"the terrorist prince," raja anwar

take-home: an interesting, occasionally thrilling account of the twisted political adventures of murtaza bhutto, situated in an equally informative analysis of the political context of the time (the further fall of the PPP under the leadership of the Bhutto begums, the "communist" regime in Afghanistan, martial law in Pakistan, etc.). one is struck, in particular, by both the internal brutality and general impotency of Al-Zulfikar, quite in contrast to the snippets one occasionally hears.

the general argument is compelling, i think, insofar as it is clear that the failures of the organization reflect both (a) the pathological effects of the terrible toll their father's death took on murtaza and shahnawaz; (b) the failures of terrorism as resistance strategy, which celebrates propaganda of the deed over the hard work of grassroots organizing; (c) a unapologetically feudal sense of entitlement.

there is the question, as always, of whether this critique is too easy. it is, after all, somewhat obvious to declare that the failures of resistance or political work lie in the incomplete democracy of the respective endeavors. yet in this book raja anwar does carefully engage the strategic context (for example, he recommends, with hindsight, a different approach to the confrontationist strategy vis-a-vis zia that, he argues, cost Bhutto his life). in that sense it would be difficult to argue that raja anwar is taking refuge in textbook critiques--his engagement is very much soaked in the political history of the time.

and, after all, in the case of the Bhuttos and the PPP, who could argue against the thesis that their primary failure lay in their inability to be constituted by the authentic aspirations of those they claimed to represent?


--- important quotes/excerpts ---

(12): reasons for Zia's promotion by Bhutto--"no politician could hope either to get into power or to rule effectively without the good will, support, and indeed permissin of the army. Therefore he was looking for an army chief who would remain obedient to him, like Tikka Khan. Another factor was Zia's public persona... For Bhtutto, Zia's superficially weak personality was an asset."

(13): "Bhutto admitted after his removal that Zia's appointment had been his greates mistake."

(15-16): [popular mobilization to bring Bhutto down in 1977?] "The shame of the 1977 elections was that the PPP set out to rig them. The irony is that Bhutto allowed himself to be deprived of what would have been a genuine victory... The PNA had stood no chance of victory, but when it was announced on 8 March that in a national assembly of two hundred seats the PNA had won only 36, and the PPP 155, there was outrage at the scale of the illegalities committed.... The opposition exploited public anger by declaring a boycott of the 10 March elections to the provincial legislatures. Strike calls received tremendous support... Bhutto, having failed to quell the PNA movement through civilian law and order agencies, had increasingly begun to depend on the army for his political survivial. ON 21 April he had martial law proclaimed in Karachi, Lahore, and Hyderabad, but the army was not ready to shoot the people in order to keep a civilian in power..."

(18-on): Bhutto deposed on 4 July. Meeting in Murree with Zia on 12 July. On 29 July Bhutto released from protective custody, travels through Larkana, Karachi, Multan, Peshawar and Lahore, greeted by enthusiastic crowds. "The people had opted for Bhutto against martial law. Raja Anwar here writes of Bhutto's unwillingness to compromise with the army establishment as a strategic mistake. Bhutto arrested for the murder of Nawab Muhammad Ahmed Khan Kasuri on 3 September 1977.

(21): [JAMAAT-I-ISLAMI] "As soon as the October elections had been put off [Zia's promise of elections in 90 days, in other words], a witch hunt began. This was a shameful period in Pakistan's history. The mere mention of the word constitution, or election, or Bhutto, was enough for a person to be picked up and punished. The brazen manner in which General Zia used the Jamaat-i-Islami (Party of Islam) for his purposes has few examples in recent political history... The Jamaat now declared Zia the great Islamic defender, and lent its blind support to ever sinister martial law enactment and measure of his. Wherever people turend out on the streets to protest against martial law, the baton-swinging 'Danda Force' of the Jamaat would appear on the scene and beat up the demonstrators. If the day ever comes when the Jamaat can bring itself to examine its past conduct honestly, it will struggle to acquit itself of the charge of having acted as martial law's concubine. Scores of appeals to hang Bhutto were made by its members to General Zia."

(22): As for the PPP, it was more a rabble than a party. Bhutto had never encouraged party democracy, or a strong local structure with solid grass-roots links. He once claimed that, 'I am the People's Party and they are all my creatrues', a lesson that his heirs learned only too well. For most of the PPP's young members, a political act consisted of leaping in the air and dancing as their leader made his characteristic fire-breathing speeches. Because of its infantile chemistry..., the party was not equipped to deal with martial law in an organized and effective manner. With no tradition of local initiative, it was only natural that the rank and file would become the victims of Zia's brutal repression."

(24): "Bhutto never accepted until the end that he had been permanently deprived of power by the army. He believed that he would be able to outwit and outmanoeuvre Zia, calling his bluff."

(31): "while I fully supported Begum Bhutto's confrontationist strategy and bold stance towards the martial law regime, in my view her tactical mistake lay in trying to run a protest movement through a nominated central committee or relying mainly on former ministers and members of the defunct assemblies. The total number of such people at local, provincial and federal levels was at no time more than six hundred, hardly any of them willing to undergo the least personal inconvenience for the sake of Bhutto. Since it was a small and well-identified group, the government's intelligence agencies could easily keep watch on the activities of its members."

