Comments by Pak. religious affairs minister.

[queer]

Here are a few interesting comments by Raja Zafar-ul-Haq, the Religious Affairs minister of Pakistan from the Dawn.

1.
He said Pakistan realized maximum gains at minimum loss at Kargil.

2.
He said: "We successfully achieved our targets at Kargil making India believe that Pakistan should not be taken as a weaker state."


The above two statements, once more reinforce the allegations by India that Pak. Army and Govt. was involved in the Kargil infiltrations which were preplanned. Coming from the mouth of a minister, the comments expose Nawaz Sharif, Sartaj Aziz and Brig. Rashidi to having lied on a daily basis to the International community ever since the conflict started.

3.
He said India had to suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of freedom fighters which made him(Vajpayee) seek the help of international community for dis-engagement on Kargil.


I dont think this will fool even the most jingoistic of Pakistanis.

4.He said: "It was the need of the hour to jolt India who had started thinking that Pakistan was unable to safeguard its supreme national interests."

hmmm! What was this "supreme national interest"? And note that he is using "Pakistan" and not "mujahideen", one more open admittance of its Army's shady escapedes.

5.India despite its military might and vigorous launching of air and ground attacks against freedom fighters, could not succeed in vacating even a single inch of the territory occupied by Mujahideen

Suddenly, it's back to "mujahideen"! It isn't "Pakistan" anymore. And who is he trying to fool with such dramatic comments?


6.He also called upon India to respond positively to Pakistan's offers for holding meaningful talks.

I liked that! Heap opprobrium on India, accuse India of all sorts of trouble, send in troops masquerading as cheap merceneries, and finally shout "talks talks". If he really thought India was guilty of all the accusations made by him, why would he care for talks? Wasn't the "jolt" (refer quote 4) enough? Didn't Pak. make it's point? Now what talks does it want?

[ZZ]

The whole propoganda was based on a lie that Pak army is not involved, precisely that was the idea behind maximum gains at minimum loss, i.e. gaining teritory without attracting full fledged indian attack. Unfortunately for pak, none believed it, including Pakistanis, in Pak or abroad. After that the business was normal since the lie was anyway exposed. PTV even carried out program honoring the army people named 'kargil ke heroes'.

[Fata Morgana]

I hardly see any statement by Pak ministers/politicians concerning their own department.

The statements quoted in the opening post have more suited to defence minister. All the ministers intermingling with other departments and more often ignoring thier own jobs.

I give a D to Pak ruling elite.

Fata Morgana

[Sherlock]

haq is another moron who is a nobody who wants to become a somebody by making all sorts of stupid statements.all of us pakistanis know what happened in kargil and no stupid minister can play with the public anymore.things are getting to a boiling point.6 months max-to go before sharif and his band of chamchas are kicked out on their butts.

[Desibaba01]

queer, u seem another moron who spend most of time try to find problems in Pakistan.

Can't u see what Indian doing in Kashmir for last 50yrs. They killing Innocent ppl and when if Pakistan supporting those inccocent ppl u got pain in your butt...

Love and Recpact Pakistan,

[ZZ]

desibaba's message is to love pakistan.

I am sure that a retired air-matial loves Pak more than desibaba does.

read what air-matial noor khan says on kargil

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/jul99...-99/index.html

Air Marshal Noor Khan

I will look at the larger picture and then come back to the Kargil issue. My great regret is that we have learnt absolutely nothing right from the time of partition. The essential difference between the animals and human beings is that the former follow their instincts and continue to repeat a certain pattern as opposed to the later who invariably learn form their experience. In 1948, there were certain mitigating circumstances. We didn’t have our own commander-in-chief and we had to undertake an underground operation. Even then, we failed to reach Srinagar that would have brought us to some kind of a bargaining position. The 1965 war was a self-inflicted injury.

We never had a plan for a sustainable war with India. All we have been aiming at was that we have enough of a force that could deter India for a while from not to walk through Pakistan, and then to wait for assistance from our friends and allies. But we never had enough reserves to plan a war, say for six months. It was out of question and that has remained our position ever since.

This has been my question for a long time that has never been answered by any general. Why do we go for a war, if we cannot sustain it beyond few weeks? But India would never have thought of attacking Pakistan, because they never about the Americans and the Chinese reaction. The shield we needed was the economic development.

