Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
Encyclopedia
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (Punjabi
, Urdu:محمد ضياء الحق; August 12, 1924 — August 17, 1988), was the 4th Chief Martial Law Administrator
and the sixth President
of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988. Distinguished by his role in the Black September in Jordan
military operation in 1970, he was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
after Bhutto forcefully retired seven senior lieutenant-generals who where tainted with their role in the East-Pakistan
war
in order to bring and promote Zia to four star rank. After widespread civil disorder
, he planned and overthrew ruling Prime Minister Bhutto in a bloodless coup d'état
on July 5, 1977, code name Fair Play
, and became the state's third military ruler to impose martial law. Zia's idea of religious conservatism
in Pakistan became the primary line of his military government
. Throughout the 1980s, Zia managed to consolidate more and more power
in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups in Pakistan.
He initially ruled as Chief Martial Law Administrator
(CMLA), but later installed himself as the President of Pakistan in September 1978. As both President and CMLA, Zia forcefully crushed the secular-communist and socialist democratic struggle led by the eldest daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto
. Zia abandoned the previous economical policies
of Bhutto, and replaced them with capitalism and privatization
of the major industries of Pakistan that had been nationalized by Bhutto in 1970s. The Pakistan economy became one the fastest growing economies in South Asia. However, during this period of economic and social change, Zia curbed and violently
dealt with the political rivals in 1980s. His reign is often regarded as a period of mass military repression in which hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists were executed or tortured, including Pakistan Army
's senior
general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots against his regime.
Zia's major domestic initiatives included the consolidation of the nuclear development
, which was initiated by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto; the restarting of the space program
as spin-off of the nuclear project, denationalization and deregulation
and the state's Islamization
. His tenure saw the disbanding of the Baloch insurgency. His endorsement of the Pakistan Muslim League
(the founding party of Pakistan) initiated its mainstream revival. However, he is most remembered for his foreign policy; the subsidizing of the Mujahideen
movement during the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
which led to the Soviet-Russian
withdrawal
from Afghanistan Socialist Republic. Zia entered into an undeclared
secret war
with Soviet Afghanistan and its ally Soviet Union
. Zia authorized secret funding and expansion of intelligence operations in Pakistan and abroad, initially focusing on anti-communist operations. He was described by some as a "fundamentalist
Sunni
dictator".
Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistan
Arnold Lewis Raphel
in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur
(Punjab) on 17 August 1988.
, British India, in 1924 as the second child of Muhammad Akbar, who worked in the Army GHQ in Delhi
and Simla pre-partition
.
He completed his initial education in Simla
and then attended St. Stephen's College, Delhi
for his graduate degree. After graduation from St. Xavier College, Zia joined the British Indian Army
in 1943.
He married Shafiq Jahan in 1950–51.
Shafiq Zia died on January 5, 1996. Zia is survived by his sons, Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq
, (born 1953), who went into politics and became a cabinet minister in the government of Nawaz Sharif
, and Anwar-ul-Haq (born 1950) and his daughters, Zian (also Zain) (born 1972), a special needs child, and Rubina Salim, who is married to a Pakistani banker and has been living in the United States since 1980, and daughter Quratulain Zia who currently lives in London, and is married to Pakistani doctor, Adnan Majid.
in a cavalry regiment on May 12, 1943 and served against Nazi Germany
and its allies in World War II. After Pakistan gained its independence, Zia joined the newly formed Pakistan Army
as a Major. His regiment was now the Guides Cavalry Frontier Force Regiment
. He was trained in the United States in 1962–1964 at the US Army
Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth
, Kansas
. After that, 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.
Zia 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 as commander of Jordanian 2nd Division, a strategy that proved crucial to King Hussein
's remaining in power. By 1973, then Major General
Zia was commanding the 1st Armoured Division at Multan
.
He was then promoted as Lieutenant General
and 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 Blue Patrols of his size. The next day, Bhutto was requested to climb a tank and engage a target, where the target was quite obviously hit. After the function, Zia met Bhutto, placed his hand on the Qur'an
and said, "You are the saviour of Pakistan and we owe it to you to be totally loyal to you".
On March 1, 1976, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto approved then-3 star general Lieutenant-General Zia as Chief of Army Staff and to be elevated to 4 star rank. This promotion was ahead of a number of more senior officers. At the time of his nominating the successor to the outgoing Chief of Army Staff General Tikka Khan
, the Lieutenant Generals in order of seniority were, Muhammad Shariff
, Muhammed Akbar Khan
, Aftab Ahmed Khan, Azmat Baksh Awan, Agha Ibrahim Akram, Abdul Majeed Malik, Ghulam Jilani Khan, and Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. But, Bhutto chose the most junior, superseding seven more senior lieutenant-generals. However, the senior most at that time, Lieutenant-General Mohammad Shariff, though promoted to General, was made the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, a constitutional post akin to President Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry
. Zia never called Bhutto as "Mr. Prime Minister", but relied on the term Sir
while referring to Bhutto.
(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 governments decision to oust the NAP provincial government in Balochistan 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's, Hayat Sherpao, in a bomb blast in the frontier town of Peshawar
.
(PPP), and the murder of a leading dissident Ahmed Raza Kasuri's father led to public outrage and intra-party hostility as Bhutto was accused of masterminding the crime. Powerful PPP leaders such as Ghulam Mustafa Khar openly condemned Bhutto and called for protests against his regime. The political crisis in the NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and Balochistan intensified as civil liberties remained suspended, and an estimated 100,000 troops deployed there were accused of abusing human rights and killing large numbers of civilians.
(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 on opinions and views within the party. The PNA faced defeat but did not accept the results, alleging that the election was rigged. They proceeded to boycott the provincial elections. Despite this, there was a high voter turnout in the national elections; however, as provincial elections were held amidst low voter turnout and an opposition boycott, the PNA declared the newly-elected Bhutto government as illegitimate.
in major cities including Karachi
, Lahore
and Hyderabad
. However, a compromise agreement between Bhutto and opposition was ultimately reported. This compromise theory was however probably a later day addition as a major PPP armed rally was in the offing. Zia planned a the Coup d'état carefully as he knew Bhutto had integral intelligence in the Pakistan Armed Forces, and many officers, including Chief of Air Staff
General 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.
To remove this intelligence, Zia secretly contracted with the active duty British SAS army officers to maintain a staff course for the Army personnel while Chief of Naval Staff
Admiral Mohammad Shariff
quietly removed naval personnel loyal to Bhutto and his government from the Navy's active duty. Zia ordered Bhutto's loyal officers to attend a staff and command course and none of the officers were allowed to leave the course until the midnight. Meanwhile, Zia with his close officers, including Admiral Mohammad Shariff, then-Chaiman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, arranged the coup in the evening. On July 5, 1977, before the announcement of any agreement, Bhutto and members of his cabinet were arrested by troops of Military Police under the order of Zia by the evening.
and the United States Government because United States was afraid of Bhutto's socialist policies which were seen as sympathetic to the Soviet Union
and had built a bridge that allowed Soviet Union to involved in Pakistan. A former U.S. attorney general and Human rights activist, Ramsey Clark, quoted that:
had not been abrogated, but temporarily suspended. However, in October 1977, he announced the postponement of the electoral plan and decided to start an accountability process for the politicians. Zia said that he changed his decision due to the strong public demand for the scrutiny of political leaders who had engaged in malpractice in the past but there is no evidence to this claim. Thus the "retribution
first, elections later" PNA policy was adopted. This severely tainted his credibility as many saw the broken promise as malacious.. It is widely believed that once out of power the size of PPP rallies swell and a better performance in elections was possible. This led to request for postponement of elections by the right wing which displaced Bhutto in the first place.
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 Gen. Zia met federal secretaries for the first time as leader of the country after martial law, he said that "He does not possess the Charisma of Bhutto, personality of Gen. Ayub or the legitimacy of Liaquat Ali Khan" thereby implying how can he be marketed.
, 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.
. 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 September 16, 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.
Soon the martial law was imposed, Zia called for a meeting of senior statesmen and officers of Pakistan Armed Forces. On his first day of meeting which was called at an early morning, statesmen and officers were shocked when looking at him and described Zia as lacked of intelligence, and had possessed no "personality charisma
" as compared to Bhutto and had "no intellectual property
" that would gravitate people towards him like Bhutto, who would attract people's attention by his intellectual, physical appearance, and Bhutto's Westernized dressing. Unlike Bhutto who would appeared in decent Westernized clothing and always had joy in his face while meeting the journalists, state officials and members of society; General Zia would appeared in a well ironed military uniform which he wore on a regular basis, military badges that was conferred to him during his long service, and a strict face posture while giving interviews. General Zia rarely smiled and, often seeing saluting at the people while attending the public or political functions. Comparing Bhutto to Zia, Bhutto always chaired meetings with good mood, no matter how serious the situation was, and often seen cared about family matters of others, while serious decision would also be made. With Zia, meetings were often short but intense and decisions would he made in matter of minutes, although Zia was a good listener. Nonetheless, Zia's image was perfected as "tyrant, cold person" and was best suited as an "ideal military dictator", often perpetrated in Western movies. Roedad Khan's book "Pakistan- A Dream Went Sour", Roedad Khan, who served as Secretary-General for the Internal Security summed up that:
, Zia hated Bhutto and had used inappropriate language and insults to describe Bhutto and his colleagues. On April 4, 1979, the former elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged, after the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence
as passed by the Lahore High Court
. The Supreme Court ruled four to three in favor 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. The hanging of an elected prime minister by a military man was condemned by the international community and by lawyers and jurists across Pakistan.
Bhutto's last personal appearance and utterances in the supreme court were not merely 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 made some remark which indicated that he has views similar to a Sunni, though he was Shia albeit a non-practicing one. He also effectively cast doubt on the reliability of star witnesses against him i.e. Masood Mahmood who was a UK-trained lawyer and not merely a police officer and FSF chief. He mentioned repeatedly Lahori 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, not some thing in between, and appreciated Khar and his lawyer Yahya Bakhtiar.
Bhutto's another lawyer Abdul Hafiz Pirzada
filed a petition for the release of Bhutto's colleague Mubashir Hassan
and Bhutto itself. The Supreme Court concluded that Bhutto's execution can be revered by the President, and Hassan's case is being deal by Military Justice Court led by Zia; therefore, the civilian courts have no jurisdiction over that hearing. Pirzada submitted the request to Chief of Army Staff Directorate, but Zia claimed that the request application had been gone missing. Therefore, Zia upheld the sentence and Bhutto was executed. Shattered and disturbed Pirzada departed to United Kingdom and did not returned to Pakistan until the democracy was returned in 1988. It was not until 2000, when the Pakistan media
published its report that the application was found in the record section (Directorate-General for the Military History) at the Generals Combatant Headquarter (GHQ). The application was made public domain when General Pervez Musharraf declassified much of the 1970s secret documentations.
was appointed Martial Law Administrator of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. Lieutenant-General Fazle Haque was considered a strong vocal General and a strong man. General Haque was the commander of the XI Corps
, and commanding-general officer of the Army elements responsible for fighting a secret war against Soviet Union.
The second appointment was of Lieutenant-General S.M. Abbasi who was appointed Martial Law Administrator
of Sindh Province; his tenure too saw civil disorder amid student riots.By contrast, third martial law administrator appointment of Lieutenant-General Ghulam Jilani Khan to the Punjab Province made much headway in beautifying Lahore extending infrastructure, and muting political opposition. The ascent of Navaz Sharif to Chief Minister of Punjab was largely due to General Jilani's sponsorship. Perhaps most crucially, final and fourth martial law administrator appointment was then-Lieutenant-General Rahimuddin Khan
. Lieutenant-General Rahimuddin Khan was appointed to the post of 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 was worse after he appointed Mr. Junejo as Prime minister in 1985.
s, scholars
, ulema
, journalists, economists, and professionals in different fields. The Shoora was to act as a board of advisors to the President. All 284 members of the Shoora were to be nominated by the President, also known as a technocracy or government of technocrats.
Amongst technocrats included in Zia's cabinet was Dr. Asad who increased the oil production of the country manyfold. Many members of this Shoora later joined other parties after his death.
was held on December 19, 1984 and the option was to elect or reject the General as the future President. The question asked in the referendum was whether the people of Pakistan wanted Islamic Sharia
law enforced in the country. According to the official result, more than 95% of the votes were cast in favour of Zia, thus he was elected as President for the next five years. However, they were marred by allegations of widespread irregularities and technical violations of the laws and ethics of democratic elections. Also, despite pressure from the government to vote, only 10% of those eligible to vote did so. Zia had the overwhelming majority of the votes cast, but in reality the referendum was an embarrassing failure.
on a non-party basis. Most of the opposing political parties decided to boycott
the elections but election results showed that many victors belonged to one party or the other. To make things easier for himself, the General nominated the Prime Minister from amongst the Members of the Assembly. To many, his nomination of Muhammad Khan Junejo
as the Prime Minister was because he wanted a simple person at the post who would act as a puppet in his hands.Before handing over the power to the new Government and lifting 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 power
s" to the president to dissolve the National Assembly. 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 Assembly only if the Cabinet 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.
(USSR) intervened Soviet 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 neighboring 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, Director-General
of the ISI then-Lieutenant-General Akhtar Abdur Rahman advocated for the idea of covert operation in Afghanistan by arming the Islamic extremist. During this meeting, General Rahman was heard saying: "Kabul must burn! Kabul must burn!", and mastered the idea of proxy war
in Afghanistan. After this meeting, Zia authorized this operation under General Rahman, and it was later merged with Operation Cyclone
, a programme funded by the United States and the CIA
.
In November 1982, General Zia traveled to the Soviet Union
to attend the funeral
of Leonid Brezhnev
, then-General Secretary
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
. Soviet President Andrei Gromyko
and the new Secretary-General Yuri Andropov
met with Zia where a brief meeting took place at the Kremlin
. The Soviet Union and the new Secretary General Yuri Andropov were angry at Pakistan's covert involvement in the support of Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union and her satellite state, Soviet Afghanistan, and expressed his indignation to the General. Then General Zia took his hand and told him that, "Mr. Secretary General... Believe me, Pakistan wants nothing but good and healthy relations with the Soviet Union". According to Andrei Gromyko
, Zia's sincerity had caught off guards and in the meeting, everyone believed him but sadly found out that his words were not followed by his actions.
While there, Indira Gandhi compared the personality of Zia to Bhutto's while she summed up that Bhutto was intelligent, caring, and global experience that would reflect in his face. But with Zia, the tyranny could easily been seen on his face.
