General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (Punjabi, Urdu: محمد ضياء الحق) (12 August 1924 –17 August 1988) was the President and military ruler of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976. General Zia came to power after he overthrew ruling Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a military coup d'état on 5 July 1977 and became the state's third ruler to impose martial law. He initially ruled as Chief Martial Law Administrator, but later assumed the post of President of Pakistan in September 1978.

Zia's major domestic initiatives included the country's Islamization, the consolidation of the fledgling nuclear program, denationalization and deregulation leading to a rejuvenated economy. His tenure saw the disbanding of the Baloch insurgency, as well as the abridgement of civil and political liberties. His endorsement of rightwing political party Pakistan Muslim League initiated its mainstream revival. However, he is most remembered for his foreign policy; the subsidizing of the Mujahideen movement during the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Zia died along with several of his top generals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistan in an aircraft crash near Bahawalpur (Punjab) on 17 August 1988, the circumstances of which remain unclear.

Early Life and Education

Zia was born in Jalandhar, British India, in 1924 as the second child of an Arain, Muhammad Akbar, who worked in the GHQ in Delhi and Simla. He married Shafiq Jahan and had five children. His two sons went into politics with Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq becoming a cabinet minister in the government of Nawaz Sharif. He completed his initial education in Simla and then at St. Stephen's College, Delhi.

Army Career

He was commissioned in the British Indian Army in a cavalry regiment on 12 May, 1943 and served during World War II. After Pakistan gained its independence, Zia joined the newly formed Pakistan Army as a major. His regiment was now the Guides Cavalry Frontier Force Regiment. He trained in the United States in 1962–1964 at the US Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. After that, he returned to take over as Directing Staff (DS) at Command and Staff College, Quetta. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Zia was a tank commander.

Black September

Zia was stationed in Jordan from 1967 to 1970 as a Brigadier, helping in the training of Jordanian soldiers, as well as leading the training mission into battle during the Black September operations as commander of Jordanian 2nd Division, a strategy that proved crucial to King Hussein's remaining in power.

Unfit for Officer Rank

The last C-in-C of Pakistan Army, Lt. Gen. Gul Hassan Khan once claimed that a superior officer had once described Zia as being unfit to be a military officer.¹

Rapid Promotions

By 1973, then Maj Gen Zia was commanding the 1st Armoured Division at Multan. He was then promoted as Lt Gen and was appointed commander of the II Strike Corps at Multan in 1975. It was during this time when General Zia invited Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as the Colonel-in-Chief of the Armoured Corps at Multan, using his tailor to stitch the Blue Patrols of his size. The next day, Bhutto was requested to climb a tank and engage a target, where the target was quite obviously hit. After the function, General Zia met Bhutto, placed his hand on the Quran and said, "You are the saviour of Pakistan and we owe it to you to be totally loyal to you."

Influence of Maududi

As Corps Commander Zia frequently distributed books written by Maududi as prizes to officers who won various competitions in his garrison. And at the time Maududi's Jamat-i-Islami was an opposition party.

Chief of Army Staff

On 1 March 1976, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto approved Zia-ul-Haq as Chief of Army Staff, ahead of a number of more senior officers. At the time of his nominating the successor to the outgoing chief General Tikka Khan, the Lieutenant Generals in order of seniority were, Muhammad Shariff, Muhammad Akbar Khan, Aftab Ahmed Khan, Azmat Baksh Awan, Agha Ibrahim Akram, Abdul Majeed Malik, Ghulam Jilani Khan, and Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. But, Bhutto chose the most junior, superseding seven more senior generals. However, the senior most at that time, Lt Gen Mohammad Shariff, though promoted to General, was made the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.

Reasons behind Appointment as COAS

Bhutto wrote in his book that his choice of Zia was influenced by the ISI DG Lieutenant General Ghulam Jilani Khan. Also, Zia who was friends with Seth Abid used his money to pay exuberant amount of sums to the senior generals to stop them from any hinderances.

Martial Law

Preparation for Martial Law

Soon after Zia's appointment as COAS, Lt. Gen. Ghulam Jilani Khan sent a position paper for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto recommending that he hold early elections. In October 1976 Gen. Jilani sent another position paper to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto which spoke of him in glowing terms and repeated the proposal for early elections. As a result Bhutto scheduled the early elections setting 7 March 1977 as the date.

