Adil Najam
Today, April 4, marks the death anniversary of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
There is probably no other political figure since Mohammad Ali Jinnah who has left as deep and lasting a shaddow on Pakistan politics as Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB). You can love him or hate him, but you cannot possibly ignore him.
Those who love him, love him with a passion that few – if any – other Pakistani leaders evoke. Those who hate him – and many seem to do – do so with equal ferocity. No one I know is indifferent to him.
I use the words “love” and “hate” because the intensity of people’s views on him cannot really be captured by dispassionate terms such as “like” and “dislike” alone. Whatever else we might think of him, no one can deny his intensity, or the intensity with which Pakistanis of all generations – including those who have never even seen him – talk about him.
So today, on his death anniversary, let me not talk about my views on him. Let him talk to us himself. In his own words and in his own unique and passionate style.
I will be grateful if Z.A. Bhutto’s followers could explain what good Bhutto and his daughter and her husband did for Pakistan. Rather than promote a cultlike trance of empty rhetoric, are they willing to accept that Z.A. Bhutto was responsible for the division of Pakistan? Moreover, if Bhutto was so amazingly brilliant and super-intelligent, why did he make such a poor judgment when hand-picking the Chief of Army Staff, thus digging his own grave? Actions speak louder than words, and the Bhutto clan’s corruption and incompetence can never be drowned by songs of fulsome praise.
@Meengla,
High treason, commanditairing killings, murders,
the Pakistani generation knows and will always
remember all about this hanging.
One out of thousands of proves, existance of Bangladesh,
will remind us all, every second of 24 hours a day,
the ugly treason of Bhuttos & PPP will remain a Himalayan truth,
What shall I do with Kamran Shafi’s paper load,
first pass through the ” guillotine ” and spread on the soil
of Ghari Khuda Bakh.
What is there to debate ??
The split of Islamic Republic of Pakistan,
The Bangla-Bundhoo & NAP (1/2 sisters of Bhashani, Wali )
The creation of Bangladesh,
Conspiracy of Indian Indira
Conspiracy of fraudulent ” Quaid-e-Awaam ” a Pakistani
Bhutto.
With just one simple judgement, Bhutto be hanged
every day.
Come on meengla give us a break !!!
Pakistan People’s Party
I’d like to quote one paragraph from Kamran Shafi’s article, as linked from post above. I am doing it because, in my opinion, Pakistan’s ethnic fault-lines are potentially explosive and we all must be very careful lest a situation arises where Sindh (both urban and rural) decide to go the E. Pakistan route. Specifically, the strategy similar to that of the likes of Pervez Elahi to become the PM of Pakistan on the back of his home-province alone is most certainly to cause at least Sindh to hasten (I say ‘hasten’ not ‘start’ deliberately) its break. The consequences of ZAB and now BB’s murder can be disastrous for Pakistan’s unity. Even Zia was aware of the consequences of ZAB’s murder.
Anyway, here is the quote from Kamran Shafi.
——————————-QUOTED BELOW —–
“Yes, the catharsis such as the one that has started to happen must
happen. The young people of today must be told of the shoddiness and
illegality and downright cruelty in which an elected leader was hanged
by a military dictator in a well-thought out operation: to have him
convicted by judges of a High Court who were openly inimical to him,
specially the Chief Justice Maulvi Mushtaq; to then contrive to bring
about changes in the Supreme Court through the most blatant chicanery
so that the majority of the bench would consist of Punjabis; and then
to murder him even though the verdict of the Supreme Court was four
for hanging and three for outright acquittal. It is important for our
children to know that the four judges who condemned Bhutto were
Punjabis and the three who acquitted him were non-Punjabis. It is
important for them to know that never has a death sentence been
carried out where there was a split verdict, let alone one with the
narrowest possible majority such as in this case. This is most
critical, so that our succeeding generations (if what remains of
Pakistan survives this latest onslaught by self-same Establishment,
mark) are aware that deep provincial divides can occur when the
majority province becomes a handmaiden to the completely venal
Establishment of the Land of the Pure.”
The subject of ‘judicial murder’ must be debated.
http://tinyurl.com/68uhr8
has two articles. The 2nd one is from Asghar Khan–supposedly the man who wanted to hang Bhutto from the Attock bridge? Read how carefully AND dispassionately Asghar Khan analyzes Bhutto’s trial.
The first article by Kamran Shafi is about the needed ‘catharsis’ and that can only happen if the matter is debated in the changed circumstance. It is said that the PM BB in 1988 gave up the idea in confronting Bhutto’s killers because, to quote her, “The Assembly is full of Zia’s Baqiat”.
This is the first time since 1977 where the Establishment of Pakistan is so-weakened against the PPP and hence PPP is now ready dig up old issues.
Again, please read Asghar Khan’s article in light of his own role in Bhutto’s downfall.
If Bhutto’s death sentence was a ‘judicial murder’ why it’s perpetrators were not punished by Benazir during her regime as Hassina Wajid did with the murderers of her father, Mujibur Rehman. No body, I wonder, even tried to trace out the approver in the Judicial muder, Masud Mehmood, who might have divulged many secrets and conspiracies.