Ms Benazir’s American Odyssey
There is no doubt that Ms Benazir’s US visit from which she returns today after completing a 10-day journey, has been a media triumph for her personally. The Prime Minister happens to be one of the more charismatic leaders of the world, having more name recognition and goodwill than any other leader of Pakistan, past and present. This has been extremely well exploited to the advantage of her person and in extension this country. If she stands as the Asia candidate for the UN Secretary General’s job, God help those who stand against her candidacy. All this has resulted in a not-so subtle pressure on her US hosts to recognize that Pakistan has a case for favoured treatment in contrast to the doghouse-status we have been consigned to. Even making others recognize a reality is some achievement.
Nothing is more becoming to Ms Benazir Bhutto than aggression and defiance, that has always been her finest moment. She has used it within the parameters of diplomatic nuances to good benefit for the country with both the US Establishment and Congress. She had the President of the US very visibly on the defensive in accepting that a fair standard was not maintained in the business of our paid-for arms and equipment (in the pipeline) that had been virtually confiscated. In a manner of speaking, she ticked off her hosts in the Thatcher-style, calling a spade a spade, maintaining viz. (1) new equipment or our money back (2) trade not aid and (3) no deal on nuclear non-proliferation unless tied with commensurate treatment to India. For good measure she brought Kashmir into international focus making India truly squirm with discomfort. Since Americans like nothing better than an underdog and are hyper-sensitive about fair-play, things went down well in Peoria, Illinois. With a better understanding of our vital necessities and reminded about our cold war role culminating in the turning of Afghanistan into Soviet Union’s Vietnam, it is to be expected that US will search some way to assuage our feelings of hurt and abandonment, one hopes by some material help rather than symbolic rhetoric only.
NDI Report, a Clean Bill of Health
Addressing a Press Conference in the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi yesterday, the leader of the NDI delegation, which had come to Pakistan to observe the election process in Pakistan, gave it a general clean bill of health, to the visible disappointment of a large number of foreign correspondents gathered there. Reading a prepared statement, the former Foreign Minister of Turkey, backed up by his full delegation standing behind him, listed certain areas of concern but emphatically denied the allegations of rigging as alleged by the PDA. The NDI team did comment in muted tones about the powers of incumbency, particularly the bias of Pakistan TV, but when asked to compare this in consistency with other third world and Muslim countries, had only the pious hope to offer that democratic practices would improve there also.
What started as a pro-Bhutto exercise, at least in the minds of the people of Pakistan, has ended in a pro-Pakistan scenario. In the face of repeated charges by Ms Benazir about rigging by the Caretaker Government using shenanigans of different nature, the whole world was looking with great interest to the report of the NDI delegation. That they have given a favourable, though qualified, report reinforces the democratic process in Pakistan and allows it to proceed without being bogged down by wild and frivolous allegations bringing our whole electoral process into disrepute. The most pathetic incident happened off the record when a foreign journalist asked Ken Wollack, one of the leading members of the NDI team, whether “this report would go down well with Ms Bhutto’s Democrat friends in US Congress” particularly because the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs was founded by (and mainly made up of) members of the Democratic Party. Mr Wollack replied that while Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, a leading US liberal Democrat, may be the Chairman, the delegation was made up of both Democrats and Republicans and that they were there as neutral observers and their observations were meant to be truthful and not meant to please anybody in particular, Republicans or Democrats. The suggestion here is that Ms Benazir’s friends in the US Congress, who have been very concerned at the reports of ballot rigging as reported by Ms Benazir herself, may find the variance with the NDI report disturbing.