Special report: Going nuclear 1990-1993/1997-1999

A young Nawaz Sharif – with a considerably lighter mop of hair on is head – came to power for the first – but certainly not the last – time in November 1990 after a massive showing in rallies leading up to the elections. He waved and waved to the crowds across the land and apparently owed his elevation to popular public sentiment in his favour. Regardless of the fact that the victory of the right-wing Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) remains politically tainted to date, it was the time when Nawaz Sharif – and his family – entered big time politics.

Living out the legacy of his mentor

By I.A. Rehman

MIAN Nawaz Sharif became prime minister of the country twice within two decades of the death of General Ziaul Haq, his principal benefactor, and his two terms were like a sequel of the general’s regime. His priorities were theocratisation of the polity, promotion of free enterprise, fulfilment of nuclear ambitions, and assertion of civilian authorities’ rights through centralisation of power in himself. While doing the last part, he clashed with the establishment and lost power in the first term, and both authority and freedom in the second one.

For obvious reasons the business community’s interest came first with Nawaz Sharif. Several steps were taken under the label of economic reform, including a tax holiday for some, abolition of restrictions on bringing foreign exchange into the country or taking it out and on maintaining foreign currency accounts, and no questions asked. Privatisation of not only nationalised units but also other enterprises, such as PIA and WAPDA, was undertaken with extraordinary zeal. Despite allegations of irregularities these steps increased the prime minister’s popularity in the circles that mattered.

Soon after assuming power in both terms, Nawaz Sharif displayed his love for special courts. In the first term, Article 212 B was added to the Constitution through the 12th Amendment. The provision was not much different from Article 212A that Zia had crafted in 1979 for setting up military courts and which was dropped in 1985. These special courts were not subject to high courts and the Supreme Court and were assailed for being a parallel judicial system.

In the second term the special courts were rejected by the Supreme Court 10 months after their formation and this became one of the issues in the skirmishes between the prime minister and the chief justice. However, an already brutalised public was happy. Nawaz Sharif also gained in popularity with the masses by using force rather indiscriminately to curb lawlessness in Karachi, and more goodwill when he decided to punish the MQM after Hakim Saeed’s murder by dropping it from the coalition and ordering a crackdown in Karachi.

Contrary to what the photograph might depict, Nawaz Sharif has hardly ever been a silent, contemplative spectator on the national political scene. SHORTLY before being elected prime minister in November 1990, Nawaz entered into coalition, among others, with the Mohajir Qaumi Movement in urban Sindh. He is seen here at a rally in Karachi with MQM leader Altaf Hussain (left). Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, who was heading the Combined Opposition Party (COP) in the National Assembly and was soon to become the caretaker prime minister, is on the extreme right next to Syeda Abida Hussain. | Photo: Hasan Bozai.

He also persisted in his campaign against Benazir Bhutto in the first term in the form of president’s references, and against her husband Asif Ali Zardari in the second term through the Ehtesab Cell that he had created to the chagrin of the chief ehtesab commissioner by amending the Ehtesab Act.

Soon after becoming prime minister in 1990, Nawaz Sharif revived Ziaul Haq’s so-called Islamisation drive with a Shariat Enforcement Act, but a major effort in this direction was made in his second term in the shape of the 15th Amendment that had two objectives. First, it sought to add Article 2B to the Constitution declaring Quran and Sunnah to be the supreme law, and, secondly, it proposed that the Constitution could be amended by a simple majority of members present in either house or at a joint session of parliament.

Countrywide protests forced the government to abandon the second part of the bill and the National Assembly only adopted the proposal to add Article 2B to the basic law. It read: “The federal government shall be under an obligation to take all steps to enforce the Shariah, to enforce Salat, to administer Zakat, to promote amr bil ma’aroof and nahi unil munkar (to prescribe what is right and to forbid what is wrong), to eradicate corruption at all levels, and to provide substantial socioeconomic justice in accordance with the principles of Islam as laid down in the Quran and Sunnah.”

The bill resembled the Zia sponsored 9th Amendment that was adopted by the National Assembly in 1986, but it was not sent to the Senate and lapsed. Similarly, the 15th Amendment was withheld from the Senate as the government was not sure of its majority there and it too lapsed. The text of the 9th and the 15th Amendments is not found in our statute books. Thus ended Nawaz Sharif’s bid to push Zia’s Islamisation further and to change the Constitution through a single enactment.

During his second term, several issues – Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions, policy towards India, and the army chief’s desire to steal a military victory over India – got intertwined and offered Nawaz Sharif a mixed bag of joy and disappointment.

He met Indian premier Inder Kumar Gujral during the SAARC summit and they agreed to be friends. Shortly thereafter, Attal Bihari Vajpayee became the prime minister of India. Among the first things the BJP government did was to carry out five nuclear tests in May 1998 that brought Nawaz Sharif under intense pressure from the people and the military to achieve parity with India in terms of nuclear capability.

Ignoring the strong advice of the country’s main economic patrons and partners, he allowed five nuclear tests on May 28, 1998, and a sixth, two days later. This made the prime minister highly popular with the military and the people, but the steps accompanying the blasts, especially freezing of foreign currency accounts that the judiciary eventually overruled, did not.

Vajpayee met Nawaz Sharif in New York and proposed the start of a friendship bus service between India and Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif, with his characteristic impulsiveness, promptly agreed. Vajpayee duly arrived in Lahore by bus in February 1999 and the event did cause a thaw in India Pakistan relations, but it did not yield Nawaz Sharif the political dividend he had expected because the people had not been prepared for the policy shift and the army had not been taken on board.

Then almost from nowhere Kargil happened. The prime minister feigned ignorance of the operation to capture a few Kargil peaks while the army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, maintained that everything had been cleared by his civilian boss.

As was expected, India threw its air force and heavy guns into the battle and Islamabad got worried. Nawaz Sharif literally forced US president Bill Clinton to see him on July 4, 1999, the American National Day, and agreed to pull back his troops. The people, fed on stories that Pakistan always defeated India in armed encounters, were unhappy. Worse, the army top brass put down Nawaz Sharif as a person they could never trust, a perception that was going to cause Nawaz Sharif’s downfall more than once.

Nawaz Sharif’s desire to completely control the government brought him into conflict early in his first term with president Ghulam Ishaq who also considered himself a true inheritor of Ziaul Haq’s mantle.

Among other things, he denied the premier any say in the selection of judges and appointed General Abdul Waheed Kakar as the army chief, following the sudden death of Gen. Asif Nawaz, without informing the prime minister. In April 1993, Nawaz Sharif denounced the president in a TV address and the next day the president dissolved the National Assembly and sent him packing.

The Supreme Court restored Nawaz Sharif in the saddle only 37 days later. His failure to oust the then Punjab chief minister, Manzoor Wattooo, who was openly supported by the president, re-ignited the feud with Ghulam Ishaq. Eventually, the army chief intervened and both vacated their offices in July 1993.

General Kakar, the gentleman general who coveted neither power nor glory for himself, demonstrated that even if the army had to intervene in a political crisis, imposition of military rule was not the only solution, a precedent yet to be emulated.

Between his first and second tenures at the helm during the politically troubled 1990s, Nawaz Sharif kept himself busy with public appearances across the land. He is seen here alongside Khan Abdul Wali Khan of the Awami National Party at a Rawalpindi rally in December 1994.

When Nawaz Sharif regained power in February 1997, the circumstances were wholly in his favour. He had two-thirds majority in the National and Punjab assemblies and his party was able to form coalition governments in Sindh and the NWFP (since renamed KP). Armed with a heavy mandate, he resumed his drive to eliminate the rival centres of power.

No trouble was expected from president Farooq Leghari with whom Nawaz Sharif was reported to have struck a deal before the PPP government was sacked and who had allegedly facilitated the Sharif brothers’ election in the 1997 elections by amending the ineligibility laws related to loan defaulters. The president was paid off with a Senate ticket for a relative, appointment of a friend as Punjab governor, and obliging Zulfikar Khosa to make up with Leghari.

