d’état, Bhutto neither criticised nor issued any comment, remaining silent on supporting General Musharraf, as Dalrymple notes. She continued to support Musharraf’s coordinated arrests of the supporters and staff of Sharif. Musharraf destroyed Sharif’s political presence in Sindh and Kashmir provinces. Many political offices in Sharif’s constituency or district were forcibly closed and many sympathisers were jailed. In 2002, Bhutto and the MQM made a side-line deal with Musharraf that allowed both to continue underground political activities in Sindh and Kashmir, and to fill the gap after Musharraf had destroyed Sharif’s presence in the both provinces. The effects of the arrests were seen clearly in the 2008 parliamentary elections, when Nawaz Sharif failed to secure support back in those two provinces.

Charges of corruption: After President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed Bhutto’s first government on 6 August 1990 because of corruption allegations, the government of Pakistan directed its intelligence agencies to investigate. Nawaz Sharif became prime minister in the ensuing elections and intensified prosecution investigation of Bhutto. Pakistani embassies through Western Europe—in France, Switzerland, Spain, Poland and Britain—were directed to investigate. Bhutto and her husband Zardari faced several legal proceedings, including a charge in Switzerland of money-laundering through Swiss banks. While never convicted, Zardari spent eight years in prison on similar corruption charges. Released on bail in 2004, Zardari hinted that while in prison he was tortured; human rights groups have supported his claim that his rights were violated.

A 1998 New York Times (NYT) investigative report claims that Pakistani investigators have documents that outline a network of bank accounts, all linked to the family’s lawyer in Switzerland naming Asif Zardari as the principal shareholder. According to the NYT article, documents released by the French authorities indicate that Zardari offered exclusive rights to Dassault, a French aircraft manufacturer, to replace the aging fighter jets of the Indian Air Force in exchange for a 5% commission to be paid to a Swiss corporation he controlled. The article also said that a Dubai company received an exclusive license to import gold into Pakistan, for which it paid more than $10 million into Zardari’s Dubai-based Citibank accounts. The owner of the Dubai Company denied making the payments and said the documents were forged.

Bhutto maintained that the charges against her and her husband were purely political. And report by  Pakistani auditor-general (AGP) supports Bhutto’s claim. It presents information suggesting that Benazir Bhutto was ousted from power in 1990 as the result of a witch hunt approved by then-president Ghulam Ishaq Khan. The AGP report says Khan illegally paid legal advisers 28 million rupees to file 19 corruption cases against Bhutto and her husband in 1990–92.

Yet the assets held by Bhutto and her husband continue to be scrutinised and to generate speculation. Prosecutors have alleged that the couple’s Swiss bank accounts contain £740 million. Zardari also bought a neo-Tudor mansion and estate worth over £4 million in Surrey, England. Pakistani investigations have tied other overseas properties to Zardari’s family. These include a $2.5 million manor in Normandy owned by Zardari’s parents, who had only modest assets when he his married. Bhutto has denied owning substantive overseas assets.

Despite numerous investigations, court cases and charges of corruption registered against Bhutto by Nawaz Sharif between 1996 and 1999 and Pervez Musharraf from 1999 to 2008, she has yet to be convicted in any case, after twelve years of investigation. The Pakistani cases were withdrawn by the government of Pakistan after the return to power of Bhutto’s PPP in 2008.

Panama Papers: Bhutto was a client of Mossack Fonseca, whose customer records were disclosed in the Panama Papers leak. In 2001 the firm set up a company registered in the British Virgin Islands for Bhutto. She shared ownership of Petroline International Inc. with her nephew Hassan Ali Jaffery Bhutto, and her aide and head of security Rehman Malik, who later became a Senator and Interior Minister in the government of Yousaf Raza Gillani. Mossack Fonseca had declined to do business with Bhutto’s first company, similarly-named Petrofine FZC, established in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2000. Petrofine was “politically sensitive” they said, and “declined to accept Mrs Bhutto as a client.” A United Nations committee chaired by former head of the US Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, concluded in a 2005 investigation into abuses of the oil-for-food program that Petrofine FZC had paid US$2 million to the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein to obtain US $115–145 million in oil contracts.

