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| April 30, 2006 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 1, 1427 |
US wants Balochistan to encircle Iran: Baig
HYDERABAD, April 29: A former Chief of the Army Staff and head of the Awami Qayadat Party, Gen (rtd) Mirza Aslam Baig, has said that the US and India are looking for greater Balochistan to surround Iran and to isolate Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He said that the 1970-like situation was being witnessed in Balochistan.
He was speaking at the “Point of View” programme of the Hyderabad Press Club here on Saturday.
He said that India had established training camps in Jalalabad and Kandhar which were being run under its consulates and trained “terrorists” were responsible for acts of terrorism in Balochistan.
He said that due to mistakes of the successive rulers, the people of Balochistan were suffering from a sense of deprivation.
He said that the Baloch’s method of protest was quite different from other Pakistanis as they believe in taking up guns and going to mountains.
He said that the first attempt to crush them was made by Ayoub Khan, then by Mr Bhutto and now this mistake was being repeated by Gen Musharraf.
He said that the main cause of the Baloch insurgency was absence of democracy in the country.
He said that it was written large on the wall that the government will have to go and he sarcastically thanked President Bush for giving a clear indication about holding of elections and restoration of a democratic dispensation in the country.
He said that America had decided to remove the Musharraf government as it has perhaps outlived its utility.
He said that Gen Musharraf was standing on the threshold of history and the Pakistan army was the only force which could guarantee fair, free, impartial and transparent elections.
He called upon Gen Musharraf to hold free elections while remaining in uniform and then transfer the power to elected representatives.
He said that if Musharraf could do this, his name would be written in golden words in Pakistan’s history.
He said that new elected assemblies would have the power to elect Gen Musharraf as the president of Pakistan without uniform.
Gen Baig said that in 1990 America, India and Israel had hatched a conspiracy to attack nuclear facilities of Pakistan.
He said that when the intelligence report was passed on the government, the then prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, convened an emergency meeting which was attended by the then president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Dr Qadeer Khan, Dr Muneer, foreign minister Sahibzada Yaqoob and he himself as the army chief.
He said that Ms Bhutto took a very bold step of dispatching the foreign minister to India with a clear message that if India dared attack Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, its own nuclear facilities would be destroyed.
He said that in fact, Pakistan had completed its nuclear programme in the year 1986-87 and in 1989 Benazir Bhutto had propounded her “doctrine of nuclear restraint” which was in vogue even today.
He said that it was decided that enrichment should be restricted only to three per cent and the extra fuel should be used for our nuclear power plants.
He said that Benazir Bhutto after sending a clear message to New Delhi had also asked the army to prepare for all eventualities and a squadron of F-16s was also kept ready at the PAF base, Maripur, to attack India’s nuclear facilities if Pakistan was attacked.
Gen Baig said that our preparations were closely watched by the US spy satellite and US officials immediately rushed to Islamabad and the volatile situation was defused.
The former army chief regretted that while Benazir Bhutto being a woman had acted like a man, Gen Musharraf succumbed to pressure and passed the buck to Dr Qadeer Khan.
He said that he had no inkling as the army chief whether any nuclear information was passed on by Dr Qadeer Khan to some other country.
He said that had he been a privy to the information, he would not have been let off the hook by the US.
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