, under Science Advisor Dr. Mubashir Hassan
, was heading the civilian committee that supervised the construction of the facilities and laboratories. Major-General Zahid Ali Akbar, engineering officer, had little role in the atomic project; General Zia responded by taking over the programme under the military control and disbanded the civilian directorate when he ordered the arrest of dr. Mubashir Hassan. This whole giant nuclear energy project was transferred into the hands of Major-General Akbar who was soon made the Lieutenant-General and Engineer-in-Chief
of Corps of Engineers. General 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 matters of five years.
By the time, Zia assumed the control, research facilities fully became functional and the 90% of the work on atom bomb project was completed Both the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission
(PAEC) and the Khan Research Laboratories
(KRL) had ingeniously built the extensive research infrastructure initiated by Bhutto. General Akbar's office was soon shifted at the Army Combatant Generals Headquarter (GHQ) and guided General Zia on key matters of nuclear science and the atomic bomb production, and was the first engineering officer to have acknowledge General Zia about the success of this energy project into the fully matured programme. 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 the international pressure.
This was proved when the PAEC conducted the cold-fission test of a fission device, codename Kirana-I on March 11, 1983 at the Kirana Hills, under the leadership of weapon-testing laboratory's director dr. Ishfaq Ahmad
. Lieutenant-General Zahid Akbar went to GHQ and notified General Zia about the success of the this test. The PAEC responded by conducting several cold-tests throughout the 1980s, a policy also continued by Benazir Bhutto in 1990s.
(NPT); General Zia deftly neutralized international pressure by tagging Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme to the nuclear designs of neighboring Indian nuclear programme. General 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.
Following the success of Operation Opera
— an Israeli Air Force
strike to sabotage the Iraqi nuclear programme
in 1981— amid suspicion grew in Pakistan that Indian Air Force
had similar plans for Pakistan. In private meeting with General
Anvär Schamiem, then-Chief of Air Staff
, General Zia had notified General Schamiem that Indian Air Force had plans to infiltrate in Pakistan's nuclear energy project, citing the solid evidences. Due to weak Air Force, General Shamim felt that the air force was unable to divert such attacks, therefore, General Shamim advised General Zia to use diplomacy through Munir Ahmad Khan to divert the attacks. At Vienna, Munir Ahmad Khan met with Raja Ramanna
notified his counter-part that such attack would provoked a nuclear war between two countries. In meantime, General Shamim decided to start the program to acquire the advanced F-16 Falcons and A-5 Fanton
jets for Pakistan Air Force
. General Shamim launched the 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 others facilities. In 1985, following the induction of F-16 Falcons and A-5 Fantons, General Shamim commissioned the Air Force Strategic Command
to protect and battle the weapons of mass destruction.
, Iran, and communist China
) to aid in their own nuclear ambition, in order to divert the international attention which was difficult. In 1981, General Zia contracted with China when he sent the sensitive weapon-grade uranium to China and also built the centrifuge laboratory which increasingly enchanced the Chinese nuclear programme. This act encouraged dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan who allegedly tried to aidin Libyan nuclear program but because the ties were strained, Khan was warned of serious consequences. This policy was envisaged that this would deflect international pressure on these countries and Pakistan would be spared the international community's wrath.
After General Zia's death, his successor General Mirza Aslam Beg, as Chief of Army Staff, encouraged Khan and gave him a free hand to work with some like-minded nations like North Korea
, Iran and Libya
who also wanted to pursue their nuclear ambitions for a variety of reasons. In 2004, dr. 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 the then Chief of Army Staff and President General Pervez Musharraf
. Zia's nuclear proliferation policy had deep impact on the world, especially anti-western states, most nominally North Korea and Iran. In 2000s, North Korea
soon would followed the same suit after it was targeted by international community for its on-going nuclear program. In 2000s, North Korea attempted to aid in Syrian
and Iranian nuclear program in 1990s. The North Korean connection to Syrian nuclear program was exposed in 2007 by Israel in its successful strategic operation, Orchard
, which resulted in sabotaging the Syrian nuclear program as well as death of 10 senior North-Korean scientists who were aiding to build the nuclear program.
, General Zia sanctioned the launch of the 50MW heavy water plutonium production reactor, known as Khushab-I, at Khushab
in 1985. General Zia also 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 country's first satellite, Badr-1, a military satellite. In 1987, General Zia launched the clandestine aerospace project, Integrated Missile Research Programme General Anwar Shamim in 1985 and later under Lieutenant-General Talat Masood
in 1987.
took a much more positive turn. U.S. President Jimmy Carter
and his Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance
, cut off U.S. aid to Pakistan on the grounds that Pakistan had not made sufficient progress on the nuclear issue. Then, on December 25, 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 finding in 1980 that allowed less than $50 million a year to go to the Mujahideen. After Ronald Reagan
came to office, defeating Carter for the US Presidency in 1980, all this changed, due to President Reagan's new priorities and the unlikely and remarkably effective effort by Congressman Charles Wilson (D-TX), aided by 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 with a rival superpower looking as if it were to create another Communist bloc, now engaged Zia to fight a US-aided war by proxy
in Afghanistan against the Soviets.
and Special Service Group now became actively involved in the conflict, and in cooperation 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 Mujahideen'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.
assault rifle
) culture spreading all over the country. It is estimated that there are currently 20 million firearms in Pakistan, which has a population of about 175 million (as of July 2010) i.e., almost every ninth person has a firearm, most likely an automatic one. 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.
It was thought by some leading ISI officials then assisting Mujaheedin led war that converting raw opium to heroin is a technology which was not known to illiterate Afghans and was taught by CIA or some others with advanced technology as later was easy to smuggle and earn cash for resistance.
Two Afghan Mujahideen groups later morphed into Jihad
ist outfits in the shape of Taliban and Al-Qaeda
in the early 1990s. The Pakistan and United States trained Arab and Afghan
fighters later in 2001 initiated a Jihad against United States in 2001 and against Pakistan in 2004. The links of the spectacular and deadly events of September 11 were deeply rooted in the Soviet-Afghan war. Osama bin Laden
invested his inherited money into the Soviet-Afghan war to fight the 'infidel communist power' and was abetted by CIA, ISI, US and Pakistani military establishments for over 10 years. For its turn in Pakistan, the war in West Pakistan
, hampered the Pakistan's economy
, dismantle the civil society, and as well as resulted 3,000 deaths for Pakistan's Armed Forces. General Zia's morphed Jihadist furthered destabilized the country's strong branches, and country faced a wave of suicide bombing from the period 2007 to 2011, resulting in more than 30,000 civilian deaths in Pakistan.
to enforce the Islamic system in Pakistan in a nationwide address, Zia accused politicians of exploiting the name of Islam: "Many a ruler did what they pleased in the name of Islam." After assuming power, the government began a program of public commitment to enforce Nizam-e-Mustafa (Islamic System), a significant turn from Pakistan's predominantly Anglo-Saxon law
, inherited from the British. As a preliminary measure to establish an Islamic society in Pakistan, Zia announced the establishment of Sharia Benches. To many secular and communist forces, Zia cynically manipulated Islam
for the survival of his own regime. In 1983, Nusrat Bhutto reasoned General Zia's policies as she puts it:
) Ordinance 1979, the punishment of imprisonment or fine, or both, as provided in the existing Pakistan Penal Code
(PPC) for theft, was substituted by the amputation of the right hand of the offender from the joint of the wrist by a surgeon. For robbery, the right hand of the offender from the wrist and his left foot from the ankle should be amputated by a surgeon. Hudood
is the word often used in Islamic social and legal literature for the bounds of acceptable behaviour. Although the punishments were imposed, the due process, witnesses and prosecution system remained un-Islamic Anglo-Saxon. As in Islamic law Hudud can only be given if four witnesses saw the crime happen, in reality hardly anyone can be punished by Islamic Hud laws as very rarely can the conditions for punishment be met.
Under the Zina
Ordinance, the provisions relating to adultery were replaced so that the women and the man guilty will be flogged, each of them, with one hundred lashes, if unmarried. And if they are married they shall be stoned to death
provided the proof required for hadd is met. That is four Muslim adult male witnesses of good repute to the act of penetration or a voluntary confession in a competent court of law. The Zina Ordinance is fraught with legal ambiguities and the major flaw in this law is the fact that no distinction is made between adultery and rape. Rape is considered no more heinous a crime than zina. The demarcation line between the two offences is so thin in practice, that when a woman comes into the court with a case of rape, she risks being convicted of zina herself, if she cannot prove the rape. The onus of providing proof in a rape case rests with the woman herself. If she is unable to prove her allegation, bringing the case to court is considered equivalent to a confession of sexual intercourse without lawful marriage. Thus this ordinance has been criticized by human rights and women's rights activists, lawyers and politicians over the years, but so far no attempt at repeal has been successful.
or human rights. Although the Hud punishments were imposed, the Islamic law of evidence was not implemented and remained British in origin.
Drinking of wine (i.e. all alcoholic drinks
) was not a crime under the PPC. In 1977, however, the drinking and selling of wine by Muslims was banned in Pakistan and the sentence of imprisonment of six months or a fine of Rs.
5000/-, or both, was provided in that law. This ban on drinking was promulgated by Bhutto as he tried to soothen the tide of street Islamization drive called Nizam-e-Mustafa in his last days.
Muhammad
, Ahl al-Bayt
(family members of Muhammad), Sahabah
(companions of Muhammad) and Sha'ar-i-Islam (Islamic symbols), a cognizable offence, punishable with imprisonment or fine, or with both.
was the sole financier of the program, and Zia unofficially told Saudis that "Our achievements are your achievements", and later helped building the Saudi nuclear programme
. This prompted Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan
to send the designs of centrifuges to Libya
to aide in their nuclear program as part of Zia's vision. Zia changed the entire educational system in the country, under a general drive towards Islamization, started the process of historical revisionism in earnest and exploited this initiative. 'The Pakistan's establishment taught their children right from the beginning that this state was built on the basis of religion – that's why they don't have tolerance for other religions and want to wipe out all of them.'.
At the end, Zia's controversial policies slowed down the progress of science in the country and attributed his dearth to militant Islam in Pakistan and the promotion of pseudoscience by Muslim fundamentalists in Pakistani schools and universities.
of 1984. Under this, the Ahmadiyya
were barred from calling themselves Muslims, or using Islamic terminology or practising Islamic rituals. This resulted in classifying the Ahmadiyya Community of Pakistan into a minority group in law. Zia was also considered anti-Shia, as Zia’s regime saw vicious persecution unleashed against the Shias, who form 20 percent of Pakistan's population in addition to the persecution levied against smaller sects such as the Ahmadiyyas. Further during his reign many Shia Muslim personalities and politicians were killed, most prominently the judicial killing of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Zia did not throw Ahmedis from Army but Ahmedis who were declared minority in Bhutto's era were unhappy and regained prominent positions after Zia's death as PPP got power again. Zia's only open clash with Shia Ulema was over Zakat (charity) distribution related issues. A book called "Profiles of intelligence" documents that event as written and resolved by a Shia military officer of ISI by the regime.
— a Nobel Laureate in Physics
— and had conferred with him with Order of Imtiaz in 1979. Zia also allowed Salam to have deliver lectures in Physics at the Islamabad University, and sanctioned an Award
as national decoration after his name. Salam continued his ties with Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and its associated personalities, but Zia had refrained Salam from participating in any experiment in the laboratories of Pakistan. Since the military regime of Zia unleashed a wave of persecution in the 1980s, violence against the Ahmadiyya community has never really ceased. Ahmadis continue to be killed and injured, and have their homes and businesses burned down in anti-Ahmadi attacks. The authorities continue to arrest, jail and charge Ahmadis for blasphemy
and other offenses because of their religious beliefs. In several instances, the police have been complicit in harassment and the framing of false charges against Ahmadis, or stood by in the face of anti-Ahmadi violence.
(Red Mosque) was awarded to the occupants by Zia ul Haq. The controversial figureheads Abdul Aziz Ghazi
and Abdul Rashid Ghazi
of Jamia Hafsa
had special relations with Zia ul Haq and those links were further enhanced by his son Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq during his term as a minister of religious affairs
. The former head of Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdullah who was famous for speeches on Jihad
(Holy war), is said to be very close to Zia ul Haq.
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 Islamization drive and rather weakened it. His era led to serious disturbances in Karachi and ultimately Karachi went into Shia control of MQM from clutches of Sunnis Jamaat-e-Islami.
Ojhri Camp
blast had irreversibly weakened Zia versus Junejo. Junejo with western support could not strike Zia. Zia struck first.
On May 29, 1988, Zia dissolved the Senate
and 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 played the Islam card to defend himself and the generals against any accusations of misrule and corruption. However since the media in Pakistan
was brutally gagged in his days, none of his corruption could be documented and brought to the limelight by the print media. When accused of trying to cover-up the Ojhri Camp
incident, on May 29, 1988, he invoked an amendment that he had recently added to the Pakistani Constitution that allowed him to dismiss the Prime Minister, dissolve the National Assembly and all provincial assemblies – basically, the entire legislative portions of the government outside of the Presidency. Zia's loyalists in the military were called to form an interim government. Zia justified his actions and diverted attention from his corruption by focusing on how the further Islamization of Pakistan had been negligently delayed by Junejo and his government.
Zia promised to hold elections in 1988
after the dismissal of Junejo government. He said that he would hold elections 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.
. General Zia responded by violently dealing with his political opponents and journalists as well as minorities. Indira Gandhi
, Indian PM raised concerns over this brutality and violation of human rights at the hands of Pakistan's military dictatorship (Dawn August 14, 1983).[22]
Many senior military officers such as General Zulfikar Ali Khan
and Major-General Tajammul Hussain Malik
were convicted for treason, followed a small scale purging of Pakistan Army officers sympathetic to Bhutto. Zia curbed the Communist Party
by illegally abducting Jam Saqi
and Nazeer Abbasi
for a secret trial
. Both Abbasi and Saqi were tortured and killed while interrogating process into the hands of ruthless Brigadier-General Imtiaz Ahmad. The public lynching and flagellation
became common for senior journalists and politicians who suffered at the hands of General Zia. This absolute act further radicalized the society where intolerance for other people was reached to maximum. Zia's torture and purge forced minorities to fled the country such as Major-General Eric Hall
, director of Pakistan's space weapons program. The senior leadership of People's National Party
took the refuge in neighboring Afghanistan and India, while many political workers went missing and either killed. One of the notable case was the hijacking of Pakistan International Airlines
's Boeing 720
in 1981. ISI quickly founded that the Al-Zulfikar was behind this plot which resulted in killing of one military pilot. The leaders of this ring Salamullah Tipu
was murdered in Kabul Prison; others were abducted by the ISI. The head of the KHAD
, Mohammad Najibullah
was also involved in this plot, but soon paid the price at the hands of the Taliban in 1996 when he was brutally beaten and publicly hanged in the roads of Kabul.
