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New York, NY

Nicholas Platt [NP]: I’m Nick Platt, I’m President of the Asia Society. I’m delighted to welcome you here, and I’m particularly delighted on behalf of the Society and the Council on Foreign Relations to welcome President Musharraf back to New York. This is our third joint program with President Musharraf. The first at the Asia Society, however, in our newly renovated headquarters, and so we’re particularly happy to have have you here, Mr. President. Last year I remember you and all the other heads of government in New York were unable to move due to a plane crash in Queens, and so we had a marvelous Q&A session at the Council with you on the phone, and you gave a wonderful sort of ghost appearance, and all of us enjoyed that very much.

I also would like to welcome some members of your delegation, some of whom are close friends of the Asia Society, have been for a long time. I want to welcome the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Emmanuel Ohock(?), I want to welcome Sharafudin Tuzada(?), the Senior Advisor on Foreign Affairs Law, Justice and Human Rights. Finance Minister Shafa Hadiz(?), is a long time Asia Society member, and he…we hope he’ll come back some day, but he’s doing a great job where he is. (Scattered Laughter) I’d also like to recognize the Minister for Information, Nusan Meman(?), who is an old Asia Society member from Karachi. So, then we have the new Ambassador, Ambassador Kozi(?), welcome to you, and to the new Ambassador to the U.N., Munir Akav(?).

Now I would like to turn the microphone over to Richard Holbrooke. And this is a particular pleasure for me. Richard is going to become the Chairman of the Asia Society on the 17th of October. And, (Applause), it’s particularly fitting that he do the honors here today. I don’t think that there’s anything I could say that would introduce him, and I think introducing the introducer is redundant. (Scattered Laughter) So I’m just going to hand over the mike to you, Richard, and give you the task. (Applause)

Richard Holbrooke [RH]: Well, thank you, Nick, and Mike Peters and Pete Peterson from the Council on Foreign Relations. This is a great honor for all of us, because President Musharraf’s time is so limited, he has to leave immediately from this meeting to go to a meeting with President Karzai of Afghanistan, I told him if he’d come to the Council in Foreign Relations breakfast, with President Karzai this morning, he could have saved the trip but, (Laughter), I’m going to dispense with the normal introduction. We all know how important President Musharraf has been in the last year, in the war on terrorism. I have had the privilege of knowing the President now for several years, I’ve watched him operate under the most difficult circumstances with domestic problems, problems on the Kashmir front, with his giant neighbor India, and with Afghanistan internal problems, an election coming up, a country that is of absolutely crucial importance to our national interests. Mr. President, we are privileged you are here today, and without any further ado, I would like to introduce the President of Pakistan, President, Musharraf. (Applause)

President Pervez Musharraf [PM]: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Ambassador Nicholas Platt, ladies and gentlemen, I’m extremely happy to be in this very familiar surroundings, where I have also had the pleasure and privilege of addressing the Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society, on earlier occasions, the last being a telephone interaction. My special thanks go to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Nicholas Platt, and also Mr. Pete Peterson for arranging this meeting today. The members of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Asia Society, are eminent personalities who have made very significant contributions to the understanding of Asia in the United States.

These institutions are among the leading repositories of knowledge and wisdom about Asia. I have myself benefited considerably from our past meetings and am confident that today will be no exception. I decided, ladies and gentlemen, to speak on peace and stability in South Asia. That much for the script, which I (Inaudible) the shortage of time, and in view of my desire to allow maximum Q&A, I will now talk to you about how I see realities on ground in our region, all around us, because as you know, everything important in the world today is happening around Pakistan and in South Asia.

I will be very brief, and I’ll leave maximum time for a very lively, frank question and answer session from all of you. First of all, I would like to go for the environment, the regional environment in South Asia, I would first of all take the all important issue of tension between India and Pakistan, on the issue of Kashmir. Because I think this is the cause of major concern in the region, and I would like to talk very frankly on this issue. Pakistan wants peace in the region. This has to be very clear. We want to solve problems in the region. We want harmony, we want amity in South Asia, because we believe that South Asia has one-fifth of humanity living, and this humanity, which is suffering from poverty and deprivation, the poorest, maybe the most illiterate region of the world.

So therefore, peace is acquired in South Asia and our joint concentration on development economically viable for South Asia. Having said that, let me assure, let me tell you that I and my government have tried their best all through, all along, to have peace, to somehow move forward with India to bring peace into South Asia. I am a realist, I am not an…I believe in practical reality, evaluative reality on ground and then taking actions. I am not such a diplomat. Now when we evaluate reality, it’s very clear that what is undermining peace in the region is the Kashmir dispute. If there is anyone who thinks it is not, is not being realistic, and I’m not one of those who likes to hide or couch anything under the garb of diplomacy and then not talk about it.

