Pakistan, gained
independence from the
United Kingdom on August 14 of 1947, when
British India was
partitioned by the United Kingdom, in a region what is commonly referred to as the
subcontinent.
Since its independence, Pakistan has had a colourful yet turbulent
political history at times, often characterised by martial law and
corrupt governments.
Pre-Independence Era
The Pakistan Movement as it came to be known was based on the
principal of two-nation theory, the outcome of the desire of Muslims of
India to establish a separate homeland for Muslims . This was a movement
against oppression, perceived or real, that living with Hindu majority
within combined India will not allow Muslims the opportunities that they
rightfully deserve.
Interestingly the Pakistan Movement was staunchly opposed by the some
of Mullahs who one would have thought would be inclined to support a
Muslim cause, instead the movement was spearheaded by Muhammad Ali
Jinnah.
Parliamentary Democracy
After the independence,
Liaquat Ali Khan became the first
Prime minister and
Jinnah became the first
Governor-General.
Pakistan consisted of two wings, West-Pakistan and East-Pakistan. The
Liaqat government faced major of difficulties in East and West Pakistan.
The same year, the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
began to take place in a Kashmir region. Both Liaquat and Jinnah were
determined to stop the riots and refugee problems and to set up an
effective administrative system for the country. Liaquat Ali Khan did
the groundbreaking work for the Foreign Policy of Pakistan while taking
initiatives towards the formulation of the constitution. He presented
The Objectives Resolution, a prelude to future constitutions, in the
Legislative Assembly. The house passed it on 12 March 1949. It has been
described as the "Magna Carta" of Pakistan's constitutional history.
Both United States and Soviet Union send invitation to Liaqat Ali Khan.
However, Khan first choose to pay a goodwill visit to United States.
This was perceived as a rebuff to Moscow, and has been traced to
profound adverse consequences. Khan had wanted Pakistan to remain
neutral in the Cold War, as declared three days after Pakistan's
independence when he declared that Pakistan would take no sides in the
conflict of ideologies between the nations. Khan later tried to visit
Soviet Union but the dates for goodwill visit were not materialized by
Soviet Union.
The same year, Jinnah declared Urdu as official language of Pakistan.
It sparked protests in East Bengal (later East Pakistan), where Bengali
was spoken by most of the population. Jinnah also faced problems with
Pakistan Army's Commander-in-Chief General Sir
Douglas Gracey
refused to obey the orders of Jinnah. General Gracey argued that Jinnah
as Governor-General represented the British Crown of which he himself
was an appointee. Therefore, he did not send troops to Kashmir region.
Jinnah also faced problems with Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force Air
Vice-Marshal
Richard Atcherley and Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Rear Admiral
James Wilfred Jefford who also refused to obey standing orders given by Jinnah.
During Khan's tenure, India and Pakistan agreed to resolve the
dispute of Kashmir in a peaceful manner through the efforts of the
United Nations. According to this agreement a ceasefire was effected in
Kashmir on January 1, 1949. It was decided that a free and impartial
plebiscite would be held under the supervision of the UN.
In 1948, Jinnah died, and major e problem of religious minorities flared during late 1949 and early 1950. Militants from
Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan
began to attack the minorities in West-Pakistan, which later slipped to
India. Sensing another war with India, Khan met Indian Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru to sign the
Liaquat-Nehru Pact
in 1950. The pact was an effort to improve relations and reduce tension
between India and Pakistan, and to protect the religious minorities on
both sides of the borders.
In East-Pakistan, the Bengali Language Movement reached its peak on
21 February 1952, when the police and soldiers opened fire on students
near the Dhaka Medical College protesting for Bengali to receive equal
status with Urdu. Several protesters were killed, and the movement
gained further support throughout East Pakistan. Later, the Government
agreed to provide equal status to Bengali as a state language of
Pakistan, a right later codified in the 1956 constitution.
