(The Woman Who Told History – Issue 1700)
In politics, there is no one, only doctrine, no feelings, only greatness.
Politically, instead of killing a person, we remove an obstacle.
—French writer Alexandre Dumas
Dumas
His full name is Zulficar Ali Bhutto, but for the sake of convenience, we generally call him Ali Bhutto, so when the following text is written, it is also written as Ali Bhutto.
Ali Bhutto's life was relatively smooth.
First of all, he was born relatively well, and his family was relatively wealthy, and his father was named Xanawaz Khan Bhutto, who once served as a minister of government agencies in Mumbai during the British colonial period, and accumulated rich family wealth.
Secondly, because ali Bhutto had a good family material foundation, he systematically received a good Western education from an early age, and after entering the society, he first served as a respected lawyer in society, and then opened his own law firm, became a boss, and became a businessman.
Ali Bhutto
But because of his father's influence, Ali Bhutto joined the Muslim League at a very young age. Therefore, from his youth, he began to participate in various political activities such as marches, and during this period, he concentrated on politics, and obtained a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Berkeley in California, before entering the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom to study law and obtain a bachelor's degree in law.
In fact, Ali Bhutto's brilliant resume goes far beyond that, but we are here to focus on his political career, so we will not dwell on his early resume. In 1953, Ali Bhutto returned from England to Pakistan, which was still very poor and backward, and after returning to China, various observations made him determined to devote himself to politics in order to seek reform strategies and benefit the country.
Upon his return, Ali Bhutto became active in politics, first being elected chairman of the Sindh Youth Front. Soon after, because Ali Bhutto was deeply loved by intellectuals and other classes, his influence gradually increased, which aroused the attention and appreciation of Iskander Mirza, the president of Pakistan at the time. In 1958, Pakistan sent a delegation to participate in the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, and Ali Bhutto was appointed by the President as head of the delegation.
Iskander Mirza
However, pakistan's domestic political situation was turbulent at this time, and in October of that year, Ayyub Khan, who had just been appointed chief executive of the military control law by the president, suddenly staged a military coup d'état, exiled President Iskander Mirza, and was soon expelled from the country.
These political changes played a major role and opportunity for Ali Bhutto, who was seeking upward opportunities on the political road. It was also because of this coup that Ali Bhutto began to truly enter the political center.
After exiled the former president, Ayyub Khan re-formed the cabinet himself, the so-called one son of heaven and one courtier, he naturally wanted to hire a group of new people, the rising political star Ali Bhutto was absorbed into his cabinet body by Ayyub Khan, became the youngest cabinet member of the cabinet organization, and successively served as a minister in the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other departments.
During this period, Ali Bhutto assisted the President, vigorously supported land reform, formulated a constitution, etc., and did a lot of positive work, becoming an extremely powerful arm of Ayyub Khan. But their friendly partner did not last long, because after the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, the two sides signed a ceasefire agreement in 1966 called the "Tashkent Declaration", which was signed under the "mediation" of Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin, but the content of the declaration was greatly unfavorable to the Pakistani side, so he had serious differences with President Ayub Khan, and soon Ali Bhutto resigned as foreign minister on the grounds of going abroad for medical treatment, and then returned to his old career and entered the legal profession.
Of course, we also know that a person with such political talent can really leave the political arena? Ali Bhutto's departure was also a stopgap measure to break away from Ayyub Khan's political organization. In fact, Pakistan at this time under the leadership of Ayyub Khan's cabinet was also full of contradictions:
On the one hand, Ayyub Khan seized power through a military coup, so he has always adopted a militarized and repressive rule after becoming president, which in itself has aroused strong popular discontent;
On the other hand, the ability of the Ayyub Khan government to govern is challenged, and there are many problems that cannot be properly solved, such as economic stagnation, especially the backwardness of agriculture, and the need to import a large amount of food every year to meet the needs of the domestic population. It is inevitable that the authority of a government that does not feed the population will be challenged.
Ayyub Khan
Ayyub Khan's government was soon met with strong opposition from the population, and the wave of opposition grew so high that it reached an unending situation. Faced with this situation, the governments of Yahya Khan and Ayyub Khan, then commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Navy, were forced to agree to the general election. But this was not the worst, the election was difficult to go through, the Third Indo-Pakistani War broke out in late 1971 and early 1972, and the Indian army had already reached Dhaka. At that time, Pakistan could be described as a domestic and external difficulty, full of crises and full of holes. It was also at this momentous moment in history that Ali Bhutto re-entered the political arena and became the president of Pakistan.