Because any efforts to sidestep or sideline this issue will not work. It will not work because the people of Pakistan, every individual of Pakistani, is involved in it. No leader, no government in Pakistan can ever leave or sidestep from the issue of Kashmir. It’s not a possibility. It’s not practical. So therefore, Kashmir has to be addressed, it has to be solved. Now, how to solve it, I certainly am not a rigid person who believes that whatever our stand is final, and whatever we said in 1948, we said this, and now in 2002, we stick by it and we will do as we said in 1948. One understands that we have come a long way, this is…we went to the 21st century, we need to go in with a spirit of give and take, with a flexible approach, but we need to solve it.

There are three parties involved here. The people of Kashmir, India and Pakistan. There are solutions to the problem, but I’ve seen saying, when I went to Agra and met Prime Minister Vajpayee, even he (Inaudible) this being very contentious, and how can we move forward? And I suggested to him that we are moving forward, we have to be bold, we have to be sincere, and the way forward, I said, has four steps. Step one, and I gave all the credit to the Prime Minister, for his statesmanship. I said, you have been extremely bold, sir, for having invited me. So initiation of dialogue is step one. We must talk. Step two, I said we can’t take that step just now here in Agra, let us accept the centrality of Kashmir, let us accept that the relation between Pakistan and India are being bedeviled by this dispute. Let us accept that we fought three wars because of this dispute. Let us accept that the line of control, on the line of control, we are killing each other daily, every day, is because of this dispute. Let us please not sideline it.

So let’s accept the centrality of Kashmir. And have a declaration, we can word it together, we can word it in a manner which is acceptable to you and us, and the people of Kashmir, and we worded it like that, we had a declaration. We formulated a declaration. Let me tell this august gathering, that this declaration was, the wording of it was formulated by me, Prime Minister Vajpayee, Foreign Minister Jusmunsing(?), and my Foreign Minister Abdu Sataff(?). But then, (Inaudible)…anyway, I’ll leave that aside. So step two is accepting the centrality of Kashmir.

And step three then, we enter into contentious areas now. Now we move toward a solution. So I said, we can have a process of elimination. Let us eliminate whatever is unacceptable to you, and unacceptable to us. Let’s eliminate that, put it aside. And then we enter the step four, there are a number of solutions, and I see Mr. Farouk Katwardi(?) sitting here, he is presented a solution. There are a number of solutions, people have talk about it. Let’s, whatever out of the balance, let us try and (Inaudible) the solution acceptable to people of Kashmir, to people of Pakistan and to the people of India. I think this was a fair assessment. Now if we lack the sincerity of not accepting this reality, we are not going to move forward. Not because of whims of anyone, not because of my whims, that I am a military man, I am a war monger, or something of that sort. I am not. But no leader in Pakistan will be able to move forward, let me tell this august gathering, it is not possible, nobody can do it. He’ll be eliminated, he’ll be out of government, he’ll be defeated, his government will be defeated.

So we should not have any illusions, and we must go for a frontal, catch the bull by the horn, be bold enough to do it. And let me also add to this august gathering, my feelings in Agra when I went there, the people of India, the media in India, I interacted with the media, I interacted with all the intelligentsia, there were about 40 of them, all ex-diplomats, ex-foreign ministers, ex-prime ministers, and people from the business community and everything ...

PM:…accepted that, yes, Kashmir is a main dispute, (Inaudible) to talk. I am not saying anything new. I am not saying anything unusual. So this was the response from the Indians, and I know that to be true. So all that I will end by saying, as far as this question is concerned, the leadership has to be bold, the leadership has to be sincere, on both side, to go for a solution of this dispute. And all other disputes, all other disputes. Now there have been asked questions against me that I…I was just uni-focal, that I was just talking of Kashmir. No, sir. I was not. I would like to go for all disputes resolution. But let us accept that Kashmir is the main one. That much, it was an elaborate…it was an elaborated version of Kashmir. I will now, and that much for that, and the reality now is of course we are…the forces are facing each other, on the border, the situation has escalated. As a military man, I see the situation from two points of view, the capability and the intentions.

In the past the situation was extremely dangerous, because the intentions were there, of some offensive action on the Indian side, a lot of rhetoric, and the capability was also there, because the forces were on the borders. The difference now is that the intentions have receded, but the capability exists. And I think as long as the capability exists and the two forces face each other, danger remains. Because the intentions can change overnight. So this is the reality of India, Pakistan and earlier (Inaudible) leadership in the two countries and resolve this dispute, better for the region and the world.

