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Op-ed: Chickens coming home! —Kamran Shafi

It is extremely hard for me to believe that the scientists could have had any contact at all with third countries, let alone pass nuclear secrets to them without their many minders knowing full well about it

Or, in the vernacular, ‘Hoar choopo, gannay’! I aim this colourful and therefore bordering on what some of my delicate friends might consider mild crudity directly at the Establishment that has (mis)ruled Pakistan for most of its 57 years. For it is this venal and self-serving and completely idiotic Establishment that has today brought the country to this pass: to its very knees.

Consider please: Not only are we being pilloried by the world media for everything under the sun from nuclear proliferation to honour killings to poor law and order to being dishonest in the so-called fight against terror (you name it), there is not one country in the whole world that we can call a true friend, all of them shying away from us because of our jihad-driven policies and because we have chosen to allow the very worst of the nutters a free run to do what they will where they will. Even target General Pervez Musharraf himself at times and places of their own choosing — even in the supposedly well-defended cantonment areas.

One wonders, however, at the idiocy, or is it plain stupid arrogance, of the movers and shakers of the State of Pakistan, for many well-meaning people — yes, ‘traitorous’ columnists included — have repeatedly warned them to desist from punching way above their weight; to control their lemming-like death-wish because it is not just them leaping off the cliff (which would be quite welcome, actually), they would take the country with them. It was clear as day that staying the mad course charted out by the great Pakistani Guderians and Rommels, those of ‘strategic defiance’ and ‘strategic depth’ infamy and their acolytes, would lead the country to certain disaster.

But wait. While you and I might well think that we are up the creek without a paddle, does the Establishment and its leaders, living in their sorry little ivory towers in Islamabad the Beautiful, even realise that we are in any trouble at all? Are they not still totally delusional even as their world comes crashing down around their ears? Have they done anything in recent memory to correct matters in even the very littlest way? Let us just take the very dangerous allegations of nuclear proliferation, and the spin-off of those allegations and see how the government is handling this most sensitive, this most dangerous of matters.

The government such as it is — or shall we say the agencies that run it — in typical Pakistani fashion has gone completely over the top, quite cavalierly and foolishly putting up a great show of gymnastics, twisting this way and that, even turning cartwheels and doing headstands trying to make the world believe that if there was any proliferation it was due to the personal ‘greed’ of a few people in the nuclear establishment. Thereby suggesting loudly that the scientists under investigation might well have passed on nuclear know-how to other countries, but that the State was not complicit in their crime.

Now, while we are well aware that the State of Pakistan is capable of throwing all ‘principles’ out the window right bloody smartly and making a double-quick U-turn on anything at all provided the kick up the bottom is well-aimed and stiff enough, there was not even the slightest restraint in everyone snapping to attention and shouting “Yes sir, Yes sir, three bags full sir” just as soon as there was the slightest hint that the Iranians had spilt the beans.

Let me add immediately that this is not to say that the government should not try to get to the bottom of the allegations of nuclear proliferation, and punish the guilty; all I am saying is that there was too much alacrity with which even these darlings of the security Establishment were arrested, and badmouthed repeatedly by the government’s own spokespersons with not a thought given to the fact that the State and its agencies would be subjected to the minutest examination too. Indeed that the arrest and ‘debriefing’ of the first tranche was not the end of the matter, that the dragnet would soon extend to others. Lo and behold, just the other day the Principal Staff Officer of the father of our bum has been arrested along with three others raising the total number being ‘debriefed’ (so that’s what they call it now!) to eight.

I have no idea whether somebody sold nuclear technology to another country or not, but as someone who has seen the hush-hush wallahs quite closely it is extremely hard for me to believe that the scientists could have had any contact at all with third countries, let alone pass nuclear secrets to them, without their many minders knowing full well about it. For while it is a well-known fact that after the dispatching of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto the bum wallahs treated the elected civilian governments and their leaders with utter disdain, they were in thrall to, and were watched over closely by, the security Establishment of the country. No prizes for guessing why. Strategic-Defier-in-Chief General Mirza Aslam Beg’s many loud assertions to the effect that he was the main defender of the bum are proof enough.

It is a measure of the Establishment’s arrogance however, that even recent events due to which it has had to eat humble pie repeatedly, despite the dangers the country is beset with due to its acts of omission and commission, despite the great upheaval caused by the allegations of proliferating nuclear weapons technology, it seems not to have learnt any lessons at all.

Why, one of its leading lights, the architect of The Great Jalalabad Debacle and Hawk-in-Chief, General Hameed Gul, has gone to the extent of actually saying that something like seven million dollars was paid in cash by Colonel Gaddafi to the Bhutto ‘family’ (whatever in the world that means, only he can enlighten us) in return for which certain nuclear secrets were handed over to Libya. Now, while the General is known for shooting off at the mouth on any and every matter, the proper way for arriving at the truth or otherwise of what he has now said is for the government of Pakistan to demand the holding of a high-powered inquiry by a panel of three persons of internationally acclaimed integrity.

Indeed, it should let the IAEA oversee the inquiry — from all accounts Mr Al-Baradei is an honourable man who will see to it that the truth comes out. The panel should have the United Nation’s authority to pass the severest sentence on whoever has sold nuclear know-how to whomsoever, like sentence applied to the accuser if the allegations are proved to be false.

A little story here to prove the point earlier made about the nuclear establishment not giving a toss for elected leaders. Sometime in 1989, Mr Khalid Hasan wrote something about Dr AQ Khan, I don’t remember what or where. Instead of using the vast PR machine he had built up to rebut or clarify or whatever he wanted to do about Mr Hasan’s piece, Dr Khan chose to address a rather rude and insolent note directly to the prime minister, accusing her of not doing anything about it! I was Press Secretary to Ms Bhutto at the time and the note made its way to my desk for my comments.

I wrote just one paragraph to the effect that while Dr AQ Khan needed a short course in Staff Duties, particularly in writing DO letters, he should immediately be advised not to ever again use a scrap of paper and a lead pencil while writing a formal note to the Head of Government. Needless to say that was the last I saw of the file.

Is it the case then that our scientists (or politicians) sold nuclear secrets to satisfy ‘personal greed’, or is it that the sickly chickens hatched in the thousands by the Establishment are finally coming home to Mommy? Well, Mommy should also be put in the dock, not just her hatchlings.

Kamran Shafi is a free-lance columnist

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