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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan made Pakistan a
country of
paramount geostrategic importance. In a matter of days,
the
United States declared Pakistan a "frontline state"
against
Soviet aggression and offered to reopen aid and military
assistance deliveries. For the remainder of Zia's tenure,
the
United States generally ignored Pakistan's developing
nuclear
program. Other donors also rallied to Pakistan as it stood
firm
against Soviet blustering, hospitably received over 3
million
Afghan refugees who poured across the borders, provided a
conduit
for weapons and other support, and gave a safe haven to
the Afghan
mujahidin (see Glossary).
Pakistan's top national
security agency, the army's Directorate for Inter-Services
Intelligence, monitored the activities of and provided
advice and support to the mujahidin, and commandos from the
army's Special Services Group helped guide the operations inside
Afghanistan. In the Muslim world, Pakistan increasingly
assumed a leading role. As a long-term goal, Zia envisioned the
emergence of an Islamic government in Kabul that would provide
Pakistan with geostrategic depth, facilitate access to Muslim West
Asia, and forswear a revision of the Pakistan-Afghanistan
boundary.
Pakistan paid a price for its activities. The refugee
burden,
even if offset in part by foreign assistance, created
dangerous
pressures within Pakistani society. Afghan and Soviet
forces
conducted raids against mujahidin bases inside
Pakistan,
and a campaign of terror bombings and sabotage in
Pakistan's
cities, guided by Afghan intelligence agents, caused
hundreds of
casualties. In 1987 some 90 percent of the 777 terrorist
incidents recorded worldwide took place in Pakistan. The
actual
danger to Pakistan, however, was probably never very
great. There
is no concrete evidence to support the revitalized "Great
Game"
argument that the Soviet invasion was a modern
manifestation of
Russia's historic drive to garner access to a warm water
port and
that it was but a first step on a road through Pakistan to
the
Arabian Sea. Nor was it likely that the Soviet Union would
have
conducted major military operations against Pakistan as
long as
Islamabad did not flaunt its support to the
mujahidin.
The Soviet invasion enabled Pakistan's army to present
itself
as the defender of the nation in times of trouble, making
criticism of military rule almost unpatriotic. Zia used
the
situation to strengthen his grip on internal affairs by
appealing
to national unity and pointing to Pakistan's growing
international stature. In addition, the substantial
amounts of
aid money coming from various sources boosted the economy
and, in
the short run at least, more than offset the costs of the
refugees and rearming the military. Overall, the economy
grew
rapidly in the Zia years, in large part because of
remittances
from many Pakistanis who worked abroad
(see Impact of Migration to the Persian Gulf Countries
, ch. 2;
Labor
, ch. 3).
Zia's ability to obtain high levels of support and
modern
weaponry strengthened his position within the military
establishment and enabled Pakistan once again to build up
a
credible military capability. Under the United States
assistance
program, Pakistan bought F-16 aircraft, upgraded M-48
tanks,
Harpoon naval missiles, helicopters, and artillery, and
received
second-hand frigates on loan. In the four years after the
invasion, Pakistan's armed forces grew by nearly 12
percent, from
428,000 to 478,000 persons. A substantial amount of the
costs of
modernization and expansion were covered by United States
aid and
financial contributions from Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf
countries.
Zia was extremely skillful in protecting his base in
the
military. To ensure control, he was concurrently chief of
the
army staff, chief martial law administrator, and
president, and
he carefully juggled senior military appointments. The
satisfaction of the military was also enhanced by
arrangements
under which Pakistani service personnel were seconded to
the
armed forces of Persian Gulf countries, where emoluments
were
much more generous than in Pakistan. Retiring officers
received
generous benefits, sometimes including land allocations,
and
often found lucrative positions in government service or
in
parastatal economic enterprises. The assignment of serving
officers to approximately 10 percent of the senior posts
in the
civilian administration also provided opportunities for
economic
gain, sometimes in ways that were ultimately harmful to
the
army's image of itself. For example, some military
personnel
reportedly participated in the rapidly growing narcotics
business.
Zia had learned well the lesson of 1965 and was careful
not
to allow the nation to return to the status of a client
state of
the United States. Even as Pakistan faced the Soviet Union
in
Afghanistan, it kept that threat in perspective.
Immediately
after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979,
Zia
declined the Carter administration's assistance package
offer of
US$400 million as "peanuts." It was not until 1981 that
Pakistan
concluded an assistance agreement with the United States,
which
provided for US$3.2 billion over six years, divided
equally
between economic and military aid. This agreement was
extended in
1986 to provide an additional US$4.0 billion over the next
six
years. Zia was careful to avoid the trappings of a formal
alliance, preferring continued involvement in the
Nonaligned
Movement--which Pakistan joined in 1979--and with the
Islamic
nations of the Middle East through his leading role in the
Organization of the Islamic Conference
(see Pakistan and the World During the Zia Regime
, ch. 1). ))
Credit for the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan lay mainly
with
the mujahidin and their Pakistani mentors, but
would
hardly have come about had Mikhail S. Gorbachev not
decided to
cut back drastically on Soviet foreign entanglements.