Talking of Afghanistan, I don’t have much to say. I’m sure you have heard President Karzai. Let me say with full conviction, Pakistan is with the Bonn(?) process, and is in total support of President Karzai. He is the man, he is the hope for Afghanistan. Two issues that need focus in Afghanistan, if we are to have an end game and an exit strategy and ensure stability, two issues are there is a vacuum, the writ of the government has not extended to the whole of Afghanistan, so there are certain power centers in Afghanistan, seven or eight of them, held by warlords, dominated by warlords. With the writ not extending to those parts there’s a vacuum in those power centers, filled either by the warlords themselves, their stature increasing, and also maybe outside external influences which may not be in the interest of solution in Afghanistan in accordance with the Bonn accord. So therefore, this vacuum is there, and vacuum is always filled. In order to avoid this vacuum being filled by external forces detrimental to Afghanistan, it must be filled by forces in favor of the Bonn accord and the government.

Therefore we need to extend this writ to these power centers, so that the clout of the warlord goes down and that of the central authority goes up. This is extremely important. And there is a method of doing this. The second important issue is multi-ethnicity in Afghanistan. We must, whatever we do, must ensure multi-ethnicity, because it’s a multi-ethnic society. There are (Inaudible), there are Tajiks(?), there are Rosebek’s(?), there are Hazara’s(?). This careful balancing act of multi-ethnicity is extremely important in Afghanistan, whatever we do, whether it’s a police force being created, whether it’s a shura(?) being created or whether it is the government being created. That much for Afghanistan.

Now about the outflow, or the issue of terrorism that flows from Afghanistan, the action against al Qaeda and its fall out on Pakistan. Yes, operations are going on by the United States forces on the (Inaudible) side of Pakistan Afghan borders, and on our side by Pakistan forces on the army and the civil armed forces. Through this action, the al Qaeda is on the run. They are not organized, they are disorganized. On our side we are effectively moving against them, and the tribes are helping us, assisting us. This is the first time that we have entered that area in over a century, the (Inaudible) of the government that did not exist there, and the British also didn’t extend their writ to this area. So we are lucky that we have extended ourselves there, and we are operating with their assistance.

I am very sure that no organized body of al Qaeda can ever exist in our side, on our side of the border. And so also when U.S. forces are operating on the Iran side, an organization capable of homogeneity, capable of having a command and control organization all over, if not the world, in the region, or at least in that country, is not possible. I’m reasonably certain about that. It is not possible, because they…there’s a very strong action going on, on both sides, it is not possible. But individual groups moving or on the run, whether they are on the border areas or in Afghanistan or maybe entering our cities is a possibility, and some actions, even day before yesterday we had an action in Karachi, spearheaded by our interior service intelligence, ISI, the much maligned intelligence organization, they were the ones who found it out, they were the ones who operated, and we were one from Saudi Arabia, one from…Egypt and (Inaudible) Yemeni. It was a very positive action, so as long as we keep them on the run, a homogeneous force can not be created.

I don’t think a homogeneous force with proper command and control al Qaeda can be created. That much for Afghanistan and its fall out on Pakistan. Now coming to our internal problem, and I’ll follow on with this law and order or the terrorism part, other than al Qaeda, Pakistan has its own internal sectarian extremism, sectarian intolerance which leads to poor (Inaudible) detrimental effects on our law and order. That, we are tackling that. This was internal previously, but may I say maybe there is a linkage in some cases where this al Qaeda fall out and this sectarian extremism joined to act against the three or four terrorist acts in Pakistan, latest ones, which were reported, and they were mainly targeting Christians, unfortunately.

But let me say that we moved against these very successfully. All the people, all of them involved in all these latest three terrorist acts, are behind bars or eliminated. That has been the success of our operation. And I’m keeping my fingers crossed, in the last three months no act has taken place, and since the last over eight months no sectarian extremist act, terrorist act took place, has taken place. So I’m very sure that law and order with the al Qaeda elements or fall out over Afghanistan and our actions improved resolve and actions of the law enforcement agencies, it’s bearing fruit and we are improving our law and order situation.

Now I will come on to what my government did, and a few words only on it. What has been our performance in Pakistan, I would only like to say, touch on two things. We, right in the beginning, when we talk of reviving Pakistan, we placed our focus on four elements. Economic revival, bringing good governance into Pakistan, poverty alleviation in Pakistan, and political restructuring in Pakistan. And throughout we have maintained this focus. In the good governance, of course the human resource development part was included in all this, the education, health, lender equality, et cetera, was all included in this. On the economic revival, I just want to say that all our macro economic indicators are very positive. I think we have revived the economy of Pakistan. From a state of near default, we have brought it to a healthy situation, a lot needs to be done still, but I think we have done a lot, and we have succeeded.

