The channels for US covert military aid to the Afghan mojahedin have been thrown into disarray by the death on August 17 [1988] of President Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan in an aircrash unexplained as we went to press. His death came at a particularly sensitive moment as the Soviet occupation forces prepared to withdraw and both Afghan government and rebel forces geared up for the battle which will decide which bloc Afghanistan will follow.
After the fall of Iran, Pakistan became America’s vital staging post for covert intervention in the Indian sub-continent and the pivotal point for clandestine military assistance to the Afghan rebels – still the largest per-capita financial commitment in the CIA budget. In Zia, the US found an enthusiastic partner in the bid to arm and support the most reactionary Islamic factions in the mojahedin. Pakistan’s strategic importance for covert operations increased in the early 1980s as India began taking a harder line against CIA operations within its borders. Not only did Hindu India view with disquiet the massive military and political assistance given to its religious and nuclear rival Pakistan and the Islamic mojahedin, its domestic politics was rocked by scandals of bribes and manipulation by foreign agencies. This disquiet was reflected by the expulsion between 1982 and 1985 of 11 American ‘diplomats’ from the embassy in Delhi and the consulate in Madras. (1)
With Pakistan as America’s only unquestioning ally in the region, the death of Zia alone would have enormously complicated the Afghan supply operation. But accompanying the President on the flight were American ambassador Arnold L. Raphael (senior political officer at the Islamabad embassy at the time of Zia’s coup in 1977), US military liaison officer General Herbert Wassom, and most of the inner circle of Army officers who formed the effective government under Zia. Lt. General Mian Mohamed Afzaal, Army Chief of General Staff and favoured candidate to take over as supreme commander of the armed forces, died in the crash, as did General Akhtar Abdur Rehman, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and overall head of the Pakistani channel for arms to the mojahedin. Rehman had used his position to divert considerable quantities of American covert assistance to the black market, much of it finding its way into the hands of the heroin hierarchy which has a formidable grip on Pakistani domestic politics. Even Andrew Eiva of the right-wing Federation for American Action on Afghanistan estimates that some 70% of US arms goes astray. (2)
But the damage to the Afghan supply line may go further than just those killed in the crash. If the joint American/Pakistan inquiry blames sabotage or a lack of security for the crash, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Gul will almost certainly have to step down as head of the powerful Inter Services Intelligence organisation, ISI. As head of ISI, Gul is the key figure involved in the training and equipping of the mojahedin based around Peshawar, and is their main military adviser. Together with the late Generals Afzaal and Rehman, Gul has been one of the strongest supporters of Zia’s hardline policy of direct military assistance to the more radical Islamic fundamentalist rebel groups fighting the government of Najibullah (himself a former head of the Afghan secret police). In the political hiatus caused by the crash, Gul’s removal would cripple the Afghan supply operation. (3)
Perhaps because of this, the Americans are making every effort to dispel suspicions of sabotage. But the Pakistani authorities are in no doubt: the new President Ghulam Ishaq Khan has spoken of the enemy penetrating into the very heart of the nation. The two main candidates for a sabotage operation must be RAW – the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s overseas intelligence agency – and KHAD, the Afghan secret service.
The Indians would have reason enough to gun for Zia: in his Independence Day broadcast Rajiv Gandhi gave a public warning that India would not tolerate continuing Pakistani support for Sikh separatists in the neighbouring Punjab province in India. The Pakistani ISI has set up training camps in the Peshawar area to train and arm the Sikhs who call for an autonomous state of Khalistan. The Sikh separatists have been a constant thorn in the flesh of the Indian government. Continuing unrest centred around the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Sikh holy place, has destabilized India’s volatile political climate (4), and Gandhi himself is at risk. Former Premier Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984 by Sikh members of her bodyguard, and two Sikhs were jailed at Birmingham Crown Court in 1986 for plotting to kill Rajiv Gandhi during a state visit to Britain. (5).
Sikh separatists also joined the mojahedin in attending the WACL 11th annual conference in Luxembourg in 1986, during which General Singlaub announced that the WACL representative in India, Rama Swarup, had been arrested on espionage charges. (6) It was later established that Swarup had passed 48,000 rupees from American sources to one of the defence attorneys in the Indira Gandhi assassination trial, and then flew to Geneva where he met Felix Ermacore, UN Human Rights committee member responsible for Afghanistan. Ermacore, an Austrian Member of Parliament, has extensive links to Nicaraguan Contra propaganda groups and right-wing organisations such as IGFM (right-wing rival to Amnesty International) and the Internationale des Widerstands (Resistance International), bringing together anti-communist ‘freedom fighters’. Following Swarup’s return from Geneva, the defence in the Gandhi assassination trial abruptly changed strategy and tried to depoliticize the case by passing the assassination off as the result of a family quarrel. This manoeuvre, no doubt aimed at concealing the extent of foreign manipulation in Indian domestic affairs, failed when Swarup was later arrested. (7)
With the November elections looming, the Pakistani military are keen to prove their innocence: on October 21st a senior Air Force officer, Air commodore Abbas Mirza, revealed that the investigation had ruled out missile attack or any structural fault on the C-130 Hercules, thus pointing to sabotage. (8)
Any proof of foreign complicity in the crash will lead to questions about GUL and the ISI, its competence and its activities. With so many of the key operators and supporters of the arms channel dead, the Americans’ main concern must be to rebuild the supply operation with a minimum of publicity. Press attention concerning KHAD involvement in the crash might expose ISI Afghan operations (four Pakistanis were killed deep inside Afghanistan by Afghan government forces on October 22nd) and even lead to Gul’s removal. With Pakistan’s political future as yet undecided (would Bhutto do an ‘Aquino’ deal?), the Americans would prefer not to rock the boat. Now that the Air Force has forced their hand on sabotage, the investigation will concentrate on foreign involvement, and so has been transferred to the relevant authority: the ISI.
NOTES
- Francis E. Schafer, John F. Bender, Abdulla A. Salegh, James L. Culpepper, Harry L. Wetherbee, Claude P. Conelly, Douglas L. Davis, Bertran F. Dunn, Anthony J. Jordan, Joseph H. Downs, Gene G. Griffiths – in Geheim No 2 1987
- Time, 9 December 1985
- Guardian Weekly 28 August 1988
- Over 2000 dead this year alone in inter-religious strife in India – the death-toll in Northern Ireland for the whole period 1969-88.
- Guardian 20, 21, 23 May; 25 October; 13, 20, 22 December 1986
- New Statesman 31 October 1986
- Die Contra-Connection, Konkret Verlag, Hamburg 1988 – an excellent new book.
- Guardian Weekly 23 October 1988