20

How Zia gave way to elections
The Federal Security Cell collated and analyzed the reports received from all federal and provincial intelligence agencies about the state of affairs in and outside the country. The cell prepared a daily summary of the situ­a­tion for the President, the Interior Minister, the provincial governors and some senior administrators. A fortnightly critical analysis of political and se­curity developments was also prepared. The cell’s Director General was Brig. Zafar Iqbal, a very kind, decent and thoughtful person, with a penetrat­ing insight into human affairs. I was posted as Director of the cell in early 1989.
When I went through various reports, I found the situation in the coun­try much worse than I had anticipated. The censorship in the country and the indulgence of the Western media because of Zia’s role in the Afghan war did not allow the events to be widely known. Sindh was being con­sumed with hatred. Balochistan and NWFP had become open markets for the most mod­ern and lethal weapons. With frequent violent incidents, the country was in the grip of Al-Zulfiqar, and the Afghan and Indian agents, besides the sectar­ian ter­rorists. In Sindh dacoities were committed with a nationalistic zeal and with vengeance against the hated system. I waded through the reports of over three years and found four major ar­eas of seri­ous concern, besides Sindh that appeared then as a written-off case.
Gun Running. I prepared a research paper, indicating the extent of the proliferation of modern weap­ons being diverted from the Afghanistan war into the criminal world of all provinces. My research indicated that about 80% of the small weapons meant for the jihad were being pilfered for sale in the flourishing black market. There were many places in NWFP and Balochistan where regular Juma Ba­zaars for auc­tioning of those weapons were held. I listed the names of the big dealers, the routes, the markets and the methodologies of the big busi­ness. I gave details of how criminals in the remotest villages were taking advan­tage of the situation and were arming themselves, ignoring the licensing system for weapons in force for over a century. The nefarious trade in arms was going on along with the booming trade of the most dangerous and potent narcotics. The social implications of the drug and weapon trades were graphically and logically described in de­tail, with a suggestion that immediate remedial measures must be taken.
The President, after going through my paper, called a conference of Governors in Peshawar. Laeeq Ahmad Khan, IGP Punjab, said to me, “Your paper sent shivers down my spine. I could see blood and violence oozing out of it. Things are really going to be bad.”
“You and your police will have to face the music, sir,” I said. “I see chaos all around in less than a decade.” He totally agreed with me. The con­sequences turned out to be even worse and, ironically, it was I who, as IGP Punjab, had to face that music after about five years.
There was a music of another kind that poor Brig. Zafar Iqbal had to face in the conference. The paper came under severe criticism and was de­scribed by Gen. Akhtar Abdur Rahman, Director General, Inter Services In­telligence, as “extremely alarmist and panicky” and “a figment of imagina­tion.”
Back in our office, Brig. Zafar Iqbal feared that, after having annoyed the powerful DG ISI, he would be losing his job. I told him not to worry as I did expect such a strong reaction from that quarter. I put up before Brig. Za­far the entire ISI material on which my paper was based and proved that not a word was added from our side. “Every fact and figure was reproduced from their own reports, without changing even a comma or a full stop,” I said. Visibly relieved, he took all the material to Gen. Akhtar, who must have for­gotten whatever had been reported by his own agency during the last three years.
The great General, not able to deny our stand, did forbid us from any “useless research” of the kind that we had carried out “unnecessarily creat­ing panic all round.” It suited him but the nation would suffer the conse­quences of a lack of effective action then for a very long time through vio­lence and drug addiction. The merchants of death had been al­lowed to ex­ploit the jihad in Afghanistan and create a big black business.
Sectarian conflict. An ugly sectarian conflict was raising its head in the backdrop of the Afghan situation and the Iran-Iraq war. I updated my earlier paper with latest facts and figures. I recommended a national con­sensus among the respec­tive relig­ious leaders in condemning violent means and evolving a code of conduct against speeches and literature that created hatred among various sects. I also recommended that the leaders of various sects might be taken into confidence and briefed how the enemies were us­ing the conflict to dest­abilize our coun­try. (USSR, India and Afghanistan were, through separate channels, supplying arms to both Sunnis and Shias.)
