Ijaz call for sacrifice, justice

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 6, 1998 | by James P. Lucier

Ijaz ul-Haq has an insider's understanding of Islamabad's intricate politics, but remains independent. Here he explains why Pakistan reacted in kind to India's nuclear tests.

He is his father's son, this Ijaz ul-Haq; the father being Pakistan's late President Zia ul-Haq. But he also is his own man. As senior vice president of Pakistan's ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League, or PML, he is No. 2 in the party leadership and played a key role in the councils which concluded, reluctantly, that Pakistan had to test its nuclear capability on May 28 or perish. But now he sits for an interview with Insight in his hotel room in Washington, confident that his independence will be a benefit both to his party and his country.

Even in Pakistan he is seen as no ordinary politician. When the PML swept into power last year under the leadership of current Prime Minister Nawaz Sherif, it trounced the Pakistan People's Party of Benazir Bhutto and won 75 percent of the seats in the Parliament. As the son of Zia, he was expected to join the new PML Cabinet under Sherif. Zia still is considered "the martyred president" by his partisans because he was assassinated when a covert bomb exploded in his C-130 Hughes aircraft in 1988 -- a bomb that also killed U.S. Ambassador Arnold A. Rafael -- and that mystique still hangs over Pakistani politics.

Zia is remembered as an advocate of close alliance with the United States, joining in the fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan at a time when India's socialist politicians maintained a tight partnership with the Soviet Politburo.

But Ijaz was critical of Sherif's early appointments on the grounds that they they went to cronies and were not based on merit and seniority. "I didn't take any portfolio because ... I thought the PM should choose those who had suffered and struggled to build up a broad-based party. During the rule of Benazir Bhutto I was put in jail four times without charges. They used an old British law called `maintenance of the public order,' which lets them lock up anyone they think will create trouble for a term of 30 to 90 days, because I was probably the foremost leader of the opposition. I was leading rallies and demonstrations against corrupt rule, so they put the terrorist act on me" says Ijaz.

"Subsequently, I was asked 10 or 11 times to join the government, but I always refused. I am not against the prime minister, but I am more loyal to the people and the party. Our electoral victory virtually crushed the opposition, and I was afraid there would be nobody to criticize our party when it made mistakes as all parties do. I felt that I would be free to do that if I stayed out of the government," he says.

But such freedom comes at a price. It is a fact of life in many less-developed countries that ruling elites have the opportunity to skim the cream off the nation's economy. A Cabinet post often is the door to such golden opportunities. After President Zia was killed, however, no hidden bank accounts turned up, and no unpaid loans for millions of rupees; he did not even own a home to leave to his family.

The great issue in Pakistan at the moment is the nuclear flap. President Clinton said of Pakistan's decision to demonstrate its nuclear capacity that "two wrongs don't make a right." And Secretary of State Madeleine Albright denounced both the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests as "senseless." But Pakistani leaders are dumbfounded at such simplistic moral equivalence. "We made no mistake," Ijaz tells Insight. "We simply restored the balance of power in the region so that negotiations would be possible. Don't forget that India attacked us twice over Kashmir, and fought a third war to dismember our country in East Pakistan [now Bangladesh]. Now India wanted to crash the nuclear gate.

"We did not want this confrontation. We had waited patiently for 14 years after we arrived at the threshold of nuclear capability in 1984, and then 17 days after India detonated its tests and mobilized for war. Once more we have offered to get into a dialogue, including signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as amended, at the same time as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, as long as the discussions include the future of Kashmir. We have offered to allow the United Nations or a third party to be an arbitrator. India's position has been that they will only discuss the part of Kashmir that is in Pakistan." Shortly after Insight's interview with Ijaz, India reaffirmed that it would not be party to arbitration on Kashmir.

Kashmir remains the flash point. At the time of partition, Kashmir was turned over to India by a corrupt Maharaja who feared a popular insurrection against him. Says Ijaz, "After partition in 1947, India was supposed to hold a referendum in the state of `Kashmir and Jammu' on its future relationship to India. India has steadfastly refused to hold any referendum and the reason is obvious. About 90 percent of Kashmir is Muslim, and about 50 percent of Jammu is Muslim. India's treatment of non-Hindu minorities within its own borders does not inspire confidence."