1951 attempted coup d'etat
In 1951, the
Military Intelligence (MI) director-general
Major-General Syed Shahid Hamid foiled an attempted
coup d'état, planned by Major-General
Akbar Khan,
then Chief of General's Staff of the Generals Headquarter (GHQ) was
arrested along with numbers of officers from Pakistan Army. It was the
first conspiracy against the elected government. Eleven military (army)
officers and four civilians were involved in the conspiracy. The
conspirator included
Faiz Ahmad Faiz,
a notable poet and intellectual, also connected with the Communist
Party of Pakistan. In a meantime, Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Army
General Ayub Khan and Defense minister Iskandar Mirza remained loyal to
Liaqat Ali Khan. After an 18-month trial conducted in secrecy,
Major-General Khan and Faiz Ahmed Faiz were both convicted and sentenced
to long terms of imprisonment. Their defence lawyer was the notable
Bengali Muslim politician Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. When Suhrawardy
became the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1957, he obtained a reprieve
for most of the conspirators.
1953 Anti-Ahmadiyya Riots
The country that was founded in response and in opposition to
oppression and religious oppression at that, merely within six years,
its politics under the influence of the very Mullahs who were opposed to
the very creation of Pakistan took a turn away from its very foundation
of non-oppression and tolerance and based on demands for intolerance
from Mullahs and some sections of the public caused the first
Anti-Ahmadiyya riots resulting in loss of life and property.
[1] Ironically Ahmadiyya were at the forefront of Pakistan Movement and one of its members
Muhammad Zafrulla Khan acted as the President of Muslim League (1931), participated in the
Round Table Conferences[2]
held in the years 1930, 1931, and 1932, at the request of Muhammad Ali
Jinnah (Quaid-e-Azam; Pakistan's founding father and first leader)
represented the Muslim League in July 1947 before the Radcliffe Boundary
Commission and finally, as the first foreign minister of the country,
presented the case of Pakistan on Kashmir in UN resulting in passage of
the famous Kashmir Resolutions, which are still the cornerstone of
Pakistan's policy on Kashmir.
The 1958 era: The First Martial law
The government in response to the riots eventually asked Military for
help and in response Corp Commander of Lahore General Muhammad Azam
Khan enacted the first martial law in parts of the country.
This was a turning point in the country's history and even though the
riots were eventually quashed by force but the seeds of intolerance
were sown in the Pakistani society which only got stronger over time.
1965 Kashmir war
In 1962, Pakistan witnessed the
Sino-Indian War, with a defeat of Indian Armed Forces. The
Inter-Services Intelligence's
Joint Intelligence North and Military Intelligence's Northern Areas
Assessment directorate began to formulated the plan to infiltrate in
Indian held-Kashmir. Assuming that a weakened Indian Military would not
respond, Pakistan chose to send in "mujahideens" and Pakistan Army
regulars into Indian occupied of Jammu and Kashmir. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
backed the plan, and Pakistan Army's
SS Group was told to began an operation, under codename
Operation Gibraltar.
However, even after the careful analysis, the airborne operation was
failed, and major war broke out between India and Pakistan. Ayub Khan
blamed Bhutto for starting the conflict while the Armed forces became
increasingly involved in the war.
However, both Soviet-Union and United States deescalated the
conflict. China provide economic and moral help and even threaten India
on its conflicted border issues. Pakistan Army defeated Indian Army one
after the another. India suffered a great loss in Battle of Chawinda.
Pakistan starts war in defensive position but now is using offensive
position. Pakistan advance stops at Amritsar. Then India call for Peace
in United Nation, and Ayub Khan along with
Lal Bahadur Shastri signed the
Tashkent Declaration.
1971 Pakistan war disaster
After the indecisive war of 1965 with India, Pakistani people began
to accused Field Marshal Ayub Khan of betraying the cause of
Kashmir. Months after the war,
Munir Ahmad Khan, a
nuclear engineer at IAEA's Reactor Division, met with Bhutto where he notified Bhutto with rapid development of
Indian nuclear programme. Sensing the seriousness of such threat, Bhutto arranged a meeting between Munir Ahmad Khan and Ayub Khan at the
The Dorchester in
London. Khan urged the need of acceleration of
nuclear energy programme
and developed a credible nuclear deterrent capability. Ayub Khan
refused for accelerating the programme, and said famously said:
if we [Pakistan] ever need the [atom] bomb, we [Pakistan] will buy it off the shelf".