The macro economic indicators, our foreign exchange (Inaudible) at a record high, our fiscal deficit is well under control, it has been reduced. Our debts for the first time, domestic and external have been reduced, first time in the history. Our exports are at its highest, first time in the history, we have broken the records. Our exchange situation is excellent, our stock exchange is performing…is the best performer in the region. So, economic…macro economic indicators are all positive. We have evolved a special strategy of poverty alleviation, we have evolved a strategy for improvement of education at…in all its (Inaudible). We have evolved a strategy for improvement of the health sector, so we are going in a very planning, organized manner evolving computer having evolved strategic strategies and restructuring and reformation in all departments are going in accordance with that strategy.

The last word I want to touch on is on democracy. It’s ironical that a man in uniform is to talk on democracy, but that is…I had been placed in this position, and therefore I would like to give my bit on it. This is causing concern everywhere, I know that, especially in the west. That democracy needs to be introduced in Pakistan. I am introducing democracy, I am trying to introduce democracy for the first time in Pakistan. I mean it. Democracy in Pakistan was relegated to having an elected government alone, and that is all, the end of democracy. Have elections, the end of democracy. I have always been saying, that is the beginning of democracy. How this government performs, how it governs, is democracy.

So therefore, when we analyzed the whole scenario in Pakistan, we saw that no government in Pakistan has ever completed its full tenure. All the governments have looted and plundered the country, and brought it to this brink of disaster. This is the state that democracy was in Pakistan. Misgovernance, loot and plunder. So we analyzed the situation, and we realized that there are certain requirements, and the requirements are to have checks and balances on all those, I call them power brokers, who can take impulsive wrong actions, and these happen to be the prime minister of Pakistan, the president of Pakistan, and the army chief. All three in our history have taken wrong decisions, one time or the other. We must not allow them to take these wrong decisions ever in the future.

So therefore, there is a requirement of instituting checks and balances on all of them. Secondly, we must introduce sustainable democracy in Pakistan, which functions…a functional democracy. When we see that it hasn’t…democracy in Pakistan has not functioned, when analyzed has it…is it the fault of the politicians who are not adhering to some democratic rules, or is it that the democracy that we are running in Pakistan is not tailored to our environment? Both of them are true,. So therefore we need to lose something, we need to bring about (Inaudible) that this democracy remains sustainable. And lastly, we’ve carried out a number of reforms and restructuring.

Our entire effort of three year would go waste if we were not to ensure sustainability of these reforms and restructuring. And therefore, and we will not allow that. I will not allow that. So therefore, the reforms and restructuring must continue. For indeed within these three parameters, whatever I have done, whatever changes I’m bringing about, whatever constitutional amendment I have done, are strictly in line with these three elements which I want to achieve. And that is what I am doing. So ladies and gentlemen, I think I have covered everything that I thought is concerning our region. I will leave the rest to your questions, I’ll try to answer your questions as much…to the best of my capabilities. Thank you very much. (Applause)

RH: Mr. President, I volunteered to be the traffic cop for this Q&A period. And I don’t know how we do this, but I think I can stand up or I can sit down or whatever ...

PM: Yes. No, no. (Laughs)

RH: (Laughter) I’d like to just lead off with one area, which you left out. And that is, the current state of U.S.-Pakistan relations, and what you hope to…that we will be able to do to support you.

PM: I think the terrorist attack on 9/11 brought a major change in the whole world, in the region, in our region, and in United States-Pakistan relations. The relationship between the United States and Pakistan is progressing on a very balanced key. The negative perceptions after the end of the Cold War, after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan need correction, and I think with a balanced approach, of the United States towards the region, I think the relationship is certainly progressing very well. And now what we needed from United States really was a broad based relationship which we have now, and it is improving. In…to substantiate in concrete terms, we were looking for debt relief for Pakistan, we were looking for budgetary assistance from United States, and we were looking for market access. And may I say that we are grateful that we got a good amount of debt relief, we got a good amount of budgetary support, and we got some market access. (Laughter) We are looking for more. (Laughter)

RH: Okay. I’d like, when I recognize you, to stand, wait for a mike and then tell us who you are.

Audience: Robin Duke, Alan Guttmacher Institute. General, there’s one thing you didn’t mention, I know Ambassador Platt said that he had covered it, but you did not mention population. And the population growth rates in Pakistan are astounding.

PM: Yes.

Audience: And this means that in your health programs, I want to know if you will encourage more development in the area of family planning, and ...

PM: Yes.

Audience:…reaching mothers with the common sense that you’ll see economic growth and development if in fact they have fewer children but healthier children and better prospects for education. Thank you.

