SUMMIT: Pak
brain-storming
by B.Raman
Proactive on the Jammu & Kashmir (J & K) issue,
reactive on other issues.
That is emerging as the likely negotiating strategy of
Gen.Pervez Musharraf, the self-styled Chief Executive and President of
Pakistan , during his forthcoming summit with Mr.A.B.Vajpayee, the Indian
Prime Minister, at Agra.
As part of his preparations for the summit, he has
already completed separate discussions with carefully-selected groups of
mainstream and religious political leaders, religious leaders (Ulema)
without any political affiliation and leaders of the Pakistan-Occupied
Kashmir (POK) and heads/representatives of pro-Pakistan overseas Kashmiri
organisations.
To assuage the anger of the Hurriyat over his allegedly
succumbing to the Indian pressure not to invite its leaders for a meeting
in the Pakistani High Commission at New Delhi, he had invited the Hurriyat
representatives in Pakistan for his interactions with the POK leaders and
reportedly intends meeting leaders of the so-called United Jihad Council,
a conglomeration of Pakistan-based terrorist organisations headed by Syed
Salahuddin, leader of the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), to reassure them that
there has been no change in Pakistan's attitude towards the Hurriyat and
no softening of its stance on Kashmir. This meeting was originally
not in his programme.
He has reportedly already had a secret meeting with the
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) last month when he visited its headquarters at
Muridke along with Lt.Gen. Mohammed Aziz, a Corps Commander at Lahore.
Points to be noted about these pre-summit consultations
are:
* Leaders of all religious parties, all prominent members
of the Ulema, leaders of all political and religious formations of the
POK, including those of the local branches of the Pakistan People's
Party (PPP) of Mrs.Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML)
of Nawaz Sharif, were invited.
* Outside POK, no PML leader was invited. The
former Speaker of the dissolved National Assembly and the former
President of the dissolved Senate, both of whom belong to the PML, were
invited by virtue of the office held by them before the dissolution and
not as leaders of the PML.
* As regards other mainstream political parties, the
invitations were addressed to carefully-selected individual leaders with
whom the Army felt comfortable and not to the parties. While the
PML, the PPP and all other constituents of the Alliance For the
Restoration of Democracy (ARD) except the Awami National Party (ANP)
rejected the invitation, Afsandyar Wali Khan of the ANP was given
special permission by the ARD to attend since Wali Khan wanted to point
out to the General the hypocrisy of the Army and the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) opposing reconciliation with India whenever an
elected government was in power and then trying for reconciliation
itself when it seized power, which he did eloquently. Apart from
the ANP, none of the other political leaders who attended has any
significant electoral support in the country.
* No political or religious leader of the Northern
Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) was invited. Nor did the General
invite any of the prominent leaders of Sindhi, Balochi and Pakhtoon
organisations, which have been demanding the right of self-determination
for their ethnic groups.
* Even though the interactions were supposed to cover
all subjects likely to figure in the summit, the discussions were
largely confined to the Kashmir issue except in the meeting with the
Ulema during which the latter virulently criticised Nawaz Sharif for
importing sugar from India and accused him of covertly promoting
normalisation of trade with India in violation of the national policy of
"no normal trade till the Kashmir issue is resolved."
* Musharraf, who invariably wore his uniform as the
Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) during these meetings, did not ask
Lt.Gen.Muzaffar Usmani, Deputy Chief of the Army Staff (DCAS) or
Lt.Gen.Mohd.Yousef Khan, the Chief of the General Staff (CGS) or any of
his Corps Commanders or any member of the National Security Council (NSC)
to be present.
* Amongst those who assisted him during his
interactions were Lt.Gen.Ghulam Ahmed, his Chief of Staff, who oversees
his offices as the Chief Executive and the President, Maj.Gen.Rasheed
Quereshi, his press spokesman, Inamul Haq, Foreign Secretary, and Syed
Anwar Mahmood, Information Secretary. Abbas Sarfraz Khan, Minister
in charge of Kashmir and the Northern Areas Affairs, attended the
meeting with the POK leaders and Dr.Mehmood Ahmed Ghazi, Minister for
Religious Affairs, attended the meeting with the Ulema. Abdul
Sattar, Foreign Minister, did not attend any of the meetings since he
was out of the country.
* Even though official note-takers were present at all
these meetings, Musharraf himself took down copious notes and spoke very
little except to intervene when questions were posed to him or when some
clarifications were asked for.
The Pakistan Foreign Office has set up a number of
inter-ministerial/departmental co-ordination groups, presided over by the
concerned official, to prepare background/position papers on various
subjects such as J&K, the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline,
normalisation of bilateral trade relations, re-opening of the Indian
Consulate in Karachi and the regular functioning of the Pakistani
Consulate in Mumbai, the Wullar barrage and Siachen issues, greater
people-to-people contacts etc which could figure in the summit. At
the same time, the concerned officials have been saying that the fact that
such co-ordination groups have been set up need not necessarily mean that
all these subjects would figure in the agenda. They have been saying
that as of now the agenda is unstructured and that the only certainty is
that the main focus would be on J & K. According to them, they are
preparing position/background papers on other subjects in case Musharraf
required them.
