Bhutto offered the United States naval bases along the Balochistan coast

[sonicboom]

Bhutto offered the United States naval bases along the Balochistan coast:

Hussain Haqqani
Tair-e-Lahoti on June 20, 2010

Husain Haqqani Pakistan’s Ambassador to United States or normally in diplomatic, defence & domestic circles also known as U.S. ambassador to Pakistan. In his book Pakistan: Between Mosque & Military published simultaneously in Pakistan and in USA by Vanguard Books and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, respectively which also has Cataloguing in Publication data at the Library of Congress.

In the book‘s Chapter 3 Old & New Pakistan, page 97 he writes:
Within two days of becoming Pakistan’s President and, ostensibly, its absolute ruler, Bhutto visited the U.S. ambassador at his residence, primarily to seek U.S. economic and military assistance. In February 1972, barely two months after Pakistan’s massive military defeat, Pakistan offered the United States naval bases along the Balochistan coast in return for rearming the Pakistani forces. The proposal was communicated not only at the diplomatic level. The foreign liaison office of ISI sought a meeting, sanctioned by superior officers, with an office in the U.S. military mission to ask whether the United States would be interested in establishing bases in Pakistan. This time Pakistan’s offer of bases showed it was willing to go farther than before.

The United States decided, at least for the time being, not to encourage Pakistan in building itself as a military equal of India with U.S. support. The offer for bases was politely declined.

He cities the above claim with three sources:

1. ‘Conversation with Pres. Bhutto Wednesday Evening Dec 22’ telegram 891 from the U.S. embassy, Islamabad to U.S. Department of State , December 23, 1971 in R. Khan, ed, American Papers, p766

2. ‘GOP (government of Pakistan) Soundings on US Bases, Defense Pact and Arms for Pakistan’ telegram from U.S. embassy, Islamabad to U.S. Department of State, ibid, pp 795-96

3. ‘GOP Willingness to Grant U.S. Base Right’ telegram 505 from U.S. embassy, Islamabad to U.S. Department of State, ibid 797

Husain Haqqani who was a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment and associate professor of International Relations at Boston University and for a period of one year from 1992 to 1993 some how Pakistan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka as described by the book.

The Pandora Box of allegations he has put forward against one of Pakistan’s most popular leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who was President & later Prime Minister, father of Benzair Bhutto two time Prime Minister herself and father in law of current President Asif Ali Zardari is of historic propositions. Pakistan people’s party has till date maintained the reasons behind Bhutto’s removal & later judicial assassination were his pro China, pro Nuclear & anti Army establishment stances.

Ambassador Haqqani who is also the first uncle of my dear college mate bearing the same last name as his, will have to clarify his stance on Bhutto Government’s such offerings. Let us not forget Bhutto who was also a former foreign minister is portrayed as a world renowned visionary in foreign policy but such claims made by Ambassador Haqqani have confused me atleast, were they all distortions & lies? Also to imagine United States declining an offer for bases from a government that had just lost half of its country and was the most weakest in any point of history, that also in the most Geo-Strategic location in the world is beyond any conspiracy theorists imagination.

The writer is a senior foreign policy consultant at the Bridge Head institute and author of the upcoming book ‘Travelling on a Pakistani Passport.’ He can be reached at mr@mypakistanipassport.com

Bhutto offered the United States naval bases along the Balochistan coast: Hussain Haqqani | Pakistan Ka Khuda Hafiz

[Interceptor]

OMG this is concrete evidence of Bhutto's dirty involvement... tsk tsk
It never happened so how can this witty article prove its glorious find? Tell you what has concrete prove is that Bhutto was killed by the US agenda to create hegemony in the region and placed a close ally Zia into power. Bhutto was anti-US during 70s he made his nation protest against vietnam and rather strengthened his friendship with China for which the nation is grateful.

[Araz]

Elevate people to demigod status only to find that they were not so great after all. I remember a story when Imam Ahmad IBn Hambal had a crowd of people idolizing him. He shewed them away saying "If you knew my faults you would stone me to death!!" And here we have poor ignarant masses chanting "Bhutto Sain Jeeyey". Listen People Bhutto was corrupt to the core. He was largely responsible for the division of East Pakistan and a lot of the ills that face us today. However i wish he had not died unjustly at the whims of a General.
Araz

[Interceptor]

Originally Posted by Araz

Elevate people to demigod status only to find that they were not so great after all. I remember a story when Imam Ahmad IBn Hambal had a crowd of people idolizing him. He shewed them away saying "If you knew my faults you would stone me to death!!" And here we have poor ignarant masses chanting "Bhutto Sain Jeeyey". Listen People Bhutto was corrupt to the core. He was largely responsible for the division of East Pakistan and a lot of the ills that face us today. However i wish he had not died unjustly at the whims of a General.
Araz

Ill argue sir that you need to read Hamoodur Rahman Commission which is accepted by both Pakistan and Bangladesh and learn the horror that it was indeed the military governments to blame. How can you blame Bhutto for something he never participated in he wasnt even in government during dreadful event. I doubt he shrine himself as a demigod I never read or heard him ever say Allah, Mohammad, Pakistan Muslim League, in one breath that I believe came from saint Zia-ul-Haq who claimed he came on earth to restore islam to Pakistan!

