Daughter of the east by benazir bhutto

stamped there that my passport was running out of pages. I knew Zia would never issue me with a new one. I prayed every time I answered the immigration officials’ questions and watched them look for my name in their huge black book that they wouldn’t see the beating of my heart We were making too much progress in our publicity campaign on behalf of the political prisoners to absorb such a setback.

’I intend using every Parliamentary and other opportunity to press the British government to call on the Pakistan government to cease its murder-ous campaign to eliminate political opposition, especially political op-ponents in the Pakistan People’s Party,’ Max Madden, a member of the House of Commons wrote to me in November. I received a response, too, from Elliott Abrams, the Assistant Secretary for Human Rights in America, to whom I had written about Nasser Baloach and Saifullah Khalid. ’I share your concern about the inherent unfairness of in camera military court proceedings against civilians, and in this case, the disquieting allegation that confessions were obtained through torture,’ Mr Abrams wrote. ’. . . Please be assured that our diplomats in Pakistan will continue to follow these cases closely.’
I was up every morning at 7.00 am at the Barbican to clean the flat, do the washing and get ahead on the meals for the day, preparing simple lentil dishes and leaving them to cook on the stove. Bashir Riaz brought halal meat and chickens that had been slaughtered in accordance with Muslim custom from London’s Pakistani neighbourhoods. And then to work. The mailings were expensive. I budgeted as best I could, two-thirds
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of my money going to the rent, the rest for the telephone bill, postage and supplies. My mother had given me some money to decorate the flat. I bought a second-hand rug, a few pots and pans and some lamps with no shades. The money was better spent on the political work going on in the office.

We launched our own Urdu magazine, Amal, Action, with a few pages in English, and distributed it each month to international organisations, foreign embassies and the exile community to keep them up to date on events in Pakistan. Amal was produced on a shoestring budget, with Bashir Riaz working as both editor and advertising salesman, and Nahid buttonholing everyone she could for subscriptions. We smuggled the magazine into Pakistan, where activists photostated segments of it and distributed them to party supporters. Copies also reached the jails so that the political prisoners would know they were not forgotten. Amal proved to be invaluable for lifting morale. The prisoners loved it. The regime did

not.

’I am not coming to work today,’ our calligrapher suddenly phoned Bashir. ’Why?’ Bashir asked in dismay. Amal couldn’t be published without a calligrapher. Urdu printing is still done the old-fashioned way, with calligraphers writing out the text by hand on wax paper. ’The embassy has offered me more money not to work for you,’ the calligrapher con-fessed. When the printer called to say that he, too, had had pressure put on him by the regime, we thought Amal was doomed. But the printer fumed out to be a party sympathiser who not only refused to succumb to the regime’s pressure, but agreed to hold his presses open for us at night. Bashir also convinced calligraphers who worked for the Pakistani news-papers in London to moonlight for us. Every time the regime bought one back, Bashir tenaciously found another. And Amal continued.

In Pakistan, Zia started to flex his Martial Law muscle again, to remind the people of his grip over them. While we ran articles about Nasser Baloach’s unfair and cruel treatment in Amal, we began receiving ominous reports from Pakistan that he and his co-defendants were going to be sentenced to death. Our worst fears were confirmed on the chill and windy morning of November 5, 1984, when the military court in Karachi publicly announced its final verdict. Nasser Baloach and the others were sentenced to ’hang by the neck until dead’.

At the Barbican we all went back into emergency mode, circulating appeal after appeal for the lives of the condemned men in the international community. Our sense of outrage deepened after a party sympathiser in Pakistan managed miraculously to smuggle us secret documents sug-gesting that Zia had a direct role in the death sentences. The documents showed that originally the military court had sentenced only Nasser Baloach to death, and that the Martial Law Administrator of Sindh had

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been informed and did not object. But suddenly he had changed his mind and directed the military court to ’reconvene and reconsider’ its original judgment. Only Zia, his immediate superior, could have got him to change his mind.

