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PPP Denies Nuclear Swap Took Place under its Watch

Pakistan Peoples Party

January 6, 2004: A spokesperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party denied that the PPP government sanctioned sales of nuclear technology to Libya or any other country. The spokesperson was reacting to a news statement by President Gaddafi's son, Mr. Saif, that "we bought nukes from Pakistan", as published in the Pakistani press yesterday.

The PPP spokesperson said that the PPP government evolved the Benazir Nuclear Doctrine in April 1989. This was done to protect Pakistan's nuclear assets and to give confidence to the world community which was deeply concerned about the nuclear program.

Under this doctrine, Islamabad undertook not to put together the components of a nuclear device unless its security was threatened and also not to export nuclear technology to any third country. This doctrine followed discussions between Islamabad and Washington in 1988 and 1989. It was announced during the Benazir Bhutto state visit to Washington at the invitation of the first President Bush in April 1989.

Later Washington had certain issues in this regard which it wished to discuss with Prime Minister Bhutto in the summer of 1990. This discussion with the special envoy of the Bush administration could not take place because the Foreign Office was unable to coordinate the meeting. At the time, the Prime Minister was travelling to different countries mustering support for the Kashmir dispute for a scheduled Foreign Ministers meeting of the Organisation of Islamic countries. (This was the first time that the OIC unanimously passed a resolution on Kashmir in support of Pakistan)

The Prime Minister wanted to meet the envoy and the envoy wanted to meet the Prime Minister but the Foreign Office was unable to schedule it.

Some believe that it was an honest mistake by the Foreign Office whereas others believe it was a deliberate effort to distance Washington from the then PPP government as President Ishaq planned to sack the government within weeks of the American envoy's visit.

Once the PPP government was sacked on August 6, 1990, Washington cancelled the four and a half billion dollar assistance package as well as the sale of sixty F-16s which the Benazir government had negotiated.

Throughout the two Benazir tenures, with a view to protect the nuclear assets, a strict No Export of Nuclear Technology was implemented. Moreover, during that period there was no swap of nuclear technology for missiles.

The Pakistan Peoples Party believes that nuclear assets are now in greater danger than ever before in the history of Pakistan. It calls for a bipartisan parliamentary inquiry to find out by whom and when the decision was taken to sell plans of a nuclear bomb for "millions of pounds" as alleged by the Sunday Times quoting Saif Gaddaffi.

It may be recalled that in an interview to the British newspaper in Tripoli, Saif al-Islam Gadaffi, 32, said Libya spent $40 million on nuclear components, including centrifuges, from a variety of black market dealers, including Pakistani scientists.

According to the foreign media reports, Pakistan was recently linked with Iran's nuclear programme. Last week the Musharaf regime admitted that rogue scientists might have peddled nuclear technology for individual gain. Several have been questioned, including Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, credited as the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. The PPP has asked for a full bipartisan Parliamentary Inquiry to prevent the scientests becoming scapegoats. However, the Musharaf regime is yet to respond to this demand for a parliamentary inquiry.

According to the Sunday Times report, joint British-American inspection teams that visited Libya's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons sites were "taken aback when they found that nuclear scientists working for Gadaffi had what one western official described as a 'full bomb dossier' from the Pakistanis".

Sunday Times quotes Western officials who said that the Pakistani scientists had received payments from Libya ­ which they said could have been as much as $100m ­ over several years, starting in the late 1990s.

The period of late nineties is significant as the PPP government which formulated the No Export of Nuclear Technology government had been overthrown by that time. It was unclear whether late ninties referred to Mr. Nawaz Sharif's tenure or that of Mr. Musharaf. Mr. Musharaf seized power in October 1999.

In 1993, when Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto formed the second PPP government, she consulted the armed forces officials with regard to what had happened in the summer of 1990 to raise concerns in Washington. The PPP government wanted to ensure that there would be no slippages which could pose a threat to the nuclear policy or the nuclear assets. Following this concern, the armed forces came up with a plan to protect the command and control system and prevent any individualistic action. An officer of the armed forces was made in charge of the command and control system and reported to the army chief who in turn reported to the Prime Minister.

All these measures were taken to protect the nuclear assets which were seen as a key deterrence to any possible conflict with India given the history of three wars and lack of parity in conventional warfare.

The PPP diagreed with Mr. Kenneth Adelman, a member of the Pentagon's defence policy board who said, "It's clear that Pakistan has been promiscuous over nuclear issues. It was true under General Zia, under Benazir Bhutto and under President Musharraf". The PPP said that its policies were to protect the nuclear program through confidence building steps and it was wrong of Mr. Adelman to include the PPP government's with those of General Zia and General Musharaf during whose tenures the difficulties had arisen.

The PPP said that according to The Sunday Times, Pakistan is unlikely, to come under much pressure from the West because of its role in the war against terrorism and by its desire not to do anything to destabilise President Musharraf. The PPP said that the same was the case with Washington when it was dealing with General Zia. It asked Washington to reassess its own policies of supporting Pakistani dictators who were unable to deal with complex issues because of their lack of proper education that could equip them to understand international currents more than in a superficial way. The PPP said that people of Pakistan paid for the dictatorships heavily.