This paper also did not lead to any positive response. Only routine in­struc­tions were issued that “strict administrative measures be taken against the miscre­ants.” The proposal to take the religious leaders into confidence was shot down on the ground that the foreign intervention could not be dis­cussed at that level. I observed that it would be a sagacious measure to take relevant leaders into confidence and brief them on the machinations of the enemies in order to build consensus but it was beyond the comprehension of the tough-minded administrators. My proposal was considered political and was re­jected.
When I discussed the issue with Manzoor Bhatti, a friend from college days, he observed, “How do you know the lack of consensus does not suit the General? Divide and Rule is an old aphorism.”
“It might be true but serious internal disorder can never benefit any gov­ern­ment or society,” I said. “Unite and Serve should be their motto.”
“You are sadly mistaken,” he said philosophically. “Disorder and di­vi­sion are self-serving to non-political forces. If there is all peace in the coun­try, they will not be needed.” There was weight in his words.
Terrorism. Terrorism is different from the nor­mal crime and always has political or group motives. So, it needed a differ­ent treatment. There was a need to draw a distinction between the opera­tions of Al-Zulfiqar, the organization set up by Bhutto’s sons, and those of KHAD, the Russia-backed Afghan intelligence agency, and RAW, its Indian coun­terpart. Al-Zulfiqar had a political motivation about the issues within the country while KHAD and RAW wanted offensive operations against Pakis­tan as foreign enemies. No doubt, Al-Zulfiqar also had the backing of Rus­sian intelli­gence but it was in the best national interest to maneuver to get it delinked from its pa­trons. The alliance of Al-Zulfiqar with KHAD and RAW was dangerous and a subtle effort was required to wean it away from them.
My suggestion fell on deaf ears. The only prescription was force, pure and simple, on both sides though the government was supposed to show more restraint. The people were sandwiched between the terrorist acts of Al-Zul­fiqar and the heavy-handedness of martial law.
The matter had reached a point of no return and could be tackled only in a wider horizon. All concerned had become prisoners of their own deeds, past and present. A new political dispensation was required but a nomi­nated Shoora could not deliver the goods.
Dacoit menace. Dacoity in the rural areas of Sindh had become more than a usual crime. It had gotten the silent approval of the sulking Sindhis. Some jails had been broken during the agitation of the Movement for Resto­ration of Democracy and the violent crime now had a halo of glory, with the criminals pretending to be fighting for the rights of their suppressed Sindhi brethren. I prepared a paper, giving the perspective and emphasiz­ing the need for immediate effective measures. (The criminal activities tend to get out of control if not curbed in time.) In view of the easy availability of lethal weap­ons and silent social support, I believed that the menace would grow into a festering cancer. It would be too late to come out of the situation un­scathed even for those who were now silently and secretly supporting the criminals. The patrons would themselves be the ultimate victims.
I proposed that measures be taken to isolate the criminals from the ap­proving nod of the public, not only by strict anti-dacoit operations but also through socio-political measures, before they become folk heroes like Ja­malo. (Jamalo was a legendary dacoit of Sindh and his lyrical praises are sung even today.) When public peace breaks down, generally due to social and political reasons, it requires Herculean efforts to restore it. The man with the maxi­mum physical force becomes a hero and dominates others. “Might is right” becomes the order of the day. The Sindhi dacoits were be­coming local he­roes with the power of their guns in comparison to the armed and uniformed Punjabi soldiers. In the eyes of the Sindhis at large, both were de­void of any moral base. So why should they not side with their own? In an angry state of mind, there is no realization of the consequences. I pointed out all the com­plications and subtleties of the situation but it failed to get any purposeful res­ponse. Again, instructions were issued in a very routine man­ner for “strict measures against the dacoits.”

PPP and PNA join hands. The assessment of my friend A/Hameed way back in 1977 came true in the first quarter of 1981 when PPP and the parties in the former PNA realized that they would have to join hands against Gen. Zia. They announced the formation of the Movement for the Restora­tion of Democracy (MRD) in Karachi after a series of secret meet­ings among Begum Bhutto, Mufti Mahmood, Nawabzada Nasrulla Khan, Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani, Sardar Abdul Qayyum, Wali Khan, Asghar Khan and other leading politicians. The only exceptions were Pir Pagara and Jama’at-i-Is­lami, both being very close to Gen. Zia.
