Bhutto’s Judicial Murder Revisited

#27 Posted by bjkumar
He was no different (if anything worse in many ways)

#28 Posted by akcheema
I'd most probably be called a superficial dingo/murtid ... He gave little and he got little.

Well ... bjkumar can be forgiven for his ignorance, but not akcheema because he's supposed to be a Pakistani, even though a shallow/dingo/murtid one.

You call a person who taught Pakistanis to ask for their rights, retrieved 93,000 POWs plus thousands of km territory from Indian capture without conceding anything - not even war trials, rehabilitated the Army and restored their dignity after the 1971 humiliation, started the nuclear programme despite all odds, gave the 1973 Constitution which is still the ONLY thing holding the country together 'no different...gave little and got little'?

Always judge things on balance, never through a one-way mirror. But guess this quality cannot be taught to madrasis and dingos.

Re: # 33; Zeemax

sorry man; you are misquoting me. I didn't say that 'gave little/got little' bit; bjk did.

please read again, thanks.

for all his faults, I stand by the statement I made that what happened to ZAB was utterly wrong and that he should have been allowed to either re-form government (since he'd won the elections in 1977) or electioned re-called (as the Amir-ul-mimineen initially promised; the 90 days i think it was). And if ZAB had been re-elected and the process carried on, a lot of the mess we are in now could have been avoided.

#32 Posted by bjkumar,

I'm not quoting from Col Rafiuddin's book or it's translation by any Mukhlis T. I'm quoting from the televised hour-long interview of Col Rafiuddin which was repeat broadcast yesterday on the anniversary. He said many things which are not in the book, like he knows who actually killed Kasuri, who provided the arms and ammunition, who was the actual target but Kasuri got hit instead ... and so forth.

When he was asked how did he know all that, he replied "remember I was in ISI ...they even know if anyone is in bed with his own wife or someone else's."

The following is excerpted from an article in The New Yorker.

BHUTTO'S FATEFUL MOMENT
by Mary Anne Weaver
October 4, 1993

At 1:45 A.M. on April 4, 1979, four wardens entered the prison cell of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a waifishly thin man, nearly wasted away by malaria, dysentery, and hunger strikes. Two of them lifted him by the arms and two by the feet, and he was carried out. His back was so low that it sometimes brushed the floor. He had insisted on shaving and bathing earlier that night—and had done so, with some difficulty—and he had changed into fresh clothes. He had always been fastidious about his appearance. But now the tail of his blousy shirt, ensnarled in the cleats of one of the wardens’ boots, became tattered and soiled.

Outside, in the courtyard of the Rawalpindi District Jail, Zulfi Bhutto, the first popularly elected Prime Minister in the history of Pakistan, was deposited on a stretcher, and his wrists were manacled. There was no guard of honor, and no military salute. As he was carried two hundred yards or so to a wooden scaffold, he raised his head slightly, but he said nothing. Otherwise, he didn’t move. The wardens led him up the scaffold, onto a wooden plank, and there a hangman put a hood over Bhutto’s head, completely covering his face, and a rope around his neck

“Ye mujhai?” (“This to me?”) According to a book by the chief of his security detail, Colonel M. Rafiuddin, who stood two feet away, Bhutto said this in a faint voice, and the Colonel believes he also heard him say, “God help me, for I am innocent!”

At four minutes after two, three hours ahead of schedule, and contrary to the prison code, the hangman pulled a lever, releasing the wooden plank, and Bhutto’s body plunged into a well.

“The bastard’s dead!” General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan’s military ruler, gleefully told his generals when the news came.

The only family members who had been permitted to see Bhutto in the hours before he died were his daughter Benazir, his firstborn and favorite child, who was then in her twenties, and his wife, Nusrat. They had been taken under guard from a deserted police-training camp where they were imprisoned and driven the few miles to the jail. Unlike previous visits, they had not been permitted inside his cell, and Benazir had sat cross-legged on a concrete floor as they received his final instructions through a thick, barred door.

“I pleaded with the jailers, I begged them to open the cell door, so that I could embrace him, and say a proper goodbye,” Benazir told me this summer. “But they refused. When I left him, I couldn’t look back; I knew that I couldn’t control myself. I’m not even sure how I managed to walk down that corridor, past the soldiers and past the guards. All I could think of was my head. ‘Keep it high,’ I told myself. ‘They are all watching.’ ”

Some fourteen hours later, Benazir remembers, she awoke suddenly at precisely two o’clock in the morning and sat bolt upright in bed. “No! No!” she screamed. “Papa! Papa!”

Five years ago, in her autobiography, she went on:

I felt so cold, so cold, in spite of the heat, and couldn’t stop shaking. There was nothing my mother and I could say to console each other. Somehow the hours passed. . . . We were ready at dawn to accompany my father’s body to our ancestral graveyard.

“I am in Iddat [mourning] and can’t receive outsiders. You talk to him,” my mother said dully when the jailer arrived. . . .

I walked into the cracked cement-floored front room that was supposed to serve as our sitting room. It stank of mildew and rot.

“We are ready to leave with the prime minister,” I told the junior jailer standing nervously before me.

“They have already taken him to be buried,” he said.

I felt as if he had struck me. “Without his family?” I asked. . . .

“They have taken him,” he interrupted.

“Taken him where?” The jailer was silent.

