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)