In April 1976 Zia had sent Brigadier Tafazzul Hussain Siddiqui, head of ISI public relations at the time, to Sindh to assess whether the people there would accept martial law²

US Funding Maududi and JI

During the street protests of 1977 there was a sudden increase in the flow of dollars in open market and considering the criticial law and order situation in Pakistan at the moment it is easily argued that Maududi was getting direct funds from US for creating disturbance throughout Pakistan.³

Martial Law

On 8 January 1977 a large number of opposition political parties grouped to form the Pakistan National Alliance. Bhutto called fresh elections, and PNA participated in those elections in full force. They managed to contest the elections jointly even though there were grave splits on opinions and views within the party. The ANP faced defeat but did not accept the results, alleging that the election was rigged. First, they claimed rigging for 14 seats and, finally, for 40 seats in the National Assembly. They proceeded to boycott the provincial elections. Despite this, there was high voter turn out in national elections; howerver, as provincial elections were held amidst low voter turnout and an opposition boycott, the PNA declared the newly-elected Bhutto government as illegitimate. Firebrand Islamic leaders such as Abul Ala Maududi called for the overthrow of Bhutto's regime.[6] Political and civil disorder intensified, which led to more unrest. Nevertheless, a compromise agreement between Bhutto and opposition was ultimately reported. Yet on July 5, 1977, Bhutto and members of his cabinet were arrested by troops under the order of General Zia

False Promise of Elections

After assuming power as Chief Martial Law Administrator, General Zia promised to hold National and Provincial Assembly elections in the next 90 days and to hand over power to the representatives of the nation. He also stated that the Constitution of Pakistan had not been abrogated whatsoever, but had been temporarily suspended. However, in October 1977, he announced the postponement of the electoral plan and decided to start an accountability process for the politicians. Zia said that he changed his decision due to the strong public demand for the scrutiny of political leaders who had engaged in malpractice in the past (a large number of both PNA and PPP members had asked General Zia to postpone the elections). Thus the "retribution first, elections later" PNA policy was adopted. This severely tainted his credibility as many saw the broken promise as malacious.

A Disqualification Tribunal was formed, and several individuals who had been Members of Parliament were charged with malpractice and disqualified from participating in politics at any level for the next seven years. A white paper document was issued, incriminating the deposed Bhutto government on several counts.

Maudoodi's Version of Islamization

After Zia took over the government, Jamat-i-Islami under the leadership of Maudoodi was the only party which started supporting him from day one. Thus, JI's support of Zia and his coup in the initial months right after the Martial Law proved to be of criticial importance. It was only political party that was giving political legitimacy to the military dictatorship of Zia. Within days Maudoodi had mobilized his entire organization of a few thousand and the student wing of his party; Islami Jamiat-i-Tulaba to defent Zia's legitimacy forcefully and counter and defend against any anti-Zia political agitation. This was the sole reason that when Zia banned all political activity, Maududi's party was the only allowed to carry on unhindered. Its press was given full immunity from censorship and its penetration of the media, bureaucracy, and even the military was looked upon with approval by Zia. The Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba - the student wing of Jamat-i-Islami grew into the strongest political student body, unhindred in the absence of any other.

As a result of Maudoodi and alike's influence on the government, the Government of Pakistan started spending a great deal of time on "important" discussions such as: should the government servents be compelled to sprout their beards; should the flag of the country be altered to give it a more Islamic touch; should the Pakistani women be allowed to compete in games wearing trousers; are the women allowed to compete in sports, and so forth.⁴

With religion become intertwined in every aspect of the government including the military, a major merit for promotion in the army had become the "Islamicness" of the officer. The intelligence agencies now found another enemy to fight against: the not-so-Islamic military officers. Intelligence agencies were having their hands full trying to find any "small time snoops" in a game of "pure sleaze". The government priorities had changed overnight.

With Maudoodi's interpretation of Islam, Islam changed overnight in Pakistan. Within months Maudoodi's Islamic Laws were implemented including the gruesom Hudood Ordinance.

Maududi's Role in Drugs

At the time of independence in 1947, Pakistan was a unable to supply its own opium addicts, therefore opium was imported from India until 1956. After 1956, a few areas were allowed to produce ‘licensed opium’ under strict controls. The numer of opium addicts never reached a significant mark. The production of licensed opium continued until 1979 when Hudood Laws were implemented.