In 2006, the Pakistani National Accountability Bureau (NAB) accused Bhutto, Malik and Ali Jaffery of owning Petrofine. Bhutto and the PPP denied this. In April 2006 a NAB court froze assets owned in Pakistan and elsewhere by Bhutto and Zardari. The $1.5 billion in assets were acquired through corrupt practices, the NAB said, and noting that the 1997 Swiss charges of criminal money-laundering were still in litigation.

Early 2000s in exile

 

Benazir Bhutto interview during Socialist International meeting in 2007.

Once populist, by the end of the 1990s, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had become widely unpopular, and following the military coup, Sharif’s credibility, image and career were destroyed by Musharraf who formed the Pakistan Muslim League (Q)(PMLQ) in order to banish the former prime minister’s party support across the country. The PMLQ consisted of those who were initially part of Sharif’s party but then switched to Musharraf to avoid persecution and jail. 2000 brought positive change for Bhutto, who became widely unpopular in Pakistan in 1996.

In the 2000s, following the declassification of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission papers and other secret documents from the 1970s, Bhutto’s support in Pakistan began to grow. Her image became more positive and the PPP seemed likely to return to government, perhaps as soon the 2002 elections. Amid fears of Bhutto’s return, a threatened Musharraf released from imprisonment many members of the liberal-secular force MQM who had held beeb as political prisoner. Musharraf saw MQM as a vital political weapon to stave off and hold back the PPP. But MQM support was limited to Karachi at the time, and very lacking in the urban areas of Sindh, which remained a critical electoral threat for Musharraf. Therefore, in 2002 President Musharraf amended Pakistan’s constitution to ban prime ministers from serving more than two terms. This disqualified Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif from holding the office again and was widely considered to attack them directly.

While she lived in Dubai Bhutto cared for her three children and her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. She also travelled to give lectures in the U.S. and kept in touch with PPP supporters. She and the children were reunited with her husband in December 2004 after more than five years.

At the request of Pakistan, Interpol issued a request in 2006 for the arrest of Bhutto and her husband on corruption charges. The Bhuttos questioned the legality of the request in a letter to Interpol. On 27 January 2007, she was invited by the United States to speak to President George W. Bush and Congressional and State Department officials. Bhutto appeared as a panelist on the BBC TV programme Question Time in the United Kingdom in March 2007. She also appeared on the BBC current affairs programme Newsnight on several occasions. She rebuked comments made by Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq in May 2007 regarding the knighthood of Salman Rushdie, noting that he was calling for the assassination of foreign citizens.

In mid-2007, Bhutto declared her intention to return to Pakistan by the end of the year. But Musharraf said he would not allow her to enter the country before general election, scheduled for late 2007 or early 2008. Still, speculation circulated that she might have been offered the office of Prime Minister again. At the same time, the US appeared to be pushing for a deal in which Musharraf would remain president, but step down as head of the military, and either Bhutto or one of her nominees became prime minister.

On 11 July 2007, in an article about the aftermath of the Red Mosque incident, the Associated Press quoted Bhutto saying “I’m glad there was no cease-fire with the militants in the mosque because cease-fires simply embolden the militants.” This assessment was received with dismay in Pakistan, as reportedly hundreds of young students had burned to death. Their remains were untraceable and cases were being heard in the Pakistani Supreme Court, as a missing person’s issue. This and subsequent support for Musharraf led Elder Bhutto’s comrades like Khar to criticize her publicly. Bhutto however advised Musharraf in an early phase of the latter’s quarrel with the Chief Justice, to restore him. Her PPP did not capitalize on its influential CEC statesman, Aitzaz Ahsan, the chief Barrister for the Chief Justice, in successful restoration. Rather, he was seen as a rival of Bhutto, and isolated on that issue with PPP.

2002 Election: The Bhutto-led PPP secured the highest number of votes (28.4%) and won 80 seats (23%) in the national assembly during the October 2002 general elections. Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) managed to win only 18 seats. Some of the elected candidates of PPP formed a faction of their own, calling it PPP-Patriots, which was being led by Faisal Saleh Hayat, the former leader of Bhutto-led PPP. They later formed a coalition government with Musharraf’s party, PML-Q.

Return to Pakistan

Possible deal with the Musharraf government: In mid-2002 Musharraf implemented a two-term limit on prime ministers. Both Bhutto and Musharraf’s other chief rival, Nawaz Sharif, had already served two terms as prime minister.

