It was President Pervez Musharraf who
advised former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to listen to
the US proposal for withdrawing troops from Kargil, says
a former US general.
Gen. Anthony Zinni, who headed the US
Central Command from 1997 to 2000, was sent to Pakistan
as a special presidential envoy during the Kargil crisis.
In his book "Battle Ready", which was published
in the United States this week, Gen. Zinni dispels the
general impression that it was the civilian leadership
in Pakistan that sought Washington's help for arranging
a respectable withdrawal from Kargil.
Instead, the former general says, Pakistan's
civilian leadership was worried about a loss of face that
the withdrawal could have caused and to allay their fears
President Bill Clinton offered a plan that could have
arranged a respectable withdrawal.
But even at this stage, according to General
Zinni, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his civilian colleagues
appeared reluctant to endorse a withdrawal. That got Musharraf's
attention, and he encouraged Prime Minister Sharif to
hear me out," writes Gen. Zinni.
Sharif was reluctant to withdraw before
the meeting with Clinton was announced (again, his problem
was maintaining face); but after I insisted, he finally
came around and he ordered the withdrawal," he adds.
"He set up a meeting with Clinton
in July," says Gen. Zinni while explaining how Mr
Sharif arrived in Washington for the 1999 meeting with
President Clinton that took place on the American Independence
Day, July 4.
Explaining the background of the Kargil
adventure, Gen. Zinni writes: "In May, Pakistani
forces made a deep incursion into an area called Kargil,
on the Indian side of the Line of Control. Though there
was normally fighting near the Line of Control, the area
for a long time has been quite stable.
There would be probes and shooting during
the good months of the year, but nothing ever changed
much; and in wintertime, everybody would pull back down
into the valleys, and the two sides would create 'no-man's-land'.
As spring came, they would go back up
into their positions. Every so often, somebody on one
side would be a little late getting up to their spring
positions, and the other side could grab an advantage
of a kilometre or so. It was "Aha, I've gotcha!"
on a tactical level. But it did not really change things."
"This time, however, the Pakistanis
waylaid the Indians and penetrated all the way to Kargil.
This was such a deep, significant penetration that it
wasn't tactical; it threatened Indian lines of communication
and support up to Siachen glacier."
"The Indians came back with a vengeance.
There were exchanges of fire, there was a mobilization
of forces, there were bombing attacks, and planes were
shot down."
"Then the two sides started to mobilize
all their forces all along the line; and it was beginning
to look like the opening moves of the larger war. It got
alarming."
"I was therefore directed by the
(Clinton) administration to head a presidential mission
to Pakistan to convince Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and
Gen. Musharraf to withdraw their forces from Kargil."
"I met with the Pakistani leaders
in Islamabad on June 24 and 25 and put forth a simple
rationale for withdrawing; 'If you don't pullback, you're
going to bring war and nuclear annihilation down on your
country. That's going to be very bad news for everybody.'
Nobody actually quarrelled with this rationale."
"The problem for Pakistani leadership
was the apparent national loss of face. Backing down and
pulling back to the Line of Control looked like political
suicide. We needed to come up with a face-saving way out
of this mess.
What we were able to offer was a meeting
with President Clinton, which would end the isolation
that had long been the state of affairs between our two
countries, but we would announce the meeting only after
the withdrawal of forces."
"That got Musharraf's attention;
and he encouraged Prime Minister Sharif to hear me out."
"Sharif was reluctant to withdraw before the meeting
with Clinton was announced (again, his problem was maintaining
face); but after I insisted, he finally came around and
he ordered the withdrawal.""We setup a meeting
with Clinton in July."
