While the Supreme Court is getting ready to hear a petition by the wife of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan against his “illegal confinement”, the “father” of Pakistan’s bomb has greatly erred in speaking against the national interest. He has provided more information on how Pakistan has violated its international obligations to indulge in the smuggling of nuclear weapons technology. He clearly made the statement to implicate President Pervez Musharraf in the centrifuges deal that he, Dr Khan, made with North Korea in 2000. Uranium enrichment equipment under his command and control, he says, was loaded on a North Korean plane by his people, but under the supervision of the Pakistan army, and that could not have happened without the then army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, knowing about it.

Had Dr Khan asked his lawyer before talking to the TV channels, he would have been advised against speaking about his trafficking of nuclear parts. He stubbed his toe immediately and had to recant a part of what he said: “I never said or implied that the army supervised any shipment to North Korea”. The presidential spokesman called the statement a lie and the Foreign Office repeated that Dr Khan’s case was a “closed chapter” that shouldn’t be reopened. From the Defence Ministry, the PPP minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar has also issued a curt disapproval.

The “closed chapter” of Dr AQ Khan, based on his televised confession in 2004, is now open again, thanks to Dr Khan, in the midst of an explosive national political scene. With the decline of the power of President Musharraf, starting with the doffing of his uniform last year, the “house-arrest” of Dr Khan began to be the focus of the opposition. The All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) — excluding the PPP — wanted the “national hero” released from confinement. Some leaders incredibly called for his appointment as president to replace President Musharraf. As the leader of the PMLN, Mr Nawaz Sharif mixed his support to the lawyers’ movement with support to the “cause” of Dr Khan, the PPP stayed out of it.

There is a good reason why the PPP is not ready to own the “national hero”. Just before her arrival in Pakistan in 2007, Ms Benazir Bhutto had made a statement in Washington which constituted a break from the “national consensus” over Dr AQ Khan. She had said that a PPP government would give the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to Dr Khan. She had, however, made a distinction: the IAEA had the right to question Dr Khan in Pakistan, but not the US or any other country, in or out of Pakistan.

At that point Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the IAEA, was worrying about Al Qaeda getting hold of a nuclear device. Not only was Dr Khan busy allegedly selling his wares to all and sundry in the 1990s, other Pakistani nuclear scientists too were opening charity centres in Afghanistan under the Taliban government and discussing how to help Al Qaeda with the acquisition of low-strength fissile material for use in “dirty nuclear bombs”. The “closed chapter” statement implies that Pakistan had reached a deal over Dr Khan’s immunity from an IAEA investigation provided he was kept under wraps. But the Washington press, always snapping at the heels of Pakistan, had opposed the immunity in 2007 saying “Dr Khan has named two army chiefs as abettors in his illegal enterprise in his confession”.

This is the wrong time for Dr Khan to be making his disclosures. Although his international reputation for speaking the truth is not very good, domestically he could be the oracle that kicks the bottom from under national politics. The coalition of the PPP and the PMLN is strained as lawyers prepare for the second Long March, this time with dharna that could become violent. The “alliance” in Karachi between the PPP and the MQM is being held together with a weak glue. In the meeting arranged between the business community and President Musharraf on Friday, the MQM demonstrated aggressive support to the president and spoke out against Dr Khan.

The Supreme Court, while hearing a petition pertaining to the November 3 action of President Musharraf, has clarified its stance on the judges who did not take oath under the PCO by categorising them as “removed” judges. Chief Justice Mr Abdul Hamid Dogar has also taken suo motu notice of the PPP government’s decision to commute the death sentence of 7,000 convicts to life imprisonment. This is a very thorny stage that is being set for our politicians in the near future. Dr Khan’s “revisionist” statements are welcomed only by those who want an Armageddon to decide Pakistan’s political deadlocks and who don’t realise that they could provoke the endgame for democracy too.

This time when the lawyers hit Islamabad with a dharna, the supporters of Dr Khan will mingle with the supporters of Lal Masjid, who are already exhorted to new levels of passion by videotaped statements by Al Qaeda. This mix could be so explosive as to be terminal for the current political order. Perhaps that is what Dr Khan wants to happen so that his case is lost in the resulting maelstrom.


http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...6-7-2008_pg3_1