Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, sacked the elected government of Benazir Bhutto, a "Nambardar" convention was held in Lahore, the capital of
Punjab, Pakistan's largest province.
AHMAD SHUJA
"NAMBARDAR" or a village A chief, along with the "Patwari" - the lowest level of the bureaucracy — is the most important person in a village in this part of the world, and there is a popular saying that a Punjabi votes as his or her Nambardar or Patwari tells them. In this case, the right-wing caretaker government in Punjab rewarded each of the Nambardars with twelve and a half acres of fertile land as an advance payment for helping the government in the forthcoming elections.
This was only one of the measures taken by the army-backed non-elected government to win the elections called by President Khan after Bhutto's government was dismissed on August 6. Bhutto was accused of among other things, corruption and nepotism.
Pious and honest dictators
Almost all the civilian prime m isters in Pakistan, from Khawja N imuddin to Benazir, including ine hand-picked puppet of dictator Ziaul-Haq, Mohamad Khan Jajejo, were dismissed on similar charges. Army dictators, on the other hand, being so pious and honest, die peacefully in retirement if they are not blown to pieces. The army mains above any sort of criticism.
Just 23 months ago, Benazir Bhutto swept into power as a heroine, the daughter undoing the wrong done to her father and her family. She had seen her father, Zulfigar Ali Bhutto the country's only democratically elected prime minister, deposed by an army general, Zia-ul-Haq, and 12 then imprisoned and executed. She spent a lot of time in prison or under house arrest and years in exile. One of her brothers died in mysterious circumstances in France, probably poisoned by Zia's agents, and another lives in exile in Syria, accused of being the leader of a so-called terrorist organization - AlZufiqar. After Zia's death in a plane crash, Benazir won the elections to become the youngest head of state in the world, and the only woman in a Muslim country to hold such an office. To many it looked like the fairy-tale ending. But soon it became clear that she was caught in the vicious circle of Pakistani politics. The fairy tale turned into Greek tragedy.
First there were the religious leaders, the Mullahs. For them the election of a woman as head of state was "unIslamic"
• The fact is that they, along with big business, had done well under Zia's dictatorship, and their dream of making Pakistan an "Islamic" country had nearly come true. For them Benazir represented the forces of secularism, the Devil himself.
Pakistan, like Ulster, has a fundamental problem, the reason or unreason for its very existence. Created out of the Indian sub-continent in 1947, at the end of the British raj, it is a living proof of a false idea — that religious ideology can be the foundation of a state and can overcome all other problems.
The rationale for Pakistan's existence was that Muslims could not survive in
International Viewpoint #196 • December 10, 1990
Hindu dominated India, so they should have their own state. Pakistan was created with two parts - East and West, separated by 1000 miles of Indian territory. In
1971, when the Eastern part broke away to form Bangladesh, the whole ideological basis of Pakistan disintegrated. Religion could not unite the people and indeed, if anything, the sectarian differences among the Muslims of Pakistan have sharpened.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto tried to provide
Pakistan with a different ideology - namely Islamic Socialism. The Mullahs thought this a contradiction in terms,
"socialism being secular and having thus no relation to Islam". Zia tried to realize the fundamentalist dream by imposing strict Islamic laws on the people of Pakistan. Barbaric punishments were inflicted on common criminals as well as thousands of political opponents. This period sands of political opponents. This period was surely the darkest in Pakistan's hardly radiant history.
Benazir Bhutto's terrible mistakes
After coming to power, Benazir made some terrible mistakes. The list is long. A few examples will do.
One of her biggest and most fatal mistakes was to expect the army to change its behaviour. She went so far as to award the army generals medals for being the
"saviours of democracy"
She let Zia's thugs go unpunished. They continued to thrive on the loot they had accumulated during the tyrant's years in power. They had the resources and power of Pakistan's largest province, Punjab, at hand to destabilize the central government.
On the other hand, the ordinary people of her own Pakistan People's Party (PPP), who had suffered imprisonment and torture in Zia's jails, were left to rot. She called it the "no revenge" policy.
It proved to be the politics of suicide. Now, she regrets that the criminals were allowed to go unpunished.
She made many promises which she knew she would not keep. On the positive side, she released all political prisoners, commuted thousands of death sentences to life imprisonment, lifted the ban on trade unions and student activities, increased the education budies, increased the education budget by 70% and guaranteed the right of self-expression, freedom of speech and so on.
On the other hand, she did nothing to abolish the so-called
"Islamic laws" that discriminate against women, hence losing the one constituency that should have been behind her 100%. Hundreds of thousands of people who voted for Benazir out of respect for her courage noticed a change in their
PAKISTAN rindaca" Doouif.11.
"princess". Beautifully dressed, confident, with a touch of arrogance, she began to look the feudal lady, treating the country as a family estate, rather than the representative of the poor masses she had seemed to be. This, along with the dirty tricks of her numerous enemies, was to play a significant part in the forthcoming events.
President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, an armybacked bureaucrat, cleverly picked his moment to dismiss her. The world was busy with the Gulf crisis. The Pakistani army had lost much of its strategic importance because of the stalemate in Afghanistan, and America's warmer relations with the Soviet Union's traditional ally, India. But the Gulf crisis has given the army mafia back their self-confidence. Pakistan has dutifully supplied a few thousand soldiers for Saudi Arabia.