In July 2007, some of Bhutto’s frozen funds were released. Bhutto continued to face significant charges of corruption. In an 8 August 2007 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Bhutto revealed the meeting focused on her desire to return to Pakistan for the 2008 elections, and for Musharraf to retain the Presidency with Bhutto as Prime Minister. On 29 August 2007, Bhutto announced that Musharraf would step down as chief of the army. On 1 September 2007, Bhutto vowed to return to Pakistan “very soon”, regardless of whether or not she reached a power-sharing deal with Musharraf before then. On 17 September 2007, Bhutto accused Musharraf’s allies of pushing Pakistan into crisis by their refusal to permit democratic reforms and power-sharing. A nine-member panel of Supreme Court judges deliberated on six petitions (including one from Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s largest Islamic group) asserting that Musharraf should be disqualified from contending for the presidency of Pakistan. Bhutto stated that her party could join one of the opposition groups, potentially that of Nawaz Sharif. Attorney-general Malik Mohammed Qayyum stated that pendente lite the Election Commission was “reluctant” to announce the schedule for the presidential vote. Farhatullah Babar of Bhutto’s party stated that the Constitution of Pakistan could bar Musharraf from being elected again because he was already chief of the army: “As Gen. Musharraf was disqualified from contesting for President, he has prevailed upon the Election Commission to arbitrarily and illegally tamper with the Constitution of Pakistan.”

My dialogue with Musharraf aims to move the country forward from a dictatorship that has failed to stop the tribal areas from becoming havens for terrorists. The extremists are even spreading their tentacles into Pakistan’s cities—Benazir Bhutto writing for The Washington Post

Musharraf prepared to switch to a strictly civilian role by resigning as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He still faced other legal obstacles to running for re-election. On 2 October 2007, Musharraf named Lt. Gen. Ashfaq Kayani vice-chief of the army starting 8 October 2007, so that with the intent that if Musharraf won the presidency and resigned his military post, Kayani would become head of the army. Meanwhile, Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed stated that officials agreed to grant Benazir Bhutto amnesty from pending corruption charges. She had emphasised a smooth transition and return to civilian rule and asked Musharraf to shed his uniform. On 5 October 2007, Musharraf signed the National Reconciliation Ordinance, giving amnesty to Bhutto and other political leaders—except exiled former premier Nawaz Sharif—in all court cases against them, including all corruption charges. The Ordinance was signed a day before Musharraf faced the crucial presidential poll. Bhutto’s opposition party, the PPP, and the ruling PMLQ, were involved in negotiations beforehand about the deal. In return, Bhutto and the PPP agreed not to boycott the Presidential election.

On 6 October 2007, Musharraf won a parliamentary election to become President. However, the Supreme Court ruled that no winner could be officially proclaimed until it finished deciding whether it was legal for Musharraf to run for President while an Army General. Bhutto’s PPP party did not join the other opposition parties’ boycott of the election, but did abstain from voting. Later, Bhutto demanded security coverage on-par with the President’s. Bhutto also contracted foreign security firms for her protection.

The Assassination Attempt: Bhutto was well aware of the risk to her own life that might result from her return from exile to campaign for the leadership position. In an interview on 28 September 2007, with reporter Wolf Blitzer of CNN, she readily admitted the possibility of attack on herself.

While under house arrest, Benazir Bhutto speaks to supporters outside her house.

After eight years in exile in Dubai and London, Bhutto returned to Karachi on 18 October 2007, to prepare for the 2008 national elections. En route to a rally in Karachi on 18 October 2007, two explosions occurred shortly after Bhutto had landed and left Jinnah International Airport. She was not injured but the explosions, later found to be a suicide-bomb attack, killed 136 people and injured at least 450. The dead included at least 50 of the security guards from her PPP who had formed a human chain around her truck to keep potential bombers away, as well as six police officers. A number of senior officials were injured. Bhutto, after nearly ten hours of the parade through Karachi, ducked back down into the steel command center to remove her sandals from her swollen feet, moments before the bomb went off. She was escorted unharmed from the scene.

2007 state of emergency and response

On 3 November 2007, President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency, citing actions by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and religious extremism in the nation. Bhutto returned to the country, interrupting a visit to family in Dubai. She was greeted by supporters chanting slogans at the airport. After staying in her plane for several hours she was driven to her home in Lahore, accompanied by hundreds of supporters. While acknowledging that Pakistan faced a political crisis, she noted that Musharraf’s declaration of emergency, unless lifted, would make it very difficult to have fair elections. She commented that “The extremists need a dictatorship, and dictatorship needs extremists.”