Certainly, you do not have the support of a superpower. I had very good relations with Premier Chou En Lai. After ‘65 war, he talked to me at certain length. He asked: "Whether you are fighting an imperialist war?" "Nobody, except the Americans can fight that sort of a war. You are asking us for ammunition, tanks, what you will use in one day, we will use for one month or six months. So if you want to fight a people’s war, people should be prepared to resist any invasion, so that the invader feels that he cannot come and sit there comfortably". It was his advice.

We had ignored that, of course. I took over the Air Force on July 23. We had heard the rumour that something might be happening. I flew across to Gen. Musa and asked him if something was going on in Kashmir. He said, " Yes, we intend sending some 6 to 8 thousand people on the 6th of August." My immediate reaction was: "But that is a war. If you succeed in what you are doing, which I doubt very much, the Indians must attack us. It is inevitable".

He asked me to go and see the people who knew that. Even the army didn’t know. General Malik, incharge of this operation, knew it. He told me what was going to happen.

Again my reaction was: "This is too late to stop it." My first reaction was that I should resign, because it looked so absurd to put the country at a great risk. But, then the second thought was that my resigning would not help as the operation was going to go through, whether I resigned or not. I would be letting down the Air Force, professionally. I thought that there was the opportunity to fight, for which we were paid and trained for,.

Then we got on to getting ourselves ready. I am not blowing my own trumpet, but the Air Force from that date went 100 per cent on the war footing, and by the first of September, we were ready. But, the nutshell was that we did the operation, not expecting to go to war. Not preparing the country at all for a war. The Governor of West Pakistan was in Murree. I asked him why he was there. He said, he knew nothing about it. That was the state of affairs. It was a shock when the war came on. Fortunately we did reasonably well and status quo was maintained. And we were saved.

It happened because Gen. Ayub again was a very conservative man, a very sound man, compared to his successors. He did not want a war. But a small coterie of people got around him, some how they brainwashed him and all these decisions were taken in a small group. He realized it immediately after the war came; a terrible mistake had been made. He never recovered after that. Pakistan never recovered after 1965. The economic aid stopped, the American aid stopped. We had to buy our own planes. This country cannot afford, if you try to maintain just the Air Force alone_100 aircraft of the modern type. You haven’t got the money as our economy never stabilized. But we learnt nothing.

The crisis and the war in 1971 was even a greater disaster. In 1971, Yahya Khan was going around well, he held the perfect elections, the assembly was to get together. But something very terrible again occurred. They still had a chance to try and rectify it. But no, again a very small coterie got around him and the decision was taken not to call the assembly, not realizing what the consequences would be. It resulted in agitation. It resulted in military action, in the arrests of all the political leaders there. That perfectly presented East Pakistan to India.

Not only that, we took another risk knowing well that we could not defend East Pakistan at all with the forces that we had. But we carried on, and then ended up by also fighting in West Pakistan. Now if there was ever a myth that we could defend East Pakistan from West Pakistan, it should have disappeared. But no, we lost.

Now in Kargil, I am quite sure the way it must have went. All sort of contingency plans are made by the army, the air force, and by the navy. Quite natural for the people sitting in Kargil or in that area to think that this is a very good tactical move. That is their job and that is what they should be doing. Perhaps it got a little further, and it got to point where it actually was allowed. What was to follow was similar in each case? What was to follow, after Kargil?

This is where the Army Chief must have been consulted. He must have agreed in terms. The responsibility rested with the prime minister who is the chief executive. The buck could be passed to anybody else. Anybody can advise you, tell you about alternatives, but the buck stops with the Chief Executive. He takes the decisions. In this case too, the prime minister must have taken the decision. But, the Army Chief should have assessed that this was a practical thing and how far we could go. But, they didn’t. Having gone that far, they may have realised that there will be a reaction.

Obviously, common sense would have said that if you make life difficult for the Indians, and stop them from supplying Siachin they would surrender. If I was in India, what would I have done? I would have gone only to the International Border, where the air force and the navy could come to a full play, and the tanks could operate. So, the point is that if you have made life difficult for the Indians, they would have reacted and you should have been prepared. But we ignored that. The only difference is that we have a civilian head of state. Somebody must have told him about the alternatives. In the other two cases we went right to the end.

The lesson from all that is that every government that has come into Pakistan has been worse than the previous one. They got their own incompetence to rule the country. They made this myth of the Indian threat. In both the cases, India did not attack. If we had stable governments, if we had stable political decision taken in the interest of Pakistan, these wars would not have taken place. That does not mean that India was not offensive on other occasions, but in these two particular cases, we had initiated and that resulted in India’s favour.