Benazir had refused to help the Afghanistani Mujahedin as the army — and the
CIA — wanted, seeking instead a political, negotiated settlement. She also refused to get too deeply involved in the Kashmir conflict (see /V 192). Furthermore she refused to give the army the powers it wanted in her home province of Sind, where bloody sectarian conflicts have cost hundreds of lives. To her credit, although she accepted power with "her hands tied behind her back", she refused to be the poodle of the army and bureaucracy represented by Ishaq Khan.
When Benazir was dismissed and the election date announced, there was no doubt in anybody's mind that the establishment had decided to dump Benazir and destroy the PPP. As Madiha Lodhi, a prominent Pakistani journalist, observed, "they haven't got rid of her to hand over the power to her once again". To make sure that the election went according to plan, the opposition leader, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi — once a colleague of
Benazir's father and now one of her bitterest enemies — was appointed caretaker prime minister.
Parliament and the provincial assemblies were dissolved and Benazir's enemies, old and new, were given power in all provinces. Ministers were appointed for their skills in manipulating and terrorizing the electorate. Benazir was unpopular and only a little rigging would have been enough. But as the campaign gathered momentum, the tide began to turn in her favour.
She is undoubtedly a great fighter, more dangerous in opposition than effective in office. So much so that a special team appointed by the president predicted a neck-and-neck result. The army Central Intelligence Agency reached the same conclusion.
Then a reign of terror began in Sind. Hundreds of PPP activists were arrested, tortured and even killed. Now the dirty tricks department of the main opposition party, the Islami Jamhuri Ithad (IJI — the
The land of generals and bureaucrats
PRESIDENT Ishag used the eighth amendment to the Pakistani constitution fo sack Benazir Bhutto, The amendment was lashioned by the late dictator, General Zia-ul-Hag, In order to invest in his own hands as much power as possible to use against the people s elected representatives.
• Some 41% of Pakistan s budget is eaten up by the armed forces -
In total, the country spends more than 80% of its money on defence, with administration and servicing debts of some $17bn. It spends 0,57% on health and 1.7% on education (increased by 70% by the recent
PPP government). The literacy rate is 7%.
• Pakistan is the third in line for US aid, behind Israel and Egypt -receiving around $300m a year. The aid was recently suspended on the grounds that Pakistan has not come clean on its atomic bomb plans. Pakistan has almost no foreign reserves left. Like other banana republIcs, Pakistan has a massive army that it cannot afford. Hence Its dependence on US ald, International Monetary Fund loans and bakshish (charity) from Saudl Arabla
• Throughout the period of the "caretaker" government, the central and provincial governments insisted that "no one has been arrested for political reasons." Compare this claim with the statement issued by the "caretaker" and now elected Chief Minister of Sind, Jam Sadig All, in the first week of September, after he had been Installed in office: "All political prisoners will be released within three days and those held on trumped up charges will be released in seven days.*
• Under the caption "Broken Bones, Burned Bodles" , Pakistan's eading daily, Jang, reported on September 13 that 28 members of the Pakistani Students Federation who had been arrested some time ago for membership in the "al-Zufigar" organization had been released. Some of them had broken bones and parts of their bodies carried burn marks. They had been tortured by interrogators in different cells. All were PPP activists of between 15 and 25 years of age, Of 100 students arrested in Sind, three were tortured to death.
• According to the London Guardian, some persons suspected of being associated with the drugs mafia have been elected to the new
Pakistani parliament. The report claims that the drug barons used to finance politicians to look after their interests In the national parllament and provincial assemblies. Now some of them have decided to get elected themselves. This is likely to be a source of tension between the
American administration and the new Pakistani government. *
Per to same damn to — me Islamic Democratic Alliance) a joint front of eight of the most reactionary parties, who longed for the good old days of Zia's dictatorship, got into full swing. Newspapers were already, by and large, in their pocket. Those who dared to challenge were severely dealt with. Benazir's "friends" were sacked from the TV.
Some examples of the dirty tricks:
• An IJI leader claimed and was widely quoted that "Benazir has conspired with the Zionists and India to destroy the Pakistani Atomic energy plant."
• She was said to have sent a message through Mazhar Ali Khan, a prominent left wing Pakistani journalist, urging the Indian government to "attack Pakistan to save her government".
• When Madiha Lodhi, the editor of a prominent English language paper "Muslim" refused to publish news about Benazir Bhutto that she claimed was a lie, she was asked to resign. She obliged along with some other members of her editorial staff.
• In a public meeting in Lahore some speakers made remarks about her which, according to the London Independent, were so shocking and filthy that "even the trashiest of newspapers will not print them." It was also being said that she was "pregnant all the time" and had a lover in every port and capital of the world.
The election results came as a shock to everyone. Even her opponents, according to press reports, were embarrassed by their "great success". Although their vote was nearly equal to that of the J, at 33%, the PPP only gained 45 seats against the IJ's 105.
There was a surprising thing about this election. It was reported that the turnout was a lot less than in 1988, but the total 13 number of votes counted came to a lot
PAKISTAN / DOMINICAN REPUBLIC more than in the previous election. The origins of these hundreds of thousands of extra votes remains a mystery.
According to the London Guardian of October 31, 1990: "After three international reports which gave last week's elections in Pakistan a clean bill of health, a Paris-based human rights group has partly endorsed claims of large-scale rigging made by the PPP leader, Benazir Bhutto.
"The report, by Justice Serge Petit and Justice Olivier de Baynast of the International Federation of Human Rights reinforces Ms. Bhutto's claims that the election rigging was highly sophisticated and that turnout was exaggerated.
"The two justices and two barristers assisting them were the only monitoring teams which appeared to have stayed for the vote counting....
"..in one constituency (the team found that) the numher of votes for the winning
THE COMING WEEKS