General Zia - His Winged Death and the Aftermath By Sayid Ghulam Mustafa Shah Reproduced by Sani H. Panhwar GENERAL ZIA HIS WINGED DEATH AND THE AFTERMATH By SAYID GHULAM MUSTAFA SHAH Reproduced by Sani H. Panhwar DEDICATION TO MY GRAND CHILDREN MASOOD MOHSINA MAHMOOD WHO HAVE MADE MY OLD AGE LIVABLE & LOVABLE CONTENTS 1) Preface. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1 2) General Zia and his winged death. .. .. .. .. .. 14 3) The Aftermath. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 87 4) About the Author .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 93 PREFACE In Pakistan's chequered, pathetic and desultory history there is so much to write about, but to write on General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq is an attempt to depict a military adventurer, an evil spirit, a diabolical mind, a fugacious charter, a callous ruler, a devil's disciple and a veritable snake. I had the opportunity and privilege to have intimately known every man in authority, of intellect and erudition, every president, every governor-general, every Prime Minister and every provincial governor or Chief Minister in Pakistan throughout its history from Quaid-e-Azam to Ghulam Ishaq, from Liaquat Ali Khan to Benazir, and every teacher and scholar and thinker or statesman or politician of consequence. When Pakistan fell in the clutches of mean men, profligates and pederasts, with the hanging of Bhutto, idiocy in the politics of Pakistan reigned supreme. Falsehood became the qualification and criterion for preferment, public life and governance. In this atmosphere of inordinate falsehood, the thinking and the good stood stupefied by manners of men and, the bewilderment of events. If there were no fools, cowards and crooks in Pakistan there would be no dictators. Oh this unlucky and miserable nation. One has to be a military man or a millionaire to be an absolute liar. There is no validity in, nay it is an idiocy, to believe that he can be protected by the sword and money. It is a historical falsehood of human belief and behavior nature whatever it be, destroys both swindling and force in the end. Lie protects and preserves nothing. A lie must vanish under the inexorable pressures and compulsions of nature. We as a nation are not only obsequious, vain and vainglorious in our thinking, manners and ways, but our thinking is circumscribed or vitiated by arrogance and the boasting of the superiority and monopoly of wisdom. We hide crime with conspiracy, and in the garb of tonsorial and sartorial piety and in hauteur of sacerdotalism. We are living in the atmosphere and conditions of Europe in the middle age. We have habitually cheated ourselves and heavily paid for cheating our people long enough and cruelly enough. When will the real moon of freedom rise and shine and the sun of faith and hope really appear and give warmth of liberty and peace. In our eccentric and even lunatic society, unfortunately the victims are the partners and participants in their own undoing, misery and destitution, foolishly extolling the horrible oscillations of their own fate of fifty years with total insensitivity and unconcern and oblivion of all consequences. In the history of lies and blunders we have lost the capacity to reflect and gain the right sociological direction for our efforts, and discernment of the people and the groups who have regulated and controlled our lives. Where politics goes wrong nothing goes right. General Zia - His Winged Death and the Aftermath; Copyright © www.sanipanhwar.com 1 In my whole life I have loved to call a spade a spade in writing, and by words of mouth without bothering about whom and where I had said. My reactions have always been honest, heartfelt and sincere and spontaneous, but never abusive and literally derogatory; they may be sharp for the mind only, to generate a sense of reality, profundity and horror. I have been lucky to get away with it and survived with honor under cruel circumstances we have lived in. The sharpness of the truth has been condoned even by the callous and the infamous who ruled us. I have moved before the end of a barrel of a loaded gun, under portents of ubiquitous danger to life but never cared or felt scared. I have lived firmly in the faith that God alone is the arbiter of destiny and life, and the courage he gives is the only strength of existence and consolation of life. Courage comes with the mother's milk; it cannot be injected. Our vanity, arrogance and rodomontade blind us to the hypocrisy of our governments. We have learnt nothing from British history except "Hypocrite Anglesse" and the tricks of the proverbial Albion. Punjab was the master of subterfuge, hypocrisy and the imperial art, craft and graft of governance. We constantly eulogize power, and proclaim