[Condor]

Originally Posted by Interceptor

Ill argue sir that you need to read Hamoodur Rahman Commission which is accepted by both Pakistan and Bangladesh and learn the horror that it was indeed the military governments to blame. How can you blame Bhutto for something he never participated in he wasnt even in government during dreadful event. I doubt he shrine himself as a demigod I never read or heard him ever say Allah, Mohammad, Pakistan Muslim League, in one breath that I believe came from saint Zia-ul-Haq who claimed he came on earth to restore islam to Pakistan!

True - that Bhutto was not even in the Govt then - but he had won the elections in the West wing then and held a large sway on the Yahya Khan, who was on his way out or that was how he saw it.

Bhutto cud never think of giving up the premiership for Mujib, who had an absolute overall majority, going so far as to say to the newly elected members of the National Assembly preparing to go to Dacca for the inaugural session that, they should buy one way ticket. Because if they came back Bhutto would break their legs.

All this political brinkmanship and brouhaha led Yahya Khan to cancel the inaugural meet of the National Assembly and the grounds for a showdown between the two wings was laid open.

Primarily the blame goes to Yahya Khan for swaying in to Bhutto's political showmanship. The Military is not prepared to handle a complex web of political issues.
Yahya should have gone by the book and handed over the power to Mujib.

[Interceptor]

Originally Posted by Condor

True - that Bhutto was not even in the Govt then - but he had won the elections in the West wing then and held a large sway on the Yahya Khan, who was on his way out or that was how he saw it.

Bhutto cud never think of giving up the premiership for Mujib, who had an absolute overall majority, going so far as to say to the newly elected members of the National Assembly preparing to go to Dacca for the inaugural session that, they should buy one way ticket. Because if they came back Bhutto would break their legs.

All this political brinkmanship and brouhaha led Yahya Khan to cancel the inaugural meet of the National Assembly and the grounds for a showdown between the two wings was laid open.

Primarily the blame goes to Yahya Khan for swaying in to Bhutto's political showmanship. The Military is not prepared to handle a complex web of political issues.
Yahya should have gone by the book and handed over the power to Mujib.

Your wrong mate...

If Mujib implemented his 6 point agenda which was widely supported in East Pakistan; where the largest portion of the seats lay since it had the largest proportion of the population. The six points would have severed Pakistan into 5 parts with every province being allowed to have its own currency, military and self-autonomy with no centre controlling, which were the basic rights of becoming a separate state. Mujib lost his entire family except for his daughter Hasina and him by our army junta led by our lunatic generals. They allowed our junta to massacre his entire family. The political role that Mujib played was not of that where you expect two parties fight it out for the vote bank and then take control of the centre. Mujib was seen as liberator of East Pakistan or what is now rightly referred as Bangladesh. He wanted independence from Pakistan his six Points were his demands for separation. Now Zulfikar Ali Bhutto argued otherwise to Mujib he asked him to remove his six points for a different resolute and it was during that time when the martial law administration after elections had over thrown the popular outcomes and said they were flawed! Thereafter late December Pakistan was severed.

East Pakistanis tried much to stop to what happened on 1971 they asked Fatima Jinnah to come back into politics and stop the state from becoming an authoritarian. She (Fatima Jinnah) was banned from using the party name Pakistan Muslim League. This was the name her brother (Quiad-e-Azam) together made. After the creation of Pakistan he dissolved his political party and banned its name from re-use. These are the sons our country men like Ayub who not only disobeyed that they banned it from being used by one of the founders Fatima Jinnah. Ayub concluded his victory through a phony voting system known as ”basic democracy” where he bought a handful of people throughout the country to represent the general populace living there, to ask the basic democrat to vote for the one they wanted in power. Miss Fatima tried her best to convince these lowlifes to vote for her and some did even after the bribes that Ayub gave he knew he never would have won if it were a general election. Soon after he came into power Fatima Jinnah protested through out the country against Ayub’s dictatorship but one evening miss Fatima Jinnah was found dead in here bedroom. From this day we could not agree whether it was natural causes or murder! Still this country asks what happened to the dossiers about the murder of the first appointed prime minister of Pakistan Liaqat Ali Khan. You sir need to realize that dictatorships have been curse to our nation they have spilled blood of this nation for their hunger of power and clenched onto it till they were dead or forced to retreat. The awful truth of Yahya khan a drunkard fool who was so in love with power after late 1971 December he told Bhutto that he would not be allowed to govern west Pakistan unless he made (Yahya Khan) President of Pakistan and he (Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) be its Prime Minister. But the end of Yahya was disgraceful he was put on house arrest and was never released he died in his house arrest in the later years. This is how low and shameless they were that where Pakistan is now severed they had no remorse or guilt but continued to beg for more power. These are my remarks and you may disagree with them or hate them but I believe you should look them up and see for yourself.

