Re: Imran Khan exposed?
Ah the stories that can be told…but I am no tabloid hack
Season for scandal
By Anjum Niaz
The media brouhaha began with Ayub Diaries. The field marshal has a field day trashing General Yahya Khan and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) on the pages of his diary. Ayub’s indiscretions never invited gossip, but those of us living in the outer stratosphere of the President’s House in Pindi, saw one or two butterflies flit around Ayub with their husbands in tow. Remember Christine Keeler of the Profumo affair? General Joe (Yusuf), our envoy to UK, took the visiting president Ayub Khan to a pool party (are pools a turn on?) at Cliveden in July of 1961 where Keeler and John Profumo, a cabinet minister, ended up in a sex romp. When the story broke and the guest list spilled, our embassy in London fretted to fend the paparazzi off Ayub’s back.
Ali Yahya, 61, and the only son of General Yahya Khan is red (literally) with rage at the abuse heaped on his father after the launch of Ayub Diaries. In his rapid style of ire, he tells me stories of Ayub and Bhutto that need heavy censoring. Some of the women associated with ZAB are still alive. Ali roundly blames ZAB for providing these women to his father when General Yahya ruled and ZAB would butter him. “My father was human; he couldn’t resist being seduced by Mrs (so&so). The same women were then offered to me by him (ZAB)”. Ali and his father’s social diaries can cover volumes should any author be interested in the seamy side of politics and willing to spend hours in Ali’s smoke-filled tiny study where walls shine with Yahya’s war medals and sepia photos of splendour of the hour.
Brigadiers and generals would “drop their wives at the President’s House saying they’d pick them up later.” Ali remembers his father saying: “I will never promote these shameless husbands. If these men can’t take care of their wives, how can they take care of the army?” But Yahya Khan too failed to “take care” of his country, so busy was he with women and wine.
Ali admits to defending something that is “indefensible.” He acknowledges his father’s carnal desires but what he’s not willing to accept is that Yahya Khan was responsible for the break-up of Pakistan. “That ‘honour’ goes singularly to Bhutto (whom he despises).” The next hour is spent on how ZAB, who according to Ali, was drunk with power and whiskey, manoeuvred Yahya’s ouster with the help of General Gul Hassan and Air Marshal Rahim – “another drunk”; got Ali sacked from his job; wreaked vengeance by keeping Yahya a captive till his death, depriving him of his pension and lands.
“He’s the same man who wormed his way to my wedding in October of 1971 and brought along a begum (I can’t name the begum as she’s still alive) to seduce my father.”
Le Figaro, the leading French daily, wrote of 1971 debacle “Pakistan is a country which is ruled by pimps and prostitutes after dusk.”
Muzaffar Abbas, president Farooq Leghari’s media guru and an “adopted son” of Yahya Khan chips in: “I know things that even the son (Ali) doesn’t know.” He shows me citations for Hilal-e-Jurat awarded to both Ayub (1948-50) and Yahya (1965). Yahya scores over Ayub. Commanding Akhnoor, Jaurian and Chamb sector during 1965 war, Yahya is praised for his “persistent boldness, determination and devotion to duty.” As C-in- C Yahya modernised and revved up the Pakistan Army, a fact none can deny.
The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting. Email: [email protected]