Moreover, we had Zia’s signature on a piece of his Chief Martial Law Administrator stationery confirming the four death sentences on October 26, a full ten days before his kangaroo court had made its verdict public. The only avenue of appeal open to the condemned men was a mercy petition to Zia in his capacity as President. What a farce. They had to appeal to the man who had already confirmed their death sentences.

Many of the volunteers had tears in their eyes when they saw the documents, but I was too angry. For the first time,

we had evidence confirming what we had always heard: military sentences in political cases went through Zia himself. We set to work editing and compiling the documents so they could be printed as quickly as possible. If anything could rally the international community and expose Zia’s military courts as mere rubber stamps of the regime, these documents could. Lord Ave-bury, who had been so instrumental in my mother’s release, now arranged a press conference for us to reveal the documents at the British Parliament. And our campaign intensified.

Again people of conscience responded, from the human rights organisa-tions to labour leaders. ’Whilst we in this country are growing ever more conscious of the threat to our own trade union rights, we must be equally aware of the struggles being waged by our brothers and sisters in other countries,’ wrote Nottingham trade union organiser Laurence Platt to the editor of the T 6 G Record, a major trade union magazine. ’There may still be time to save the lives of labour leader Nasser Baloach and his three co-defendants who are waiting execution and protests should be made to the government of Pakistan and its embassy here.’

Lawyers everywhere were shocked into action. ’These four men were tried and sentenced by a special military court set up under Martial Law Regulations in Pakistan,’ read part of a statement signed by a group of prominent British lawyers. ’These courts are presided over by military officers who have no legal training, and the trials are held in camera. The burden of proof is shifted on to the accused, and it is upon them to prove their innocence. Furthermore they do not have proper access to lawyers to conduct their cases.

’We call upon the Government of Pakistan to stop such trials and executions. We especially appeal to General Zia ul-Haq not to confirm the death sentences passed on these four men and to spare their lives. We also call upon the British Government, which supplies economic and military aid to the Zia regime, to use their influence upon the Government of Pakistan to stop the execution of these four men and further trials of this kind.’
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We were obsessed with saving the lives of the political prisoners. But, in the midst of our fight against death in Pakistan, others among the PPP leadership in exile were more interested in advancing their own special interests and power bases. The telephone rang incessantly at the Barbican with requests from these leaders, mostly ex-ministers from my father’s government, for meetings with me. Mercifully the Barbican allowed only fifteen visitors a day, though I sometimes managed to squeeze

in more by meeting groups of five or six at a time. I chafed and fidgeted throughout the meetings, thinking of all the important work there was to do.

The PPP had always been a multi-class party, a coalition of many different socio-economic groups: Marxists, feudal landowners, businessmen, religious minorities, women, the poor. Before my father’s death, the conflicts of interests between all these different groups had been bridged by my father’s strong personality and popular appeal. But in London, with the strain of exile and the political leaders’ fears of being forgotten at home, self-interest took an upper hand to common goals. On top of everything else, there was an undeclared battle for party leadership. The old guard in London realised that if they accepted me once, they might have to accept me forever. ’It is not in my destiny to follow the father, then the mother, and now the daughter,’ one of them was reported as saying when I’d first arrived in London.

’You must decide whose side you’re on,’ the various leaders had lectured me, each faction lobbying for greater importance in the PPP and probably preparing for an eventual takeover.

’I’m not on anybody’s side,’ I’d insisted. ’If the party presented a united front instead of the factions undercutting each other, we’d get more done.’ I’d tried to sound as calm and reasonable as possible, anxious not to alienate the old ’uncles’ and well aware of the weakness of my political position. Even though the Central Executive Committee of the party had re-affirmed my position as Acting Chairperson when I arrived in England, these men were old political hands. I was a young woman, the age of their daughters. These men had run the PPP in London since the time of the coup. I was newly arrived from Pakistan. They had spent years build-ing up their own power bases. I believed in reconciling past differences, in balancing individual power bases for the greater good of the party. When I returned from my trip to America, the most vocal group, the Marxists, had attacked.

