Zulfikar Ali Bhutto made a monumental blunder by selecting his Army Chief by superseding seven senior generals. He elevated Zia-ul-Haq to a four-star general in March 1976 and appointed him as the new Chief of Army. General Zia had been promoted to Major General and commanded an armoured division in Multan by 1973, then elevated to Lieutenant General in 1975 and appointed as Corps Commander in Multan. Earlier, he had invited Z.A. Bhutto to the armoured division for investiture as the Colonel-in-Chief of the corps, arranging the clandestine stitching of a ceremonial uniform for Bhutto by his tailor in Karachi. Later, as Corps Commander, he met with Bhutto, reportedly through Hamid Reza Gilani of Multan, swearing by the holiest of all to remain loyal to him.
Why Bhutto Chose Zia
Many reasons are given for this rash and controversial appointment. In my humble view, Bhutto, with his aristocratic bent of mind, preferring personal loyalty to merit and flattery to honesty, was deluded by the unassertive, unimpressive, humble countenance of Zia, particularly after dealing with the professional and hot-headed General Gul Hassan. General Gul Hassan had forced General Agha Mohammad Yahya to hand over power to Z.A. Bhutto after the fall of Dhaka. Bhutto appointed him as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Pakistan but could not get along with him and surreptitiously retired him as Ambassador to Austria. General Gul Hassan remained highly critical of Bhutto for behaving like an autocrat and of Zia as a timid general.
Consequences of the Appointment
Subsequent events proved Bhutto fatally wrong. The same mistake was committed by Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif, who preferred General Pervez Musharraf over General Ali Quli Khan due to his minority ethnic background, paying dearly for that decision. General Zia toppled an elected Prime Minister on the lame excuse of saving the country from an impending civil war. All perpetrators of military putsches, from South America to Africa and Asia, have proffered almost identical grounds. General Mohammad Ayub took over to arrest political instability and economic downturn. General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan imposed Martial Law to avert political anarchy and hold fair elections. General Zia’s own promise to act as an impartial referee in holding fair elections within 90 days proved a mirage and remained unfulfilled for 11 long years. General Musharraf exploited the plane hijacking drama to justify his Martial Law. Every general left the country politically fragmented, strategically vulnerable, and economically in dire straits.
Zia's Sins Against the Nation
The list of General Zia’s sins is too long. His biggest sins were to send a popularly elected Prime Minister to the gallows after a mock trial; to fragment the nation into ethnic, linguistic, religious, and sectarian segments; to let loose his Frankenstein’s monster of dogmatism, religious extremism, and militancy; to plunge the country into the Afghanistan war; to assemble outcasts, outlaws, thugs, and criminals from Muslim states, train them into hardcore fighters, and launch them into Afghanistan to fight the holy war of the West; and to countenance the drug and Kalashnikov culture in society. Reports suggest a sharp increase in drug addicts in Pakistan, from a very minuscule number in 1979 to 1.7 million in 1985 after the relocation of heroin factories from Afghanistan to the Federally Administered Agencies. He mutilated the unanimous Constitution, assuming sweeping executive powers at the expense of elected Prime Ministers and Parliament, powers that summarily sent home four elected governments from 1988 to 1996. He would have wreaked more devastation after the dismissal of the Junejo government in May 1988. The mindset he carefully nurtured during 11 years of atrocious rule has stubbornly overshadowed the nation, hampering efforts to rebuild Pakistan as a modern and progressive state.
After Zia's Death
After his tragic death, intense discussions arose about whether to hold general elections on a party basis or follow his example of non-party elections in 1985. Ghulam Ishaq Khan weighed in on elections on a party basis. How to restrain the electoral gains of Benazir Bhutto, who was riding a high crest of popularity, was the main concern of the establishment. Probably, they feared that after ascending to power, Benazir would try some military and civilian officers for the execution of her father. The Islamist head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), General Hamid Gul, and his aides cobbled together an electoral alliance of rightist parties—the Islami Jamhoori Itehad (IJI)—unleashing a sinister propaganda campaign to discredit Benazir and her mother. She was accused of intending to roll back Pakistan’s nuclear programme at the behest of the USA, withdraw support from the Afghan Mujahideen, and soft-pedal on India, thereby undermining the nascent Kashmiri uprising. Years later, it surfaced that the ISI, in connivance with Army Chief General Mirza Aslam Beg and probably President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, distributed huge funds among opponents of the PPP and media outlets contracted to conduct propaganda against Benazir. The mudslinging climaxed in the airdropping of pamphlets with photographs of Begum Nusrat Bhutto waltzing with President Gerald Ford and a forged letter purportedly addressed by Benazir to Peter Galbraith, touted as harmful to the country. With all odds heavily stacked against her, she went into the polls with gusto.
Ambassador M. Alam Brohi is a former member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and has served as Ambassador for two terms. He is the author of five books.
