Jyeshtha Shuddha Dwadashi
By Kanchan Gupta
London-based journalist Shyam Bhatia’s slim biography of Benazir Bhutto, Goodbye Shahzadi (Roli Books), would have gone largely unnoticed despite its high profile launch in New Delhi had it not been for The Washington Post publishing excerpts from it which were not very flattering to the former Prime Minister of Pakistan who was brutally assassinated on December 27 last year. Alarmed by the possibility of the US Administration distancing itself from the Pakistan People’s Party now that secrets which the State Department thought were safely locked in its archives had spilled into the open, Benazir Bhutto’s retainers have gone on the offensive.
"Among the sundry secrets that Benazir has taken to her grave are the origins of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, her father’s contribution to its success, and the role played by Pakistan’s rogue nuclear scientists in exporting their deadly technology to countries like Libya, North Korea and Iran," writes Bhatia. He then goes on to recall a meeting he had with Benazir Bhutto in September 2003. "I met a demoralised and unhappy Benazir in Dubai… In those bleak days, apparently bereft of any hope, a despairing Benazir told me in confidence of the part she played in sharing Pakistan’s uranium enrichment expertise with North Korea in exchange for Pyongyang’s missile know-how. One of the instigators of that exchange was AQ Khan, then the undisputed head of the Pakistani nuclear effort, including its all-important uranium enrichment facility."
Apparently, she carried CDs in the pockets of her overcoat and cut a bomb-for-missile deal during her days as Prime Minister in 1993. While the Pakistanis, the North Koreans and, of course, the Americans are welcome to believe that nobody knew of this abuse of prime ministerial privilege, it has been written about in the past without being contradicted by Islamabad, Pyongyang and Washington. For instance, B Raman, who was among the brightest information-gatherers and analysts at R&AW, commenting on what President George W Bush famously described as a the "axis of evil", wrote in May 2002, "This nexus was first established during the second tenure of Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister (1993-96) when she made a clandestine visit to Pyongyang and was 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, American 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."
According to Raman, "The co-operation in the missile and nuclear fields (between Pakistan and North Korea) dates back to the visit of Benazir Bhutto to Pyongyang in 1993… The visit and the resulting discussions on bilateral co-operation in the field of missile purchase and development were facilitated by China." During this visit, "the scope of the arms supply agreement concluded when her father was Foreign Minister was expanded to include co-operation in the nuclear and missile fields — including the training of Khan Research Laboratories’ scientists and engineers in North Korea, the training of North Korean scientists and engineers at the Pakistani uranium enrichment plant at Kahuta, and the supply of No-Dong missiles and related technology to Pakistan". This is not all. In Deception: Pakistan, The United States and Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy by Adrain Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Benazir Bhutto has been mentioned as "the force behind the plan to sell nuclear technology to Iran in the 1990s", although she "vociferously denied" it.
The Americans, however, chose to ignore these uncomfortable facts, just as they shut their eyes to AQ Khan’s clandestine peddling of nuclear technology, including blueprints and whole centrifuges, from North Korea to Libya via Iran. In 2007, with Gen Musharraf rapidly losing control over Pakistan and the clamour for elections increasing, the US Administration decided to prop up Benazir Bhutto who had served the Americans well, as had her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, although neither the State Department nor the Pentagon had any compunction about dumping him when Gen Zia-ul-Haq offered to be more loyal in rendering his services for the Washington-funded jihad in Afghanistan. But now that the issue has been raked up again, the PPP could find its benefactors in Washington turning cold. If the Democrats were to win the US presidential election, then the non-proliferationists would be swift in asking whether backing the PPP is such a great idea.
So, it is not surprising that PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar should have feigned great offence at his dear departed leader being ‘defamed’. Unmindful of the fact that the dead cannot be defamed, he has sought "damages and an apology" from Bhatia. He also wants Goodbye Shahzadi to be banned. All because the book mentions Benazir Bhutto swapping Pakistan’s nuclear technology, largely acquired through AQ Khan’s thievery, for North Korean missile know-how. Since he has not referred to the strident anti-India policy Benazir Bhutto followed while in office, her legitimisation of jihad against India, we can only assume that the PPP continues to endorse that policy. As much is reflected in the recent utterances of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who has been handpicked by the PPP to head the current Government in Pakistan.
There is unimpeachable evidence of Benazir Bhutto setting up the Taliban with the help of Maj Gen Nasirullah Babar of the ISI, who later became her Interior Minister. There are records, including television footage, of how she shrieked, "Azadi, azadi, azadi…" to enthuse Islamist terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir in the summer of 1990; of how she justified their slaughter of Pandits to cleanse the Kashmir Valley of Hindus; of how she exhorted them to chop the then Governor of the State, Mr Jagmohan, into pieces, screaming, "Jag-Jag, mo-mo, han-han", striking her right hand on the palm of her left in a crude chopping gesture. "The people of Kashmir do not fear death because they are Muslims. The Kashmiris have the blood of mujahids and ghazis," she added with a flourish. That speech recalled her father’s boastful threat to "wage a thousand-year war against India".
In the end, it was Benazir Bhutto, a manipulative and hugely corrupt politician, a charlatan who was no friend of India and despised Hindus, who was felled by a jihadi — a ‘mujahid’ and a ‘ghazi’ — in a manner she was known to extol. Only the Babars of the world will defend her in death as they admired her in life.
Source: www.dailypioneer.com
