To adequately cover such a topic as the title suggests actually needs the space of a voluminous book but I’ll try to get my point across by presenting some documentary evidence, to portray the character of three rulers of Pakistan, namely Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB), General Zia-ul-Haq, and the charismatic Benazir Bhutto (BB).

In 1969, ZAB was out of power having been ousted from the government by the strongman President Ayub Khan. But his promising future hovered on the horizon of Pakistan, as he himself, and a common person in the street, very well knew. It was just a matter of time. Bhutto had held in the past, the very prestigious office of the foreign minister of Pakistan.

Sherbaz Khan Mazari has narrated an incident in his book “A Journey to Disillusionment” (p.164) which shows the most degrading trait of ZAB’s character. Mazari writes, “In July 1969 I was to invite Bhutto and his wife to my house. The occasion was a visit to Pakistan by Bob Lebacq, then Belgian Ambassador to Indonesia, and his wife Jessie. The Lebacqs had previously been posted at Karachi and had become good friends with Souriya and I. While here they had also established very cordial relationships with Zulfikar and Nusrat Bhutto. I hosted a dinner for them and invited all their friends and acquaintances at Karachi, including the Bhuttos…Later in the evening, I noticed two of my guests engaged in what seemed to be a rather earnest conversation. I decided to join them and seated myself beside Bhutto and Hank Ramsay, the local US Consul General. Bhutto was reassuring the American Diplomat that he was not anti-American, as every one assumed he was….He asked the diplomat to inform the government that whatever he said was simply politics and should not be taken as his personal view, and if anything, his personal views were completely opposite. After a while having done his best to convince the diplomat of his American sympathies, I recall Bhutto requesting a favour from him. He wanted a place at Radcliffe College for his daughter Benazir Bhutto. Ramsay said he would speak to his superiors in Washington to convey the request. He then asked about Benazir’s grades, Bhutto looking a bit abashed replied, ‘I am afraid they are not particularly good. That is why I, as a former foreign minister of this country, will request it as a special favour from the State Department. Please do ask your people to help me out on this one’.” If the rulers of a country are beggars, what would one expect from an ordinary citizen? This is only a rhetorical question; an ordinary person in Pakistan has greater sense of self-respect and national dignity. There are many such other instances, which show that ZAB was a mean, time-server, sycophant, rude, insolent, discourteous, abuser of friends, manipulator, and exploiter. He was also a very educated person, had a very deep insight into foreign affairs, and was the father of the Islamic Bomb that Pakistan was finally able to manufacture in defiance of international opposition and blackmail. Unfortunately, a good quality in a man’s character does not cancel out and nullify an evil trait. Both of them exist simultaneously. Bhutto was an unfortunate blend of the good and the evil.

Zia-ul-Haq was an ordinary man. He would have died an ordinary man had Bhutto not promoted him Chief of Army Staff over the head of so many other senior generals. Why did Bhutto bring a nondescript and a non-entity to the foremost rank of the army? Obviously, out of self-interest. He thought he would be able to manipulate Zia according to his own whims and keep the army on a tight leash and from meddling in his government. It was part of the usual shrewd and cunning strategy of Bhutto but it backfired. The ‘yes sir’ of an army general outsmarted the sophisticated and slick politician. It proved to be the greatest miscalculation on the part of shrewd Bhutto. Zia not only toppled Bhutto’s government but sent him to the gallows also. Zia was the most unsophisticated and politically uncouth dictator that Pakistan ever had. He despised the rule of law in whatever form. He was arbitrary and capricious. This is what he said addressing a press conference in Teheran (“Pakistan - A Dream Gone Sour,” Roedad Khan, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 87-88):

“What is the Constitution? It is a booklet with ten or twelve pages. I can tear them up and say that from tomorrow we shall live under a different system. Is there anybody to stop me? Today the people will follow wherever I lead. All the politicians including the once mighty Bhutto will follow me with their tails wagging.”

Zia was Bhutto’s lackey; Bhutto was the measure of power for him. Zia kow-towed to him with the servility of the most ordinary army soldier, while Bhutto was in power. Zia believed he could subdue anyone once he had deposed Bhutto. May be he was right; there was nobody who could tell him, “Your Majesty, you have no clothes on; you are starkly naked”.

Benazir Bhutto, when she came into power after Zia’s tragic death, had opened the floodgates of corruption and nepotism. Corruption, bribery, and nepotism had been rampant in other governments also, unfortunately corruption has become a way of life in Pakistan, but new heights were reached during BB’s first tenure. Not that her second tenure was any better or the intervening governments of Nawaz Sharif fared any better. In the end, she was deposed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who mandated fresh elections.

BB was so disgruntled after her deposition that she had no scruples in stooping down to the lowest level of indignity, for seeking help to return to power. Daughter of a beggarly father she resorted to begging help from friends and foes, without caring for the norms of self-respect, patriotism, and national dignity. A copy of a letter that she wrote to American Senator Peter Galbraith is given below which illustrates how low did BB go in the quest of power (“Nawaz Sharif Ka Pehla Daur-e-Hakoomat,” Professor Ghafoor Ahmad, Al-Qamar Enterprises, Ghazni Street, Urdu Bazar, Lahore, 1997, p.55).

Mrs. Benazir Bhutto

Bilawal House Karachi

Dear Peter Galbraith:

I don’t know how to thank you, for your favors to me and my family. As you know that the orders of my dismissal were drafted in the JAG branch of the GHQ, and it was not possible for me to pull along with the army and they subverted my government.

I have already communicated to various friends in the Congress and especially Stephen Solarz, to use their good office with the President Bush, so as to put maximum pressure on President Ishaq, and the army in Pakistan, that they do not disqualify me from the elections, as it will be unjust and negation of all democratic principles for which we have struggled.

It would be most appropriate if military as well as economic assistance to Pakistan is stopped, and all the international agencies like the World Bank, IMF, are told to squeeze the Government of Pakistan and if possible all supply to Pakistan should be disrupted so that normal life in Pakistan comes to stand still.

As long as I was the Prime Minister, I kept a check on the nuclear device, but now I do not know what are the plans of the Government.

The suspension of F-16 and its spares will bring the army to its senses.

Dear Peter, please use your influence on V.P. Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, to engage the Pakistan army on the borders, so that they do not impede my way. I wish Rajiv Gandhi had been the Prime Minister of India, things would have been easier.

Thank you and with warm regards.

Sincerely Yours

Sgd. Benazir Bhutto

Dated: 24-09-1990 What could one say about BB’s character and sense of patriotism? The letter said it all One wonders why she was not apprehended and tried in a court of law, on the charge of trying to conspire with India to sabotage national interests?