Maududi was fundamental in the promulgation of the Islamic Hudood laws in Pakistan which totally banned opium production. As a result farmers were therefore left with
huge stockpiles - about 800 tons of opium - and did not know what to do with them.⁵. At this crucial junction, suddenly buyers of this crop appeared who had been given the knowhow of converting it into herion. Consequently within a few years, with no herion addicts in 1979 Pakistan witnessed nearly 1.5 million in mid eighties.

Annihilation of Army Institute

It was during Zia's time that the established norms of the institution of military were destroyed. Under Zia the generals openly started declaring their conservative Islamic orientations and started cultivating religious political parties and close associations with them. Under Zia the norm established of top ranking officers trying to out-do each other in order to be seen at the namaz (praying time) in the mosque that Zia was known to frequent. The infatuation with the religion and bowing down to every need of the superior led to a sea of change in the recruitment of officer corps - giving birth to the culture of "bootlicking". It was seen during Zia's tenure that best sons of traditionally noble military families gave up joining the military, while those who were serving at junior posts started to leave. This attitude quickly trickled down and brought a sweeping and devastating changes in the military selection boards. Within a short period of time the military selection boards had come to be dominated by under-qualified and "inferior" officers who culled and threw out candidates with moderate religious views, superior education and worryingly whose background suggested upper middle class. The most shocking example of the said attitude was the year in which principal of Aitchison College, Lahore wrote to General Zia twenty-six of his boys had applied for the army and all twenty-six had been rejected. He made is crystal clear that he did not want to make a case for the selection of all twenty-six boys, but was mere against the rejection of all twenty-six of them.⁶

Real Soldiers Punished

• Major General Naseer Ahmad: War Hero
• Air Commodore Muhammad Mahmood Alam: War Hero
• Major General Shah Rafi Alam
• Major General Khurshid Ali Khan

Bootlicking Culture

During Zia's presidentship "the" bureaucrat Ghulam Ishaq Khan and General Khalid Mahmood Arif Kakazai

AQ Khan's Remark leading to Pressler Amendment

In April 1984 Abdul Qadir Khan said in an interview to a Pakistani newspaper that he has been successful in enriching uranium to weapons grade.⁷ He boasted this at the time when General Zia ul Haq had assured US of the peaceful nature of Pakistan’s nuclear programme and had concluded a nuclear restraint agreement with the Reagan administration that provided the basis for renewed US–Pakistan military cooperation and arms transfers to Pakistan. Dr. Qadeer's boasting not only led to the validation of US Intelligence findings that Pakistan was quickly developing a nuclear program but led to the implementation of 1985 Pressler Amendment. According to the 1985 Pressler Amendment Pakistan now required an annual presidential certification that it did not possess a nuclear explosive device to get that year's US assistance.

F-16s

It was this annual presidential certification which was not renewed under George Bush, as a result of which Pakistan did not get the F-16s, it had paid for.

AQ Khan's Remark Leads to US Sanction

In spring 1987 Dr. Qadir Khan while giving an interview to an Indian journalist boasted that Pakistan had developed the capability to manufacture a nuclear weapon. This happened while India was carrying out its Brasstacks Military Exercise.⁸

On this occasion Zia-ul-Haq summoned Khan in order to rebuke him again - this time harder. This move in the hind-sight may have been counter-productive;⁹ as in retaliation AQ Khan transferred some of his centrifuge technological knowledge to India via Gerhard Wisser of South Africa. After his arrest, Gerhard Wisser disclosed in 2005 that he "produced flow meter units which were specifically designed for a uranium hexafluoride application" and had them delivered to India. The fact that the units were suitable for use with uranium hexafluoride strongly implies their intended use in the Indian gas centrifuge program. The design was AQ Khan's. These centrifuges were installed at the Rare Materials Plant at Mysore, India. In 1987 Dr. AQ Khan also held his first known interaction with Iran, thought to be his retaliation against General Zia ul Haq rebuking him.¹⁰

Assassination

In May 1988 Lieutenant General Hamid Gul on the recommendation of Brigadier Saghir Hussain (a director in ISI) had personally informed Zia as per ISI's assessment and information, an assassination attempt on Zia was a strong possibility and he was advised to take extraordinary precautions.¹¹ A Western intelligence agency had also given a lead to the ISI saying that a person with the nickname Gogi, who was son of an army officer, was involved in a conspiracy to kill Zia. Aslam Khattak, a minister in Zia's cabinet was also warned not to travel by air only 48 hours before the Bahawalpur plane crash. However, Brigadier Imtiaz Billa of the ISI had convinced General Akhtar Abdur Rahman to accompny Zia on the plane.¹²