I knew you would drag NS into this as per your habit. Well, my question is, why start and stop at Zia? Was he the only dictator that put Pakistan on the path of destruction? What about Iskander Mirza, who left us with Ayub? What about self-proclaimed FM Ayub Khan, who left us with useless CENTO/SEATO, misadventure of Op. Gibraltar, 1965 war, IWT, ZA Bhutto, and Yahya Khan? What about Yahya, who left us with half of Pakistan? and above all, Musharraf, who's left us with the following:
1. The Ex-PM Sharif and Ex-PM Vajpaee were negotiating for the peace in Lahore, and the renegade Musharraf was sending troops (without taking into confidence the Corp Commanders, the Services Chiefs of Air force and Navy, the PM, the Cabinet) and sabotaging those peace talks between India and Pakistan
2. When the PM dismissed him (with full constitutional and legal authority) from his post due to the disobedience and unprofessionalism he showed during Kargil, he reinstated himself unconstitutionally and illegally with the help of the other renegade Corp Commanders and threw the elected PM into the jail and even got him punished in the false accounts by the lower courts
3. He allowed the American troops in his country, and gave them airfields to carry out attacks on the neighboring Islamic country
4. He sold out undisclosed number of Pakistanis (innocent until proven guilty) to the Americans without first trying them in the Pakistani courts of law
5. He instructed his serving General of the political wing of ISI to rig the general elections and brought PML(Q) and so-called Islamic parties into power, and used this illegitimate parliament as a rubber stamp to further his ambitions
6. He, through the help of his illegitimate Parliament (result of rigging) and sold-out/oppressed Judges (result of LFO), adulterated the constitution and introduced clauses in order to achieve full amnesty for his unconstitutional actions and illegal rule
7. He mishandled the Lal Mosque issue, which resulted in the loss of life (both the civilians and the Army personnel) and resulted in a widespread anger against the regime, and the Army
8. He, through his banker PM, Shoukat Aziz sold out the profitable national assets on the rates far below their actual value and not to the highest bidders. Only Pakistan Steel managed to escape and that too because of the intervention of the honorable Chief Justice
9. Under his regime, the nation was deliberately and at institutional level misguided on the economical condition/progress. The government’s coffers were artificially inflated due to the money sent home by the overseas Pakistanis post 9/11 and which had nothing to do with the economical policies of his or his banker PM Shoukat Aziz. His banker PM introduced novel and totally misguiding scales of measuring the economical growth, that were, number of cars running on the roads and the cell phones sold
10. He dismissed the honorable Justices, put them and their family members under house arrests, and tried to destroy the judiciary
11. He patronized a known terrorist lingual organization in Karachi, hired the terrorist elements of this organization to hijack Karachi in order to stop the visit of the CJP and publicly supported their terrorizing actions that included a dozen deaths on May 11
12. He mishandled the Balochistan issue, gave a free hand to the Army and intelligence agencies to abduct anybody anywhere. None of the abductees ever presented into the courts of law or given a chance of legal defense. Sardar Akbar Bugti was extra-judicially murdered and his rival clan was ‘awarded’ the right to rule Sui and Dera Bugti
13. He introduced the black ordinance called NRO to cut a shameful deal with the exiled political leaders, pardoned them for all their corruption even murder charges in return of the extension of his presidency
14. He mischievously tried to bag the credit for freeing up the media which in reality was the result of the selfless struggle and sacrifices largely by the press and to some extent electronic media and lots of pressure from the free-media-obsessed Western countries
None of these imposed dictators deserve to be called Presidents (even ex-Presidents) of Pakistan; all must be tried, disgraced and dishonored.