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India, Pakistan should jointly remove fear of nuclear annihilation: Bhutto

Rezaul H Laskar in New Delhi

Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, on a four-day India visit, on Monday made a forceful plea for both countries to work together to remove the fear of 'nuclear annihilation' from South Asia.

"Our part of the world has been teetering for too long on the brink of doom and destruction," she said at a lecture organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, the country's apex industrial lobby group.

"I am terrified by the thought of nuclear annihilation. We owe it to our children to build a world free of nuclear annihilation," she said.

Although the theme of Bhutto's lecture was Social development and empowerment of women, she spoke at length on the tensions between the sub-continental nuclear rivals.

Wearing a red dress with her head covered by a white scarf, Bhutto addressed a packed hall at the Taj Mahal Hotel comprising captains of Indian industry, diplomats and a large number of journalists.

Bhutto often deviated from her prepared text to emphasise the need to improve ties between the two countries, particularly in trade and economic issues. She quoted often from literary greats like Dante and Alexander Pope to make a point.

"People in both countries view nuclear weapons as some sort of prized industry, with which they threaten each other," Bhutto said.

Tensions between India and Pakistan were often exacerbated by the massing of troops along the Line of Control, she added.

She, however, defended the decision of her father, former Pakistan president Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who had vowed to build a nuclear bomb for Pakistan by saying that the move was dictated by the necessities of the Cold War era.

"It was a different world, an age 30 years ago," she said, referring to her father's famous comment about Pakistan's efforts to match India's nuclear weapons programme.

Benazir Bhutto, who is in India at the CII's invitation, met Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other senior Indian leaders on Sunday. She used these meetings to articulate her views on the Afghanistan situation and the needfor restoring democracy in Pakistan.

"I would like a new Parliament to be elected in Pakistan today, but the matter is in the hands of President Pervez Musharraf," she said while responding to questions from the audience after her speech.

Since she was convicted of corruption in Pakistan in 1999, Bhutto has been living in London and Dubai.

Her departure from Pakistani politics 'led to a collapse of Pakistan's economic development and growth rate'," which had reached six per cent when she was prime minister during 1993-96.

Bhutto lauded Vajpayee's efforts to start a dialogue with Musharraf at the Agra summit as well as New Delhi's attempts to reach a political settlement with insurgent groups in Jammu and Kashmir.

"These are important steps. They required vision and great strength," she said, adding that her Pakistan People's Party trusted in 'relations of a political nature'.

Recalling her association with former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, Bhutto said the two of them had signed several agreements in the late eighties to reduce tensions between the two sides.

"We signed the first nuclear confidence building measure, the agreement on non-attack of nuclear facilities and established army hotlines," she said.

"We also reached draft agreements on troop deployments in Siachen and a draft agreement on reduction of (overall) troop deployments."

These documents, she asserted, were the most important agreements between India and Pakistan since the signing of the Simla Agreement in 1972 by then Pakistan president Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi.

Bhutto urged Indian and Pakistani leaders to work jointly on economic and trade issues such as the World Trade Organisation, saying such issues could be tackled despite differences on matters like Kashmir.

"The gulf on certain issues should not affect convergence on other issues," she said.

"The economic debate has been dominated by developed countries because we failed to articulate our views while we were caught up in the problems of conflict."

Dwelling only briefly on the subject of her lecture, Bhutto said discrimination against women had little to do with Islam and more with custom and tradition. She said during her administration she had lifted a ban on Pakistani women participating in international sports and appointed more women judges in the higher judiciary.

"The veil of repression has descended on women in many parts of my country," she said, adding that women should be made equal partners for peace and development in both India and Pakistan.

She pointedly made no reference to the crisis in Afghanistan or to the Taleban, which was the creation of her administration.

Indo-Asian News Service

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