Oct 12 coup: Major rift between Nawaz and Musharraf?

ISLAMABAD: ‘Get-Osama Mission’ and an open criticism of Mulla Omar’s Taliban government in Kabul by the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his government was one of the basic reasons that prompted October 12, 1999 takeover. 

This particular reason also explained by General (R) Musharraf himself as ‘major mistake’ of Nawaz Sharif’s was never properly highlighted.

On October 7, 1999, the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif addressed an unprecedented press conference in Islamabad and discussed unavoidable evidence of involvement of Taliban government in Kabul in spreading sectarian hatred in Pakistan and training of Pakistani youth in different camps on Afghan soil so that they could carry out sectarian killings in Pakistan on their return after completing training.

"We have with us a solid proof that there exist training camps in Afghanistan, which are training terrorists and sending them into Pakistan to kill our people," Nawaz Sharif had said adding, "But we have told the Taliban government and its head Mulla Omar that they should immediately remove these camps so that sectarian killings and other incidents of terrorism in Pakistan could be stopped."  Basically the then Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif had announced in the last week of September 1999 that situation regarding sectarian terrorism had become out of control because youth were being taken to Afghanistan in different arms training camps and they played havoc on their return with Pakistan by killing Pakistanis on sectarian grounds. According to newspapers’ record, following statement made by the Punjab chief minister, the Pakistan Foreign Office was made to issue a pro-Taliban statement which stated that Mulla Omar government was not involved in anything wrong and no Pakistani youth were being trained in any camps in Afghanistan.  This made Nawaz Sharif come on record and state the facts along with presenting evidence.

The prime minister also told the media men on Thursday (October 7, 1999) that he had specially sent his DG ISI Lt General Ziauddin Butt to Kabul to take on the issue of terrorists training camps in Afghanistan, an October 8, 1999 copy of Daily Dawn shows.

Not only this, after assuming power General Perviaz Musharraf in his press conference clearly pointed out Nawaz Sharif government’s hostile policy towards ‘friendly Taliban government in Kabul’ as one of the major mistakes of ‘sacked’ prime minister. General Musharraf has said that Pakistan enjoyed close and friendly relations with Taliban government while ‘Nawaz Sharif’ was making public statements against Taliban government and was levelling allegations against it. It remains a fact that Nawaz Sharif’s move to come in open first by using his younger brother and then himself on account of training camps in Taliban ruled Afghanistan was the breaking point in civil-military relations which started deteriorating after Kargil war and this led to October 12 events.

General Ziauddin Butt, who was DG ISI and also remained Chief of Army Staff before coup for a few hours on October 12, 1999, stated some time back that following orders of the civilian government, his organisation was working on a “Get-Osama” mission which could not be completed because the democratic government of Nawaz Sharif was overthrown.

“Had the government of Nawaz Sharif not toppled, there would have been chances of getting hold of Osma Bin Laden, General Butt had also stated. This is a fact that had Osama Bin Laden captured at that time, this would have happened much before 9/11.