Soon this incident, Zia also began to hunt down the Al-Zulfiqar
— a leftist organization founded by Bhutto's children. The brutal poisoning and death of Shahnawaz Bhutto
, Bhutto's youngest son, is widely suspected to done under Zia's orders, though there are no evidences for this claim. Zia's persecution of Bhutto's family, forced Benazir
, Sanam
and Murtaza Bhutto
to hide in Arab world, notably Syria
who provided the government-sanctioned houses to the Bhutto family.
tank demonstration in Bahawalpur, Zia had left the small town in the Punjab province by C-130 Hercules aircraft. Shortly after a smooth takeoff
, the control tower
lost contact with the aircraft. Witnesses who saw the plane in the air afterward claim it was flying erratically, then nosedived and exploded on impact. In addition to Zia, 31 others died in the plane crash, including Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Akhtar Abdur Rahman
, close associate of Zia, Brigadier Siddique Salik, the American Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Lewis Raphel
and General Herbert M. Wassom, the head of the U.S. Military aid mission to Pakistan. Ghulam Ishaq Khan
, the Senate Chairman announced Zia's death on radio and TV. The manner of his death has given rise to many conspiracy theories. There is speculation that America, India, the Soviet Union (as retaliation for US-Pakistani supported attacks in Afghanistan) or an alliance of them and internal groups within Zia's military were behind the attack.
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.
Maj Gen (retd) Mahmud Ali Durrani
, claimed later that reports of Israeli and Indian involvement in Ziaul Haq’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.
. Also in attendance was his successor President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who had earlier officially announced Zia's death in a nationwide address.
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Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
, Urdu:محمد ضياء الحق; August 12, 1924 — August 17, 1988), was the 4th Chief Martial Law Administrator
Chief Martial Law Administrator
The office of the Chief Martial Law Administrator was a senior government post created in countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia that gave considerable executive authority and powers to the holder of the post to enforce martial law in the country. This office has been used mostly by...
and the sixth President
President of Pakistan
The President of Pakistan is the head of state, as well as figurehead, of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Recently passed an XVIII Amendment , Pakistan has a parliamentary democratic system of government. According to the Constitution, the President is chosen by the Electoral College to serve a...
of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988. Distinguished by his role in the Black September in Jordan
Black September in Jordan
September 1970 is known as the Black September in Arab history and sometimes is referred to as the "era of regrettable events." It was a month when Hashemite King Hussein of Jordan moved to quash the militancy of Palestinian organizations and restore his monarchy's rule over the country. The...
military operation in 1970, he was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was 9th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977, and prior to that, 4th President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973. Bhutto was the founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party — the largest and most influential political party in Pakistan— and served as its chairman until his...
after Bhutto forcefully retired seven senior lieutenant-generals who where tainted with their role in the East-Pakistan
East Pakistan
East Pakistan was a provincial state of Pakistan established in 14 August 1947. The provincial state existed until its declaration of independence on 26 March 1971 as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan recognized the new nation on 16 December 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal...
war
Bangladesh Liberation War
The Bangladesh Liberation War was an armed conflict pitting East Pakistan and India against West Pakistan. The war resulted in the secession of East Pakistan, which became the independent nation of Bangladesh....
in order to bring and promote Zia to four star rank. After widespread civil disorder
Civil disorder
Civil disorder, also known as civil unrest or civil strife, is a broad term that is typically used by law enforcement to describe one or more forms of disturbance caused by a group of people. Civil disturbance is typically a symptom of, and a form of protest against, major socio-political problems;...
, he planned and overthrew ruling Prime Minister Bhutto in a bloodless coup d'état
Operation Fair Play
Operation Fairplay was the code-name for the coup d'etat conducted at midnight on July 4, 1977 by the Pakistan Army's 111th Infantry Brigade led by Chief of Army Staff General Zia-ul-Haq against the elected civilian government of then-Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.-1977 election:The coup was...
on July 5, 1977, code name Fair Play
Operation Fair Play
Operation Fairplay was the code-name for the coup d'etat conducted at midnight on July 4, 1977 by the Pakistan Army's 111th Infantry Brigade led by Chief of Army Staff General Zia-ul-Haq against the elected civilian government of then-Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.-1977 election:The coup was...
, and became the state's third military ruler to impose martial law. Zia's idea of religious conservatism
Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization
On December 2, 1978, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq delivered a nationwide address on the occasion of the first day of the Hijra calendar. He did this in order to usher in an Islamic system to Pakistan...
in Pakistan became the primary line of his military government
Military government
Military government can refer to conditions under either Military occupation, or Military dictatorship.-Military Government:Military government is the form of administration by which an occupying power exercises governmental authority over occupied territory.The Hague Conventions of 1907 specify...
. Throughout the 1980s, Zia managed to consolidate more and more power
Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan
The VIII Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, was short-time amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, which was passed by the Majlis-e-Shoora, in the absence of elected Parliament of Pakistan, in 1985. The VIII Amendment was drafted and later enforced by the joint Technocratic-Military...
in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups in Pakistan.
He initially ruled as Chief Martial Law Administrator
Chief Martial Law Administrator
The office of the Chief Martial Law Administrator was a senior government post created in countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia that gave considerable executive authority and powers to the holder of the post to enforce martial law in the country. This office has been used mostly by...
(CMLA), but later installed himself as the President of Pakistan in September 1978. As both President and CMLA, Zia forcefully crushed the secular-communist and socialist democratic struggle led by the eldest daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto was a democratic socialist who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996....
. Zia abandoned the previous economical policies
Socialist economics
Socialist economics are the economic theories and practices of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems.A socialist economy is based on public ownership or independent cooperative ownership of the means of production, wherein production is carried out to directly produce use-value,...
of Bhutto, and replaced them with capitalism and privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
of the major industries of Pakistan that had been nationalized by Bhutto in 1970s. The Pakistan economy became one the fastest growing economies in South Asia. However, during this period of economic and social change, Zia curbed and violently
Oppression under the regime of General Zia-ul-Haq
The Oppression under the Military Governmental regime of General Zia-ul-Haq, is a period in the Cold war context and the history of Pakistan in which the mass political and military repression occurred during the military regime of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq who gave the authorization of such...
dealt with the political rivals in 1980s. His reign is often regarded as a period of mass military repression in which hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists were executed or tortured, including Pakistan Army
Pakistan Army
The Pakistan Army is the branch of the Pakistani Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The Pakistan Army came into existence after the Partition of India and the resulting independence of Pakistan in 1947. It is currently headed by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The Pakistan...
's senior
Tajammul Hussain Malik
Major General Tajammul Hussain Malik is a senior and former 2-star rank general officer in the Pakistan army and the former General Officer Commanding of the 23rd Division of Pakistan Army, retiring with the rank of Major-General...
general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots against his regime.
Zia's major domestic initiatives included the consolidation of the nuclear development
Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction
Pakistan began focusing on nuclear weapons development in January 1972 under the leadership of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who delegated the program to the Chairman of PAEC Munir Ahmad Khan...
, which was initiated by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto; the restarting of the space program
Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission
The Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission , is an executive agency of the Government of Pakistan, responsible for nation's public and civil space program and aeronautics and aerospace research...
as spin-off of the nuclear project, denationalization and deregulation
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
and the state's Islamization
Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization
On December 2, 1978, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq delivered a nationwide address on the occasion of the first day of the Hijra calendar. He did this in order to usher in an Islamic system to Pakistan...
. His tenure saw the disbanding of the Baloch insurgency. His endorsement of the Pakistan Muslim League
Pakistan Muslim League
The Pakistan Muslim League was founded in 1962, as a successor to the previously disbanded Muslim League in Pakistan. Unlike the original PML which ended in 1958 when General Ayub Khan banned all political parties, each subsequent Muslim League was in some way propped by the military dictators of...
(the founding party of Pakistan) initiated its mainstream revival. However, he is most remembered for his foreign policy; the subsidizing of the Mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
movement during the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
which led to the Soviet-Russian
Soviet Russia
Soviet Russia usually refers to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union. It may also denote:* Soviet Russia , magazine of the Friends of Soviet Russia in the United States...
withdrawal
Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan
The Withdrawal of Soviet combatant forces from the Afghanistan began on May 15, 1988 and successfully executed on February 15, 1989 under the leadership of Colonel-General Boris Gromov who also was the last Soviet general officer to walk from the Asfghanistan back into Soviet territory through the...
from Afghanistan Socialist Republic. Zia entered into an undeclared
Proxy war
A proxy war or proxy warfare is a war that results when opposing powers use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directly. While powers have sometimes used governments as proxies, violent non-state actors, mercenaries, or other third parties are more often employed...
secret war
Proxy war
A proxy war or proxy warfare is a war that results when opposing powers use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directly. While powers have sometimes used governments as proxies, violent non-state actors, mercenaries, or other third parties are more often employed...
with Soviet Afghanistan and its ally Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Zia authorized secret funding and expansion of intelligence operations in Pakistan and abroad, initially focusing on anti-communist operations. He was described by some as a "fundamentalist
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...
Sunni
Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam. Sunni Muslims are referred to in Arabic as ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah wa āl-Ǧamāʿah or ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah for short; in English, they are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis or Sunnites....
dictator".
Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistan
United States Ambassador to Pakistan
The U.S. embassy in Karachi was established August 15, 1947 with Edward W. Holmes as Chargé d'Affaires ad interim, pending the appointment of an ambassador. The first ambassador, Paul H. Alling, was appointed on September 20, 1947. Anne W. Patterson was nominated as United States Ambassador to...
Arnold Lewis Raphel
Arnold Lewis Raphel
Arnold Lewis Raphel was the 18th U.S. ambassador in Pakistan. He was killed when a plane in which he was a passenger mysteriously crashed near Bhawalpur with then Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq and Brigadier General Herbert M. Wassom, chief of the U.S. military group in Pakistan on August 17,...
in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur
Bahawalpur
Bahawalpur , located in the province of Punjab, is the twelfth largest city in Pakistan. The city was once the capital of the former princely state of Bahawalpur. The city was home to various Nawabs and counted as part of the Rajputana states...
(Punjab) on 17 August 1988.
Early life
Zia was born in JalandharJalandhar
Jalandhar is a city in Jalandhar District in the state of Punjab, India. It is located 144 km northwest of the state capital, Chandigarh...
, British India, in 1924 as the second child of Muhammad Akbar, who worked in the Army GHQ in Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
and Simla pre-partition
Partition of India
The Partition of India was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India on 14 and 15...
.
He completed his initial education in Simla
Shimla
Shimla , formerly known as Simla, is the capital city of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summer capital of the British Raj in India. A popular tourist destination, Shimla is often referred to as the "Queen of Hills," a term coined by the British...
and then attended St. Stephen's College, Delhi
St. Stephen's College, Delhi
St. Stephen's College is a constituent college of the University of Delhi located in Delhi, India. The college admits both undergraduates and post-graduates, and awards degrees under the purview of the University. Famous for its rich history and many traditions, St...
for his graduate degree. After graduation from St. Xavier College, Zia joined the British Indian Army
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...
in 1943.
He married Shafiq Jahan in 1950–51.
Shafiq Zia died on January 5, 1996. Zia is survived by his sons, Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq
Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq
Ch Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq is a prominent Pakistani politician and a businessman who served as a Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Minorities under the Government of Prime minister Shaukat Aziz. A former Pakistan Army officer, Haq joined the Pakistan Army in 1971, as second lieutnenat, but...
, (born 1953), who went into politics and became a cabinet minister in the government of Nawaz Sharif
Nawaz Sharif
Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif is a Pakistani conservative politician and steel magnate who served as 12th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from November 1990 to July 1993, and from February 1997 to October 12, 1999...
, and Anwar-ul-Haq (born 1950) and his daughters, Zian (also Zain) (born 1972), a special needs child, and Rubina Salim, who is married to a Pakistani banker and has been living in the United States since 1980, and daughter Quratulain Zia who currently lives in London, and is married to Pakistani doctor, Adnan Majid.
Army career
Zia was commissioned in the British Indian ArmyBritish Indian Army
The British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...
in a cavalry regiment on May 12, 1943 and served against Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and its allies in World War II. After Pakistan gained its independence, Zia joined the newly formed Pakistan Army
Pakistan Army
The Pakistan Army is the branch of the Pakistani Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The Pakistan Army came into existence after the Partition of India and the resulting independence of Pakistan in 1947. It is currently headed by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The Pakistan...
as a Major. His regiment was now the Guides Cavalry Frontier Force Regiment
Frontier Force Regiment
For Pakistan's Border Guard see: Frontier CorpsThe Frontier Force Regiment is one of six Infantry regiments in the Pakistan Army. At present, the regiment consists of 67 battalions and has its regimental depot at Abbottabad in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. For that reason Abbottabad is also known as Home of...
. He was trained in the United States in 1962–1964 at the US Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth
Fort Leavenworth is a United States Army facility located in Leavenworth County, Kansas, immediately north of the city of Leavenworth in the upper northeast portion of the state. It is the oldest active United States Army post west of Washington, D.C. and has been in operation for over 180 years...
, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
. After that, he returned to take over as Directing Staff (DS) at Command and Staff College
Command and Staff College
The Command and Staff College was established in 1907 at Quetta, Balochistan, British Raj, now in Pakistan, and is the oldest and the most prestigious institution of the Pakistan Army. It was established in 1905 in Deolali and moved to its present location at Quetta in 1907 under the name of Quetta...
, Quetta
Quetta
is the largest city and the provincial capital of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan. Known as the "Fruit Garden of Pakistan" due to the diversity of its plant and animal wildlife, Quetta is home to the Hazarganji Chiltan National Park, which contains some of the rarest species of wildlife in the...
. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 was a culmination of skirmishes that took place between April 1965 and September 1965 between Pakistan and India. This conflict became known as the Second Kashmir War fought by India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir, the first having been fought in 1947...
, Zia was a tank commander.
Zia was stationed in Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
from 1967 to 1970 as a Brigadier
Brigadier
Brigadier is a senior military rank, the meaning of which is somewhat different in different military services. The brigadier rank is generally superior to the rank of colonel, and subordinate to major general....
, helping in the training of Jordanian soldiers, as well as leading the training mission into battle during the Black September operations as commander of Jordanian 2nd Division, a strategy that proved crucial to King Hussein
Hussein of Jordan
Hussein bin Talal was the third King of Jordan from the abdication of his father, King Talal, in 1952, until his death. Hussein's rule extended through the Cold War and four decades of Arab-Israeli conflict...
's remaining in power. By 1973, then Major General
Major General
Major general or major-general is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. A major general is a high-ranking officer, normally subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the ranks of brigadier and brigadier general...