Having done all that, Nawaz Sharif calmly told a befuddled Leghari of his decision to remove Article 58-2(B) from the Constitution that was to deprive him of the power to sack a government. The formality was completed the next day with the adoption of the 13th Amendment, a step hailed by all democrats.

Meanwhile, the prime minister’s relations with chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah deteriorated. While sparring over the selection of five judges for the Supreme Court, both resorted to bizarre tactics; the PM reduced the Supreme Court strength from 17 judges to 12, hoping to remove the need for new appointments, and the chief justice suspended a constitutional amendment. Eventually, the premier gave in. But the suspension of the 14th Amendment on legislators’ defection, which gave the party bosses the last word, annoyed the prime minister and he declared that while he had ended ‘lotacracy’ the Supreme Court had restored it.

Deposed for the second time, Nawaz Sharif, with his brother Shahbaz Sharif, is seen at the entrance of Anti-terrorism Court No 1 in Karachi in December 1999 when he was tried for ‘kidnapping, attempted murder, hijacking and terrorism’. It was the trial that led first to his conviction and a life sentence, and subsequently to the infamous agreement under which the Sharif family remained exiled in Saudi Arabia for about a decade.

Soon enough, the chief justice hauled up the prime minister for contempt. What followed was incredible. The Supreme Court was stormed by an N-League mob that included several parliamentarians. The chief justice’s appeal for succour was heeded neither by the president nor by the army chief. Eventually, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah was dethroned by his brother judges through a process that is still mentioned in whispers, and, ironically enough, he fell a victim to his own judgment in the Al-Jihad Trust case. Before the year 1997 ended, president Leghari resigned to hand Nawaz Sharif his second victory in quick time.

In October 1998, army chief General Jahangir Karamat suggested the formation of a National Security Council. This, too, was first proposed by Gen. Zia and he had inserted an article to this effect in the Constitution, but it was deleted at the time of the bargain over the 8th Amendment on the terms and conditions for lifting the martial law in 1985.

Nawaz Sharif asked the army chief to resign and the latter complied with the order (though he had the last laugh when after some time a National Security Council indeed started functioning.)

By the end of 1998, Nawaz Sharif had freed himself of all possible threats from the presidency, the judiciary and the GHQ, and had become the most powerful ruler of Pakistan ever. But he had built a castle on sand. On October 12, 1999, he ordered Gen. Musharraf’s replacement as the army chief by the then ISI chief who had failed to warn him of the officer corps’ decision not to tolerate the ‘humiliation’ of another chief. The Musharraf plane affair was bungled and the army took over. His arrest, conviction for plane hijack and exile to Saudi Arabia for nearly eight years is another story in political wilderness

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The writer is a senior political analyst and human rights activist.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1369428/special-report-going-nuclear-1990-19931997-1999

Special Report: Daughter of the East 1988-1990/1993-1996

The photograph above shows the indomitable Benazir Bhutto whose two tenures put together couldn’t add up to match the one that her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had at the helm of the country’s affairs. She started off on a bright note of symbolism, being the Muslim world’s first woman prime minister, but left behind a legacy that was not entirely unblemished. Though she adjusted her style of governance – not as much as she adjusted her headgear, as she is seen doing here – her best was still not good enough for reasons that were often, but not always, beyond her control. | Photo: Shakil Adil

Another Bhutto at the helm

By I. A. Rehman

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BENAZIR Bhutto occupies a unique place in the political history of Pakistan. Twice elected prime minister of the country and the first woman head of government in any Muslim-majority state, she inspired the hope that she could put democracy back on the rails. Inability to fulfil this expectation dented her image somewhat. Allowed to complete neither of her two terms and hounded from one court to another for a long time, she was compelled to spend a decade in self-exile. Yet the establishment never stopped fearing her as a potential game-changer; a threat that could only be averted with physical liquidation.

BENAZIR Bhutto ran an election campaign in 1988 that was as electric as her return to the country from exile a couple of years earlier. | Photo: Dawn / White Star Archives

Several factors contributed to her enormous popularity at the start of her political career. Young, charming and well-educated, she commanded sympathy across the land as the daughter of a former prime minister who many thought had been hanged unjustly. She had also won admiration for refusing to surrender to General Ziaul Haq’s autocratic rule despite cruel harassment.

Within 28 months of her return from self-exile, General Zia perished in a plane crash which removed a big roadblock on the path to democracy. Also during these months, she became the wife of Asif Ali Zardari, a marriage that was going to considerably affect her political career.

As the judiciary declined to restore the dismissed government of Mohammad Khan Junejo – though its sack by Zia was not upheld – and struck down the law on parties’ registration which endorsed party-based elections, the prospects for Benazir looked good. Also welcome was the flow of professional election fighters towards her Pakistan People’s Party.

Benazir Bhutto had an eloquent presence in the National Assembly reminiscent of her father, the Quaid-i-Awam. | Photo: DEMP

However, there was no illusion about the task of return to democracy having been made extraordinarily daunting by the outgoing – and dead – dictator. He had transformed the form of government from parliamentary to presidential, and turned the state into a virtual theocracy. Above all, his Afghanistan policy had embroiled Pakistan in a many-sided crisis that was getting worse by the day.

The election to the National Assembly on November 16, 1988, did not give Benazir Bhutto a majority in the house, but her party emerged as the largest single group, having secured more seats (52) from Punjab than were won by the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), an alliance clobbered by the establishment as a successor to the anti-Bhutto coalition of 1977 – the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA).

Three days later, apparently the establishment struck and did so most viciously by manipulating the provincial elections in Punjab to ensure that the IJI got more seats (108) than the PPP (84) and, thus, cleared the way for Mian Nawaz Sharif to become the chief minister of the politically most advantaged province. That effectively changed not only Benazir’s career but also the course of Pakistan’s history.

A Zia amendment had empowered the president to first nominate the prime minister before she/he could be elected by the National Assembly. President Ghulam Ishaq Khan did not name her as prime minister for nearly two weeks, until she had ceded to him and the military her authority in key areas, such as Finance, Defence and Foreign Affairs, especially Afghanistan. Yet she decided to take her chance.

LIKE most of her predecessors, one of the things Benazir did on her elevation to the office of the prime minster was to visit Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah. | Photo: The Directorate of Electronic Media and Publications [DEMP].

She started on a sound note, making a humanitarian gesture by offering relief to death row prisoners. She also strengthened her regime through alliances with the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) for the stability of her government in Sindh, and with the Awami National Party (ANP) to bag the chief minister’s post in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP; since renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa).

However, preventing Nawaz Sharif from undermining her government soon became Benazir’s main preoccupation. The Punjab chief minister rejected the federal government’s choice for the provincial chief secretary’s post, tried to launch a radio station and decided to found a commercial bank. These steps converted the Punjab elite to the idea of provincial autonomy, an idea it had vigorously spurned when raised by the other provinces, especially East Pakistan that had been got rid of 16 years earlier.

Besides, working was not easy alongside a president who had little respect for the parliamentary system even though Benazir had swallowed the bitter pill by proposing him for a five-year term as president. He contested her right to have a say in making important appointments, and often choked the government by simply sitting on the papers sent up to him.

Benazir visited the conflict-ridden Siachen sector, becoming the first prime minister on either side of the border to do that.| Photo: DEMP.

Adding to her worries were quite a few other problems. The Balochistan assembly was dissolved on the advice of chief minister Zafarullah Jamali as he was not sure of his majority in the house, but Benazir’s inability to set matters right before the high court restored the assembly shifted the blame on to her. Further, Benazir was not found good at retaining the goodwill of her allies. The break with MQM was no surprise as the pact with it was unworkable and the party had been seduced by Nawaz Sharif and their common benefactors. The alliance with ANP, too, was difficult to sustain but the efforts to save the Sherpao ministry in the NWFP did not add to the prime minister’s credit.

