Address to the officers of the Armed Forces of Pakistan at Lahore on January 28, 1973

The object of meeting with you this evening is not to make a speech. The purpose is to get to know your problems, to get to know your feelings, your difficulties because whether we fail or succeed, we are making earnest efforts to bring about a wholesome integration in your society. For long we have been thinking in different terms in different interests. Actually, there are no different terms and different interests. The interests are once and there is no conflict in interest provided the interest is understood and it is a national interest.

So believe me, I am determined to make every endeavor and very search for a proper understanding between all segments of our society and since I have assumed office I have tried to do this, I travel a great deal, I meet our people. All problems cannot be solved by these contacts but a good number of problems, if not solved are at least understood and there is a better appreciation of the mutual difficulties. One gets to see the other side of the coin. I troubled you from many different parts of the country. Some of you have come from Peshawar and I am sorry to hear you are going back tonight. This has not been fair to Lahore but all the same next time we will try to make up for this discrepancy.

The armed forces by the grace of God are good enough, strong enough, large enough, and we cannot make arrangements for all of us to met in one evening. There are officers of different ranks and I would like to meet officers and men of our armed forces whether they are from the Navy, Air Force or the Army, at levels, the jawans, young officers, the colonels, brigadiers, and the generals, so that we really achieve our objective. And what is our objective? Our objective firstly is to make our country the most prosperous, the most progressive, and the happiest land in the subcontinent and I think we can do this and I am quite convinced that we can do this if we are sensible, if we are rational and if we are al little patient.

He said that the People’s Party had perforce adopted the same pattern as the country was passing through a grave crisis and the party could not give much time to its organization. But there was a difference between other parties and the People’s Party which was a revolutionary organization and had its roots in the masses. Its basic and primary aim was to serve the masses. It could not give up its manifesto and principles.

The President said that time had come to take a decision about this basic issue which the party convention had also recommended. This decision had to be taken, and it was now proper time to give it a concrete shape.

The President said that the party had a large number of trusted, dedicated and honest workers in its rank who were ready to assume their new responsibilities. The decision, he said, would infuse new spirit among the workers who had made sacrifice in the past and would not hesitate to make more for the sake of the party and the country.

He said that the party, with the passage of time, had grown as its manifesto and principles had attracted more workers. He said all genuine workers who wanted to serve the party selflessly were welcome in its fold. But they would have to go through “trials and tests” to prove their honesty because, he said, the party could not forget its genuine workers who were with it in the time of trial and tribulation.

The President asked the workers to spread out in villages, towns and cities to maintain their contact with the masses. He said direct contact with the people was necessary so that the party continued to have solid roots in the masses which had supported in the past.

The President said that he had planned to tour major districts of Punjab if February. But now he had decided to put off this programme till the light of the attitude of the new Government there.

Before embarking upon the tour, the President added, he would meet party workers and exchange views with them on national issues as well as organizational matter of the party.

Referring to the rising prices, the President said it was a natural outcome of the devaluation of the national currency and owing to a fall in overall production following war with India. The people had to face the effects of devaluation for some time keeping in view the larger national interests as in the long run it would prove beneficial to the country’s economy.

The national currency, the President said, ought to have devalued as early as 1965, but the Ayub and the Yahya regimes did not respond to the call of the time with the result that the present regime had to reduce the value of the rupee to a greater extent than it would have been six or seven years ago.

Comparing the devaluation of the national currency to surgical treatment of a man, the President said the country’s economy was sick and needed this operation. As a man suffered pain for some time after having undergone and operation, the national economy would also suffer some temporary set-backs resulting from devaluation which in the long run would be conductive to its health.

The President said as men fell ill, similarly the countries suffered from economic or political ailments. Once Turkey used to be called “Sick man of Europe. “After the separation of East Pakistan, a section of the European Press described Pakistan as “Sick man of Asia.”

With diligent effort, and perseverance, he added, the people should cure the nation’s economic and social ailments.

The President said that when the People’s Party took the reins of the country it had been cut to half. There were no stocks of fertilsers. It had no diesel and oil left as a result of the enemy’s bombing on oil dumps in Karachi. His Government had got over many such problems, an efforts were afoot to tackle the remaining ones.

The solution of the problem of the rising prices, he said, lay in increased production and self-sufficiency in the commodities of daily use. The present regime would do whatever possible to achieve these ends, he asserted.

The President said he had told a deputation of industrialists earlier in the morning that they would get all facilities from the Government for installing new industries. Besides, he said, the Government had decided to set up a big refinery at Multan. The country, he hope, would be self -sufficient in sugar within a year’s time.

The President regretted that smuggling of food grains was still going on through land and sea routes from Sindh, Baluchistan and the NWFP, and it was also one of the causes of the shortage of wheat in the country.

The Government, he said, was contemplating further measures to check this heinous crime. To deal with the smugglers sternly he said, the cooperation n of the people was a must.

Despite various difficulties and the crisis in the recent past, the country, during the last one year, earned as much foreign exchange as it did before the separation of East Pakistan, and that Pakistan’s foreign exchange earnings during the year was almost half the earning of India at the same time.

The President said, the People’s Party would never to back on promises made to the people. It would implement its manifesto in full. The people should rest assured that his Government would make Pakistan “one of the greatest countries of the world.”

The President asked the Ministers, MNAs and MPAs to keep close contact with the workers to know their problems and solve their genuine difficulties.

The President, who took notice of the complaints of the workers against the attitude of the Ministers and party Legislators, said that they could not ignore or avoid them (the workers).

He said it was their duty to keep themselves aware of the workers’ problems and find their solution. If they did not respond to their genuine difficulties, they (the workers) would lose heart and become disillusioned.

He said the Ministers, MNAs and PMAs “must seek the cooperation of the workers” in solving the problems of the people.

The President reminded the Ministers and representative of the people that they could not lose sight of the fact that if they lost confidence of the people, they might face the possibility of rejection by voters during the next elections.

He, however, said the Ministers, MNAs and MPAs had also some complaints against the workers, he said they quite often told him that party workers brought undue pressure on them and the Government officials to get work done.

This attitude, Mr. Bhutto, said should be given up in the larger national interest, as the Government was responsible to the whole nation to solve its difficulties and not the party workers alone.

The President listened to workers’ grievances individually and also received a large number of written complaints from them. He asked the concerned Ministers to take prompt notice of these complaints and solve them as soon as possible.