Author: B Raman
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 10, 2002
North Koreas assistance to Pakistan
in the development of its missile capability has been a quid pro quo for
the latters assistance to North Korea in the development of its military
nuclear capability.
After Pakistans nuclear weapon tests
at Chagai in May, 1998, my Pakistani sources had claimed that one of the
nuclear devices tested was of North Korean origin and that North Korean
nuclear scientists were present during the testing. As this information
was not corroborated by independent sources it was not disseminated.
Maj Gen (retd) Sultan Habib, an
operative of Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous (JIM), who had distinguished
himself in the clandestine procurement and theft of nuclear material while
posted as the Defence Attache in the Pakistani Embassy in Moscow from 1991
to 1993, has recently been posted as Ambassador to North Korea to oversee
the nuclear and missile co-operation between N Korea and Pakistan.
After completing his tenure in Moscow,
he had co-ordinated the clandestine shipping of missiles from N Korea and
the training of N Korean scientists in the nuclear establishments of Pakistan
through Capt (retd) Shafquat Cheema, Third Secretary in the Pak Embassy
in N Korea, from 1992 to 96.
On Capt Cheemas return to headquarters
in 1996, the ISI discovered that in addition to acting as the liaison officer
of the ISI with the nuclear and missile establishments in North Korea,
he was also earning money from the Iranian and the Iraqi intelligence by
helping them in their clandestine nuclear and missile technology and material
procurement not only from N Korea, but also from Russia and the CARs. On
coming to know of the ISI enquiry into his clandestine assistance to Iran
and Iraq, he fled to Xinjiang and sought political asylum there, but the
Chinese arrested him and handed him over to the ISI. What happened to him
subsequently is not known.
The firing on May 25, 2002, of a
N Korean made Nodong (I) missile, baptised Ghauri by Pakistan in 1998 to
hoodwink its own population and the international community that the missile
was the result of research by its own scientists, should be a matter of
greater concern to the Bush Administration and Japan than to India because
it provides evidence of the nexus between Pakistans military-intelligence
and the N Korean nuclear-missile establishment. This nexus was established
during the second tenure of Ms Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister when
she made a clandestine visit to Pyongyang and subsequently nursed by successive
regimes.
Pakistan was initially paying for
the missiles and spare parts partly in kind (Pakistani, US and Australian
wheat to meet N Koreas acute food shortage in the 1990s) and partly through
supply of nuclear technology to help N Korea. During the last three or
four years, Pakistani nuclear scientists have been working in N Korea and
N Korean missile experts in Pakistan. Since September, 2001, the increased
cash flow into Pakistan from the US, the European Union and Japan has enabled
the military regime to pay for the N Korean missiles in hard currency.
Since the beginning of this year,
there has been a large-scale movement of military goods under military
escort to Pakistan from China along the Karakoram Highway. While most of
these containers were said to contain spare parts and replacements for
the Chinese arms and ammunition and aircraft in Pakistans arsenal, one
should not rule out the possibility that the Chinese might have accepted
the Pakistani request for the movement of the missile-related goods from
North Korea by train and road across China and then along the Karakoram
Highway.
This carefully-nursed co-operation
between N Korea and Pakistan could not only help N Korea to develop a nuclear
capability which could pose a threat to the USA and Japan, but could also
make these missiles in Pakistan a tempting target for acquisition for the
dregs of the present Afghan war from the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the
Pakistani jehadi organisations, which have made Pakistan the new staging
ground for their anti-US and anti-West activities.
The New York Times cites American
intelligence officials as coming to the conclusion that Islamabad was a
major supplier for Pyongyangs nuclear weapons programme; and that this
was more of a barter deal that involved North Korea supplying Pakistan
with missiles to counter the nuclear arsenal of India. "What we have here
is a perfect meeting of interests - the North Koreans had what the Pakistanis
needed and the Pakistanis had a way for Kim Jong Il to restart a nuclear
programme we had stopped," the Times quotes an official familiar with intelligence
matters.
The American surprise at the recent
N Korean admission of its nuclear weapon programme and the role of Pakistan
in assisting N Korea in the implementation of this programme would show,
firstly, that the US intelligence community is not as well-informed as
it should be over developments in Pakistan and N Korea and, secondly, that
even when it gets intelligence about Pakistans perfidy either in assisting
North Korea in developing its military nuclear capability or in assisting
Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups evade capture, the State Department
and the US political leadership, for reasons not at all clear, choose to
turn a blind eye to it.
Omar Sheikh, currently under detention
in connection with the kidnapping and murder of journalist Daniel Pearl
had told the Karachi Police during his interrogation that during one of
his visits to Kandahar last year, he had come to know of the plans of Al
Qaeda to launch the terrorist strikes of 9/11 against the US and had mentioned
this to Lt Gen Ehsanul-Haq, the present Director-General of the ISI, who
was then Corps Commander, Peshawar. Gen Pervez Musharraf and Ehsanul-Haq
are friends. It is, therefore, inconceivable that Haq would not have mentioned
this to Musharraf. Why did Haq and Musharraf keep silent on the information
and did not immediately warn the US about it?
Nobody in the US seems to have gone
into it just as they had not gone deeper into Pakistans nuclear assistance
to N Korea. For how long is the US going to close its eyes to Pakistans
perfidies and at what cost to innocent American lives and interests?