[Selma Shirazi]

Thank you for your post Interceptor, I wasn't aware of any conspiracy against Miss Fatima Jinnah, this is all new to me.

I agree that dictators haven't done us good but same can be said about the Bhutto's; I consider them a curse on Pakistan! We should have tried to work with Mujib, make Pakistan a Federation with autonomous power and with a duo Capital system controlled by Islamabad as being the major economic power between the two.

Z.A. Bhutto was a selfish man; he ruled Pakistan as if she was his personal empire and broke her into two for personal greed! If the claim about military bases is correct, then it proves my point that he would side with USA months after she betrayed us! I think we are lucky that the plan didn't go through or else Pakistan would not have become a nuclear power with US' presence at our soil.

[Selma Shirazi]

Originally Posted by Araz

Elevate people to demigod status only to find that they were not so great after all. I remember a story when Imam Ahmad IBn Hambal had a crowd of people idolizing him. He shewed them away saying "If you knew my faults you would stone me to death!!" And here we have poor ignarant masses chanting "Bhutto Sain Jeeyey". Listen People Bhutto was corrupt to the core. He was largely responsible for the division of East Pakistan and a lot of the ills that face us today. However i wish he had not died unjustly at the whims of a General.
Araz

I second your thoughts Sir.

[Araz]

Originally Posted by Interceptor

Ill argue sir that you need to read Hamoodur Rahman Commission which is accepted by both Pakistan and Bangladesh and learn the horror that it was indeed the military governments to blame. How can you blame Bhutto for something he never participated in he wasnt even in government during dreadful event. I doubt he shrine himself as a demigod I never read or heard him ever say Allah, Mohammad, Pakistan Muslim League, in one breath that I believe came from saint Zia-ul-Haq who claimed he came on earth to restore islam to Pakistan!

Interceptor
Sorry for the delay in response. Regarding theHamood ur rehman report you know that 12-15 pages of it which related to Bhutto's involvement were removed from it. it is on record that the report was doctored by Bhutto to remove damning evidence against him.
Secondly, I lived through those times. It was Bhutto who said that anyone who goes to East Pakistan to talk to Mujeeb will have his legs broken, and it was He who also said," you stay there we stay here". Tell me how is it justified that a party that has won elections by simple majority is denied the chance to form Government.
I have spoken to the BBC reporter who actually interviewed Mujeeb, prior to the debacle of East pakistan. I know him very well as a personal friend and a man of integrity. Regardring the Six points, Mujeebs reckoning was that any party who wants to negotiate tables an agenda. This agenda is not written in stone but is subject to changes and negotiation. Of course if you dont negotiate that is another point. So in short the six points were nothing but an agenda andit was twisted into a a great conspiracy thanks to some paid reporters supported by both Bhutto and the Army.
I personally think that all the hysteria was brewed up by a few vested interests.Mujeeb had a history of always being good in opposition, but never good as a Government former. He would not have lasted 2-3 yrs and had bhutto waited he wuld have had his government. However the fear that Bhutto had was that he would never have a base in East pakistan. As such it would always have been East pakistan which owuld have formed the government which was why all the palavva was erected to fool the masses.
The army feared that if mujeeb formed the Government , he would shift the army command toEast Pakistan. So what?? were they not pakistanis? Were they not our brothers? But it would have stepped on certain feet which was not liked by the army high ups. Therefore we had a lot of wrong and misinformation fed to us and the rift that already existed since the time Suharwardy was denied the government widened and India merely gave a helping hand to the movement.
I still feel humiliation at the tragedy and the treachery of Bhutto and a few of our high ups at the helm of affairs that they would not even stop at dividing a country to achieve their aims. None of this was ever needed and it is a crime that has gone unpunished May Allah bring the culprits to justice(Ameeen).
Araz

[DarkStar]

Any statement of Hussain Haqqani is not worth the paper it is printed on. A sad excuse for a diplomat, derrier licker extrodinaire.

As for pakistan's plans for a port at the makran coast, powers like the USA, USSR, Iran, UAE and India have conspired for over 60 years not to let it happen. Thankfully, Pakistan persevered, and will reap the rewards of Gwadar sea port in the mid to long term. China's help in its construction must also be appreciated.