The Bhutto Legacy – read ZAB’s own assessment of the situation
More than forty years after this picture was taken Z A Bhutto and three of his children have been assassinated. Here is his own analysis of the reasons for this:
“In the same month (January 1977) Rafi Raza had a four and a half hour interview with me. He told me that PNA was coming into being, he told me who would be the President of PNA and who would be the other office bearers. He gave me the reasons for the design, the strategy and the aim. At the end of his exposition he told me that I had three alternatives: a) Forget the Nuclear Reprocessing Plant and the imminent unity of the opposition will not materialize, b) postpone the elections, or c) face very grave consequences.
He kept emphasizing that I should not press him to reveal his sources but that he was speaking with full knowledge of what was taking place. I asked him to make his suggestion. He advised me to forget the Reprocessing Plant. He also informed me that during elections, the opposition would not make an issue of the Reprocessing Plant. Only now and then they would mention nuclear power plants in order to hoodwink the people; hoping that the public would not know the difference between nuclear power plants nd a nuclear reprocessing plant. Rafi Raza warned me that the people around me, those who were making emotional noises and advising me not to budge an inch, would not be found when the curtain fell.
We continued our discussion over dinner. Afterwards, I thanked him for the valuable information and advice. However, I told him it was too late to postpone the elections, or to drop the Nuclear Reprocessing plant. I further told him that we would win the elctions fair and square; but if we did not, then the Opposition was welcome to drop, ditch or modify the Reprocessing plant agreement. Rafi Raza said that he had no doubt that we would win the elections in a fair contest, but that he had considerable doubt if we would be allowed to reap the benefits of the victory. As he would not expand, I remarked “All right, we will lose the elections or not be allowed to eat the fruits of our victory”. Looking through his thick horn-rimmed spectacles, and using his hand as a comb to straighten his side parting and the back of his hair, ominously, Rafi Raza said: “But Sir, I am trying to tell you more than an election or an Office is at stake”. I replied cryptically, “I got your point and you got my answer”.
Before leaving, he asked my permission for a question. I said “Most certainly”. Thereupon he asked, “Why are you doing all this? What makes you take such big chances with yourself and your family?” I told him I was doing it to build an egalitarian society, to make my country strong and modern, to bring happiness to people who had no idea what the word meant. I told him that tears will always be shed but I wanted less tears to be shed and less bitterly.”
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, If I am Assassinated, Vikas Publishing House (Pvt) Ltd, New Dehli, 1979, pp 106-107
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Bhutto was deposed six months after the above interview with his Minister for Production. All the rest is history.