History creates hell

Hamoodur Rahman Commission report unsettles Pakistan, raises demands for probe into Kargil

Swapan Dasgupta  NA, September 4, 2000 | UPDATED 10:44 IST

The report of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission (HRC) set up by president Z.A. Bhutto in 1971 to inquire into the Pakistani debacle in East Pakistan had a ghostly presence in Pakistan since its submission in 1974. Suppressed from the public, its purported findings were a subject of intense conjecture.

That the HRC had been harsh on the military was easily surmised from Bhutto's grandiose announcement that every copy had been burnt. Yet, the speculation refused to die. Knowledgeable circles in Islamabad insisted that at least two copies had survived. One was found in the Bhutto house in Larkana in 1979 after his execution and subsequently kept under wraps in the Ministry of Interior. The other simply disappeared.

Therefore, when INDIA TODAY published the supplementary report ("Behind Pakistan's Surrender", August 21) on Pakistan's Independence Day, the instinctive, knee-jerk reaction in Pakistani official circles was: How was the report leaked? Theories ranged from speculative deduction to the bizarre.

The debate at one level is about the shame that Pakistan has been put to.

There were suggestions that it was leaked by the Americans, sold for a consideration, pilfered by an Indian journalist from under Bhutto's pillow and intelligently culled from published sources.

Never one to mince words, Kulsoom Nawaz, wife of the imprisoned former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, taunted the Government for allowing a "state secret" to fall into "enemy hands". "One day India will publish a report on Kargil as well, recommending court martial for Pervez Musharraf," she added sarcastically.

Predictably, the motives behind the publication were questioned. Wrote The Frontier Post (Peshawar): "This Indian magazine's scoop is part of the worldwide campaign that New Delhi has mounted over ... several months to malign Pakistan." Major-General Rahim Khan, one of the 11 senior officers against whom court martial was urged by the HRC, was even more forthright.

The report, he said, was leaked "with the clear aim of embarrassing the present military Government and to malign the army as an institution." Endorsing this view, Indian Rajya Sabha member Kuldip Nayar pointed a finger at "some liberal elements in the establishment (who) wanted the people to know that all statements by Musharraf on corruption and accountability were not credible because only the civilians were targeted and no one from the military".

Hard-Hit: The clamour for the army to also come clean on Kargil is unnerving General Pervez Musharraf (right) and President Rafiq Tarar

On its part, despite an initial gaffe by Information Minister Javed Jabbar, the Pakistan Government maintained a strange reticence. On August 18, an official spokesman denied that Jabbar had called for the release of the report: "Aspects of whether the report was partially or wholly duplicated or whether it was unautho-risedly handled at any point during the past 26 years are being investigated." He said the Government would make a statement "at an appropriate stage". For the moment, the Government insisted, the HRC remained a "classified" document.

Not that anyone is waiting for an official declassification. With Major-General Rao Farman Ali, an officer exonerated by the HRC, and military historian Brian Cloughley certifying the authenticity of the published version, the debate in Pakistan has moved on to the contents and implication of the HRC report.

INDIA TODAY GROUP ONLINE, which has posted the entire report on its website, reported a 1,000 per cent increase in average traffic with the report itself recording nearly five lakh page views in a week. In Pakistan, The Dawn has reproduced the report on its website.

"The rank and file feels the leadership is dishonest." Nur Khan, Ex-air force chief "One day India will publish a report on Kargil." Kulsoom Nawaz, Wife of Nawaz Sharif "The east was lost because of blunders in the west." A.A.K. Niazi, Indicted general "There's no reason to believe the published report is fake." Rao Farman Ali,Exonerated general "Instead of excuses, the Government must publish all reports." Mirza Aslam Beg, Ex-army chief "Liberals in Pakistan leaked the report to sho up Musharraf." Kuldip Nayar, Rajya Sabha member

Being the nearest thing to an official version of the 1971 debacle, the HRC report, wrote The Nation, has proved "an unsettling experience" for Pakistan. "Going through these excerpts, and that too on the day marking the 53rd anniversary of independence, was a traumatic journey through the alley of shame one would not wish for one's enemy," wrote Lahore-based civil-rights activist I.A. Rehman.

The report's findings, declared Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Chairman Afrasiab Khattak, "contains material sufficient to bring unmitigated shame and anguish to the people". The full report, he demanded, echoing even those who have questioned the motives behind publication, must now be made public.

At one level, the discussion on the report has centred on the actual happenings in 1971. Lt-General A.A.K. Niazi, identified as one of the villains of the piece by the HRC, has offered himself up for court martial, declaring that the debacle in the east arose from the failure of the army to hold its ground in the west.

Major-General Rahim Khan, indicted for his "cowardice", said the HRC document was "engineered by Bhutto". Arguing in the same vein, another indicted veteran, Major-General Ghulam Omer, said the HRC report was prepared by a bunch of "non-technical people". 

These protestations of innocence haven't gone down too well. The larger question being asked in Pakistan about the report is: What has the army learnt from 1971? The answers haven't been too flattering for Musharraf's military regime.

In a hard-hitting indictment of his colleagues, Air Marshal Nur Khan, former air force chief, said, "There were disasters after disasters and the army always pretended nothing had happened. They were protecting lies. They claim to be fighting for Islam but the rank and file believes the leadership has been dishonest. This is simply criminal."

Referring to the HRC's observation that the army suffered a "moral collapse", he said, "You cannot live with a lie for ever. You have to clean the pus in its body and only then will the army become a moral force. Otherwise you will remain a mercenary army."

In more concrete terms, Nur Khan called for a high-powered commission comprising army officers and civilians with impeccable credentials to probe Pakistan's "national disasters". These included the 1965 war fiasco, the 1971 surrender, the Ojhri camp disaster and the Kargil misadventure. This suggestion was endorsed by former army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg.

Others added their own list of army misdemeanours. In an editorial, The Nation noted, "There have been no inquiries of this kind into military actions such as the law and order operations in Baluchistan and Sind, and operations in Siachen and, lately, Kargil." It's the persistent demand in the media that a commission must be appointed to investigate Kargil that seems to be unnerving Musharraf.

With reports indicating that nearly 500 Pakistani soldiers and countless civilian porters from Gilgit and Baltistan died in Kargil and were buried in unmarked graves, there is a clamour for the army to come clean on its role. The term "rogue army" is being bandied about. In resurrecting a grisly past, the HRC has ended up haunting the present. It has unwittingly forced Pakistan to come to terms with itself.

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