The break with MQM was followed by a surge in violence in Karachi and Hyderabad. The Pucca Qila incident became a sore point for both sides. While dealing with Sharif’s challenge, the government clearly took an exaggerated view of its capacity to tame a rich provincial chief being backed by the establishment. Before Benazir completed her first year in office, the opposition tried to dislodge her through a no-confidence motion that was taken up on November 1, 1989, and was defeated. However, the differences between the prime minister and the military on the one hand, and between her and the president on the other could not be resolved. On August 6, 1990, the president dissolved the National Assembly and Benazir ceased to be prime minister after barely 20 months in office. The charge-sheet against her included allegations of making the National Assembly dysfunctional, ignoring responsibilities to the federating units, lawlessness in Karachi, ridiculing the judges, and corruption.

Benazir Bhutto was a gracious host when Rajiv Gandhi, her Indian counterpart, came visiting. The two at the time had tragic family histories behind them and, unbeknown to them, future gruesome and fatal tragedies awaiting them. | Photo: The Press Information Department, Ministry of Information, Broadcasting & National Heritage, Islamabad.

In view of the appointment of opposition leader Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi as the caretaker prime minister, Benazir had little hope of winning the elections that were held three months later. In fact, her wait lasted three years when she came to power again after the October 1993 elections, which were held after president Ishaq and prime minister Sharif had knocked each other out.

Once again her party emerged as the largest group in the National Assembly. With the help of the Junejo faction of the PML and some independents, Sharif’s party, the PML-N, was denied power in Punjab as well. Soon after her trouble-free election as prime minister, her nominee, Farooq Leghari, was installed in the presidency. She felt far more comfortable at the helm of affairs and more powerful than she had ever felt earlier.

She began asserting herself by getting the PML-N ministry in the NWFP, led by Sabir Shah, suspended and governor rule imposed. The move was struck down by the Supreme Court. Then she set about changing the composition of the superior judiciary apparently to tame it and the subterfuge was quite unconvincing. This became the subject of a bizarre reference to the Supreme Court by president Leghari that the prime minister bitterly opposed. Eventually, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, her controversial choice as chief justice, pronounced a judgment in what is now called the Judges’ Case that negated all her work.

The other main developments during this term included a failed attempt to oust Punjab chief minister Manzoor Wattoo of PML-J; Sufi Muhammad-led uprising in Malakand for Shariah rule; a huge increase in killings in Karachi; a hike in terrorist attacks; and sectarian violence. Stories of corruption involving Benazir and Zardari also gained currency at an uncomfortable pace. The allegations, even if not proved in courts, clearly reduced the prime minister’s popularity and credibility in equal measure.

Murtaza Bhutto’s return home and his arrest caused Benazir an ugly split with Begum Nusrat Bhutto, and his death after an encounter with the police dealt a severe blow to her government. Eleven days after the incident, on November 5, 1996, the president dissolved the National Assembly and Benazir was again out of power. The charges against her were Karachi killings (though the number had fallen by around 75 per cent from the 1995 figure), disregard for federal institutions, ridiculing the judiciary, and corruption.

The day – November 13, 1993 – when Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari (extreme right) took oath of the office of the country’s president from Chief Justice Nasim Hassan Shah (extreme left) would have been a day of relief for Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, seen here sitting alongside acting president Wasim Sajjad, for Leghari was her own nominee and that was critical in the presence of Article 58-2(B). A week short of three years later, the president dismissed her government using the same constitutional clause. The famed Shakespearean utterance, ‘Et Tu, Brute?’ must have crossed Benazir’s mind at the time. Photo: Dawn / White Star Archives

As subsequent events showed, this was the end of Benazir’s role in the country’s government though she remained active in politics till an assassin’s bullet silenced her for ever near the place where the country’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, had been shot dead in a conspiracy of another kind.

Benazir Bhutto’s positive work as prime minister included giving the government a humanitarian face. The commutation of death sentences to life imprisonment was followed by banning of lashing (except for Hadd cases) and public hanging. The plan to offer the disadvantaged relief through special tribunals did not work, so a separate ministry of human rights was created. Her effort to amend the procedure in blasphemy cases was scotched by the conservatives, but her instructions not to arrest any accused without a proper inquiry did lead to a fall in such cases.

Women activists complained that she didn’t do anything substantial for them, but they could not deny the favourable ambiance Benazir had created. And her uncompromising resistance to pseudo-religious militants was not matched by anyone, with the possible exception of Afzal Lala of Swat.

The hurdles that held Benazir back included the absence of a culture of democracy; the habit of political parties to treat one another as their worst enemies and a tendency among them to destroy political rivals with military’s help; the personality cult in the PPP and its centralised decision-making without democratic centralism; and the politicians’ failure to remember that what was not permitted to authoritarian rulers was prohibited for them too.The PPP also suffered as a result of its shift away from a left-of-centre platform as it blunted the edge it had over the centrist outfits.

The time after the dismissal of her first government was not quite spent in political wilderness. Among other things, Benazir Bhutto conducted a couple of strategically planned Long Marches to mount pressure on all concerned. Just three years later, she was back in the saddle. | Photo: Dawn / White Star Archives

An assessment of Benazir Bhutto’s prime ministership usually takes two forms: one, that she was incapable of establishing a democratic order, and, two, that the establishment did not let her work. A realistic view will begin by noting the absence of a stable, efficient and fair-minded state apparatus that could relieve her of routine chores and allow her to concentrate on broad political and socio-economic issues.

Also, no politician could (or can even today) roll back the Zia legacy through a frontal attack, except for a popular revolution. Besides, the deeply entrenched, highly trained and generally better informed establishment needed to be outmanoeuvred in a subtle and adroit manner. Benazir Bhutto was outmanoeuvred by the dominant power centre and she might also have sometimes unwittingly helped it.

The real losers as a result of Benazir Bhutto’s elimination from politics were the people. Their concerns remained off the government’s agenda and the dream of a democratic and egalitarian Pakistan receded even further.

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The writer is a senior political analyst and human rights activist.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1366832/special-report-daughter-of-the-east-1988-19901993-1996

When Pakistan and India went to war over Kashmir in 1999

Zaffar Abbas

Updated Feb 17, 2017 02:32pm

Nawaz Sharif and Pervez Musharraf at Keil sector near Rawlakot on the Line of Control, February 1999 | AFP

Proving all claims and assessments wrong, a few hundred militants continue to control some of the most crucial mountainous positions in the Kargil-Dras region. As all attempts by the Indian ground and air forces to recapture the lost positions are frustrated by the well-equipped militants, the intensity in artillery duels between Indian and Pakistani troops along the Line of Control touches new heights.

Within weeks, the troop concentration along the LoC and the international border has increased manifold, and the naval fleets of the two countries have sailed out into the open seas to position themselves against each other. And as thousands of villagers living on the two sides of the border start to move out to safer areas, India and Pakistan once again appear to be at the brink of another more disastrous war.

This situation deteriorated further in recent weeks when the Indian administration, embarrassed at its army’s failure to flush out the militants from Kargil and Dras, looked for a military solution to the conflict. The Indian government’s snub to Pakistan’s proposal for talks, and its refusal to hold any dialogue until the withdrawal of the “Islamabad-backed infiltrators” from Kargil, and Pakistan’s categorical rejection of its direct involvement, has led to a new level of jingoism in India.

Although the Indian government did try to clarify that the American visit did not amount to third-party mediation, Delhi’s frustration over the pro-longed conflict in Kargil had ultimately sucked it into accepting some kind of US role in this affair.

As more and more bodies of Indian soldiers from the conflict zone reach their respective towns, the most popular war cry in Delhi now is to “teach Pakistan another lesson.” On the other hand, Pakistan’s army chief, General Pervez Musharraf has made it absolutely clear that the Pakistani armed forces are fully prepared to counter any aggression.

Already, the so-called ‘bus diplomacy’, which only a couple of months ago had created a fresh atmosphere of optimism in the region, looks like a thing of the past. Now there is renewed talk on both sides of settling the outstanding dispute through military means. Yes, despite all the official denials from Delhi and Islamabad about the possibility of a direct engagement on the battlefield, a war between the two proud nuclear powers does look imminent.

