Ladies and gentlemen,

I thought long and hard about whether to accept the gracious invitation to speak at this forum today. The politics of a former Prime Minister of Pakistan  -- and the leader of Pakistan's most popular party – travelling to India to discuss bilateral relations between our two Nations were truly complex.

In the end I decided to attend. I did this because the threat of a conflict in South Asia ending up in the first nuclear war since Hiroshima is real. Such a conflict could annihilate hundreds of millions without distinguishing whether they were Pakistanis or Indians or Kashmiris.

The determination to make a contribution to avoid this nuclear nightmare far outweighed other arguments that could have crossed my mind.

We meet today with the world a different and more dangerous place than we expected when the Berlin Wall fell.

The end of the Cold War promised to herald an era of global peace. The principles of Freedom and Free Markets promised to shake up sluggish economies. The prospect of a Peace Dividend was before us.

It was not to be.

The world is at war, not peace.

The U.S. led coalition occupies a major Islamic Nation, suffering daily attacks and many casualties. No one knows whether Iraq will survive the present phase.

Both India and Pakistan are under pressure to send troops to Iraq. And both are considering that option separately. How much better it would be if countries in this South Asian region could consult each other on such important measures before taking a final decision.

And as I talk to you, the resurgent Taliban are mounting fresh attacks against the Karzai government in Afghanistan. They are mounting attacks against the Coalition forces and the NGOs working there.

In Jammu and Kashmir, despite the present welcome ceasefire at the Line of Control, the intensity of violence has yet to decrease.

We must ask ourselves: are we to condemn our future generations to a world of violence, of conflict, of bloodshed, of war, blood and destruction.

This conference, organized to explore peace initiatives, is an important step in building a different kind of world. A world of peace and harmony that protects the life, liberty and livelihood of every individual irrespective of their race, religion, gender or political affiliation.

This is an important responsibility on the shoulders of the leadership of South Asia. This responsibility is all the more grave as the world is involved in the war against terrorism.

Few nations or regions have been spared. Christian churches and Muslim masjids were targets of suicide bombers in Pakistan. Your own Parliament became a bloody target. Great Britain is a target. Saudi Arabia is a target. Turkey is a target. Indonesia is a target. Australia is a target. There are seemingly constant acts of terrorism in the Middle East, every day, every week. The world is threatened with carnage in many corners.

We owe it to ourselves and to our people, to all of South Asia, to make every effort, to strive, to seek, to pursue peaceful means for the resolution of outstanding disputes, for confidence building and for reduction of tension in our region. This is the part we can play in helping the world community deal with the threat of terrorism.

The Pakistan Peoples Party, which I lead, welcomed Islamabad’s announcement of a unilateral ceasefire along the Line of Control inclusive of Siachen. This measure was taken in response to Prime Minister Vajpayee’s recent twelve-point package of confidence building measures.

There are many who believe that in the context of Indo Pak relations, tension can only be reduced when both countries are truly democracies. I am one of those who believe that democracies do not go to war against other democracies. I say this on the basis of Indo Pak history. Since Independence the three wars that took place between India and Pakistan took place under military dictatorships.

And since the destabilization of the democratic government that I led in 1996, India and Pakistan have come close to war three times.

As a witness to the historic Simla Agreement, the agreement that prevented full-fledged war between our countries since 1971, my Party and I are committed to the Peace process between our countries. It is this commitment that led the PPP and myself to welcome talks between New Delhi and Islamabad despite the military dictatorship in my country.

We believe that the military rulers overt statements for normalization of relations must be put to the test. If it is false, they will be exposed before the bar of public opinion. If it is true, the benefit will go to the people in the region.

It is therefore important to communicate, to enter into dialogue and to test the intentions of each other.

It is to the credit of Prime Minister Vajpayee that he did not lose heart despite the undermining of Bus Diplomacy and the failure of the Agra Summit. But then he is a man of many surprises.

