Pak has no status in Kashmir

By Samuel Baid

India has been too modest to tell Pakistan that it has no status in Kashmir. But after Gen Pervez Musharraf's uncalled for invectives against India during his address to the United Nations General Assembly last month and his refusal to stop terrorist activities against Kashmir from his country, India may decide to keep Kashmir out of any future bilateral dialogue with Pakistan. One can see this hint in Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee's address to the General Assembly a day after Gen Musharraf's speech.

Mr Vajpayee made it clear that after the State Assembly elections, which the world acknowledged as fair and free last year, there was no question of India holding a dialogue with Pakistan. He said: "If we do so, we would be betraying the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who defied a most ferocious campaign of violence and intimidation sponsored from across our borders, and participated in an election which has been universally hailed as free and fair." He reiterated there could be no dialogue with Pakistan till the cross-border terrorism was stopped. It was only then "we can have a dialogue with Pakistan on the other issues between us." These excerpts give a very clear indication that India is withdrawing its long-standing offer of discussing all issues including Kashmir. India had not made this offer to Gen Zia-ul-Haq who ruled Pakistan for about 11 years. When he offered a no-war pact with India in September 1981, he took care not to relate it to the solution of the Kashmir problem first. That was in glaring contrast to Pakistan's stand in January 1950 in response to India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's letter to his Pakistani counterpart Liaquat Ali Khan. The latter had proposed a no-war pact but Pakistan wanted Kashmir to be settled first. It is notable that India and Pakistan tried to marry Gen Zia's proposal for a no-war pact and Mrs Indira Gandhi's treaty of peace and friendship between 1983 and 1986 to produce a peace treaty without any reference to Kashmir. The hard work done by two teams could not be carried to its logical conclusion because then King's Party, the Muslim League, headed by Gen Zia's nominated Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo began harping on Kashmir again. Perhaps Gen Zia didn't want this treaty to see the light of day because the political survival of the Pakistani Army, the ISI, a section of political parties and fundamentalist groups depends on Kashmir as an issue with India and not on its solution.

The distorted history that is taught to school and university students in Pakistan has blunted the people's intellectual power to question their country's role in creating a problem in Kashmir through aggression in 1947. They have also been taught to parrot that India is defying UN Security Council's Resolutions on Kashmir by refusing to hold a plebiscite in the State. But they don't ask why their country failed to implement the very first part of the 1948 Resolution, which bound Pakistan to (a) withdraw its troops from Jammu and Kashmir and (b) withdraw all tribesmen and Pakistani nationals it had infiltrated into the State. These were the pre-conditions for a plebiscite. But having plundered Kashmiri houses, killed Kashmiri men and raped and abducted Kashmiri women, Pakistanis were afraid of a plebiscite while India was all ready for it. India waited for about eight years for Pakistan to implement the Security Council's pre-conditions for a plebiscite. It could not go on waiting at the cost of developments in Kashmir. Instead of creating the right situation for a plebiscite, as asked by the Security Council, Pakistan joined United States-led defence pacts as if to warn India that it wanted Kashmir not through a plebicite but through force. In 1965, armed to the teeth with American weapons, Pakistan made a miserably failed attempt to snatch Kashmir.

The damage, which has been done to intellectual life in Pakistan by distorted history, was worsened during Gen Zia's rule when jehadi thinking and obscurantism was carefully promoted in the society. This policy backwardised the country which ultimately became a breeding ground for terrorism. For about the past 14 years, India has suffered not because of cross-border terrorism alone but also because there is no authority in that country with whom it can talk of permanent peace. Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif both lost their Prime Ministership after they talked with their Indian counterparts about peace. Now there is a Prime Minister (Zafarullah Jamali), who cannot even conduct negotiations with his country's Opposition with any authority. There is the President (General Musharraf) who has no legitimacy in the eyes of his own countrymen.

India should decide sooner than later if it wants to keep talking to a country which has sought to become a party to Kashmir through aggression. Can Pakistan continue to claim its role in Kashmir after having defied the UN resolutions which asked it to vacate its aggression in Kashmir? The people of Pakistan must be reminded that before the UN resolutions, India had unilaterally promised plebiscite. That promise was to the people of Kashmir and not to Pakistan. They should also be told that the people of Kashmir had rejected to two-nation theory on Mr Mohammad Ali Jinnah's face when he came to Srinagar in 1944 and chosen to join India in 1947.

The Pakistani Army will never want Kashmir problem to be resolved because that will mean an end to its dominance in Pakistan. Gen Zia rejected the Shimla Agreement. His Islamic supporters said it was signed under duress. The Lahore Declaration has been rejected by Gen Musharraf. Both the Accords aimed at creating a congenial climate in which Kashmir could be talked amicably. The Pak Army didn't want that.

As said earlier, the present so-called democratic Government has no power and President Musharraf has no legitimacy in the country. Any dialogue with such a Government/President will only be a waste of time.

North-South rift at the UN

By Wg Cdr (retd) Sharad Dixit

The UN's annual debate of the Heads of State or Governments opened on the 23rd of September. Major concerns related to Iraq, terrorism and the state of the world economy. The sentiment that appeared to dominate the proceedings was the widespread resentment of the US and its orientation towards unilateralism. Sub-surface nevertheless, lay another less visible attitude that accentuated the rich-poor divide.

