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US hand behind South Asian road
map
By Sultan Shahin
NEW
DELHI - The breathtaking swiftness with which both India
and Pakistan have moved in the direction of normalizing
relations and dialogue to sort out long-pending problems
has taken observers in both countries by surprise.
And as this has happened on the eve of a visit
by a high-powered delegation of US State Department
officials, and against the backdrop of statements
attributed to high-level US officials that they will
ensure that a permanent solution to the Kashmir problem
is in place by December 2004 at the latest so that South
Asia can be made a nuclear-free zone, virtually all
observers in both countries - barring government
spin-doctors - seem to believe that the United States is
the real sponsor of these peace moves.
Pakistan
President General Pervez Musharraf has denied any US
pressure, but Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri
hinted at the international dimension of the present
moves when he told the Pakistani daily The News that the
Kashmir dispute "is heading for some sort of a
resolution in the intermediate future after Iraq".
Indian Prime Minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee
admitted in parliament that re-engagement with Pakistan
must be seen in the changed world situation - with the
world standing on one "pole". He returned to Iraq
several times in his now-famous hand-of-friendship
speech at Srinagar in Kashmir on April 18, reminding his
audience, which he must have known would include
Pakistani leaders, that developing countries were at
some risk these days: if they did not sort out their
problems themselves, others might be tempted to do it
for them.
Vajpayee's reference to the American
invasion and occupation of Iraq reminded Hindustan Times
analyst Anand K Sahay of a new slogan in the travel
trade: visit America before America visits you!
The speed with which peace moves are being made
by both countries is indeed impressive. Vajpayee set the
ball rolling on April 18 in Srinagar, the capital of the
Indian-controlled state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K),
extending a hand of friendship to Pakistan and offering
unconditional dialogue for normalization of relations
and finding a solution to all pending problems. The
usual condition of Pakistan stopping what India calls
"cross-border terrorism" was not mentioned, either in
the statement released to the press or in the ex-tempore
public speech.
At first this was not taken very
seriously. Vajpayee is known for his dramatic gestures
and double somersaults. The poet in Vajpayee does
sometimes make such sweeping gestures of peace, amity
and goodwill, not only towards Pakistan but also towards
the Muslim minorities in India. But the moment his Hindu
fundamentalist colleagues in the Bhartiya Janata Party
(BJP) or the larger and extended family called the Sangh
Parivar (RSS) remind him of his commitment to their
ideology, the politician in Vajpayee retracts, usually
the very next day.
And sure enough, Vajpayee did
not disappoint his critics and skeptics this time round
either. The very next day, on April 19, in the midst of
a furor in the Hindu fundamentalist camp, he came back
with the usual condition of Pakistan stopping
cross-border terrorism first, during a press conference
in Srinagar. This is a condition that most observers
believe Pakistan cannot fully comply with, even if it
wants to. Several freelance Islamic fundamentalist
groups in Pakistan are engaged in militant activities,
both in J&K and Pakistan itself.
While
Pakistan can probably do more than it had in controlling
cross-border infiltration in the wake of Musharraf's
speech on January 12 last year in which he promised that
Pakistan would not allow its territory to be used for
militancy in Kashmir, India knows that Islamabad cannot
completely control it.
According to Indian
defense authorities, cross-border infiltration came down
by 54 percent at that time. But India did not use the
opportunity to roll back the steps it had taken to cut
off diplomatic and air, rail and road communication
links following a suicide attack on the Indian
parliament on December 13, 2001, killing several
security personnel. The Indian army remained deployed on
the border for almost a year.
No wonder that the
government remained tongue-tied in parliament when its
allies in the coalition government, leaders of the
Samata Party, which is led by Defense Minister George
Fernandes and Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, wanted to
know precisely what had changed to warrant dialogue with
Pakistan when just a couple of days before Vajpayee 's
Srinagar speech External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha
had said that Pakistan was a better case for India
attacking - preemptively - than was Iraq for the US.
