Daily Times

KARACHI: Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has paid glowing tributes to the martyrs of the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) who sacrificed their life in their struggle against the brutal Zia dictatorship. “While eating the fruit of democracy, we all are indebted to their unmatched bravery, conviction and commitment to the cause of democracy,” the PPP Chairman stated as the anniversaries of hundreds of MRD martyrs were being observed across Sindh today.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that his mother Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto valiantly led a populist and mass movement against dictatorship. Her brothers, sisters and Jiyalas responded to her call with unshakeable loyalty and lost their life and limbs for the cause of the people of Pakistan and for their inalienable rights.

He said that the Zia regime used gunship helicopters and brutal force against the non-violent movement for democracy and sowed the seeds of extremism, terrorism and ethnic violence to torpedo Pakistanis quest for democratic order. “By snatching democracy, grabbing power and hanging the first democratically elected Prime Minister and the brain behind our nuclear programme Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Gen Zia conspired to turn this country into a banana republic and a society into a mob of chaos and disarray,” he added.

Bilawal Bhutto said that it was Jiyalas and other democratic political workers of Pakistan, especially the martyrs of democracy, who fought valiantly under the leadership of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto against the dictator and demolished his remnants in the elections held in 1988 despite massive rigging against the PPP. The PPP Chairman said that his party, its leadership and the workers would never forget those martyrs and their families and would continue to pay homage to them for generations to come.