The Pakistani Revolution – IV

Pakistan as a semi-colony of US Imperialism

W B Bland

Second phase: Military Dictatorship, continued dependence upon US Imperialism

The establishment in October 1958 of the military dictatorship of the ‘Karachi’ clique brought about an increase in US ‘aid’, but no change in the basis of Pakistan’s foreign policy: “The Martial Law Regime…had no quarrel with the basic assumptions of the foreign policy followed by the previous governments” (Mushtaq Ahmad: Government and Politics in Pakistan; Karachi,1963, p.231). In March 1959 a Bilateral Defence Agreement was signed between Pakistan and the US, with the US government assuring India that it would operate only in relation to “aggression from Communist countries”. In November 1959 a Treaty of Friendship was signed between Pakistan and the US. One of its primary aims was stated to be “the encouragement of US investment in Pakistan”, for the purpose of which special facilities were granted to US firms and businessmen in Pakistan. In December 1959 US President Eisenhower visited Pakistan and was decorated with the country’s highest order in recognition of his “noble achievements for the free world”. A joint communique expressed the satisfaction of both governments with “the increasingly close cooperation” between them and emphasised the importance with which they regarded the CENTO and SEATO pacts. In March 1961 US Vice-President Lyndon Johnson visited Pakistan for talks with President Ayub Khan.

The Pressure for a Rapprochement with India

The US imperialists were, during this period, placing considerable pressure upon the Pakistan government to make concessions to India upon points of conflict between the two states, with the overall aim of drawing the whole Subcontinent into the military orbit of the US. As a result of this pressure, in May 1959 President Ayub Khan proposed Indo-Pakistani cooperation for “the defence” of the Subcontinent. In September 1959 he met Indian Prime Minister (PM) Jawaharlal Nehru in Delhi and paid public tribute to the latter’s “outstanding personality”. In October 1959 an Indo-Pakistani Ministerial conference settled the principal outstanding border disputes in relation to the East Pakistan border with India, and in January 1960 a further Ministerial conference performed the same task in relation to the West Pakistan border. In September 1960 PM Nehru visited Pakistan to sign the Indus Waters Treaty, agreed after nine years of negotiation through the ‘mediation’ of the US-controlled World Bank. The Indus Waters settlement had the added effect of removing the basis of one of Pakistan’s complaints about Indian occupation of part of Kashmir.

The Hindu Maharajah of Kashmir, Sir Hari Singh, had in October 1947 acceded to India, although the Kashmiri population was predominantly Muslim. Pakistani troops then entered Kashmir and during 1948 fighting occurred between Indian and Pakistani forces, ending in a cease-fire in July 1949 after the question had been referred to the Security Council of the UN. Since then the northern and western half of Kashmir had been occupied and administered by Pakistan, and was known as Azad (Free) Kashmir, the remainder by India. India had repudiated her original pledge that the dispute should be settled by a plebiscite of the population of Kashmir, and in January 1957 had formally incorporated that part of Kashmir under its administration into the Indian State. In November 1962 US Assistant Secretary of State Averell Harriman emphasised in talks with Nehru and Ayub Khan the importance with which the US government regarded attempts to solve the Kashmir question. However, Ministerial talks between India and Pakistan that followed between December 1962 and May 1963 failed to make any progress.

Following the death of Nehru in May 1964, Ayub Khan made a fervent broadcast appeal in June for friendship between the two states. In October 1964 Indian PM Lal Bahadur Shastri visited Pakistan for talks with President Ayub Khan. But the Kashmir dispute remained a continuing source of antagonism between the two states.

‘Threats’ from Karachi

The fact that the US imperialists were exerting pressure upon the Pakistan government to make concessions to the Indian government on outstanding questions, rather than the other way round, was primarily because they regarded India as a more valuable member of the US-dominated bloc: “The entire diplomatic thinking in the State Department was dominated by the overriding consideration that India had to be built up as a bulwark against China and entitled to all the material assistance and moral support from America to equip her for the leadership of Asia” (Mushtaq Ahmad: ibid, p.234).

The Pakistani Foreign Minister, Mohammad Ali, told an emergency session of the National Assembly (NA) in November 1962 of a secret agreement made in 1951 between India and the US: “As far back as 1951 the US Government had agreed to provide arms and equipment to India, and the Indian Government had entered into a formal agreement which amounted to her being for all practical purposes in an agreement similar to that under the SEATO Pact.” The Ayub regime was extremely concerned at the fact that, despite its subservience to the US, the US imperialists were engaged in building up the strength of the state that it regarded (in the words of Ayub Khan in a broadcast of October 1964) as its “worst enemy”. In 1961 President Ayub Khan felt it necessary to make a public protest about US policy towards India. He told an Associated Press correspondent that the Pakistan government was “concerned, upset and disappointed” about what he still obediently referred to as the “possibility” of US military aid to India, and said threateningly that Pakistan was in the process of “re-examining” its membership of CENTO and SEATO. Visiting Washington for talks with President Kennedy in the same month, he pleaded to a joint session of Congress: “If there is real trouble, there is no other country in Asia where you will be able even to put your foot in. The only people who will stand by you are the people of Pakistan.” And in an interview on Amenican television, he declared: “Pakistan may slide towards neutrality if forced by circumstances or dictated by requirements of security. There is grave concern about the ramifications of the new American policy. Smaller Asian countries like Pakistan…are apprehensive. If India becomes overwhelmingly strong militarily or economically, these countries will look for protection elsewhere.”

