Some Facts about Z. A. Bhotto. Bhutto worship has become a relentless train that shows no signs of slowing down; instead, it keeps gathering speed. In the process, the established historical facts are being denied or distorted, and myths are being created. Khalid Hasan, a life long admirer, who knew ZAB first hand, and worked as his press secretary, may have written the most balanced and insightful short biography of ZAB. He further writes . . .ZAB believed that a country should have only one central figure as leader and all power should flow from him. It is a tragedy that a man of Bhutto’s intelligence, education and sense of history did not appreciate that Pakistan could only survive as a federal state with the provinces enjoying the maximum autonomy. Bhutto could not abide rival claimants to power even if they were elected to their office. He could not work with the opposition run provincial governments in Quetta and Peshawar and squeezed them out; that was his undoing. Bhutto forgot that power in order to be kept, must be dispersed.” KH also notes that it was Bhutto who revised ISI’s charter to include domestic political intelligence. It is widely believed that Bhutto was hanged for a crime that he did not commit. It is rarely, if ever, asked, who then was the real perpetrator? Mohammad Ahmad Kasuri was murdered in Lahore; the crime scene was found to have shells used by FSF---Bhutto’s elite security force. And yet, the investigation was not extended to FSF. I recall a statement by Hanif Ramay of PPP, then the CM of Punjab, that Kasuri family had many enemies. This was despite Ahmez Raza Kasuri’s contention that there was no suspect but one—ZAB. This was not the first attempt on Kasuri’s life; he had escaped one ambush in Islamabad earlier. These episodes had followed an angry exchange between ZAB and Kasuri in the NA when ZAB called Kasuri a poison and threatened to fix him up. Ch Sardar, former IG Police, Punjab, has provided the firsthand account of this case in his biography, The Ultimate Crime; so read on: “FSF was created by a notorious dismissed police officer, Haq Nawaz Tiwana, and was headed ultimately by another infamous police officer, Masood Mahmood----The FSF did not bother about any law, assuming the role of Bhutto’s private army---- Soon after the imposition of martial law, an elaborate enquiry in to the affairs of FSF was initiated. The FSF had gained a reputation of being, Bhutto’s gang of goons, for dirty works. During the enquiry, ASI M. Arshad of FSF, appeared before Ch. Abdul Khaliq, Dep. Director, FIA, Lahore and promised to tell everything truthfully if he were not tortured. He disclosed that he was a member of a special cell in the FSF headquarters, which had the most trusted officers for secret and sensitive missions---then he threw a bombshell. He said he was one of the FSF men who had fired on the car in which MNA Ahmad Raza Kasuri was ambushed.” So, this was the first solid lead in to the infamous murder case that led Bhutto to the gallows; Mukhtar Rana, a PPP MNA from Lyallpur, had earned the wrath of his leader by his divergent views. He was deposed as MNA, arrested, and after being subjected to severe physical abuse—according to one report, he almost died under torture—was convicted in a military court and sentenced to five-year term of imprisonment, all in a matter of days. Ustad Daman, dervish Punjabi poet, made the cardinal error of writing an anti-Bhutto poem; he had a case registered against him---he was accused of being in possession of a hand grenade. One has to remember that Bhutto’s own associates were not spared his wrath; J.A. Rahim, a senior member of the cabinet, learned this lesson the hard way. He annoyed Bhutto once by leaving early from a dinner hosted by the PM. Rahim also made the mistake of showing his resentment by calling Bhutto, ‘Raja of Larkana’. What follows is how Rahim described this horrifying experience to Wolpert: “On reaching home, I went to bed. . . . About 1 A.M., I was woken up by my servant who said that there was a crowd of people before the house. . . . Some men of the FSF were climbing up the front balcony for the purpose of entering my bedroom. . . . I went to the front door downstairs. . . . Saeed Ahmad Khan, Chief of PM’s Security, who was at the head of that mob of armed FSF thugs, answered that he had come to deliver a message from the PM. . . . As the door opened, they rushed in . . . . Besides being beaten by fists, I was hit by rifle butts. I was thrown to the ground and hit while prostrate. . . . I lost consciousness. . . . I was dragged by my legs, then thrown in to a jeep. . . . bleeding profusely.” Intellectually brilliant, Rahim had retired as Pakistan’s ambassador to France, had been one of the founding members of PPP, and had written its manifesto. No account of Bhutto’s Awami Raj is complete without Dalai Camp. It will be fair to call it Bhutto’s Gotanamo Bay. It was used to secretly detain, three political dissidents (Iftikhar Tari, Ch. Irshad and Mian Aslam). These individuals were former PPP members, who had fallen out with Bhutto and left PPP along with Khar. As I recall, two of them had been former provincial ministers. Fearing arrest, some of them had been granted bail before arrest by the high court. They vanished without trace one day, having been picked up by FSF and were only recovered when Bhutto was deposed. Iftikhar Tari, who had the reputation of a goon, appeared broken after release. He narrated his ordeal on TV and could not stop crying in a program called, Zulm ki dastanay. Arthur Kessler once wrote that nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion. Many of Bhutto admirers never knew him first hand; one wonders what their reaction would have been, had they seen their leader’s behavior at close quarters. Bhutto Legend: Myth and Reality By Dr Asif Javed Williamsport, PA pakistanlink.org/Opinion/2012/Aug12/03/04.HTM
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 06:42:21 +0000