[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 142 (Tuesday, October 19, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H10184-H10186]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  THE COUP IN PAKISTAN AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MAINTAINING THE PRESSLER 
                               AMENDMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 3 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I introduced legislation to 
prevent the administration from waiving the Pressler amendment, a 
provision of law which prohibits U.S. military assistance to Pakistan. 
I would like to take this opportunity to urge my colleagues to join me 
in this initiative. While I have offered this legislation as a 
freestanding bill, I am also looking into other legislative vehicles 
that my proposal could be attached to.
  Mr. Speaker, the fiscal year 2000 Defense Appropriations Conference 
Report approved by the House last week

[[Page H10185]]

contains provisions giving the President broad waiver authority over 
several sanctions against India and Pakistan, including the Pressler 
amendment. There are indications that the President will veto this 
bill, although for unrelated reasons.
  The intent of my legislation is essentially to return to the status 
quo on the Pressler amendment. It is my hope that last week's military 
coup in Pakistan, which certainly is very regrettable, may help to 
refocus congressional attention to the danger of the giving military 
aid to Pakistan and result in renewed congressional support for 
retaining the Pressler amendment.
  Mr. Speaker, I have long supported lifting the economic sanctions 
against India and Pakistan, which is also accomplished in the Defense 
Appropriations Conference Report.
  I also want to thank the conferees for another positive provision: a 
Sense of the Congress Resolution that the broad application of export 
controls to nearly 300 Indian and Pakistani entities listed on the so-
called ``Entities List'' adopted by the Bureau of Export Administration 
(BXA) should be applied only to those entities that make ``direct and 
material contributions'' to weapons of mass destruction and missile 
programs and only to those items that so contribute.
  But I am concerned that other provisions in the conference report 
could result in renewal of U.S. arms transfers to Pakistan, a 
government that has engaged in an ongoing pattern of hostile and 
destabilizing actions. Indeed, keeping the Pressler amendment on the 
books is the best way to accomplish the goal behind the entities list: 
Namely for the United States not to contribute to Pakistan's drive to 
develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction.
  Mr. Speaker, it does not make sense to apply sanctions against 
commercial entities that have barely a passing relationship with 
weapons programs while waiving the Pressler amendment and thereby 
allowing for direct transfer of military technology.
  It has been widely reported, Mr. Speaker, last week that the 
Pakistani Army Chief of Staff led a military coup against the civilian 
government. Ironically, we have seen several recent efforts from 
Pakistan to win concessions from the U.S. as a means of propping up 
Prime Minister Sharif's government and forestalling a military coup. 
These include the ill-advised attempts to have a special mediator 
appointed for the Kashmir conflict as well as efforts to reopen the 
supply of U.S. military equipment to Pakistan. But in light of the 
latest Pakistani coup, the futility of the strategy is apparent.
  The Pressler amendment, named for the former Senator from South 
Dakota, was invoked by President Bush in response to Pakistan's weapons 
development program. It was good law when it was first adopted and it 
is still good law today. Earlier this year we were reminded about why 
the Pressler amendment was needed because of the way Pakistan 
instigated the hostilities in the Kargil region of Kashmir. In fact, it 
was the same generals who masterminded last week's coup who pressed for 
the disastrous military campaign in Kashmir, and we are continually 
confronted with evidence of Pakistani involvement in nuclear weapons 
and missile proliferation in other hostile or unstable regions. Last 
week's coup only further reminds us of the danger of renewing U.S. 
military ties with Pakistan.
  Mr. Speaker, I want also to register my concern over recent published 
reports attributing to State Department officials the suggestion that a 
resumption of arms supplies to Pakistan would be considered as an 
incentive for the return to civilian rule. On this point I want to 
reiterate that the purpose of the legislation I have introduced is to 
make sure that this administration and future administrations do not 
provide arms to Pakistan.
  Mr. Speaker, last Friday The New York Times columnist, A.M. 
Rosenthal, who once covered South Asia, wrote a column called ``The 
Himalayan Error.'' He focused on something I have often criticized, 
namely the pronounced tilt toward Pakistan in U.S. foreign policy. This 
tilt has resulted in neither democracy for Pakistan nor stability for 
the region.
  On Sunday, another New York Times op-ed writer, Steven R. Weisman, 
wrote an article entitled, ``Pakistan's Dangerous Addiction to Its 
Military.'' And quoting from that piece, ``[A] major reason Pakistan 
has such a stunted political tradition compared with India is that the 
Army has run the country for nearly half of its short history.''
  Mr. Speaker, the U.S. obviously cannot bring about democracy in 
Pakistan or change the Pakistanis' international behavior overnight, 
but we can avoid the policies that encourage Pakistan's military 
leaders to seize power, to foment instability in South Asia, to 
threaten their neighbors and to collaborate with other unstable regimes 
in the development and transfer of weapons of mass destruction. 
Clearly, reopening the American arms pipeline to Pakistan would be a 
disastrous mistake.
  Mr. Speaker, I include those two New York Times articles for the 
Record.