Munir Ahmad Khan quickly notified Bhutto of what had happen. And,
Bhutto began to lobbying for the nuclear weapon's option. However, due
the economical reasons, Khan deferred and refused to expand the nuclear
energy programme despite the proposals made by Bhutto, Salam and Munir
Khan. With extensive efforts led by Abdus Salam, Khan had personally
approved the
KANUPP-I commercial plant, against the wishes of his own military government.
In 1966, Ayub Khan removed Bhutto as his Foreign minister, in a
conspiracy planned by Jurist and then-Bhutto's secretary Mushtaq
Hussain, and under pressured by the
Lyndon Johnson,
President of the United States
that time. In 1967, Bhutto formed People's Party of Pakistan and and
tapped a wave of anti-Ayub Khan movement in both West and East Pakistan.
Demoralizaed and pressured, Ayub Khan handed over the control of the
country to his junior and Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Army General
Yahya Khan in 1969. General Khan designated himself as
Chief Martial Law Administrator
of the country and installed a military government in both East and
West-Pakistan. Genera Khan and his military government promised to hold
on a general election within 2 years.
The
General parliamentary elections were held on in 1970, with
People's Party winning the majority in
West-Pakistan and Awami League [People's League] gaining absolute majority in
East-Pakistan.
Yahya Khan, Chief Martial Law Administrator of Pakistan, held talks with both
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and
Sheikh Mujibur Rehman.
Negotiation and talks were brutally failed, and Bhutto was famously
heard saying "break the legs" if any member of [People's Party] attend
the
National Assembly
inaugural session. However, the capitalization on West-Pakistan,
West-Pakistanis feared the East-Pakistani separatism, therefore, Bhutto
demanded a coalition government with Mujib. In a meeting, both Mujib and
Bhutto agreed upon a coalition government as Bhutto would assumed the
Presidency and Mujib as Premier. The Military government and General
Yahya Khan was kept unaware of such of these developments. Both Bhutto
and Mujib continued a political pressure on Khan's military government.
Under pressured by Bhutto, Mujib and his military government, General
Khan ordered a military action in East Pakistan. The Military Police
arrested Bhutto and put him on house arrest. And, Mujib was sent to
military court where his case was headed by
Judge Advocate General Branch's
Brigadier-General Rahimuddin Khan.
General Khan ordered
Vice-Admiral Mohammad Shariff, Commander of
Eastern Naval Command of the Pakistan Navy and
Lieutenant-General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, Commander of the
Eastern Military Command
of Pakistan Army, an extreme armed action to curb and liberate the
East-Pakistan from the resistance. Faced with popular unrest and revolt
in East-Pakistan, the Army and Navy clamped down through violence. The
navy and army crackdown and brutalities during the
Operation Searchlight and
Operation Barisal
and the continued extrajudicial killings throughout the later months
resulted in further resentment among the East Pakistanis of East
Pakistan. With India assisting the Mukti Bahini, war broke out between
the separatist supporters in Bangladesh and Pakistan (
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971).
During the conflict, the coordination between the armed forces of
Pakistan were ineffective and unsupported. On major decision, the army,
navy, marines and air force weren't taken on confidence. Each forces had
led their own independent operations without notifying or taking on
confidence the higher command.
The result was the Pakistan Armed Forces surrender to the Indian
forces upon which 93,000 Pakistan Armed Forces officials and 93,000
soldiers and officers became POWs, the largest since World War II. The
official war between India and Pakistan ended in just a fortnight on
December 16, 1971, with Pakistan losing East Pakistan which became
Bangladesh. The official Bangladesh Government claim puts the number of
Bengali civilian fatalities at 3 million.
During this entire disaster, the military government had refused to
take any political and reconciliation initiatives despite the calls were
made. The coordination between the armed forces were ineffective and
unsupported. The Air Force was brutally failed to protect the naval and
army assets during the conflict (See
Operation Python and
Operation Trident).
