Bhutto’s allies don’t really trust her

Press, 25 August 1986, Page 10

Bhutto’s allies don’t really trust her

NZPA-Reuter Karachi

When Benazir Bhutto returned in triumph from exile in December her Pakistan People’s Party promised to mobilise half a million “doves for democracy” against the rule of General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq. Despite Miss Bhutto’s arrest and a nationwide opposition call for protesters to take to the streets, the doves refused to fly. Violence flared in Miss Bhutto’s native Sind province and its capital, Karachi, after her arrest on August 14 but otherwise the response to the campaign launched by the 10-party Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (M.R.D.) was muted.

The opposition said more than 40 people were killed and hundreds injured in clashes with security forces and government supporters. Only a few thousand people turned out for rallies in Karachi and Lahore the day of Miss Bhutto’s arrest on a 30day detention order, far fewer than expected. Politicians said the failure to bring out the masses had dented her image and exposed the papered-over cracks in the alliance that several leading opposition figures fear could now split wide open. One party, the Tehrik-i-Istiqlal, has already told the M.R.D. that it is considering leaving the five-year-old movement. Other parties did little to support the M.R.D. campaign, which virtually fizzled out just four days after its launching on August 18 after hundreds of opposition leaders were arrested.

Yet many politicians say the main factor in the campaign’s failure was the M.R;D.’s lack of organisation. "The climate was not right to start a movement and we were not prepared,” said Tehrik-i-Is-tiqlal’s leader, Air Marshal Muhammad Ashgar Khan.

“It is not a small matter taking on the Army. People have to be united,” Air Marshal Khan, a former comman-

der-in-chief of the Pakistan Air Force, who was detained for five years by General Zia.

like several other party leaders, Air Marshal Khan blames Miss Bhutto and the P.P.P., the most powerful M.R.D. member, for pushing the alliance into committing itself to action too soon.

The M.R.D. originally planned the campaign for September 20, the deadline it set for General Zia to announce a date for fresh elections, in which political parties could take part It boycotted party-less polls 16 months ago that brought the Government of the Prime Minister, Mr Muhammad Khan Junejo, to power. The M.R.D. told Mr Junejo that it would bring the launching date forward to August 18 if any of its members were arrested. Mr Junejo obliged by rounding up about 1000 leaders on the eve of opposition rallies to mark Independence Day on August 14. “The whole technique of putting the Government on notice was wrong,” Air Marshal Khan said.

"Junejo called our bluff,” said one M.R.D. leader. "With the leadership in jail we just weren’t able to bring out the people.” Many of those who did come out in Karachi and Sind said they felt let down by the M.R.D. “We have faced bullets and tear gas from the Army and police,” said a P.P.P. worker in rural Sind, scene of the most violent protests. “But we have had no support from the rest of the country.” It was the first time the Army had been called out since General Zia lifted nearly nine years of martial law in December. The opposition said the Government’s swift action had tarnished Pakistan’s image of a country slowly moving towards full democracy. The United States,’ which has poured billions of dollars in military and economic aid into Pakistan since the Soviet military intervention in neighbouring Afghanistan, in 1979, has encouraged the move toward democracy. The opposition said

General Zia had been keen to appear moderate and promote what it called the illusion of civilian rule through Mr Junejo, especially as the United States Congress was considering the latest SUS 4 billion, six-year aid measure.

“This remains a terribly repressive regime with a veneer of respectability," Air Marshal Khan said.

Opposition leaders agreed that the crackdown had damaged Mr Junejo but they admitted that they had come off worse for the week’s ■ events. A former P.P.P. senior member, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, said Benazir, daughter of the executed Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was power-hun-gry. Mr Jatoi, who is planning to found his own party, accused her of failing to plan properly and harness the entire opposition against General Zia, who in 1977 removed her father in a coup. He was hanged two years later.

M.R.D. leaders admit that they need the P.P.P. but many remain suspicious that Miss Bhutto is using them to gain power.

“A lot of mistrust remains within the M.R.D. They have seen Benazir’s behaviour, they know she is going to use them and stab them in the back when the time comes," Mr Jatoi said. Miss Bhutto has denied such intentions and said she wanted to restore full democracy and keep the Army out of politics.

M.R.D. leaders are also uneasy about the P.P.P.’s commitment to the doctrine of “Bhuttoism,” a kind of populist socialism that alienated much of the middle class and Army during her father’s administration from 1971-77.

“Bhuttoism was a nightmare for many of us,” Air Marshal Khan said.

Her appeal was to the poor and lower middle classes, mainly in Sind, in the south. “Some commentators have tried to liken Benazir to the (Philippines President) Cory Aquino," said another. “That is wrong because Benazir does not have the support of the middle class nor of the clergy.”