                [From the New York Times, Oct. 15, 1999]

                          The Himalayan Error

                          (By A.M. Rosenthal)

       Ever since their independence, the U.S. has made decisions 
     about India and Pakistan fully aware that it was dealing with 
     countries that would have increasing political and military 
     significance, for international good or evil.
       Now that both have nuclear arms capability and Pakistan has 
     been taken over again by the hard-wing military, the American 
     Government and people stare at them as if they were creatures 
     that had suddenly popped out of nowhere--and as if their 
     crises had no connection at all to those 50 years of American 
     involvement in the India-Pakistan subcontinent.
       The destiny of the two countries--war or peace, democracy 
     or despotism--lies with their billion-plus people, their 
     needs and passions.
       But American decision-making about them has been of 
     Himalayan importance--because from the beginning it was 
     almost entirely based on a great error. America chose 
     Pakistan as more important to its interests than India.
       Both countries have a powerful sliver of their population 
     who are plain villains--politicians who deliberately splinter 
     their society instead of knitting it, men of immense wealth 
     who zealously evade taxes and the public good, religious 
     bottom-feeders who spread violence between Hindu and Muslim 
     in India and Muslim and Muslim in Pakistan.
       But living for about four years as a New York Times 
     correspondent based in India and traveling often in Pakistan, 
     I knew that the American error was widening and catastrophic.
       Although there were important mavericks, American 
     officialdom clearly tilted toward Pakistan, knighted it a 
     military ally and looked with contempt or condescension on 
     India. Pakistan--a country whose leadership provided a 
     virtually unbroken record of economic, social and military 
     failure and increasing influence of Islamicists.
       Many U.S. officials preferred to deal with the Pakistanis 
     over the Indians not despite Pakistan's tendency to 
     militarism but because of it. Man, the military fellows can 
     get things done for you.
       Washington saw the country as some kind of barrier-post 
     against China, which it never was, and against Soviet 
     invasion of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis did their part there. 
     But when the Taliban fanatics seized Afghanistan, Pakistan's 
     military helped them pass arms for terrorists to the Mideast.
       Pakistan's weakness as an American ally, though Washington 
     never seemed to mind, was its leaders refusal to create 
     continuity of democratic governments long enough to convince 
     Pakistanis that the military would not take over again 
     tomorrow.
       Across the border, India, for all its slowness of economic 
     growth and its caste system, showed what the U.S. is supposed 
     to want--consistent faithfulness to elected democracy. Where 
     Pakistan failed to maintain political democracy in a one-
     religion nation, India has kept it in a Hindu-majority 
     country that has four other large religions and a garden of 
     small ones.
       Danger sign: The newly re-elected Hindu-led coalition will 
     have to clamp down harder against any religious persecution 
     of Muslims and Christians. India's real friends will never 
     lessen pressure against that. And the new government is not 
     likely to stay in office long if it does not fulfill its 
     anti-persecution promises to several parties in the 
     coalition.
       No, the U.S. did not itself create a militaristic Pakistan. 
     But by showing for years that it did not care much, it 
     encouraged Pakistan officers prowling for power, lessened the 
     public's confidence in democratic government when Pakistan 
     happened to have one and slighted the Indians' constancy to 
     democratic elections.
       In 1961, in the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, I heard the ranking 
     U.S. diplomat urge Washington not to recognize the military 
     gang that had just taken over South Korea after ousting the 
     country's first elected government in its history.
       But the Kennedy Administration did recognize the military 
     government. That throttled South Koreans with military 
     regimes for almost another two decades.
       The Clinton Administration is doing what America should: 
     demand the departure of the generals. Maybe America still has 
     enough influence to be of use to democracy some place or 
     other in Asia. It's the least it can do for