Indeed it now seems it was Sinha's rhetoric that
prompted the US to refocus on Kashmir and bring to bear
the full force of its might on the Indian government,
forcing it to suddenly change tack. Deputy Secretary of
State Richard Armitage, who is visiting the region this
week to discuss Kashmir, described the South Asian
situation as "frightening".
Now India is not
only going to restore full diplomatic relations, but
also restore air links and cricketing ties between the
two countries. The restoration of road and rail links is
also under consideration.
More surprising, Sangh
Parivar hardliners, too, have suddenly thrown their
weight behind the prime minister, welcoming his
initiative. The unhappiness of this camp at losing the
opportunity to polarize society on sectarian grounds on
the eve of elections in four states is, however, quite
apparent.
RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav, for
instance, said, "The general sentiment is that there
should be a proper response on the ground from Pakistan
before the process begun by India goes any further."
Heads of two major fundamentalist organizations, the
Vishwa Hindu Parisha (VHP or World Hindu Forum) and the
Shiv Sena (Shiva's Army) have also said it is time for
India to conquer Pakistan rather than extend a hand of
friendship, as Vajpayee has done.
The External
Affairs ministry has been left largely out of the
picture, with Vajpayee determining the pace of
developments. Sinha appears quite sheepish these days,
with his aggressive statements giving way to silence. In
fact, the ministry spokesman is most of the time
confused about what is happening and has very little
real information to impart. Deputy Prime Minster Lal
Krishan Advani, the acknowledged hawk as far as Pakistan
is concerned, is reportedly on board and has raised no
serious objections to the move. But he is known to wait
and watch before striking, as he is believed to have
done at the India-Pakistan summit at Agra a couple of
years ago.
Even more surprising than the sudden
Indian flexibility is the Pakistani response to it.
While observers in India had still not made up their
minds on how to interpret Vajpayee's Srinagar statement
and its virtual repudiation the next day, Pakistan did
not think twice before responding positively. Indeed it
was the swiftness of the Pakistani response that created
the impression that something serious was afoot.
As most people in India were inclined to give up
on Vajpayee's statement as inconsequential, despite the
continuing positive response from Islamabad, Pakistan
Prime Minister Mir Zaffarullah Khan Jamali telephoned
his Indian counterpart on April 28 and talked with him
for 10 minutes, asking him "to resolve outstanding
issues through dialogue". No 10-minute telephone talk
could have transformed the tense South Asian atmosphere
as dramatically as this one did.
According to
Pakistan Television (PTV), Jamali also stated that
Pakistani officials are willing to visit India, and
invited Indian officials to visit Pakistan "in the cause
of peace". According to a Pakistan Foreign Ministry
statement, Jamali "welcomed Prime Minister Vajpayee's
offer of talks with Pakistan and reiterated Pakistan's
readiness for a dialogue with India at any level".
Jamali suggested resumption of sporting links between
the two countries, while Vajpayee emphasized the
importance of economic cooperation, cultural exchanges,
people-to-people contacts and civil aviation links.
But most surprising of all, Pakistan has now
declared it was willing to discuss trade issues with
India and would give up its insistence to discuss the
Kashmir issue first. "India has always said that it
wanted to talk about trade issues and we have insisted
that Kashmir should be discussed first ... Now we accept
India's argument and would like India to take the first
step," Pakistan Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood
Kasuri said in an interview with the BBC Hindi Service
on May 2.
He proposed that gas pipelines to
India from Turkmenistan and Iran be laid through
Pakistan and said Islamabad was ready to give
international guarantees to ensure that the gas flow
would not suffer, even in the event of war or
hostilities. "India says we will profit from business
and now we are also saying this. This is a new thing,"
Kasuri said. He said Pakistan's proposals to normalize
ties with India were the result of "collective
thinking".
Predictably, the Pakistan Foreign
Office has now issued a clarification that the BBC
misquoted the minister and he didn't mean what he had
said. But no observer is taking this denial seriously.
Kashmiri leaders fighting for independence are quaking
in their boots. They realize the time has perhaps come
for Pakistan to leave them in the cold. After all,
Musharraf has repeatedly said he follows a policy of
Pakistan First.