’You should never have gone to America,’ the leader of the Marxists chided me, though he hadn’t said a word before I’d gone. ’The Americans are friends of Zia’s. We must join up with the Russians to put an end to him.’

’What makes you think the Americans or the Russians are friends of anybody?’ I argued back. ’The Americans are supporting Zia because of
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their strategic considerations. The Soviets may want to support us today,
but tomorrow, if their strategic concerns change, they’ll ditch us. We must not get involved in these Superpower rivalries, but fight

for our own national interests. We can’t afford to fight global politics.’

The regionalists soon joined the fray. ’You are a Sindhi. You should stand up for Sindh over the other provinces, or they will never forgive you,’ they warned.

’Why play into the hands of a Martial Law regime which uses the threat of division to project the Army as the unifying force in Pakistan,’ I retorted. ’There are people who believe in democracy in all four provinces. Oppression does not know the meaning of provincial boundaries. Aren’t our energies better spent fighting the common enemy instead of each other?’

The chauvinists, the establishment-oriented members of the PPP who had been wheeling and dealing and seeking compromises with Zia, added their voices of self-interest. My frustration grew and grew as the arguments wore on. Here were the volunteers in the next room doing the essential nitty-gritty work of the Party to save the lives of our supporters in Pakistan. And taking up my time were the old-guard politicians who insisted on putting their individual concerns above the concerns of the people.

I finally lost my temper when one of the old ’uncles’ in exile arrived at the Barbican, sat calmly back on the sofa, and demanded that I name him President of the Punjab PPP along with a hand-picked team. ’I can’t just appoint you,’ I said in shock to this man who was not even popular among the Punjabi politicians at home and who had spent his entire time since the coup in safety in London. ’It will anger the party and undermine our policy of deciding on merit and by consensus.’

’You don’t really have much choice,’ he said to me patronisingly. ’The Marxists are angry at you. The regionalists have formed their own organis-ation. You can’t afford to alienate me.’

’But it is against PPP principles,’ I stuttered, still taken aback by his de-mands.

’Principles,’ he scoffed. ’Principles are fine. But people are in politics for power. If you do not appoint me president along with my team, then I’m afraid I’ll have to explore other options. I may even start my own party. I will be your biggest opposition.’

I felt my anger grow, a compendium of all the wasted hours I’d spent listening to the bickering of the special interest groups. And now this; a new ante raised. This was the old way of Pakistani politics. Angle for yourself. Throw your weight around. Grab every office you can. Blackmail. Threaten. I had had it with the old ways. And with him. ’Uncle,’ I said, taking a deep breath and leaning forward in my chair. ’You know, if you leave the party, it will be hard for you even to win a seat in Parliament.’

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’Really? Really?’ he said, flicking his head back in surprise at my rude answer. And he stalked out of the room - and eventually, out of the party. More trouble, I mused before pushing the thought out of my mind. I was never happy when anyone left the party, but I came to realise that in politics nothing is permanent. People leave, people join, people re-concile. What is important is that a political party articulates the mood of a generation. Our work in London was boosting the morale of the people and energising the party in Pakistan. That was what counted. Especially by December, 1984, when it became clear that the PPP needed all the energy it could muster.

Under pressure from the United States, Zia decided to hold elections by March, 1985. But first, it was announced, he would hold a national referendum on December 20. The wording of the Islamic referendum, as it came to be called, would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so clever. ’Whether the people of Pakistan endorse the process initiated by General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, the President of Pakistan, for bringing the laws of Pakistan into conformity with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him),’ it read. How could anyone in a country that was 95 per cent Muslim vote against it? A ’no’ vote was tantamount to voting against Islam. But politi-cally, a vote of ’yes’ would be just as dire. A positive vote, Zia announced, would constitute his ’election’ as President for the next five years.