PM: Thank you very much, yes indeed, I think this is, from when you talk of economic revival, maybe this is one of the very important elements of economic revival. Our population, there’s a population explosion in our area. We have reduced the population growth from about 3.2 percent, which it was, to about 2.4 percent now. And I think basic methodology of reducing the population is education itself. We are…we’ve evolved a strategy…education strategy, in its entirety, in its entire complexity, but in that we are concentrating on girls and women education also. So this is I think an indirect strategy of controlling population. But other than that, the direct method of controlling, never was anyone talking of population growth, because of some religious people who didn’t understand really, and they were talking of bringing religion into even population control. This is the first time that my government, and I personally have attended a number of seminars and workshops on this issue, and I now we openly talk of population control in Pakistan. Of the minister that I had appointed for this job, she was an extremely capable, dynamic lady, and she has done a lot in this field. I don’t want to go into the details, but she has actually done a lot in population control and population awareness at the rural…in the rural areas, especially and I think the targets that we have set, and the strategy that we have set for ourselves, is to reduce the population growth, to under two percent within the five year period that the (Inaudible) strategy that we have set for ourselves.

RH: I’m interested in geographic fairness, (Laughter), and so I want to be sure every area gets recognized.

Audience: Kati Marton. Mr. President, what impact will the United States hopefully with United Nations backing and support, campaign against Saddam Hussein have against…on regional stability and what role will it play on your campaign against al Qaeda?

PM: Well, I don’t think it will affect the campaign against al Qaeda or whatever, and in fact, one remains extremely conscious that whatever happened in Iraq should not have any effect to the commitment in the region, in Afghanistan and against al Qaeda. So that should not be affected at all with whatever happenings take place in Iraq. But when you ask what effects it will have in the region, in our region, yes indeed, I think it will produce ripples in our region. It will have its negative repercussions. It will have political and maybe economic repercussions, which need to be evaluated very accurately. When I say economic, anything to deal with oil will have economic repercussions, so one only hopes that the economic realities of the problem of oil supplies does not get out of hand, because it will have repercussions everywhere in the world, also in our region. But on the whole, I think as long as a decision is taken through the United Nations Security Council, then it becomes binding on every country to abide by United Nations Security Council resolution, and Pakistan will go along on that.

Audience: I’m Howard Schaffer, of Georgetown University. Mr. President, you spoke very convincingly and with great eloquence about the importance of the Kashmir issue. What is your view of the role that the international community in general, and the government of the United States in particular, can play in moving a settlement forward?

PM: I think the role certainly is mediation or facilitation. Unfortunately, the situation is that bilateral approach to problems is very good. It’s the best maybe. If two opposing views have the sincerity to go forward bilaterally and resolve a dispute with sincerity. But if that is lacking, and bilateralism is not producing results, then certainly mediation is answer. Certainly a third party involvement is the answer, to move it forward. (Inaudible) the issue of Kashmir, this is the problem. I know there are maybe some Indian friends sitting here, but we must understand these realities. I’m not saying anything which is unrealistic. We have been trying, for all these years, to a bilateral approach to move forward on Kashmir. And where have we ended? Nowhere. We don’t start a discussion. So the role that the international community can play is mediation, facilitation, whatever diplomatic language one can use. But they need to play this all(?), to bring India and Pakistan on the negotiating table and move forward through a very peaceful discussion, in a peaceful manner, and move forward on the Kashmir dispute. And this mediator is all…is extremely important from the side of United States, may I add.

Audience: Mr. President, a follow up question on Kashmir—

RH: Can you tell us who you are ...

Audience: Oh, Dennis Kux, from the ...

RH:…even though we know. (Scattered Laughter)

Audience: From the Woodrow Wilson Center. The last time the United States became actively involved in Kashmir was when John F. Kennedy was President, and Ukon(?) was President of Pakistan, and Mr. Nehru was still with us. At the time he sent Averell Harriman out to the area, to assess the situation, and Harriman came back and advised Kennedy that it would be very difficult to find a Kashmir settlement, because any solution that Pakistan would accept, India would not accept, and vice-versa. And I’m wondering, has the situation changed? Can you see a situation or can you see a settlement that Pakistan would accept, that India would also accept? Or turn it around the other way, a settlement that India would buy, that Pakistan would also agree to?

