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WEEKLY
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| GHQ siege |
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Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Govt, MPs shy of seeking probe
By Rauf Klasra
ISLAMABAD: The PPP government is said to have learnt its lessons from the fall of the Junejo government in the aftermath of the Ojhri camp tragedy in 1988, and has stopped short of ordering an inquiry into the stunning attack on the GHQ, which virtually shook the whole nation last Saturday.
One source said instead of calling an urgent meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC), where three services chiefs are represented, to discuss this important issue, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani took a flight to China for a six-day trip.
One top official source claimed that the sorry fate of the Junejo government actually stopped the present rulers from ordering an inquiry into the tragedy to determine who was responsible for the failure of three prime intelligence agencies ń the IB, the ISI and the MI.
Over 100 men, women and children were killed and more wounded by missiles, which rained death and destruction on the twin cities in 1988. The then prime minister, Mohammad Khan Junejo, had appointed two committees — one military and the other parliamentary — to probe the military disaster. His action infuriated the military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq so much that he dismissed his handpicked prime minister on May 29, 1988 on the pretext of being failed to implement Islam in the country.
While the parliamentary committee, headed by senior politician Aslam Khattak, went with the Junejo government, the military committee under Gen Imranullah Khan submitted its report before the dismissal of the government. However, it never saw the light of the day.
Imran Gardezi, the spokesman for PM Gilani, was not available for comments as he was in China. Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar did not respond to the question whether President Zardari, the supreme commander of the armed forces, had ordered an inquiry into the GHQ attack.
The sources said instead of ordering an inquiry both President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani sent messages of “congratulations” to the top military brass. One commentator said that the opposition too did not demand any inquiry into the incident and this helped the PPP government. Ch Nisar Ali Khan could only say that the National Assembly should be told how the terrorists reached inside the GHQ. But there was no demand for any probe.
The sources said the recent secret meetings between Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, opposition leader Ch Nisar Ali Khan and Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani were the main reason behind the soft tone of the PML-N in the assembly over this incident. The chief ministers of the NWFP and Balochistan also met the Army chief recently.
One source said actually the PPP government was under tremendous pressure over the Kerry-Luger Bill as the military leadership had expressed its concerns over the bill through a press release to the media instead of using the normal channel of the Ministry of Defence. The attack on the GHQ put the military commanders on the back foot, enabling the PPP government to reassert its position.
Here credit must be given to the Junejo government, which had taken a bold stand by ordering an inquiry into the Ojhri camp tragedy. Junejo was so anxious to punish those responsible for the incident that he forgot that he owed his position to these very generals against whom he was ordering an inquiry. It is no secret that General Zia had dismissed the Junejo government just to save the skin of a few generals who were held responsible for the Ojhri camp tragedy. Junejo had promised to the National Assembly that the inquiry report would be made public and the guilty would be punished.
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briefs...
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ISSN 1563-9479 