Zia was commanding the 1st Armoured Division at Multan
Multan
Multan , is a city in the Punjab Province of Pakistan and capital of Multan District. It is located in the southern part of the province on the east bank of the Chenab River, more or less in the geographic centre of the country and about from Islamabad, from Lahore and from Karachi...
.
He was then promoted as Lieutenant General
Lieutenant General (Pakistan)
Pakistan Army has followed British Army rank system since its independence from British Empire in 1947. However, the crown in the ranks has been replaced with a star and crescent, which symbolizes the sovereignty of Government of Pakistan....
and was appointed commander of the II Strike Corps
II Corps (Pakistan)
The II Corps, known as II Strike Corps or Army Reserve South, is army corps of Pakistan Army stationed in Multan, Punjab Province of Pakistan. The II Strike Corps is one of Pakistan's four heavy armoured corps...
at Multan in 1975. It was during this time that Zia invited Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as the Colonel-in-Chief
Colonel-in-Chief
In the various Commonwealth armies, the Colonel-in-Chief of a regiment is its patron. This position is distinct from that of Colonel of the Regiment. They do not have an operational role. They are however kept informed of all important activities of the regiment, and pay occasional visits to its...
of the Armoured Corps at Multan, using his tailor to stitch the Blue Patrols of his size. The next day, Bhutto was requested to climb a tank and engage a target, where the target was quite obviously hit. After the function, Zia met Bhutto, placed his hand on the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
and said, "You are the saviour of Pakistan and we owe it to you to be totally loyal to you".
On March 1, 1976, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto approved then-3 star general Lieutenant-General Zia as Chief of Army Staff and to be elevated to 4 star rank. This promotion was ahead of a number of more senior officers. At the time of his nominating the successor to the outgoing Chief of Army Staff General Tikka Khan
Tikka Khan
General Tikka Khan, HJ, HQA, SPk, was a senior four-star general in the Pakistan Army who served as the first Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army from 3 March 1972 to 1 March 1976. Before his four-star assignment, Khan was a Martial Law Administrator of erstwhile East-Pakistan...
, the Lieutenant Generals in order of seniority were, Muhammad Shariff
Muhammad Shariff
General Muhammad Shariff was retired four-star general in the Pakistan Army who was the first Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee since its inception in 1976 till his retirement in 1978...
, Muhammed Akbar Khan
Muhammed Akbar Khan
General Muhammed Akbar Khan , OBE served as a British Indian recruit in the First World War and an officer in Second World War. Muhammed Akbar Khan was the first Muslim from the South Asia to become a General in British Army. At the time of independence of Pakistan, he was the most senior Muslim...
, Aftab Ahmed Khan, Azmat Baksh Awan, Agha Ibrahim Akram, Abdul Majeed Malik, Ghulam Jilani Khan, and Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. But, Bhutto chose the most junior, superseding seven more senior lieutenant-generals. However, the senior most at that time, Lieutenant-General Mohammad Shariff, though promoted to General, was made the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, a constitutional post akin to President Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry
Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry
Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry (Punjabi, ; (January 1, 1904 - June 2, 1982) was the fifth President of Pakistan from August 14, 1973 until his resignation on September 16, 1978.-Early life:...
. Zia never called Bhutto as "Mr. Prime Minister", but relied on the term Sir
Sir
Sir is an honorific used as a title , or as a courtesy title to address a man without using his given or family name in many English speaking cultures...
while referring to Bhutto.
Planning of Coup
Prime Minister Bhutto began facing considerable criticism and increasing unpopularity as his term progressed. Initially targeting leader of the opposition Khan Abdul Wali Khan and his opposition National Awami PartyNational Awami Party
The National Awami Party was a leftist political party in Pakistan. The party was founded in Dhaka in erstwhile East Pakistan in July 1957 through the merger of several leftist and progressive groups. It advocated provincial autonomy, rights on the basis of ethnicity, recognition of ethinicities...
(NAP). Despite the ideological similarity of the two parties, the clash of egos both inside and outside the National Assembly
National Assembly of Pakistan
The National Assembly of Pakistan is the lower house of the bicameral Majlis-e-Shura, which also compromises the President of Pakistan and Senate . The National Assembly and the Senate both convene at Parliament House in Islamabad...
became increasingly fierce, starting with the Federal governments decision to oust the NAP provincial government in Balochistan 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's, Hayat Sherpao, in a bomb blast in the frontier town of Peshawar
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....
.
Civil disorders against Bhutto
Dissidence also increased within the Pakistan Peoples PartyPakistan Peoples Party
The Pakistan Peoples Party , is a democratic socialist political party in Pakistan affiliated with Socialist International. Pakistan People's Party is the largest political party of Pakistan...
(PPP), and the murder of a leading dissident Ahmed Raza Kasuri's father led to public outrage and intra-party hostility as Bhutto was accused of masterminding the crime. Powerful PPP leaders such as Ghulam Mustafa Khar openly condemned Bhutto and called for protests against his regime. The political crisis in the NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and Balochistan intensified as civil liberties remained suspended, and an estimated 100,000 troops deployed there were accused of abusing human rights and killing large numbers of civilians.
1977 Parliamentary elections
On January 8, 1977 a large number of opposition political parties grouped to form the Pakistan National AlliancePakistan National Alliance
The Pakistan National Alliance was a nine-party alliance in Pakistan, formed in 1977 in which the alliance agreed to run as a single bloc to overthrow the rule of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the first elected leader of that country. It was a major and largest alliance formed against...
(PNA). Bhutto called fresh elections
Pakistani general election, 1977
General elections were held in Pakistan on 7 March 1977. The result was a victory for the Pakistan People's Party, which won 155 of the 200 elected seats, including 19 that were uncontested as the Pakistan National Alliance boycotted the Balochistan elections due to ongoing military...
, and PNA participated fully in those elections. They managed to contest the elections jointly even though there were grave splits on opinions and views within the party. The PNA faced defeat but did not accept the results, alleging that the election was rigged. They proceeded to boycott the provincial elections. Despite this, there was a high voter turnout in the national elections; however, as provincial elections were held amidst low voter turnout and an opposition boycott, the PNA declared the newly-elected Bhutto government as illegitimate.
Staged a Coup d'état
All the opposition leaders called for the overthrow of Bhutto's regime. Political and civil disorder intensified, which led to more unrest. Bhutto imposed martial lawMartial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
in major cities including Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
, Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
and Hyderabad
Hyderabad, Sindh
is the second largest city in the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is the seventh largest city in the country. The city was founded in 1768 by Mian Ghulam Shah Kalhoro upon the ruins of a Mauryan fishing village along the bank of the Indus known as Neroon Kot...
. However, a compromise agreement between Bhutto and opposition was ultimately reported. This compromise theory was however probably a later day addition as a major PPP armed rally was in the offing. Zia planned a the Coup d'état carefully as he knew Bhutto had integral intelligence in the Pakistan Armed Forces, and many officers, including Chief of Air Staff
Chief of Air Staff (Pakistan)
The Chief of the Air Staff of the Pakistan Air Force, abbreviated as CAS, is typically the highest ranking 4-star rank officer in the Pakistan Air Force, unless a four-star officer is appointed as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. The CAS is a senior and permanent member of the...
General Zulfiqar Ali Khan
Zulfiqar Ali Khan
Air Chief Marshal Zulfiqar Ali Khan , NI was a four-star rank general and air officer in the Pakistan Air Force who served as a 9th Chief of Air Staff of Pakistan Air Force from April 1974 to July 1978...
and Major-General Tajammul Hussain Malik
Tajammul Hussain Malik
Major General Tajammul Hussain Malik is a senior and former 2-star rank general officer in the Pakistan army and the former General Officer Commanding of the 23rd Division of Pakistan Army, retiring with the rank of Major-General...
, GOC
General Officer Commanding
General Officer Commanding is the usual title given in the armies of Commonwealth nations to a general officer who holds a command appointment. Thus, a general might be the GOC II Corps or GOC 7th Armoured Division...
of 23rd Mountain Division, Major-General Naseerullah Babar
Naseerullah Babar
Major-General Naseerullah Khan Babar , SJ, HJ, was a retired 2-star rank general officer in the Pakistan Army, and later career military officer-turned statesman from the leftist democratic soclialist, the Pakistan Peoples Party...
, DG
Director-general
The term director-general is a title given the highest executive officer within a governmental, statutory, NGO, third sector or not-for-profit institution.-European Union:...
of Directorate-General for the Military Intelligence
Military Intelligence of Pakistan
In Pakistan Defence Forces, the Directorate-General for the Military Intelligence , is a Pakistan Defence Forces intelligence agency and that is responsible for the military counter-intelligence. It also refers specifically to the intelligence components of the Pakistan Armed Forces. Unlike the...
(DGMO) and Vice-Admiral Syed Mohammad Ahsan, were loyal to Bhutto.
To remove this intelligence, Zia secretly contracted with the active duty British SAS army officers to maintain a staff course for the Army personnel while Chief of Naval Staff
Chief of Naval Staff (Pakistan)
The Chief of the Naval Staff, abbreviated as CNS, is the highest ranking officer in the Pakistani Navy unless a 4-star naval officer is appointed as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. The current Chief of the Naval Staff is Admiral Asif Sandila who commands the Navy. The CNS reports...
Admiral Mohammad Shariff
Mohammad Shariff
Admiral Mohammad Shariff, , , is a retired four-star naval officer and a career war veteran. Admiral Mohammad Shariff took over the command of Pakistan Navy on 21 March, 1979, when a three-star vice-admiral, Hasan Hafeez Ahmed, died in office...
quietly removed naval personnel loyal to Bhutto and his government from the Navy's active duty. Zia ordered Bhutto's loyal officers to attend a staff and command course and none of the officers were allowed to leave the course until the midnight. Meanwhile, Zia with his close officers, including Admiral Mohammad Shariff, then-Chaiman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, arranged the coup in the evening. On July 5, 1977, before the announcement of any agreement, Bhutto and members of his cabinet were arrested by troops of Military Police under the order of Zia by the evening.
CIA Role
Many political analysts and scientists widely suspected that the riots and coup against Bhutto was orchestrated with help of Central Intelligence AgencyCentral Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
and the United States Government because United States was afraid of Bhutto's socialist policies which were seen as sympathetic to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and had built a bridge that allowed Soviet Union to involved in Pakistan. A former U.S. attorney general and Human rights activist, Ramsey Clark, quoted that:
"I [Ramsey Clark] do not believe in conspiracy theories in general, but the similarities in the staging of riots in Chile (where the CIA allegedly helped overthrow PresidentPresident of ChileThe President of the Republic of Chile is both the head of state and the head of government of the Republic of Chile. The President is responsible of the government and state administration...
Salvadore AllandeSalvador AllendeSalvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
) and in Pakistan are just too close, Bhutto was removed from power in Pakistan by force on July 5, after the usual party on the 4th at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, with U.S. approval, if not more, by General Zia-ul-Haq. Bhutto was falsely accused and brutalized for months during proceedings that corrupted the Judiciary of PakistanSupreme Court of PakistanThe Supreme Court is the apex court in Pakistan's judicial hierarchy, the final arbiter of legal and constitutional disputes. The Supreme Court has a permanent seat in Islamabad. It has number of Branch Registries where cases are heard. It has a number of de jure powers which are outlined in the...
before being murdered, then hanged. As Americans, we must ask ourselves this: Is it possible that a rational military leader under the circumstances in Pakistan could have overthrown a constitutional government, without at least the tacit approval of the United States?".
Postponement of elections and call for accountability
After assuming power as Chief Martial Law Administrator, Zia promised to hold National and Provincial Assembly elections in the next 90 days and to hand over power to the representatives of the nation. He also stated that the Constitution of PakistanConstitution of Pakistan
The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the supreme law of Pakistan. Known as the Constitution of 1973, it was drafted by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and, following additions by the opposition parties, was approved by the legislative assembly on April 10, 1973...
had not been abrogated, but temporarily suspended. However, in October 1977, he announced the postponement of the electoral plan and decided to start an accountability process for the politicians. Zia said that he changed his decision due to the strong public demand for the scrutiny of political leaders who had engaged in malpractice in the past but there is no evidence to this claim. Thus the "retribution
Retributive justice
Retributive justice is a theory of justice that considers that punishment, if proportionate, is a morally acceptable response to crime, with an eye to the satisfaction and psychological benefits it can bestow to the aggrieved party, its intimates and society....
first, elections later" PNA policy was adopted. This severely tainted his credibility as many saw the broken promise as malacious.. It is widely believed that once out of power the size of PPP rallies swell and a better performance in elections was possible. This led to request for postponement of elections by the right wing which displaced Bhutto in the first place.
A Disqualification Tribunal was formed, and several individuals who had been Members of Parliament were charged with malpractice
Malpractice
In law, malpractice is a type of negligence in, which the professional under a duty to act, fails to follow generally accepted professional standards, and that breach of duty is the proximate cause of injury to a plaintiff who suffers harm...
and disqualified from participating in politics at any level for the next seven years. A white paper
White paper
A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to...
document was issued, incriminating the deposed Bhutto government on several counts.
It is reported by senior officers that when Gen. Zia met federal secretaries for the first time as leader of the country after martial law, he said that "He does not possess the Charisma of Bhutto, personality of Gen. Ayub or the legitimacy of Liaquat Ali Khan" thereby implying how can he be marketed.
The Doctrine of Necessity
Nusrat BhuttoNusrat Bhutto
Begum Nusrat Bhutto was an Iranian-Pakistani who was the wife of the 9th Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, serving as the First Lady of Pakistan during his premiership from 1971 until Bhutto's removal in 1977. She became her husband's successor as the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples...
, the wife of the deposed Prime Minister, filed a suit against Zia's military regime
Military dictatorship
A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....
, challenging the validity of the July 1977 military coup. The Supreme Court of Pakistan
Supreme Court of Pakistan
The Supreme Court is the apex court in Pakistan's judicial hierarchy, the final arbiter of legal and constitutional disputes. The Supreme Court has a permanent seat in Islamabad. It has number of Branch Registries where cases are heard. It has a number of de jure powers which are outlined in the...
ruled, in what would later be known as the Doctrine of Necessity (not to be confused with the 1954 Doctrine of necessity
Doctrine of necessity
The term Doctrine of Necessity is a term used to describe the basis on which extra-legal actions by state actors, which are designed to restore order, are found to be constitutional...
) that, given the dangerously unstable political situation of the time, Zia's overthrowing of the Bhutto government was legal on the grounds of necessity
Necessity
In U.S. criminal law, necessity may be either a possible justification or an exculpation for breaking the law. Defendants seeking to rely on this defense argue that they should not be held liable for their actions as a crime because their conduct was necessary to prevent some greater harm and when...
. 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.