(35-37): discussion of author's own efforts to launch a campaign that would build up local and popular strength of PPP's anti-zia mobilization--the "Action Committee movement"

(42-43): Murtaza arrives in Kabul, May 1979

(48): "Murtaza was a perfect example of this juvenile adventurism. In 1969, he had a makeshift hut, such as you would find in a slum, constructed in the forecourt of his father's elegant house at 70 Clifton, Karachi. And now, ten years later, housed in a luxurious annexe to a former royal palace, he had hung out a sign saying 'People's Liberation Army' and dreamed of revolution."

(50): "It is ironic that while the political activists have often been able to win for the masses the right to vote freely because of their struggle against dictatorships, they have failed to gain the right to elect the office holders of the political parties they belong to."

(64-66): interesting bit about Afzal Bangash and Ajmal Khattak in Kabul after the MKP broke up into four factions following reforms in China. Raja Anwar critical of the former for looking for an alliance with Murtaza, whereas praising the latter for skillful and tactical pandering to the gallery in Kabul.

(70): meeting between Murtaza and Indira Gandhi (out of power in 1977; Janata Front only lasts two years; back in power by 1980)

(71): Zia on the constitution:

What is a constitution? It is a booklet with twelve or ten pages. I can tear them away and say that tomorrow we shall live under a different system. Today the people will follow wherever I lead. All the politicians including the once-might Mr. Bhutto will follow me with tails wagging.

(71): "Men like Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Zia-ul-Haq did not rise to power because they were reformers or revolutionaries, or great heroes like de Gaulle and Eisenhower, but because they exploited the Cold War to grab power by toeing the American line"

(73): "The Western-educated Benazir did not take long to learn the golden rule of Pakistan's feudal politics, namely that a leader must not be answerable to his or her party. It was for the leader to issue orders, for the party to unquestioningly obey them. A leader might call for national elections in order to come to power, but elections within the party were out of bounds. Benazir though the safest course was to liquidate the old guard altogether, and in two years [1984-1986], she managed to purge the PPP..."

(78): "It is a tragedy of history that the Indian National Congress which once had in its ranks liberals such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah, non-communal nationalists such as Abu Kalam Azad, revolutionaries such as Subhas Chandra Bose, and brilliant intellectuals of the stature of Jawaharlal Nehru, had become a handmaiden of the naive and brutally ambitious Sanjay Gandhi. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, 'the Frontier Gandhi', was once constrained to comment: 'The party which we had set up by giving it our blood, has been destroyed by this girl [Indira Gandhi]"

(84): "The only success I had before our split was that I did not let him commit any act of violence or terrorism. As he had failed to set up a working-class, revolutionary organization, I tried to convince him to go back to London, where he could set up an office to guide the movement for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. Later, this suggestion provided his evidence to the Afghans that I had tried to persuade him to 'betray the revolution' and return to London."

(106): "[symmetry between Cold War Afghanistan and Pakistan] At the very moment when Karmal was talking so movingly about political prisoners in Pakistan, his own jails were packed with thousands of his countrymen whom he had locked up without any legal trial. While Karmal was bewailing the lot of the poor in Pakistan, General Zia was shedding tears over the privations of the Afghan masses. Both men had set up kangaroo courts to deal with their political opponents. In both countries, the mere mention of human rights amounted to treason. One was smothering the people in the name of socialism, the other in the name of Islam. One was in power by virtue of Soviet tanks, the other, by courtesy of American dollars. In a few years' time both would be disowned by their one-time patrons."

(116): "The hijack had happened at the height of the Cold War [March 1981], and the plane had landed in Kabul, so the world media but two and two together and declared that Al-Zulfikar was trained by the KGB. If Murtaza's dog Wolf was to be included, at the time there were only eight who could be called Al-Zulfikar.

(121): "Al-Zulfikar was neither a political party nor did it have a political, social, or economic programme. It was the manifestation of an emotional response by male members of the Bhutto family to the barbarity of martial law and the hanging of the deposed Prime Minister... There was a temporary increase in its membership after it managed to get some prisoners released from Zia's jails as part of the hijack's negotiated end, but even during those years 1981 to 1982 its total strength never exceeded ninety-six. "

(132): "The punishment awaiting Al-Zulfikar men was swift and merciless. Nothing can make up for the pain, fear, and mental torture they must have undergone. Instead of luxuriating in the safety of his fortress in Kabul, had the leader of ever joined his men on such a journey, he would have known something of the ordeals they endured. I doubt that it occurred to him."

(136): "By 1984, Al-Zulfikar, such as it was, had disintegrated."

(142): "Anjum had fallen a victim to Al-Zulfikar's back-handed logic which argued that the more people Al-Zulfikar blew up or shot, the greater would be the revulsion of the masses against the army. Finally, the masses would march out onto the streets and overthrow the regime. In life, it is the contrary that happens. Terrorism can never be popular because it destroys the very people in whose name it sets out to act."