[[Page H10186]]

     its colossal error on the subcontinent--do for Indians, but 
     mostly for Pakistanis.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Oct. 16, 1999]

             Pakistan's Dangerous Addiction to Its Military

                         (By Steven R. Weisman)

       It is always tempting to see Pakistan as an artificial 
     country carved painfully out of the remnants of the British 
     empire, a place of such virulent sectarian hatreds and 
     corrupt leadership that only the military can hope to govern 
     it successfully. That view has returned now that Pakistan has 
     suffered its fourth military coup in 52 turbulent years as a 
     nation. Even some Pakistanis who believe in democracy but 
     were opposed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif welcomed military 
     intervention to change regimes.
       But if a country is unruly, having generals rule is no 
     solution. Pakistan's last military regime, which lasted from 
     1977 to 1988, was a useful ally, particularly in opposing the 
     Russians in neighboring Afghanistan. But by crushing dissent, 
     tolerating corruption and having no accountability for 11 
     years, the military lost credibility among Pakistanis and was 
     eventually overwhelmed by the nation's problems.
       Last spring, Pakistan's generals got the disastrous idea of 
     sending forces into Indian territory to occupy the mountains 
     of the disputed state of Kashmir. Indian guns and planes were 
     driving the intruders out, and under American pressure Mr. 
     Sharif wisely agreed to arrange for a facesaving withdrawal. 
     Now the generals, unhappy with Mr. Sharif's retreat, have 
     seized power, suspended the Constitution and imposed martial 
     law, despite the absence of any threats of turmoil in the 
     streets.
       Imagine what might have happened in Kashmir had Mr. 
     Sharif's withdrawal agreement not prevailed. The military 
     might well have retaliated by bombing India's artillery 
     positions, a step that probably would have forced Prime 
     Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to listen to his generals and 
     invade Pakistan. These escalations could very easily have 
     spiraled into a nuclear exchange.
       As a nation, Pakistan always had a shaky foundation. Its 
     name, which means ``land of the pure,'' is drawn from some of 
     its constituent ethnic groups. The Bengalis of East Pakistan 
     broke off in 1971 to become Bankladesh, and the other groups 
     have been squabbling since. Islam is not the unifying 
     ideology that Pakistan's founders hoped it could be.
       One problem is that the original building blocks of 
     Pakistani socieity--the clergy, the military and the wealthy 
     feudal lords who owned most of the land--have fractured. 
     Today the military is split into secular and Islamic camps. 
     The landlords' power has flowed to a newly wealthy business 
     class represented by Mr. Sharif. The clergy is split into 
     factions, some of which are allied with Saudi Arabia, Iran, 
     the terrorist Osama bin Laden, the Taliban in Afghanistan and 
     others. Corruption, poverty, guns and drugs have turned these 
     elements into an explosive mix.
       To revive the idea of religion as the glue holding the 
     country together, Pakistani leaders have promised many times 
     to enforce Islamic law. But they have never been able to 
     implement these promises because most Pakistanis are not 
     doctrinaire in their approach to religion. Alternatively, the 
     nation's leaders have seized on the jihad to ``liberate'' 
     fellow Muslims in Kashmir, India's only Muslim-dominated 
     state.
       ``The Pakistani army generals are trying to convince 
     themselves that defeat in Kashmir was snatched from the jaws 
     of victory by Sharif and his stupid diplomats,'' said Michael 
     Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center. ``This 
     theory recurs in Pakistani history, and it is very 
     dangerous.''
       In his address to the nation, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the 
     army chief of staff who ``dismissed'' Mr. Sharif, spoke of 
     the military as ``the last remaining viable institution'' of 
     Pakistan. But by imposing martial law, he has embarked on a 
     well-trod Pakistani path toward ruining that reputation. 
     Without question, Mr. Sharif blundered in cracking down on 
     dissent, trying to dismiss General Musharraf and relying on 
     cronies and family members for advice. Some Indians like the 
     writer M.J. Akbar, editor of The Asian Age, say that it might 
     be easier to make a deal with Pakistan's generals now that 
     they are overtly in charge, rather than manipulating things 
     behind the scenes. But a major reason Pakistan has such a 
     stunned political tradition, compared with Indian, is that 
     the army has run the country for nearly half its short 
     history. The question remains: If Pakistanis are not capable 
     of governing themselves, why would Pakistanis wearing 
     uniforms be any different?

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