Author: Mohua Chatterjee
Publication: The Times of India
Date: October 8, 2001
Pakistan seems to be bailing out
the Taliban government in Afghanistan for its mere survival, according
to a home ministry report. The report claims the Taliban government has
no source of income other than its drug trade. Hence, it has been sustaining
largely through funds made available to it by Pakistan.
Pakistan's former interior minister
Maj Gen (Retd), Nasirulla Babbar, who is credited with the creation of
the Taliban, formed an Afghan Trade Development Cell (ATDC) in his ministry,
ostensibly to facilitate a trade route to Central Asia. In reality it was
a covert set tip to provide logistic back up to the Taliban regime, the
report states.
In 1995, Maj Gen Babbar had ordered
Pakistan telecommunication department to set up a telephone network for
the Taliban which was integrated with Pakistan's telephone grid. For instance,
Kandahar could be dialled from anywhere in Pakistan as a domestic call
by using the prefix 081 the same number used for making calls to Quetta.
Ever since the Taliban came to power in 1995-96, Pakistan has been supporting
it financially in a big way.
Pakistan, which is passing through
an economic slow down for the last 13 years, authorised a payment of Rs
300 million for salaries to employees of the Taliban administration in
Kabul on June 20, 1996. The allocation allowed Pakistan foreign office
to dispense Rs 50 million every month for the next six months to pay salaries
to these employees, says the report.
Similarly, in 1997-98, Pakistan
provided Taliban with an estimated $30 million in aid. This included six
lakh tonnes of wheat, arms, ammunitions, defence spares, aerial bombs and
equipment for their air force and for the upgradation of their air bases.
In fact, Pakistan also facilitated Taliban's purchase of arms and ammunitions
from Ukrain and Eastern Europe in 1998-99.
Even after a UN resolution was introduced
in December 2000, putting an embargo on any form of outside military support
to the Taliban, Pakistan continued to flout the resolution with impunity,
says the report.