However, Usman Aminuddin, Minister for Petroleum, who is
presently in Washington, reportedly to find out, inter alia, whether the
existing US sanctions against Pakistan and Iran could come in the way of
the implementation of the pipeline project, was reported to have told
Pakistani pressmen in Washington that the pipeline project is on the
agenda of the summit. Justifying its reported inclusion in the
agenda, he said that Pakistan stood to financially benefit from it.
Surprisingly, there are no reports of any co-ordination
group on nuclear confidence-building measures. Musharraf, however,
held a meeting of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, of which he is the
Chairman, which could have discussed the nuclear confidence-building
measures.
After completing his discussions with political, POK and
religious personalities, Musharraf has started taking ,almost daily,
co-ordination meetings with the Ministers, members of the NSC and senior
officials concerned. It is noticed that most of these meetings are
also being attended by Lt.Gen.Usmani, who is reportedly playing an active
role. The active association of Lt.Gen.Usmani with the
brain-storming sessions is partly meant to rebut speculation in India
about differences between Musharraf and Usmani over the summit and over
Musharraf taking over as the President.
At the time of the recording of this note, the
composition of Musharraf's delegation had not been finalised. It is,
however, believed that the following are likely to be amongst the members
of the delegation: Abdul Sattar, Foreign Minister; Lt.Gen.Moinudeen Haider,
Interior Minister; Abdul Razaak Dawood, Commerce Minister; Usman Aminuddin,
Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources; Shaukat Aziz, Finance
Minister, Lt.Gen.Ghulam Ahmed, Maj.Gen.Rasheed Quereshi, Maj.Gen.(retd)
Mahmud Ali Durrani, former ISI station chief in Washington and presently a
close advisor of Musharraf and an active member of the Belusa group;
Inamul Haq; and Syed Anwar Mahmood.
It would be interesting to see whether Musharraf also
brings either Lt.Gen.Usmani or Lt.Gen.Mohammed Aziz, Corps Commander at
Lahore, or both in order to reassure the religious parties to which they
are close and to refute speculation about his having differences with
them.
The summit is being projected as Kashmir-centric;
sherpaless in the sense of the pre-summit role of the bureaucrats being reduced to
the minimum unavoidable and almost paperless in the sense of there being
no previously-worked out drafts of declarations or communiques even before
the leaders meet in the summit.
Musharraf's present thinking so far as could be gathered
seems to be on the following lines:
* He would try to keep the focus largely on J & K.
* He does not expect any solution or even the initial
contours of a possible solution to emerge from the summit. He
would be satisfied if the summit sets in motion a high-level, political
process under a mutually agreed framework with a mutually agreed
time-frame to work out a solution for the Kashmir problem in accordance
with the wishes of the Kashmiris.
* While the solution would emerge from this time-bound
process, the status quo cannot be the solution. The flexibility,
which he might be prepared to show, is in respect of the manner of
determining the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
* There is no question of his issuing an appeal to the
Jihadi organisations to stop their jihad in J & K till a solution is
found. Just as in Vietnam and Afghanistan, talks on a political
solution and the fighting went on side by side till an agreement in the
negotiations was reached, so too in J & K, the jihadis would insist
on continuing their jihad till a political solution was in sight.
Moreover, all these jihadi organisations are indigenous and not amenable
to the influence of Pakistan.
* While he himself would not take the initiative in
raising other issues, he would show readiness to discuss any other issue
raised by the Indian Prime Minister and be accommodating to the extent
that the Indian Prime Minister is accommodating on the Kashmir issue.
* While he might be willing to go ahead with the
pipeline project, he would be against its being linked to the
normalisation of bilateral trade, which would have to await a solution
of the Kashmir problem.
The high-level political process to find a solution to
the Kashmir issue, which he has in mind, could be a ministers'
group. If there is an agreement on this subject at the summit, his
choice to represent Pakistan in this group could be either Lt.Gen.Haider,
his alter ego or Sattar or Shaukat Aziz. When he met the POK
leaders, some of them reportedly insisted that any high-level political
mechanism that might be set up to find a political solution to the Kashmir
issue should confine itself to J & K which is part of India and should
not take up the question of POK and the Northern Areas or India's
allegations of cross-border terrorism. According to them, since the
jihad was the result of alleged Indian atrocities, it would automatically
stop once a political solution was reached. Musharraf did not seem to have
reacted to this demand.
To keep the drips flowing, Musharraf has to show to
Pakistan's creditors and the IMF that the Agra outcome was not totally
negative. To prevent the mullahs and jihadis from crying for his
blood, he has to show them that Agra was not a clone of Lahore or Shimla
and that he stood his ground on J & K. To keep India interested
in a sustained dialogue, he has to convince it that he is a man with whom
it can do business.
He would come to India wanting and hoping to achieve all
these objectives.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For
Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com
)
