SUMMIT: Sattar takes charge
by B.Raman
It is clear like daylight now.
Agra is not going to be the Pervez Musharraf Show.
It is going to be the Pervez-Sattar show.
Or, rather the Sattar show, with Abdul Sattar,
Pakistan's Foreign Minister, from behind the scene, deciding what subjects
Pervez will raise, what he will say, how and so on.
See the pre-summit preparations before Sattar returned
from abroad and after.
Analyse Musharraf's demeanour and remarks before
Sattar's return and after.
See the dramatis personae before and after.
See Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the Pakistani High
Commissioner, before he went to Islamabad for consultations and after his
return to New Delhi. Before he went, he was the very picture of
reason, moderation, the epitome of diplomatic courtesy, who was all
attention to the sensitivities of the host country and full of enthusiasm
about the prospects at Agra.
And then, one session with Sattar at Islamabad; he has
come back a totally chastened man. While talking to Star News on his
Tea Party, the perennial cheer on his face had disappeared. How
carefully he was weighing his words as if Sattar was standing behind him.
Maj.Gen.( retd)Mahmud Ali Durrani, the former Washington
Station chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and an active
member of the Belusa group of Mrs.Shirin Tahir-Kheli, is out.
So is Lt.Gen.(retd) Moinuddin Haider, the Mohajir
Interior Minister, whom Nawaz Sharif described in his secret testimony in
the hijacking case as Musharraf's alter ego and as one of the two persons
with whom Musharraf felt comfortable and had social relations, the other
being Maj.Gen.Rasheed Quereshi, the General's press spokesman, another
Mohajir.
And so is Lt.Gen.Muzaffar Usmani, the Deputy Chief of
the Army Staff, another Mohajir, who led the coup from Karachi-end on
October 12,1999, and ensured the safety of Musharraf.
No Shaukat Aziz, the Finance Minister, who is close to
Musharraf's US-based brother, no Abdul Razaak Dawood, the Commerce
Minister, no Usman Aminuddin, the Minister for Petroleum and Natural
Resources.
On the aircraft, it will be just Musharraf plus Sattar
and the bureaucrats hand-picked by Sattar.
How drastically the likely subjects list has been pruned
by Sattar.
Trade? No.
Gas pipeline? No.
Nuclear confidence-building measures? No.
Cross-border terrorism? No.
People-To-People contact? No.
Meeting of the Directors-General of Military Operations
before the summit as proposed by the Indian Prime Minister? No.
Response to India's flood of unilateral
confidence-building measures and suggestions? Not necessary.
Sattar wants the summit to be Kashmir, Kashmir and
Kashmir. About five hours of nothing but Kashmir.
He wants Musharraf's pantomime with the Hurriyat
surrogates to be telecast back to Pakistan. And beamed to the world
to claim that the Kashmiris have more confidence in the General than in
the Indian Prime Minister.
He has reportedly thrown into the waste paper basket the
initial draft of Musharraf's speech at the Presidential banquet on July 14
prepared by Qazi and is attempting his own.
It is the perennial "no man" of Pakistan's
Foreign Office, who has taken charge from Durrani, supported by
Lt.Gen.Mohammed Aziz, the Corps Commander at Lahore.
The source of Sattar's power in and out of office has
always been mysterious.
Remember how he poured scorn in a press interview on
Nawaz Sharf's meeting with Mr.Narasimha Rao in Davos?
Remember how he thwarted in 1995 Mrs.Benazir Bhutto's
initiative to grant India the Most-Favoured-Nation status by mobilising
the support of all retired Directors-General of the ISI and other military
officers against it.
He is back in his game with a vengeance.
How come he is one man in the entire Cabinet, who is
able to stand up to Musharraf , despite his uniform, despite his commando
badge?
Is it only because of the support of just one Lt.Gen.?
But, that Lt.Gen. is no small man. Musharraf may
be the Chief of the Army of the State of Pakistan, but Aziz is the
clandestine chief of Pakistan's Army of Islam, consisting of the
Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Al Badr, the Jaish-e-Mohammed
and bin Laden's Al Qaeda. Numerically, the Army of Islam is as
strong as the Army of the State. And better motivated and more ruthless.
Are other non-Mohajir Generals too supporting Aziz? Did
they have any role to play in removing from Musharraf's Agra entourage all
Mohajirs except Maj.Gen.Rasheed Quereshi?
Or, did Musharraf ask Lt.Gen.Haider and other
confidantes to stay behind and ensure that nobody, in his absence, takes
it into his head to emulate Nawaz and sack him while he is wallowing in
the lionisation in New Delhi and Agra?
The incident of yesterday in Islamabad in which a car
driven by one Abdul Hafeez tried to drive into Musharraf's convoy--- was
it just an accident or the doing of a mad man, who was not aware that the
targetted convoy was that of Musharraf as claimed by the Islamabad Police
or was it a well-planned attempt on the life of Musharraf?
So many intriguing questions without answers.
All one can say is, there's something more than meets
the eye in Islamabad.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, and presently, Director, Institute For
Topical studies, Chennai. E-Mail: [email protected]
)
