PAKISTAN: ONE TEST COULD BUST THE NATION (int'l edition) Envoys from the U.S. and Japan have pleaded with Pakistan's leaders not to detonate their own nuclear device. Practice restraint, they tell the Pakistanis, and you hold the moral high ground in your dispute with India. But they also hit hard on another point: Pakistan cannot afford to go nuclear, and sanctions could be disastrous. At risk is some $3 billion in aid pledged by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other donors for the fiscal year starting July 1. If Pakistan triggers sanctions with a test, those funds may dry up. That will widen the country's huge trade deficit, sap its meager foreign-currency reserves, and trigger defaults on foreign loans. The government of Prime Minister Nazaz Sharif is unlikely to come up with a credible budget on June 13 without foreign aid. Sanctions would force the government to tax imports heavily, driving up prices of oil and wheat. Pakistani leaders are keeping their options open. ''Foreign investment is not more important than national security,'' says Finance Minister Sartaj Aziz. But New Delhi has $26 billion in foreign-exchange reserves, while Pakistan has only $1.2 billion, barely enough for five weeks of imports. Some leaders are speaking out against nuclear tests. Pakistan Navy Chief Admiral Fasih Bokari told reporters he sees little gain in such a move. ''What comes next?'' he asked. ''Is the nation ready to eat grass?'' He was referring to former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's 1974 declaration that Pakistan would build the bomb even if it reduced Pakistanis to living like their livestock. Many Pakistanis see nuclear tests as an issue of national pride. Trouble is, you can't eat pride. By Shahid-ur-Rehman in Islamabad RELATED ITEMS WORLD MARKETS CHINA THE BAILOUT SINGAPORE INDIA PAKISTAN Return to main story

Updated May 21, 1998 by bwwebmaster
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