Neither Ayub’s pleadings nor what Washington regarded as his empty threats, had any effect upon US policy towards India. The Indian aggression against People’s China in October 1962 provided the pretext for the public announcement of “massive US military ‘aid’ to India”. In November Ayub denounced this action as a “betrayal” of Pakistan, while Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali, at an emergency session of the NA, declared that it posed “a threat to our safety and security”, adding: “Should we find that membership of these pacts is no longer in the national interest of Pakistan, we shall not hesitate for a moment to get out of them.”

Rapprochement with China

The People’s Republic of China, in which Marxist-Leninists were at this time in leading positions, was threatened with encirclement by a bloc of hostile powers allied overtly or covertly with US imperialism, the Soviet Union (under the Khrushchevite revisionist leaders who were restoring capitalism), Japan, India and Pakistan. The Chinese leaders correctly strove to break this encirclement by seeking to take advantage of the contradictions between these states – in particular of the contradictions between India and Pakistan. Thus, they strove to establish a rapprochement at state level with Pakistan. Faced with the threat of war with an India armed with the latest US weapons, the Pakistan government welcomed the opportunity of rapprochement with China – not as an alternative to its alliance with the US imperialists, but as a means of strengthening their bargaining position within it. “Pakistan’s own security, therefore, lay in seeking an arrangement with the power which could effectively check the expansionist tendency (i.e., of India – Ed.) and the only power that could do so was China” (Mushtaq Ahmad: ibid., P.239).

When Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali died in January 1963, his successor Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was instructed to make a rapprochement with China a cardinal point of Pakistan’s foreign policy. In March 1963 an agreement was signed between Pakistan and China which ‘finally’ settled the frontier between China and Kashmir. In July 1963 Ayub Khan declared that if India continued to receive massive military aid from the western powers, the small nations of Asia would be compelled to “take refuge under China”. And in the same month Foreign Minister Bhutto told the NA: “Pakistan will not be alone if she becomes the victim of any aggression. It would involve the largest State in Asia.” In August 1963 Pakistan signed an agreement with China for the establishment of airline communications between the two countries. The US government immediately denounced the agreement as “an unfortunate breach of free world solidarity”, and announced the suspension of a $ 4.3 million loan to Pakistan for improvements at Dacca airport. In September 1963 Pakistan signed a trade agreement with China. In the same month US Assistant Secretary of State George Ball visited Pakistan for talks with President Ayub Khan. According to an inspired leak from the US State Department, Ball told Ayub that any close relationship between Pakistan and China would nullify the sense of any alliance between Pakistan and the US. In February 1964 Chinese PM Chou En-lai and Foreign Minister Chen Yi visited Pakistan and signed a communique affirming China’s support for Pakistan’s viewpoint on the Kashmir issue, namely that the future of Kashmir should be settled by a free plebiscite of the Kashmiri people. In February 1965 the Chinese government granted Pakistan an interest-free loan of $ 60 million. In March 1965 President Ayub Khan visited Peking and signed a cultural agreement, while in April PM Chou En-lai again visited Pakistan for talks with Ayub Khan.

In March 1966 Chinese President Liu Shao-chi visited Pakistan, accompanied by Foreign Minister Chen Yi. A joint communique reaffirmed China’s support for Pakistan’s viewpoint on the Kashmir issue, and Pakistan’s support for the admission of China to the UN. On March 23rd, 1966, Chinese-built T29 tanks and MIG-19 fighter planes took part in the Republic Day parade in Karachi alongside US-built equipment. In June 1966 Chinese PM Chou En-lai paid a further visit to Pakistan for talks with Ayub. In the same month a Sino-Pakistani scientific and cultural agreement was signed, followed by trade agreements in July and August, and an agreement on maritime transport between the two countries in October.

That the policy of the Ayub military dictatorship in fostering closer relations with China was to try to pressure the US imperialists into more favourable treatment, and not a change in the basis of Pakistan’s dependence upon US imperialism, is shown by the official statement issued after the visit of US Assistant Secretary of State Ball to Pakistan in September 1963: “We are still loyal members of the military alliances with the United States. We have not changed sides in the cold war”, and by Bhutto’s declaration to a journalist in April 1966: “We have always been close (i e., to the US – Ed.); perhaps in the final analysis we have gone even closer to the United States by going closer to others.”

(To be continued)