circles in London claimed that 5,000 people had been arrested, although the official figure was nearer 1,500. (India Today, September 15). But the mass protests continued.
Pakistan newspapers talked of large numbers - these were quantified by British radio, Voice of
Spreading protest in Pakistan Philomena O'MALLEY Since August 14 there have been widespread protests against the military dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan. These have been mainly in the province of Sind, but to some extent in the large cities in the rest of Pakistan.
This campaign of civil disobedience, which has already resulted in a number of deaths and numerous arrests, was called by the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy, an alliance of nine political parties, including the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of the former president, Zulfigar Bhutto, now led by his wife Nusrat and daughter Benazir.
The first organised protest in fact came on July 5, the sixth anniversary of Zia's overthrow of Bhutto and seizure of power.
Despite the arrests of a number of leaders of the MRD, a protest meeting of 600 persons took place in Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier province, and lawyers and politicians gathered in the High Court at Lahore to demand an immediate end to military rule and the holding of elections (Le Monde, July 7, 1983).
To head off the month of civil disobedience called by the MRD to start on August 14, Pakistan's Independence Day, Zia announced on August 12, a plan for elections at local, regional and national of the Pakistani people were:
• - that the 1973 constitution be restored in its basic essentials, including the fundamental rights, and a totally independent judiciary;
- and that there be a balance between the powers of the President and the prime minister, which ruled out a presidential system of government.'
India Today went on 'In fact, in a matter of a mere two weeks, a national consensus emerged in Pakistan around two demands: restoration of the 1973 Constitution with minor modifications to suit Zia's Islamic preferences, and a cabinet system of government through parliamentary elections contested freely by the political parties.'
It was this national consensus that Zia so rudely disappointed with his August 12 announcement.
Even the leaders of the MRD did not expect protests of the scope that occurred on August 14. Big protest gatherings assembled in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar, although police prevented a similar assembly in Rawalpindi.
Police used teargas and made a baton charge against the meeting in Karachi, but the first violent clash came on August 16, when a crowd, angered by police action, set a government bus on fire in Karachi. The first police firing occurred the following day in Dadu, north of Karachi, where one man was killed.
America, and Western news agencies as anything from twenty to fifty thousand. Troops had been moved into the major cities of Sind and Baluchistan, the provinces where the protest was based.
The main Baluch parties had stayed away from the protest movement until on August 18 the Pakistan National Party joined the protest and called a general strike for August 23 in Quetta, the capital of the province.
Students became involved in the protest movement from August 21, leading to the closing of colleges for one or two days at a time as the protest spread.
The first weeks of September were quieter, although protests, violent incidents and arrests continued, including those of four members of the Bhutto family, and of seven leaders of the PPP as they returned to Pakistan from exile in London. On September 18, some 1,000 protestors were released from jail in an amnesty to mark a Moslem festival.
The next focus of the protest movement was the series of local elections scheduled for the end of the month. The MRD called for a boycott of these elections, and a general strike in Sind.
It was at the time of the first stage of these elections, on September 30, that the most violent clash yet to occur took place when, according to official statements, 17 protestors were killed by police fire as they tried to remove a road block. Other sources put the figure at thirty. In other incidents polling stations were set on fire, stormed by crowds of protestors, or shaken by bombs.
In the two days before the elections in Sind The Guardian of London reported that 900 people were said to have been arrested in an attempt to prevent dis level, to culminate in parliamentary elections in March 1985. At the same time he proposed a revision of the con- leaders of the MRD were in jail. MRD 1983). stitution giving increased powers to the thus-elected president.
The plan for elections was local elections in September of this year, provincial elections in March 1984, and parliamentary elections in March 1985.
Political parties were specifically excluded from the local elections, and no mention was made of their role in the future elections - implying that they would be excluded from that part of the electoral process also. The president would be indirectly elected by an undefined electoral college.
These proposals run counter to the recommendations of the sub-committee of the hand-picked Majlis-e-Shoora set up by Zia to look at the question of the constitution. The fortnightly news magazine India Today reported their findings in its September 15 issue as follows:
"The highlights of the Shoora recommendations that caught the imagination 6
At the end of the first week most
General Zia at the Elysee Palace in Paris (DR)
of the polls (September 30 ruption
As it was the centre of the present political agitation it was clear that Sind would respond most to the MRD call for a boycott of the election and general strike. Le Monde reported on October 4 that 'the second round of the local elections in six districts of Sind province on Sunday October 2 have been boycotted by a big majority of the population.' (The elections were 'staggered' across the country and within each province to reduce the possibility of co-ordinated protest, and the strain on the troops and police force).
The International Herald Tribune reported on October 3, that in this round of elections only some twenty people voted in the 20,000 population town of Bahan Saeedabad, and those were 'mostly plainclothes policemen'. Overall, in Sind province, voting figures seem never to have topped 30 per cent of the elecment has been very weak in Punjab. The first major demonstration took place in Lahore on Thursday, October 6, when lawyers called a protest against the military rule of Zia. This came at the time of the All Pakistan Lawyers Convention, which passed a motion demanding free elections on December 25
A few days later the first violent clash outside Sind province took place when three protestors were killed in Quetta. The death toll now stands at over 200 in the period since August 14, according to opposition sources reported in the International Herald Tribune on October 8-9.
General Zia has now announced that he will meet with some leaders of the moderate parties in the opposition. However he is stalling on ending the ban on political parties, suspended when he first came to power, and on releasing political
Force. Mengal, now in exile in London, told me last week that the tiny islet of Mehdi-Ye-Koh, off Gwadur, has become a giant radar base and that 'no civilian officials, not even the most senior ones, are allowed to enter this area. Within the restricted zone there is another prohibited area, where only the top Pakistani army men are permitted. The entire zone is manned by Americans.' This new devel opment could end the uneasy truce between the Army and Baluch nationalists and lead to renewed conflict in the region.
The explosion of Sindhi nationalism was predicted by those of us who had been monitoring military rule in Pakistan. There were numerous incidents in the rural interior of Sind of women being raped, their menfolk being publicly flogged or hanged for resisting and even people totally aloof from politics being subjected to indignities by arrogant and torate.
In Lahore, the capital of Punjab, the main state of Pakistan, voting pacify the present unrest, the accompany. ly unless they have obtained a military was also put at only 30 per cent, although in the rural areas it was estimated at as high as
70 percent. However, the protest moveprisoners.
While these measures could help to ing article by Tariq Ali outlines why only a thorough reconstruction of the state can achieve stability in the long run.
overbearing Punjabi military officers. It is difficult for most Sindhis to travel free-
Small wonder, then, that slogans bearing the inscription of Sindhu Desh (independent Sind) have appeared on walls throughout the province and that demonstrators have made four railway stations inoperative and killed a number
Ever since the establishment of a mili-