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Musharraf wiser after 12 years: Benazir Bhutto

Musharraf wiser after 12 years: Benazir Bhutto

Author: Benazir Bhutto
Publication: Daily Telegraph
Date: July 13, 2001

As General Musharraf and his delegation prepare to leave for New Delhi airport, my thoughts go back to another airport and another tarmac.

I recall Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's visit to Islamabad on a chill December day as the sun shone warmly. The hope for peace and freedom filled the air as we inspected the smart guard presented by the Pakistan Army.

The military and its political supporters sabotaged that spring Indo-Pak relations. The PPP (Pakistan People's Party) was wrongly accused of treason. It is with a sense of personal moral vindication that I watch the army chief, 12 years later, realise the wisdom of my politics and seek to follow in my footsteps in defusing tensions with our larger neighbour.

I do feel a sense of national loss. Twelve years, and many thousands of deaths later, Islamabad begged for a meeting "any time and any place" when a dignified opportunity was available earlier.

The Musharraf visit is controversial for three reasons: legitimacy, military history and Kashmir history.

As an unelected and unrepresentative leader, Musharraf lacks legitimacy. The very army he leads can turn around tomorrow and make this argument when he joins the ranks of former chiefs. Moreover, he lacks the moral and political authority to co-opt the people.

Pakistan's military history bodes ill for his visit too. Each military dictator was anxious to offer a no-war pact to India which India rejected.

Both countries know that Islamabad can afford an insurgency and needs to avoid war. True to military history, Musharraf made the same offer.

Then there is recent Kashmir history. Musharraf was the architect of the Kargil crisis where thousands of Pakistani soldiers and Kashmiri militants lost their lives. Musharraf, like Lady Macbeth, finds it difficult to wash the stains of their blood from his hands. When he flies into Agra with his delegation, the ghosts of 3,000 Pakistani soldiers, buried secretly, fly with him. He will see their faces as they starved to death on the icy peaks of Kargil when supply lines stopped.

There are the faces of the living, those forced to retreat when America ordered the unilateral withdrawal from Kargil. Can Musharraf offer them something to compensate their earlier humiliation? For what the martyrdom, for what the operation, for what the refusal to salute if the conclusion was an embrace on a summer day in Delhi?

A new, elected government is free of the constraints of the burden of Kargil. And Kargil was a heavy burden. That is why, it is argued, peace was better left to an elected and representative government. That is why, it was argued, far better for Musharraf to focus on the democratisation process.

But it seems "making up with Vajpayee" was a better option than "making up with the Opposition".

Much of the debate on the Musharraf visit focuses on the intentions of the man as he makes his way half through his term to Agra. His accommodation overlooks the famous Taj Mahal, the monument of love built by a Muslim emperor for his Queen. Obviously, New Delhi hopes the vision can inspire a fresh romance between the two countries.

But are such hopes well founded?

Certainly there is a thinking in New Delhi that more is squeezed from a dictator than a democrat. Pakistanis may believe that democrats pioneered the lasting peace moves between the two countries but Delhi hears other arguments. They remember Zia who defended the loss of Siachen posts as "worthless ice where flowers cannot grow".

There is little that Premier Vajpayee can lose in sounding out a Musharraf who pleaded from every platform for "a meeting, any time and any place".

There is much that Premier Vajpayee can gain. Entertaining Musharraf to tea and pastries, showing him his old home, the shops and the shrines, pausing to mention Kashmir and moving on morally vindicates Vajpayee. His policies bring the Kargil architect to his door on his terms.

What of Musharraf?

Three explanations come to mind for the Musharraf visit. First, that Musharraf was reborn the day he seized power from Premier Nawaz. The commando, who refused to salute the hated Indian enemy and masterminded Kargil to highlight Indian impotence, died the day the coup took place. Instead, like a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis, a soldier for peace was born who yearned to replace the medals on his chest with a Nobel prize.

The difficulty in explaining this "rebirth" is that Musharraf's views are as good as those of the military Establishment. We are yet to see signs of change in a military Establishment smarting from its Kargil retreat after winning the peaks and facing Indian pounding.

The second explanation is that the Musharraf visit is a tactical move on the lines of the Kargil deception. Catching the enemy unawares is the name of the game.

The third explanation is that the hourglass is ticking away for Musharraf. To win international approval for his continuation in power Musharraf needs to show he is a man the Indians can do business with.

The fourth explanation lies on Pakistan's Northern Front. Embroiled with the Taliban, under pressure from UN sanctions, Islamabad desperately needs to release the international pressure from the Afghan front. What better way to mitigate the bad-cop image than tactically playing good cop in New Delhi?

There was speculation in the press on the agenda for the talks between the two leaders when they hole up in the retreat together. Islamabad's press speculated on non-papers, of far reaching and secret understandings reached by both sides.

That appears doubtful. More likely are continuation of the PPP-led agreements.

The PPP agreements that could be taken up in Delhi include:

First, a continuation of the non-attack on each other's nuclear facilities agreement. Given the nervousness of the international community over nuclear affairs, nuclear risk reduction measures can come under discussion.

Second, the re-deployment to Kargil negotiated in the summer of 1989 can be considered.

Third, the expansion of trade for which much work was done by commerce minister Mukhtar.

Fourth, greater travel facilities between the two countries in the light of the PPP proposal at the Saarc conference in December 1988 for visa relaxation.

Fifth, mutual reduction of troops that was discussed by the two sides during the 1989 talks and for which much progress was made by the intelligence chiefs of both sides.

The West Asia peace talks and the Good Friday agreements on Northern Ireland sparked a flurry of speculation that Pakistan's all-powerful military dictator could make a dramatic breakthrough on Kashmir. That appears unlikely. However, the foundation for a continued dialogue at the highest levels between the two countries could be laid. The regional association, Saarc, was to provide that opportunity to India and Pakistan. But its meetings were irregular.

Musharraf goes to New Delhi as Islamabad's weakest ruler. Lacking legitimacy, internal unity and fiscal manoeuvrability, his visit to New Delhi is full of pitfalls. Lacking good advice, or foreign policy experience, he failed to build the internal consensus that was so necessary to ensure a better base.

The Opposition did test his will to build internal consensus through links, but he found it hard to swallow the release of 10 political dissidents and a date for elections in exchange for political support on his perilous New Delhi journey.

And if it's difficult to swallow the release of 10 political dissidents, we can imagine how much more difficult it will be to swallow the death of 3,000 innocent soldiers who gave their lives in the mountainous glaciers so that their Motherland could live in honour and in dignity.

(Benazir Bhutto is former Prime Minister of Pakistan)
 


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