On 8 November 2007, Bhutto was placed under house arrest just a few hours before she was due to lead and address a rally against the state of emergency. The following day, the Pakistani government announced that Bhutto’s arrest warrant had been withdrawn and that she was free to travel and to appear  at public rallies. However, leaders of other opposition political parties remained prohibited from speaking in public.

The big thing is I’m back home and I’m glad that General Musharraf’s regime has not interrupted my welcome—Benazir Bhutto, the Daily Telegraph

On 24 November 2007, Bhutto filed her nomination papers for January’s Parliamentary elections; and two days later, she filed papers in the Larkana constituency for two regular seats. She did so as former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, following seven years of exile in Saudi Arabia, made his much-contested return to Pakistan and bid for candidacy.

Musharraf announced his plan to lift the Pakistan’s state of emergency rule on 16 December when sworn in again on 30 November 2007, this time as a civilian president after relinquishing his post as military chief. Bhutto welcomed the announcement and launched a manifesto outlining her party’s domestic issues. Bhutto told journalists in Islamabad that her party, the PPP, would focus on “the five E’s”: employment, education, energy, environment, equality.

On 4 December 2007, Bhutto met with Nawaz Sharif to publicize their demand that Musharraf fulfill his promise to lift the state of emergency before January’s parliamentary elections, threatening to boycott the vote if he failed to comply. They promised to assemble a committee that would present to Musharraf the list of demands upon which their participation in the election was contingent. On 8 December 2007, three unidentified gunmen stormed Bhutto’s PPP office in the southern western province of Balochistan. Three of Bhutto’s supporters were killed.

Assassination

On 27 December 2007, Benazir Bhutto was killed while leaving a campaign rally for the PPP at Liaquat National Bagh in the run-up to the January 2008 parliamentary elections. After entering her bulletproof vehicle, Bhutto stood up through its sunroof to wave to the crowds. At this point, a gunman fired shots at her, and subsequently explosives were detonated near the vehicle killing approximately 20 people. Bhutto was critically wounded and was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital. She was taken into surgery at 17:35 local time, and pronounced dead at 18:16. The cause of death, whether it was gunshot wounds, the explosion, or a combination thereof, was not fully determined until February 2008. Eventually, Scotland Yard investigators concluded that it was due to blunt force trauma to the head as she was tossed by the explosion. She was buried next to her father in the Bhutto family mausoleum, Garhi Khuda Baksh, her family graveyard near Larkana.

The events leading up to Benazir Bhutto’s death correlated with the protest in 1992 when in December, Bhutto met with Nawaz Sharif and expressed frustration with his government. In response, a rally was conducted in Rawalpindi, at the same place then.

Al-Qaeda commander Mustafa Abu al-Yazid claimed responsibility for the attack, and the Pakistani government stated that it had proof that Baitullah Mehsud, affiliated with Lashkar i Jhangvi—an al-Qaeda-linked militant group—was the mastermind. However this was vigorously disputed by the Bhutto family, the PPP, and by Mehsud. On 12 February 2011, Anti-Terrorism Court in Rawalpindi issued an arrest warrant for Musharraf, claiming he was aware of an impending assassination attempt by the Taliban, but did not pass the information on to those responsible for protecting Bhutto. After the assassination, there were initially a number of riots resulting in approximately 20 deaths, of which three were of police officers. President Musharraf decreed a three-day period of mourning.

Bhutto’s 19-year-old son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari succeeded his mother as titular head of the PPP, with his father effectively running the party until his son completes his studies at Christ Church, Oxford. On 26 April 2013 a court ordered house arrest for Musharraf in connection with the death of Bhutto, and on 3 May 2013, Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation of Bhutto’s murder was killed in Islamabad when attackers on a motorcycle sprayed his car with bullets as he drove to the courthouse.

Controversies

Atomic proliferation with North Korea

The defence cooperation between North Korea and Pakistan started sometime in 1994 and the country led by Benazir Bhutto and her personal role had a much deeper and more controversial role in North Korea’s nuclear program. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had lasting friendship with Kim Il-sung— founder of the North Korean communist state. In a state visit paid by Benazir Bhutto in 1994, Benazir Bhutto closed the deal with the transfer of North Korean missile technology in return of nuclear technology, an allegation Benazir Bhutto had strongly dismissed. According to Zahid Hussain, author of “Frontline Pakistan”, there was a huge respect for Benazir Bhutto in the North Korean military, and they persuaded Bhutto to go and meet with Kim Jong-il.

