Beg Sahib, You
Can Fool the People Some Time...
By Wajid Shamsul Hassan
London, UK
London: Pakistan is
one unfortunate country where majority of its army
generals have never been forthright. Besides the
fact that they have been acting as mad bulls in
Mr. Jinnah’s Pakistan, their whole lot is
mostly megalomaniac suffering from psychopathic
aversion to truth.
Much alike women of easy virtue who believe themselves
to be chaste, Pakistani generals have mastered the
psychopathic art of deceiving
themselves that they are the best in waging war,
making peace and running a civil administration.
This description is extremely relevant when one
sees the sad plight of nuclear icon Dr A.Q. Khan
at the hands of the Pakistani generals. While they
have been, more or less, the nuclear mafia dons
in Pakistan they have singled out Dr A.Q. as their
scapegoat to pay internationally for their acts
of omission and commission. As I apprehend it seems
soon a shady curtain on his life would be drawn.
Conflicting reports about rapid deterioration in
his health do not augur well for the great man.
While his family members insist that he is sinking,
the Inter-Service Public Relations Department continues
orchestrating that he is hale and hearty. The apprehension
is that A.Q. is being allowed to die slowly and
deliberately so that the nuclear mafia among the
generals does not get exposed. After all A.Q. has
hidden in his chest tons of secrets about nuclear
proliferation carried out by the generals through
him — a factor that would see him dead on
Pakistani soil rather than be pressured by the Americans
to hand him over to them.
Author Gordon Corera in his latest book “Shopping
for Bombs” (2006, published: Hurst & Company)
has done a great deal of research that picks up
the pieces of Pakistan’s nuclear trail over
the years, the pivotal role of Dr A.Q. Khan, Pakistani
generals and others. While the book deserves a wider
and in depth review at some later stage, it does
throw enough light on the bizarre nuclear proliferation
drama staged by Pakistan and its generals. While
Dr A.Q. Khan has no doubt been singled out as the
main villain of the piece, Gordon has not done enough
justice in exposing the generals right from Mirza
Aslam Beg to General Pervez Musharraf who had been
head over heels allegedly involved in the clandestine
export of nuclear technology. May be it is inadvertent
or it could as well be advertent since the West
needs Pakistani generals especially General Musharraf.
However, in this connection revelations made by
Mian Nawaz Sharif after he was sacked in 1993 to
Washington Post that he was approached by Army chief
Aslam Beg and his intelligence chief with a blue
print suggesting clandestine export of drugs and
other things to overcome Pakistan’s balance
of payment problems need to be recalled. I may add
here that his minister Ch. Nisar Ali Khan confirmed
after the AQ n-export media explosion that General
Beg had approached Mian Sahib to have his blessings
for the export of nuclear know how. Mian Sahib firmly
turned it down.
It is known that Washington would continue to put
pressure on General Musharraf to let its investigators
have access to Dr A.Q. Khan for interrogation. After
all they have information from the horse’s
mouth as to who were the army personnel who used
to accompany A.Q. on his marketing trips to North
Korea, Libya and Iran to name a few. His 12-page
affidavit that forced General Musharraf to pardon
him has lot of incriminating material and big military
names that would make many of Pakistani general
— in the eyes of the Americans-- fit cases
to rot in Guantanamo Bay.
Moreover, it is rightly said that Washington cannot
be taken for a ride by the generals who feign innocence.
They are also aware of their quixotic dreams to
have Afghanistan as Pakistan’s strategic depth.
I am sure they must be having on record Selig Harrison’s
conversation with Musharraf’s god-father Gen
Zia-ul Haq of Pakistan. Selig recalled in 2001:
"Gen Zia spoke to me about expanding Pakistan's
sphere of influence to control Afghanistan, then
Uzbekistan and Tajikstan and then Iran and Turkey."
That design continues to this day, he believes.
This brings me to a recent statement by General
(Retd.) Aslam Beg published in a section of the
press in which he has while giving a clean bill
of health to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto,
denying the allegations that nuclear proliferation
started during her first tenure, has instead accused
her of urging upon him in 1991 to oust Prime Minister
Mian Nawaz Sharif and take over from him. The time
he has mentioned about the takeover is early 1991
when Ms Bhutto was on a lecture tour of the United
States and I was accompanying her. Without fear
of any contradiction I can lay bare what transpired
then since I am privy to lot of exchanges that mostly
took place between his emissaries and me and not
Ms Bhutto as she would not take any direct calls
from them.
