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Despite martial law and a massive police presence in major cities, violent disturbances broke out all across the country. After an impassioned prayer meeting in Rawalpindi's Liaquat Gardens, 5,000 grieving Pakistanis clashed with police, hurling glass and rocks at buses and cars. One bus was burned before police dispersed the crowd with tear gas. "We are fed up," said an office worker as he fled for shelter. "Our own leaders are the enemy. Zia should hang by the same rope."
A spellbinding orator who conveyed the image of a populist reformer, Bhutto was the son of a wealthy landowner from Sind province. After earning degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and from Oxford, where he cultivated a taste for fine tailoring and vintage wines, he began his career as a delegate to the U.N. As Foreign Minister in the military government of General Muhammed Ayub Khan, he helped fashion Pakistan's policy of friendship with China. After his country's humiliating defeat in the war that led to independence for Bangladesh, Bhutto, who had quit the Cabinet in 1966 to form his own party, was asked by the generals to take over the government. In what was perhaps his finest hour, he restored national pride, negotiated the release of nearly 90,000 prisoners of war, initiated political and economic reforms and gave the country its longest period of civilian rule in three decades.
But Bhutto's followers were accused of blatantly rigging the March 1977 elections to ensure his party an overwhelming victory. After months of rioting and turmoil, Bhutto agreed to void the election. A few days later, General Zia, whom Bhutto had named army Chief of Staff, overthrew the government.
There may have been some cold-eyed motives behind Zia's rejection of world opinion and his decision to ignore the Supreme Court's implied suggestion of clemency. Zia and his military supporters took a calculated risk—namely, that the long-term benefits of getting rid of a political nemesis outweighed the immediate law-and-order problem raised by pro-Bhutto demonstrations. Whether or not the generals win their gamble, the execution of this proud but flawed man was a dangerous event for an unstable country with pressing economic problems and a frustrated electorate.