PM: Yes, sir. I think with the passage of time, with 55 years ago, I think sane minds on both sides, India and Pakistan, have realized that there is no point in this confrontationist approach. Any sane man would realize that. War is not the answer. Confrontation is not the answer. (Inaudible) our own economies, we give up the opportunities of (Inaudible) economic revival, everyone understands. The 21st century is a century for economy, geo-economics, I would say, and one should realize it’s only our region which is not involved with any cooperation. The Sark(?), but Sark is an important organization, I would say, very frankly, with due regards to all of us there. Now, therefore there’s a changed environment. Everyone knows, everyone wants to move forward, at least in Pakistan I know, and I also feel that in India also people know. Now, there are solutions which are possible. We have to get away from stated positions. Stated positions are those historical positions. Stated positions are those positions which are totally unacceptable to either side. As I said, we need to eliminate those. If we…it needs statesmanship, it needs leadership. If we think that the whole of, all the entire population of India, and the entire population of Pakistan will accept some kind of a solution unanimously, no, sir, that’s not going to take place. But leadership (Inaudible) is this, you mold the opinion of the people, and you accept opposition from some minority, then you go for whatever is in national interest. And I think if this kind of leadership accepts…exists on both sides, we certainly have solutions, which will…which ought to be…which are flexible enough, which are suitable enough, maybe to both sides, and the Kashmiris. Now the important part is the people of Kashmir themselves. What kind of a solution would…will be acceptable to them? I personally feel with correct leadership, there certainly are solutions which will be acceptable to all three. Then it’s up to the leadership to mold opinions, and drive it through and deliver peace in the region.

Audience: Philip Stabott(?), Mr. President. There has been concern about the teaching of extremism in the madrassas. I know you have addressed this question. Could you tell us how it is coming along?

PM: Yes, sir. There are about seven or eight thousand madrassas in Pakistan, and there are about seven hundred or eight hundred thousand students in these madrassas. They have a positive side, which is that they are having free board and lodge to the poorest of the poor. The negative side being, not in all, but in some, especially in the rural areas, they are imparting only religious education. Our strategy obviously is to bring some discipline into the madrassas, in that they need to be registered, and we need to ensure that no foreign student comes without valid documents, from his respective countries. We have produced a madrassa ordinance, which is ensuring this. The other difficult part is, as you have mentioned, the part where we want to bring the madrassa education in harmony with our mainstream education, where we have introduced four subjects. Now, all this is good in the form of an ordinance, and orders, but easier said than done. We need finances, we need capacity. When we are asking for rural areas to teach certain subjects, they need the teachers, they need to pay the teachers. So therefore, while all the umma, and mashayaka(?) people, the religious scholars in Pakistan have accepted this, we have to generate the capacity to implement whatever we are doing. We are moving forward, I am very glad we are moving forward, but it’s not at the speed that one would like to move forward, because of this (Inaudible).

Audience: I’m Christopher Candland, Wellesley College, and an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. When, if ever, do you think the Pakistan polity will be ready or prepared for a constitutional arrangement in which the President does not have the authority to remove the elected government?

PM: Democracy, I would state, I would like to say, does not have a set formula. Please don’t see democracy in Pakistan sitting in the United States, from U.S. eyes. Please see it in…from Pakistani eyes. Come to Pakistan, see the reality of Pakistan, and then see what ought to be done. Now theoretically, what you are saying is correct…this right with the President, or in our case the national security council now, to dismiss an assembly ought not to be there. But as I said earlier, our experience, our political experience is that we need to have a check on the people who govern Pakistan, because they exactly are the people who are misgoverning. So therefore, it is our environment. Maybe not in any western country, maybe not in a developed country, but our environment is that the government itself is misgoverning. The government itself is looting and plundering. So therefore it is essential that we have these checks and balances. Now, especially so when the…within the Assembly itself the elected people are not that democratically conscious, to exercise checks within themselves, against the government or the prime minister. That is another reality in Pakistan. And especially when a prime minister introduces a 14th amendment which the ex-prime minister had done to completely stifle dissent in Pakistan before I introduced this constitutional amendment and revoked this 14th amendment, or modified it, nobody…there was a dictatorship within the parties, nobody could have a dissenting vote. Nobody could express an opinion against the dictates of the party as stipulated by the party leader. If he did that, loses his seat. So therefore, when democratically elected people, prime ministers, can have an urge to bring dictatorship within themselves, usurp power like that, you need…you must have checks on them. The answer to your question is, when we gain in maturity, and we are able to generate checks within ourselves, then I think one can remove this condition, I can’t give a period maybe. Let the people of Pakistan decide. And Assembly decide, because the Assembly has total authority to legislate. Let them decide when the time has come that we don’t need this. But at the moment, what I desire now is that in this period of transition, where I want to embed, where I want to…where I want to cement democratic culture, a true democratic culture, one needs to ensure its cementing over a period of time, and let that period of time go, and let these…let us test whatever we have done, and then the Assembly has all the authority to have a re-look on the constitutional amendments that I have made, whether they are suitable or not, and then try to (Inaudible) decisions.

Audience: My name is Faisal Haq, I’m an American Pakistani. My question to you is, you had said earlier that as a military man, your view of the internal situation of Pakistan is shaped by your background. What is your view of the threat posed by these extremist elements within Pakistani society? How powerful are they, how organized are they, and what will it take to remove this menace from our society, other than just military action?

PM: Military action is going only…going against only one part, and that is the al Qaeda element. Are you talking only of them?