Assumption of the post of President of Pakistan
Despite the dismissal of most of the Bhutto government, President Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry was persuaded to continue in office as a figureheadFigurehead
A figurehead is a carved wooden decoration found at the prow of ships largely made between the 16th and 19th century.-History:Although earlier ships had often had some form of bow ornamentation A figurehead is a carved wooden decoration found at the prow of ships largely made between the 16th and...
. 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 September 16, 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.
Soon the martial law was imposed, Zia called for a meeting of senior statesmen and officers of Pakistan Armed Forces. On his first day of meeting which was called at an early morning, statesmen and officers were shocked when looking at him and described Zia as lacked of intelligence, and had possessed no "personality charisma
Charismatic authority
The sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority as "resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him." Charismatic authority is one of three forms of authority laid out...
" as compared to Bhutto and had "no intellectual property
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
" that would gravitate people towards him like Bhutto, who would attract people's attention by his intellectual, physical appearance, and Bhutto's Westernized dressing. Unlike Bhutto who would appeared in decent Westernized clothing and always had joy in his face while meeting the journalists, state officials and members of society; General Zia would appeared in a well ironed military uniform which he wore on a regular basis, military badges that was conferred to him during his long service, and a strict face posture while giving interviews. General Zia rarely smiled and, often seeing saluting at the people while attending the public or political functions. Comparing Bhutto to Zia, Bhutto always chaired meetings with good mood, no matter how serious the situation was, and often seen cared about family matters of others, while serious decision would also be made. With Zia, meetings were often short but intense and decisions would he made in matter of minutes, although Zia was a good listener. Nonetheless, Zia's image was perfected as "tyrant, cold person" and was best suited as an "ideal military dictator", often perpetrated in Western movies. Roedad Khan's book "Pakistan- A Dream Went Sour", Roedad Khan, who served as Secretary-General for the Internal Security summed up that:
The trial of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
In the words of Aftab Kazie and Roedad KhanRoedad Khan
Roedad Khan was Pakistani statesman from the start to the end of the Cold war. During his long career, Khan was one of the most senior civil servants of Pakistan. In 1923, Khan was born in Mardan, North-West Frontier Province, British Indian Empire, to a ethnic working class Pashtun family that...
, Zia hated Bhutto and had used inappropriate language and insults to describe Bhutto and his colleagues. On April 4, 1979, the former elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged, after the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
as passed by the Lahore High Court
Lahore High Court
The Lahore High Court is based in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. It was established as a high court on March 21, 1919. The Lahore High Court has jurisdiction over Punjab...
. The Supreme Court ruled four to three in favor 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
Pardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
appeals from foreign leaders requesting Zia to commute
Commutation of sentence
Commutation of sentence involves the reduction of legal penalties, especially in terms of imprisonment. Unlike a pardon, a commutation does not nullify the conviction and is often conditional. Clemency is a similar term, meaning the lessening of the penalty of the crime without forgiving the crime...
Bhutto's death sentence, Zia dismissed the appeals and upheld the death sentence. The hanging of an elected prime minister by a military man was condemned by the international community and by lawyers and jurists across Pakistan.
Bhutto's last personal appearance and utterances in the supreme court were not merely 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 made some remark which indicated that he has views similar to a Sunni, though he was Shia albeit a non-practicing one. He also effectively cast doubt on the reliability of star witnesses against him i.e. Masood Mahmood who was a UK-trained lawyer and not merely a police officer and FSF chief. He mentioned repeatedly Lahori 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, not some thing in between, and appreciated Khar and his lawyer Yahya Bakhtiar.
Bhutto's another lawyer Abdul Hafiz Pirzada
Abdul Hafiz Pirzada
Abdul Hafiz Pirzada, Senior Advocate Supreme Court, is one of the premier lawyers of Pakistan. Pirzada, a lawmaker and legal expert, is one of the founding members of Pakistan Peoples Party , a democratic socialist party, and a close associate and aide of former Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto...
filed a petition for the release of Bhutto's colleague Mubashir Hassan
Mubashir Hassan
Mubashir Hassan PhD, is a Pakistani civil engineer and science administrator known for his work in Hydraulics and his political role in the development of the atom bomb project....
and Bhutto itself. The Supreme Court concluded that Bhutto's execution can be revered by the President, and Hassan's case is being deal by Military Justice Court led by Zia; therefore, the civilian courts have no jurisdiction over that hearing. Pirzada submitted the request to Chief of Army Staff Directorate, but Zia claimed that the request application had been gone missing. Therefore, Zia upheld the sentence and Bhutto was executed. Shattered and disturbed Pirzada departed to United Kingdom and did not returned to Pakistan until the democracy was returned in 1988. It was not until 2000, when the Pakistan media
Media of Pakistan
Media in Pakistan provides information on television, radio, cinema, newspapers, and magazines in Pakistan.-Regulation:The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority was formed in 2002 to "facilitate and promote a free, fair and independent electronic media", including opening the broadcasting...
published its report that the application was found in the record section (Directorate-General for the Military History) at the Generals Combatant Headquarter (GHQ). The application was made public domain when General Pervez Musharraf declassified much of the 1970s secret documentations.
Appointment of Martial Law Governors
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 Fazhle HaqueFazle Haq
Lieutenant General Fazle Haq was a 3-star rank general in the Pakistan Army, and former Martial Law Administrator of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. He was the "Corps-Commander" of the XI Corps, and commanded all the Pakistan Army assets assigned in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province...
was appointed Martial Law Administrator of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. Lieutenant-General Fazle Haque was considered a strong vocal General and a strong man. General Haque was the commander of the XI Corps
XI Corps (Pakistan)
The XI Corps is an active administrative corp of Pakistan Army. The XI Corps is the only one corps that is assigned in the North-West Frontier Province . It is currently stationed in Peshawar, Khyber-Pakhtaunkhuwa. The Corps was established and quickly raised in 1975 to support administrative...
, and commanding-general officer of the Army elements responsible for fighting a secret war against Soviet Union.
The second appointment was of Lieutenant-General S.M. Abbasi who was appointed Martial Law Administrator
Governor of Sindh
The Governor of Sindh is the appointed Head of State of the provincial government in Sindh, Pakistan. The governor is designated by the Prime Minister and is normally regarded a ceremonial post...
of Sindh Province; his tenure too saw civil disorder amid student riots.By contrast, third martial law administrator appointment of Lieutenant-General Ghulam Jilani Khan to the Punjab Province made much headway in beautifying Lahore extending infrastructure, and muting political opposition. The ascent of Navaz Sharif to Chief Minister of Punjab was largely due to General Jilani's sponsorship. Perhaps most crucially, final and fourth martial law administrator appointment was then-Lieutenant-General Rahimuddin Khan
Rahimuddin Khan
Rahimuddin Khan Afridi is a retired four-star general of the Pakistan Army who was the fourth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee from 1984 to 1987. He was also the longest-serving Governor and martial law administrator of Balochistan, from 1978 to when he resigned in 1984...
. Lieutenant-General Rahimuddin Khan was appointed to the post of Martial Law Administrator
Martial Law Administrator of Balochistan
The Martial Law Administrator of Balochistan was the head of the military regime of Balochistan, the largest province of Pakistan. The capacity was first established when martial law was imposed by General Yahya Khan, who appointed Riaz Hussain to the post, but was never officially ratified. It...
of Balochistan Province saw the disbanding of the Baloch insurgency
Balochistan conflict
The Balochistan conflict is an ongoing conflict between Baloch nationalists and the Government of Pakistan over Balochistan, the country's largest province...
, the containment of Afghan Mujahideen, as well as the construction of nuclear test sites in the Chagai District
Chagai District
Chaghi/Chagai is the largest district of Pakistan and is located on the north west corner of Balochistan, Pakistan. It forms a triangular border with Afghanistan and Iran.Pakistan conducted a nuclear weapons test in 1998 at Ras Koh Hills Chagai District....
.
Zia's tenure saw the influx of heroin, sophisticated weaponry, and countless refugees in from neighbouring Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
. Law and order deterioration was worse after he appointed Mr. Junejo as Prime minister in 1985.
Formation of Majlis-e-Shoora
In the absence of a parliament, Zia decided to set up an alternative system, Majlis-e-Shoora, in 1980. Most of the members of the Shoora were intellectualIntellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s, scholars
Scholarly method
Scholarly method or scholarship is the body of principles and practices used by scholars to make their claims about the world as valid and trustworthy as possible, and to make them known to the scholarly public.-Methods:...
, ulema
Ulama
-In Islam:* Ulema, also transliterated "ulama", a community of legal scholars of Islam and its laws . See:**Nahdlatul Ulama **Darul-uloom Nadwatul Ulama **Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal**Jamiat ul-Ulama -Other:...
, journalists, economists, and professionals in different fields. The Shoora was to act as a board of advisors to the President. All 284 members of the Shoora were to be nominated by the President, also known as a technocracy or government of technocrats.
Amongst technocrats included in Zia's cabinet was Dr. Asad who increased the oil production of the country manyfold. Many members of this Shoora later joined other parties after his death.
Referendum of 1984
Zia eventually decided to hold elections in the country. But before handing over the power to the public representatives, he decided to secure his position as the head of state. A referendumReferendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
was held on December 19, 1984 and the option was to elect or reject the General as the future President. The question asked in the referendum was whether the people of Pakistan wanted Islamic Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
law enforced in the country. According to the official result, more than 95% of the votes were cast in favour of Zia, thus he was elected as President for the next five years. However, they were marred by allegations of widespread irregularities and technical violations of the laws and ethics of democratic elections. Also, despite pressure from the government to vote, only 10% of those eligible to vote did so. Zia had the overwhelming majority of the votes cast, but in reality the referendum was an embarrassing failure.
The Eighth Amendment and elections of 1985
After being elected President, Zia decided to hold elections in the country in February 1985Pakistani general election, 1985
General elections were held in Pakistan on 28 February 1985. Around 1,300 candidates contested the election, which was held on a non-party basis. Voter turnout was 52.93%.-Results:...
on a non-party basis. Most of the opposing political parties decided to boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
the elections but election results showed that many victors belonged to one party or the other. To make things easier for himself, the General nominated the Prime Minister from amongst the Members of the Assembly. To many, his nomination of Muhammad Khan Junejo
Muhammad Khan Junejo
Muhammad Khan Junejo was the tenth Prime Minister of Pakistan.-Early life:He was born at Sindhri in Tharparkar of Sindh. He belongs to Sindhi Muslim Rajput family of Junejo clan. Junejo started his political career at the age of twenty one...
as the Prime Minister was because he wanted a simple person at the post who would act as a puppet in his hands.Before handing over the power to the new Government and lifting 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
Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan
The VIII Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, was short-time amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, which was passed by the Majlis-e-Shoora, in the absence of elected Parliament of Pakistan, in 1985. The VIII Amendment was drafted and later enforced by the joint Technocratic-Military...
, which granted "reserve power
Reserve power
In a parliamentary or semi-presidential system of government, a reserve power is a power that may be exercised by the head of state without the approval of another branch of the government. Unlike a presidential system of government, the head of state is generally constrained by the cabinet or the...
s" to the president to dissolve the National Assembly. 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 Assembly only if the Cabinet 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.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
On December 25, 1979, the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
(USSR) intervened Soviet 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 neighboring 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, Director-General
Director-general
The term director-general is a title given the highest executive officer within a governmental, statutory, NGO, third sector or not-for-profit institution.-European Union:...
of the ISI then-Lieutenant-General Akhtar Abdur Rahman advocated for the idea of covert operation in Afghanistan by arming the Islamic extremist. During this meeting, General Rahman was heard saying: "Kabul must burn! Kabul must burn!", and mastered the idea of proxy war
Pakistan and state terrorism
Pakistan has been accused by neighbours India, Afghanistan, Iran and western nations like the United States, and the United Kingdom of its involvement in terrorist activities in India as well as Afghanistan . Pakistan's tribal region is Branded as a "Haven for Terrorism", it is considered among...
in Afghanistan. After this meeting, Zia authorized this operation under General Rahman, and it was later merged with Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency program to arm, train, and finance the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979 to 1989...
, a programme funded by the United States and the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
.
In November 1982, General Zia traveled to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to attend the funeral
Death and funeral of Leonid Brezhnev
On 10 November 1982, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, the third General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the fifth leader of the Soviet Union, died a 75 year-old man after suffering a heart attack following years of serious ailments. His death was officially acknowledged on 11...
of Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
, then-General Secretary
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the title given to the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With some exceptions, the office was synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union...
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
. Soviet President Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1987. In the West he was given the...
and the new Secretary-General Yuri Andropov
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.-Early life:...
met with Zia where a brief meeting took place at the Kremlin
Kremlin
A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
. The Soviet Union and the new Secretary General Yuri Andropov were angry at Pakistan's covert involvement in the support of Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union and her satellite state, Soviet Afghanistan, and expressed his indignation to the General. Then General Zia took his hand and told him that, "Mr. Secretary General... Believe me, Pakistan wants nothing but good and healthy relations with the Soviet Union". According to Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1987. In the West he was given the...
, Zia's sincerity had caught off guards and in the meeting, everyone believed him but sadly found out that his words were not followed by his actions.
While there, Indira Gandhi compared the personality of Zia to Bhutto's while she summed up that Bhutto was intelligent, caring, and global experience that would reflect in his face. But with Zia, the tyranny could easily been seen on his face.
Economic reform
Under Zia, the previous ruler Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's nationalisation policies were slowly reversed, and gradual privatisation took place. Zia greatly favoured egalitarianism and industrialisation. Between 1977 and 1986, the country experienced an average annual growth in the GNP of 6.8%, one of the highest in the world at that time.Consolidation of nuclear programme
One of the earliest initiative took by General Zia in 1977, was to militarized 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 ScienceMinistry of Science and Technology (Pakistan)
The Ministry of Science and Technology , is a Cabinet-level ministry of government of Pakistan concerned with science and technology in Pakistan and in general, Pakistan's science policies, planning, coordination and directing of efforts to initiate and launch scientific and technological programs...
, under Science Advisor Dr. Mubashir Hassan
Mubashir Hassan
Mubashir Hassan PhD, is a Pakistani civil engineer and science administrator known for his work in Hydraulics and his political role in the development of the atom bomb project....
, was heading the civilian committee that supervised the construction of the facilities and laboratories. Major-General Zahid Ali Akbar, engineering officer, had little role in the atomic project; General Zia responded by taking over the programme under the military control and disbanded the civilian directorate when he ordered the arrest of dr. Mubashir Hassan. This whole giant nuclear energy project was transferred into the hands of Major-General Akbar who was soon made the Lieutenant-General and Engineer-in-Chief
Engineer-in-Chief (Pakistan Army)
Engineer-in-Chief or E-in-C, is a Colonel Commandant of the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers, Frontier Works Organisation and the Military Engineering Services of Pakistan...
of Corps of Engineers. General 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
Munir Ahmad Khan
Munir Ahmad Khan , HI, was a Pakistani nuclear engineer and a scientist who served as the Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission from 1972 to 1991...
and Abdul Qadeer Khan
Abdul Qadeer Khan
Abdul Qadeer Khan , also known in Pakistan as Mohsin-e-Pakistan , D.Eng, Sc.D, HI, NI , FPAS; more widely known as Dr. A. Q...
in matters of five years.
