 Pakistan media retract fake WikiLeaks story lambasting IndiaIslamabad (AFP) Dec 10, 2010 - Leading Pakistani newspapers on Friday retracted an explosive story that used fake US diplomatic cables to brand Indian generals "genocidal" and accuse New Delhi of sponsoring militants. The News claimed on Thursday that cables released by WikiLeaks showed Indian spies were supporting Islamist militants in Pakistan's northwest tribal region of Waziristan and the southwestern province of Baluchistan. Datelined from Washington, the newspaper told how US diplomats thought of one Indian general as "incompetent" and a "geek", and of another as "self-obsessed, petulant and idiosyncratic" and "barely tolerated" by subordinates. It likened another to late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic "with regard to butchering Muslims through war crimes" in Indian-held Kashmir. But on Friday The News wrote that "on further inquiries, we learnt from our sources that the story was dubious and may have been planted." The News said the report originated from some local websites "known for their close connections with certain intelligence agencies". A variety of Pakistani newspapers carried the report on Thursday, crediting the story to the Islamabad-based Online news agency, where a receptionist on Friday refused to put through telephone calls from AFP to senior editors. English-language newspaper The Express Tribune also published a front-page retraction, saying it "deeply regrets publishing this story without due verification and apologises profusely for any inconvenience". India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 and Pakistan's powerful military establishment continues to see India as its primary threat, despite a Taliban insurgency along the Afghan border. |
The cable from the US embassy in Rangoon was among those released Thursday by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, and quoted a Myanmar officer who said he had witnessed the North Korean technicians helping the construction work.
One foreign businessman told the embassy that he had seen reinforced steel bar, larger than for just a factory project, being shipped on a barge. While dockworkers also told of seeing suspicious cargo.
A cable dating from August 2004 revealed information from a Myanmar officer in an engineering unit who said surface-to-air missiles were being built at a site in a town called Minbu in west-central Myanmar.
He said some 300 North Koreans were working at the site, although the US cable noted this was improbably high, The Guardian said.
The military junta in Myanmar has dismissed reports of its nuclear intentions and brushed aside Western concerns about possible cooperation with North Korea.
But in July US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed worries about military ties between the two countries saying a ship from Pyongyang had recently delivered military equipment to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
"We continue to be concerned by the reports that Burma may be seeking assistance from North Korea with regard to a nuclear program," she said.
A June documentary by the Norwegian-based news group Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) said Myanmar was trying to develop nuclear weapons, citing a senior army defector and years of "top secret material."
The DVB documentary gathered thousands of photos and defector testimony, some regarding Myanmar's network of secret underground bunkers and tunnels, which were allegedly built with the help of North Korean expertise.
According to another leaked US cable from 2009, a well-placed source in the Myanmar military government said General Thura Shwe Mann had visited North Korea in 2008.
But the source backtracked later insisting the talks were only exploratory.
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