Gen Zia , Gen Akhtar and Geneva Agreement Part 3

Gen Zia , Gen Akhtar and Geneva Agreement Part 3

Author

Diego Cordoves and Seling s Harrison

While acknowledging that Zia had geopolitical objectives in Afghanistan , former Foreign Secretary Sattar expressed his own belief that Zia’s power struggle with Junejo was the governing factor behind the President’s eleventh hour attempt to delay the signing of the accords . ” He had made up his mind to dismiss Junejo as soon as he could “, Sattar observed . ” He thought it would be more easily accepted in the West it the Afghan conflict was still in progress , rather than after the Geneva agreement was signed and the Soviets were on their way out .
“What Zia did not anticipate was the political skill with which Junejo would use the Afghan issue as a weapon to fortify his own position . Zia finally did oust the civilian government in May , but lost his struggle to block Pakistani support of the Geneva accords after Junejo mobilized public opinion in a bold challenge to the President .
A plodding , soft spoken machine politician , Junejo had studiously avoided controversy during his rise to power . His determined stand surprised friends and foes alike . On February 17 Junejo invited 11 leading editors to a briefing in which he explained why he felt Pakistan should sign the accords . Among other things , he explained , ” Our American and Saudi friends would not forgive us , and they are reminding me of this day after day “. Outraged , Zia held his own briefing on the following day , charging that “American and Soviet Union have made a secret agreement of the Afghan issue , and they are attempting to smear Pakistan in the bargain as an obstacle to peace “.
The United States , Zia said , ” is only interested in the withdrawal of the Soviet troops .
It does not care what happened to the Afghan afterwards “.Over Zia’s protest Junejo then convened a Round Table Conference on March 5 and 6 , assembling the leaders of all Pakistan’s nineteen political parties . Only the Jamaat e Islami and two other fundamentalist groups dissented from the majority view that Pakistan should sign the accords . Following the sessions Junejo invited his cabinet to a dinner at his house , where all the ministers except one voiced support for the accords . Junejo’s deputy in the Forign Ministry , Minister of state Zain Noorani , recalled that Zia arrived late and then spoke passionately for forty minutes against signing .

” Zia went scarlet , ” Noorani said , ” when one of his most loyal lieutenants Ghulam Ishaq Khan , then Finance Minister and later to succeed Zia as president , ” demolished every point that Zia had made without any apology .” Stalking out of the meeting , Zia warned that ” our people will lynch you if you sign . “Ultimately , faced with domestic and foreign pressure , Zia dropped his opposition to the accords . Washington and Moscow gave him face saving statements pledging to step up their efforts to establish an interim government. In a conversation with me on June 29 , Zia reaffirmed his belief that the accords were a setback for Pakistan .”
Eventually Gorbachev would have blinked , ” he said , ” If the United States had insisted on the removal of the Kabul regime as a condition for the conclusion of the accords , as he and some Americans , including former U.N Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrich , were advocating . Even if this had meant the breakdown of the settlement process in April , zia declared , the Soviet Union ” would have come back sooner or later . Gorbachev pulled a fast one by leaving Najib behind . He threw the bait by agreeing to withdraw without a change of regime , and it was swallowed . “Zia said that ha would give Cordovez six months within which to establish an interim government . Waving his hand , he added that ” he would not succeed because it’s not possible for all of these groups to merge in a pot palatable to the people . The mujahedin have sacrificed . We will either throw Najib out of Kabul or establish a provisional government inside Afghanistan first and then throw him out . ” Zia spoke of a Pakistan -Afghanistan confederation in which Pakistani and Afghans could travel freely back and forth without passports . He did not foresee that dissolution of the Soviet Union was only three years away when he envisaged a pan -Islamic bloc that would one day win over the Muslims in the Soviet Union …… who knows ….. perhaps even Tajikistan and Uzbekistan , you will see . “