Shyam Bhatia, an Indian journalist, alleged in his book Goodbye Shahzadi that in 1993, Bhutto had downloaded secret information on uranium enrichment, through Pakistan’s former top scientist Dr.Abdul Qadeer Khan, to give to North Korea in exchange for information on developing ballistic missiles (Rodong-1), and that Benazir Bhutto had asked him to not tell the story during her lifetime. David Albright of the Institute of Science and International Security said the allegations “made sense” given the timeline of North Korea’s nuclear program. George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace called Bhatia a “smart and serious guy.” Selig Harrison of the Center for International Policy called Bhatia “credible on Bhutto.” The officials at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, D.C. sharply denied the claims and the senior U.S. State Department officials dismissed them, insisting that, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who had been earlier accused of proliferating secrets to North Korea (only to deny them later, prior to Bhatia’s book), was the source, in spite of Pakistan Government’s denial. In 2012, senior scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, summed up to The News International that “the transfer of atomic technology was not so easy that one could put it into his pocket and hand it over to another country.” Abdul Qadeer Khan also asserted that: “The-then prime minister (Mohtarma) Benazir Bhutto summoned me and named the two countries which were to be assisted and issued clear directions in this regard.”

The members of PPP and the government strongly dismissed the “allegations” made by Qadeer Khan regarding Benazir Bhutto’s role in atomic proliferation. The Foreign Office categorically rejected Qadeer Khan’s claim, and maintained the fact that “the proliferation activity was an individual act, and did not carry authorization of Pakistan Government, at any stage.” The spokesperson of the People’s Party, Farhatullah Babar, also rebutted the claims as “a desperate attempt to wash his own guilt.”

Position on 1998 tests: In May 1998, India detonated its five nuclear devices in the Pokhran test range, and established itself as the world’s sixth nuclear power. Later it was confirmed that Bhutto and the PPP had made political gains by the call for conducting atomic tests and had an increase in their popularity in the country, which had suffered in the 1996 scandal.  In recent declassified and undated papers released by Wiki leaks in 2011, Bhutto assured the American diplomats that she was against conducting nuclear tests, and similar assurances were given by Nawaz Sharif to the American diplomats. But it later turned out that Bhutto had publicly sought for the conductance of tests in response to India. She justified the “eat grass” statement – frequently used by her father Zulfikar Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to assure the people of Pakistan that austerity measures would be adopted, and national security would not be compromised. In undated leaks, Bhutto was sought by the American diplomats multiple times to soften her stance of support for nuclear tests, and cautioned that her reaction to Indian tests had been criticized in the Western media.

Legacy

Memorial at the site of the assassination

Commenting on her legacy, William Dalrymple writes that “it’s wrong for the West simply to mourn Benazir Bhutto as a martyred democrat since her legacy was far murkier and more complex”. Despite her western and positive image in the world, Bhutto’s controversial policies and support have made her legacy much more complicated. Benazir Bhutto failed to revert the controversial Hudood Ordinance — a controversial presidential ordinance which suppressed women’s rights, making them subordinate to men. In 2009, the CBS News, described her legacy as “mixed”, and commented that: “it’s only in death that she will become an icon—in some ways people will look at her accomplishments through rose-tinted glasses rather than remembering the corruption charges, her lack of achievements or how much she was manipulated by other people.”

By courtesy of Wikipedia.org

2014: The Summer of Crisis

Imran Khan’s role in the protests remains controversial. He strenuously denied that he was a military cat’s paw, despite the dramatic claims of the then PTI President Javed Hashmi. His actions, if not sinister, were reckless and as much as Nawaz Sharif’s stubborn pursuit of Musharraf, threatened the hope of consolidation of democracy in Pakistan.
The PTI leader in a speech at Bahawalpur on 27 June warned of a ‘tsunami’ march to Islamabad if key questions relating to the 2013 polls were unanswered. The march was to become known as the Azadi March. At the end of May, in a separate development, Dr. Tahirul Qadri had met the PML-Q leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain in London. They agreed on a Ten point Agenda to achieve a ‘real democratic government’, warning that if the PML-N did not meet their calls for ‘electoral reforms’, it would have to ‘face consequences.’