Aftermath
The military government was collapsed and General Yahya Khan's lost
the control over the country. People in West Pakistan weren't mentally
prepared for such setback. Amid and spontaneous demonstrations and mass
protests erupted on the streets of major cities in West Pakistan.
Demoralized and shattered, General Khan handed over the control of the
country to Bhutto. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became the first civilian Chief
Martial Law Administrator and first civilian Commander-in-Chief of
Pakistan Armed Forces. The 1971 war with India has left a deep scars in
Pakistan's civil society. It was a mental and psychological setback that
came from a defeat at the hands of intense rival India. As a result of
this war, Pakistan lost half its population, significant portion of its
economy and its geo-political role in South Asia. The economic influence
in South Asia was lost by Pakistan. The military establishment feared
that the two-nation theory was disproved and that the Islamic ideology,
introduced by conservatives Islamists, had proved insufficient to keep
Bengalis part of Pakistan.
Return of Democracy
Soon after Bhutto assumed the control of the country, Bhutto released
Mujibur Rehman, and put General Khan on house arrest instead. Bhutto,
immediately appeared on
PTV where addressed an emotional speech to his shattered nation. Bhutto also formed the
Hamoodur Rahman Commission, to carry out the inquiry and causes of the war, under the Bengali
Chief Justice Hamoodur Rahman. Bhutto fired Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Army, Lieutenant-General
Gul Hassan Khan and also deposed Air Marshal
Abdul Rahim Khan, Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Air Force, and Vice-Admiral
Muzaffar Hassan,
then-Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Navy. All of these
Commander-in-Chiefs led their services during the conflict, and openly
blamed each other for their intense failure.
Bhutto also disbanded the Pakistan Marines, a new service in the
navy, after failing to produce any effective results during the
conflict. Bhutto sought to re-organized the Military of Pakistan and
numerous officers who were responsible for Bengal's autocracies were
fired from their services. In July 1972, Bhutto traveled to India to
meet the Indian Premier Indira Gandhi where he successfully proceeded
the
Shimla Agreement,
and brought back 93,000 Pakistan Armed Forces personnel, secured 5,000
mile sq area held by India. Under this agreement, Bhutto recognized
East-Pakistan as Bangladesh.
Bhutto also disapproved the
capitalist policies of Field Marshal Ayub Khan, and instead introduced the
socialist economics
policies while working to prevent any further division of the country.
On 2 January 1972, Bhutto announced the nationalization of all major
industries, including iron and steel, heavy engineering, heavy
electrical engineering, petrochemicals, cement and public utilities. A
new labor policy was announced with more workers rights and the power of
trade unions.
In 1974, Parliament of Pakistan gave approval of
1973 Constitution. For the first time after 1958, the country was shifted back to
parliamentary democracy
with Bhutto as Prime minister of the country. In 1974, Bhutto adopted
the recommendation from Hamoodur Rehman Commission, and disbanded the
"Commander-in-Chief" title as the head of the Pakistan Armed Forces.
Bhutto appointed Chiefs of Staff in Pakistan Armed Forces, reporting
directly to the Prime minister. General Tikka Khan, infamous for his
role in Bangladesh war, was made the first Chief of Army Staff of
Pakistan Army; Admiral Mohammad Shariff was made the first 4-star
admiral, and first Chief of Naval Staff of Pakistan Navy, and Air Chief
Marshal Zulfikar Ali Khan as first 4-star air force general and Chief of
Air Staff of Pakistan Air Force. In 1976, Bhutto also created the
office of
Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, and the
chairmanship
of this important and prestigious tier was given to General Muhammad
Sharif, who was also promoted to 4-star rank. The Joint Chiefs of Staff
Committee was formed after the careful analysis of Pakistan Armed
Forces, and it is the principal body that maintain coordination between
the armed forces.
1974 Jamaat-e-Islami Anti-Ahmadiyya Riots
The
Jamaat-e-Islami
took an aggressive and pro-terrorism approached in order to declared
the status of Ahmadis as minority and as 'non-Muslim'. The elements of
Jamaat-e-Islami under Maududi, burned shops, and looted places of
Ahmadis and other cities of Pakistan. A widespread of civil disobedience
was spread all around the country as the elements from Jamaat-e-Islami
began to use the weapon of terrorism in order declared Ahmadi Muslims as
non-Muslims. A wave of mild bombing was spread in all over the country.
