Author: B. Raman
Publication: South Asia Analysis
Group
Date: October 20, 2002
URL: http://www.saag.org/papers6/paper536.html
In articles written since 1998,
I have been saying, on the basis of information from reliable Pakistani
sources, that North Korea's assistance to Pakistan in the development of
its missile capability has been as a quid pro quo for the latter's assistance
to North Korea in the development of its military nuclear capability.
2. After Pakistan's 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, I did not disseminate it.
3. In an article on Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) disseminated on August 1, 2001, (www.saag.org/papers3/paper287.html),
I had reported as follows on the basis of information from the same sources:
" Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous (JIM): Responsible for covert actions
in other parts of the world and for the clandestine procurement of nuclear
and missile technologies. Maj Gen (retd) Sultan Habib, an operative
of this Division, 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 93, with concurrent accreditation
to the Central Asian Republics (CARs), Poland and Czechoslovakia, has recently
been posted as Ambassador to North Korea to oversee the clandestine nuclear
and missile co-operation between North Korea and Pakistan. After completing
his tenure in Moscow, he had co-ordinated the clandestine shipping of missiles
from North Korea, the training of Pakistani experts in the missile production
and testing facilities of North Korea and the training of North Korean
scientists in the nuclear establishments of Pakistan through Capt. (retd)
Shafquat Cheema, Third Secretary and acting head of mission, in the Pakistani
Embassy in North Korea, from 1992 to 96. Before Maj.Gen. Sultan Habib's
transfer to ISI headquarters from Moscow, the North Korean missile and
nuclear co-operation project was handled by Maj. Gen. Shujjat from the
Baluch Regiment, who worked in the clandestine procurement division of
the ISI for five years. On Capt. Cheema's 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 North 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. Capt.Cheema initially got into the ISI and got himself posted
to the Pakistani Embassy in North Korea with the help of Col.(retd) Ghulam
Sarwar Cheema of the PPP (Pakistan People's Party of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto
)".
4. Subsequently, in another article
titled "PAKISTAN & AXIS OF EVIL: Ghauri Missile" disseminated on May
25, 2002, (www.saag.org/papers5/paper464.html), I had stated as follows,
again based on information from the same sources: "The firing on May 25,
2002, of a North 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 and development by its own
scientists, should be a matter of greater concern to the Bush Administration
in the US and Japan than to India because it provides one more piece of
evidence, if it was needed, of the nexus between Pakistan's military-intelligence
establishment and the nuclear-missile establishment of North Korea, which
has been placed by President Bush in what he described in his State of
the Union Message of January, 2002, as the axis of evil.
"This nexus was first established
during the second tenure of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister (!993-96)
when she made a clandestine visit to Pyongyang and subsequently nursed
by the Nawaz Sharif Government and the Musharraf regime. Pakistan was initially
paying for the missiles and spare parts partly in kind ( Pakistani, US
and Australian wheat to meet North Korea's acute food shortage in the 1990s)
and partly through supply of nuclear technology to help North Korea in
the development of its own military nuclear capability.
"During the last three or four years,
Pakistani nuclear scientists and engineers have been working in North Korea
and North Korean missile experts in Pakistan. Since September, 2001, the
increased and still increasing cash flow into Pakistan from the USA, the
European Union and Japan has enabled the military regime to pay for the
North Korean missiles and related technology 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 Pakistan's 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 North Korea and Pakistan could not only help North 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.
"What Pakistan carried out on the
morning of May 25, 2002, was not a test firing of a missile under development
through indigenous efforts as projected by Musharraf, but the demonstration
firing of a ready-to-fire missile acquired clandestinely from Bush's axis
of evil. It was meant as a demonstration of Pakistan's self-proclaimed
capability to the Pakistani public as well as to its Armed Forces in order
to keep up their morale at a time when Pakistan has come under great pressure
from the international community to stop using terrorism as a weapon against
India.
"It was also meant to refurbish
Musharraf's image in the eyes of his people at a time when his recent referendum
stands discredited due to large-scale rigging, large sections of the political
class have been questioning the wisdom of his continuing in power at a
time of national crisis and there have been growing signs of disquiet in
the military over his erratic ways of functioning and over his hugging
desperately the post of the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) in the hope
of thereby pre- empting any threat to him from inside the Armed Forces.
"He received a jolt during the recent
referendum when more than 20 per cent of the votes cast in the military
barracks were reportedly against him whereas only about three per cent
of the civilian votes went against him. This would show that the support
to him in the military was not as overwhelming as he liked to think. His
colleagues and subordinates might not express their opposition to him in
public, but did not hesitate to do so when they had an opportunity of doing
so anonymously during the referendum.
"Musharraf is hoping that his action
in carrying out the missile firing would dilute, if not remove, the reservations
in their minds about him and about his determination to resist outside
pressure vis-a- vis India.
"While India should take note of
the firing, there is no reason to be concerned. India was already aware
of Musharraf's nexus with the axis of evil and of Pakistan's possession
of the North Korean missiles under the camouflage of indigenous missiles
and one can be certain that this must have been factored into our thinking
and planning.
"This was essentially an exercise
of whistling in the dark by Musharraf. What is important is that India
should highlight to the US, Japan and other countries the nuclear-missile
nexus between Pakistan and North Korea and the threat that this could pose
to them and to international peace and security."
5. Quoting from an article carried
by the "New York Times" on October 18, 2002, the "Hindu", the prestigious
daily of Chennai, India, reported as follows on October 19, 2002: " The
New York Times cites American intelligence officials as coming to the conclusion
that Islamabad was a major supplier for Pyongyang's 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."
6. The American surprise at the
recent North Korean admission of its nuclear weapon programme and the role
of Pakistan in assisting North 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 North Korea and, secondly,
that even when it gets intelligence about Pakistan's 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.
7. As I have been reporting repeatedly,
Omar Sheikh, presently under detention in connection with the kidnapping
and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, 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 very close personal
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?
8. Nobody in the US seems to have
gone into it just as they had not gone deeper into Pakistan's nuclear assistance
to North Korea. For how long is the US going to close its eyes to Pakistan's
perfidies and at what cost to innocent American lives and interests?
(The writer is Additional Secretary
(retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com )
