Pakistan Warm Welcome

By Michael S. Serrill

The homecoming could not have got off to a more auspicious start. Returning to Pakistan after two years of self-imposed exile in London, the daughter of the country's last elected Prime Minister arrived in ancient Lahore, the home of the Punjabis, who dominate the military and bureaucratic elite that rules Pakistan. The political risk paid handsome dividends. Benazir Bhutto, 32, was greeted by hundreds of thousands of frenzied supporters, who enveloped her motorcade and staged a daylong demonstration that was the largest display in memory of discontent with the military government of President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq. "Zia is a dog," chanted the demonstrators again and again. "We love Benazir."

The crowds were so tightly packed that it took 9 1/2 hours for the Bhutto motorcade to travel the eight miles from the airport to the site of a rally in Lahore. There Bhutto, wearing the red, black and green colors of her Pakistan People's Party (P.P.P.), demanded "free and fair" elections well before national balloting that is scheduled to take place in 1990, and predicted a "peaceful revolution" otherwise. "After seeing this meeting," Bhutto told a cheering throng of more than 200,000 people, "another Marcos will be fleeing this country."

Her dramatic return last week was made possible by Zia's decision last Dec. 30 to suspend martial law for the first time in 8 1/2 years. Zia took power in a 1977 coup d'etat that overthrew Benazir's father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Two years later, he allowed the elder Bhutto to be hanged in connection with an alleged murder plot against a political rival. Last year Zia engineered the ^ first steps toward a new Pakistani democracy by allowing long-promised parliamentary elections, though he banned political parties. After martial law was lifted, he turned over many government functions to a civilian council led by Prime Minister Mohammed Khan Junejo.

Zia now remains firmly in control as President, but has allowed political parties to renew their activities. Indeed, last week the Punjab provincial government posted thousands of police near the P.P.P.'s motorcade and rally sites to make sure there would be no embarrassing incidents. The beefed-up security, however, did not prevent an apparently deranged retired army officer from bursting into a house where he thought Bhutto was staying, claiming that he wanted to marry her. "Just a simple legal ceremony will do," he told reporters. Bhutto hinted that the man might have been an assassin.

In the next four weeks, before Pakistanis begin to observe Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, Bhutto and her party plan regular mass rallies that some P.P.P. leaders hope will spark what they call "street politics"-- marches, riots and general strikes that might cause enough chaos to force Zia to call early elections. If the Lahore rally accurately reflected Zia's low popularity, the government may be in for a rough time.

But the parallel Bhutto has drawn between Zia and former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos is wide of the mark. Corruption is widespread in Pakistan, to be sure, but Zia himself is viewed as a personally honest and religious leader. The general commands respect, if not admiration, from many Pakistanis, and has been able to sustain healthy growth in the country's economy. Last week his backers sought to blunt the effect of Bhutto's return by awarding some political favors. Prime Minister Junejo and Punjab Chief Minister Nawaz Sharif announced that, effective immediately, new land would be granted to rural tenants and urban squatters and the price of cooking oil would be reduced.

Nonetheless, if Benazir Bhutto and the P.P.P. are able to mount large and fervent demonstrations against Zia, the Pakistani establishment is going to feel the pressure. In the nearly five years Bhutto remained in the country following her father's execution, Zia responded to her challenges by simply throwing her in jail or placing her under house arrest. This time the President is clearly trying to avoid resorting to such authoritarian measures. "I will rule this country from my grave," predicted the charismatic Zulfikar Ali Bhutto before going to the gallows. Last week, at least, his daughter seemed determined to prove him right.

With reporting by Ross H. Munro/Lahore