“It was very peaceful,” he finally replied “I have brought you what was left.”

#34 Posted by akcheema

'no different...gave little and got little' was combined for both you and BJK.

#35 Zeemax

What I am referring to is the comprehensive written account. What you (claim to) refer to is...

...heresay!

Even that green-eared Manto of a lawyer will tell you that the latter is to be discounted!

(Especially when the memory is likely to be weak and failing - as in your time of life!)

And Zeemax,

Freeing 90,000 POWs is not really a big deal when the other side is just as eager to get rid of them!

#36 Posted by bjkumar

Read #35. End of discussion on the subject from my side.

Regards

Re: # 37; Zeemax

It is unfair of you to attribute something to me that I didn't say.

ZAB ruled like an absolute, omnipotent dictator, no question. All I am saying is if the process of elections and re-elections was carried on, that problem would have sorted itself out in due course.

It is also a valid argument that he WAS NOT the legitimate inheritor of govt from Yahya Khan; Mujib-ur-Rahman was. But that is another story. Some of the things on record also include the "udher tum idher hum" assertion by none other than ZAB himself; I am pretty certain you have an 'explanation' for that too as for everything else.

'is hamaam mein sab nangay hain'.

Let's not try to 'create' the version of history that suits us for the day.

I am off as I have better things to do with my time than talk about lost opportunities for reform in Pakistani history; we could be here forever....

#41 Posted by akcheema,

Look akcheema, any debate about Bhutto is quite useless. As they say history is the best (and perhaps only) judge, that is now done. History has already judged Z.A. Bhutto as a great leader, who was murdered by a military dictator. Period.

His own daughter despite two terms as P.M did not reopen the case. Zardari too will not. But it will be reopened someday. It will be then that his murderers will be exhumed and executed posthumously just as Oliver Cromwell.

Quote:

In 1661, Oliver Cromwell's body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey, and was subjected to the ritual of a posthumous execution, as were the remains of John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton. Symbolically, this took place on January 30; the same date that Charles I had been executed. His body was hanged in chains at Tyburn. Finally, his disinterred body was thrown into a pit, while his severed head was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Abbey until 1685. Afterwards the head changed hands several times, including the sale in 1814 to a man named Josiah Henry Wilkinson, before eventually being buried in the grounds of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1960

HP writes "Bhutto clearly saw an opening and worked with the army like many politicians still do"

Firstly, the West, the more establishment/military oriented part would never have settled for East rule, so it would have been a setup for failure and not any democracy enhancement. Taking note of the reality of the power situation and the uniquely odd nature of the two part country matters more in enhancing democracy through manuverability than blanket application fo democracy theory. The new govt would have been removed shortly by the establishment and all gains to that date lost.

Second, Mujib had no representation in the West, the idhar hum udhar tum was the most democratic setup to keep the union intact with autonomy and democracy, proposed by ZAB, the Army didn't want that, it wanted its dictatorial rule all over the land. Just because ZAB understood their shenanigans and tried to work within the boundary set for politicians by the military does not mean that he was being an opportunist when he clearly carried the mandate of the people of the West. Carrying the mandate of the people of the West was a grander achievement than those of the east in changing the system, as the establishment was vested more in the West. Rather it was Mujib who didn't want democracy to work and gave the military the excuse it was looking for to complete the foregone conclusion of an independant Bangal...

Manto writes "HP,

That is precisely my view. You know I am an old Bhutto supporter ... it is in my blood."

Given the scathing attacks on ZAB by Manto in arguing with me and the fact that multiple times he has blamed the man for the massacres in Bangladesh by the Pakistani Army and for the capitulation of Bengal, this guy is a charlatan through and through....

#45 Posted by masadi,

masadi, I think it is cruel to debate the memory of a great man who was removed from the scene in such a callous manner, and which many zameer-frosh types still defend. As I said, history has already given its verdict, and the events in Pakistan have proven it. His grave still draws more votes than any living man or woman does.

I think more important to discuss is - is Zardari heading towards a 'great betrayal'?

Of-course I'm referring to the unanimous vote for PM, the PPP delagtions to MQM, the distancing from restoration of judiciary and removal of president - and most importantly Ch. Ahmed Mukhtar, the Defence Minister's statement that musharraf is an asset because he's a salable commodity for foreign assistance.

What do you think? HP and tahmed32's views too would be appreciated.

Re: # 42; Zeemax

point taken; say no more.

Cheers

Masadi,

To a fanatically closed and rigid mind that you have, indeed the world exists in black or white.

I have fighting for Bhutto -not just on this website but on many other forums- much longer than you could spell the word Bhutto. Try my previous handle "ylh" on this website.

However, I am not blind to his faults which are many. He was a human being and if you try to make him into a god, I have the right to point out his weaknesses and major flaws. Bhutto was a victim of his own feudal mentality and enormous contradictions- including at times careerist opportunism. The easy way he took on the Ahmadi issue, where even a lesser prime minister like Nazimuddin had preferred to give up his pmship and take stand against the Mullahs, was one such Bhutto flaw. His flirtation with Pan-islamism was another such issue though it could have worked.

But I will always admire Bhutto for his patriotism, his vision for the people, the courage with which he took on his opponents and the fact that he was the first high priest of the Church of MAJ - a post which I currently proudly occupy.

-ylh