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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 August 2000 Issue No. 495 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 August 2000 Issue No. 495
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Grand scheme of things
By Gamal Nkrumah
Violence in Kashmir marred celebrations marking India's 53rd Independence Day -- which also happens to be Pakistan's -- this week. The violence in Kashmir today is explicable though not excusable. All the protagonists must share the blame, including India, which has much to celebrate. The sordid realities of violent implosion in Kashmir cannot be hoodwinked by the universally-acclaimed strength of India's democratic plurality. Things are seriously going wrong in Kashmir and something must be done about it.
Last Thursday's bomb, planted under a car parked outside a branch of State Bank of India where security forces were collecting their pay, amply demonstrated the capacity of militant Kashmiri separatists to strike Indian military targets with impunity. "What the blasts prove is that Pakistan will not give peace, and those who propose it, a chance," reads an editorial in The Times of India.
India's politicians concurred. "Pakistan has been itching for this kind of situation to develop. They worked towards it. They seem to be scared of having to put up with peace," India's Defense Minister George Fernandes said in the Indian Parliament soon after the blast. During his Independence Day speech Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee reiterated India's claim to Kashmir, insisting that New Delhi will never let go of the territory.
"This is yet another example of Islamabad's sustained campaign of cross-border terrorism in Kashmir," Vajpayee said.
For a fleeting moment, it looked as if sanity might be returning to South Asia's Himalayan tinderbox -- Kashmir. But alas, no. The Hizbul Mujahudeen, Kashmir's most powerful separatist organisation, called off a 15-day cease-fire last week, ordered its field commanders to resume operations against Indian forces and claimed responsibility for the car bomb attack, which killed 12 people in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, last Thursday. This was followed on Sunday by a bus explosion that killed five Indian border guards and injured 75 others. On Monday, separatists launched a grenade attack on a bus stop in Pulwama, 40 kilometres south of Srinagar. By the time this article is printed, the death toll from violence in the troubled Indian-administered two-thirds of Kashmir might be even higher.
For how long will India tolerate the current combustible situation? New Kashmiri groups are in the making. Jaish-e-Mohamed, or Mohamed's Army, a new militant group founded by Masood Azhar, a Muslim religious leader released by India last December in order to end the hijacking of an Indian airliner taken to Afghanistan, has recently emerged. The Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba claimed responsibility for the blasts but subsequently withdrew its claim. Lashkar-e-Taiba, or Force for Good, is reputed to include Arab Afghans and other non-Kashmiris in its ranks. According to British intelligence sources, some 2,000 Arab Afghans are currently fighting alongside Kashmiri separatists. Pakistan insists that the struggle to liberate Kashmir has taken a momentum of its own. Pakistan refused Lashkar-e-Taiba permission to hold a rally in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Independence Day, but the Pakistani authorities could not stop Laskar-e-Taiba from rallying in the country's second largest city Lahore, which was attended by an estimated 20,000 people.
The Kashmiri separatists might have a forceful case on the question of national self-determination, but if the focus of their jihad is a folksy replay of the anti-Soviet struggle in Afghanistan, then the militant separatists are playing to Islamabad's weakness.
The United States might have aided and abetted Islamist militants in Afghanistan, but Washington cannot condone the spread of Islamist militancy in South Asia. In the past couple of years, Washington has clearly shifted its strategic alliances in the region and increased military cooperation between India and the US is on the cards. Pakistan, and especially one run by the ruling military clique, is unquestionably drifting further away politically and militarily from the US. Pakistan has positioned itself in an impossible situation. Washington, according to a US State Department report, has put Islamabad under "active continuing review" until it stops espousing "a policy of ending official support for terrorists in India." The US fully backs India on Kashmir. This consideration remains very much pertinent.
"Superpowers prefer the status quo even if it is an unjust status quo -- be it in Palestine or in Kashmir. Like the Palestinians, the Kashmiri people are blamed for the disturbance of the status quo. Kashmiri freedom fighters are considered to be disturbers for figting against state-sponsored terrorism," Pakistan's ambassador to Egypt Anwar Kemal told Al-Ahram Weekly.
"The Indians don't want the world to know what is really going on in Kashmir. We permit the UN observers to move freely along the Pakistani side of the Line of Control separating Indian-administered territory from [Pakistan-controlled] Azad Kashmir. The Indians do not allow the UN observers to go anywhere near their side of the Line of Control. That is very telling," Kemal said.
Kemal insisted that the Kashmiri "freedom fighters have their own agenda." He explained that they must be a "popular force inside Kashmir to sustain such losses over the years." Ambassador Kemal referred to an article published in the Hindustan Times on 8 April that acknowledged Indian attrocities in Kashmir. Still he urged bilateral talks. "We cannot understand India's curious reluctance to talk to Pakistan at a time when we need so much to talk."
There has been no high-level talks between India and Pakistan since Gen Pervez Musharraf's military takeover last October. "Pakistan stands united with its Kashmiri brothers and sisters in their just cause and will continue to extend all moral, diplomatic and political support to their indigenous struggle against state-sponsored terrorism," Gen Musharraf said on Independence Day.
Any resurgence of violence in Kashmir takes us back to a point made repeatedly over the years: the international community is seriously selective when bestowing the right to national self-determination on prospective hopefuls. For the moment, Turkey has contained the Kurdish quest for national self-determination. The Spaniards are still grappling with the violence instigated by militant Basque separatist groups. The Irish question hangs fire. Tibet is part of the People's Republic of China. But, East Timor is free of Indonesian rule.
Mixed signals are emanating from New Delhi. "Leave the constitution -- talks should be within the ambit of humanity so that violence is stopped and no more blood is shed," said Vajpayee last week. For years, India has insisted that the Kashmir question must be resolved within the framework of the Indian Constitution. Therefore Vajpayee's reconciliatory overtures are somewhat puzzling.
Vajpayee's statements were backed up by other senior Indian officials. "India will not deviate from its chosen course of talks with all those in Kashmir who eschew the path of terror and violence and our simultaneous battle against all those who continue to stick to that path," concurred Indian Home Minister L K Advani. One of the few Kashmiri separatist groups permitted by India to campaign politically against the Indian presence in Kashmir is the All Party Hurriyat [Freedom] Conference, a non-violent umbrella grouping of secessionist organisations. They met last week in Milan, Italy, to discuss the crisis. Perhaps if its leaders closed ranks and did some serious talking with New Delhi, some of the tension might be defused. But, that is a big "if."
No one can predict with any precision what would happen if the current spate of violence in Kashmir continues. Realistically we should not anticipate an imminent punitive strike by India on Pakistan. Such a strike would certainly trigger more than a little regional disturbance. But the situation remains untenable.