For the time being, the Indo Pak ceasefire has brought happiness and immediate relief on both sides of the Line of Control. Hundreds of villages with thousands of peaceful inhabitants are worst hit during a military standoff. Mines are laid maiming many. Constant firing denies villagers sustenance.

The atmosphere of congeniality has increased with the news that Prime Minister Vajpayee is to attend the forthcoming SAARC Summit in Islamabad in January 2004.

A new year begins with new hopes and expectations.

The major impact of this ceasefire relates to Siachin area. Both India and Pakistan spend enormous amounts on maintaining their respective holds on this highest and coldest of battlegrounds.

As Prime Minister, I have seen the transformation of the glaciers into formidable military camps. Estimates claim that the cost to both countries since 1985 is in the region of roughly twenty billion rupees annually. This huge amount is being spent to sustain and counter each other’s confrontation in the icy peaks.

The cost in lives, particularly during the Kargil fighting but also otherwise, and in those falling victims to cold induced injuries is immeasurable.

The announcement of the ceasefire serves as a deterrent to militancy. It minimizes the build up of a situation similar to that last year that could have erupted into a three-minute nuclear boom, and doom, massive destruction.

The United States, China and others have welcomed the much needed ceasefire in the hope that it will create conditions speeding up the peace process.

Significantly, the ceasefire received wide acceptability in India and Pakistan igniting the hope that saner leadership will untie the Kashmir Gordian knot.

Prime Minister Vajpayess has indicated that his upcoming visit to Islamabad will include meetings with “everyone”. This indicates that a meeting between General Musharaf, the man who wields the real power in Pakistan, and the Indian Prime Minister will take place. This is just as well as the Pakistani Premier’s position is presently ceremonial and will remain so until power is transferred to the Parliament.

The support for the ceasefire rightly came from the Pakistan Peoples Party, the only Federal and broad based political party outside those created by the establishment. The PPP has the singular honour of making a breakthrough on Siachen during Indo Pak talks in 1989. It is the architect of the policy of soft borders on the disputed territories enunciated in 1999.

The PPP hopes that the ceasefire plan will be followed by greater travel links between the two countries as well as talks on how to lessen violence and use of force in the area. The PPP hopes that another ceasefire with militants and the Indian army can be reached as it was in the past. The lessening of violence in the valley can be calibrated to the reduction of Indian troops in the area giving a greater sense of security to the Kashmiri people as well as bolstering Indo Pak relations.

While the borders were silent as the signs of a spring in relations dawned, militants tried to mar the spirit within Indian controlled Kashmir. New Delhi did not make these violent incidents an excuse to reject the ceasefire.

The frequent military standoffs contribute immensely to the poverty in the region. The nuclear detonations in 1998 were a signal to awaken to new realities that changed the nature of a possible future Indo Pak war.

Resultantly, public opinion in both countries was building up. Exchanges and visits by Parliamentarians, intellectuals, business community and women’s groups took place. These visits indicated that public opinion was dissatisfied with the festering confrontation, exchanges of fire and the disruption in the normalization process. Public opinion was concerned about the despair, misery and abject poverty that marked the lives of those living in the shadow of the threat of conflict.

The renewed contacts between India and Pakistan are taking place against the backdrop of statements by key officials both in Washington and in London. The senior officials and politicians have raised New Delhi’s concerns with General Musharaf. According to them, General Musharaf has assured them that he will stop cross border militant activity.

This is a new strategic reality. It is arising out of the ashes of the Twin Towers that were brought down by the events of September 11th.

Even as the world witnesses the emergence of a post September 11 world with zero tolerance for acts of violence, we must be ever vigilant for elements that would do their best to undermine the prospects of a breakthrough.

These elements are the militants. They believe that without violence there will be no settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir issue. During their talks in Islamabad in January, the Indo Pak leadership will need to discuss how to have borders that are soft and which are also safe.