The most frequent caller was from Lahore, a barrister
by profession, very close to General Beg and who
later was also part of President Leghari’s
conspiracy to oust Ms Bhutto in her second term
too. He would beseech me for support and ask me
to urge upon Ms Bhutto to return to Pakistan and
lead just one single anti-Nawaz procession in Lahore
and that would be the end of him. This was a crucial
time.
The Iraq war had begun and General Aslam Beg playing
on the anti-American public sentiments to become
a national hero, had come up with his theory of
strategic defiance of an alliance between Pakistan,
Syria, Iran and Iraq to defend the Islamic world.
One could see through his game. It was not a dream
to pursue a wider Islamic goal but to establish
himself as a hero to replace Mian Nawaz Sharif since
Mian Sahib was supporting the American line. It
is a matter of record that at no point Ms Bhutto
called upon Beg to take over the government as he
has claimed. Rather, her constant query would be
what next if he takes over? The answer from his
emissary used to be an interim government headed
by one of the old guards earlier tried as interim
prime minister by GIK, general elections in three
months and inevitable return of Ms Bhutto as the
prime minister.
Every time she was approached her answer was a big
and firm NO to getting involved with Beg and his
scheme of things. As a political leader she maintained
that for her it was easier to tackle Mian Sahib
as a politician and sort out things with him politically.
And we used to discuss that if General Beg has decided
to take over, who would guarantee that there would
be general elections in three months and the country
will not end up with yet another general in power
for ten years. Since it sounded essentially more
of a plot to teach Mian Nawz Sharif a lesson for
annoying Beg and his cronies rather than a sincere
move to serve democracy, former Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto did not hesitate a wee-bit to show indifference
to his repeated offers. Moreover, being a politician
and a Bhutto, her party did not believe in coming
into power through the backdoor. Secondly, Generals
cannot be trusted. To us Beg’s messages did
not entail a promise for general elections but was
more of a plot to bring the general in power.
Ms Bhutto’s lecture tour was soon over and
we returned to Pakistan. It was at his family wedding
held at the Polo Ground’s Moghul Baradri that
I was once again approached by his and the emissary
of the interim prime minister in waiting. These
gentlemen — separately-- took me aside and
beseeched me to convince Ms Bhutto to accept Aslam
Beg’s offer of intervention with the ultimate
goal of “facilitating her return as prime
minister” after three months.
I may add here that while we were in the United
States I was also getting telephone calls from my
dear journalist friends from Pakistan and they would
all say “ask Bibi to cut her visit short,
there is an anti-Nawaz wave and one procession against
him in Lahore would send him home”. And some
of them disappointed by my negative answer advised
us not to return to Pakistan. As in America, I discussed
the proposal again with Ms Bhutto in Karachi and
she was firm in her no to it as usual.
I am sure those with strong memory would recall
how annoyed by her obduracy, General Beg, President
Ishaq and the gang sent a strong emissary —
a minister in Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi’s interim
government-- to tell her that she should leave Pakistan
otherwise her husband Asif Zardari, then incarcerated
on unproved charges, would meet the fate of ZAB.
Even with these threats she could not be browbeaten.
I remember the day when one of Beg’s emissaries
told her on the issue of Jam Sadiq Ali that it shall
be ensured that he calls on her on his knees, seeks
her forgiveness and that everything will be telecast
on PTV.
All these cajoling offers backed by threats of extermination
did cause lot of dismay and depression even among
her supporters like me. Everyday there were leaks
in the media that Bibi has succumbed to retire from
politics and go into exile obviously to save her
husband from death. And a time came when I could
not resist asking her the question -- since we had
burnt our boats for higher ideals — after
all such stories meant end of the world for people
like me who had stood by her because of our political
convictions and unflinching faith in Bhutto leadership.
I will never forget her answer to my question. It
was very candid and forthright. I do not remember
her exact words but they were almost as follows.
“Yes. I feel grievous pain when I see my husband’s
sufferings but do you think that I will sacrifice
my father’s shaadat (martyrdom), his commitment
to the poor masses and his last commandment to me
to serve them. I’m not that selfish. After
all I have to live and uphold the great legacy of
my father whose last words to me were, ‘It
is the cause that makes a man or a woman great’
”. After that no questions were ever asked.
Ever since, she has bravely withstood the onslaught
of her adversaries. While likes of Aslam Begs and
GIKs have moved into dustbin of history from position
of their absolute authority, Benazir Bhutto remains
the unchallenged leader of the people.
I am sure the facts mentioned above will bury deep
down Beg Sahib’s claim that Ms Bhutto urged
him to take over in 1991. Beg Sahib, you can fool
the people some time but not all the time.
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