Army, ISI, Osama and PPP
Major General Ahsan Ahmed (Retired) - 13 July 2005

“We can not hope to explore all the revolutionary changes, reforms and achievements of the present government under the leadership of Mr Bhutto in this brief paper; suffice it to say his leadership proved to be a breadth of fresh air in the acrid & suffocating political atmosphere. He has given back the soul to the people & gave them direction to follow in the new constitution”, wrote Lieutenant General Ghulam Jilani Khan Director General Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in a 53-page paper submitted to the Prime Minister Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto in October 1976 urging him to hold general elections before the due date.
  
 Shaheed Bhutto hinted in July 1977 at the possibility of having been trapped in a conspiracy by the military & its intelligence services.
  
 As usual, Shaheed ZAB was correct in this conclusion judging from the sequence of events following the announcement of holding fresh elections. Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) was formed within days out of nowhere. Street demonstrations sprang all over the country against alleged unfair means used during holding of elections. After days of upheaval General Zia ul Haq, staged coup de’tat on 05th July 1977to prevent the PM reaching a political solution through signing an accord with the combined opposition,.
  
 The question is that why the military was keen to lure the most charismatic leader of the third world into this trap. Bhutto had transformed the grossly humiliated & utterly dejected armed forces into a cohesive force within a short period of five years. Ninety thousand POWs & thousands of squares kilometres of Pak land were retrieved from the Indians at the negotiation table. Kashmir was recognised by India as a disputed bilateral issue in the Simla agreement. The units & formations of the Eastern Command lost in the former East Pakistan were replaced through new units & formations complete with armament & equipment.
  
 Russians had helped to build Pakistan Steel Mill. China had briskly supplied arms, equipment & vehicles. Heavy Mechanical Complex was upgraded & extended. Aeronautical Complex at Kamra was fully functional. The nation had got its pride & confidence back by virtue of having a new constitution by consensus in year 1973. Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto had his magic spread through out the Muslim world by having a tremendously successful OIC summit in Lahore & leaders like Shah Faisal, Moammer Qaddafi & Yasir Arafat were virtually eating out of his hands.
  
 Last but not the least, Pakistan had taken that historic step to its cherished aim of becoming the first in the Muslim world to be a nuclear power.
  
 At the domestic front Bhutto had a firm & stable government as his hands were always on the pulse of the nation. He had given a new meaning to the lives of millions of workers, farmers & labourers. He had been ceaselessly working sixteen hours a day since taking over the reigns of power in that fateful month of December 1971. There were no Klashnikoves in the arms of the man in the street & no heroin powder in the hands of the jobless youth. Mukhtara’n Mais of the Land of the Pure used to sleep soundly & fearlessly under the covers of their “chadders” & within the safety of their home’s “chardeewaree.” Zia & company had to stage something to justify taking the country back to the point where Ayub & Yahya had abandoned it. Later, again it was sheer lust for power that led Zia to get ZAB murdered through judiciary completely ignoring what Bhutto had done to lift Pakistan & its armed forces from a moribund state to be on its way to become a nuclear power to be reckoned with.
  
 What is mind boggling is that the hatred of the army & its intelligence agencies for the popular politicians did not end with ZAB. It has been increasing with time proportionately to the increasing size of the armed forces’ empire of industry, farming, trade & real estate.
  
 The extent to which the armed forces can topple a popularly elected civilian government is unfathomable till one hears it from the horse’s mouth. Ex- Squadron Leader Khalid Khuwaja working on Afghan desk in ISI was dismissed by General Zia ul Haq when he wrote him a letter bluntly calling him as a hypocrite. Khuwaja crossed over to Afghanistan & fought Soviet troops along side Mujahideen. He developed friendship with Osama bin Laden & his two mentors Dr Abdullah Azzam & Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani. He remained in contact with Lieutenant General Hameed Gul Director General ISI who is known in the army as well as civilian circles for his Taliban-like mind set.
  
 Khawaja describes in detail how the ISI & Mujahideen were worried that Benazir-led Pakistan Peoples Party would win the elections in 1988, which, as per their logic, would be disastrous for jihad in Afghanistan.
  
 He goes on to narrate how ISI under General Hameed Gul formed Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) by forging alliance between PML & Jamaat-e-Islami reviving the memories of Benazir’s father’s era. However, the most astonishing disclosure by Khalid Khuwaja is how he arranged three meetings between Osama bin Laden & Nawaz Sharif with the purpose of dislodging Benazir from power with the help of this multi billionaire from Saudi Arabia. The most historic meeting was in Green Palace Hotel in Madina where Khuwaja claims to be present besides Osama & Nawaz. He also claims that it was Osama who arranged meeting of Nawaz with Saudi royal family which gave him a lot of political clout & which was used to ensure safe exit of Nawaz & family from Perwaiz Musharraf’s Pakistan to Saudi Arabia.
  
 There is a circle in Pakistan who believes that ISI is so strong that it can work on projects without the Chief of Army Staff knowing. This is far from the truth. Khalid Khawaja account of formation of IJI by ISI to topple Mohtarma’s first government corroborates the statements of Lieutenant General Hamid Gul (then DG ISI) as well as of General Mirza Aslam Beg then COAS given on several occasions in the media.
  
 General Aslam Beg goes to the extent of admitting in public how he distributed millions to the politicians to destabilise & topple BB’s government. Such brazen admissions coming from the top brass of the armed forces would have created tsunami in the democratic world but the free-for-all society of today’s Pakistan under naked military dictatorship is no more part of a civilised democratic world.
  
 If Justice Naseem Hussain Shah can go Scot free after admitting in public that it was a wrong judgement by the Supreme Court to award capital punishment to Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto (he voted in favour), who could ask the all powerful Generals as to why they have massacred the democracy & the democratic institutions in our beloved land.
  
 The only silver lining on the horizon of severely tattered democracy in Pakistan is the fact that rigged election after rigged election Pakistan Peoples Party continues to bag the largest number of votes cast and Mohtarma remains its unchallenged leader. She is leading her troops in the likes of Joan of Arc and it will be the dictator who would be burnt at the alter of history--- army, ISI and Osama not withstanding.
  
  
 REFERENCES: 1.Pakistan: Between Mosque & Military
                           Husain Haqqani
                          2.The Pawns Who Pay as Powers Play.
                           Syed Saleem Shahzad (Asia Times On Line)
  
 13th July 2005.
  
The writer is Pakistan’s former Director General Health, former Minister Health& Population Welfare Sindh & former Pro-Chancellor Liaquat University of Medical And Health Sciences Sindh. He is author of two books.