By the time, Zia assumed the control, research facilities fully became functional and the 90% of the work on atom bomb project was completed Both the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission
The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, , is an administrative governmental and autonomous science and technology governmental department of Pakistan, responsible for development of nuclear energy and development of nuclear power sector in Pakistan...
(PAEC) and the Khan Research Laboratories
Khan Research Laboratories
The Khan Research Laboratories ,, formerly known as Engineering Research Laboratories , is a multi-program Pakistan's weapons science and engineering research and development institute and nuclear research facility...
(KRL) had ingeniously built the extensive research infrastructure initiated by Bhutto. General Akbar's office was soon shifted at the Army Combatant Generals Headquarter (GHQ) and guided General Zia on key matters of nuclear science and the atomic bomb production, and was the first engineering officer to have acknowledge General Zia about the success of this energy project into the fully matured programme. 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 the international pressure.
This was proved when the PAEC conducted the cold-fission test of a fission device, codename Kirana-I on March 11, 1983 at the Kirana Hills, under the leadership of weapon-testing laboratory's director dr. Ishfaq Ahmad
Ishfaq Ahmad
Ishfaq Ahmad , D.Sc., Minister of State, SI, HI, NI, FPAS, is a Pakistani nuclear physicist, and well-known educationist and academic from Pakistan...
. Lieutenant-General Zahid Akbar went to GHQ and notified General Zia about the success of the this test. The PAEC responded by conducting several cold-tests throughout the 1980s, a policy also continued by Benazir Bhutto in 1990s.
Nuclear diplomacy
Unlike Bhutto who faced rogue criticism and faced a heated diplomatic war with the United States throughout the 1970s, General Zia took different diplomatic approaches to counter the international pressure. From 1979 to 1983, the country was made a subject of attack by international organization for not signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation TreatyNuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to...
(NPT); General Zia deftly neutralized international pressure by tagging Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme to the nuclear designs of neighboring Indian nuclear programme. General Zia, with the help of Munir Ahmad Khan and Agha Shahi
Agha Shahi
Agha Shahi NI was a Pakistani diplomat and Foreign Minister of Pakistan from 1977 to 1982, during the regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. He served as the President of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad till his death.-Diplomatic career:Shahi gained M.Sc...
, Foreign Minister
Foreign Minister of Pakistan
The Foreign Minister of Pakistan heads the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The current Foreign Minister is Hina Rabbani Khar who took office as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs on 11 February 2011, and as full Minister of Foreign Affairs on 20 July, 2011...
, 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.
Following the success of Operation Opera
Operation Opera
Operation Babylon was a surprise Israeli air strike carried out on June 7, 1981, that destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction 17 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, Iraq....
— an Israeli Air Force
Israeli Air Force
The Israeli Air Force is the air force of the State of Israel and the aerial arm of the Israel Defense Forces. It was founded on May 28, 1948, shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence...
strike to sabotage the Iraqi nuclear programme
Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
During the regime of Saddam Hussein, the nation of Iraq used, possessed, and made efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction . Hussein was internationally known for his use of chemical weapons in the 1980s against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during and after the Iran–Iraq War...
in 1981— amid suspicion grew in Pakistan that Indian Air Force
Indian Air Force
The Indian Air Force is the air arm of the Indian armed forces. Its primary responsibility is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during a conflict...
had similar plans for Pakistan. In private meeting with General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
Anvär Schamiem, then-Chief of Air Staff
Chief of Air Staff (Pakistan)
The Chief of the Air Staff of the Pakistan Air Force, abbreviated as CAS, is typically the highest ranking 4-star rank officer in the Pakistan Air Force, unless a four-star officer is appointed as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. The CAS is a senior and permanent member of the...
, General Zia had notified General Schamiem that Indian Air Force had plans to infiltrate in Pakistan's nuclear energy project, citing the solid evidences. Due to weak Air Force, General Shamim felt that the air force was unable to divert such attacks, therefore, General Shamim advised General Zia to use diplomacy through Munir Ahmad Khan to divert the attacks. At Vienna, Munir Ahmad Khan met with Raja Ramanna
Raja Ramanna
Raja Ramanna , D.Phil., was an Indian nuclear scientist and a prominent physicist, is best known for his leadership directing the research integral for the development of Indian nuclear programme in its early stages. Having started and joined the nuclear programme in 1964, Ramanna worked under...
notified his counter-part that such attack would provoked a nuclear war between two countries. In meantime, General Shamim decided to start the program to acquire the advanced F-16 Falcons and A-5 Fanton
Nanchang Q-5
The Nanchang Q-5 , also known as the A-5 in its export versions, is a Chinese-built jet ground-attack aircraft based on the Soviet MiG-19. Its main role is close air support.-Design and development:...
jets for Pakistan Air Force
Pakistan Air Force
The Pakistan Air Force is the leading air arm of the Pakistan Armed Forces and is primarily tasked with the aerial defence of Pakistan with a secondary role of providing air support to the Pakistan Army and the Pakistan Navy. The PAF also has a tertiary role of providing strategic air transport...
. General Shamim launched the Operation Sentinel- a counter operation that thwarted the Israeli Air Force attempt to sabotage Pakistan's nuclear energy project— forced Indian Premier Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...
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 others facilities. In 1985, following the induction of F-16 Falcons and A-5 Fantons, General Shamim commissioned the Air Force Strategic Command
Air Force Strategic Command (Pakistan)
The Pakistan Air Force Strategic Forces Command, known as AF Strategic Command, is one of the three unified command of the Pakistan Strategic Forces Command...
to protect and battle the weapons of mass destruction.
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 to promotion of nuclear proliferation in anti-western states (such as North KoreaNorth Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
, Iran, and communist China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
) to aid in their own nuclear ambition, in order to divert the international attention which was difficult. In 1981, General Zia contracted with China when he sent the sensitive weapon-grade uranium to China and also built the centrifuge laboratory which increasingly enchanced the Chinese nuclear programme. This act encouraged dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan who allegedly tried to aidin Libyan nuclear program but because the ties were strained, Khan was warned of serious consequences. This policy was envisaged that this would deflect international pressure on these countries and Pakistan would be spared the international community's wrath.
After General Zia's death, his successor General Mirza Aslam Beg, as Chief of Army Staff, encouraged Khan and gave him a free hand to work with some like-minded nations like North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
, Iran and Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
who also wanted to pursue their nuclear ambitions for a variety of reasons. In 2004, dr. 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 the then Chief of Army Staff and President General Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...
. Zia's nuclear proliferation policy had deep impact on the world, especially anti-western states, most nominally North Korea and Iran. In 2000s, North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
soon would followed the same suit after it was targeted by international community for its on-going nuclear program. In 2000s, North Korea attempted to aid in Syrian
Syria and weapons of mass destruction
Syria has allegedly researched, manufactured, and possessed weapons of mass destruction.Western non-governmental organizations have stated they believe Syria has an active chemical weapons program...
and Iranian nuclear program in 1990s. The North Korean connection to Syrian nuclear program was exposed in 2007 by Israel in its successful strategic operation, Orchard
Operation Orchard
Operation Orchard was an Israeli airstrike on a nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria carried out just after midnight on September 6, 2007. The White House and Central Intelligence Agency later confirmed that American intelligence had also indicated the site was a nuclear facility...
, which resulted in sabotaging the Syrian nuclear program as well as death of 10 senior North-Korean scientists who were aiding to build the nuclear program.
Expansion
Even though General Zia had removed the Bhutto sentiment in the nuclear energy project, General Zia did not completely disband Bhutto's policy on nuclear weapons. After the retirement of General Akbar, General Zia transferred the control of the nuclear weapons program to Bhutto's close aide Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. Soon, General Zia promoted Khan as the technical director of the entire programme as well as returned to post of Science Adviser by appointing Munir Ahmad Khan as his adviser. With the support of handpicked civilian Prime minister Muhammad JuneijoMuhammad Khan Junejo
Muhammad Khan Junejo was the tenth Prime Minister of Pakistan.-Early life:He was born at Sindhri in Tharparkar of Sindh. He belongs to Sindhi Muslim Rajput family of Junejo clan. Junejo started his political career at the age of twenty one...
, General Zia sanctioned the launch of the 50MW heavy water plutonium production reactor, known as Khushab-I, at Khushab
Khushab
Khushab is a city of Khushab District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The city serves as the headquarters of Khushab Tehsil an administrative subdivision of the district....
in 1985. General Zia also took initiatives to launched the space projects as spin-off to nuclear project. Zia appointed nuclear engineer Salim Mehmud
Salim Mehmud
Dr. Salim Mehmud, also known as Salim Mehmood, is a Pakistani rocket scientist and a nuclear engineer. He is the former chaiman of Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission . He has served as chief scientist at the Defence Science and Technology Organization...
as the Administrator of the Space Research Commission
Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission
The Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission , is an executive agency of the Government of Pakistan, responsible for nation's public and civil space program and aeronautics and aerospace research...
. Zia also launched the work on country's first satellite, Badr-1, a military satellite. In 1987, General Zia launched the clandestine aerospace project, Integrated Missile Research Programme General Anwar Shamim in 1985 and later under Lieutenant-General Talat Masood
Talat Masood
Lieutenant General Talat Masood, , is a now-retired three-star general and a career army engineer officer in the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers. He is the former Colonel Commandant and the Engineer-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering...
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 relationsPakistan – United States relations
Pakistan – United States relations refers to the bilateral relationship between the Pakistan and the United States. The United States first established diplomatic relations with Pakistan on 20 October 1947. The relationship since then was based primarily on U.S. economic and military assistance to...
took a much more positive turn. U.S. President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
and his Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Roberts Vance was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980...
, cut off U.S. aid to Pakistan on the grounds that Pakistan had not made sufficient progress on the nuclear issue. Then, on December 25, 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 finding in 1980 that allowed less than $50 million a year to go to the Mujahideen. After Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
came to office, defeating Carter for the US Presidency in 1980, all this changed, due to President Reagan's new priorities and the unlikely and remarkably effective effort by Congressman Charles Wilson (D-TX), aided by Joanne Herring
Joanne Herring
Joanne Herring is a Houston socialite, political activist, businesswoman, and former talk show host.In the 1980s Herring played a role in helping U.S. Representative Charlie Wilson persuade the U.S. government to train and arm Mujahideen resistance fighters to fight in the Soviet war in...
, and CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
Afghan Desk Chief Gust Avrakotos
Gust Avrakotos
Gustav Lascaris "Gust" Avrakotos was an American case officer and Afghan Task Force Chief for the United States Central Intelligence Agency....
to increase the funding for Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency program to arm, train, and finance the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979 to 1989...
. Aid to the Afghan resistance, and to Pakistan, increased substantially, finally reaching $1 billion. The United States, faced with a rival superpower looking as if it were to create another Communist bloc, now engaged Zia to fight a US-aided war by proxy
Proxy war
A proxy war or proxy warfare is a war that results when opposing powers use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directly. While powers have sometimes used governments as proxies, violent non-state actors, mercenaries, or other third parties are more often employed...
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 IntelligenceInter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
and Special Service Group now became actively involved in the conflict, and in cooperation 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
Satellite state
A satellite state is a political term that refers to a country that is formally independent, but under heavy political and economic influence or control by another country...
, dubbing it "the evil empire
Evil empire
The phrase evil empire was applied to the Soviet Union especially by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who took an aggressive, hard-line stance that favored matching and exceeding the Soviet Union's strategic and global military capabilities, in calling for a rollback strategy that would, in his words,...
". 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
FIM-92 Stinger
The FIM-92 Stinger is a personal portable infrared homing surface-to-air missile , which can be adapted to fire from ground vehicles and helicopters , developed in the United States and entered into service in 1981. Used by the militaries of the U.S...
in 1986. From that moment on, the Mujahideen'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
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
, therefore, played a large part in the eventual withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1988.
The war legacy
The war left deep scars to the Pakistan's society with the menace of Kalashnikov (AK-47AK-47
The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...
assault rifle
Assault rifle
An assault rifle is a selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles are the standard infantry weapons in most modern armies...
) culture spreading all over the country. It is estimated that there are currently 20 million firearms in Pakistan, which has a population of about 175 million (as of July 2010) i.e., almost every ninth person has a firearm, most likely an automatic one. 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.
It was thought by some leading ISI officials then assisting Mujaheedin led war that converting raw opium to heroin is a technology which was not known to illiterate Afghans and was taught by CIA or some others with advanced technology as later was easy to smuggle and earn cash for resistance.
Two Afghan Mujahideen groups later morphed into Jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
ist outfits in the shape of Taliban and Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
in the early 1990s. The Pakistan and United States trained Arab and Afghan
Demography of Afghanistan
The population of Afghanistan is around 29,835,392 as of the year 2011, which is unclear if the refugees living outside the country are included or not. The nation is composed of a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society, reflecting its location astride historic trade and invasion routes between...
fighters later in 2001 initiated a Jihad against United States in 2001 and against Pakistan in 2004. The links of the spectacular and deadly events of September 11 were deeply rooted in the Soviet-Afghan war. Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
invested his inherited money into the Soviet-Afghan war to fight the 'infidel communist power' and was abetted by CIA, ISI, US and Pakistani military establishments for over 10 years. For its turn in Pakistan, the war in West Pakistan
War in North-West Pakistan
The War in North-West Pakistan is an armed conflict between the Pakistan Armed Forces and armed religious groups such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan , Lashkar-e-Islam, TSNM, Arab and Central Asian militants including Al-Qaeda, regional armed movements and elements of organized crime.The armed...
, hampered the Pakistan's economy
Economy of Pakistan
The economy of Pakistan is the 47th largest in the world in nominal terms and 27th largest in the world in terms of purchasing power parity . Pakistan has a semi-industrialized economy, which mainly encompasses textiles, chemicals, food processing, agriculture and other industries...
, dismantle the civil society, and as well as resulted 3,000 deaths for Pakistan's Armed Forces. General Zia's morphed Jihadist furthered destabilized the country's strong branches, and country faced a wave of suicide bombing from the period 2007 to 2011, resulting in more than 30,000 civilian deaths in Pakistan.