tyrants, conspirators and cut-throats as paragons of virtue. The very victims of lawlessness and bloodshed, sanctify autocracy, despotism and lying. We are victims of our own extravagance and unrealistic ambitions. Our masses are the agents of their own undoing. Mass movements have foreboded mass massacres. We are living in the world of inebriation, make belief, imagination, false reasoning and phantasmagoria, let us get out of this phenomenon, this inveterate curse, this unreality and this self-immolation. We must read the writings on the wall, face facts and accept the truth. To use a metaphor used by Byron taken from a Greek source, "We are assiduously sharpening the pinions of bayonets which are being pressed against our very breasts." Modesty is the soul of reflection, and compromise the spirit of socio-political wisdom and governance. We have denied ourselves both. Does this trait not endanger most certainly our very existence and survival. Have we not seen to our dismay, horror and shame the consequences of unfolding events and of inevitable fate. The penitence and shame we appear to have lost long ago, what remains is the final disaster. This writing is a humble but a heartfelt and intimate and frank diagnosis and prognosis of our national malaise. I have never bothered about or wasted my time, attention and energy to contradict, controvert or combat my critics, most of them fanatics, mercenaries, ill-mannered and undereducated, selfish purveyors of conscience, unthinking and sullied, so called moralists — the veritable wolves in sheep's clothing. My caravan of life moved General Zia - His Winged Death and the Aftermath; Copyright © www.sanipanhwar.com 2 undisturbed, unruffled and unhindered; my sincerity gave me constant strength. I could retort and retaliate but avoided debate and acrimonious exchange of words with the ignorant and the uneducated. In the realm of reflection and analysis I thought it disgraceful I have never answered and controverted with the dishonest, the unthinking and ill- intentioned. I have directly taught for twenty long years and spent another twenty in educational administration in every part of the country. I am no moralist, and I am no preacher. I take Islam as a religion both secularistic and spiritual. I think nothing ill or evil about secularism and take no special credit for being religious. In my belief I am obliging no one, and I consider no one an authority on religion. I am an iconoclast. In our mundane life I take no one sacred and worth idolizing. Religion is something between me and my God any my Prophet (PBUH). I have been insinuated at and accused as a Sindhi; but that is what I am. I want every Punjabi to be a Punjabi, a Pathan a Pathan, a Baloch a Baloch. Mohajirism is foolish, fake and false. They who have come to live in geographical Sindh must accept and take it in its entirety and totality. I love Pakistan and played my part in it with honor and integrity, but that does not make me less Sindhi. If only the exploitation of Pakistan by Punjab will stop, and if they will be proud of their language and culture. In meretricious, military and mulla's Punjab faith is a ruse and a subterfuge. It is recorded judgment of the Punjab High Court that even the dying declaration of a Punjabi cannot be trusted. Hybrid Punjab is true and honest to nothing, not even to itself. I am grateful to God that destiny has never left me feel helpless or needy. I have always held my head high, and loudly and courageously wrote and vociferated what I have believed in. There has been nothing pinch-beck about my life, my writing and my work. God had spared me the idiocies, the sophistications and addictions characteristic and endemic in people of my class in Sindh and Pakistan. I have lived a life of integrity and simplicity and have done an honest piece of work. Intellectual honesty has been my proudest asset. I have done and said nothing for money convenience or for status. Contentment has been the spinal cord of my life. God had spared me the disgrace of succumbing to falsehood and ephemeral conditions of life. There is nothing I have done in life which others like me would only do for seductions of life, emoluments and temporal rewards. There is nothing I have done I am ashamed of; meanness, the chief trait of power and greed, I have never allowed any access in my life. I have believed that the reward for having done a thing honestly and well is to have done it. Wanton and shameless acquisitiveness are the characteristic and flagrant traits of Pakistan society. God had spared me such extravagance in life. I have avoided naming anything that I have built in my name. I have left all calculations and computerization to God. The belief in transience of life and final atonement has been my cardinal faith.