The breathtaking swiftness of
these pleasing developments, completely unexpected from
the obtuse and rigid Indian and Pakistani politicians
who fight most of the time like street urchins in their
competitive foolhardiness, is naturally giving rise to a
lot of speculation, even suspicion, about their
intentions. No observer is willing to believe that
suddenly wisdom has dawned on both sides, like bolts
from the blue.
Vajpayee dropping his insistence
at least for a day on Pakistan putting an end to
cross-border infiltration may be understandable. After
all, this condition had been thought of merely to
sabotage the Agra Declaration to be signed by him and
Musharraf two years ago. From all accounts an agreement
had already been initialed by the two principals and the
stage was being set for its signing, when some Indian
officials sprung this condition and scuttled the entire
peace process, prompting Musharraf to leave Agra in a
huff.
But Pakistan, particularly a Pakistan
still effectively ruled by Musharraf, acquiring the
wisdom to see that India and Pakistan would do well to
develop trade and other people-to-people relations first
in order to create an atmosphere conducive for tackling
complex issues like Kashmir is entirely beyond ordinary
comprehension. It can only be understood in the context
of outside pressure, probably of the same magnitude that
was brought to bear on Islamabad following September 11,
2001 to forsake its alliance with the Taliban.
But why should the US go to the extent that it
must have gone to put the fear of God into the
adversaries? What, if any, is its own compulsion? Dark
hints are being thrown in the corridors of power that
having failed to find any weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) in Iraq, the supposed reason for going to war, the
US wants to deal decisively by dismantling the known
weapons of WMD in South Asia.
There have been
hints of this possibility in several reports in the
Western media, with concern over Pakistan's nuclear
program passing into the hands of extremists. India's
possession of WMDs has also occasioned nasty comments,
including one reportedly by a US official that India has
not been punished enough for acquiring nuclear
capability stealthily. There is some apprehension in
Indian strategic circles, voiced in whispers, according
to analyst Seema Mustafa, that "the US could be looking
for a nuclear-free zone in the region".
A
typical instance of Indian reasoning is provided by
scholar and editor of the Asian Age, M J Akbar: "America
has won a military victory in Iraq, but it has suffered
a huge political defeat in most parts of the globe. The
Muslim world feels deeply antagonistic towards the sole
superpower, and reactions ranging from fear to worry to
disgust are prevalent across Europe, Africa, Asia and
both sides of the American continent itself. It is
obvious that America needs to assuage sentiment, and
prove that its intervention in Iraq is meant to find
solutions to complex problems. (It was certainly not
meant to find weapons of mass destruction, as presumably
everyone will agree now.) Two such complex problems that
cry out for answers are Palestine and the India-Pakistan
confrontation.
"The road map for the first has
been published. Take it from me, if that is a map then I
am a nuclear scientist. No one sensible can travel on
that road, for the very good reason that it leads
nowhere. The worry on our subcontinent about American
intervention has little to do with the formal agenda,
Kashmir. No imposition will work. But there are deep
suspicions about a hidden agenda. Iraq was on the hidden
agenda long before opinion was shepherded or bullied
towards action, and then military success became the
sole justification for that action. President Pervez
Musharraf first drew attention to this by a deliberately
uncharacteristic remark a few weeks ago, when he
suggested that Pakistan might be America's target after
Iraq. What did he mean by this?
"He was giving
notice that America did not want to see any Muslim
nation with nuclear weapons, because it could not
predict how those weapons might be used in the future.
If America does attempt to control, or sanitize, or
simply destroy Pakistan's nuclear capability, then it
will seek a parallel approach towards the Indian nuclear
program. It is therefore in the self-interest of both
India and Pakistan to come to terms before others impose
terms on them. One cannot define how deep this worry is,
or indeed how far America is willing to go in pursuit of
such an aim. But there is enough worry to make the
neighbors talk to each other."
Most of the
worries have been caused by the reported statements of
retired general Jay Garner, the US "viceroy" for Iraq.
He has reportedly given details of Washington's plans
for the denuclearization of South Asia, starting with a
final resolution of the Kashmir issue by December 2004.