I discussed this development with Nawabzada Nasrulla Khan at the home of Chaudhry Arshad in Islamabad. He was of the view that PPP was a national party and Zia-ul-Haq had driven it to the wall. There was a danger that the PPP might turn regionalist. So they had formed the MRD as a na­tional political forum for a joint struggle for the revival of democracy.
By the close of 1983, the people had little hope of redemption. They were groaning under the worst type of tyranny and corruption. The bloody Afghan conflict created many dangers, the worst being the terrorism, pro­moted by India and Russia. Powerful mafias controlled narcotics, weapons and smuggling. The terrorists were causing bomb blasts, bank robberies, car bombs, assassinations and attacks on military and other vital installa­tions. All politicians worth the name had been interned for years in their homes in their own provinces. (The joke was that they needed a visa to go from one province to the other.) Be­gum Nusrat Bhutto, who had gone abroad for can­cer treatment, was organiz­ing resistance against Zia from Paris while Bena­zir, in London for ear treat­ment, stepped up the struggle from there. The Punjabis were being attacked in other provinces and were fleeing in fear. The bureaucrats had been terror­ized into total subservience. Justice was up for sale and the persecution was at its height, not sparing even military and police officers. The sectarian or­ganizations were flourish­ing, with massive support allegedly from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other countries to their respective protégés. Jhang, Parachanar, Dera Ismail Khan, Karachi and Northern Areas were becoming the battle fields of Shia-Sunni wars. In Parachanar and some other places, both Shias and Sunnis were being given weap­ons and funds by Russia. By identifying himself with the jihad in Af­ghanis­tan against the blatant com­munist intervention, Zia had become the flag-bearer of Islam, with a primitive appeal to the religious lobby in spite of the sectarian divisiveness in the coun­try. The society found itself at the cross­roads.

MRD launches its agitation. The internal suppression became so se­vere and unbearable that the anti-Zia political forces decided to step up the struggle to get rid of him. Therefore, the opposition alliance, the Movement for Restoration of Democracy, launched its nationwide campaign against the military rule in 1983. The rural Sindh expressed the widest and the an­gri­est opposition to the regime. However, the Urdu-speaking Sindhis (or Mu­ha­jirs) in large cities were lukewarm as their party, Muhajir Qaumi Move­ment (MQM), had been manipulated by certain government agencies. Ghu­lam Mustafa Jatoi, Pirs of Ranipur, Makhdooms of Hala and many other promi­nent Sindhi politicians were in the forefront of the movement. The campaign in other provinces, particularly the Punjab, did not pick up and was ulti­mately sup­pressed. The movement thus became more Sindhi than na­tional and left deep scars on the Sindhi psyche.
The army quickly went for the suppression of political meetings and processions. In many meetings that I attended in this regard, I found that the senior civil and army officers were happy on having controlled the movement most effectively. They did not care about the consequences though the re­ports from Sindh were alarming and depressing. I felt very concerned.
Sindh was being consumed by burning hatred towards the army and the Punjab. The daily reports were frightening. The MRD movement had been crushed but diehard splinter groups were still active. The bitterness created by death and destruction in suppressing the movement was being ex­ploited by the secessionist groups, like Jiey Sindh and SPAF, with the ac­tive sup­port of RAW. The students were blinded with intense anger and were flying the Jiey Sindh flags. The government offices could not fly the national flag without risk.
While reading the daily situation reports, I would get very upset. The situation in East Pakistan in 1971 would often come to my mind. The face of sobbing N.A. Rizvi after the war commission hearing would haunt me. I also recalled what Mehr Ali Anwar had visualized back in 1977. I felt so worried that I could not sleep for nights. Brig. Zafar Iqbal and I would dis­cuss the situation for hours. We were convinced that something had to be done.

Finding a way out. Brig. Zafar Iqbal went on a long tour of Sindh and carried out an in-depth study of the situation. He met people from all sec­tions of the society, including both civil and military administrators. He came to the conclusion that the intense hatred had pushed the movement for democracy into the hands of extremists. In a detailed paper, he depicted the sense of deprivation among the Sindhis. He suggested the creation of more jobs and other social and economic opportunities for them though that could not be all. He concluded that the best way out was a real political solution, which could remove their feelings of deprivation. Any­thing else would be simply scratching the surface.
