Hard
talk and Abdul Sattar
Kamran
Shafi
The
author is a retired army officer and a freelance columnist
June 23, 2001
Two very different
media performances last week. Whilst I myself did not see the first, being deep
in the interior of Mianwali district on a day trip that ended late at night, I
did have the misfortune of seeing the second one. From all accounts, a confident
Chief Executive, the only one from amongst a long line of Pakistani leaders
ranging from military dictators to popularly elected Prime Ministers to have had
the gumption to face a live audience, sat there and answered most of the
questions, some unfriendly, with assurance. Slipping only I am told, when it
came to General Asad Durrani's and Kidwai's appointments as ambassadors in light
of their confessed mishandling of Mehran Bank funds for political shenanigans.
Barring which, and the fact that some felt that harder questions could have been
asked of him, the verdict of all of those who saw the CE on television is:
"quick on his feet; seemed sincere in wanting to do good by the country;
talked straight; was well prepared". The second performance was by the
Mandarin-in-Chief of our FO, foreign minister Abdul Sattar, on BBC's Hard talk.
Golly he was bad.
He was the second minister of a government of The Land of the Pure who allowed
himself to be dragged across the floor-boards of the BBC's Television studios
(the first, as we all remember, was Mushahid "Mandela" Hussain) by Tim
Sebastian, and who shamed us exactly like his forebear did some years ago. Let
me add quickly that if anyone is going to leap to Sattar's help, as one or two
did to Mushahid's, and say that the BBC is a Zionist/Hindu tool intent on
embarrassing Pakistan, he or she should see a news item in our press of June
16th (the very day that Sattar's interview was aired) in which the Israeli
government condemned the BBC for being "consistently anti-Israel with bias
towards the Palestinians" for saying that Ariel Sharon should face trial
for war crimes committed in the Shatila and Sabra refugee camps in Beirut in
1982. Simply speaking, Sattar was completely at sea and, pun intended, utterly
out of his depth: he was unsure of himself; he was nervous; most damagingly for
himself he was ill prepared and ill informed for a bout with the BBC's most
tenacious, most unforgiving interviewer. He fidgeted, he grimaced, he sighed, he
let his temper get the better of himself, he even rolled his eyes heavenward
(looking for divine intervention probably). And gave the hugely experienced
Sebastian the clear signal that he was ripe for the taking, which Sebastian did,
in so many words and quite mercilessly. If Sattar has any feelings at all, he
will be ruing the day he agreed to be slaughtered.
While it is true
that our senior mandarins are simply not experienced enough in the thrust and
parry of a no-holds-barred interview, for they hide under their desks most of
the time depending instead on handouts and press releases and intentional leaks
to favoured journalists through their shadowy "spokesmen", Sattar
could have handled the interview far better if he had given some little thought
to the possible questions he would be asked. Half an hour with the High
Commission's media person and he should have known exactly what were the
"hot" Pakistani topics exercising the minds of the British media. Even
if he did not have the time to spare, what with having his hands full with being
put over the knee by the Commonwealth Secretary General, about whom a little
later, there is no great mystery as to what the possible questions would be.
But, the point is
that even if he knew the questions in advance, would a hide-bound bureaucrat
have the flexibility of thought to veer away from the brief handed to him by
some babu of the FO? I think not. For example, why did Sattar go on denying that
Pakistan had a military government at the present time, because most of its
ministers were "technocrats"? Why could he not have said, "We
have a military man leading our government, sure, but ours is a government with
a far better human rights record than many civilian, democratic
governments"? Why could he not have said that whilst a so-called
"democratic leader" (the worthless Nawaz Sharif) had set up military
courts in Karachi, the present government relied only on civilian courts? That
the worthless man wanted to thrust both Kingship, please mark, Tim, down our
throats through the Shariat Bill, so what are you going on about?