Also read: The pursuit of Kashmir—The untold story

As war clouds started to hover over the subcontinent, matters were made worse by the role of the media, particularly in India. Almost the entire battery of newspaper and satellite television networks in India appears to have fallen in line with the policy of the Indian ministry of external affairs and their military establishment, thus creating a tangible war-like atmosphere. There were statements, not only from politicians, but also journalists, wherein Pakistan was called a “rogue state”, and demands were made to inflict “lasting punishment” on Pakistan.

Of course, the Pakistani media has also not lagged far behind. State-run television (PTV) and the right-wing conservative press continue to project these few hundred militants as the true liberators of Kashmir. The press has also kept up constant pressure on the government against any “peace deal”. Some newspapers and analysts are now ridiculing the Indian army for its failure in Kargil, and are describing the present situation as “the most opportune time” to declare full-fledged war for the liberation of Kashmir.

Caught in the crossfire: villagers in Azad Kashmir | Archives

Also read: In Kashmir, the young are paying for India’s lack of vision

These moves have been given further substance by statements and speeches made by members of the hard line Islamic parties. For instance, speakers at a rally in Rawalpindi, attended by several thousand supporters of the Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, did not mince words in giving a warning to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif against pulling out of the conflict. And then there are the likes of the former ISI chief, Lt. General (retd.) Hamid Gul, who went to the extent of saying that any deal with Delhi at the cost of the militants offensive would amount to putting the last nail in the coffin of the present government. So, if anything was lacking in creating an atmosphere to start a greater conflict, the hawks amongst the politicians and the media on the two sides have done their bit to justify an all-out war.

As war clouds started to hover over the subcontinent, matters were made worse by the role of the media, particularly in India

With both sides locked in one of the worst conflicts since the 1971 war, it soon started to dawn on the international community that developments in South Asia were getting out of hand. When Pakistan downed two Indian combat aircraft which had crossed into its territory, and Delhi started to show signs of crossing the LoC in a counter-offensive, the international community responded with alarm and panic. The United States and other G-8 countries, despite their heavy involvement in the Kosovo crisis, were compelled to take time out and turn their attention towards the conflict in South Asia.

It did not take them long to realise that the possible escalation in the region could have catastrophic consequences. A resolution passed by G-8 leaders not only took notice of the long-standing dispute over Kashmir, it also expressed serious concern over the escalation in the Kargil region.

US President Bill Clinton went a step further and telephoned both the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers, asking them to show restraint. But both these developments signalled diplomatic setbacks for Pakistan. The G-8 and President Clinton clearly sided with the Indian version of cause and blame. In fact, President Clinton even asked the Pakistani prime minister to use his influence to withdraw the militants from Kargil — thus directly implying that Pakistan not only had the means to pull out these fighters but that it had in fact put them there in the first place.

The United States did not stop just there. Realising the seriousness of the Kargil conflict, which by all means had the potential of snow-balling into all-out war, Washington immediately rushed its senior most military commander in the region and a senior State Department official to Islamabad. General Anthony Zinni and the State Department official held extensive discussions with top Pakistani officials, including the prime minister and the army chief.

Although there were no positive statements from either side, the meetings did produce enough ground for the State Department official to undertake a trip to Delhi to hold talks with the Indian authorities. And although the Indian government did try to clarify that the visit did not amount to third-party mediation on Kashmir, Delhi’s frustration over the prolonged conflict in Kargil had ultimately sucked it into a situation where it had been forced to accept some kind of US role in this affair.

Along the LoC: Reluctant warriors? | Archives

However, even as a small conflict in a remote mountainous region has resulted in a situation where a bloody war between the two known South Asian adversaries looks like a reality, very little is known about the circumstances which led to this development. Amidst allegations and counter-allegations, and claims and counter-claims by Islamabad and Delhi, the truth about the events of Kargil remains shrouded in secrecy.

The Indian establishment has directly blamed Pakistan’s armed forces for carrying out the present offensive, accusing the Light Infantry Battalion of being actively involved with the Pakistani and Afghan militants in Kargil. Pakistan’s foreign office and military establishment still maintain they have no active role in the Kargil conflict. But, does this also mean that they were unaware of the militants’ plans? There have also been strong suggestions in Delhi that perhaps Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was not even aware of the army’s decision to launch this operation, and many Western diplomats in Islamabad tend to agree with this theory.

Also read: Military has some serious misgivings about India—Mahmud Durrani

Despite the repeated claims by India about the active presence of Pakistani troops in the Kargil mountains, so far very little concrete evidence has been produced to substantiate such allegations. However, the Pakistan-based leadership of the various militant groups have not missed any opportunity to embarrass Islamabad. Their attempts to boost the activities of their comrades in Kargil and reports of sending in reinforcements belie the government’s claim about the indigenous nature of the present conflict.

If a former head of the ISI, Lt. General (retd) Javed Nasir is to be believed, the preparations for the Kargil operation started several months ago. The Kargil region has been traditionally used by the Kashmiri militants to enter the valley. However, this time the militants had more ambitious plans. They decided to move into the area and try to capture the strategically located mountains and ridges that overlook the Kargil-Srinagar road. The idea was to try and block the supply route for the Indian troops based at the Siachen glacier. Towards the end of last year, several hundred volunteers from four well-known militant groups began vigorous training sessions in mountainous areas to prepare themselves to brave rough, wintry conditions.

Army jawans: ready for battle | Archives

They were mainly from Tehrik-e-Jihad, an organisation that draws its cadres from Kashmir, Al-Badr, whose members include both Kashmiris and Pakistanis, Harkatul Mujahideen, which has in its fold a few Kashmiris but many Pakistanis and Afghans, and Lashkar-e-Taiba, whose members largely hail from Pakistan. Later on, when the conflict intensified in Kargil, two more groups, Hizbul Mujahideen and Harkat-e-Jihad, also joined to provide reinforcements. But according to a number of western diplomats, it is hard to believe that these militant groups could have launched such a major offensive without the active help and support of the Pakistan army.

Also read: Enforced disappearances: The plight of Kashmir’s ‘half widows’

By now, it has been established beyond doubt that this time the militants have completely shaken the entire Indian establishment. Many senior Indian journalists admit that the belligerency presently being witnessed in India is not only because the militants have badly bruised the Indian claim of being a mighty regional power; the sheer number of casualties from the present conflict have shaken the entire country. Television images beamed by Indian satellite net¬works, showing the arrival of the dead and wounded from the battle front, and the reactions from the family members and the local population capture the real mood of depression and anger in India.

A recent report by the French news agency AFP from Indian-held Kashmir gave a graphic account of the way the dead and wounded are being brought to Srinagar from the battle front, before being sent to Delhi. According to the report, the Indian Airline’s flight from Srinagar to Delhi these days has turned into an air ambulance service. Almost every day, it carries to the Indian capital dead bodies and injured soldiers from the battle front in Kargil in greater numbers than normal passengers. The passenger seats in the air¬craft are often removed to accommodate stretchers carrying the wounded, and a special section of the Delhi airport has been designated to accommodate the coffins arriving from the battle zone.

A few journalists covering the Kargil conflict who managed to get on the flight describe the atmosphere on the flight as a true reflection of the events in Kargil. According to Abu Maaz, who is a sector commander of the Tehrik-e-Jihad in Kargil, even now several bodies of Indian soldiers are lying decomposing on the mountains, and Indian troops dare not lift them for fear of coming in the line of fire. Abu Maaz, who recently came to Skardu for reinforcements, told journalists the number of casualties on the Indian side have been much higher that what is being claimed by New Delhi.

Rough estimates indicate that the Indian army has lost more officers and men in these few weeks of fighting in Kargil than it lost in the last full-fledged war with Pakistan in 1971. And according to a senior Indian journalist, this time the bodies are going to some of the remotest towns and villages in India, thus creating a nation-wide mood of anger, and encouraging hawks to go for an all-out war against Pakistan.

