Bluff and bluster have been heard from the leaders of both India and Pakistan, from both sides of the divide. The vast majority of the people of both countries are hungry and tired and judging from the on-going confrontational situation and the pace of improvement, they will remain so into the foreseeable future.

Yesterday morning at Kathmandu, our man extended his hand in friendship to Atal Behari Vajpayee and in front of the world the two men shook hands. What has put our President, General Pervez Musharraf, at an advantage is his willingness to talk, at any place and at any time and on any issue, whereas petulant Vajpayee and his petulant men find it difficult to climb down from their nursery rocking-horses.

On the home-front the plea bargain made between ex-navy chief, the sacked, corrupt, and found guilty Mansurul Haq and Musharraf's National Accountability Bureau is causing dismay. But then, as things are, all men who wear an armed forces uniform or a judge's robe have been strangely declared to be above suspicion and exempt from the process of accountability.

The government of Pakistan wrote to the US state department on March 30 2001 seeking Haq's arrest, inter alia stating that the authorities in Pakistan maintain that Haq " ...was directly involved in committing acts of corruption and corrupt practices while serving as Chief of Naval Staff of the Pakistan Navy during 1994-1997 and thereafter..... Mansur extorted a percentage of the kickbacks reportedly in the amount of $3,369,383. As CNS, Mansur was influential in overseeing the development of a housing project known as 'Bahria Town' for use of naval personnel. He is alleged to have threatened to scuttle the project if he did not receive a sum of $200,000 from Malik Riaz Hussain, the major financial backer of the project.

"According to information provided to Pakistan authorities Hussain rendered such payment to Mansur in London and at Mansur's residence in Islamabad..... Mansur also used his position and influence in negotiating and executing a contract for the supply of SM39 missiles from the French firm, Aerospatiale, for the Pakistan Navy. A kickback commission was agreed upon at the rate of 6 per cent of the total contract and Mansur claimed 50 per cent of this amount..... Similar illegal payments were arranged for Mansur's benefit in connection with the sale to the Pakistan government for naval equipment by the French firm, Thompson CSF."

There are also many dubious deals involving land in which he played a role, one being the sale of naval seafront land at Cape Monze at the ridiculously low price of Rs.6 per square yard to Zardari-crony Tufail Tony Casino Shaikh, and the building with naval funds, presumably to warm Zardari's heart, at the Karsaz naval base in Karachi.

But then what was to be expected of Mansurul Haq, a man chosen by former civil servant and relative Ahmed Sadik, now disgraced by charges of mass corruption brought against him when he served as Benazir's left hand and Asif Zardari's right hand during their second stint in the prime ministerial secretariat, and appointed by Zardari as the PNS chief. When early in 1997, after Benazir's second dismissal, wraps could no longer be kept upon his wrongdoings and they were plastered all over the press, Haq was asked to retire.

He agreed, but asked that it be kept on hold until after his son's forthcoming wedding so that it could be celebrated in style. President Farooq Leghari, heading a caretaker cabinet, agreed, and the wedding was duly celebrated with the required bevy of VVIPs, the grandest of them being the President himself, the second grandest the Chief of Army Staff, and of course Ahmed Sadik whose impending arrest had been announced in the press that very day.

Prior to his sacking, Haq had started construction of a house on a 2,000 square yard plot just off Zam-Zama Road in Clifton, Karachi, worth an approximated cost of Rs.2 crores. The covered area of his house is in the region of 18,000 square feet, constructed in the name of his wife, at an estimated cost of Rs 3 crores. The three-storeyed monstrosity is equipped with all the mod-cons conceivable, all imported by ships of state and magically cleared through Customs supposedly with all formalities done away with.

This house, in terms of the plea bargain approved by the President General, remains Haq's property, and as soon as he coughs up $ 5 million, and promises to pay a further $ 2.5 million before the end of this year, he can either move into his Karachi palace or presumably fly off to the US where he owns equally palatial bits of real estate.

How Musharraf can justify to himself or to his people his approval of a deal with one of the major crooks of Pakistan who has plundered its sinking treasury is not at all understandable. The man Haq should indeed pay back what he has robbed, not only $7.5 million which we must assume is probably one-tenth of the total robbing, but the entire amount and all his properties in Pakistan should have been attached. Additionally, he should have been tried and sentenced and made to serve his sentence.

The message sent by this disgraceful bargain to the young men of the armed forces is clear - rob what you can, if you get caught you will suffer a short period of incarceration with all comforts provided, you will have to sacrifice but a small percentage of your ill-gotten pelf, your properties will remain intact, and you can thereafter live a happy life. To blazes with your country, your service and any ideas of honesty or honour!

One further bit of recent nasty news has come with press reports of the ISI backing in the scheduled elections this year of former civil servant Imtiaz Sheikh, now heading the United Sindh Front, as a possible chief minister of the unfortunate province of Sindh. Sheikh is a most proficient master of the hanky-panky, having been well schooled by none other than the late lamented Jam Sadiq Ali of Sindh under whose protection he was allowed unstinted practice.

When Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990 decided to get rid of Benazir and her PPP government, and cut down the popularity and power of the PPP, he brought back from exile the faded, jaded, disgraced Jam Sadiq as his cutting weapon, fully knowing that in curbing the PPP Jam would do untold harm to Sindh and its people. However, as they say, beggars cannot be choosers. Jam may have succeeded with the PPP, but together with his hand-picked team he robbed and plundered unhindered.

His selected henchman for the PPP job and for the plunder was Imtiaz Sheikh of the defunct CSP. Jam asked and Ishaq obliged and Sheikh was transferred to the provincial service, promoted from Grade 18 to Grade 20, and installed as Jam's secretary. Sheikh was ably assisted by his brother Maqbool Sheikh, the Muslim League hotshot in Sindh and his cousin Ayub Sheikh.

During Jam's rule, apart from the routine pile that he made through wheeling and dealing, a plot measuring over an acre and a half was taken away from Pakistan Railways and allotted to Imtiaz Sheikh who took it in the name of his brother, Maqbool, who had it commercialized and sold it for a vast amount to one of the most notorious and lethal of Karachi's builders, Hussein Bhai.

When Jam departed, Sheikh stayed on with his successor, Muzaffar Hussain Shah, and continued his operations. After the fall of the Muzaffar government (with the demise of the first Nawaz Sharif round in 1993) Sheikh was dismissed by both the Federal and Sindh governments, and his dismissal from both notified.

Come Nawaz Sharif's second round in 1997 and the appointment of Liaquat Jatoi and frantic efforts were made by Jatoi to bring back the resourceful useful Imtiaz Sheikh as his secretary. When protests were made to Jatoi he declared he was under pressure to reinstate Sheikh. Mercifully the secretary job was foregone and the man was shunted into the position of secretary agriculture. Highly irregular, as a man dismissed by the Federal government and a provincial government cannot be reappointed to any government post. But then, there is no such thing as 'cannot' when it comes to the government of Pakistan. If it is the ISI backing the man Sheikh and his brother Maqbool (both being nurtured to undermine the PPP's voting strength, claims Benazir) then all the more reason that they should be kept far away from any political position. 'Worst' does not better 'worse.'