DiplomacyStrains and embargoes
Bhutto blames America; Zia takes power
Amid street protests, Bhutto accused Washington of plotting against him. In July the army removed him, and a new chill set in with the Carter administration.
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The Long Arc
Diplomacy
The Long Arc
Diplomacy
Background
Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party won the general election of 7 March 1977, but the opposition Pakistan National Alliance alleged massive rigging and launched a protest movement that paralysed the country1. The new Carter administration, which had come to office emphasising human rights and non-proliferation, had already deferred new development aid agreements because of Pakistan's insistence on going ahead with the French reprocessing plant2.
Bhutto's accusation
On 28 April 1977 Bhutto told the National Assembly that Pakistan was being flooded with American dollars for his opponents and that there was an international conspiracy against Islamic Pakistan. He said two American diplomats had been overheard after the election saying that the party was over and that he had to go3. The State Department rejected the charges as false; Under Secretary Philip Habib summoned the Pakistani ambassador, and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance sent Bhutto a message calling them groundless, which was made public in early May. Bhutto reportedly drove around Rawalpindi waving a paper he described as Vance's letter3,4.
The coup
On 5 July 1977 the chief of army staff, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, removed Bhutto in a bloodless coup, codenamed Operation Fair Play, promising elections within ninety days1. The elections were postponed, and Bhutto was later arrested and tried for conspiracy to murder a political opponent1,5. American officials engaged the new government cautiously; the US ambassador, Arthur Hummel, recommended that Carter write to Zia to reassure Pakistan of continuing American interest in its stability6.
Different perspectives
Bhutto and his supporters maintained to the end that Washington had wanted him removed because of his nuclear policy. American officials consistently denied any involvement, and no evidence of an American role in the coup has emerged from the declassified record; historians generally attribute it to Pakistan's internal crisis5,7.
Sources
- 1977 Pakistani military coup, Wikipedia · Reference
- Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XIX, Document 264: Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Pakistan, Office of the Historian, US Department of State, 1977 · Primary document
- Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XIX, Document 246: Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Pakistan, Office of the Historian, US Department of State, April 1977 · Primary document
- Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XIX, Document 251: Telegram From the Embassy in Pakistan to the Department of State, Office of the Historian, US Department of State, April 1977 · Primary document
- Pakistan: A Country Study – The Zia Regime, Library of Congress Federal Research Division (via countrystudies.us), 1994 · Official
- Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XIX, Document 271: Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Pakistan, Office of the Historian, US Department of State, July 1977 · Primary document
- The United States and Pakistan, 1947–2000: Disenchanted Allies (Dennis Kux), Woodrow Wilson Center Press / Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001 · Scholarly
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