The Indian Army: facing heavy losses | Archives

However, the question being asked by many senior observers is that can either India or Pakistan afford to engage in a full-scale war, even if it is limited to the use of conventional forces? Some Western diplomats in Islamabad are of the view that, even if there is a war, it will be fought along the LoC, and will remain confined to Kashmir. But are there any guarantees that the losing side is not going to launch an offensive on the international border? In either case, the level of destruction on the two sides will be immense, and despite Indian claims of military superiority, there is little chance that India can win a war against Pakistan in a decisive manner.

A report titled “South Asian Military Balance”, submitted by the US Deputy Secretary of Defence Bruce Riedel before the American Senate’s foreign relations sub-committee last year, clearly stated that while India enjoys a numerical advantage over Pakistan in conventional military capability, it is most unlikely that it would score a decisive victory over Pakistan. Recently reproduced excerpts from the report suggest that the internal security problems faced by India in Kashmir and East Punjab may also hamper India’s quantitative advantage over Pakistan.

While analysing comparative conventional forces in detail, the Riedel report argues that because of its more developed industrial capability and greater geographical expanse which provides strategic depth not available to the much smaller Pakistan, India could fight a longer war than Pakistan — thus a longer war would favour India. However, many analysts say that such a war would be a major blow to economic and social development in the two countries and may push them back to where they started more than 50 years ago.

Also read: Kashmir’s Neelum Valley — The sapphire trail

But is there really a way to prevent the present conflict from snowballing into an all-out war? Many analysts and western diplomats believe the key to ending the present conflict lies with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

However, it mainly depends on what the government’s real objectives, both strategic and diplomatic, are and the extent to which it wants to use the situation in Kargil to internationalise the Kashmir dispute. Some government leaders in favour of ending the present crisis believe the diplomatic advantage that Pakistan had in the initial stages of the conflict has gradually slipped away with the international community turning against Pakistan. This is precisely what the opposition leader, Aitzaz Ahsan, said in the Senate during the debate on the Kargil situation, and accused the government of isolating the country on the diplomatic front.

However, even if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wants to end the present impasse in an attempt to prevent a major escalation, his choices are quite limited, argue analysts. As things stand at the moment, the government is just one of the three elements in the entire conflict — the other two being the army and the militants and their parent political parties.

It is not clear how the army leadership will react if there is a serious proposal from Premier Sharif to try and end the present conflict by asking the militants to withdraw. There is another, equally important question: even if the militants’ initial offensive was launched with the active support from this side of the LoC, is it possible to force them into withdrawal? Militant leaders, both in Muzaffarabad and Pakistan, say they are fully committed to the present phase of the Kashmir struggle, and their sacrifices in the present fighting make it incumbent upon them not to agree to any diplomatic settlement.

Even if the militants’ initial offensive was launched with active support from this side of the LoC, is it possible to force them into withdrawal?

Those close to the prime minister say he is certainly aware of these complications, but this has not deterred his desire to use the process of dialogue to settle outstanding issues with India. Following the failure of his peace initiative, whereby foreign minister Sartaj Aziz was sent to Delhi for talks, Sharif now appears to be employing back-channel diplomacy to try and defuse the situation. Recently, former foreign secretary Niaz Naik was quietly sent to Delhi to hold talks with Indian leaders. During his brief stay, he met both Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh.

The visit was supposed to be kept secret as apparently it was a serious attempt to try and find a way out of the current impasse without drawing any media attention. However, some Indian officials deliberately leaked it to the local press, thus prompting Islamabad to also leak the move by Delhi to send senior Indian journalist, Mishra along with a ministry of external affairs official, to meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Senior analysts in Islamabad say it is not only domestic problems that are creating difficulties for Sharif in his search for an agreeable solution to the current crisis. The level of belligerency being displayed by Delhi is also being described as a major factor in preventing a real diplomatic break¬through. However, some Pakistani analysts and Western diplomats in Islamabad are convinced that, since the visit by the US military and State Department officials to the region, things appear to be moving in the right direction. If this optimism is not misplaced, it is quite possible that the war, which at the moment appears to be imminent, may eventually be averted through diplomacy.

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This was originally published in the Herald’s June 1999 issue under the headline “War?”. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

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The writer was the Herald’s Bureau Chief in Islamabad in 1999. He is currently serving as the editor of daily Dawn.

http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153481

FIRST LADY BEGINS TOUR OF SOUTH ASIAN REGION

By Molly Moore March 27, 1995

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton today began a 10-day South Asian tour highlighting women’s and children’s issues in a region where oppression of women and girls is considered more prevalent than almost anywhere in the world.

The first lady’s trip — which is to include visits to villages, schools and an orphanage run by Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity — is designed to put a more human face on U.S. policy in socially troubled South Asia after recent trips by Clinton cabinet members focusing primarily on national security and trade issues.

White House officials also hope the tour through Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will provide the first lady some political rehabilitation after the battering she took with the defeat of the health care reform program that she oversaw during her husband’s first two years in the White House.

In a region where the United States has some of its weakest national security, business and social links, and where anti-American sentiment is always a component of domestic political agendas, the first lady is studiously attempting to avoid any potential controversies.

Her staff said repeatedly today that she does not plan to initiate discussions involving the sensitive issues of nuclear proliferation or human rights. In interviews prior to her departure from Washington, Clinton said, “I’m not about to go and try to tell anybody what to do.”

That may prove difficult on a trip focused on women’s issues to an area where three governments are led by women who are frequently criticized by women’s organizations for doing too little to help the oppressed women of their Third World nations. There are few parts of the world that can match South Asia for the pervasiveness of social discrimination against women, ranging from female infanticide, dowry deaths and bride burnings to the practice in Islamic Pakistan of jailing women on charges of adultery when they report they have been raped.

Even Clinton’s low-key agenda is far more substantive than that pursued by Jacqueline Kennedy when she toured Pakistan and India as first lady in 1962. The local press commented primarily on Kennedy’s wardrobe and camel-riding skills.

Today, the first day of her tour, Clinton basked in the symbolism of powerful women sharing mutual concerns. In a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Clinton ate a lobster lunch with some of the most successful women politicians, artists and leaders of a country where repression of women is endemic. The first lady donned a scarf and discarded her shoes to tour one of the Islamic country’s largest mosques.

In opening remarks at a lunch hosted by Bhutto, Clinton said she hoped her trip to Pakistan would “reaffirm the partnership and friendship between our two countries.”

That friendship has been severely strained in the last several years by U.S. criticism of Pakistan’s nuclear program and Washington’s 1990 decision to sever all military and most social aid to a country that had served as its front-line facilitator in the 1979-89 Soviet-Afghanistan war. The U.S. State Department also has been highly critical of Pakistan’s failure to control drug trafficking and terrorism, at one point threatening to declare its old ally a terrorist state.

Bhutto, who will visit the United States next month, has recently said she would welcome U.S. efforts to assist Pakistan in apprehending terrorists, especially in the aftermath of the shooting two weeks ago in Karachi in which two American consulate employees were killed and a third injured.

Today, however, Bhutto stressed her kinship with Clinton and the barbs both have endured in their roles as strong women in politics.

“Women who take on tough issues and stake out new territory are often on the receiving end of ignorance,” said Bhutto, wearing over her head the trademark scarf her father warned her always to wear in public in this strict Muslim society that discourages women from assuming public roles.

Bhutto skipped references to other things the Bhutto and Clinton administrations have in common: Both are under extreme pressure from opposition parties and are in deep political trouble in their respective countries. At the luncheon table, Clinton was sandwiched between Bhutto and her mother, Nusrat Bhutto. The two Bhutto women have engaged in an acrimonious public feud since the mother sided with Benazir Bhutto’s brother — who opposes the prime minister politically — during Bhutto’s election bid 1 1/2 years ago.

At today’s lunch, Nusrat Bhutto began devouring a salad with her fingers before the guest of honor sat down, and then made a show of reading the menu during Clinton’s brief speech, drawing embarrassed looks from others seated at the table. According to White House and regional embassy officials, the Clinton journey across the subcontinent was conceived by Elizabeth Moynihan, the wife of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), a former ambassador to India. Elizabeth Moynihan pressed the first lady for the past year to make a trip to India to examine women’s issues.

