Praveen Swami
Less than an hour earlier, William Putscher had been lunching on a hot dog by the poolside, in the congenial environment of the American Embassy’s club in Islamabad, nestled inside a 32-acre campus. Now, he was being held hostage in the dormitories of the élite Quaid-e-Azam University, facing trial for unspecified crimes “against the Islamic movement.” The students who had attacked the embassy had thrown a brick at Putscher’s face, and then hit him on the back of the head with a pipe. The young accountant had been relieved of his wallet and his two rings by the mob: “Kill the Americans,” the crowd sang.
Twenty kilometres away in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq was being showered with rose petals by women strategically positioned along the route of his open jeep ride. Everywhere he stopped, his staff handed out sacks of flour, quilts and copies of the Quran.
Lieutenant-General Faiz Ali Chishti, the executor of the coup that brought Zia to power, watched as Zia addressed the crowds at Warris Khan Chowk. A question was asked about the storming of the Masjid al-Haram at Mecca the previous night. Either intentionally or otherwise, General Chishti later wrote, Zia replied, “the Americans had inspired the attack on the Holy Kaaba.” This was untrue: the Masjid al-Haram had in fact been occupied by Saudi rebels. Zia, however, fuelled the rumours.
As Zia’s soldiers watched, the American flag at the Embassy was brought down and burned. An American military guard was shot in the head and died.
Last week, Field-Marshal Asim Munir did what General Zia wouldn’t: Troops chased down and shot fleeing protestors of the far-right Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan party, sometimes at point blank range, after they marched on the American Embassy to protest the Gaza peace plan. Figures like Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s son-in-law, Muhammad Safdar Awan, openly backed TLP causes, like the persecution of the Ahmadiyya minority, and the murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer. Today, the PML-N is pushing for the TLP to be banned.
Field-Marshal Asim, like Zia, has recruited political Islam to his cause—but where Zia wheedled, inveigled and bought out the clerics, the Field Marshal is trying to keep them under his jackboots.
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