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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Ayub Khan articulated his foreign policy on several
occasions, particularly in his autobiography, Friends
not
Masters. His objectives were the security and
development of
Pakistan and the preservation of its ideology as he saw
it.
Toward these ends, he sought to improve, or normalize,
relations
with Pakistan's immediate and looming neighbors--India,
China,
and the Soviet Union. While retaining and renewing the
alliance
with the United States, Ayub Khan emphasized his
preference for
friendship, not subordination, and bargained hard for
higher
returns to Pakistan.
Other than ideology and Kashmir, the main source of
friction
between Pakistan and India was the distribution of the
waters of
the Indus River system. As the upper riparian power, India
controlled the headworks of the prepartition irrigation
canals.
After independence India had, in addition, constructed
several
multipurpose projects on the eastern tributaries of the
Indus.
Pakistan feared that India might repeat a 1948 incident
that
curtailed the water supply as a means of coercion. A
compromise
that appeared to meet the needs of both countries was
reached
during the 1950s; it was not until 1960 that a solution
finally
found favor with Ayub Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru.
The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 was backed by the
World Bank (see Glossary)
and the United States. Broadly speaking,
the
agreement allocated use of the three western Indus rivers
(the
Indus itself and its tributaries, the Jhelum and the
Chenab) to
Pakistan, and the three eastern Indus tributaries (the
Ravi,
Beas, and Sutlej) to India. The basis of the plan was that
irrigation canals in Pakistan that had been supplied by
the
eastern rivers would begin to draw water from the western
Indus
rivers through a system of barrages and link canals. The
agreement also detailed transitional arrangements, new
irrigation
and hydroelectric power works, and the waterlogging and
salinity
problems in Pakistan's Punjab. The Indus Basin Development
Fund
was established and financed by the World Bank, the major
contributors to the Aid-to-Pakistan Consortium, and India
(see Foreign Aid
, ch. 3).
Pakistan's tentative approaches to China intensified in
1959
when China's occupation of Tibet and the flight of the
Dalai Lama
to India ended five years of Chinese-Indian friendship. An
entente between Pakistan and China evolved in inverse
ratio to
Sino-Indian hostility, which climaxed in a border war in
1962.
This informal alliance became a keystone of Pakistan's
foreign
policy and grew to include a border agreement in March
1963,
highway construction connecting the two countries at the
Karakoram Pass, agreements on trade, and Chinese economic
assistance and grants of military equipment, which was
later
thought to have included exchanges in nuclear technology.
China's
diplomatic support and transfer of military equipment was
important to Pakistan during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War
over
Kashmir. China's new diplomatic influence in the UN was
also
exerted on Pakistan's behalf after the Indo-Pakistani War
of
1971. Ayub Khan's foreign minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto,
is often
credited for this China policy, which gave Pakistan new
flexibility in its international relationships. The
entente
deepened during the Zia regime (1977-88).
The Soviet Union strongly disapproved of Pakistan's
alliance
with the United States, but Moscow was interested in
keeping
doors open to both Pakistan and India. Ayub Khan was able
to
secure Soviet neutrality during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani
War.
Ayub Khan was the architect of Pakistan's policy of
close
alignment with the United States, and his first major
foreign
policy act was to sign bilateral economic and military
agreements
with the United States in 1959
(see The United States Alliance
, ch. 5). Nevertheless, Ayub Khan expected more from these
agreements than the United States was willing to offer and
thus
remained critical of the role the United States played in
South
Asia. He was vehemently opposed to simultaneous United
States
support, direct or indirect, for India's military,
especially
when this assistance was augmented in the wake of the
Sino-Indian
War of 1962. Ayub Khan maintained, as did many Pakistanis,
that
in return for the use of Pakistani military facilities,
the
United States owed Pakistan security allegiance in all
cases, not
merely in response to communist aggression. Especially
troublesome to Pakistan was United States neutrality
during the
1965 Indo-Pakistani War. The United States stance at this
time
was a contributing factor to Pakistan's closing of United
States
communications and intelligence facilities near Peshawar.
Pakistan did not extend the ten-year agreement signed in
1959.
The 1965 war began as a series of border flare-ups
along
undemarcated territory at the Rann of Kutch in the
southeast in
April and soon after along the cease-fire line in Kashmir.