According to a report in the large-circulation
Pakistani daily The News, Garner spoke out on Kashmir
and the region at an exclusive banquet held in his honor
in Kuwait just two days before he left for Baghdad. The
recipient was reportedly a Pakistani national who was
the only person from that country to have been invited
to the banquet, and who shared the information with the
newspaper on condition of strict anonymity.
Garner reportedly said, "We will ensure that a
permanent solution of the perennial Kashmir problem is
in place by December 2004, at the latest." He said that
a "Kashmir road map" would follow the Middle East road
map that is already under discussion for the creation of
a separate Palestinian state. The retired general also
spoke of the destruction of weapons of mass destruction
in South Asia and when asked if he was speaking
specifically of Pakistan, he reportedly said, "It is
Pakistan's official policy to see South Asia as a
nuclear weapons-free zone."
As if to supplement
Garner's statement, the Pakistan president told PTV on
Sunday that if the Kashmir issue was resolved, and there
was peace and security in the region, South Asia could
be denuclearized mutually by India and Pakistan. He
reiterated the old Pakistani offer of a no-war pact that
has been rejected repeatedly by India.
Garner,
according to the news report, spelled it out a little
more clearly when he said, "South Asia is the world's
most volatile region because of proven weapons of mass
destruction it possesses." He said it was even more
dangerous than North Korea because of the background of
wars between India and Pakistan. Tensions between the
two countries have been taken seriously by the US and
the international community because of the real threat
of a nuclear war with both Islamabad and Delhi being
equated in the global response.
Several Indian
strategists believe that the US is implementing what now
appears to be a well-defined Kashmir strategy. US Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage will be accompanied
by Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia,
Christina Rocca, and Assistant Secretary for Legislative
Affairs Paul Kelly on his visit to India, Pakistan and
Afghanistan this week. US officials have said that
Kashmir and peace are on the agenda, with the delegation
pushing for a firm timetable for talks.
Indicating that the US was worried about the
possession of nuclear weapons by both countries,
Armitage told a newspaper last year amid fears of a
nuclear war breaking out between the two volatile
neighbors, "We don't like the fact that both India and
Pakistan are nuclear ... we'll be looking very carefully
at delivery systems, ranges and things like that."
Indian strategists have noted the particular care Bush
administration officials have been taking to link
Kashmir with the nuclear threat. Armitage told CNN last
year that the US military had developed theater missile
defense that would allow short-range missiles to be shot
down. He said this in response to a question on whether
the US would intervene militarily if nuclear war was to
break out between India and Pakistan.
Jay
Garner's reported remarks that a solution to the Kashmir
issue would be in place by December 2004 has caused a
lot of concern among Indian opposition parties. Even
though the prime minister has said he would not give
importance to such statements, it is a matter of concern
that such possibilities are raising their heads.
Seemingly, Vajpayee is aware of the US plans for the
region and is doing his best to deal with them.
Many in India and Pakistan think that
denuclearization of South Asia following an amicable
settlement of the Kashmir dispute will not be such a bad
idea. Indeed, it may open new avenues of prosperity for
the region in an atmosphere of peace free from the
burden of maintaining nuclear weapons. After all, it was
the Hindu fundamentalists in power now who tested
nuclear weapons in 1998. Following the Pokhran II tests
even senior cabinet ministers started thumping their
chests in the most unseemly fashion, telling Pakistan
that the strategic military balance in South Asia had
changed and that it could now fight a nuclear war at a
date and time of its choosing, thus virtually forcing
Pakistan to go nuclear. Previous governments had behaved
more responsibly. In any case, India had already tested
its nuclear weapon capability in 1974 and there was no
need for it to do so again.
But it is doubtful
if even the anti-nuclear pacifists will like the idea of
a foreign power intervening in the region towards this
desirable end. Also, this is happening at a time when
most people in the developing world have come to
believe, following the experience of Iraq, that the only
way for a country to protect its sovereignty is to
produce weapons of mass destruction, by hook or by
crook, and not allow United Nations inspectors into the
country.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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