Laying Down the Law

In Pakistan the constitution is gone, the Parliament dissolved, the country's first elections indefinitely postponed. But not since the days of Founding Father Mohammed Ali Jinnah has Pakistan had so popular a government. "On the day De-fore the revolution last October," said a now jobless politician, "I thought one of the most dangerous things you can do is to break a constitution, even if it is to stop evil. On the day after, I thought: 'Thank God someone had the courage.'" Says beefy, Sandhurst-trained General Mohammed Ayub Khan, Pakistan's military dictator and president: "We have a few jobs to do. Then we shall hand back the power of choice to the people."

The land that Ayub took over five months ago was so corrupt that even such tolerant agencies as CARE and the Catholic Relief Services had given up on it; gifts clearly labeled NOT TO BE SOLD invariably ended up, not in the hands of the hungry, but in the hands of the black-marketeers. Soon the effects of the bloodless military takeover began to be felt. Streets became clean, bus queues orderly, scooter-ricksha boys unexpectedly polite. Instead of dragging themselves to work any hour of the morning, government clerks began showing up at 9. General Ayub jailed about 100 politicos, but he has since so tightened up the processes of justice that there are now fewer prisoners in jail than at practically any point in Pakistan's twelve-year history. In one province the Ayub government found 300 people still awaiting trial after being arrested as long as three years ago.

Ayub rules through a Cabinet of three generals and eight nonpolitical civilians, four each from East and West Pakistan. Ayub listened hard to West Germany's Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard when he passed through, and has since leaned heavily for economic advice on Wilhelm Vocke, former president of West Germany's State Bank.

Among Ayub's reforms: P: The government has ordered all civil servants to write out a detailed history of their financial dealings since independence. Since businessmen and landowners now face up to 14 years in jail for tax dodging, treasury clerks have had to work day and night to handle the long lines of delinquents. Pakistan has reclaimed $16 million from private illegal holdings of foreign exchange, found two tons of gold in the seaside hiding places of a band of smugglers.

P: Top priority has been given to doing something about the country's 12 million refugees who fled India to end up jobless in wretched slums. Ayub ordered new housing projects; with a stroke of the pen his Rehabilitation Minister gave permanent title to 6,600,000 acres in the Punjab to 1,400,000 refugees. The new program cuts two ways. Under the law, the refugees can lay claim to land with the same value as that which they left behind. Now faced with the threat of prison for filing false claims, 5,500 refugees have decided to withdraw or reduce their claims.

P: Most sweeping of all Ayub's reforms is aimed at Pakistan's entrenched and greedy landlords, 6,000 of whom together own 7,500,000 acres. Henceforth, no owner shall be allowed to hold more than 500 acres of irrigated or 1,000 acres of non-irrigated land. The rest will be divided among his tenant farmers. Though owners will be in part compensated in government bonds, those holding feudal jagirs--the gifts of the Mogul kings to their favored warriors--will not. Eventually, as Ayub knows, the lasting benefits of his rule will depend on how well he carries out land reform.

P: Pakistan has kept its firm Western alignment, but Ayub has gone to unprecedented lengths to soothe his country's bitter quarrel with India. He has stilled the strident propaganda of the country's radios, last month became the first Pakistani leader to attend the Indian High Commission's Republic Day celebration in Karachi. After a recent border incident he said mildly: "If our chaps are at fault, we will take action against them."

"We don't want palm-tree justice," says one of Ayub's ministers, and a Western diplomat calls the new regime "a relaxed dictatorship." The velvet glove has been more apparent than the iron fist, and as a result some of the old black-marketing, corrupt ways were returning. But last week the government took its first decisive action against the corrupt in high places.

Former Defense Minister Mohammed Ayub Khuhro, 60, long a dominating figure in Pakistan politics, was convicted of selling his 1958 Chevrolet on the black market for $12,000, almost three times the legal ceiling. He was fined $30,000 and sentenced to five years at hard labor. One of Karachi's main streets, named for him, would have to be renamed, and in prison he would get the "C" treatment instead of the "A" and "B" amenities (newspapers, private cells) usually reserved for people of his status. Shudders could be detected all over Karachi.

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