In the protocol of regional U.S. diplomatic relations, however, Hillary Clinton could not visit India without calling on India’s neighbor and longtime enemy, Pakistan. To those two stops, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were added.

Chelsea Clinton accompanied her mother, and the 15-year-old stole some of the show today. During a tour of the Faisal Mosque tucked against the Margalla Hills on the edge of the capital city, the Clintons’ daughter peppered the tour guide with detailed questions about the mosque and Islam. The first lady explained that her 10th-grade daughter recently had been studying Islamic history at Sidwell Friends School. As for the first lady’s homework, Hillary Clinton stayed up last night to read parts of Bhutto’s autobiography, “Daughter of Destiny,” before meeting the prime minister this morning. CAPTION: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto talk at lunch in Islamabad. The first lady’s visit to Pakistan was the first stop of a 10-day, five-nation tour of South Asia that will include visits to villages, schools and an orphanage run by Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity. CAPTION: First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter Chelsea line up for a photo with Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto holds, her son Bilawal and daughter Bakhtawar during visit to Islamabad, Pakistan. The first lady’s visit to five South Asia nations will focus on women’s and children’s issues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/03/27/first-lady-begins-tour-of-south-asian-region/06b1ace7-ebc9-4f85-b7fb-e16e3edf8022/?utm_term=.0ed8f6594424

Hillary Clinton Finding a New Voice

By TODD S. PURDUM

Published: March 30, 1995

NEW DELHI, March 29— Halfway around the world from the battles that haunt her, an outspoken American woman found a new voice today in the words of an Indian schoolgirl, who composed a poem called “Silence” and sent it to Hillary Rodham Clinton with the handwritten exhortation: “More power to you.”

” ‘Too many women in too many countries speak the same language — of silence,’ ” Mrs. Clinton said in a speech, quoting the poem by Anasuya Sengupta, a senior at the Lady Sri Ram College here. ” ‘My grandmother was always silent, always aggrieved, only her husband had the cosmic right (or so it was said) to speak and be heard.’

” ‘They say it is different now,’ ” Mrs. Clinton read on, her voice catching just a bit at the end of her speech at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, a research institute here. ” ‘But sometimes, I wonder. When a woman gives her love, as most do, generously, it is accepted. When a woman shares her thoughts, as some women do, graciously, it is allowed.’

” ‘When a woman fights for power, as all women would like to, quietly or loudly, it is questioned,’ ” Mrs. Clinton continued, still quoting the poem. ” ‘And yet, there must be freedom, if we are to speak. And yes, there must be power, if we are to be heard. And when we have both (freedom and power), let us not be misunderstood.’ ”

The poem had special resonance here in the world’s largest democracy, where the birth of a daughter can still be an occasion for dread, where some brides are beaten or burned if their families resist in-laws’ demands for a higher dowry and where sexual harassment is commonplace.

But the First Lady, who has so often felt misunderstood and who has kept her own counsel in the months since the collapse of her health-care drive, seemed to be speaking as much to herself and her fellow Americans as to the students in the balcony who exploded in applause.

“I read it and I was just overwhelmed by it,” Mrs. Clinton said later of the poem, which was given to her by the college’s principal, Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath, at a women’s luncheon at the United States Embassy on Tuesday. “And so I was thinking last night about the speech today, and I rewrote large parts of it so that I could use the poem. I think it expressed the feelings that all of us share, that women’s voices should be heard and that silence is not appropriate for women in their own lives, and women in the larger world.”

Silent is one thing Mrs. Clinton has not been on this official goodwill visit to five South Asian countries, a journey that her Wellesley classmate Martha Teichner, who is covering the tour for CBS News, described jocularly on the air as a “chick trip.” It blends the giddiness of a sorority spring break with the sober feel of a graduate seminar on the responsibilities of sisterhood.

Traveling with her entourage of senior aides, almost all of them women, the First Lady has sought to straddle the dichotomies of a region where most women remain subjugated, and where others have become pioneers in high political office only at the price of widowhood or parental assassination.

Mrs. Clinton has steered clear of some policy problems like nuclear proliferation that have long bedeviled United States relations with India and Pakistan, focusing instead on the importance of educating girls and women. An hourlong meeting today with Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao produced only the word that they had discussed how to improve Government performance and economic development.

In her speech today, she said the first installment in a new 10-year international aid program for educating girls and women would come to India, and the amount, $500,000, was modest enough that she did not even mention it.

At the same time, the First Lady has appeared both freer — and a good deal funnier — than she has seemed at home in some time. The South Asia she has seen is a freshly paved, tightly secured and somewhat sanitized version of the real thing.

In Pakistan Mrs. Clinton, a Midwestern-born Methodist, awoke at dawn to the prayer call of a muezzin over the loudspeaker of a mosque, and shared with schoolgirls her thoughts on the politics of meaning and her worries that the “rampant materialism and consumerism” of Western countries is now poised to threaten developing ones.

Asked by one ninth-grade English student in the middle-class village of Burki, outside Lahore in eastern Pakistan to name her idol, Mrs. Clinton replied, “At my age, I don’t think I have anyone anymore.” Asked by another girl if she had any nicknames, the First Lady replied dryly: “Some people have, I would imagine, quite rude nicknames for me.”

Radiant in a billowy red silk shalwar kameez, the traditional Pakistani pajama-style pants suit, she joked to reporters after a moonlight official dinner in the red stone ruins of the Mogul fort at Lahore that she was thinking of experimenting with such a wardrobe back home, in place of the much-remarked past changes in her hairstyle.

In Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity orphanage in New Delhi, she cuddled and cooed at months-old babies with the ease of an experienced mother, never blanching when one little girl tugged at the large gold-and-pearl eagle pinned on her lapel. If she misses a sight or misremembers a story, her 15-year-old daughter Chelsea is there to point it out or correct her with exquisite poise and an air of friendship that would be the envy of most mothers.

“Educating girls is not something that is seen as something to put in banner headlines,” she told a group at the Islamabad College for Girls in Pakistan, but “it is something that will change a country if it is done.”

Photo: Hillary Rodham Clinton tried on a mask that she received yesterday at the Crafts Museum in New Delhi. (Reuters)

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/30/world/hillary-clinton-finding-a-new-voice.html

Benazir Bhutto accused by critics in brother’s death

Troubled Bhutto family reunites after tragedy

September 21, 1996
Web Posted at: 10:35 p.m. EDT (0235 GMT)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — Benazir Bhutto’s political opponents Saturday rushed to condemn her in the death of her estranged brother Murtaza, and a high court judge was appointed to investigate the bizarre gunfight that took his life in the posh Clifton Road neighborhood of Karachi.

Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, in a speech in parliament, accused the government of “state terrorism” against its political opponents. Leaders of the Lahore High Court Bar Association in Punjab were quoted as describing Murtaza Bhutto’s killing as a murder.

Murtaza’s killing “is part of a conspiracy to make Pakistan a police state and crush democratic freedom,” said Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Pakistan’s fundamentalist party leader.

According to police, the trouble started after Murtaza and his supporters refused to allow their vehicles to be searched as part of security checks imposed following recent bombings.

Suddenly, the scene was ablaze in gunfire.

Police said they were fired on first. In the ensuing battle Murtaza and six of his supporters were killed.

Family with a troubled history

Murtaza Bhutto had long been a political opponent of his sister Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, and his death is another twist in a tragic family history.

Benazir Bhutto’s father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former Prime Minister and wealthy landowner, was toppled in a coup in 1979 and hanged two years later.

Another of her brothers, Shanawaz, died in suspicious circumstances in France in 1985.

Murtaza Bhutto lived in exile in Syria for 16 years following the 1977 military coup that ousted his father.

Murtaza was thrown in jail after returning to Pakistan, accused of masterminding the 1981 hijacking of a Pakistani Airlines plane that left one passenger dead.

During the 1993 elections, he campaigned as an independent candidate and won a seat in the assembly governing Sindh province.

Last year, Murtaza Bhutto led a group that split from the ruling Pakistan People’s Party.

Although few observers considered him a serious political threat to his sister, he was a constant thorn in her side, accusing her government of widespread corruption.