Audience: I’m talking about the internal groups in Pakistan. (Overlap)

PM: Okay. I, as I gave out, there are two areas where this extremism is flowing, one is our own sectarian extremism, and the other is out flow from whatever is happening in Afghanistan, the al Qaeda elements coming into Pakistan, into our cities, (Inaudible) tribal areas, sometimes a collusion of the two. I’m very optimistic that the situation is changing. When you talk of numbers and what kind of strength they have, as far as al Qaeda is concerned, I can’t talk of numbers at all. But I am reasonably sure, I’m very sure, in fact, that they are not in thousands. They must be in hundreds. But even in hundreds I will say they are on the lower side of hundreds. This is a broad number that I can give, I am not too sure of it also. When we talk of sectarian extremism in Pakistan, I am very sure again that these are fringe elements. You being from Pakistan, you must be knowing that in the past, whenever we’ve had elections in Pakistan, no religious party, not a single one of them has…or the combined total of all of them, have not even won five percent of the votes in Pakistan. This is the reality. Pakistan is a moderate…we are all Muslims, we are all religious, but we are all moderates. This is the reality which I am trying to convey, portray to everyone.

There are fringe extremists who are…who have a nuisance value all right, they are small in numbers. Now within those we have banned certain extremist parties. We have banned them, we have sealed their offices, we’ve arrested their people. The fringe elements who go to the limit of carrying out these terrorist attacks are very small in number. I think we have broken their back. I think they are on the run. I am very sure that with further passage of time, because we have taken on their entire top leadership, the second and third stringers are the ones who are operating. We have broken their back also. I am reasonably sure that with passage of time, with stability coming in the region, now I would say we have resolved, we bring stability into Afghanistan. We bring stability in Kashmir, we resolve the Kashmir dispute. The extremism in Pakistan will certainly go down and it will improve.

Audience: My name is Frank Hoch, retired banker. Mr. President, when we talk about the United States and what it can do, you wake up to the fact that we know very little about your two countries and even less about Kashmir. We know that it has beautiful waters and lovely boats and one used to go vacationing there. Beside that, we know nothing. Could you just briefly give us a little bit of background? How big is the population? How does it break down into Muslims and Hindus? And what is some of the history in the Kashmir area that led to this intractable situation?

PM: I don’t know how to encapsulate the entire answer (Laughter) into a few minutes. So you asked a question which is extremely wide. May I suggest that we could get the details and I could send this on. (Laughter/Applause) Kashmir has a Muslim majority. What is the total population? (Overlapping Voices) The total population of Kashmir is 13 million. It has a vast Muslim majority. It has Hindus also and it has Buddhists also. So basically the jungle region…well, you don’t know the geography, so therefore I am talking in the air. (Laughter) I would like to ...

NP: The [Asia] Society will help.

PM: (Laughs) Okay, the Society should help, okay. I think the geography needs to be understood first and then the demographic pattern of the whole Kashmir dispute. But I’m glad that you know that it’s a very beautiful area. (Laughter) It’s mountainous and it’s the most beautiful. It’s heaven on earth.

NP: I’ll undertake to make sure you get a full briefing on Kashmir. (Laughter)

Audience: My name is Anise(?) Smirza(?) and I am a Pakistani journalist, retired, if we can retire. (Laughter)

NP: I hope this is a question. (Laughter)

Audience: You know me, Mr. Platt.

NP: Yes.

Audience: Very well.

NP: That’s why I said that. (Laughter)

Audience: Sir, you talked about environment in South Asia. But throughout your trips, which I have attended and watched with great interest, although I’m retired, you have not touched on a very key issue in South Asia. Pakistan in the 21st century is the only country which has feudal landlords. And my question is because landlordism affects the status of women and the bondage of children, particularly in the countryside, is your government ready for land reforms? Because General Yujon(?) tried it and failed.

PM: Yes.

NP: Good question.

PM: You give me ten years, I’ll do everything. (Laughter/Applause) I have three years given by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and I can, at the cost of maybe sounding boastful, what we’ve achieved in these three years I think is quite unprecedented, and I’ve said what we’ve achieved. We have restructured everything in Pakistan. You talk about anything in Pakistan, I’ll give you a run down of half an hour on every key issue in Pakistan. This is what we’ve done. And I mean it. Whether it’s economy, it’s education, it’s health, it’s infrastructure development, it’s poverty alleviation. I can tell you what all we did, because we spent midnight oil on our ministers working about maybe over 16 hours certainly a day for the first one and a half years at least and seven days a week in involving all this restructuring.