The Secretary General set the ball rolling when he questioned the legitimacy of the policy of pre-emption. The possibility, even probability of hostile action he suggested, were inadequate grounds for unsanctioned (by the UN) military action. Concrete evidence needs to be a prerequisite, he offered. He went further and highlighted the progressive diminution of the UN stature in the unipolar world that was increasingly challenging democratic principles. This he said, raised the need for a revision of the UN charter, which had been designed to meet the requirements of the cold war era.

Germany and Russia followed up, though their criticism was less strident than that during the run-up to the Iraq war. Germany said it was willing to train Iraqi manpower in the performance of administrative/law and order functions but continued to be against the deployment of its forces. Russia conceded the possibility that under appropriate circumstances its forces could be used, and said that the command structures was not an issue.

France continued to be the most vocal opponent of the US. President Chirac reiterated the opposition to the tenets and logic that preceded the Iraq war. He then proceeded to make some suggestions that he said would make the UN and its decision-making more 'inclusive'. He stated that greater attention was needed to the development of Africa and its assimilation into the mainstream. This is but natural since several of France's former colonies lie on that continent, and some of her greatest problems stem therefrom. The restructuring of the UN was supported- but with a twist. The President recommended the expansion of the Security Council. The consequent dilution of its efficacy which is bad enough presently being an obvious ploy to restrain America.

The underlying thought process, however, became clearer when he amplified. He implied that poor countries also needed to pull their weight. They were being aided and supported by the rich on an individual basis as also collectively. They were, therefore, morally bound to contribute financial and material help in times of crises. He spoke not merely in the context of Iraq, but also in that of the recently concluded WTO summit at Cancun. The stone walling of the third world had obviously raised Gallic gall!

One issue that found general agreement amongst the developed, however, was that the 'Global War on Terror' needed to be prosecuted vigorously. That ''9/11 symbolised terror and signalled the war' commencement'' (President Bush). That the origins lay in the third world. That the less developed were not doing enough. That vested interests (including states) were hampering its conduct. As part of the 'less developed' we need to ponder these issues.

The First assumption that global terror started on 9/11 is in itself an arrogant one. Organised terror has been with us for over a millennium. In more recent times, it forced the USSR to invade Afghanistan and eventually aided the former's demise. The terror continues unabated to date. Palestine, the Far East, Peru- the list is endless. The continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America are long time sufferers.

The second, that the war is 'global' similarly lacks credibility. It is true that much of the war is being fought in the less developed world, but the objective is protection of the rich. It is being fought by them in respective areas of interest, while others like Chechnya or Sri Lanka are left largely to their own devices. The rich couldn't care less if Afghans, Bangladeshis or Columbians killed each other off. Their regrets would perhaps relate to the loss of lucrative markets and sources of cheap labour/raw material.

None ever noted local or regional terror with any concern so long as it stayed out of North America, Europe and Australia-New Zealand. Witness the promptitude with which the British left Palestine when their mandate ended. The post-French chaos in Algeria. The detachment with which the US viewed recent events in Liberia. The carnage in Rwanda. When whites are suppressed in Zimbabwe or killed in Bali, however, it merits consideration of war.

No one wants terror in his backyard. The charge that the less developed are also the less committed fails to take into account their limitations. The resources to fight organised terror simply do not exist. There are no data banks. We do not even have a count of how many people are there in a country. Even ration cards, election identity cards or PAN cards '' are riddled with inaccuracies- when they exist. The technology, the regulatory institutions, the money, the trained manpower et-al are conspicuous by their absence. The sole resource is the man on the ground who depends largely on word-of-mouth to trace or apprehend offenders.

The suggestions that the origins lie in the third world and that vested interests foster terror, however, are true to an extent. The fodder is largely from the third world, driven by ignorance, misery and desperation. Another manifestation of the sentiment ''we have nothing to lose but our chains.'' The vested interests can nevertheless, be traced back to the developed. Local Mafiosi are frequently controlled/manipulated by remote. The illegal narcotics revenue that finances terror greater from the first world primarily because that is where the money is. Illegal arms mostly originate there. As so major international crime cartels and the demand for illegal trade in humans.

What the summit has done really despite the squabbling of the rich, is that it has emphasised the North-South divide. Coming soon after the Cancun impasse, it indicates a hardening of attitudes and increased aggression from the developed in the face of some cohesion amongst those not quite there. The more vulnerable nations inevitably will be picked off indidividually, bribed or coerced into compliance. The sheer numbers of the less privileged will, however, tell and could lead to another clash of ideologies or an upheaval of the world order.

In the Indian context, the implications of the summit are sobering. Terrorism was discussed, as was the expansion of the Security Council and the reconstruction of Iraq. Nowhere did we find a mention- by any of the major players. It puts into perspective the impact of one-sixth of humanity. While formal lunches between heads of State/Government are all very well, the euphoria generated by Bush patronage must be controlled in the seming consolidation of the pan-Islamic sentiment. Political verbosity as displayed post-Cancun must be tempered by underplayed tact lest we be seen reverting to our erstwhile position of impotent rhetoric.

(PTI Feature)