Zia ul Haq, Mohammed

Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq was born on August 12, 1924 in the city of Jalandhar , now in India , in the family of a retired officer. After training at the Royal Indian Academy, he was promoted to officer and before the end of World War II as part of the British Expeditionary Corps, he participated in combat operations against the Japanese army in Burma , Malaysia and Indonesia .

With the formation of independent Pakistan in 1947, Zia-ul-Haq began serving in the Pakistani army and in 1955 graduated from the college of high command personnel in Quetta . After graduating from college, Zia-ul-Haq twice (1959 and 1963) trained in the United States, where he completed a course of study at the College of High Command in Fort Lebanworth, Kansas.

The numerous military coups in Pakistan were a sort of political school for Zia-ul-Haq. He stubbornly moved to the highest military ranks and waited in the wings.

In 1964 he was given the rank of lieutenant colonel and sent as an instructor to the headquarters in the province of Quetta. In the years 1966-1968, he commanded an armored division.

The military defeat and separation of East Pakistan led to an explosion inside the country: the regime of Yahya Khan was swept away. The Pakistan People’s Party (PNP), headed by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, won the general election.

Meanwhile, Zia-ul-Haq continued to advance through the ranks. He acted prudently and cunningly. Gradually weaving conspiracy threads, Zia at the same time with all his might demonstrated his “loyalty” to the Prime Minister.

The turning point in his career came in the mid-seventies. Presiding over the tribunal, which tried the case of the army anti-government conspiracy uncovered in 1973, Zia-ul-Haq established himself as a supporter of the depoliticization of the armed forces and soon quickly went to the top.

Bypassing several reputable generals who stood above him on the hierarchy, in March 1976 he was appointed chief of staff of the ground forces. Bhutto, who personally nominated him for this post and believed in his loyalty, failed to discern the future military dictator in 3iya-ul-Haq and paid dearly for his mistake.

Zia traveled around the country, talked with officers, sought the support of influential individuals within society and the army. Before climbing the political Olympus, it remains quite a bit - to eliminate Bhutto. A good time for Zia-ul-Haq came in the summer of 1977.

On July 5, 1977, Bhutto was overthrown and executed in April 1979. On October 1, 1979, the general announced the cancellation of the parliamentary elections he had scheduled for October 18.

Zia-ul-Haq himself claimed that “his only goal was to organize free and fair elections,” but in fact he abolished the constitution. From July 5, 1978, he also became Minister of Defense and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan.

Zia followed the line of Islamization and sought to bring the country's criminal legislation into line with the norms of traditional Islamic law. Some legal procedures prescribed by Islam in the field of taxation and banking have been restored.

Under the conditions of difficult domestic and foreign policy, Zia-ul-Haq decided to rely on the Sunni Pakistani Islamists. In response to their demands for “sharia”, the government in 1977-1979 adopted a number of laws that provided for the application of traditional Islamic punishments for crimes.

With the introduction of Soviet troops in Afghanistan at the end of December 1979, Zia-ul-Haq allowed the American authorities to use Pakistan as a logistics base for the Afghan resistance movement . A significant number of Pakistani intelligence officers were engaged in transporting weapons and equipment to the Mujahideen transfer points. In the camps of the Mujahideen in Pakistan held captured Soviet soldiers, some of whom died in captivity . According to expert estimates, without the assistance of Pakistan, Mujahideen resistance would be doomed to failure. As a result, the Soviet leadership and the press accused Zia-ul-Haq of patronizing the Mujahideen; in Moscow, the Pakistani president was perceived as an unfriendly, if not to say frankly hostile. However, in November 1982, at the height of the war in Afghanistan, Ziya-ul-Haq, thanks to an opportunity and without an invitation, made an extremely unexpected visit to the USSR , having visited Leonid Brezhnev's funeral in Moscow . However, Yuri Andropov and Andrei Gromyko , who met with him at the negotiating table, could not convince the Pakistani leader of anything. Then, in order to destabilize the Zia-ul-Haq regime, Soviet forces began pushing millions of Afghan refugees into Pakistan, Soviet aircraft increasingly crossed the border to bombard the bases of the Afghan Mujahideen in Pakistan, armed with ethnic groups and tribes that had at least some claims to Zia-ul-hak ^[3] .

In December 1984, Zia-ul-Haq held a referendum on attitudes towards Islamization policies. Her approval, inevitable in the conditions of the Islamic Republic, was prudently linked to the extension of presidential powers for five years.

On December 30, 1985, Zia abolished martial law and restored the 1973 constitution with amendments that increased the power of the president, giving him the right to dissolve the government and legislative bodies of the country and provinces. The law on parties, adopted a few months later, allowed them to function legally, subject to official regulations. Opposition organizations stepped up attacks on the Zia-ul-Haq regime, demanding regular elections within the appointed time frame and insisting on full restoration of constitutional norms. The most authoritative leader of this part of society was Benazir Bhutto , the daughter of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who headed the PNP.

In the future, freeing himself and other members of the military-bureaucratic stratum from responsibility for violating civil rights and freedoms, Ziya-ul-Haq announced on December 30, 1985, that the martial law was lifted. However, he made it clear that this act is purely symbolic.

However, it gradually became clear that Zia-ul-Haq’s civil partners, and first of all the Prime Minister M. H. Junjedo appointed by him, did not want to stay on the sidelines.

President’s patience was overwhelmed when Prime Minister Junedjo decided to cut military spending on the pretext that this would be in line with the wishes of Pakistan’s financial donors. On May 29, 1988, Zia-ul-Haq dissolved the lower house of parliament, dismissed the civilian prime minister, and with him the central and provincial government. In an interview with the West German newspaper Frankfurter Rundshau , the president said that Pakistan is too undeveloped to have a democratic system of government.

On August 17, 1988, Zia-ul-Haq flew to the Teypur Tamepali training ground, where the demonstrative tests of the American M-1 Abrams tank were to be passed. After the end of the test, the C-130 “Hercules” aircraft headed for Islamabad . A Pakistani general, Aslam Bek, flew after him. On the “Hercules” route, Zia-ul-Haq crashed near the city of Lahore. Losing altitude, the plane, according to eyewitnesses, began to dive and heave up, then crashed to the ground. None of the 37 people aboard the Hercules could not be saved. At 20 o'clock, an emergency message was broadcast about the death of Zia-ul-Haq. A ten-day mourning was announced in the country, all state institutions and educational institutions were closed for three days.

Senate President Ghulam Ishaq Khan was sworn in as interim president. He immediately promised that those responsible for the death of Zia-ul-Haq will be found and punished. As experts experts from the USA are involved. The versions of the experts diverged: the Pakistanis suggested that there could be a container with poisonous gas on board. When the detonator worked, the container opened, gas struck the pilots, and the plane lost control. American experts found traces of pentaerythritol tetranitrate on the debris - an explosive often used for sabotage. Organizers and customers of the attack were not found.

The Pakistani special services also directly linked this incident with the activities of the KGB as a punishment for Badber ^[4] . With all this, in the USSR, these events did not receive public exposure. In the Soviet media it was briefly reported that Zia-ul-Haq died in a plane crash.

• Great rulers of the XX century. / Auto-comp. Ostrovtsov A. A., Ostrovtsova M. A. - Moscow: Martin, 2002. - 480 p. - ISBN 5-8475-0110-2
• Musky I.A. 100 great dictators. - M .: Veche, 2002. - 656 p. - ISBN 5-7838-0710-9