'Islamisation' of Pakistan
On December 2, 1978, on the occasion of the first day of the HijraHijri year
The Hijri year is year numbering system used in the Islamic calendar. It commemorates the Hijra , or emigration of Muhammad and his followers to the city of Medina in 622 CE. In Arabic, AH is symbolized by the letter هـ...
to enforce the Islamic system in Pakistan in a nationwide address, Zia accused politicians of exploiting the name of Islam: "Many a ruler did what they pleased in the name of Islam." After assuming power, the government began a program of public commitment to enforce Nizam-e-Mustafa (Islamic System), a significant turn from Pakistan's predominantly Anglo-Saxon law
Anglo-Saxon law
Anglo-Saxon law is a body of written rules and customs that were in place during the Anglo-Saxon period in England, before the Norman conquest. This body of law, along with early Scandinavian law and continental Germanic law, descended from a family of ancient Germanic custom and legal thought...
, inherited from the British. As a preliminary measure to establish an Islamic society in Pakistan, Zia announced the establishment of Sharia Benches. To many secular and communist forces, Zia cynically manipulated Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
for the survival of his own regime. In 1983, Nusrat Bhutto reasoned General Zia's policies as she puts it:
Islamic Ordinances
The hybridization of Pakistan penal code with Islamic laws was not an easy work. Two very different logics lay underneath both. PPC was kingly law, Haddood is a religious and community-based law. Under the Offenses Against Property (Hudood OrdinanceHudood Ordinance
The Hudood Ordinance was a law in Pakistan that was enacted in 1979 as part of then-military ruler Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization and replaced or revised in 2006 by the Women's Protection Bill....
) Ordinance 1979, the punishment of imprisonment or fine, or both, as provided in the existing Pakistan Penal Code
Pakistan penal code
The Pakistan Penal Code usually called PPC is a penal code for all offences charged in Pakistan. It was originally prepared by Lord Macaulay with a great consultation in 1860 on the behalf of the Government of British India as the Indian Penal Code...
(PPC) for theft, was substituted by the amputation of the right hand of the offender from the joint of the wrist by a surgeon. For robbery, the right hand of the offender from the wrist and his left foot from the ankle should be amputated by a surgeon. Hudood
Hudud
Hudud is the word often used in Islamic literature for the bounds of acceptable behaviour and the punishments for serious crimes...
is the word often used in Islamic social and legal literature for the bounds of acceptable behaviour. Although the punishments were imposed, the due process, witnesses and prosecution system remained un-Islamic Anglo-Saxon. As in Islamic law Hudud can only be given if four witnesses saw the crime happen, in reality hardly anyone can be punished by Islamic Hud laws as very rarely can the conditions for punishment be met.
Under the Zina
Zina (Arabic)
Zinā or Zināʾ is generally defined by Islamic Law as unlawful sexual intercourse, i.e. intercourse between a man and a woman who are not married to one another or in a state of lawful concubinage based on ownership...
Ordinance, the provisions relating to adultery were replaced so that the women and the man guilty will be flogged, each of them, with one hundred lashes, if unmarried. And if they are married they shall be stoned to death
Stoning
Stoning, or lapidation, is a form of capital punishment whereby a group throws stones at a person until the person dies. No individual among the group can be identified as the one who kills the subject, yet everyone involved plainly bears some degree of moral culpability. This is in contrast to the...
provided the proof required for hadd is met. That is four Muslim adult male witnesses of good repute to the act of penetration or a voluntary confession in a competent court of law. The Zina Ordinance is fraught with legal ambiguities and the major flaw in this law is the fact that no distinction is made between adultery and rape. Rape is considered no more heinous a crime than zina. The demarcation line between the two offences is so thin in practice, that when a woman comes into the court with a case of rape, she risks being convicted of zina herself, if she cannot prove the rape. The onus of providing proof in a rape case rests with the woman herself. If she is unable to prove her allegation, bringing the case to court is considered equivalent to a confession of sexual intercourse without lawful marriage. Thus this ordinance has been criticized by human rights and women's rights activists, lawyers and politicians over the years, but so far no attempt at repeal has been successful.
Sharia laws
In legal terms, (Islamic law being usually referred to as Sharia) the term is used to describe laws that define a certain level of crime classification. Crimes classified under Hudud were the most severe of crimes, such as murder, theft, and adultery. There were minor differences in views between the four major Sunni madh'habs about sentencing and specifications for these laws. It is often argued that, since Sharia is God's law and states certain punishments for each crime, they were immutable. It has been argued by some that the Hudud portion of Sharia is incompatible with humanismHumanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
or human rights. Although the Hud punishments were imposed, the Islamic law of evidence was not implemented and remained British in origin.
Drinking of wine (i.e. all alcoholic drinks
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
) was not a crime under the PPC. In 1977, however, the drinking and selling of wine by Muslims was banned in Pakistan and the sentence of imprisonment of six months or a fine of Rs.
Pakistani rupee
The rupee is the currency of Pakistan. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the State Bank of Pakistan, the central bank of the country. The most commonly used symbol for the rupee is Rs, used on receipts when purchasing goods and services. In Pakistan, the rupee is referred to as the...
5000/-, or both, was provided in that law. This ban on drinking was promulgated by Bhutto as he tried to soothen the tide of street Islamization drive called Nizam-e-Mustafa in his last days.
Penal Code
Pakistan's college of unreliable witnesses and unscientific manner of investigations and very young secular law judges meant that Haddood too did not work like the secular PPC law before it. The Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) were amended, through ordinances in 1980, 1982 and 1986 to declare anything implying disrespect to the Islamic prophetProphets of Islam
Muslims identify the Prophets of Islam as those humans chosen by God and given revelation to deliver to mankind. Muslims believe that every prophet was given a belief to worship God and their respective followers believed it as well...
Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, Ahl al-Bayt
Ahl al-Bayt
Ahl al-Bayt is an Arabic phrase literally meaning People of the House, or family of the House. The phrase "ahl al-bayt" was used in Arabia before the advent of Islam to refer to one's clan, and would be adopted by the ruling family of a tribe. Within the Islamic tradition, the term refers to the...
(family members of Muhammad), Sahabah
Sahabah
In Islam, the ' were the companions, disciples, scribes and family of the Islamic prophet...
(companions of Muhammad) and Sha'ar-i-Islam (Islamic symbols), a cognizable offence, punishable with imprisonment or fine, or with both.
Pseudoscience and Metaphysics
Zia attempted to Islamize science in Pakistan and appointed Muslim fundamentalist administrators to enforce the pseudo-science. At first, the policy was changed by Zia on nuclear development. Zia argued that Pakistan's atomic bomb is a property of Islamic Ummah, a theory that Bhutto had earlier avoided to keep the Pakistan sentiment strong and alive in scientists while developing the program. Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
was the sole financier of the program, and Zia unofficially told Saudis that "Our achievements are your achievements", and later helped building the Saudi nuclear programme
Nuclear program of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is not known to have a nuclear weapons program. From an official and public standpoint, Saudi Arabia has been an opponent of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and is a member of the coalition of countries demanding a...
. This prompted Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan
Abdul Qadeer Khan
Abdul Qadeer Khan , also known in Pakistan as Mohsin-e-Pakistan , D.Eng, Sc.D, HI, NI , FPAS; more widely known as Dr. A. Q...
to send the designs of centrifuges to Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
to aide in their nuclear program as part of Zia's vision. Zia changed the entire educational system in the country, under a general drive towards Islamization, started the process of historical revisionism in earnest and exploited this initiative. 'The Pakistan's establishment taught their children right from the beginning that this state was built on the basis of religion – that's why they don't have tolerance for other religions and want to wipe out all of them.'.
At the end, Zia's controversial policies slowed down the progress of science in the country and attributed his dearth to militant Islam in Pakistan and the promotion of pseudoscience by Muslim fundamentalists in Pakistani schools and universities.
Laws against Ahmadiyya community of 1984
Another addition to the laws was Ordinance XXOrdinance XX
Ordinance XX is an legal ordinance of the Government of Pakistan that was promulgated under the regime of General Zia-ul-Haq and is meant to restrict members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community from applying certain Islamic terms to their own religious practices and beliefs.-Precedent:Ordinance XLIV...
of 1984. Under this, the Ahmadiyya
Ahmadiyya
Ahmadiyya is an Islamic religious revivalist movement founded in India near the end of the 19th century, originating with the life and teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad , who claimed to have fulfilled the prophecies about the world reformer of the end times, who was to herald the Eschaton as...
were barred from calling themselves Muslims, or using Islamic terminology or practising Islamic rituals. This resulted in classifying the Ahmadiyya Community of Pakistan into a minority group in law. Zia was also considered anti-Shia, as Zia’s regime saw vicious persecution unleashed against the Shias, who form 20 percent of Pakistan's population in addition to the persecution levied against smaller sects such as the Ahmadiyyas. Further during his reign many Shia Muslim personalities and politicians were killed, most prominently the judicial killing of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Zia did not throw Ahmedis from Army but Ahmedis who were declared minority in Bhutto's era were unhappy and regained prominent positions after Zia's death as PPP got power again. Zia's only open clash with Shia Ulema was over Zakat (charity) distribution related issues. A book called "Profiles of intelligence" documents that event as written and resolved by a Shia military officer of ISI by the regime.
Ordinance XX
Zia promulgated Ordinance XX on April 26, 1984, banning members of the Ahmadiyya community from performing some of their religious ceremonies and prayers. He declared "This Ordinance may be called the Anti-Islamic Activities of the Ahmadis (Prohibition and Punishment) Ordinance, 1984". Although before Zia's rule, in 1974 Pakistan's National Assembly under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, it was declared that Ahmadis are classified as non-Muslims for the definition of the law. But it was not sufficient in stopping the missionary activities of the Ahmadiyya community. Article 298-C of the new law states "Any person of the Quadiani group or the Lahori group (who call themselves 'Ahmadis' or by any other name), who, directly or indirectly, poses himself as Muslim, or calls, or refers to his faith as Islam, or preaches or propagates his faith, or invites others to accept his faith, by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations, or in any manner whatsoever outrages the religious feelings of Muslims, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine."Violence against Ahmadiyya Community
Ironically, Zia had deep respect for Abdus SalamAbdus Salam
Mohammad Abdus Salam, NI, SPk Mohammad Abdus Salam, NI, SPk Mohammad Abdus Salam, NI, SPk (Urdu: محمد عبد السلام, pronounced , (January 29, 1926– November 21, 1996) was a Pakistani theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his work on the electroweak unification of the...
— a Nobel Laureate in Physics
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
— and had conferred with him with Order of Imtiaz in 1979. Zia also allowed Salam to have deliver lectures in Physics at the Islamabad University, and sanctioned an Award
Abdus Salam Award
The Abdus Salam Award , is a most prestigious award that is awarded annually to Pakistani nationals to the field of chemistry, mathematics, physics, biology. The award is awarded to the scientists who are resident in Pakistan, below 35 years of age on the 31st of December of the year for which the...
as national decoration after his name. Salam continued his ties with Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and its associated personalities, but Zia had refrained Salam from participating in any experiment in the laboratories of Pakistan. Since the military regime of Zia unleashed a wave of persecution in the 1980s, violence against the Ahmadiyya community has never really ceased. Ahmadis continue to be killed and injured, and have their homes and businesses burned down in anti-Ahmadi attacks. The authorities continue to arrest, jail and charge Ahmadis for blasphemy
Islam and blasphemy
Blasphemy in Islam is any irreverent behavior toward holy personages, religious artifacts, customs, and beliefs that Muslims revere. The Quran and the hadith do not speak about blasphemy. Jurists created the offence, and they made it part of Sharia. Where Sharia pertains, the penalties for...
and other offenses because of their religious beliefs. In several instances, the police have been complicit in harassment and the framing of false charges against Ahmadis, or stood by in the face of anti-Ahmadi violence.
Lal Masjid of Islamabad
The land of Lal MasjidLal Masjid
The Lal Masjid is a mosque located in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. A religious school for women, the Jamia Hafsa madrasah, and a male madrasah, Jamia Faridia are attached to the mosque.-History:...
(Red Mosque) was awarded to the occupants by Zia ul Haq. The controversial figureheads Abdul Aziz Ghazi
Abdul Aziz Ghazi
Muhammad Abdul Aziz is a Pakistani cleric, son of Maulana Muhammad Abdullah and elder brother of Abdul Rashid Ghazi. He was the Khateeb in the central mosque of Islamabad known as Lal Masjid, which was the site of a siege in 2007 with the Pakistani army...
and Abdul Rashid Ghazi
Abdul Rashid Ghazi
Abdul Rashid Ghazi was an Islamist Pakistani cleric; son of Maulana Muhammad Abdullah, and younger brother of Abdul Aziz Ghazi. He was descended from the Sadwani clan of Mazari tribe in the town of Rojhan in Rajanpur, the border district of Punjab province of Pakistan.Abdul Rashid Ghazi was killed...
of Jamia Hafsa
Jamia Hafsa
Jamia Hafsa is a madrassa adjacent to the Lal Masjid complex in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Known for its anti-government stance and fringe conservatism, it has been criticized for ignoring the main challenges faced by Muslims, and getting involved in publicity stunts like burning CDs and...
had special relations with Zia ul Haq and those links were further enhanced by his son Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq during his term as a minister of religious affairs
Ministry of Religious Affairs (Pakistan)
The Ministry of Religious Affairs, Zakat, and Ushr in Pakistan is responsible for the pilgrimage beyond Pakistan, Muslims pilgrims visits to India for Ziarat and Saudi Arabia for Umra & Hajj. It is also responsible for the welfare and safety of pilgrims and zairines...
. The former head of Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdullah who was famous for speeches on Jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
(Holy war), is said to be very close to Zia ul Haq.
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, rumors 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 Islamization drive and rather weakened it. His era led to serious disturbances in Karachi and ultimately Karachi went into Shia control of MQM from clutches of Sunnis Jamaat-e-Islami.
Ojhri Camp
Ojhri Camp
Ojhri Camp is located in Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan. It was used as an ammunition depot for Afghan Mujahideen fighting against Soviet forces from Afghanistan...
blast had irreversibly weakened Zia versus Junejo. Junejo with western support could not strike Zia. Zia struck first.
On May 29, 1988, Zia dissolved the Senate
Senate of Pakistan
The Senate of Pakistan is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Pakistan. Elections are held every three years for one half of the senate and each senator has a term of six years...
and 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
Geneva Accord
The Geneva Initiative, also known as the Geneva Accord, is a model permanent status agreement to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on previous official negotiations, international resolutions, the Quartet Roadmap, the Clinton Parameters, and the Arab Peace Initiative...
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
Ojhri Camp
Ojhri Camp is located in Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan. It was used as an ammunition depot for Afghan Mujahideen fighting against Soviet forces from Afghanistan...