The whole set-up was nothing more than a smokescreen to give Zia the mandate he desperately needed. No other military dictator in the history of the sub-continent had ruled for so long without one. And Zia wasn’t going to take any chances. Campaigning for a ’no’ vote, he declared as extra insurance, would be a crime punishable by three years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of 35,000 dollars. Moreover, the ballots would be counted by the Army in secret and the results would not be challenge-able before the civil courts. Did he really think he could pass the vote off as a fair and impartial one?

’Boycott,’ we urged in Amal, in interviews, in speeches and press re-leases. ’Boycott,’ the members of the MRD urged at home in Pakistan, where even two religious parties denounced the referendum as a ’political fraud in the name of Islam’. ’Vote! You don’t even need an identity card,’ countered the loudspeakers the regime set up on street corners in Karachi while the regime’s agents hustled Afghan refugees on to buses heading for the polling stations in Baluchistan and brought whole villages

by the busload to other polling places.

Predictably, the regime-controlled Pakistani press reported a turnout of 64 per cent, over twenty million people, 96 per cent of them voting ’yes’.
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But the Guardian’s reporter in Islamabad calculated that the turnout was as low as IO per cent, as did Reuters news service. Our call to boycott the farce had worked. ’Had General Zia frankly and courageously put himself to the test without the cover of ”religion”, he would in all probability, have lost,’ read an editorial in The (London) Times on December 12. ’That no doubt was why he did not.’

I had been waiting for the right time to return to Pakistan with the PPP leaders in exile. Possibly this was it. ’Now is the time to launch a protest against Zia ul-Haq,’ agreed one of the party barons in a meeting called in a former PPP minister’s house in North London. ’The referendum has exposed Zia’s unpopularity to the whole world.’ Others disagreed. ’The country may not respond,’ the counter-argument went. ’The people have been frozen into inertia for too long. We should work up to a showdown.’ The discussion went back and forth until one of the ’uncles’ turned to me. ’I know the answer,’ he said. ’We should send Miss Benazir Bhutto back. That will fire up everybody.’

’All right,’ I agreed. ’But if it is politically correct for me to go, then we should make a plan for all of us to go. Why don’t we stagger our arrivals, one a day for ten days or so, to build up to a crescendo?’

There was silence in the room. ’Go back? I can’t go back,’ one after another protested, listing the charges, the prison sentences, the death sentences that were pending against each of them in Pakistan. I was astoun-ded. They were perfectly willing to send me off, but were hardly sincere about mounting a common offensive at all. ’Either we do it properly or we don’t do it at all,’ I said. Silence.

All of us, however, were united in our gratification over Zia’s setback in the referendum. Victory rallies were held by the PPP all over the world on the Day of Democracy, January 5, 1985, my father’s birthday. Speaking in Sindhi, Urdu and English I led the meeting in London where we had organised a seminar and a mushaira, or poetry session. The atmosphere was electrifying, the crowds packed into the rented hall. I ended my remarks with the verses of a revolutionary poet. Waving their PPP ban-ners, the entire audience joined in crying out the refrain to each verse: ’I am a rebel. I am a rebel. Do with me what you will.’

In the middle of the seminar I recved a telephone call from my mother. Sanam had just had a baby girl. ’At Simla, the words

”it’s a girl” signalled bad news,’ I announced joyfully to the assembled PPP supporters. ’Today, they bring the good news that my sister has given birth on Shaheed Bhutto’s birthday. My new niece’s name is Azadeh, which in Persian means freedom.’ And the cheering rose. The seminar was video-taped and dozens of copies smuggled into Pakistan.

I was with my mother and Sanam myself three days later when Zia announced that the elections for the National and Provincial Assemblies

THE YEARS OF EXILE
would be held at the end of February. The issue of whether to boycott these elections was more problematic than the referendum had been. Mar-tial Law was still in force and political parties banned. Our candidates would have to stand as individuals, not as party representatives for seats in the re-activated National Assembly. Still, these were the first national elections Zia had held since the coup in 1977. Should we participate?

