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Benazir-establishment
tiff takes new turn
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By
Kamran Khan
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KARACHI:
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s already troubled
relations with Pakistani establishment took a new dip
when she revealed elements of an important military operation
in a newspaper interview with an Indian journalist in
London, a few days after a Swiss magistrate judgment last
month, senior officials have said. "Musharraf wanted
to grab Srinagar," Shayam Bhatia quoted Ms Bhutto
in August 21 issue of India Abroad, a weekly news magazine.
Ms Bhutto disclosed to Bhatia: "He was my Director
General Military Operations and he presented me with his
plan in front of 50 officers about how the mujahideen
would infiltrate an area similar to Kargil, how they would
bring about a war and how the Indians wouldn’t be
able to dislocate us and they would be forced to start
a second front at which point the international community
would intervene and we would take Srinagar." The
interview or its contents have not been disputed by the
PPP despite its publication on August 21.
Without commenting upon the exact contents of the briefing,
several official sources have now said that Ms Bhutto’s
interview with the Indian journalist contained elements
of the "Top Secret" briefing arranged for her
by the then COAS Gen Abdul Wahid Kakar at the Joint Staff
headquarters in mid-1995.
In the briefing attended by the top hierarchy of the military
services, informed officials said, the then Director General
Military Operations Major General Pervez Musharraf briefed
the audience about the contingency plans and operations
prepared by the military operations directorate, the backbone
of military planning at the General Headquarters (GHQ).
Officials confirmed a vigorous interaction that took place
between Ms Bhutto and Major General Musharraf, but they
said that even then it was impressed upon her that the
Army was not contemplating any action and the idea for
that most confidential briefing was only to apprise her
of the preparedness of the country’s military planners.
"Based on hypotheses that may sometimes sound weird,
the military operations directorate prepares contingency
plans to meet internal or external crises," commented
an informed senior official.
"As back as in 1965 the Indian army had plans to
march through the borders to the centre of Lahore and
to have their drinks at the Lahore Gymkhana Club,"
he added. "Even such a ridiculous proposition was
part of the Indian military plan."
The official said that each operation and plan at the
military operation (MO) level is finalised after crucial
inputs from other elements of the Army and is debated
even up to the COAS level before being secured as a final
MO plan.
"It was irresponsible on the part of the former prime
minister to speak about an India related military operation
and that too with an Indian reporter," said a senior
Pakistani official. A senior PPP leader in Islamabad,
requesting anonymity, recalled: "Ms Bhutto had granted
this interview soon after the Swiss magistrate’s
judgment and she thought that the military junta had bribed
the Swiss magistrate to defame her internationally."
Whatever may be the background of Ms Bhutto’s interview
with "India Abroad", conversation with several
senior officials here in past weeks showed that this particular
statement might aggravate her problems with the Army more
than anything else in recent past.
Ms Bhutto’s decision to speak about the military
operations presented to her by the Army has apparently
further angered the establishment, which had not yet recovered
from her series of media interviews since September 11
terrorist attacks against the United States in which the
former prime minister had accused ISI of having direct
connection with Osama bin Laden.
Several times also in the past two years, she branded
top generals such as General Musharraf, former DG ISI
Lt-Gen Mahmoud Ahmad and Chairman joint chiefs of staff
Gen Aziz Khan as fundamentalist pro-al Qaeda generals.
The reason for her continued tirade against the Army is
her belief that the establishment never allowed her government
to function normally and she is being defamed internationally
because she represents a solid challenge to the establishment’s
grip over power in Pakistan.
Paradoxically, she never had serious complaints against
the Army chiefs that had served the PPP government. Ms
Bhutto had such an admiration for former COAS Gen Aslam
Beg that she decorated him with an unprecedented Medal
of Democracy. Her opinion about Gen Beg has now changed
completely as she accuses him now of accepting $10 million
from Osama bin Laden to overthrow her government through
a no-confidence vote in parliament in 1990.
Ms Bhutto regarded COAS Gen Wahid Kakar so much that she
wanted to extend his term as the Army chief and she still
tells visitors that Gen Jehangir Karamat is a gentleman
and he did not encourage former president Leghari to dismiss
her government in 1996.
Though in opposition against Nawaz Sharif, Ms Bhutto established
cordial relations with then COAS Gen Asif Nawaz to an
extent that after Gen Asif Nawaz’s sudden demise
the PPP awarded his non-political brother a National Assembly
ticket from Jhelum.
But it seemed she never trusted the military’s security
services. Less than a year in power, she ordered the sacking
of then ISI chief General Hamid Gul in May 1989 and for
the first time in ISI’s history appointed a retired
official as its director general.
The same year she demanded General Beg to dismiss his
DG military intelligence (DGMI). At one point, she even
asked Gen Beg to transfer the military intelligence’s
Sindh sector commander in 1990.
After the dismissal of her government in August 1990,
Ms Bhutto openly locked horns with the establishment by
openly declaring at a press conference that her government
was sacked under a military intelligence conspiracy and
her government’s dismissal order read by the then
president Ghulam Ishaq Khan was actually drafted in the
GHQ’s judge advocate general branch.
Though she held military intelligence responsible for
hatching conspiracy against her first government, but
during the second term in office, she surprised many in
her party by choosing Lt-Gen (retd) Asad Durrani, former
DGMI, as her government’s ambassador to Germany.
During her second term in power, during which Gen Wahid
and subsequently Gen Karamat had served as her COAS, Ms
Bhutto did not have any serious dispute with the ISI chiefs,
Lt-Gen Nasim Rana and his successor Lt-Gen Javed Ashraf,
but in 1995 she stunned Gen Wahid by demanding that the
then Deputy Director General ISI, Maj-Gen Shujaat Ali
be sacked for working against her government.
A year later Ms Bhutto wrote a demi-official letter to
COAS Gen Karamat, this time to demand dismissal of the
then DGMI Maj-Gen Mahmoud Ahmad.
As former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Ehtesab
cell under Saifur Rahman swung into action against Ms
Bhutto and her husband, she charged that the establishment
had planted a former ISI director Brig Saghir Ahmad to
expedite cases against her.
After the downfall of the Nawaz government, particularly
after 9/11, when she was accusing Gen Musharraf of running
a pro-al-Qaeda government, she singled out the then chairman
NAB Lt-Gen Khalid Maqbool of harbouring personal grudge
against her.
Repeatedly in the past few weeks, the PPP chairperson,
whose grip on the party still seems formidable, has alleged
that the General Pervez Musharraf-led establishment influenced
Switzerland’s judicial system to win an initial
magisterial inquiry against her and now this verdict is
being used to rid her of a positive international image.
Meanwhile, informed officials said authorities are exploring
if Ms Bhutto’s interview with Shayam Bhatia of India
Abroad is tantamount to the breach of her oath as prime
minister.
The oath of the prime minister says: "I’ll
not disclose to anyone any matter or subject that is brought
into my knowledge as the prime minister." No head
of state or top government of Pakistan official has ever
been convicted for violating the Official Secrets Act.
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