In war games and scenarios played out by think tanks fictitious volunteers are seen as the Achilles heels of the normalization process. These war games have led security agencies to conclude that the region is “one of the most dangerous places on earth.”

The worry is that a militant could spark a war that neither country really wants. For example, a dramatic act, similar to the attack on the Indian Parliament, could create intense public pressure on New Delhi to retaliate against Pakistan triggering war.

Perhaps this is why, on the eve of PM Vajpayee’s visit, Islamabad banned some militant groups, froze their accounts and sealed their offices. It is hoped that such groups would not resurface once again when the snows of winter melt.

I take this opportunity to commend the All Parties Hurriyet Conference. Despite recent divisions, the APHC has kept the doors of dialogue open and back channels active. APHC has an important role to play in facilitating peaceful conditions in Srinagar as indeed in Muzzafarabad whose parties are also part of the APHC.

In the past, New Delhi extended an invitation for unconditional dialogue to the APHC. Such measures, including the past ceasefire between militants and the Indian army, were innovative steps that gave momentum to the search for a solution that could end the threat of conflict from this ancient civilisation, so rich in culture, so full of diversity and populated with a hard working and talented peoples.

It is tragic that this subcontinent, so full of history, has remained for so long the most likely site for a nuclear exchange on our planet.

South Asia must begin its search for a peace dividend.

We can think of the peace dividend as the sum of resources no longer devoted to the military and available for the social sector.

The peace dividend can be the traditional guns for butter trade-off. In the longer term, a peace dividend is defined by investment. We must invest in technology. We must invest in infrastructure. Above all we must invest in human capital -- specifically on education and health.

The 1990s began with falling defence budgets in the United States. But the United States quickly assumed its role as the world’s only superpower. Now the US spends more on defence than during the Cold War.

Another test of the peace dividend soon emerged following the Declaration signed by Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and Palestinian

President Arafat on the White House lawn in September 1993.  Foreign investment into Israel and Palestine soared.  A Palestinian Development Bank was established funded by the IMF, the United States and the EU. All this finished with the Intifida.

We know that a South Asian peace dividend could dramatically increase the quality of life of our huge populations.

Scholars expect peace to break down poverty.  A Harvard Professor, David Landes, writing in “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations” said, “poverty is inextricably linked to armed conflict.”

Poverty creates an atmosphere that encourages war for the purpose of national identification, national mobilization, and as a distraction from social inequality and hopelessness.

Fighting poverty was a challenge in Pakistan with one of the highest population growth rates when I took office in 1988.

As Prime Minister I demonstrated with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that men and women of good will, Indians and Pakistanis of good will, could make fundamental progress. 

The nuclear confidence building treaty that we signed in 1988, a treaty by which we committed not to attack our respective nuclear facilities, was the most important peace accords between us since the Simla Agreements signed by our parents in 1972.

I am also proud that we were able to establish, for the fist time, hot lines between the General headquarters of both our countries modelled after the Hotline between Washington and the Kremlin.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We believed that these confidence building measures were an important prelude to moving along the cause of peace and in facing the challenge of differing perceptions on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

We feel strongly on this issue, on both sides. 

Let us not be afraid to have two different points of view on the outstanding issues between us today. China and India have a border dispute but they do not threaten each other with war. In fact, relations between the two countries keep improving.

Beijing and Washington have a dispute over Taiwan yet they do not brandish nuclear weapons at each other. Instead they have excellent trade relations.

There are many countries with disputes and disagreements. Yet they manage their affairs in a way that enables their people to know each other through trade, travel and tourism. They share warm relations without prejudice to their differing positions and perceptions.

We can learn from such models of conflict management. We can make a meaningful attempt at resolution and reconciliation in South Asia to truly make progress across the board.

And if we do make progress, the dividend before us is compelling.

Trade between our nations is ridiculously low, less than one percent of our global trade. This has not always been the case.

