Pakistan Death in the Skies

By Michael S. Serrill

Mohammed Zia ul-Haq spent his last hours on a dusty patch of desert in remote Bahawalpur, 330 miles south of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. Accompanied by U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel, the Pakistani President watched field tests of the American-made M-1 Abrams tank, which he was interested in buying for his country's army. After spending the day observing the high-tech vehicle climb around the dunes, Zia, Raphel and a large entourage boarded a U.S.-built C-130 transport to fly back to the military airport at Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.

The plane was in the air no more than a few minutes when disaster struck. Witnesses say black smoke belched from the aircraft's fuselage. Seconds later the plane was engulfed in a ball of fire, and villagers on the ground watched with horror as it plummeted to the earth, tumbling nose over tail like a toy as it fell. The huge turboprop bounced twice after hitting the sandy plain, then came down a third and final time, exploding on impact. All 30 people aboard were killed, including Zia, 64; Raphel, 45; Brigadier General Herbert Wassom, 49, the chief of the U.S. military mission in Pakistan; and five top Pakistani generals. "It was so hot we could not get close," said a distressed villager who rushed to the scene. "We could not help them."

The crash, which officials immediately labeled suspicious, came at a crucial time for Pakistan and the entire region in which Zia had made himself a major diplomatic player. During his eleven years in power, longer than any other Pakistani head of state, Zia brooked little opposition at home and failed to groom a successor. Last May he summarily dismissed his handpicked civilian government and reestablished one-man rule, thus ensuring a legacy of political disarray. Said Benazir Bhutto, whose Pakistan People's Party has led recent agitation to restore civilian rule: "I do not regret the death of Zia."

Abroad, Zia pursued a shrewd foreign policy that aligned him squarely with the West. He used the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the revolution in Iran to make Pakistan the West's bulwark in Southwest Asia. He welcomed some 3 million Afghan refugees who poured over Pakistan's western border to escape the civil war, and enthusiastically helped ship U.S. and Chinese arms to the Afghan rebels. His reward: more than $700 million this year in U.S. aid. Secretary of State George Shultz last week called Zia a "great fighter for freedom." Shultz led the U.S. delegation to Zia's Saturday funeral in Islamabad, which was thronged by 200,000 mourners. Robert Oakley, the Near East expert for the National Security Council, has been designated the new U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan.

Zia was succeeded by Ghulam Ishaq Khan, 73, who as chairman of the Senate was next in line to the presidency. Regarded widely as a transitional figure, Ishaq Khan declared a state of emergency and appointed an emergency council that the military is expected to dominate. He heartened Pakistan's democratic opposition, however, by announcing that elections would take place in November as planned.

Even before teams of U.S. and Pakistani investigators had begun sorting through the wreckage of the plane, many were convinced that its passengers were victims of terrorism. Officials speculated that Zia's plane was either struck by a surface-to-air missile or, more likely, blown up by a bomb planted aboard and detonated by remote control from the ground. Said Riaz Mohammed Khan, a spokesman for the Pakistan government: "Personally, I am 100% sure -- not 99%, 100% -- that it was sabotage."

One prime suspect is the Khad, the Soviet-trained Afghan secret police, which in the past several years has been blamed for hundreds of terrorist bombings in Pakistan. Over the past few months, Kabul and Moscow have issued strident warnings to Islamabad to stop allowing arms for the Afghan rebels, or mujahedin, to be smuggled across the Pakistani border into Afghanistan. Just days before Zia's death, the Kremlin issued a statement saying the Pakistani actions could not "be further tolerated." But many Western diplomats doubt that Moscow would go so far as assassinating Zia, and it is assumed that the Khad would not have acted without Soviet approval.

If the Khad did not blow up Zia's plane, the President had a long list of other enemies with a motive for doing so, including militant political opposition groups and dissidents within the army. "Zia didn't have many friends left," said a U.S. congressional staffer. "Those who didn't dislike him hated him."

To his enemies, Zia was rightly seen as tough, uncompromising, even brutal. He ordered hundreds of dissidents arrested and imprisoned under the harshest conditions, and many were publicly flogged, in accordance with his policy of applying Islamic law to wrongdoers. Those who cultivated private relationships with Zia, however, came away with another impression -- that of a soft-spoken, self-effacing, often charming man who viewed himself as a servant of the people. "I really have been a reluctant ruler," he told a group of reporters recently. "But I am not a person to just give up in disgust and walk away. I am determined to stay here until I solve all of the many problems that continue to face our country."

Zia seized power in July 1977, 14 months after being appointed army chief of staff by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father. "I am a military man," the general said at the time. "I will step down soon." But he did not. He had the popular Bhutto arrested for conspiring to murder a political opponent. Two years later, despite international pleas and protests, Bhutto was hanged.

In the years following his coup, Zia suppressed political activity, frequently justifying his actions by saying Pakistan was not ready for democracy. Only in the mid-1980s did he reluctantly loosen his grip on power, sponsoring highly restrictive nonparty elections. He then confined himself to foreign and military affairs, while his choice for Prime Minister, Mohammed Khan Junejo, steadily accrued political power at home.

Last May, acting under pressure from hard-liners in the military who resented Junejo's attempts to increase civilian control, Zia dissolved the government. His sudden death thus leaves Pakistan with neither a strong military leader nor a functioning civilian government. For the future, the man to watch is General Mirza Aslam Baig, 57, whom Ishaq Khan appointed to be the new army chief of staff, Pakistan's most powerful military post. A quiet man with an aloof manner, Baig is described by those who know him as a professional soldier with no political ambitions. Baig attended the tank trials along with Zia but had to make another stop on the way to Rawalpindi and therefore returned on a different plane. Unlike some other generals, Baig treated Junejo and his government with respect, and Western diplomats hope he will support a return to civilian rule. Few believe, however, that the military will readily give up its traditional prerogatives. One Western diplomat described the domination of the emergency council by military officers, both active and retired, as "the edge of the wedge" that will usher in military rule.

Pakistan's numerous and frustrated political parties may take to the streets ) if the scheduled elections are not held. Benazir Bhutto said from her Karachi home that she was satisfied the new government was following the constitution by allowing the Nov. 16 elections to proceed. Some analysts have speculated that Zia deliberately scheduled the ballot for November to thwart Bhutto's political ambitions; she is due to give birth to her first child in December. In any event, a return to the tumultuous party politics of her father's day is for the moment proscribed by Zia's ban on party endorsements for candidates. Bhutto's party is petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn the prohibition.

In the West, meanwhile, there is concern that Zia's death may mean that Pakistan will retreat from its vigorous support of the Afghan rebels. Zia had personally supervised the CIA-financed and Pakistani-run operations that gave sanctuary, training and arms to Afghan resistance fighters. Though many Pakistanis opposed aiding the rebels, Pentagon officials are convinced that General Baig and his senior military staff know where their interests lie. "The geopolitical realities remain even if Zia is gone," said a Defense Department official. "Pakistan cannot accept a Soviet-dominated Afghanistan on one border and India on the other." Those who consider Pakistan an ally can only hope that Zia's successor believes as fervently in those realities as Zia did.

With reporting by Ross H. Munro/Islamabad % and Bruce van Voorst/Washington