, on the outskirts of army headquarters in Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...
, earlier in the year, proved to be some of the major factors responsible for his removal.
Zia played the Islam card to defend himself and the generals against any accusations of misrule and corruption. However since the media in Pakistan
Media of Pakistan
Media in Pakistan provides information on television, radio, cinema, newspapers, and magazines in Pakistan.-Regulation:The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority was formed in 2002 to "facilitate and promote a free, fair and independent electronic media", including opening the broadcasting...
was brutally gagged in his days, none of his corruption could be documented and brought to the limelight by the print media. When accused of trying to cover-up the Ojhri Camp
Ojhri Camp
Ojhri Camp is located in Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan. It was used as an ammunition depot for Afghan Mujahideen fighting against Soviet forces from Afghanistan...
incident, on May 29, 1988, he invoked an amendment that he had recently added to the Pakistani Constitution that allowed him to dismiss the Prime Minister, dissolve the National Assembly and all provincial assemblies – basically, the entire legislative portions of the government outside of the Presidency. Zia's loyalists in the military were called to form an interim government. Zia justified his actions and diverted attention from his corruption by focusing on how the further Islamization of Pakistan had been negligently delayed by Junejo and his government.
Zia promised to hold elections in 1988
Pakistani general election, 1988
General elections were held in Pakistan on 16 November 1988 to elect the National Assembly of Pakistan. The result was a victory for the Pakistan People's Party, which won 94 of the 207 seats...
after the dismissal of Junejo government. He said that he would hold elections within the next 90 days. The late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's daughter Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto was a democratic socialist who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996....
had returned from exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
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.
Political Purge
General Zia as Chief Martial Law Administrator and later President, consolidated near-absolute power in 1970s and 1980s. The Purge that occurred in 1977 to 1979 and re-started in 1983, as a reaction to Zia's policies, the populist Movement for the Restoration of Democracy was born and soon gained popularity in Pakistan's smaller, poorer provinces, especially in Bhutto's home province, SindhSindh
Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
. General Zia responded by violently dealing with his political opponents and journalists as well as minorities. Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...
, Indian PM raised concerns over this brutality and violation of human rights at the hands of Pakistan's military dictatorship (Dawn August 14, 1983).[22]
Many senior military officers such as General Zulfikar Ali Khan
Zulfiqar Ali Khan
Air Chief Marshal Zulfiqar Ali Khan , NI was a four-star rank general and air officer in the Pakistan Air Force who served as a 9th Chief of Air Staff of Pakistan Air Force from April 1974 to July 1978...
and Major-General Tajammul Hussain Malik
Tajammul Hussain Malik
Major General Tajammul Hussain Malik is a senior and former 2-star rank general officer in the Pakistan army and the former General Officer Commanding of the 23rd Division of Pakistan Army, retiring with the rank of Major-General...
were convicted for treason, followed a small scale purging of Pakistan Army officers sympathetic to Bhutto. Zia curbed the Communist Party
Communist Party of Pakistan
The Communist Party of Pakistan is a communist party affiliated with Communist Party of the Russia. Before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the party had long association and ties with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ....
by illegally abducting Jam Saqi
Jam Saqi
Jam Saqi is a leftwing politician from Sindh, Pakistan. He was the general secretary of the Communist Party of Pakistan. Jam Saqi was imprisoned for more than 15 years because of his political activities...
and Nazeer Abbasi
Nazeer Abbasi
Nazeer Abbasi was a Pakistani communist and the Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Pakistan. Abbasi was the political activist and an office holder of the Communist Party as he was designated as Secretary General. He was killed on August 9, 1980 while in the custody of Pakistani...
for a secret trial
Jam saqi case
The Jam Saqi case was an incident in Pakistan in the 1980s, wherein several key Pakistani communists were charged with intent to overthrow the government and install a socialist system. At the time, Pakistan was under the martial law regime of General Zia-ul-Haq...
. Both Abbasi and Saqi were tortured and killed while interrogating process into the hands of ruthless Brigadier-General Imtiaz Ahmad. The public lynching and flagellation
Flagellation
Flagellation or flogging is the act of methodically beating or whipping the human body. Specialised implements for it include rods, switches, the cat o' nine tails and the sjambok...
became common for senior journalists and politicians who suffered at the hands of General Zia. This absolute act further radicalized the society where intolerance for other people was reached to maximum. Zia's torture and purge forced minorities to fled the country such as Major-General Eric Hall
Eric G. Hall
Air Vice-Marshal Eric Gordan Hall , was a Pakistan Air Force bomber and fighter pilot, and former director general of the Civil Aviation Authority...
, director of Pakistan's space weapons program. The senior leadership of People's National Party
Awami National Party
The Awami National Party is an Pashtun nationalist, socialist, centre-left political party in Pakistan affiliated with Socialist International...
took the refuge in neighboring Afghanistan and India, while many political workers went missing and either killed. One of the notable case was the hijacking of Pakistan International Airlines
Pakistan International Airlines
Pakistan International Airlines Corporation commonly known as PIA, is the flag carrier airline of Pakistan. The airline has its head office on the grounds of Jinnah International Airport in Karachi. and operates scheduled services to 24 domestic destinations and 38 international destinations in 27...
's Boeing 720
Boeing 720
The Boeing 720 is a four-engine narrow-body short- to medium-range passenger jet airliner. Developed by Boeing in the late 1950s from the Boeing 707, the 720 has a shorter fuselage and less range...
in 1981. ISI quickly founded that the Al-Zulfikar was behind this plot which resulted in killing of one military pilot. The leaders of this ring Salamullah Tipu
Salamullah Tipu
-Early life and activism:Tipu was born to a lower-middle-class Muhajir family in Karachi, Pakistan. His grandfather, Ashfaqullah Khan , was a noted anti-British firebrand, who was hanged by the British in 1927....
was murdered in Kabul Prison; others were abducted by the ISI. The head of the KHAD
KHAD
Khadamat-e Etela'at-e Dawlati translates directly to English as: "Government Information Agency". However, this phrase is more correctly translated as Government Intelligence Service...
, Mohammad Najibullah
Mohammad Najibullah
Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai , originally merely Najibullah, was the fourth and last President of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He is also considered the second President of the Republic of Afghanistan.-Early years:Najibullah was born in August 1947 to the Ahmadzai...
was also involved in this plot, but soon paid the price at the hands of the Taliban in 1996 when he was brutally beaten and publicly hanged in the roads of Kabul.
Soon this incident, Zia also began to hunt down the Al-Zulfiqar
Al-Zulfiqar
Al-Zulfiqar was a leftist organization of Pakistan. It was formed in the late seventies by the sons of former Pakistani Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was also the Chairman of Pakistan's biggest political party, Pakistan Peoples Party. Al-Zulfiqar was formed to revenge the killing of...
— a leftist organization founded by Bhutto's children. The brutal poisoning and death of Shahnawaz Bhutto
Shahnawaz Bhutto
Shahnawaz Bhutto Sindhi: شاھنواز ڀٽو was the son of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Begum Nusrat Bhutto. Shahnawaz Bhutto was the youngest of Bhutto’s four children...
, Bhutto's youngest son, is widely suspected to done under Zia's orders, though there are no evidences for this claim. Zia's persecution of Bhutto's family, forced Benazir
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto was a democratic socialist who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996....
, Sanam
Sanam Bhutto
Sanam Bhutto Sindhi: صنم ڀٽو in Karachi city is the younger sister of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. She is the only surviving child of the late former Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Begum Nusrat Bhutto and the only one whom Nusrat did not outlive...
and Murtaza Bhutto
Murtaza Bhutto
Dr. Mir Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto was a Pakistani politician and the Member of the Parliament of Pakistan, representing Pakistan People's Party from the Larkana constituency...
to hide in Arab world, notably Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
who provided the government-sanctioned houses to the Bhutto family.
Death
Zia died in a plane crash on August 17, 1988. After witnessing a US M1 AbramsM1 Abrams
The M1 Abrams is a third-generation main battle tank produced in the United States. It is named after General Creighton Abrams, former Army Chief of Staff and Commander of US military forces in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972. The M1 is a well armed, heavily armored, and highly mobile tank designed for...
tank demonstration in Bahawalpur, Zia had left the small town in the Punjab province by C-130 Hercules aircraft. Shortly after a smooth takeoff
Takeoff
Takeoff is the phase of flight in which an aerospace vehicle goes from the ground to flying in the air.For horizontal takeoff aircraft this usually involves starting with a transition from moving along the ground on a runway. For balloons, helicopters and some specialized fixed-wing aircraft , no...
, the control tower
Control tower
A control tower, or more specifically an Air Traffic Control Tower , is the name of the airport building from which the air traffic control unit controls the movement of aircraft on and around the airport. Control towers are also used to control the traffic for other forms of transportation such...
lost contact with the aircraft. Witnesses who saw the plane in the air afterward claim it was flying erratically, then nosedived and exploded on impact. In addition to Zia, 31 others died in the plane crash, including Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Akhtar Abdur Rahman
Akhtar Abdur Rahman
General Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan , born in Rampur, was a 4-star general in the Pakistan Army. He served as Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee from 1987–1988 and as Director-General Inter-Services Intelligence from 1980-1987...
, close associate of Zia, Brigadier Siddique Salik, the American Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Lewis Raphel
Arnold Lewis Raphel
Arnold Lewis Raphel was the 18th U.S. ambassador in Pakistan. He was killed when a plane in which he was a passenger mysteriously crashed near Bhawalpur with then Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq and Brigadier General Herbert M. Wassom, chief of the U.S. military group in Pakistan on August 17,...
and General Herbert M. Wassom, the head of the U.S. Military aid mission to Pakistan. Ghulam Ishaq Khan
Ghulam Ishaq Khan
Ghulam Ishaq Khan , abbreviated as GIK, was the seventh President of Pakistan from August 17, 1988 until July 18, 1993 and a career statesman from the start to the end of cold war...
, the Senate Chairman announced Zia's death on radio and TV. The manner of his death has given rise to many conspiracy theories. There is speculation that America, India, the Soviet Union (as retaliation for US-Pakistani supported attacks in Afghanistan) or an alliance of them and internal groups within Zia's military were behind the attack.
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
Mayday (distress signal)
Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications. It derives from the French venez m'aider, meaning "come help me"....
signal was given.
Maj Gen (retd) Mahmud Ali Durrani
Mahmud Ali Durrani
Mahmud Ali Durrani is a retired Pakistani army officer. He was the National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani's administration until he was fired in January 2009 for "not consulting the Prime Minister while giving statements on foreign relation matters"...
, claimed later that reports of Israeli and Indian involvement in Ziaul Haq’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.
Funeral and burial
His funeral was held on August 19, 1988 in IslamabadIslamabad
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...
. Also in attendance was his successor President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who had earlier officially announced Zia's death in a nationwide address.
Books about Haq's time period
- The Leopard and the Fox by Tariq AliTariq AliTariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...
(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 SardarZiauddin SardarZiauddin Sardar is a London-based scholar, writer and cultural-critic who specialises in Muslim thought, the future of Islam, futures studies and science and cultural relations...
- Waiting for Allah by Christina LambChristina LambChristina Lamb is a British journalist who is currently Foreign Correspondent for The Sunday Times. She was educated at University College, Oxford and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society...
- 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 CrileGeorge Crile IIIGeorge Crile III was an U.S. American journalist most closely associated with his three decades of work at CBS News.-Personal:...
- The Bear Trap: Afghanistan's Untold Story by Mohammed Yousaf, Mark Adkin (1992) ISBN 0-85052-267-6
- A Case of Exploding MangoesA Case of Exploding MangoesA Case of Exploding Mangoes is a comic novel by the Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif based on the plane crash that killed General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, former president of Pakistan...
by Mohammed HanifMohammed HanifMohammed Hanif is a Pakistani writer and journalist.-Life:He was born in Okara. He graduated from Pakistan Air Force Academy as a pilot officer, but subsequently left to pursue a career in journalism... - Pakistan's Politics The Zia Years by Mushahid Hussain Syed
- Pakistan Under Martial Law 1977-1985 by Muhammad Waseem
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 VillageThe Village (The Prisoner)The Village is the fictional setting of the 1960s UK television series The Prisoner where the main character, Number Six, is held with other former spies and operatives...
from the show The PrisonerThe PrisonerThe Prisoner is a 17-episode British television series first broadcast in the UK from 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968. Starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan, it combined spy fiction with elements of science fiction, allegory and psychological drama.The series follows a British former...
. - Zia was portrayed by Indian actor Om PuriOm PuriOm Puri is an Indian actor who has appeared in both mainstream Indian films and art films. His credits also include appearances in British and American films. He has received an honorary OBE.-Early life:...
in the 2007 film Charlie Wilson's WarCharlie Wilson's WarCharlie Wilson's War is a 2007 American biographical comedy drama film recounting the true story of U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson who partnered with "bare knuckle attitude" CIA operative Gust Avrakotos to launch Operation Cyclone, a program to organize and support the Afghan mujahideen in their...
. - Zia is caricatured as one of the main protagonists in Mohammed HanifMohammed HanifMohammed Hanif is a Pakistani writer and journalist.-Life:He was born in Okara. He graduated from Pakistan Air Force Academy as a pilot officer, but subsequently left to pursue a career in journalism...
's 2008 satirical novel A Case of Exploding MangoesA Case of Exploding MangoesA Case of Exploding Mangoes is a comic novel by the Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif based on the plane crash that killed General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, former president of Pakistan...
which is loosely based around the events of his death.
- Zia is the basis for the character General Hyder in Salman Rushdie's novel ShameShame (novel)Shame is Salman Rushdie's third novel, published in 1983. Like most of Rushdie's work, this book was written in the style of magic realism. On the face of it, Shame is a novel about Pakistan and about the people who ruled Pakistan. One of the main aims of the novel is to portray the lives of...
(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 TrekStar TrekStar Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
novel The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One. In a prelude to the fictional Eugenics WarsEugenics warsEugenics wars may refer to:*In biopolitics, “eugenics wars” are sociopolitical conflicts characterized by coercive state-sponsored genetic discrimination and human rights violations such as compulsory sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and,...
, it is implied that genetically engineeredGenetic engineeringGenetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
"superman" Khan Noonien SinghKhan Noonien SinghKhan Noonien Singh, commonly shortened to Khan, is a villain in the fictional Star Trek universe. According to backstory given in the character's first appearance, the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Space Seed" , Khan is a genetically engineered superhuman tyrant who once controlled more...
arranged the crash.
External links
- Annotated Bibliography for Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
- "Who Killed Zia?" by Edward Jay Epstein for Vanity FairVanity Fair (magazine)Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, September 1989 - Official profile at Pakistan Army website
- The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
- General Zia-ul-Haq’s plane crash due to mechanical problem (Times of London)
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