U.S. Turned Its Back, Bhutto Says : Diplomacy: Pakistani leader charges that Cold War allies have been ‘cast aside.’ She wants sanctions lifted on arms, F-16s already paid for.

Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, starting a visit to Washington that is crucial to her struggling regime, accused the U.S. government Monday of turning its back on its Cold War friends now that the threat of communism seems over.

In a speech that resonated with a clear sense of betrayal, Bhutto complained that after years of supporting American aims, her government had been subjected to tough sanctions after the U.S. government concluded that Pakistan was trying to develop nuclear weapons.

“Those who stood with the United States during its moment of maximum danger, its half-century fight to contain communism, should not be cast aside because the U.S. perceives that the danger has passed,” she said in a speech at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. “The danger is not past. Threats to freedom and stability are not gone.”

Bhutto, who meets with President Clinton today at the White House, wants the United States to lift sanctions that prohibit the sale of arms to her government--or, at the very least, to return the $1.2 billion that Pakistan has paid for F-16 jet fighters and other military hardware it has not received.

The equipment was bought shortly before the U.S. embargo was imposed in October, 1990. According to U.S. officials, Bhutto was warned in the spring of 1990 that if Pakistan kept developing nuclear weapons it could forfeit both its hardware and money but that her government went ahead on the assumption--which proved to be wrong--that Washington would waive the sanctions because of the two nations’ previous close relationship.

In her speech Monday, Bhutto complained that the restrictions put Pakistan at a strategic disadvantage to its traditional enemy, India, which has never purchased quantities of American arms and therefore is not subject to U.S. sanctions. The sanctions on her country, she charged, could embolden India, which conducted a nuclear test explosion in 1974, to develop its own nuclear arsenal, in effect thwarting Washington’s objective of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

There can be no doubt that Bhutto faces daunting challenges, both at home and in Washington. U.S.-Pakistan relations have seldom been so troubled. And Pakistanis are increasingly asking where their country is headed.

In the country’s free, boisterous and occasionally scaremongering press, one recent headline asked, “Will Pakistan Survive?” In another article, Omar S. Khan, a therapist in the violence-plagued city of Karachi, delivered a gloomy diagnosis.

Pakistan, he said, is coming apart at the seams because it “does not give priority to education, does not invest intelligently in infrastructure, does not have a high savings rate for reinvestment, does not develop a strong value-added export-led economy, relies excessively on foreign aid, does not work on an indigenous technical culture where engineers outnumber bureaucrats and lawyers, does not shore up dilapidated political institutions, does nothing to provide essentials such as medical care and basic sanitation and allows nepotism to overrule virtually any law or precedent.”

For her part, Bhutto hopes to convince her American hosts that Pakistan is a stable and democratic regime, potentially a positive model for the world’s Muslims, who “must choose between moderation and fanaticism . . . between the force of new technology and the force of old repression.”

“Pakistan is the archetype of (Muslims’) progressive tomorrow--of economic liberalization and commitment to human rights and democracy in an open Islamic society,” she said Monday.

U.S. officials would welcome that role for Pakistan, although there is some skepticism in Washington that Bhutto’s government can live up to her rhetoric.

But the hottest topic in the Bhutto-Clinton meeting will be Pakistan’s disputed nuclear weapons program. As one of only a few countries that have refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Pakistan is a constant rebuke to the Administration’s campaign to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. From Bhutto’s standpoint, the greatest source of friction is the U.S. ban on arms sales and aid programs to countries that are believed to be developing nuclear weapons.

In her Monday speech, Bhutto insisted that Pakistan’s nuclear program is a peaceful one but said that “if the existence of our technology and perceived capability has served as a deterrent to India . . . I certainly have no apologies to make--not in Islamabad, not in New Delhi and not in Washington.”

But U.S. officials said it is very unlikely that Bhutto will achieve her objective of getting relief from the sanctions, at least in the immediate future. She may have complicated her task by admitting last week that Pakistan is building another nuclear reactor that U.S. officials said could someday give the country access to substantial quantities of bomb-grade plutonium.

Regardless of the outcome of Bhutto’s trip to Washington, however, when she returns to Pakistan she will have to face the same problems that were bedeviling her 18-month-old government when she left.

“You may have America on your side, but if your domestic house isn’t in order, you’re in a very big thicket,” said Syed Talat Hussain, assistant editor and columnist with The News, a national daily newspaper in Pakistan.

Inflation is now running as high as 20% for staples such as wheat flour and oil. Bhutto proudly speaks of a 6% economic growth rate this year. But some economists’ studies show that most of Pakistan’s fast-growing population, one of the world’s poorest and now estimated at 130 million, is not benefiting.

“The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer,” said Prof. Ijaz Hussain, chairman of the international relations department at Quaid-i-Azam University in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Bribe-taking and influence-peddling, the bane of many Asian societies, are still rife and may have become worse. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Zardari, is widely suspected to be on the take, an allegation that Bhutto has always vociferously denied.

Bhutto’s ascent to power thrilled much of the world. She was a glamorous and courageous champion of the same progressive, populist ideas that her father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, espoused before being deposed and executed in a military coup. In 1988, she became the first woman elected to lead a Muslim country.

But by all accounts, Bhutto found governing far more difficult than taking over her father’s Pakistan People’s Party and running for office. In August, 1990, she was accused of corruption and incompetence and stripped of the premiership by the president.

Exonerated, she made her dramatic comeback in national elections that led to her swearing-in on Oct. 19, 1993, at the head of a coalition government.

Many Pakistanis, including some of Bhutto’s supporters, found that she was a changed woman.

In the 1 1/2 years that Bhutto’s PPP-led government has been in power, her critics say, she or her lieutenants have bought off opponents in provincial legislatures, packed courts with their cronies and harassed and intimidated members of the opposition.

Much of this is rough-and-tumble politics as practiced in Pakistan. The shock for many people is that Bhutto, the erstwhile champion of democracy against dictatorship, has proven that she too can play by those rules.

“Here’s a woman who brought promise of change, of a modern society, and it’s just not happening,” one Western diplomat in Islamabad said.

Bhutto was tossed out of office, and later given a chance to return, because the shadowy and final arbiters of the country’s destiny, the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies, were dissatisfied with the status quo. Now, affairs have again fallen into such disarray that some Pakistanis fear, or want, the generals’ intervention yet again.

Bhutto’s domestic problems are daunting in number--from Karachi’s near-anarchy to growing lawlessness and sectarian violence in Punjab and demands from tribal fundamentalists in Malakand to introduce Islamic law.

After her talks in Washington, the 41-year-old Bhutto plans to visit New York and Los Angeles, beating the drum for greater U.S.-Pakistani trade and business collaboration. Many companies are cautious about making business commitments, however, because of the lethal turmoil in Karachi, the country’s commercial capital.

To help renew business interest, Bhutto will host a tea for investors at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles. During her stay in the city Wednesday and Thursday, the last stop on her U.S. trip, she’ll also address the World Affairs Council at a luncheon and meet with Pakistanis who live in Southern California.

She will also receive the UCLA Medal, the highest honor that institution gives to an individual to recognize local, national or international achievements or outstanding contributions to the university. Past recipients include President Clinton, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel.

Kempster reported from Washington and Dahlburg from Islamabad.