After
tedious negotiations, an agreement was reached in April
1988,
providing for the withdrawal of Soviet troops by February
15,
1989.
Zia's policies inevitably led to a worsening of
relations
with India, which was disturbed by the reentry of the
United
States into the South Asian security equation and by what
India
saw as the impetus to a new arms race. India responded
with
large-scale arms purchases of its own, primarily from the
Soviet
Union, which more than matched anything that the United
States
provided to Pakistan. Zia took considerable pains to
reduce
tensions and launched several peace initiatives, which New
Delhi,
however, failed to accept. Whether Zia saw his own efforts
merely
as diplomatic maneuvers was unclear, but they reflected a
growing
realization in Pakistan that unconstrained enmity with
India was
simply too dangerous and beyond Pakistan's means.
There were periods of considerable tension between
Pakistan
and India. In November 1986, India launched its largest
maneuver
ever, Operation Brass Tacks, menacingly close to the
Pakistan
border. The Pakistan Army responded with threatening
countermovements, and in early 1987 there was serious
concern
that war might break out. The India-Pakistan hot line was
brought
into use, and Zia skillfully seized the initiative by
traveling
to India to view a cricket game, using the opportunity to
meet
with Indian leaders to defuse the situation.
Among the major disputes between the two countries,
only that
over the Siachen Glacier, which is located in a remote
area of
northern Kashmir where boundaries are ill defined, has led
to
fighting in recent years. The two armies had been in
desultory
but very costly (primarily because of exposure to the
elements)
high-altitude combat there since 1984, when Indian forces
moved
into previously unoccupied territory at the extreme
northern end
of the Kashmir Line of Control.
Aside from Afghanistan, the most problematic element in
Pakistan's security policy was the nuclear question. Zia
inherited an ambitious program from Bhutto and continued
to
develop it, out of the realization that, despite
Pakistan's newly
acquired weaponry, it could never match India's
conventional
power and that India either had, or shortly could develop,
its
own nuclear weapons. Even after the invasion of
Afghanistan,
Pakistan almost exhausted United States tolerance,
including
bungled attempts to illegally acquire United States
nuclear-
relevant technology and a virtual public admission in 1987
by the
head of Pakistan's nuclear program that the country had
developed
a weapon. As long as Pakistan remained vital to United
States
interests in Afghanistan, however, no action was taken to
cut off
United States support. Pakistani attempts to handle the
problem
bilaterally with India led nowhere, but a significant step
was a
nonformalized 1985 agreement that neither India nor
Pakistan
would attack the other's nuclear facilities.
Zia showed a remarkable ability to keep himself in
power, to
promote Pakistan's international position, and to bring a
modest
degree of economic prosperity to Pakistan. His problem was
how to
devolve power. Beginning in 1985, a process of
demilitarization
of the regime was launched, and Zia was elected civilian
president of Pakistan through some highly dubious
maneuvering
(see Zia ul-Haq, 1978-88
, ch. 4). In late 1985, he ended
martial
law and revised the 1973 constitution in ways that
legitimized
all actions taken by the martial law government since 1977
and
strengthened his position as president. Mohammad Khan
Junejo,
whom Zia appointed prime minister in March 1985, managed
to
develop some degree of autonomy from Zia and persuaded him
to
allow political parties to reform; Junejo also watered
down some
of Zia's constitutional proposals, notably blocking the
creation
of the National Security Council that would have
institutionalized the role of the military.
The experiment in controlled democracy floundered in
May
1988, when Zia abruptly dismissed the Junejo government
for
reasons that were not altogether clear but may have
involved
Junejo's attempt to gain a voice in security matters. Zia
promised new elections, but most observers assumed that he
would
once again postpone them rather than take the risk that
Benazir
Bhutto, Zulfiqar's daughter, who had returned from exile
abroad
to a tumultuous welcome in Pakistan in 1986, would come to
power.
Benazir's program included revenge for her father's death
and
punishment of Zia for staging the 1977 coup, which, under
the
1973 constitution, rendered him liable to the death
sentence. The
crisis facing Pakistan resolved itself suddenly, however,
when
Zia was killed in a mysterious airplane crash in August
1988.
Ghulam Ishaq Khan, a senior bureaucrat who was president
of the
Senate, succeeded to the presidency, and after
consultations with
the new chief of the army staff, General Mirza Aslam Beg,
rather
surprisingly decided to let the elections proceed as
scheduled.
Data as of April 1994
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