Asia Times: Violence threatens Kashmir ceasefire


	January 23, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Violence threatens Kashmir ceasefire
By Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI - Hardening positions in the Indian and Pakistani capitals could see an end to India's Kashmiri ceasefire and postpone a parallel bid to restart New Delhi-Islamabad talks on the troubled province.

An upsurge in violence over the weekend by militants, who continue to demand tripartite talks with New Delhi and Islamabad, will make it difficult for the Indian government to extend a truce, announced two months ago. Things have been further complicated for New Delhi with Pakistan's military rulers insisting that the violence in Kashmir and resumption of India-Pakistan talks should not be linked.

"The ceasefire is no solution to the Kashmir problem unless it is accompanied by tripartite talks," says Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, a leader of the All Party Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella body of some 22 Kashmiri separatist political groups. Farooq added that he would like to see Hurriyat representatives and Kashmiri militant groups sit at the same table with Indian and Pakistani leaders to sort out the 50-year-old dispute.

More than 35,000 people have been killed in secessionist violence unleashed by the militants in Kashmir in the past decade. New Delhi accuses Islamabad of training and arming the militants, while Pakistan accuses Indian security forces of rights excesses in Kashmir.

The two nuclear-capable South Asian neighbors have fought two wars over Kashmir since the former princely state joined India, soon after the subcontinent's partition by departing colonial British rulers in the year 1947. Pakistan administers a third of Kashmir.

Though Islamabad has since indicated that it is willing to drop its insistence on a tripartite discussion, New Delhi insists that bilateral talks cannot be held until Pakistan stops encouraging the militants.

During a mid-January meeting with Pakistan's military ruler Pervez Musharraf, India's high commissioner in Islamabad failed to get an assurance that the militants would be reined in, say Indian foreign ministry officials here.

The Indian prime minister, who began the new year declaring that New Delhi was ready to explore new ways to solve the Kashmir issue, said that there could be no talks with Pakistan as long as "the guns of terrorists do the talking". However, Islamabad denies that it has any control over the Kashmiri militant groups, several of which are based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Meanwhile, India's outspoken Defense Minister George Fernandes said India would "wait and watch" until January 26, the day the ceasefire completes two months, for a positive response from Pakistan, before deciding to extend.

On Sunday, militants lobbed grenades on a security post in Srinagar, killing a policeman and two civilians. Six more people were killed near Tapper, 30 kilometers south of Srinagar, when a bus went over a landmine believed to have been planted by the militants. India's Junior Home Minister I D Swami reacted by saying that the incidents would have a bearing on the government's review of the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Hurriyat chairperson Abdul Ghani Bhat warned that if the peace process gets derailed "a dangerous situation may develop and engulf the whole of South Asia".

(Inter Press Service)