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Public spat sets India and Pakistan
back
By Seema Sirohi
NEW YORK
- After a week of bitter exchanges between India and
Pakistan during the United Nations General Assembly,
Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's peace
initiative has gone through a shredder, with little
likelihood of an early revival.
Insults were the
mainstay of the annual encounter, instead of progress
towards dialogue, dimming hopes of an early summit-level
meeting between the two sides. Progress so far,
incremental and noteworthy, has been halting since
Vajpayee famously offered a hand of friendship to
Pakistan from the streets of Kashmir several months ago.
That path-breaking initiative now needs an
infusion of oxygen if it is to survive the poisonous
atmosphere created in New York. At his concluding press
conference, Vajpayee, measuring each word said, "The
environment is not right for talks. It won't be any
use." But he added, "I am also saddened by what
happened, but I don't think the peace initiative has
ended. We must make it move forward." The subtext - he
will not go out of his way, at least for the time being,
as he has done three times in the past.
The
tit-for-tat nature of verbal missiles that came flying
thick and fast last week from leaders and diplomats from
both sides showed the depth of the divide between the
two countries. The question of "who started it" was on
many minds as the bilateral dispute came to dominate the
larger agenda of the 58th session of the UN General
Assembly - Iraq and its reconstruction, expansion of the
Security Council, the millennium goals set by UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan. Even though both India and
Pakistan have been asked to contribute troops to Iraq
for "stabilization" under a refined UN mandate, the
Kashmir dispute dominated exchanges between Vajpayee and
Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf.
Musharraf, a military tactician who increasingly
appears to thinks of himself as a political wizard,
tried to use his visit to wrap the Kashmir issue into
the larger question of "oppressed peoples" around the
world, a comparison that immediately got Indian
officials on edge. He compared Kashmir not only to
Palestine, which many Pakistani leaders have done in the
past, but also to East Timor, at an international
conference organized by the Norwegian government on the
sidelines of the UN session.
Indian officials
had bowed out of the conference, saying that they didn't
want their leaders to face the predictable torrent of
abuse from Musharraf and get into a shouting match. The
Indian Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal, said acidly, "It
is not necessary to attend every conference. We also
have to keep in mind the company we keep." Indian
officials were trying to avoid ugly exchanges in front
of other leaders, who already view the India-Pakistan
tussles in a condescending manner. They find it easier
to roll their eyes than to sit down and face real facts
- that their key ally Pakistan in the US-led "war on
terrorism" has been supporting militancy and terrorist
groups in India, and that Musharraf allows Kashmiri
militant groups to operate in Pakistan, while
cooperating on hunting down al-Qaeda in his own country.
But the recent spate of reports in the Western
press questioning Musharraf's commitment to fight
terrorism is an indication that the American
establishment is not completely satisfied with his
performance. He arrived in New York to a series of
editorials and articles, from the New York Times to Time
magazine, questioning the role of his intelligence
service, the Inter-Services Intelligence, in routing
al-Qaeda.
Recently, three Pakistani military
officers were arrested in an operation aimed against the
Taliban, an incident that shocked the Americans a great
deal. They were faced with evidence that elements of the
Pakistani military are sympathetic and helpful to the
"enemy". To deflect the arrows, Musharraf did what is a
stock Pakistani defense - to raise and hammer the
Kashmir issue - to show his domestic critics back home
that he has a spine and that he hasn't become a puppet
of the Americans, who have been telling him to start
talks with India.
But talks seemed far from his
ken as he used every media opportunity - and there were
many - to condemn India, criticize its defense policies,
and in a somewhat mean-spirited diatribe, say that India
should never be a member of the expanded UN Security
Council. He told the Western media that India was
"uncontrollable" in its quest for acquiring arms and
that any disturbance in the conventional arms balance
was a recipe for disaster in South Asia. He claimed that
his government had done "far more" to defuse tension
around the Line of Control that divides Kashmir, but
"unfortunately, there is zero return from the Indian
side".
Came the reply from Sibal, "If General
Musharraf feels there has been zero return it is because
there has been zero investment from him." He then went
on to advise Musharraf to get rid of his "annual Kashmir
itch" by fasting before coming to New York - a remark
that was as insensitive as it was provocative ,given the
annual fasting by Muslims for religious reasons.