Immediately after independence, India was Pakistan’s most important trading partner. In the early years, 56 percent of Pakistan’s total exports went direct to the Indian market. 32 percent of its imports came from India. Lahore and Amritsar were important economic hubs when trade flourished with a free flow of good and services.  Then, as our political relations deteriorated in the 1950s, trade trickled away for fifty years.

As the Prime Minister who proposed a South Asian Tariff Agreement during the Islamabad Summit of 1988, and ratified the SAPTA agreement during her second tenure, I am surprised at how our nations see progress on trade as a favour to the other country. I see it as a benefit to the common man in each of our countries.

Some suggest that the economic benefits of Indo Pak trading could be as much as $14 billion annually.

The greatest economic benefit of Indo Pak trade could occur in the sphere of energy cooperation. India is a rapidly growing energy market able to absorb new sources of supply as they materialize in the region.

Pakistan’s possible role is in fulfilling this need both supplier and as a transit route from Iran and Central Asia. This requires construction of pipelines, a major capital investment that can come only in an environment of bilateral peace.

I suggest that expanding trade be a useful adjunct to the political process, instead of being constrained by it.

Trade is but one of a great many potential benefits of peace that can change the face of the subcontinent.

Despite a growing middle class in both countries, the depth of poverty of our underclass defames our image.

People from India and Pakistan go to America in search of the American Dream. They feel they have opportunities to succeed there that are missing in our region.

We can offer our people the opportunity for an Asian dream. I dream of a time when our children’s lives will be free of self-imposed limitations.

The French philosopher Rousseau said that we were all born free.  Yet our societies, cultures, politics and militaries, keep our people chained to illiteracy, ignorance, intolerance, infant mortality, malnutrition and disease.

It’s time to break those chains.

Ladies and gentlemen,

India and Pakistan are nuclear powers. Despite the new cease-fire, we glare at each other across the LOC. Now is the time to move forward as the New Year in this new century approaches.

I commend the Hindustan Times for organizing this high powered conference. This is a conference that brings together political leaders, international diplomats, scholars, intellectuals and leading voices from the media.

It is a conference that involves the public in a historic debate.

It is my hope that a leading Pakistani daily will follow the precedent set by the Hindustan Times in organizing a similar conference in Pakistan.

I thank the Hindustan Times for bringing together a galaxy of leaders to speak on one of the most important issues of our times impacting on the future of one fifth of humanity.

And when a conference takes place in Pakistan, I hope I will be able to attend as I did here. For now, I am an exile.

I am banned from my country. I am banned from contesting for Premiership of my country, banned from contesting even as a backbencher, banned from seeing my  husband who is in the eighth year of his imprisonment, banned from entering my ancestral homes, banned from praying at the graves of my Martyred Father and brothers.

I do not despair. In life, an individual makes choices.

I made mine on the last day of my Father’s life in a prison that our colonial masters built in the city of Rawalpindi. That was the choice to fight for peace and democracy, to fight for human dignity that must come when people can combat hunger, poverty and illiteracy.

I know that realities change. That a person can go from Prime Minister to prisoner and from prisoner to Prime Minister. I have seen power from the time that I was a child. I must tell you that the sense of satisfaction and joy that I felt never came from the chandeliered halls or the turbaned staff, or the pomp and power of governing a state.

It came from small acts. It came from giving a child polio drops knowing those small drops would change its life forever. It came from inaugurating a school, providing electricity and water to places that had none. It came from seeing the smile on the face of a boy or girl who got a job.

The wheel of history turns. There was a time when Prime Minister Gujral could not visit Jhelum, the city he was born in because our two countries were at cross purposes. Now he, though an Indian, can visit Jhelum and I, though a Pakistani, cannot visit my Larkana.

The wheel of history turns. For individuals and Nations.

And as the wheel of history turns for the children of Partition, I hope we bequeath them a better future than our bitter past.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I conclude with a quote from Alexander Pope, which I used during my last visit to New Delhi two years back. He said:

"What war could ravish, Commerce could bestow, And he returned a friend, Who was a foe"

Thank you.