Bhutto family reunites in tragedy

Her mother, Nusrat, had sided with Murtaza in the public dispute, but that didn’t stop the family from reuniting after the latest Bhutto death.

A weeping Benazir Bhutto — barefoot, as a sign of mourning and respect — visited the hospital in Karachi where her brother died.

As the Prime Minister and her mother attended Murtaza’s funeral in the Bhutto family home in Larkana, north of Karachi, the atmosphere seemed to be one of reconciliation, rather than domestic and political wrangling.

Hours before he was shot, Murtaza held a press conference that seemed to foreshadow his final clash. He accused police of targeting his organization, and denied any role in the recent spate of bombings in Karachi, a city plagued by political violence.

“I have denied from the beginning we are a political party,” he said. “We will face this present government politically. I am not ordering anybody to go underground, arrest anybody you want from my people, we will face you politically.”

His Palestinian born wife Ghinwa appealed to his supporters to remain calm and pursue his goal of political reform peacefully.

“I hope to God that the blood we sacrifice we have made for Pakistan and for all its problems,” she said.

 

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“I hope to God that the blood we sacrifice we have made for Pakistan and for all its problems.”

— Ghinwa Bhutto
(29 sec./255K AIFF or WAV sound)

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Benazir, Ghinwa, and Nusrat — sister, wife and mother, mourn their loss while the rest of the country waits to see what will unfold.

Reuters contributed to this report.

http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9609/21/pakistan.bhutto/

NONPROLIFERATION — THE PRESSLER AMENDMENT

December 14, 1993

The proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction is the most critical national security issue facing the United States today. I take President Clinton at his word that he agrees with this proposition. However, some in his administration are undermining his commitment.

In 1985 Congress passed and President Reagan signed into law Section 620E(e) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. This created a blanket prohibition on civilian and military aid to Pakistan unless the president certifies “that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive device.” This amendment, which bears my name, remains the most effective tool the United States has employed to combat the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The State Department, however, has indicated informally to Congress that it wants the president to have authority to waive the amendment (although the administration says it has no intention of exercising any possible waiver authority at present).

The Post, although claiming that my amendment has “failed in Pakistan” {editorial, Nov. 30} — an assessment with which I don’t agree — says that to soften it would convey “the symbolic message that the United States doesn’t care enough about new bombs.”

I’d go farther than that. In my view, granting such a waiver would be detrimental to the national security interests of the United States. The Pressler Amendment has served our interests well and continues to do so.

First, it identifies nuclear proliferation as the top priority in our relations with Pakistan. Second, it makes clear to countries other than Pakistan that there is a heavy penalty associated with the decision to go nuclear. A number of countries around the world have the capacity to initiate a nuclear weapons program. Many also happen to be aid recipients or otherwise have important ties to the United States. The existence of the Pressler Amendment and its possible extension to other countries undoubtedly has been a key consideration in the decision-making of these countries’ political leadership when the question of pursuing a nuclear weapons program has come up for discussion. The fact that these countries have not gone forward with a serious nuclear weapons program, or in one case dismantled an existing program, is probably not accidental.

With specific regard to Pakistan, the Pressler Amendment performed the useful service of buying time until that country could become more democratic. In general, democratic countries do not attack each other.

Moreover, there is the question of restraining an overt as opposed to a covert nuclear program in South Asia. Pakistan has never actually exploded a nuclear device, although we believe it has the capacity to do so. If it had followed India’s lead and exploded such a device, that act would have had a powerful impact on public opinion in South Asia. Inevitably, it would have led to a more serious nuclear arms race in the region.

This is not the first time the State Department has attempted to subvert or repeal the Pressler Amendment. In 1991, under the previous administration, a proposed repeal was defeated by more than 100 votes in the House of Representatives. There is no reason to believe such a move today would be any more popular among my colleagues. LARRY PRESSLER U.S. Senator (R-S.D.) Washington

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1993/12/14/nonproliferation-the-pressler-amendment/1562bf06-f317-4154-a839-ddd0d58fa9ee/?utm_term=.ef534d8f7ddf

Clinton Plans Change in the Law Banning Military Aid to Pakistan

By STEVEN A. HOLMES,

Published: November 27, 1993

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26— The Clinton Administration is proposing the repeal of a law that has barred American military aid to Pakistan because of that country’s efforts to develop a nuclear bomb. But State Department officials insisted today that they did not intend to lift sanctions against Pakistan.

The Administration proposal, in a draft of a new foreign aid bill recently sent to Congress, would repeal the so-called Pressler Amendment, which bans military aid to Pakistan unless the President can certify that Pakistan neither possesses nuclear weapons nor is trying to develop them.

In place of the amendment, named after Senator Larry Pressler, Republican of South Dakota, the Administration would substitute generic language in which no specific country is named. Inspections Are Sought

The provision would ban American assistance to any “nonnuclear weapon states” that have equipment capable of enriching or reprocessing fissionable materials for nuclear weapons, unless the country submits to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to insure that the reprocessing is for civilian purposes.

Pakistan would still not qualify for American aid under the proposed change.

“Pakistan remains under Pressler Amendment sanctions in accordance with U.S. law,” the State Department said today in a statement. “Even if a new foreign assistance act without specific language on Pakistan were passed, we would continue to apply Pressler standards to Pakistan.”

But some in Congress note that the proposed bill allows the President to waive economic sanctions against a country that may be building a nuclear bomb if he determines it is in the national interest to do so. Those critics say the Administration’s proposal thus weakens the Pressler Amendment, which contains no waiver provision. ‘Wonderful Smokescreen’

“It’s a wonderful smokescreen,” said an aide to Mr. Pressler. “The State Department has always wanted to get rid of the Pressler Amendment because it has no waiver.”

The Pressler Amendment, enacted in 1985, states that as long as Pakistan has a nuclear bomb or the main components of a bomb, “no technology shall be sold or transferred to Pakistan.”

For five years, the Reagan and Bush Administrations certified that Islamabad did not possess the cability to detonate a nuclear bomb, a finding widely considered to be a good will effort toward a country that was helping guerrillas fight Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

In 1990, after Soviet soldiers had withdrawn from Afghanistan, the Bush Administration stopped protecting Pakistan from the amendment’s sanctions and the aid was cut off. Rapid Ability Estimated

Central Intelligence Agency analysts have estimated that Pakistan has the ability to assemble a nuclear bomb relatively quickly.

Clinton Administration officials say the proposal to repeal the Pressler Amendment arises from a desire to eliminate references to specific countries in the foreign aid bill to give the Administration more flexibility in conducting foreign policy. This year, Congress did eliminate most of the wording known as “earmarks,” references to specific countries in the bill. “Pressler got caught up in a general cleansing of foreign assistance legislation,” one State Department official said in reference to the amendment. “In fact, Pressler was the one item that we thought the hardest about, because we understood how important it was to certain members of Congress, and the importance of the issue of proliferation.”

Some State Department officials note that the proposal is contained in what is termed a “discussion draft” of the foreign aid bill.

The bill is a kind of trial balloon in which the Administration is floating a number of ideas to gauge Congressional reaction. One official said that if the proposal to repeal the Pressler Amendment touched off a storm of criticism in Congress, the amendment probably would be retained.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/27/world/clinton-plans-change-in-the-law-banning-military-aid-to-pakistan.html

Bhutto found guilty of corruption

By Richard Galpin in Islamabad

Wednesday 21 April 1999 16.18 BST

Pakistan’s former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, was last week sentenced in her absence to five years’ imprisonment for corruption, disqualified from holding public office and fined more than $8 million.

The high court in the city of Rawalpindi handed the same sentence to her senator husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who has been held at a Karachi jail since 1996. He faces other charges, including involvement in the murder of his brother-in-law.

The court also found Bhutto – daughter of the late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Pakistan’s only woman prime minister – and Zardari guilty of receiving kickbacks on a government contract with a Swiss firm during her second term of office in 1994. The prosecution alleged that the contract was awarded for illegal monetary gain, leading to huge financial loss to the national exchequer.

