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NEIGHBOURS:
PAKISTAN
History
Creates Hell
The
release of the Hamoodur Rahman report on india-today.com unsettles the
country and raises demands for a probe into Kargil and other 'national
disasters'
By Swapan
Dasgupta
 |
| The
clamour for the army to also come clean on Kargil is unnerving General
Musharraf (right) and President Rafiq Tarar |
The
report of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission (HRC) set up by president Z.A.
Bhutto in 1971 to inquire into the Pakistani debacle in East Pakistan
had a ghostly presence in Pakistan since its submission in 1974. Suppressed
from the public, its purported findings were a subject of intense conjecture.
That the HRC had been harsh on the military was easily surmised from Bhutto's
grandiose announcement that every copy had been burnt.
Yet, the
speculation refused to die. Knowledgeable circles in Islamabad insisted
that at least two copies had survived. One was found in the Bhutto house
in Larkana in 1979 after his execution and subsequently kept under wraps
in the Ministry of Interior. The other simply disappeared.
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"The
Rank and file feels the leadership is dishonest"-Nur
Khan(Ex-air force chief) |
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"The
east was lost because of blunders in the west"- A.A.K.
Niazi (Indicted General) |
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"Instead
of excuses, the Government must publish all reports"-Mirza
Aslam Beg(Ex-army chief) |
Therefore,
when India Today published the supplementary report ("Behind Pakistan's
Surrender", August 21) on Pakistan's Independence Day, the instinctive,
knee-jerk reaction in Pakistani official circles was: How was the report
leaked? Theories ranged from speculative deduction to the bizarre. There
were suggestions that it was leaked by the Americans, sold for a consideration,
pilfered by an Indian journalist from under Bhutto's pillow and intelligently
culled from published sources. Never one to mince words, Kulsoom Nawaz,
wife of the imprisoned former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, taunted the
Government for allowing a "state secret" to fall into "enemy
hands". "One day India will publish a report on Kargil as well,
recommending court martial for Pervez Musharraf," she added sarcastically.
Predictably,
the motives behind the publication were questioned. Wrote The Frontier
Post (Peshawar): "This Indian magazine's scoop is part of the worldwide
campaign that New Delhi has mounted over ... several months to malign
Pakistan." Major-General Rahim Khan, one of the 11 senior officers
against whom court martial was urged by the HRC, was even more forthright.
The report, he said, was leaked "with the clear aim of embarrassing
the present military Government and to malign the army as an institution."
Endorsing this view, Indian Rajya Sabha member Kuldip Nayar pointed a
finger at "some liberal elements in the establishment (who) wanted
the people to know that all statements by Musharraf on corruption and
accountability were not credible because only the civilians were targeted
and no one from the military".
On its part,
despite an initial gaffe by Information Minister Javed Jabbar, the Pakistan
Government maintained a strange reticence. On August 18, an official spokesman
denied that Jabbar had called for the release of the report: "Aspects
of whether the report was partially or wholly duplicated or whether it
was unauthorisedly handled at any point during the past 26 years are being
investigated." He said the Government would make a statement "at
an appropriate stage". For the moment, the Government insisted, the
HRC remained a "classified" document.
Not that
anyone is waiting for an official declassification. With Major- General
Rao Farman Ali, an officer exonerated by the HRC, and military historian
Brian Cloughley certifying the authenticity of the published version,
the debate in Pakistan has moved on to the contents and implication of
the HRC report. india today group online, which has posted the entire
report on its website, reported a 1,000 per cent increase in average traffic
with the report itself recording nearly five lakh page views in a week.
In Pakistan, The Dawn has reproduced the report on its website.
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The
stock markets are humming, and it's feel-good time once again, writes
INDIA TODAY Associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar in 
