PAKISTAN GOVERNMENT REACTS CAUTIOUSLY TO US/BRITISH ATTACK ON IRAQ
First broadcast 17/12/98
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Despite being the creater of the so-called Islamic bomb, and despite having committed itself to making Islamic law supreme in Pakistan, the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been cautious in its response to the airstrikes against Iraq. At the official level, relations between Baghdad and Islamabad have traditionally been cool, despite a rumoured link between the two countries nuclear weapons programs. But at the popular level there's significant support for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein especially among the more fundamentalist Muslim groups. This report from Tom Fayle:

FAYLE: The government of Pakistan is in something of a bind. It's torn between needing to keep the Americans on side for economic reasons and placating what a large section of its own support base is likely to see as yet another attack on the Muslim world. An acute observer of the Pakistani body politic is retired General Hamid Gul, a former military intelligence chief.

GUL: Pakistan's official reaction...that is..of the Government...is not going to be very sharp, because the government is under tremendous economic pressure from America as well as from the Western bloc, but as far as the public reaction is concerned, I'm afraid it is going to be considerable, because after all everywhere the muslim countries are being targeted, and it is the world of Islam which is on the receiving end, be it Kashmir, be it Palestine, be it Bosnia, be it any other country...I mean Afghanistan - It is always the muslim countries who are targeted, and I think the muslim masses are now getting rather irritated about the whole thing...the way the Americans are reacting and behaving particularly in this region.

FAYLE: Dr Samina Yasmeen, of the University of Western Australia is a specialist in the area and says anti-American groups have become increasingly active in Pakistan.

YASMEEN: Like only very recently when Pakistan government...and it's still going on...was trying to work out the legislation to stop the export of nuclear technology. The leader of Jamaat-i-Islami said that he was going to start a movement against the Pakistan government, because Pakistani government's legislation means caving in to American pressure. So I think this general anti-American sense would contribute to a very strong anti-attack response among the people. I'm not sure if they would see anything similar to the Gulf crisis when within Pakistan there was a very clear division between the pro-American groups and anti-American groups on the streets. But I think there would definitely be a fall-out from this, especially because it happens four-months after American attacks on Osama Bin Laden hide out in Afghanistan, which did have its fall-out effects in Pakistan as well.

FAYLE: During the Gulf War, Pakistan hedged its bets...sending troops to join the American-led multi-national force while embarking on an independent, but ultimately, doomed mission to seek a diplomatic solution. But has Pakistan's attitude to Iraq changed since Islamabad itself formally joined the club of those possessing weapons of mass destruction?

YASMEEN: There has been news that Pakistan and Iraq probably were co-operating on their nuclear issues, but they have never been confirmed in fact they've always been denied by the Pakistan government. But I think the fact that Pakistan has acquired a declared nuclear capability means that whatever policies Americans adopt vis-a-vis Iraq now would be interpreted in Pakistan either as direct or as indirect indication of how American's might want to proceed vis-a-vis other nuclear states..including Pakistan and India. Now I'm not sure if I can clearly say how the policy has changed, but there has been that linkage which people are beginning to accept more and even become more sensitive to.

FAYLE: Official Pakistani concern over the possible reaction of its own people has been reflected by a tightening of security around US and other foreign interests in the capital, Islamabad. And former Pakistan military intelligence chief, retired general Hamid Gul says that concern is well justified.

GUL: America is not doing any good to itself. I think this action against Iraq has been too hasty...by half...One, that its timing is very inappropriate, and the second is that I don't really know what has overtaken the American administration. They are throwing the mine-field all over the world for the American citizens with their taxes. You know they use the taxpayer's money, and they are making life miserable for the American people...for the citizens and
the stage will come when the American citizens would say what the hell we can't travel anywhere, we can't go anywhere, because everywhere there are restricions on their travel, everywhere their life is threatened, their property is threatened, their businesses are threatened, so I really don't know what they're doing.