The verdict was the first reached in a series of trials on charges of widespread corruption during Bhutto’s two terms in office. It was not clear if she had been immediately stripped of her membership of the national assembly.

Bhutto’s second government was dismissed abruptly by President Farooq Leghari in 1996 amid allegations of widespread corruption and economic incompetence. Her first term as prime minister came to a similar end in 1990.

In all, Bhutto and her husband have been accused of stealing as much as $100 million – charges they deny.

Bhutto, who was visiting London at the time of the verdict, said that although she would be arrested on her return to Pakistan, she would go back. It is expected that her lawyers will lodge an appeal with the supreme court.

In Islamabad officials of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s party denounced the high court in Rawalpindi, saying: “It was a kangaroo trial by a kangaroo court.”

But the government of Nawaz Sharif – her arch rival – was delighted with the verdict.

Senator Saifur Rehman, a senior member of the ruling party and the man who has spearheaded the campaign to have Bhutto convicted of corruption, said it was a “foolproof case of corruption and money-laundering”, which they would have no difficulty defending at appeal hearings.

The information minister, Mushahid Hussain, said the verdict was a crucial judgment “because for the first time a ranking politician has been convicted for corruption”, setting the precedent for a new culture of accountability within Pakistan’s notoriously corrupt political Žlite.

Public reaction is likely to be mixed. Many Pakistanis, including Bhutto’s traditional supporters, have felt let down by her during her time in office.

When she first took power there were high expectations that she would introduce reforms to establish democracy and the rule of law in the country after a decade of military rule. But few progressive measures were introduced, and public anger mounted as allegations of corruption emerged. Zardari was particularly disliked.

The devastating defeat of Bhutto’s party in the 1997 elections bore testimony to the extent of public disillusionment. But many people sympathise with Bhutto’s claims that the allegations of corruption against her were part of a “political witchhunt” by the government to eliminate the opposition.

Despite winning a huge majority in the elections two years ago, the prime minister, Mr Sharif, has systematically removed anyone he believes threatens his grip on political power.

So far the chief justice of the supreme court, the president and the chief of the army staff have all been forced to resign and have been replaced by candidates believed sympathetic to the regime.

There has also been a vicious campaign against sections of the press perceived as being too critical of the government.

More importantly for the opposition, however, Mr Sharif has changed the organisation of the body set up to investigate corruption cases, to ensure that his right-hand man, Senator Rehman, has been able to control which cases have gone to trial in the courts.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/apr/21/benazirbhutto

Islamabad Dateline: `Daddy don`t go`

ANJUM NIAZ — PUBLISHED Sep 06, 2008 12:00am

We`ll never know why the 10-year-old Akbar ran after his father to stop him from going to Rawalpindi. Did he have a premonition?

Ashraf Liaquat Ali Khan, older by four years, remembers how his parents celebrated his 14th birthday at the then PM House in Karachi, barely two weeks before his father was assassinated.

“My whole class at Karachi Grammar School was invited.” Does Ashraf know who killed his father, now that new revelations blaming America surfaced in Washington when certain documents were declassified in 2006? “Was it really the Americans?” He can`t say, but “America wanted my father`s help in subduing the Iranians as they wanted Iranian oil. But he refused.” Adding another twist to the mystery, Ashraf tells me, “The plane carrying the inquiry officer on board who had the answers to who killed my father was blown to smithereens in midair. We were told that there was no other copy of the investigation.”
Was Army Chief General Asif Nawaz poisoned? If you talk to his brother Shuja Nawaz, author of Crossed Swords, you get the idea that he was. If you talk to General ( retd) Naseeruallah Babar, you`re told in no uncertain words that he was not. And if you talk to an army doctor who was connected with the case, you get a whole new dimension.

Who killed Benazir Bhutto? If you believe her widower Asif Zardari, you`d agree with him that the establishment had a hand and therefore only a UN inquiry costing the taxpayers millions of dollars can solve the mystery. If you talk to a head of a security firm in Karachi who was asked to provide the armoured SUV`s (sports utility vehicles) for Benazir Bhutto you`re told that Rehman Malik asked for sun roofs to be installed in the cars. Every security firm in Pakistan responded with an emphatic `No.` Said one,

“How can an armoured car have a sun roof? The whole idea of security is killed. Think about it,” they argue.
Who killed Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan? “Right up to the day my mother died, she wanted to know who killed my father,” says Ashraf. If you read the declassified documents on the Internet, you discover that America was behind the murder. And if you ask Ashraf again if the Indians did it, he quotes his mother, Begum Ra`ana Liaquat who was pointedly told by the bigwigs in India that they had no hand in the foul play. If you ask around you`re told by some that the politicians of those days in cahoots with the army had the first prime minister of Pakistan eliminated.
Confusion worst confounded.

Still, it`s the right of every Pakistani to ask who killed the above three VVIPs. We draw a blank from our establishment in BB`s case while the establishment has conveniently closed its files on Liaquat Ali Khan`s assassination and General Asif Nawaz`s sudden death. In the former`s case, we don`t have an answer from the establishment, while in the latter`s case, the government has told us that the Army Chief died of a heart attack.Brother Shuja Nawaz – journalist, military analyst and author was in Islamabad recently from Washington. In his book Crossed Swords, he has reproduced anonymous letters written by the staff serving Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who allege that they would dust the dinner plates with arsenic powder every time Asif Nawaz came for a meal at the PM`s house. Furthermore, the author has reproduced in full the forensic reports of well known doctors based on an examination of the deceased`s hair. Their verdict Asif Nawaz had high levels of arsenic in his blood that could kill. General ( retd) Babar called me up from Peshawar to refute the claim, saying he sent samples to France and Russia which were negative.

Whom does one believe? I ask Shuja Nawaz. He thinks Naseerullah Babar`s memory is playing tricks. “Where did he get hold of my brother`s hair?” he says, “We never gave it to him.” When I ask Babar, he tells me, “well, I`ve told you everything that there is to tell. Nawaz Sharif is innocent, there was no foul play but if the family (Shuja Nawaz ) doesn`t want to believe it, then it`s their personal affair.”

A retired brigadier who served in the army medical corps adds another dimension to the mystery. He says the late COAS was taking energy boosting pills that contained safe levels of arsenic. When I ask Shuja Nawaz, he hotly denies the story.
Talking about sensitivities, Ashraf Ali Khan recalls the Christmas Day in 1947 when his father in a fit of anger sent in his resignation. His parents had been invited to celebrate Christmas with the Quaid and Miss Fatima Jinnah. “After lunch the Quaid took my father aside and asked him why Begum Ra`ana Liaquat did not sit on the same sofa where Miss Jinnah was sitting and why she had declined a glass of sherry which her host wanted her to partake of.

The Quaid was visibly annoyed. So, when my father came home he sent in his resignation!” Had the resignation been accepted, the first prime minister of Pakistan could have died a natural death, instead of being gunned down in Rawalpindi and leaving no clues behind of his murderers.

http://www.dawn.com/news/418079

 

No Poison Found in Pakistan Officer’s Body

Published: December 14, 1993

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 13— An autopsy conducted by French, British and American doctors has shown that Gen. Asif Nawaz, who was Pakistan’s army chief, died of a heart attack in January and not of arsenic poisoning, as his family had suspected, official reports said today.

General Nawaz’s widow had accused associates of Nawaz Sharif, who was then the Prime Minister, of wanting to eliminate her husband, who was 56. His family requested an autopsy, asserting that he had been poisoned by his political opponents. President Ghulam Ishaq Khan cited the accusation when he dismissed Mr. Sharif in April.

“According to three autopsy reports just received from foreign doctors, former chief of army staff Asif Nawaz died of a heart attack,” said an official report broadcast on national television.

The general’s body was exhumed in October to enable doctors from Britain, France and the United States to take samples for their autopsies. The police ordered the exhumation after results of a test carried out privately by the family in the United States revealed high levels of arsenic in hair reportedly retrieved by General Nawaz’s widow from her husband’s brush.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/14/world/no-poison-found-in-pakistan-officer-s-body.html