The story behind the story.
M. Ziauddin

(Curtesy: Daily The Dawn, July 12, 99)

The Mujahideen claim that they have liberated as much as 700 kilometres of Indian occupied Kashmir and captured 136 peaks in the Kargil heights during the six weeks of operations. They maintain that if they vacated these places now at the request of the government of Pakistan, they would only be proving the Indian allegations that they get their arms and equipment and training in Pakistan. And once this is established what would stop the Indians from refusing to talk to Pakistan unless it instructed all the Mujahideen operating throughout the occupied Kashmir to withdraw, they ask.

When some Western diplomats stationed here were asked for an answer to this question, they did not rule out the possibility of the Indians taking this seemingly outrageous position and said that if that happened then the credibility of the government in Islamabad would come under severe attack. Some of these diplomats also did not understand how the US president and the Pakistani Prime Minister could enter into an agreement to defuse the conflict in Kargil which has been going on between the Indian troops and the Kashmiri Mujahideen. And even if it is accepted that Pakistan has enough influence to get the Mujahideen to withdraw how would, they asked, the US ensure that the Indians would return to the Lahore process.

For the US to accomplish this Washington needs to have some leverage with New Delhi which it does not seem to have at the moment. Those who claim to have inside knowledge of how Nawaz Sharif ended up promising the US president what it was not his to promise, said that the pressure on the PM had started mounting from June 14 when in his letter to Nawaz Sharif President Clinton had offered to meet him somewhere in Europe if the Prime Minister, using his influence, could get the Mujahideen to withdraw from the Indian side of LoC on Kargil.

Next, the message contained in the G-8 resolution issued on June 20 was unusually harsh. The same message was conveyed to the PM by General Anthony Zinni, C-in-C of US Central Command (CENTCOM) when he travelled to Pakistan on June 24. General Zinni reportedly also told Nawaz Sharif that he would get to meet president Clinton as a quid pro quo if he got the Mujahideen to withdraw. Three days later on June 26 COAS General Pervez Musharaaf hoped that Clinton-Nawaz meeting would be held soon. The Pakistani General also uttered the term "withdrawal" for the first time at this press interview. The next day on June 27, the PM left for a pre-arranged six-day visit of China including Hong Kong. On the evening of June 28 while briefing the press in Beijing on Nawaz-Zhu meeting, Pakistan's foreign office spokesman Tariq Altaf said that the PM has decided to cut short his visit and return home on June 30 via Hong Kong. The PM was therefore back in Pakistan on Thursday, July 1. And he waited until Saturday, July 3 the day he was originally scheduled to return from China, to talk to President Clinton on telephone. This talk culminated in the PM getting invited to Washington on July 4, the US independence day and also a Sunday. This indicated that one of the two seemed to be working on a very, very tight schedule to snuff out the perceived signs of a nuclear conflagration in South Asia.

It was about this time that unconfirmed reports said that the PM has already ordered the withdrawal. Side by side another drama was unfolding. As General Zinni took off for Pakistan on Wednesday June 23, Niaz Naik, former foreign secretary who was somewhere in East Asia since June 21, officially presenting Pakistan's case on Kargil to the government there was being asked to cut short his visit and return to Pakistan post haste for undertaking a more important mission on behalf of the PM.

Following the 'productive' talks between Zinni and Pakistani authorities, Niaz Naik was sent on Sunday morning (June 27) on the presidential Falcon for a one-day round trip to New Delhi where he was given an audience by the Indian PM Vajpayee. It was about this time that the world detected some kind of 'flexibility' in Pakistan's position. And with this 'flexibility' came reports from India about 'safe passage'. Niaz Naik came back from his special 'back channel' mission before the PM took off for China from Lahore. The message which Naik brought back from New Delhi was discussed threadbare on board the PM's aircraft flying over the Himalayas. It is not known whether following this discussion anybody in Islamabad or Washington was contacted from the PM's aircraft. But what is known is that it was after this discussion that the PM decided to rush back home to be able to be in a position to fly to Washington at the earliest depending up President Clinton's calendar which, however, was full for almost a fortnight after July 4 holidays.

The flight en route to Beijing rather than the visit to the Chinese capital itself or the PM's meetings with the Chinese leaders was probably more important in the context of the events that are now unfoldings. In Beijing the PM simply informed the Chinese leaders what he had decided to do and the Chinese leadership as usual refrained from interfering in the affairs of their staunchest friend. The flight from Lahore to Beijing was so important in this context that the accompanying press party comprising 11 journalists, the three-man TV crew, another three- man PM's security personnel and a very senior PM house official were sent to China by a commercial flight which took off from Islamabad at about the same time that the PM's aircraft did from Lahore.

The first written instructions which the members of the press party received on Friday June 25 from the foreign office had asked them to board the PM's aircraft from Chaklala airport from where it would fly to Lahore to pick up the PM and his immediate entourage. But the next day another written statement was received, this time from the information ministry asking them to take the PIA flight to Beijing from Islamabad.

The tickets given to them showed that they would be coming back in the early hours of July 4 via Hong Kong and Bangkok. None of the return passages were confirmed which indicated that the bookings were done at the last minute. The tickets were actually purchased by the PID on the day of departure itself at Rs. 67,000 a piece. Since the press party returned direct from Beijing to Karachi on CAA on Thursday, July 1, the government has lost as much as Rs. 20,000 per ticket because of the commission charged by the host airline. When it was inquired on return home as to why a part of the entourage was sent by commercial flight when the total number of people who accompanied the PM were no more than 55 on his aircraft, an Airbus which has a capacity of over 220 passengers, it was explained that the seating room in the aircraft had been drastically cut by converting a part of the aircraft into a bedroom and a spacious conference room. But then on the way back via Hong Kong, the PM's aircraft took aboard the TV crew, the APP man and the security personnel. Only ten journalists found themselves cooling their heels in a Beijing hotel for one whole day and a half doing nothing. Among these ten there were two from Lahore who were asked by the PM to accompany him to China when they requested him at the Lahore Gymkhana on Saturday (June 26) for an appointment. He had told them that they would have enough time to meet during the trip. The only time these two gentlemen came any where near the PM was when he had come to the Great Hall to meet Chairman Li Peng on June 29. But that too from a distance and for a few minutes only.

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