Indian officials were at pains to explain later
that the remark was only triggered by Musharraf's
tendency to exploit a bilateral dispute for political
advantage, while refusing to cooperate on stopping
cross-border terrorism in Kashmir, which might help
start a dialogue.
Musharraf then read his speech
at the UN General Assembly in which he offered an
"action plan" for peace in South Asia - complete
ceasefire along the Line of Control, a viable mechanism
to monitor infiltration on both sides and a "general
cessation of violence within Kashmir involving
reciprocal obligations and restraints on Indian forces
and the Kashmir freedom movement".
Indian
diplomats listened to his speech carefully and were
surprised at the apparent admission of guilt by
Musharraf in front of world leaders. He was offering to
end the violence in exchange for certain steps by India
- it was the first clear admission by him that he indeed
controlled the "violence" in India. Officials, who had
been waiting to put the final touches on Vajpayee's
speech, which came a day later, seized on the point and
hammered home India's message.
Vajpayee
responded, "The president of Pakistan chose this August
assembly to make a public admission for the first time
that Pakistan is sponsoring terrorism in Jammu and
Kashmir. After claiming that there is an indigenous
struggle in Kashmir, he has offered to encourage a
general cessation of violence within Kashmir. We totally
refuse to let terrorism become a tool of blackmail. Just
as the world did not negotiate with al-Qaeda or the
Taliban, we shall not negotiate with terrorism." He
added that dialogue will take place only when
cross-border terrorism stops, or India eradicates it
with its own might.
The two speeches led to a
firestorm of recriminations and diplomats on both sides
were in full metal jackets by the end. At the close of
the session, Pakistan invoked its "right of reply" and
its ambassador to the UN, Munir Akram, described India
as "a mother of all terrorism" and accused Vajpayee's
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of following "fascist
tendencies". He talked about "stage-managed massacres of
Muslims" in India in an apparent reference to the
violence in Gujarat, and then announced that "Kashmir
will be free". From India's side, Harshvardhan Shringla,
a senior diplomat, took the floor and accused Pakistan
of "double speak". He said this came easily to Pakistan
since its "history and policies have been rooted in
political fiction". Diplomatic swords by this time were
flashing so brightly one needed to take cover.
The atmosphere was vitiated, the goodwill
dissipated as Vajpayee left New York. When he heard
about Akram's accusation, he was first surprised and
then visibly pained. He said that he had offered the
hand of friendship three times to Pakistan - once by
going to Lahore when prime minister Nawaz Sharif was in
power, then by inviting Musharraf to India for the Agra
summit, and finally this April when he offered to make
peace from Srinagar.
While the first two
initiatives were bold, broad strokes of international
diplomacy - a visit and a summit - this time Vajpayee
will not walk into a trap, said Indian officials. He
will not give a photo-opportunity to Musharraf which can
then be exploited. The Indian side is determined to take
small steps and build a better foundation before
thinking about a summit. The Indian approach this time
is incremental and gradual, where bureaucrats on both
sides will first thrash out steps for normalization,
create a conducive atmosphere and then only allow the
two leaders to appear together.
Despite the
invectives, Indian officials stuck to their strategy and
announced some considered steps to improve the
atmosphere during the New York madness. They said that
they had planned to do that before the verbal exchange
to show India's serious intention to bring
normalization. India offered to increase the strength of
a shrunken Pakistani mission in New Delhi to 55 from 47
diplomats, many of whom were asked to leave after an
attack on the Indian parliament on December 13, 2001,
which India said was hatched by Pakistani-sponsored
militants. The offer to raise the number of diplomats
was a small but significant step considering the
near-complete severance of relations after the attack.
It was this kind of continuance of the peace
initiative that Vajpayee was referring to as he left New
York. A slow and inconspicuous pace designed to keep
relations growing while maintaining pressure on Pakistan
to end cross-border terrorism. So while Vajpayee will go
to Islamabad in January to attend the summit of South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation or SAARC, he
will not meet Musharraf separately. He is determined to
pursue his peace initiative, but won't be insulted yet
again, said Indian officials.
(Copyright 2003
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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