As a consequence, Tashkent Declaration, Simla Agreement, Washington Statement, have solidified India in its position. Now I believe that the right of determination for Kashmiris is absolutely the right that Pakistan must support, because they are right. Because it was unjustifiably taken away. But the question is that how can you do it? How are you going to achieve this? We have wasted 50 years and every time it was a worst situation.

How can we compete with India in military terms. They are a bigger country, they have more money and, therefore, they have always been having a bigger force than ours. We have no dispute with India over borders, except on the question of Kashmir. The only way you can tackle India is by being economically stronger and that is the only place that you can compete. Singapore can compete with America, with any country in the world, because of its economic strength. Hong Kong and Taiwan can compete with China. In fact, Taiwan and Hong Kong have been a model for China, as she followed them.

So Pakistan being smaller can do that. I have great faith in the people of Pakistan. Fortunately, I had been associated with institutions that have once been fairly successful. We never have never had a government in Pakistan right from 1947, which paid any attention to economic
development. Last 20-30 years have been absolutely destructive. Nawaz Sharif and Benazir destroyed every institution. They looted the banks and every thing that they could. And yet, the standard of living of an average Pakistani has been going up. He is not even hungry today, not the way you see people in India.

Ours is an 80 per cent illiterate society. But our people are very enterprising. India inherited the British civil structure. They had Mountbatten sitting and holding their hand. Nehru, their genuine godfather, ruling the country for 15 years. They had the Congress Party, the founder party, who really got independence and popularly ruled for 45 years or so. They were the largest trading nation in Asia at the time of the partition. In 1980s they were the slowest growing country in the world.

What we have now to do is to give our people a chance. How would you grow? Your only value is the human being. 130 million people out of
which hardly 20 million or so are productive. The rest are manual labourers. Educate them and within ten years you will be flying. Take the example of Korea. When they got the independence they were worst than us. Yet, today they can deal with anybody. Korea has many time higher per capita income than India’s.

Now, you are a nuclear power. That is your shield. That means that the Indians will not or cannot attack with the threat of the nuclear weapon. So hold that shield and get back to the economic development of the country. Ten to 15 years, if you do that and then be in touch as far as Kashmir is concerned. We should go to the point that where we will not draw the attention of the world that we are the ones who are doing this job. Because once we get involved, then Kashmir is forgotten; it becomes India and Pakistan question. Then Kashmiris will continue to get setbacks as they got it now, for a while because of Kargil. We can’t even take their case to the Security Council; nobody will listen to us. We are a hindrance to the independence of Kashmir.

You have to have a good government, which is democratic, which has peace at home and that means a serious business. Unfortunately, at the present moment, we are probably at the bottom. How do you expect anybody to support a country that is totally dependent upon another country-- the US. If they freeze our loans, we are finished. And yet we talk so loud. You have to become independent of that. I don’t mean to breakaway from America. We happen to belong to the modern world. After all, Japan and Germany ware totally defeated and destroyed. They accepted their rules, and today they can dictate.

If we have to claim victories, we have to follow international rules and respect them. If you were the South Korea of this part of the world, even half of that or you were better than the Middle-Eastern countries in scientific terms, they would all be helping you. But you are one of the most illiterate countries in the world.

The only positive consequence of the Kargil flare-up has been that we have realised the futility of war. The economic development is the answer. It really is the simplest task, if you really put your mind to it. When I talk of 1965, they call me an American or an Indian agent; so I shall not be paid pension. But I think now they are going to accept it. Otherwise, there will be a total disaster. There is no justification for this operation to have taken place at all. If I were there, I would have resigned. This is the basic reason that the defense forces, being good and disciplined, that they accept responsibility and the man at the top is the first one to accept responsibility when the failure occurs. This is a failure. You do not allow 200 people to die, who were exceptionally brave. They all or half of them should be getting ‘Nishan-e-Haider’. But you can’t even acknowledge them. There is no reason when we have accepted all the things that Indians asked for. So we have a long way to go, if we want to survive. The international pressure will remain till you set your own house in order. And that is you must do as a top most priority.





[This message has been edited by ZZ (edited August 04, 1999).]

[Fata Morgana]

Execellent insidious vision in length and volume by Nur Khan. I am speechless!

Fata Morgana

[queer]

Desibaba wrote:

>u seem another moron who spend most of time try to find problems in Pakistan.<

Believe me, my friend, I wouldn't have bothered had not Pakistan's "problems" suddenly spilt over to India. This Kargil issue isn't just the problem of Pakistan, it was a major pain in the neck of India for a month, after which it bit it's own master.