Now it is not humanly possible to address everything. Now coming to your issue of feudalism, yes, indeed, we have a feudal structure. It needs to be addressed. But with that (Inaudible) with education coming in, number one. Number two, we’ve had three generations since partition, and we have not been very good at population control. With each generation the land holding of people has reduced phenomenally. So the real feudalism now maybe exists maybe in southern Punjab, and there’s a different kind of feudalism in Baluchistan, tribal feudalism.

What is of more concern as far as I know, as far as my perception is concerned, is not the land holding feudalism, it is the mental feudalism where we have a feudalistic mind set, where we believe in violating rules and showing our strength and being proud of our strength in being able to violate rules. So this feudalistic mind set needs to be changed, and I think with education this is changing a lot. But when you talk of land reforms, yes, we did not carry out. It’s a major issue, and we didn’t frankly have the time to address this major issue of land reforms.

But when you do your talking of children and women empowerment, I think we have done tremendously on women empowerment. We have given political empowerment to women. At the local government level there are 33 percent women representation (Inaudible) at the union council level. This is unprecedented anywhere in the world. We have given 60 seats in the National Assembly to women, reserved seats. Again, so this is unprecedented. So therefore we are empowering women. We have done a lot on counting child labor. This is our success story in one of the areas that’s accepted by the World Organization. So we have come a long way. But yes, going for land reforms and elimination of feudalism totally…but feudalism in the mind cannot be addressed. It will go with education and passing of time.

NP: Okay, this is our last question.

Audience: (Inaudible) I manage a small fund for Deutsche Bank, and poverty is an issue in the region, in both India and Pakistan. Can you talk a little bit about that and can you talk about how micro finance (Inaudible) your government has done a lot, is playing in that one?

PM: Yes. So I talk on poverty alleviation and what we are doing on it. But very shortly, very briefly, we have seen the indirect method of addressing the poverty alleviation and a direct method of addressing poverty alleviation. On the indirect side, we think that economic revival itself is real poverty alleviation, first of all. And other than that, we’ve seen poverty residing in the rural areas of Pakistan. 60 percent, 70 percent of population. We have seen poverty within the urban areas, in the urban, educated unemployed, and the third area is urban, uneducated, unemployed. We have adopted a strategy to strike at all three of these categories.

Our development projects address agriculture (Inaudible) management, because that will really do poverty alleviation in the rural areas, because we are an (Inaudible) society. On the educated unemployed, we’ve gone for information technology in a very big way. The infrastructure development in information technology is phenomenal through the very dynamic minister that I have. On the uneducated unemployed, we are going for small and medium enterprises. And then we have launched a Queshal(?) Pakistan Project which itself gives hundreds of thousands of jobs. These are small projects. So this is the indirect method of poverty alleviation.

On the direct side, you refer to micro finance. On the lines of Gramin(?) Bank in Bangladesh, we have a Hoshal(?) bank, Hoshali(?) bank in Pakistan. This is being run by a very dynamic personality and the rate of its success to the population is far faster, much faster, recognized by international body than the Gramin Bank of Bangladesh. It’s doing very well. It is spreading into the rural areas into our district and it is giving loans up to about 30,000 rupees to the poorest of the poor.

And the last thing that we’ve done is the greatest element. There is Zakat strategy or Zakat fund. Now the Zakat fund, ladies and gentlemen, is the (Inaudible) cutting by Muslims on their savings. Two and a half percent cutting on all their savings in their banks. This comes into a Zakat fund, which is a Muslim tradition. Now this Zakat fund previously was being given at a (Inaudible) sum of 500 a piece (Inaudible) just to sustain the poorest of the poor. We have evolved a Zakat strategy, which is under implementation, that we have started giving up to 50,000 rupees out of this fund to the poorest of the poor. This is a grant to making her stand on her or his own feet.

In all over Pakistan in various areas, we have ourselves seen what is it that the poor man would require? For example, in Baluchistan maybe give him money for ten goats, in Punjab give him money for two cows, or a woman give her money for some stitching machines or knitting machines. In the coastal area give him money for a boat and a net for him. So we are giving money for people to stand on their own feet, and we get them out of the list of this dole people.

This is going very well. We have given money to hundreds of thousands of people at an average of 20, 25,000 rupees, and we now follow up what they are doing, and the result is good. They do get involved in the businesses of a small shop or a small (Inaudible) shop and all that. It’s going very well, and I think this is the poverty alleviation that we are doing. But I’ll repeat, economic revival of Pakistan is the ultimate poverty alleviation.

NP: Well, Mr. President, we’re deeply indebted to you for giving us so much of your time. We’d love to keep you here several more hours. (Laughter) When I look at the forest of hands, I wish I was an auctioneer and a not a moderator. (Laughter) But we have to let you go, but not without a great big hand. (Applause)

PM: Ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to thank you. I would have loved to stay on for seven more hours, yes? But it has been an excellent introduction. I thank you all. Thank you.