Bhutto feared another unrest and yet, another coup, and reached an
agreement with the Jamaat-e-Islami. Bhutto's government adopted the
Second Amendment to the
Constitution of Pakistan that declared the status of Ahmadis as minority and as 'non-Muslim'.
Nuclear deterrent development
Since 1967, Bhutto had been lobbying for the option for the nuclear
deterrence in a different occasions. Soon after Bhutto came to assumed
the control of Pakistan, Bhutto made his move to established the nuclear
weapons development.
[3]
In January 20 of 1972, Abdus Salam, after being request by Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto, arranged and managed secret meeting of academic scientists and
engineers, in
Multan city, to meet with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who assumed the control of his country shortly after the
Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 and the
Bangladesh Liberation War.
[4]
It was here that Bhutto orchestrated, administrated, and led the
scientific research on nuclear weapons as he announced the official
nuclear weapons development programme.
[4] In 1972, Pakistan's core intelligence service, the
ISI, secretly learned that
India was close to developing an atomic bomb, under its [India]
nuclear programme.
[3] Partially in response, defence expenditure and
funding of science under then-
Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto increased by 200%.
[3] In the initial years and starting years,
Dr. Abdus Salam, a
Nobel laureate, headed the nuclear weapons program as he was the
Science adviser to the
Prime minister.
[5]
He is also credited in bringing hundreds of Pakistani scientists,
engineers, and mathematicians who would later go on to develop the
nuclear weapons program and later on formed and headed "
Theoretical Physics Group"
(TPG), the special weapons division of Pakistan Atomic Energy
Commission (PAEC) that developed the designs and completed the crucial
mathematical and physics calculations of the nuclear weapons.
[6]
Throughout the time, the foundations were laid down to develop a
military nuclear capability. This includes the nuclear fuel cycle and
nuclear weapons design, development and testing programme.
[7] The fuel cycle program included the uranium exploration, mining, refining, conversion and
Uranium Hexafluoride
(UF6) production, enrichment and fuel fabrication and reprocessing
facilities. These facilities were established in the Pakistan Atomic
Energy Commission or
PAEC by its Chairman
Munir Ahmad Khan.
[7] He was appointed as Chairman of
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (
PAEC) on January 20, 1972 at the Multan Conference of senior scientists and engineers.
[7] Earlier,
Munir Ahmad Khan was serving as Director of Nuclear Power and Reactors Division,
IAEA. He was credited to be the "
technical father"
of Pakistan's atom project by a recent International Institute of
Strategic Studies, London, (IISS) Dossier on history of the Pakistan's
nuclear development, with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as the father of
Pakistan's nuclear developmental programme.
[8]
Munir Ahmad Khan, an expert in Plutonium technology, had also laid the
foundation and groundbreaking work for the Plutonium reprocessing
technology.
[7] Khan, built the
New Laboratories, a plutonium reprocessing plant located in Islamabad.
[7]
After
Chief Martial Law Administrator (later
President) and
Chief of Army Staff General
Zia-ul-Haq came to
power (see
Operation Fair Play), further advancements were made to enrich uranium and consolidate the nuclear development programme. On March 11, 1983,
PAEC led by
Munir Ahmad Khan carried out the first successful cold test of a working nuclear device near at the
Kirana Hills under codename
Kirana-I.
[7] The test was led by
CERN-
physicist Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad,
and was witnessed by other senior scientists belonging to Pakistan
Armed Forces and the PAEC. To compound further matters, the
Soviet Union had withdrawn from
Afghanistan
and the strategic importance of Pakistan to the United States was gone.
Once the full extent of Pakistan's nuclear weapons development was
revealed,
economic sanctions (see
Pressler amendment) were imposed on the country by several other countries, particularly
United States. Having been developed under both Bhutto and Zia, the nuclear development programme had fully matured by the late 1980s.
