Musharraf a considerable player on the world stage

President Musharraf. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

Pakistani strongman General Pervez Musharraf concedes it is "indeed partially true" that before September 11 he was seen as an international pariah. Musharraf - visiting New Zealand this week on his quest for international legitimacy - ousted Pakistan's democratically elected government in a bloodless military coup nearly six years ago.

Western governments tut-tutted at this clear offence to democratic rule. But Musharraf maintains that he was never "such a pariah" that leaders such as former United States President Bill Clinton "didn't want to meet with me" and hear his plans to restore a dysfunctional nation. "But then September 11 came to my further rescue".

Musharraf decisively swung in behind the United States. He deployed 70,000 troops to help oust the Taleban from Afghanistan and positioned Pakistan as a client state and beneficiary of economic largesse and defence assistance from the world's "great superpower".

Now he is a major player on the world stage and shows every sign of wanting to continue that role. Pakistan had previously recognised Afghanistan's Taleban Government. And that, Musharraf said yesterday, was to prevent instability among ethnic groups who traversed their shared borders.

"I wanted to prevent any harm to Pakistan and ensure advantages to Pakistan," he explained.

"I did not want to see the Talebanisation of Pakistan ... their view of Islam was backward."

Despite the US-led effort, Osama bin Laden - the Saudi terrorist who masterminded the attacks on the World Trade Centre twin towers - is "probably still hiding out" in the mountainous border region.

Musharraf maintains it could take 10 years before Al Qaeda is run out of Afghanistan. "It is is very inhospitable country. The population is very sparse.

"Troop movements are visible and Pakistani soldiers are concentrated in just one area. You would require hundreds of thousands of troops to be able to operate in the whole countryside. That is not going to be possible unless more than one [Afghan] national army is raised - which they are doing. So intelligence is what we need to develop - such as human intelligence, technical intelligence and aerial surveillance - which we are doing."

Musharraf bristles at speculation that is in Pakistan's interests to string out the hunt for Al Qaeda so that it can retain its grip on the United States' purse.

Geopolitical factors mean that even if Osama is caught in the near future, the US is unlikely to cut off aid. "Pakistan is an important Islamic country and we have a very important role to play in the Islamic world."

He points to Pakistan's location at the hub of borders shared with India, Afghanistan and China - an area which has the potential to be a nuclear flashpoint. "We have our great importance. We are a nuclear state of 150 million people. How can we be ignored?"

Pakistan's role as an acknowledged nuclear proliferator continues to disturb the UN's Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and non-aligned nations such as New Zealand. The IAEA has failed in its quest to bust a nuclear blackmarket run by the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khah. Dubbed the Merchant of Menace" by Time magazine, Khan outwitted Western intelligence to ensure pariah regimes such as North Korea and Libya also gained access to critical nuclear technology.

But Musharraf - who refused to put Khan on trial because of domestic sensitivities and later pardoned him - says that in Pakistan Khan is a "hero to the man in the street".

"He gave us security when we were threatened with extinction ... that is why he is a hero. But the world doesn't understand this."

"If New Zealand was threatened with nuclear extinction you would do anything to save yourself. So Pakistan will do anything to save itself. That was what was happening."

THERE are suggestions Washington is not pushing Musharraf too hard on this score as the Bush Administration needs its support for the war on terrorism. But the pakistani president maintains double standards are at work. He says nuclear proliferation is everywhere - even in the United States.

"In 2000 a there was a gentleman - a US scientist - who passed information to China. He was caught and charged on 60 counts but no punishment was was given to him. You have to realise these are sensitive issues and there are national sensitivities.

"On one side we have proliferated - yes, I know that - but on the [other] side Khan is a hero to the man in the street. The world recognises it ... the United States recognises it." To charges that his Government refused to make Khan available for interrogation by US investigators, Musharraf counters, "No US official has ever asked me more than we have done."

He maintains that he has brought stability to Pakistan since orchestrating the 1999 coup. Before then, democracy in Pakistan was "very dysfunctional - it has never functioned. Ironically a man in uniform had to do that".

His focus has been on four elements: Pakistan's economic viability, instituting governance structures, plans to eradicate poverty, and political restructuring.

He says there is now democracy at "grassroots level" and constitutional checks to ensure the Prime Minister does not "malfunction," or that the President "misfunctions" and dismisses the National Assembly, and that he has instituted further checks on the Army chief "not to take over".

"I am only overseeing that the nation's goals are sustained." Paradoxically, he admits it was "maybe it was because of the concentration of power in me" that he was able to effect change in the first place.

The Commonwealth countries, including New Zealand, were critical of Musharraf's coup and suspended Pakistan -pending the restoration of democratic rule - until 2004, despite a 2002 election judged to reasonably reflect the general will.

Pakistan's restoration to Commonwealth ranks followed an undertaking by Musharraf to relinquish his role as chief of the Army by last December. But he pointedly makes clear he will ignore Commonwealth pressure to stand down immediately.

"I am doing this as per my interest in Pakistan. In the constitution, I am allowed to hold these two offices to 2007. This this has been approved by the National Assembly on a two-thirds majority.

"They must understand our reality. They have readmitted us. They should continue to understand our reality."