The paper of Brig. Zafar Iqbal did make Gen. Zia think that the nomi­nated Majlis-i-Shoora would not help much. The General observed that a vi­able alternative needed to be found out. It was a good starting point. How­ever, there was a big hurdle in going ahead. Sindh had to be saved from the ex­tremists but the only viable alternative was PPP and nothing short of its po­litical strength could stem the rot. But PPP was a great anathema to the Gene­ral. It was a real dilemma and we had to get out of it. Brig. Zafar, with his saint-like low profile, worked very hard for the noble objective. I joined in his efforts wholeheartedly. We would somehow bring in the need for po­litical initiative in every daily summary that we sent to the President. We were able to turn the tide slowly but surely, with our small but steady steps. A 1000km journey begins with the first step. The General was shown a way out of the blind alley and he did start thinking of a viable po­litical alterna­tive with the help of moderate Sindhis.
Benazir Bhutto also gave a helping hand. In early 1984, when the sepa­ratist forces were on the rampage, a student leader of the People’s Stu­dents Federation conveyed the message of Benazir to college students that they must not speak against Pakistan. Their struggle should be against martial law, not the country itself. That was the first prominent pro-Pakistan voice from the rural and purely Sindhi area after many months of the ex­trem­ists going unchallenged. The student who brought Benazir’s message was Som­roo. (I feel very sorry that I have forgotten the full name of that great pa­triot.) He was hooted and harassed but he went from college to col­lege throughout Sindh, conveying the message of Benazir.

A via media. In my daily summary, I highlighted this healthy devel­op­ment for the attention of the President, with a suggestion that something must be done to encourage the moderate elements before the scene was taken over completely by the extremists. I was happy to see that the Presi­dent had un­derlined that portion in his own hand. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Somroo and other PSF students picked up their pro-Pakistan cam­paign throughout Sindh. They were joined by other students though there were sometimes pitched battles between them and their opponents. Unfor­tu­nately, after some time Somroo was murdered by the extremists because of his mission. But the tide had been turned.
Afterwards we heard that some heavyweights from Sindh, including Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, had been sounded by various emissaries to find a po­litical via media, a middle way, to extricate the country out of the quag­mire. But the Bhutto family was to be kept out. Jatoi was reported to be not warming up unless he had the clearance of Begum Nusrat Bhutto. Pir Pagara was, of course, with the General but he had a limited influence com­pared to the PPP stalwarts though he had the unflinching support of his murids and could stand up to the PPP zealots.
I was happy that the CMLA Headquarters, for once, was moving on a positive line instead of pushing the issue under the carpet or opting only for the use of brute force. I discussed the developing scenario with Arshad Chaudhri. He was happy on the pro-Pakistan stance of the PPP but himself ap­peared to be in a very despondent mood. He be­lieved that nothing would come out of the exercise as the General, according to him, was “highly unreliable.” “But there is no harm in trying something good,” he said. “The situation is too complicated. Only Nawabzada Sahib can give a workable formula.”
I listened to him carefully but thought that Nawabzada Nasrulla Khan would talk of the British democratic norms that were not likely to work un­der the prevailing conditions. A start had to be made with a patch-work. Once the direction was turned, the political dynamics would find their own bear­ings and evolve their own im­provements and corrections.
Raja Munawwar Ahmad, a former PPP MPA and a very shrewd poli­ti­cian, was working for Gen. Zia in those days. I heard that he had already ad­vised the General to hold elections on a non-party basis. That would cut across all parties and provide the General with a political base to consolidate his power. The big landlords and influential politicians could neither avoid the temptation of elections nor allow their political adver­saries a free run. The elections would thus break the back of the extremists as well as the PPP. The formula appeared attractive and workable to Zia. It would side­line the old politicians and bring forward moderates and new faces, who would be dependent on the General and provide him with a po­litical cush­ion.

General’s self-interest comes first. To secure first his own position as the President, the General decided to hold a referendum on the enforce­ment of Islam. If people voted for Islam (which they would in any case), it would mean, through a queer logic, that they wanted Zia as President for a term of five years from the date the new Assembly met. The referendum was boy­cotted by MRD quite effec­tively and very few voters turned up at the polling booths in spite of the threat that not casting ones vote would be an offence under martial law. The result of the referendum, however, was an­nounced overwhelmingly in favour of Zia and a heavy turn-out was claimed while it was described by the opposition as a great fraud.