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, a
metallurgical engineer,
greatly contributed to the uranium enrichment programme under both
governments. Dr. A.Q. Khan established an administrative proliferation
network through Dubai to smuggle URENCO nuclear technology to
Khan Research Laboratories.
[9] He then established Pakistan's gas-centrifuge program based on the URENCO's Zippe-type centrifuge.
[10][11][12][13][14] Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan is considered to be the founder of Pakistan's
HEU based
gas-centrifuge uranium enrichment programme,
[8] which was originally launched by
PAEC in 1974.
[15]
The
PAEC
also played its part in the success and development of the uranium
enrichment programme by producing the uranium hexafluoride gas feedstock
for enrichment.
PAEC was also responsible for all the pre and post enrichment phases of the nuclear fuel cycle. By 1986
PAEC Chairman
Munir Ahmad Khan had begun work on the 50MW plutonium and tritium production reactor at Khushab, known as
Khushab Reactor Complex, which became operational by 1998.
Balochistan civil unrest
The Baloch rebellion of the 1970s, was the most threatening civil
disorder to a United Pakistan since Bangladesh's secession. The Pakistan
Armed Forces wanted to establish military garrisons in Balochistan
Province which at that time was quite lawless and run by tribal justice.
The ethnic Balochis saw this as a violation of their territorial
rights. Emboldened by the stand taken by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1971,
the Baloch and Pashtun nationalists had also demanded their "provincial
rights" from then Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in exchange for a
consensual approval of the Pakistan Constitution of 1973. But while
Bhutto admitted the NWFP and Balochistan to a NAP-JUI coalition, he
refused to negotiate with the provincial governments led by chief
minister Ataullah Mengal in Quetta and Mufti Mahmud in Peshawar.
Tensions erupted and an armed resistance began to take place.
Surveying the political instability, Bhutto's central government
sacked two provincial governments within six months, arrested the two
chief ministers, two governors and forty-four MNAs and MPAs, obtained an
order from the Supreme Court banning the NAP and charged them all with
high treason, to be tried by a specially constituted Hyderabad Tribunal
of handpicked judges.
In time, the Baloch nationalist insurgency erupted and sucked the
armed forces into the province, pitting the Baloch tribal middle classes
against Islamabad. The sporadic fighting between the insurgency and the
army started in 1973 with the largest confrontation taking place in
September 1974 when around 15,000 Balochs fought the Pakistani Army,
Navy and the Air Force. Following the successful recovery of the
ammunition in the Iraqi embassy, shipped by both Iraq and Soviet Union
for the Baluchistan resistance. The Naval Intelligence launched the
investigation, and cited that arms were smuggled from the coastal areas
of Balochistan. The Navy acted immediately, and jumped in the conflict.
Vice-Admiral Patrick Simpson, commander of Southern Naval Command, began
to launched the series of operation with also applying the naval
blockage.
The Iranian military fearing a spread of the greater Baloch
resistance in Iran also aided the Bhutto-sent Pakistan military in
brutally putting down the insurrection.[25] After three days of fighting
the Baloch tribals were running out of ammunition and so withdrew by
1976. The army had suffered 25 fatalities and around 300 casualties in
the fight while the rebels lost 5,000 people as of 1977.
Although major fighting had broken down, ideological schisms caused
splinter groups to form and steadily gain momentum. Despite the
overthrow of the Bhutto government in 1977 by General Zia-ul-Haque,
Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan Army, calls for secession and widespread
civil disobedience remained. The military government then appointed
General Rahimuddin Khan as Martial Law Administrator over the
Balochistan Province. The provincial military government under the
famously authoritarian General Rahimuddin began to act as a separate
entity and military regime independent of the central government.
This allowed General Rahimuddin Khan to act as an absolute Martial
Law Administrator, unanswerable to the central government. Both General
Zia-ul-Haq and General Rahimuddin Khan supported the declaration of a
general amnesty in Balochistan to those willing to give up arms. General
Rahimuddin then purposefully isolated feudal leaders such as Nawab
Akbar Khan Bugti and Ataullah Mengal from provincial policy. He also
militarily put down all civil disobedience movements, effectively
leading to unprecedented social stability within the province. Due to
Martial Law, his reign was the longest in the history of Balochistan
(1977–1984).