>They killing Innocent ppl and when if Pakistan supporting those inccocent ppl u got pain in your butt...<

They are not killing innocent people. Terrorists are NOT innocent and deserve to be shot. Sending in merceneries to kill civilians is no civilized way of supporting kashmiris.

And thanks for agreeing that it indeed is a problem.

[Desibaba01]

Queer…I know its will be meaning less to u (what ever I will write)

U should know the difference between terrorists and mujahideen.

And if u think u r little sensible u will not call some one terrorist without any proof.

I never support terrorists but I do support mujahideen (freedom fighters)

But I guess u just support what western media feed u. (use your own brain before believing anyone………………does not cost u much.)

[ehsan]

Queer conveniently forgets the terrorism spread by the hijraas of the indian army. The people of Kashmir will retaliate against the rape and kiliing of their women by the brave hijraas of the indian army. More power to the freedom fighters.

[ZZ]

and the 100000 kashmiri hindus were displaced and looted by Indian army only, i suppose.

put ur own house in order. Noor khan's article that I posted in this thread underlines the point clearly.

[queer]

DesiBaba wrote:

>U should know the difference between terrorists and mujahideen<

What's the difference? A terrorist doesn't use religious propaganda to rally support? The Lashkar-e-tayyeba, al-badr, Harkat-ul-mujahideen are all terrorists maligning the term "mujahideen". Of the top 100 terrorist groups in a list brought out by the US military services, 60 claim to be mujahideen, mostly from the middle-east!

>I never support terrorists but I do support mujahideen (freedom fighters)<

The terrorists are not freedom fighters, they are paid merceneries send by Pak. militant organizations to project an impression that Kashmiris are revolting against "Hindu" rule. And what exactly do you think your "mujahideen" have done in Kashmir to make you support them?

>But I guess u just support what western media feed u.<

What do you read? Khabarnama-e-jamiat? Taliban times? Why would the western media start an anti-Pak campaign? Remember, the truth is always bitter.

>use your own brain before believing anyone??????does not cost u much<

Yeah, use your brain! what is it that afghan and pakistani merceneries are the ones fighting under the name of freedom fighters in place of Kashmiris? Is it because Kashmiris are too cowardly to fight for their own freedom if they feel oppressed? Think about it.

Ehsan ,

Terrorism unleashed by Pakistan in Kashmir necessitated the army's entry into kashmir. Armies get rough, Pakistan is happy that Indian Army is in the valley so that it can raise that as a point in International summits. The root cause is Pak sponsored terrorism, Pakistan, whose army used civilians as a buffer for Indian shells, care two hoots for the lives of Kashmiris.

[ZZ]

I do not see anything inappropriate in religious affairs minister comments on kargil. kargil is, afterall, a one more battle in pakistan's 1000 years war against indian kafirs. and it is a religious duty according to fundos in Pak.

[ehsan]

Queer you have got your facts wrong. The indian army is in Kashmir to suppress a very popular uprising against the indian state. If you doubt this claim hold a refrendum and see what the prople of Kashmir want. It will be a real eye opener for all indians. After all you don't stop trumpeting about yout country's democratic credentials. Surely the proof of the pudding is in eating. Pratice what you say, let the Kashmiris have a say and the result will be for all to see. Puppets like Abdullah will be nowhere to be seen. TRY IT.

[queer]

Ehsan wrote:

>The indian army is in Kashmir to suppress a very popular uprising against the indian state.<

Wrong. The "uprising" is almost completely comprised of foreign merceneries, mainly brainwashed youth from the rural areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. Local support is almost non-existant.

>If you doubt this claim hold a refrendum and see what the prople of Kashmir want.<

A referendum, as you call it, cannot be held in a terrorist infested area. Pakistan knows this well, and hence continues it's sponsorship to the militants, while it keeps raising the issue of the plebiscite at all possible occasions. The period of Pakistan's deception is over. The US, which had been a vociferous supporter of the plebiscite idea, recently rejected the whole idea under the "present conditions".

>After all you don't stop trumpeting about yout country's democratic credentials.Pratice
what you say<

Democracy works only under peaceful conditions, terrorists are trying their best to disrupt democracy and trying to shift the blame over to India. A calculated move by you-know-who! Had everyone fooled for a while, but then, everyone started seeing the loopholes in Pak.'s accusations, and the desperation of the masterminds at the failure of their brainchild culminated in the Kargil fiasco.