Instead of
indulging in embarrassing hemming and hawing at Tim Sebastian's question as to
whether we were taking any new proposals to New Delhi, why couldn't Sattar
simply say that it would be inappropriate for him to talk about any proposals
before the CE put them on the table? Why did he not say in reply to Sebastian's
charge that we were sending in military supplies and fighters into Kashmir, that
Pakistan was not doing anything of the kind, but that it was entirely possible
that individuals with relatives across the cease-fire line were helping their
cousins in their fight against Indian occupation; which if India with its huge
army could not seal off, how could we? Which is exactly why, many years ago, we
had asked for an increase in the number of UN observers from 20-some to 200. Why
did he not say that India (and its friends in the West who now castigate us for
cross-border terrorism) did not support our suggestion, which is lying in the
cold storage that the Security Council has become?
To Tim Sebastian's
sarcastic declaration that Pakistan did not have many friends did it (?), Sattar
could have made light of the question, and breaking out in a beaming smile (a la
his many smiles on the occasion of the visit of the US Congressman) say that he
was sitting in the studios of the great BBC wasn't he?! And then in a serious
tone added that whilst we in Pakistan understood the concern of the world
vis-a-vis a military government, we were trying to engage with it in order to
explain the difficulty of our position: instability due to the left-over effects
of a major regional war, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in which we were
the 'front-line' state (and which India did not even condemn verbally, please
recall Tim); the presence of large numbers of former Mujahideen now known as
Islamic terrorists; and a proliferation of weapons in our society because of
that same war. He could have said that we were trying to rid ourselves of this
debris (all by ourselves, having been left in the lurch by our
"friends"), witness the on-going arms collection drive, Tim. More than
anything he could have alluded to the CE's address at the Seerat Conference in
Islamabad in which he severely scolded the clerics for politicising religion and
introducing violence into our society.
But the piece de
resistance of our great foreign minister's foray into public-relationing was
when he was asked if General Musharraf was becoming President of Pakistan. Abdul
Sattar quite foolishly went blue in the face saying he wasn't. To which
Sebastian immediately quoted Shaukat Aziz telling the IFIs privately (and often)
that the General wasn't going anywhere in a hurry (showing once again that the
government's left hand doesn't know what the right is doing), flooring Sattar
most completely. Why indeed, didn't Pakistan's chief spokesman (may the Lord
help us) say that whilst he was not aware of the General's plans (like most
mandarins he obviously doesn't read the Pakistani newspapers which have been
screaming since the last four months that the General was well on his way to
ascending our Hill, and soon) as he hadn't made them public yet, if there was a
constitutional way for him to become President what was so wrong in that? Well,
Musharraf became President of Pakistan exactly six days after Sattar's
appearance on Hard talk, and while he was winding up his trip to the United
States, applying several layers of egg to the ministerial face and putting the
Americans' nose out of joint too. "Secretary of State Powell has been
'blind-sided'", ie, made a fool of, they said. Does one have to state that
no one likes to be made a fool of? Specially those who give us our daily bread?
He cut a pitiable
figure, did Abdul Sattar. It is little wonder Pakistan's foreign relations are
in the state they are in when this is the man representing the military
government in the capitals of the world. Sattar should realise that the day of
His Excellency this and Your Excellency that, is long over. This is the day of
the first name, of an easy familiarity. With the IT revolution blowing its fresh
breezes all across the world, this is the day of nimbleness of foot, of agility
of mind. This is the day of the sound bite. It is high time that he went back to
advising the brilliant Imran (The Great) Khan.
And now for the
Commonwealth, which is a not too exclusive dining club at best, talking down to
a country of 145 million good people. What is the FO's one-sided romance with
the Commonwealth all about, pray? What was the point in Abdul Sattar's groveling
at Don McKinnon's court in London, which "meeting" was brushed aside
so rudely by Commonwealth officials? Why do we allow this paid bureaucrat from
New Zealand who tries so hard to be as odious as that other bureaucrat from Down
Under, the odious Whatsisname Butler, him of Iraq infamy, to walk all over us
whenever he feels the urge? Why can't we for once, stand up, look McKinnon in
the eye, and tell him we Pakistanis know what is best for our country, mate,
thank you very much?
PS. As a mark of
our FO's "close liaison" with the world media, CNN, while giving the
news of Abdul Sattar "subterfuge" referred to him as Jaswant Sattar.