The MRD drew the inference that the elections to the Assemblies would also meet the same fate, little realizing that the candidates contesting in large numbers would gener­ate tremendous activity and build up the tempo for large-scale participation. In the event, a very large number of candidates jumped into the arena on the basis of their political and personal background. The MRD decided to boy­cott the elections, although the Gen­eral was pre­pared to waive the disqualifi­cations made under martial law. The MRD leaders were allowed to meet at the home of Air Marshal Asghar Khan in Abbot­tabad. Many leaders of the MRD were inclined to partici­pate but Be­nazir conveyed her opposition on phone from London.
Benazir had her own dilemma. She did not want to come back un­less martial law had been lifted as she was afraid that she might be arrested on her return. If she did not return, she could not contest the elections. And if the party won a majority, any other PPP leader, such as Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, could become the Prime Minister in her absence and she could never accept that.
If PPP did not take part in the elections, the participation of other par­ties was of little consequence. So the MRD decided on a boycott. The po­litical parties thus missed the bus, to their later regret. When the elections were held, the people participated in very large numbers as they did not want to miss an opportunity to bring back democracy and have a share in power, however limited. (The local bodies were already functioning smoothly, hav­ing been elected in 1983 for the second time.) Many impor­tant members of the PPP also jumped into the contest. The As­semblies be­came operative from the Pakistan Day, March 23, 1985. (The date has great significance in our history. On this date in 1940, the demand for Pakistan was made. In 1956, the first constitution was promulgated, changing the status of the country from a British dominion to an independ­ent republic. For this rea­son, it used to be called the Republic Day till Ayub Khan, feel­ing uncomfort­able with its in­congruity with martial law, changed it to Pakistan Day.)

Umbrella cover continues. Martial law, however, continued as Gen. Zia believed that its umbrella was still necessary for the protection of the nas­cent democracy. He also decided to continue to hold the office of the Chief of Army Staff “till further orders.” The constitution was amended and the new framework for transfer and sharing of power stipulated that, till March 1990, the Prime Minister would be nominated by the President. It was not an ideal arrangement but it was definitely a step forward.
Then came the issue of the nomination of the Prime Minister. The Fed­eral Security Cell, after analyzing the situation, suggested that he should be from Sindh and be backed by Pir Pagara, who had played the most cru­cial role in making the elections a success in the troubled province. As a re­sult, Muhammad Khan Junejo became the final choice.
The Federal Security Cell also pointed out that the business of an As­sembly could not be conducted without a party system and party discipline. Gen. Zia was against the party system as, in his view, it was against Islam. It took a lot of effort to change his mind. I had many meetings on the sub­ject with Brig. (Retd) Abdul Qayyum, who was now a Senator from the Pun­jab. Initially, he too was not in favour of forming a party. I asked him, “What is the way out? How will you run the affairs of the House? Politics has to be run on political, not regimental lines.”
Finally, he was convinced. Then he wrote a lucid paper and per­suaded Gen. Zia to allow the formation of the Pakistan Muslim League, with Mu­hammad Khan Junejo as its President. As a conse­quence, the other political parties also became legally permissible, if the for­malities of the Political Par­ties Act were completed. The political game was back and the martial law receded into the background. The General was himself presid­ing over a po­litical dispensation of his own brand. I thought it would now be difficult for him to kill his own baby.
After the revival of democracy, the Federal Security Cell proposed that the members of the Al-Zulfiqar should be granted general amnesty so that those who had landed themselves in an irretrievable situation were provided an opportunity to extricate themselves gracefully. The political objec­tives of the terrorist organization having been neutralized to some extent, the opera­tives would now not only lose their direction but also their sources of liveli­hood. The enemy powers could use them as pawns for their own ob­jectives. It would be, therefore, prudent to offer them the olive branch from the na­tional security point of view also. Further, they could be kept un­der watch within Pakistan. Even if all of them did not return, their number abroad would become insignificant.
Our proposal was considered too risky. For whom? Not for the coun­try if they entered the mainstream. Probably it were the mem­bers of the martial law regime who might be at risk. It needs great courage and fore­sight to take the right decisions at the right time.