ISLAMABAD, Jan 26: The Pakistan People's Party has rejected the views expressed by President Gen Pervez Musharraf on nuclear proliferation , operation against Al Qaeda in tribal areas and on the political exiles.
The PPP spokesman, Senator Farhatullah Babar, commenting on an interview of Gen Musharraf to the Washington Post demanded of the regime to release the International Atomic Energy Agency's letter that triggered the investigations into alleged nuclear proliferation to Libya, Iran and North Korea.
"These transfers were violative of government policy laid down under the Benazir Nuclear Doctrine of 1989," he said.The spokesman, however, rejected the claims by Gen Musharraf that leakages took place because 'autonomy' was given to individuals running the 'covert' programme.
Senator Babar claimed that the nuclear programme was not covert. "When India detonated its nuclear device in 1974, the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto overtly declared that Pakistan would eat grass and obtain a nuclear device too."
Stringent controls were in place from day one and a committee under the then prime minister oversaw the programme. The PPP wondered who Musharraf was trying to cover up by saying that the programme was without controls.
The senator said there were three issues: first, as admitted by Gen Musharraf, the government policy banning export of nuclear technology; second, foreign office has admitted to carrying out investigation into allegations of nuclear export by 'greedy scientists'; third, whether it was an individual scientist or an individual member of the military who has been involved in the export of nuclear technology.
"If some individual military officers took the law into their own hands to play games with the nuclear assets, they must be exposed and held accountable by Musharraf rather than put the blame on the scientists," the PPP spokesman said.
"If the scientists are wrongly blamed, those stealing nuclear secrets potentially threatening Pakistan and the rest of the world community will walk free. If they do, what is there to stop them from doing it again?" the senator questioned.
He said the nuclear programme was in danger. "The only way to save it is to make those officials accountable who violated government policy". The PPP rejected the allegations that the scientists exported nuclear technology on their own.
"If Musharraf can work out indemnity for himself from the world community, then the least he can do when working out a way to save himself, is to save the scientists too.
On the issue of the PPP chairperson's exile the spokesman rejected Gen Musharraf's statement that the former premier "is outside by her own choice". "After the sacking of two chief justices and half of the Supreme Court as well as the establishment of a parallel judiciary and parallel military investigation bureau, there was little justice for political opponents of the regime.
WANA OPERATION: The PPP spokesman also contested Musharraf claims that Pakistani authority was entering Waziristan for the first time since the British left. Civilian authority in the tribal areas was established under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the seventies. Under the PPP government between 1993 and 1996, remote Tirah in the tribal areas was opened up.
Gen Musharraf's actions were promoting militancy in the country by on the one hand cosying up to the religious parties and on the other sidelining the mainstream parties by exiling and imprisoning their leaders and using "fascist methods" to force defections from their ranks.
The party raising questions on the suicide bombing incidents demanded an impartial parliamentary or judicial inquiry into the alleged assassination attempts on Gen Musharraf.