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Musharraf behaved like a commando: Gujral

Tarun Basu

Former prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral said Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf behaved like every inch the commando that he is by training, scored his hits and got away with everything.

Gujral, who before the summit had warned that Musharraf was holding a gun to India's head and talking in a manner unbecoming of a head of state, said for the first time in the 50 years of the country's diplomatic history the government showed inadequate preparation at the negotiating table and allowed Pakistan to take the country for a ride.

"We proved gullible. We allowed Musharraf to take us for a ride. Why were we ready to have the summit at any cost?" Gujral said in an interview to IANS.

"Musharraf is a commando by training. He behaved like one and got away with his hits," he added.

Gujral said if Pakistan had rejected Indian suggestions to have official level preparatory meetings, as External Affairs and Defence Minister Jaswant Singh had stated, India should have been in no hurry to have the summit.

"We should have followed the classical method. You are welcome, but let us do preparatory work first. That is what we should have told Pakistan, " he added.

"If we had stuck to our stand, Musharraf would have backed down because he was desperate to come to India," Gujral argued.

The former prime minister said that Musharraf got away by making clever use of the media by praising Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but sticking to his guns and scoring points on Kashmir.

He said normally invitations by heads of governments to their counterparts are given on the last day of talks and not on the first day. Musharraf cleverly invited Vajpayee on the first day itself and it was promptly accepted by the prime minister.

"Vajpayee should have accepted the invitation only after seeing the progress of the summit talks. He should have been in no hurry to accept it," said Gujral.

Gujral said no purpose would be served by Vajpayee going to Pakistan now, unless adequate preparatory work was done before the visit.

He said it was not advisable to have an India-Pakistan summit on either soil because 'there are much more expectations and pressure'.

"It was always prudent to have summit talks between the countries on the margins of international conferences or assemblies so that the pressure on the protagonists is less, a broad range of issues gets discussed and one is aware that other countries are watching you," he said.

Gujral said it was no use making the media a scapegoat for the failed summit.

"The knowledge revolution is upon us and the media is willy-nilly a participant in the negotiations. The Pakistanis knew how to handle the media. We didn't," he said.

Indo-Asian News Service

Indo-Pak Summit 2001: The Complete Coverage

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