Faced with a turbulent Pakistan, Ali Bhutto's first priority as president is to travel to India for negotiations. The prime minister of India at the time was the famous "Iron Lady" Indira Gandhi.
As the defeated side, and facing a very strong prime minister, this negotiation is full of difficulties. The subsequent facts did confirm the difficulty of this negotiation. Because at the beginning of the negotiations, the Indian "Iron Lady" put forward three issues, one is territoriality, the other is prisoners of war, and the third is the Kashmir issue, and demands that they be solved together.
But Ali Bhutto knew that this was impossible, so he insisted that these three problems needed to be solved, but it was impossible to solve them at the same time, only one by one, and it was solved one by one, step by step, in stages. But indira Gandhi, the Iron Lady, did not give him a chance and simply took out the negotiation book and asked Ali Bhutto to sign it.
Ali Bhutto looked at the negotiation book and knew that there were countless Pakistani people waiting for him behind him, and he could not disappoint his countrymen, but if the negotiations failed, then he, the president, was also a failure and should step down. But even so, even if he lost the presidency, he could not sign the negotiator of the loss of power and humiliation, so he refused to sign, and he said to Indira Gan:
"Madam, I would rather return to China and step down than sign this treaty."
Four days of difficult negotiations with no progress. In the face of this stalemate, Ali Bhutto planned to return home. But on the same day that Ali Bhutto was preparing to return home, he suddenly changed his mind and wanted to use the opportunity of his resignation to hold one last negotiation with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi again.
Indira Gandhi
Needless to say, the difficulty of the negotiations was, but unexpectedly, after the difficult negotiations, good results were achieved, and Indira Gandhi finally agreed to sign the Simla Agreement. Although the agreement only achieved one result, that is, India returned the occupied territory of Pakistan, but this article was enough to make Pakistan in distress at that time happy.
In this way, Pakistan's external problems will be temporarily resolved. Next, it is time to solve the internal worries. Ali Bhutto's political ideal was to build a democratic Pakistan. As a result, upon his return to China, he worked actively to promote a new constitution to replace the previous military-law government. Because of the new constitution, which won the support of the people and the majority of the party, it was soon formally adopted in the National Assembly of Pakistan.
Because the new constitution was fully promoted by Ali Bhutto, it is also called the "Bhutto Constitution".
Ali Bhutto visited China during his administration and was met by Chairman Mao
In accordance with the provisions of the new constitution, the government held general elections, and the victorious chairman of the People's Party, Ali Bhutto, became prime minister (note: Ali Bhutto was president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and prime minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977).
Now we go on to say that Ali Bhutto's new constitution, like all reforms in history, as long as it is reformed, it will inevitably move the cheese of some people, and the power of this part of the people is very large. Ali Bhutto's new constitution is like this, he has raised the interests and power of the people, but also limits or weakens the power of religion and the army, and the power of religion and army is very powerful, how can they sit idly by and watch their cheese pass? Thus they also began to act, and under their frequent activity, an Islamic Charter was promulgated and adopted unanimously in the National Assembly.
The purpose of the so-called Islamic Charter is to target the "Bhutto Constitution". Moreover, according to the setting of the Islamic Charter, the power of religion is far greater than that of the Constitution.
After that, Ali Bhutto began to vigorously promote land reform, but these policies caused strong dissatisfaction among the large landowners. At this point, the big landlords, the opposition parties, and the various forces of the religious circles all united to oppose Ali Bhutto. This led to various waves of opposition, such as strikes and even large-scale riots.
By this time, Ali Bhutto's reforms had reached a dangerous situation.
However, at such a juncture, Ali Bhutto had no intention of compromising, and in order to continue his reforms, he finally used the army to control the situation. As a result, conflicts have continued, leading to constant bloodshed. In the midst of this turmoil and chaos, Ali Bhutto's reforms were unable to take place, and the country's economy began to stagnate. People have no confidence in Ali Bhutto, such a dilemma, there is only one way out of the new election.
