World Economic Forum: Pakistan did not allow Bajaur air strike: Musharraf

DAVOS: Pakistan did not give permission for the US air strike in Bajaur Agency that killed 18 civilians, nor was it asked to do so, President Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday.

On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Switzerland, the president said that the presence of Al Qaeda militants in the region was as much a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty as the January 13 US strike on Damadola village bordering Afghanistan.

“We were not asked and we did not give any permission,” he told a press briefing. “We did not know” whether Zawahiri was actually there, Musharraf said. “While we condemn this attack, there are foreigners” in Pakistan. “Any interference in force by any country is violation of sovereignty, but so is the presence of foreigners on our soil.”

Musharraf said that Pakistan was fully involved in the fight against Al Qaeda. “We are attacking them in the mountains, we are occupying their sanctuaries,” he said.

Meanwhile, the president outlined his own blueprint for leadership at times of natural disaster, citing the October 8 earthquake. The plan has a basic message: don’t panic.

In a keynote speech during a session devoted to ‘Leadership in the wake of natural disasters’ on the second day of the WEF, Musharraf said that the earthquake exhibited the importance of a leader being visible and in touch.

“The basic ingredient of a leader is that he should never panic, whatever the circumstances,” the president told delegates at the annual gathering of political and business leaders. “No nation, no leader, can be expected to be fully prepared to meet major natural disasters.” But when a calamity does occur, they have to assess the situation calmly “and chart a course of action without panicking”.

He outlined a six-point plan to cope with natural disaster: assess the situation calmly; create an implementation organisation; select the right people to lead it; formulate an overall strategy; generate and place adequate resources for that organisation; monitor the effectiveness of the strategy, and tweak where necessary.

“It’s extremely important that the leader does not sit back. He must reach out to the people immediately,” Musharraf said. He said he had flown to the quake-hit region the morning after the shocks, to provide “some solace that I am with them. I think this went a long way to giving hope to the people.”

He said that reconstruction of clinics began earlier this month, and vowed to monitor the continuing efforts to restore the region.

He called on India to join Pakistan in working out a solution to the Kashmir dispute that could lead to self-governance and make the Line of Control (LoC) “irrelevant”.

Musharraf urged a step-by-step approach that would start with defining Kashmir’s borders and end with a joint cross-border administration. “I am extremely flexible, and I am bold enough to go for an out-of-the-box solution,” he said. “But we cannot clap with one hand. I expect India to join.”

“Grasp these fleeting moments at this time,” he went on. “Fleeting moments come and go. It is incumbent on all leaders to grasp these moments, otherwise they are not leaders.”

Kashmir would get self-governance and officials from Kashmir, India and Pakistan would jointly manage the area on both sides of the LoC. By doing that, “we will have made the Line of Control irrelevant”, he said.

At a smaller event devoted to regional organisations, he said that such groups were the “right way forward for mutually beneficial progress and prosperity”. But while the European Union and Association of Southeast Asian Nations were success stories, he regretted that there was no “such success story” in South Asia.

Musharraf cited political harmony, an environment of trust and confidence, and the spirit of sacrifice as conditions for regional organisations to work. “It cannot come about in an environment of dispute, conflict and lack of trust. Small countries need to feel that they can gain,” he said.

The spirit of accommodation, of sacrifice, “has to come from the partner with the more means. When it comes from the smaller and the weaker, all the negative connotations are going to it”, such as submission and appeasement, he said.

In his pre and post-speech remarks, WEF Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab recognised the “key leadership qualities” of President Musharraf in coping with the earthquake “in a distinct and forceful manner”. agencies

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