Pakistan: Putting Pressure on Zia

A grueling skyjacking climaxes opposition to his martial law

"Be prepared to pick up the bodies," said the chilling voice. "If my demands are not met by the ultimatum, I will shoot the Americans." That threat, spoken in accented English over the Damascus airport radio one day last week, was the worst moment of one of the longest-running hijackings ever, a thirteen-day nightmare for more than 100 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines Boeing 720. Hijacked during a domestic flight, the plane had been forced to fly first to Kabul, Afghanistan, then on to Damascus, Syria.

The hijackers, three heavily armed Pakistanis, picked out three American passengers on board and labeled them "CIA agents."* They threatened to shoot them first, then blow up the plane, if the Pakistani government did not release 55 political activists from prison. Their threat was all the more credible because they had already shot a Pakistani diplomat aboard the plane and dumped his body on the Kabul airport runway.

Just before the 6 p.m. Thursday deadline for the executions, Pakistani ofiicials negotiating with the hijackers announced that their government had agreed to release the prisoners. The capitulation defused the crisis-almost. At week's end, radical Libya, which had originally agreed to receive the Pakistani prisoners, suddenly balked. The detainees, who had flown first to Aleppo, Syria, went on to Athens, then headed back to Damascus, where the hijacked plane and the hostages remained. Finally the Syrians, who acted as mediators in the hijacking, agreed to receive the Pakistanis themselves. The hijackers found that acceptable and ended the grim drama by surrendering to Damascus authorities.

The three Pakistani terrorists, who left the airplane shouting "Long live Bhuttoism!" claimed to belong to a group called Al Zulfikar, presumably named after Former President Zulfikar Ah Bhutto, founder of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (P.P.P.), who was jailed and executed by President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq in 1979. The Pakistani government reacted last week with arrests of some 200 political opponents, including Bhutto's widow Nusrat and his daughter Benazir.

The hijacking climaxed nearly a month of mounting unrest in Pakistan, the most serious wave of opposition that General Zia's martial-law regime has faced since it came to power in a military takeover in 1977. The ferment began with a secret meeting in Lahore of representatives of seven opposition parties. With all political activity outlawed for the past 18 months, some politicians had to circumvent travel bans, while others sent surrogates.

The parties set aside their numerous differences and issued a call for an end to martial law and for elections within three months. "We demand that Zia quit immediately," they declared, "failing which [the military rulers] will be removed by the irresistible will of the people." They then announced the formation of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (M.R.D.), aiming to galvanize the population into strikes, demonstrations and civil disobedience.