In such circumstances, Ali Bhutto knew that the stability of the army must be ensured in the chaos, and it was resolute not to have an accident in a military coup, and if so, it would have a disastrous impact on Pakistan and, of course, extremely unfavorable to his own party. Therefore, Ali Bhutto decided to adjust the officers of the army and promote new officers to check and balance the senior officers.
This move, from the perspective of "imperial art", is not wrong. But Ali Bhutto didn't do a good job because he saw the wrong person. He promoted a man named Zia Hack. This man was a commander in the Third Army, and for some time this man had been particularly loyal to Ali Bhutto between words and deeds. Ali Bhutto promoted Zia Haq to chief of the army general staff.
Zia Hack
But that's when the nightmare began.
While Ali Bhutto is putting his fortune on Zia Hack, Zia Hack is also plotting another conspiracy, and it is against Ali Bhutto.
As a result, on July 5, 1977, even those who opposed Ali Bhutto did not expect that Ali Bhutto's government would collapse in such a short time. On this day, Zia Haak secretly led the army to control the roads, radio stations, etc., and then surrounded the Prime Minister's palace, and if it were not for a righteous policeman who ventured in and told Ali Bhutto, Ali Bhutto would not have thought that Zia Haq would betray him.
At that time, his guards and police advised Ali Bhutto to escape, but Ali Bhutto refused, and he chose to stay!
Soon after, rebels invaded and Ali Bhutto was arrested and placed under house arrest.
Pakistan has temporarily entered the period of military rule of Zia Haq! Zia Haq repealed the Bhutto Constitution and Pakistan entered a mode of military control.
But Zia Haq was no more than a soldier, with no political talent at all, and no clever political strategy other than military coercion. For example, shortly after Zia Haq came to power, there was a flood in Pakistan. A single natural disaster brought Zia Haq to stupor, or a single natural disaster exposed Zia Haq's shallow incompetence. At that time, in the aftermath of the disaster, Zia Haq did not actively respond to the disaster, but advocated that it was because Ali Bhutto's atrocities caused the wrath of heaven and brought about punishment. But in contrast, Ali Bhutto's family took people to the disaster area to help the victims.
Compared with the two, the high and low are immediately seen.
People and other political parties, despite the military threat of Zia Haq, came forward to fight for Ali Bhutto, who was pressured by public opinion to temporarily release Ali Bhutto.
However, Zia Hack, who was a soldier, knew that he was not a political opponent of Ali Bhutto, so he could not tolerate Ali Bhutto's free movement outside, so he tried to execute this opponent.
Soon, Zia Haq finally found an excuse to arrest Ali Bhutto.
The arrest was charged with the murder of Ahmed Raza Kasuri's father.
This time, however, Zia Haq was still unsuccessful, as the Court's investigation found insufficient evidence. But Zia Haq doesn't give up on that.
As the election days drew nearer, Zia Haq was so anxious that she repeated the same tactic, arresting Ali Bhutto on the previous charges, but this time he added another charge to Ali Bhutto, namely treason. This sin, of course, is "falsehood", but it is only to blame Ali Bhutto for the division of East Pakistan.
But the situation was urgent, the rescuers were helpless, and under the arbitrary operation of Zia Hack, the court was eventually forced to convict Ali Bhutto and hang him.
For the history of Pakistan, April 4, 1979, is an unforgettable day.
On this day, at the Rawalpindi prison in Pakistan, the warden and the prison guard opened a single cell, and the warden said in a low and respectful voice:
"The time has come, please, Mr. Ali Bhutto."
Ali Bhutto stood up and straightened his clothes and hair. Then the guards tied his hands.
Ali Bhutto walked to the execution ground.
On the execution ground stands a formidable height of gallows, on which hang deadly ropes.
Faced with gallows and ropes, the former president and prime minister of Pakistan, Mr. Ali Bhutto, will be hanged, and before his execution he shouted loudly and affectionately:
"Allah! Save me, for I am a sinless man! ”
Ali Bhutto Cemetery
Ali Bhutto finished his last words in his life and was hanged. But despite his death, Pakistan's path to democratic reform is not over. The people of Pakistan have not forgotten him, and countless people are chanting the Quran aloud to pray for the soul of Ali Bhutto.
Most importantly, Ali Bhutto's mission is not over, and his daughter will continue his legend.
(Text/Woman Who Told History・ Green Fire)