ISLAMABAD: Late Pakistan President Zia Ul Haq’s son Ijaz Ul Haq said he would return to his country and challenge Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto,

Ijaz, 36, also said that United States knows who sabotaged Gen Zia’s plane but is concealing evidence.

President Zia, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold L. Raphel and 28 others were killed when a Hercules C-1300 transport plane crashed ‘shortly after takeoff on August 17, 1988.

A news agency quoted Ijaz Ul Haq as saying, “I am 100 percent convinced that mechanical failure was not the cause,” He said the plane was sabotaged and the U.S. State Department knew who was behind this,” but it is not revealing the facts. There is a conspiracy of silence … Even families of the American victims have been told ‘by someone to keep quite.”

India, Soviet Union, Soviet controlled Afghan, secret service and Zia’s opponents were amongst those suspected of involvement in the incident.

Ijaz, 36, said the Bush administration should come forward with the findings of an official investigation conducted soon after the crash. “don’t know why the (Bush) administration 1s covering up.. but it should reveal the findings of the official investigation, and not hide them,” he said.

No firm official determination for the cause of the crash has been made.

In October, a Pakistani military panel determined a criminal act or sabotage had downed the plane. However, Air Force Commander Abbas Mirza who headed the inquiry said the report’s findings we are inconclusive and arrived at by process of elimination.

Later in October, The New York Times quoted unnamed Reagan administration officials as blaming the crash on mechanical malfunction. The U.S. officials did not however, rule out sabotage.

Ijaz, a Bahrain-based vice president and regional manager for the Bank of America said former Secretary of State George Shultz may have blocked release of the investigations’ findings for fear “the situation in Pakistan could have gotten out of control if the perpetrators of the sabotage were unmasked.

But the time has now come for the truth to come out,” he said.

For several years the United ‘States has used Pakistan to supply military equipment to the Afghan rebels fighting the Soviet backed Kabul government. Pakistan’s support for the rebels has angered the Kremlin.

Ijaz said he intends to return to Pakistan this year after 17 years abroad and mount political challenges to the government of Benazir I will challenge Bhutto through democratic elections by June 1991,” Ijaz said. “I’m not for violence. We’re all Western educated people.”

Bhutto studied at the universities of Oxford and Harvard before Zia who seized power in a military coup in 1977 ordered the execution two years later of Bhutto’s father former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Ijaz, who attended Southern Illinois University, said he supports his father’s legacy of promoting Islam in Pakistan through evolution and not revolution.

“During the years my father was in power, not a single hand was cut off nor was anyone stoned to death,” he said. “But changes were made in legislation and education. This is our way and the people of Pakistan support this.”

He said that while his father’s seizure of power had been necessary to prevent further chaos at a time of serious political turmoil, he supports democracy.

My father wore a uniform, but I do not. I’m for democracy.” Ijaz said! “I have all respect for the army. But I think the army only moves in when the politicians make serious blunder.

New Turn In Punjab Politics:

Article extracted from this publication >>  April 28, 1989