Problems for Zia regime following Benazir Bhutto's return SINCE THE military coup in July 1977, the Pakistan dictator Zia ul-Haq is experieneing increasing problems in the face of mass opposition to his regime. Three years ago, the military government was confronted by demonstrations of popular opposition. Now, the regime has succeeded in limiting the movement to the Sind province, at a cost of many hundreds of lives.
In the absence of popular support, General Zia has had to take measures intended to give himself a democratic facade. Elections for the National Assembly were held in February 1985. Political parties were excluded from standing and most of them called for a boycott. Nevertheless in April, following these elections, Zia named a civilian prime minister, Mohammad Khan Junejo, and on December 30, 1985, martial law was lifted.
But opposition to the regime has not been defused. March 1986 saw the first political general strike since 1977 in the Liyazi region of Karachi. April 10 this year also saw the return from exile of Benazir Bhutto, daughter of the previous prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who was executed by Zia in 1979. Like her father before her, Benazir is the leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the principal opposition force to the regime.
The popular response to Benazir's return was spectacular. In Lahore, the capital of the province of Punjab, she was greeted by almost a million people. In Rawalpindi, the military headquarters of the country, the crowd was the same. In Peshawar, capital of the north-west frontier province, Benazir addressed the largest political rally in living memory when over a quarter of a million people turned out to cheer her. But it was in Karachi - the industrial capital of the country where a large section of the working class is concentrated -that she received the biggest welcome of her tour. Almost two million people, from a population of around five million, crowded the streets and parks to receive her.
Tariq Ali, a well-known journalist and author of a number of articles and books on the Indian sub-continent, analyses the impact of Benazir Bhutto's return and the development of the anti-Zia opposition in a context of growing US support for the regime. He was interviewed by David Cameron for our French-language sister publica-
PAKISTAN were not only held in the big cities but in small towns and villages as well, as a major referendum against the regime. She appealed to the powers who were backing General Zia, in particular the United States, to withdraw him from the country and enable a peaceful transition to democracy to take place.
Q. After authorizing the demonstrations to greet Benazir, why did the regime decide to ban the rallies planned for August 14 and arrest the leaders of the opposition?
A. From the beginning, everyone was asking the question: What would happen after the mass mobilizations ended? Would a new phase of the struggle commence in order to force Zia out of power? In the event, the second phase of the struggle began unexpectedly and without preparation as far as the opposition parties were concerned. These parties, including Benazir's PPP, all work Sunder an umbrella organization known as the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD). After the success of the initial mobilizations, the MRD parties agreed that a new movement would be launched this September which would incorporate elements of civil disobedience to force Zia out. In the event, independence day - August 14 - was chosen by the opposition to announce the September movement to the people.
The government at first thought that they could organize their own demonstration on the same day. Two days before August 14 the regime panicked and cancelled its own demonstration and banned all others, thus throwing down a challenge to Benazir Bhutto and the opposition. The leaders of the opposition parties met and announced that they were not prepared to accept the ban and that the demonstrations would go ahead as scheduled.
The government of prime minister Junejo attempted to pre-empt the opposition on August 13 by arresting all its major leaders and activists, and going into working class suburbs to arrest potential ringleaders of the revolt. They left Benazir alone. On independence day itself, Benazir decided to defy the government and went out on a demonstration and addressed a public rally in Karachi which was teargassed and attacked with bullets. When she returned from the rally, she too was arrested. The movement was now, in effect, leaderless. In Lahore, when news arrived of Benazir's arrest, there were spontaneous battles and eight people were shot dead by the police.
In Karachi, two people were shot dead and the riots spread to the interior of the Sind province. Sind is a minority province where Sindhis
3 tion, Inprecor, on August 21, 1986.
Question. What is the significance of the massive demonstrations following the return of Benazir Bhutto?
Answer. There were a number of factors. First, the masses were fed up with the Zia dictatorship and Benazir's retur represented the first opportunity they had since the lifting of martial law last December to show their hatred and distaste of the military regime.
Second - and this was made clear in the slogans that were raised - this was the masses' first chance to voice their disapproval of the execution by hanging of the country's first and last elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This was their way of showing that the time had come for General Zia to depart. Benazir herself insisted on treating these mass turnouts and rallies, which
have a great deal of national grievances against the dominant Punjabi ruling elite, and here the movement became very militant.