The
Rann of Kutch conflict was resolved by mutual consent and
British
sponsorship and arbitration, but the Kashmir conflict
proved more
dangerous and widespread. In the early spring of 1965, UN
observers and India reported increased activity by
infiltrators
from Pakistan into Indian-held Kashmir. Pakistan hoped to
support
an uprising by Kashmiris against India. No such uprising
took
place, and by August India had retaken Pakistani-held
positions
in the north while Pakistan attacked in the Chamb sector
in
southwestern Kashmir in September. Each country had
limited
objectives, and neither was economically capable of
sustaining a
long war because military supplies were cut to both
countries by
the United States and Britain.
On September 23, a cease-fire was arranged through the
UN
Security Council. In January 1966, Ayub Khan and India's
prime
minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, signed the Tashkent
Declaration,
which formally ended hostilities and called for a mutual
withdrawal of forces. This objectively statesmanlike act
elicited
an adverse reaction in West Pakistan. Students as well as
politicians demonstrated in urban areas, and many were
arrested.
The Tashkent Declaration was the turning point in the
political
fortunes of the Ayub Khan administration.
In February 1966, a national conference was held in
Lahore,
where all the opposition parties convened to discuss their
differences and their common interests. The central issue
discussed was the Tashkent Declaration, which most of the
assembled politicians characterized as Ayub Khan's
unnecessary
capitulation to India. More significant, perhaps, was the
noticeable underrepresentation of politicians from the
East Wing.
About 700 persons attended the conference, but only
twenty-one
were from the East Wing. They were led by Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman
(known as Mujib) of the Awami League, who presented his
controversial six-point political and economic program for
East
Pakistani provincial autonomy. The six points consisted of
the
following demands that the government be federal and
parliamentary in nature, its members elected by universal
adult
suffrage with legislative representation on the basis of
distribution of population; that the federal government
have
principal responsibility for foreign affairs and defense
only;
that each wing have its own currency and separate fiscal
accounts; that taxation occur at the provincial level,
with a
federal government funded by constitutionally guaranteed
grants;
that each federal unit control its own earnings of foreign
exchange; and that each unit raise its own militia or
paramilitary forces.
Ayub Khan's also lost the services of Minister of
Foreign
Affairs Bhutto, who resigned became a vocal opposition
leader,
and founded the Pakistan People's Party (PPP--see
Pakistan People's Party
, ch. 4). By 1968 it was obvious that except
for
the military and the civil service, Ayub Khan had lost
most of
his support. Ayub Khan's illness in February 1968 and the
alleged
corruption of members of his family further weakened his
position. In West Pakistan, Bhutto's PPP called for a
"revolution"; in the east, the Awami League's six points
became
the rallying cry of the opposition.
In October 1968, the government sponsored a celebration
called the Decade of Development. Instead of reminding
people of
the achievements of the Ayub Khan regime, the festivities
highlighted the frustrations of the urban poor afflicted
by
inflation and the costs of the 1965 war. For the masses,
Ayub
Khan had become the symbol of inequality. Bhutto
capitalized on
this and challenged Ayub Khan at the ballot box. In East
Pakistan, dissatisfaction with the system went deeper than
opposition to Ayub Khan. In January 1969, several
opposition
parties formed the Democratic Action Committee with the
declared
aim of restoring democracy through a mass movement.
Ayub Khan reacted by alternating conciliation and
repression.
Disorder spread. The army moved into Karachi, Lahore,
Peshawar,
Dhaka, and Khulna to restore order. In rural areas of East
Pakistan, a curfew was ineffective; local officials sensed
government control ebbing and began retreating from the
incipient
peasant revolt. In February Ayub Khan released political
prisoners, invited the Democratic Action Committee and
others to
meet him in Rawalpindi, promised a new constitution, and
said he
would not stand for reelection in 1970. Still in poor
health and
lacking the confidence of his generals, Ayub Khan sought a
political settlement as violence continued.
On March 25, 1969, martial law was again proclaimed;
General
Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, the army commander in chief, was
designated chief martial law administrator (CMLA). The
1962
constitution was abrogated, Ayub Khan announced his
resignation,
and Yahya Khan assumed the presidency. Yahya Khan soon
promised
elections on the basis of adult franchise to the National
Assembly, which would draw up a new constitution. He also
entered
into discussions with leaders of political parties.
Data as of April 1994
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