The government’s response to these threats escalated tensions to such an extent that a military coup appeared possible. On the eve of Dr. Tahirul Qadri’s return to Pakistan, the Punjab Police had become involved in an eleven-hour stand-off with PAT activists over the removal of barriers outside the Minhaj-ul-Quran headquarters in Model Town Lahore. Ten PAT workers died in the police action that brought it to a close. The brutal operation led to calls from PTI and PAT for the resignation of both the Punjab Chief Minister, Shahbaz Sharif and the Home Minister Rana Sanaullah. There was further violence at Islamabad airport when Dr. Qadri’s flight from Dubai was diverted to Lahore to prevent his protest motorcade through the Punjab. ANP and PPP were significant absentees however from the multiparty conference PAT hosted in Lahore which called for Shahbaz’s resignation and the investigation of the Model Town episode by the Supreme Court in place of the judicial commission set up by the Lahore High Court.

The PTI supported the PAT demands, but kept a discreet distance in the run-up to the Azadi March. Just a week before its departure for the capital, Imran Khan declared its aims were Nawaz Sharif’s resignation and the holding of early elections which would rid Pakistan of ‘one family rule.’ PAT supporters commemorated their fallen comrades in ‘Martyrs Day’ on 10 August. Dr. Tahirul Qadri used the occasion to declare that 14 August would be the day of his ‘revolution march’ to Islamabad to topple the government. This was the signal for the arrest of PAT activists across the Punjab and a lockdown of Lahore, as police manned all exits and entry points. A visibly agitated Nawaz Sharif appeared on television to report that he had requested a Supreme Court commission to investigate alleged irregularities in the 2013 general elections. This was however, too little, too late, as the PTI condemned the blockade and agreed on a four point agenda with PAT regarding the Azadi and Revolution Marches. The PPP also condemned the closure of roads with containers in Islamabad and Lahore making Punjab a ‘police state’. Police barricades were eventually removed to allow the PAT procession to move off to Islamabad The PTI march proceeded separately to Islamabad where it was joined both by participants from Peshawar and a delegation from JI which had agreed to take part at the last moment.

But it was not the marches which generated political theatre and drama so much as the camps which PTI and PAT established in the capital. Both had unexpectedly large numbers of female participants. The PTI event had elements of a youth festival with nightly concerts. This led JUI-F to condemn the sit-in at D-Chowk as a ‘centre of vulgarity’. The mounting economic costs and the failure of attempted dialogue with the two camps led to Nawaz Sharif appointing the Chief of Staff of the army as a ‘mediator’ in the crisis. He initially attempted on the floor of the National Assembly to portray this move as being undertaken at the request of Qadri and Imran Khan. The move broke the deadlock, but revealed that whatever it’s outcome, Nawaz Sharif would thereafter be greatly weakened in his ability to assert civilian control over the army. Indeed, the violence of Saturday 30 August when PTI and PAT activists battled police as they moved towards the official buildings in the ‘Red Zone’ momentarily raised fears of a coup. Two days later, protesters broke into the headquarters of Pakistan television and only vacated the building when the army intervened. The Prime Minister fought back with the calling of a Joint Session of Parliament in which opposition parties joined the government in condemning the violence and extra- constitutional demands of the protesters in Islamabad. The onset of monsoon flooding provided further respite for the beleaguered Prime Minister as it diverted attention from the Islamabad theatre. Imran Khan nonetheless still received a blaze of publicity when he left his encamped supporters in Islamabad to travel to Sialkot which had been badly flooded. His projection of PTI as the party of ‘change’ was further boosted by a by-election success at Dera Ismail Khan.
A solution to the stand-off in Islamabad appeared no nearer as the protests entered their fourth week. Whatever the final outcome, it was clear that events of the summer of 2014 had undermined the moral authority and political power of the Sharif brothers. Nawaz Sharif might continue in office, but his ability to assert civilian control had been ended by bringing in the army as an umpire. Moreover, he faced the prospect of ruling without the support of his brother because of the Model Town episode. Shahbaz was vital not only for ensuring stability in the PML-N Punjab heartland, but had been an important channel,for communication both with the military and New Delhi. The army rather an the democratic forces had clearly emerged as a winner in the political crisis that some believed it had secretly orchestrated.

Courtesy of : Pakistan, A New History by Ian Talbot, Oxford University Press,  New York 2015