In the town of Thatta, a police station was attacked and crowds raided the prison, overwhelmed the guards, occupied it and released all the political prisoners. In other small Sindhi towns the militancy was very great: four policemen were shot dead.
The army finally moved in to surround these towns and at this moment there is a news blackout from the interior of the Sind, though Sindhi activists claim that casualties have reached between 40 and 50. Ten thousand people marched peacefully in Lahore while the same time in Rawalpindi there were clashes between demonstrators and police and government buses and vans were set on fire. The train service between Karachi and Lahore has been disrupted - Sindhi activists have blown up railway lines en route and some railway stations and post offices have been burnt down.
Q. What direction do you think the mass movement will take after this first wave of mobilizations?
A. The central question seems to be this: Will the millions who turned out to welcome Benazir join the vanguard which has been fighting on the streets? Or is their attitude to Benazir "we are prepared to vote for you, but we are not prepared to die on the streets just yet?" This does seem to be the attitude of the masses, Benazir Bhutto at a meeting in May, 1986 nastis RISHULA abbs NEIT Wiel who are not demoralized, or passive, but waiting. One reason why the masses have not come out in my opinion is that the PPP has not yet advanced strong class demands as it did in 1970-71. The programme that the People's Party has put forward in recent months has been, in general, moderate. As a result they have not set up cadre organizations in the factories or the countryside, and this is now revealed to be a big, big weakness.
Another factor is that the United States is not at all convinced that it can do a deal with Benazir Bhutto. Despite some statements demanding a return to democracy, the Reagan administration in Washington is firmly committed to the present regime. One reason for this is that General Zia's government has permitted the use of Pakistani airbases for US P-3 surveillance aircraft. This is part of a much more ambitious plan by US military strategists which sees Pakistan as replacing Iran in geo-political terms for American imperialism in the region. Pakistan is now second only to Israel in the amount of military aid which is being supplied from the US. The Pentagon has budgeted for more than 14 billion dollars to be spent until 1988 on such facilities.
Last year, outlining policy for the region, US secretary for defence Caspar Weinberger said that the project for south-west Asia included: "Gaining approval for and developing land-based pre-positioning sites for the enormous supply requirements of military material which will be (DR)
sonerO пойцазкі required for US forces once deployed. Obtaining both over-flight rights and all route access from countries within the region who have not granted permission. Obtaining access to and improving selected airfields and seaports in the theatre. Obtaining additional host nation support agreements with countries en route to and in south-west Asia." The access of P-3 flights to Pakistani airbases, therefore, has to be seen within this framework.
A report published by the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace entitled "India, the United States and the Indian Ocean" , quotes an American participant as saying: "General Kingston and the central command hope to draw Pakistan into a network of understandings... This does have implications for the sub-continent since Pakistan is covered by antisubmarine warfare planes which are occasionally using Pakistani airfields, and there will be pressure for more access of this type." So it is very clear that the United States now regards Pakistan as being of critical importance militarily, especially given the present situation in Iran.
Francis Fukuyama, a leading member of the state department's policy planning division, repeated in 1981 what he had already established in a Rand Corporation study on Pakistan. This study, produced in September 1980, has now become the basis of US policy vis-a-vis Pakistan: "The United States is currently building a rapid deployment force (RDF) to protect western access to oil •.. Pakistan could serve as an extremely important entrepot for the RDF moving into the . .. Gulf from the east, ie. from Diego Garcia or the Philippines ... Current RDF plans call for the prepositioning of armoured vehicles in so-called roll-on/roll-off ships in Diego Garcia which would require several days to arrive at the head of the Gulf. Were these ships to be based in Karachi, distance and deployment times would be considerably reduced. Furthermore, there is the possibility that the Pakistan army could serve as a proxy force fighting in the Gulf." These observations from Mr Fukuyama make it extremely plain that the Pentagon and the State Department are not going to permit General Zia to retire - or the Pakistani army to stop playing a central role in Pakistani politics - unless there is a pre-revolutionary or insurrectionary crisis in Pakistan where a transition to democracy becomes unavoidable.
The present policy of the US is essentially to encourage the military to maintain a puppet civilian government, as in Turkey, and to hope that this will defeat the aspirations of the common people and at the same time
deceive them into imagining that they have democracy. But the Pakistani people have not been deceived at all and will carry on the struggle, albeit intermittently. Once the political leaders and activists begin to be released, the movement will start up and spread again in earnest - although it has not completely petered out at the moment.