In The Wake of IDEAS-2000

Columnist Col (Retd) EAS BOKHARI writes about arms exhibition in general.

Whether a Third World country should go into the so-called lucrative business of staging arms exhibitions is a moot point and can be argued on the both sides of the spectrum. I did not attend this highly publicised event in Karachi. I was neither invited nor (as usual) I had any sponsorship for going there.

Recently a number of letters have appeared in the ‘Nation’ Lahore on this issue of holding/staging the exhibition and the Seminar on strategic issues for the purpose of interaction with advanced and developed countries. By and large the writers who have had some grounding in the defence matters and arms industry have not commented favourably. One of my friends in Karachi described it a mega ‘shmozzle’.

I am not sure whether the economic targets as envisaged have been achieved or not, I have my doubts as ‘just showing interest’ and signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) does not mean that the deal has been clinched. Clearly no sophisticated foreign delegate will be blunt enough to tell the exhibition organisers that he openly dislikes the stuff that has been exhibited.

Some of the more thoughtful analysts have pointed out that such exhibitions and by the countries where more than half the population lives under the poverty line are a farce. It is a fact that a country where the average monthly emoluments of the population cannot buy even a single decent meal, the rationale for such a mammoth event does not really exist.

A couple of analysts have rightly argued that our line of action should be like Japan, a country which is an economic giant and a great power without arms. And surprisingly Japan neither holds any such exhibitions nor is a nuclear power.

Japan as I have often said is shy of the term ‘militarism’ notwithstanding the fact that Japan can be nuclear the moment it wishes to be so and can fabricate even the most powerful ICBM at any time. Japan has the infrastructure to do this but it is not doing this because that can harm its commercial and economic interests in a big way. Our approach is inverted.

I shall here cite two examples of such ill-advised exhibitions. Iraq went on to exhibit its arsenal (along with some allies) in 1988 in what was termed as the Baghdad Exhibition. Iraq even showed a ‘mockup’ of ‘Al-Faw’ which it was claimed would be the first anti-missile missile.

‘Al-Faw’ was never to come to its expectation, perhaps it was never built and the project was shelved. Any thoughtful reader who has read the accounts of the 1991 Gulf War would know how freely the Allied air ‘roamed’ into Iraq, and crippled Iraqi resistance before the ground attack. Yet another Iraqi secret weapon i.e. gas was also never used against the allies. I should think Iraq never ventured further in this business of arms bazars. Mind you Iraq is the biggest buyers of foreign arms including from South Africa and Russia.

India held an Air Exhibition in Bangalore some years back and it fared no better.

Our exhibition was conceived presumably to be organized by GHQ, (Combat Development Directorate) and its boss (then) Gen Amjad of the NAB fame was to run the exhibition. But then due to his impending assignment, and later appointment as Corps Commander the task was given to JS HQ, Chaklala (Maj Gen Ali Hamid). JSHQ of sure were in a better position for the coordination of this mega event and I think they did it well although they had no previous experience in this field. Gen Amjad had inducted a civilian consultancy firm ‘Pegasus’ of Karachi to make the arrangements in Karachi.

During one of the meetings in Chaklala in January this year I found that the ‘Pegasus’ had no real expertise in the matter and had hired a couple of Far Eastern firms (Singaporean) who hold such exhibitions as a routine and who had considerable experience in this regard. So the triad was JSHQ, Pegasus, Singaporeans.

I was asked by Pegasus to contribute a couple of presentations which I did as back as Jan-Feb. 2000, and these had covered all that which has appeared recently (except the latest developments). The President of ‘Pegasus’ appears to me a terribly greedy person and he offered me an assignment to write four times a month on his exhibition and he promised to pay no more than what Manto was offered years back for one of his short stories. He never paid me anything for the work that had been done before. He was just money oriented, you can just imagine the ridiculous offer and who could possibly write (while sitting here) on an event which was in a melting pot and did not crystallise till late October four times a month.

While in Chaklala I could see a couple of sycophants around the Chairman of Pegasus as the Chairman had the scantiest know-how of defence equipment and during the conference-cum-discussion he uttered not a word. Exhibition and Seminar were two distinct events and at one time it was thought that the seminar be held in Islamabad and the exhibition for obvious reasons in Karachi due to availability of sea and ranges infrastructure there.

My own feeling is that some of the most successful exhibitions are held in places like Dubai and capitals of the developed countries which manufacture heavy defence hardware and who are aggressive sellers of their equipment. As it is, we had tried to hold a world event and then it was curtailed to Asia, and part thereof.

I remember the Indians had once tried to ship their (still not handed over to the Indian Armoured Corps after good 20 years of its inception) to a Canadian Exhibition for export purpose. It was good that the Canadians did not agree to the extravagant proposal.

It is interesting and confidence giving that POF exports more than the Indian arms exports, but that is in the light categories of weapons and equipment. What we in fact need is the Private Sector to come up too in this export exercise. The only exception I can think of in this regard is ‘Alsons’ of Karachi who produce really international standard equipment, especially fuses and Mortar bombs of sort. These are really good.

It looks strange (as was the case of Indian export of ‘Arjun’) to export Al-Khalid and Al-Zarrar while in the same breath we are importing 300 x T-80s from Ukraine. The evolution of Al-Khalid to its present integration is story in itself which needs a column.

I am told of the many power plants fitted on to this MBT, the Ukrainian power plant has worked the best. And some of the Ukrainian experts advised us to rather buy the entire tank than continue integration experiments like India where Arjun is anything but indigenous Indian tank, more than 50 per cent of this is foreign/heterogeneous integration. And then can we meet a big demand of tanks even if there is demand for these. I think our industry is not yet ready for this.

I have seen that most of the exhibition organisers publicly declare the accounts and the volume of ‘sale’, but this has not yet been done in the case of IDEAS-2000.