(148): "The fact that the Bhutto brothers had settled in France in 1984 was not widely known. Not until Shahnawaz died there in 1985 did the world discover where he and his brother had been living. Why did the French government allow leaders of a terrorist organization to live in France?.... It is said that after Bhutto's hanging, the Americans decided to keep their lines open to the Bhutto family, and it was at their request that the French agreed to provide asylum and other facilities to Begum Bhutto and her sons..."

(155): "Afridi [entirely falsely accused, argues the author] was made to sit in a chair which had its back to a wall. He had no idea who was watching him, nor could he have been aware that Tipu and Shahnawaz, both of them toting Kalashnikovs, were hovering close by. Murtaza said in a loud voice: 'If you confess that you are an agent, I will release you and send you to Libya.' The simple Afridi did so. 'In keeping with my promise, I release you,' Murtaza announced. Eyewitnesses to this callous performance have described to me how, as signs of relief appeared on Afridi's face, Tipu and Shahnawaz both opened fire together, and blew his brains out. He died at once. Then his blood-splattered body was photographed and the pictures sent to General Fazle Haq..."

(156): "That he did not think twice about ordering a close companion killed on the basis of hearsay or minor differences, confirms that in Murtaza's book, the dividing line between friendship and enmity was either movable or non-existent. Having opted for the gun, he had convinced himself that therin lay the solution of every major and minor problem, as long as the muzzle was pointed at someone else, and by someone else's hand."

(186): story about Rashid Nagi, poet from Gujranwala, who set himself on fire for Zulfikar only to be sentenced to death by his son: "In February 1979, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had proudly told the Supreme Court of Pakistan that eight of his workers had set themselves on fire for his sake. Could any of them have imagined that only two years later, Bhutto's sons would humiliate one of them on a Kabul street and almost have him killed? Nagi had walked through fire, only to be beaten up and knifed by their henchmen..."

(193): "The new Prime minister of India, Morarji Desai, and the Pakistani dictator had one thing in common: their dislike of Mrs. Gandhi8 and Bhutto. Naturally, this brought them close, which was why the period from 1977 to 1979 brought the warmest ever interlude between the two countries."

(193): author arguing that Zia gives serious support to the Sikhs of East Punjab. but no real documentation of what actually was offered...

(194): as revenge for this, Indian backing for Murtaza to run a liberation movement in Sindh--therefore Al-Zulfikar reborn in January 1986. "Between 1986 and 1993, only Sindhi nationalist youths could join its ranks. Their optimal number can be said to have varied between three hundred and four hundred men. Every single Al-Zulfikar operation in the second phase was undertaken in Sindh."

(198): "Certain parallels between the two political dynasties of Pakistan and India, the Bhuttos and the Gandhis, bear out the judgement that republican democracy in the whole subcontinent is still at war with an older, feudal tradition that requires latter-day kings and queens, princes and princesses, who sometimes pay with their lives for the scale and dominance of their political ambitions..."

(200-201): President Ghulam Ishaq Khan was the sacker of both the Benazir government, in 1990, and the Nawaz Sharif government, in 1993.

(201): "In the elections which followed in 1993, Murtaza, who was stilla broad, decided to run for twenty Sindhi constituencies, confident that the people of Sindh would vote for him rather than Benazir. He was mistaken: the election was a disaster, and he could barely manage to win from Larkana."

(202): incident at Al-Murtaza in 1994, Bhutto's birthday, when brothers' henchmen clash with sisters' policemen.

(202): Murtaza arrested upon arrival in Pakistan--"when Murtaza was finally released from prison in May 1994, the rivalry intensified between him and his sister. In 1995, Murtaza set up his own party, which he named the Pakistan People's Party (Bhutto Shaheed)..."

(203): Both Benazir and Asif did whatever they could do to liquidate Murtaza politically... In May 1996, Murtaza and Benazir met for the first time since his return to Pakistan. The meeting was not a success; the two failed to arrive at a mutually acceptable formula for sharing power..."

(204): "The law and order situation in Karachi was already catastrophic. In 1995 alone, three hundred policemen plus two thousand members of the public had died violent deaths."

(208): "Only time will tell who Murtaza's killers were. One cannot help observing though that his life dictated his death. He had started his political journey with a gun, and on 20 September 1996 it was a gun which brought it to an end."

(209): "When it came into being in 1967, it appealed at once to the deprived masses that constitute the bulk of Pakistani society though they exercise no power. In the PPP they saw the promise of hope and change for the first time... During the five and half years that it stayed in power, it only brought severe disappointment to the people... Massive street demonstrations mounted by the opposition against the PPP's misrule encouraged the army to take over. However Bhutto's trial and execution in April 1979 became a grand act of expiation, and the people forgave him all his excesses..."

(209): "Benazir twice came to power, first from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996. On both occasions, her government failed to complete its term, dismissed on a host of charges by Presidents Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Sardar Farooq Leghari respectively... A party which started out in 1967 with a platform promising the abolition of feudalism, turned into its last outpost..."