’Boycott,’ the members of the PPP in London and Pakistan had argued in anticipation of Zia’s announcement. But I was tom. Never leave a field open, my father had said again and again. I didn’t know what to do, nor did I know what the members of the MRD in Pakistan were planning to do. It was so frustrating sitting in Europe while there was so much going on at home. And Zia, as usual, kept changing the rules. On January 12, he announced in a nationwide broadcast that the leading members of the PPP and the MRD would be disqualified from the elections altogether, thereby eliminating them as candidates. Three days later he changed his tune and said most of them could participate after all. I couldn’t stand it.

’I think I should go back home,’ I told my mother while Sunny’s baby cried in the background. ’I need to talk with the Central Executive Commit-tee about the elections. We need to decide whether a political win will be best achieved by staying out - or going in.’

I expected her to be against my decision to return. Who knew what Zia would have in store for me. But she thought for a minute, then agreed with me. ’You’re right,’ she said. ’This is the time to talk the matter over with the party leaders in Pakistan.’ Taking turns, my mother and I placed and re-placed calls to the party Deputy in Pakistan, a process that took hours. We couldn’t get through to him. I did, however, get hold of my cousin Fakhri. ’Tell the staff to open up 70 Clifton,’ I told her. ’I’ll be there in three or four days time.’ I had just come back from enquiring about flight schedules when the telephone rang.

’ 70 Clifton is surrounded by the army,’ Dr Niazi said. ’I’ve just heard from Karachi that detention orders have been

issued for you and your mother. The airports have been cordoned off all over the country and every woman arriving from London and France in a burqa is being searched.’

There was no use going back if I was going to be immediately thrown into detention and unable to take part in the discussions on whether or not to stand in the elections. At least in Europe I could telephone. I continued to try to get through to Pakistan. I had become convinced that we should mount an opposition to Zia at the polls and wanted to represent that opinion in meetings with the MRD.

’Is that Miss Benazir Bhutto speaking?’ said the astonished voice in Abbotabad when one of my calls finally got through.

’Yes, yes, yes,’ I said impatiently. ’Has the MRD taken a decision on the elections?’

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’Yes,’ he said.

What is it?’ I asked with bated breath.

’To boycott,’ he said.

If that was the consensus of the party and the combined opposition, so be it. I returned to London and recorded another tape in Sindhi and Urdu calling for the masses to boycott the polls. It, too, was smuggled into Pakistan, and distributed by the thousand in the interior of Sindh, Punjab and other parts of the country.

On February 25, I sat glued to the television in London for the coverage of the voting for the National Assembly and, three days later, for the Provincial Assemblies. Elections are normally boisterous affairs in Pakistan, conducted in a carnival air. The streets throng with people, food pedlars pushing their carts among them to sell cold drinks, ice lollies, sweetmeats, samosas and pakoras. People gather in huge crowds in front of the polling stations and jostle each other for a turn to vote: Pakistanis have never bothered with orderly lines. But the voters I saw on television, probably government servants trotted out for the television crews, stood at atten-tion in pathetically thin lines, one behind the other, with no food carts in sight.

The fact that Zia called it an election at all was an anathema. ’In the absence of political parties,’ Time magazine’s Asia/Pacific edition reported, ’there were no campaign themes, no platforms, no debate about national issues. Candidates were not permitted to hold outdoor meetings or rallies, to use loudspeakers or microphones or to go on radio or television. The most the regime allowed was for a candidate to go from house to house -and then he or she was allowed to speak only to the number of people who could comfortably fit into a single room. A few hopefuls tried to use mosques as a forum: they were quickly disqualified.’

The regime announced a turnout of 53 per cent. We estimated it at between

IO per cent and 24 per cent, depending on the region. The MRD’s call for a boycott had worked again, although not as successfully as it had with the referendum. This time Zia had taken insurance against a successful boycott by issuing a Martial Law Regulation making a call for boycott punishable by rigorous imprisonment. In the end, there weren’t any political leaders around to even call for a boycott. ’In the final days before the election,’ Time reported, ’the regime rounded up an estimated 3,000 political opponents, including virtually every major political figure in the country, and held them in jail or under house arrest until after the balloting was over.’