ISLAMABAD, March 22: As speeches were in progress in the National Assembly on Iraq issue on Wednesday evening, a London- based Pakistani journalist, who came to the House to listen to the foreign policy debate, was informed on phone by his family that American and British forces had progressed to the demilitarized zone past the Kuwaiti border and there were reports of willful surrender of 17 Iraqi troops.
Given the circumstances, there was hardly a point to continue the debate at this point and, as happened, a majority of the members slipped away and the speaker prorogued the assembly for lack of quorum.
Even the agreed text of a resolution could not be presented though both sides of the House were quite vocal at one time to declare that Pakistan would not support the war against Iraq. In fact the debate petered out, notwithstanding the long- drawn-out and sentimental assertions, which lacked any informed position of the both sides of the House.
No substantive contribution was made from any government member barring the foreign minister, who had the benefit of a prepared text to which he added quite a few ad-libs including the retort: ‘Yes everyone was for peace in this (National Assembly) Hall.
The opposition, which had requisitioned the assembly on this vital question, should have brought the debate to its logical conclusion based on the anti-war sentiments of the people. Those who spoke, could not make concrete suggestions on how the nation should manage the considerable economic fallout of the war. Speeches were confined to rub the government for what they called an ambiguous foreign policy.
In fact, on Tuesday the government chief whip Abdus Sattar Lalika was finding it rather difficult to persuade the members from the treasury benches to chip in with their contribution. He was unable to find one in spite of the fact that the treasury benches had been given a briefing on the subject by the foreign ministry two weeks ago when the idea first came up for discussing the current war on Iraq.
The surprising fact was that Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali did not make an official statement on Tuesday and preferred to make one before journalists, dissociating himself from a view, which the opposition had aired on a number of occasions that official prouncements were best made on the floor of the assembly than outside.
Even the foreign minister didn’t make an opening statement on the Iraq situation, and he did that the following day when it was becoming evident that the opposition speeches were focused more on domestic issues, particularly on the Legal Framework Order.
So it was an inconclusive debate. The two-day debate ended the way most foreign policy debates end in the National Assembly.
Three foreign policy debates in the National Assembly have raised important subjects. The first debate on Iraq situation was held on Tuesday, 4th February 1991, which was marred by disruption and uproar. The then foreign minster Sahibazada Yaqub Khan had presented the motion, and Liaquat Baloch was the first member to agitate that the debate was taking place on a private members day and the government must compensate it with another private members day. However, the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif was available to make an opening statement that called the US attack as an ominous sign and a darkening period for Muslim countries.
A foreign policy debate took place in the National Assembly in 1998, after Pakistan exploded five nuclear devices. The then state minister for foreign affairs the late Siddique Kanju, had introduced the motion and presented a neat speech on the necessity of achieving nuclear deterrence. As usual, there were surfeits of points of order, which have become a permanent feature of House proceedings since 1985.—-Jonaid Iqbal