Second martial law period
During the
1977 parliamentary elections, the
Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) under the hardline
[according to whom?] Islamist
Maulana Maududi
began to advocate the overthrow the government of Bhutto. The hardline
Islamists and religious leaders had always seen Bhutto's policies
autocratic and more of secular policies than being under in Islamic
system. Maududi began to call for Bhutto's overthrow and end his regime
as he grabbed support from Pakistan's conservative Islamist parties.
Despite of these serious movement, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto held talks with
the PNA and Islamist leaders. An agreement was eventually reached in
June 1977 and Bhutto was to sign it on July 5. However, in spite the
enthusiasm of the negotiating team other PNA leaders had reservations
about the agreement. On the other hand, Maududi showed to Army that no
agreement was taken place, and Maududi encouraged General Zia-ul-Haq,
then-Chief of Army Staff who was recently appointed by Bhutto after
Bhutto forced to retire 17 senior generals in order to bring Zia as
Chief of Army Staff. Maududi encouraged General Zia-ul-Haq to stage a
coup against Bhutto, and convinced him that a new Islamic, but a
military coup needed against [B]hutto in order to maintain law and order
in the country. Encouraged and supported by Maududi and other hardline
religious leaders, General Zia staged a coup against his own loyal
supporter [Bhutto] in July 1977 (See
Operation Fair Play).
Maududi and other hardline religious groups supported the martial law
government, and remained loyal to General Zia entire his regime.
General Zia appointed Mushtaq Hussain, chief jurist for Bhutto's
case. Mushtaq Hussain was famously known in the public as extreme hater
of Bhutto,
[citation needed]
and played a controversial role in Bhutto's removal as foreign minister
in 1965. Mushtaq Hussain, now judge, disrespected Bhutto and his
hometown, and further denied any appeals. Under Zia's direction and
Mushtaq's order, Bhutto was controversially executed in 1979 after the
Supreme Court upheld the High Court's death sentence on charges of
authorizing the murder of a political opponent.[27] Under Zia's martial
law military dictatorship (which was declared legal under the Doctrine
of Necessity by the Supreme Court in 1978) the following initiatives
were taken:
- Strict Islamic law was introduced into the country's legal system by
1978, contributing to current-day sectarianism and religious
fundamentalism, as well as instilling a sense of religious purpose
within the youth.
- Pakistan fought a war by proxy against the Communists in Afghanistan
in the Soviet-Afghan War, greatly contributing to the eventual
withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan.
- Secessionist uprisings in Balochistan were put down by the
province's authoritarian Martial Law ruler, General Rahimuddin Khan, who
ruled for an unprecedented seven years under Martial Law.
- The socialist economic policies of the previous civilian government,
which also included aggressive nationalisation, were gradually
reversed; and Pakistan's gross national product rose greatly.
General Zia lifted martial law in 1985, holding party-less elections
and handpicking Muhammad Khan Junejo to be the Prime Minister of
Pakistan, who in turn rubber-stamped Zia remaining Chief of Army Staff
until 1990. Junejo, however gradually fell out with Zia as his political
and administrative independence grew. Junejo also signed the Geneva
Accord, which Zia greatly disliked. After a large-scale explosion at
ammunitions store in Ojhri, Junejo vowed to bring those responsible for
the significant damage caused to justice, implicating several times the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director-General Akhtar Abdur Rahman.
President Zia, infuriated, dismissed the Junejo government on several
charges in May 1988. He then called for the holding of fresh elections
in November. General Zia-ul-Haq never saw the elections materialize
however, as he died in a plane crash on August 17, 1988, which was later
proven to be highly sophisticated sabotage by unknown perpetrators.
Under Zia, real defence spending increased on average by 9 percent
per annum during 1977–88 while development spending rose 3 percent per
annum; by 1987-88 defence spending had overtaken development spending.
For 1980s as a whole, defence spending averaged 6.5 percent of GDP. This
contributed strongly to large fiscal deficits and a rapid build-up of
public debt
