Explained by Ijaz ul haq(son of zia ul haq)
Introduction
General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s former chief of army staff and president, was killed in an aircraft accident on August 17, 1988. He killed with other high-ranking officials, including the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Akhtar Abdur Rehman, and the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Arnold Lewis Raphel.
According to a few intelligence sources, Aslam Khatak, the interior minister at the time (in 1988), told me after General Zia-Ul-martyrdom Haq’s that he notified the dead at the cabinet meeting as well as personally (but not formally via writing) that his life was in danger. The then-DG ISI also advised him not to travel for a few months, particularly by plane.
The decision of change in command
General Zia ul Haq made a few decisions due to which things accelerated. The first decision he made was that Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi would be named as the interim prime minister of Pakistan on July 26th. His meeting was scheduled with Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi for the evening of August 17th, 1988. When he was supposed to return from Bahawalpur, in which he was planning to inform him about the oath-taking ceremony on August 26th, On August 26th, he was also planning to change the vice chief of army staff by making general Mirza Aslam Beg the chairman joint chief and General Afzal the vice chief of army staff. They died with him in the plane crash.
Only a few people are aware of these decisions, and some of them were members of ISI while others were members of companions. When this news came out, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman was the chairman joint chief at that time. I’m not going to name the person who informed him (because there’s no need) that he had to board the plane with General Zia ul Haq.
However, the person who convinced General Zia ul Haq to go to Bahawalpur, the then-GOC of the first armour division at GHQ, stated that General Akhtar Abdur Rahman had already been invited to the demonstrations in Bahawalpur. As per my own analysis,he was told to go so that he could talk to General Zia about changes in commands as he would be sitting next to him on the plane.
The vice chief of the army was also supposed to be changed. Knowing this, General Mirza Aslam Beg got excited a bit, and circumstances accelerated and the accident which was supposed to take place a bit later , occurred earlier on August 17th, 1988. He basically planned to take over General Zia.
However, Air Marshal Hakeem ullah and General Fazl e Haq stood in his way and asked Ghulam Ishaq Khan to chair the meeting in the presidency during which it was decided that Ghulam Ishaq Khan would be President of Pakistan and General Aslam Beg would be Chief of Army Staff.
The lapse in security
There was a lapse in the security. The chief of army staff said that the police were responsible for the security of the president of Pakistan, according to the president’s blue books, but if he was going to attend a military exercise, then it was the responsibility of the army.
The plane belonged to the PAF, and the army was supposed to take care of the security. There was a lapse in the security as the door of the plane stopped working. The plane was supposed to go to Multan airport after dropping General Zia ul Haq and his peers at Bahawalpur airport (as the Bahawalpur airport was small) but that didn’t happen.
Afterwards, people were sent inside the plane with an excuse to fix the door. Then the nerve gas was fitted inside. The mango crates were put inside without checking. There are so many things that are questionable. The chemical analysis of the plane was conducted, but its report was never made public. It was clearly written in it that the number of chemicals like phosphorus was more than required on the plane. It means it was sabotage.
The inquiry and investigation commissions
Three commissions were formed for the investigation after we protested; the Bandial commission, the Shujaat commission and the Shafi-ur-Rehman commission, but their recommendations were never made public. There was so much pressure to cover up this incident. This was covered up, especially by the US. The FPI team had said, according to their book and laws, if any government employee dies in an accident at any place in the world, the FPI team will only take the time which would be required to reach the place of the accident. But the FPI didn’t come. The team arrived 10 months after the plane crash and fought with us.
There was an American ambassador who was presented in front of the congress. He was asked why the FPI team didn’t visit Pakistan for the investigation. He was asked, Who stopped them from going? He said that the then US state secretary, George Shultz, vetoed this as he feared that if the investigation held any institution or person accountable, it would initiate a civil war in the country. Therefore, he had stopped to maintain the peace. I was presented in front of Justice Shafi Ur Rehmen’s commission and I was talking to him. One of the three judges was Justice Sajjad from Sindh. He met me before he died, and he told me two or three strange things. He told me that the remains of the C-130 were present in the multan hangar and they requested PAF to see them during the investigation. They invited us. There was a gap of two to three days between the request and the due visit of the commission.
When they reached Multan,PAF told them that they didn’t have anything. Moreover, as there was an investigation report (which was supposed to give recommendations), they started that there should be a criminal investigation into the accident, but it hasn’t happened to date.
Genral zia’s last days with family
I went outside Pakistan on July 29th, 1988. I was in Canada with my children when I got the news of General Zia’s death. We arrived in Pakistan on August 19th, 1988, one day before the funeral. My mother, sisters, and younger brother, Anwar Ul Haq, were in Pakistan and were supposed to go with him( to Bahawalpur) that day. In his free days, he used to go out with General Zia to spend some time with him.
On the morning of August 17th, 1988, when General Zia was leaving for Bahawalpur, he asked his assistant, Sufi,(who also died with him in the plane crash), whether Anwar Ul Haq was ready to leave or not. His assistant told him that Anwar was sleeping. General Zia went and checked in his bedroom and saw him sleeping there. So, he left him sleeping and went to Bahawalpur. Anwar ul Haq was meant to live (due to which he didn’t go). According to what my mother told me, he was normal and didn’t say anything, which indicates that he didn’t know anything, but he definitely knew a few things.
When I was leaving for Canada, he spent some time with me and told me a few things that indicated he might have known that something was about to happen.
The formation of Islamic bloc
In July 1979, when the Soviet Union had not entered Afghanistan yet, General Zia ul Haq wrote a letter to the then US president, Jimmy Carter, six months before the invasion. General Zia expressed his fear in the letter and said, “If you (America) and us (Pakistan) remain quiet on the Soviet Union’s activities in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union will eventually take over Afghanistan. The situation will affect us as well, because the Soviet Union always wanted to reach towards the warm waters (Gwadar report) from where it could control countries like Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.
General Zia didn’t receive any response to his letter. However, when the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan(in 1979). The American president sent his security advisor,Zbigniew Brzezinkski, to Pakistan. In his meeting with Gen. Zia ul Haq, he said, “He said in regards to the recent developments in Afghanistan, we should work to make Pakistan’s military and security strong as the Soviet Union never left the places where it invaded in the past.”
After listening to him, General Zia ul Haq said only one thing, “Mr. Brzezinski, we have decided that we are not only going to support the Afghan brothers but we are going to push the Soviets across the river Amo.”
However, no one understood what General Zia had said. Many in Pakistan, including our foreign minister, were afraid and told General Zia about its consequences, but General Zia stood by his decision. Afterwards, a resolution was passed in the United Nations which was signed by 124 countries that said they were against the subjugation of the non-aligned country Afghanistan by the Soviet Union and supported Pakistan’s decision. But if there were peace in Afghanistan and the pipeline came from central Asia, which has never happened to date, China, Iran, and Pakistan would benefit from it. But no one wanted the formation of the Islamic bloc, although it would have become an economic bloc.
conclusion
Another essential part of General Zia ul Haq’s success story is that he never allowed external pressure from the West or East, including resistance and international claims, to affect his policies. He handled his country according per his own perspective and perception of things. The entire country was completely under his command and believed they were being led by a great patriot. After a while, the strong opposition disappeared as if nothing had happened. Despite opposition from certain sections in the international world and political circles inside Pakistan, Zia continued to guide the state’s affairs in the direction of making Pakistan a magnificent model Muslim state.
