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Afghanistan a symptom, target the system: PM

Afghanistan a symptom, target the system: PM

Author: Dileep Padgaonkar
Publication: Times of India
Date: Sept. 21, 2001

NEW DELHI: Even as India braces itself to cooperate with the United States in the retaliatory actions it is about to launch against the Taliban regime, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee appears to be distraught over Washington's failure so far to take India's concerns into account in its overall strategy to combat terrorism. Alongside, in response to Gen. Pervez Musharraf's intemperate remarks about India on Wednesday, he has decided to stall the dialogue process between the two countries.

"It is for America to decide whether terrorism is a global phenomenon or whether it is restricted to just one individual. America alone can determine whether it will address the symptom of terrorism or the system of terrorism", Vajpayee said in the course of a free-wheeling conversation with this writer on Thursday.

"Afghanistan is a symptom", Vajpayee said adding, "America will have to look well beyond it. It will have to look at the sanctuaries provided to terrorists, at the training camps, at the arms and money flowing into the hands of terrorists if it wants to get rid of terrorism root and branch." Until now, the Prime Minister pointed out, "no statements had emanated from Washington to suggest that the United States, though appreciative of India's offer to support its war against terrorism, was in a mood to focus on India's bitter experience of terrorist activities on its soil."

He hoped this will change once the issue of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi fugitive who the Americans claim master-minded the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC, is out of the way.

Throughout the conversation the Prime Minister dropped no hint whatsoever that he had the slightest regrets about offering India's support to the United States in its anti-terrorism drive. He dismissed out of hand news reports that some of his cabinet colleagues were not too happy with the policy. "Debates and discussions do take place, as they must:", he said. He then added: " But once we take a position, everyone falls in line."

Vajpayee said that cooperation with the United States even at the military level was not something new for India. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had sought and obtained it in the wake of the Sino-Indian border war in the early 'sixties.

The prime minister said he was most impressed by the American response to the terrorist outrages. The political establishment and the country at large had put aside all differences to support President Bush in every move he made to provide a suitable riposte to them.

Vajpayee turned uncharacteristically combative when he gave his reaction to Gen. Musharraf's tirade against India in his televised address to the nation on Wednesday night. The military ruler had claimed that India had offered its military bases and logistical support to the US because India wants the latter to " get Pakistan declared a terrorist state, harm its strategic concerns and its Kashmir cause... and bring a bad name to Pakistan and Islam."

The Prime Minister said that these allegations were "along expected lines." He recalled that the demand to declare Pakistan as a terrorist state was a long-standing one. "The US has declared some Pakistan-based militant organizations as terrorist outfits. It reviews the list from time to time. Why it has not declared Pakistan as a terrorist state is because it has not seen terrorism in this part of the world in a correct perspective."

He cited as an example America's reaction to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar. " They did say something to the effect that the hijacking was not a good thing. But nothing more."

Vajpayee said that Musharraf's remarks in his address to the nation clearly showed that for him the main issue is about India-Pakistan relations and not about terrorism. "What concerns him is not terrorism. It is about Kashmir." He went on to add: "How can he be concerned about terrorism? He has promoted it."

Referring to Musharraf's allegation that India had no locus standi in Afghanistan and that India's sole interest was to establish an anti-Pakistan regime in Kabul, Vajpayee said that the General must not forget in the first place that the United Nations does not recognise the Taliban government. Secondly, "the emergence of an independent, democratic, secular Afghanistan is in India's interest and in the interest of the world." Finally, " it is clear as daylight that we are directly affected by whatever happens in Afghanistan." The prime minister was doubtless alluding to the Taliban's role in the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane and to the links between Osama bin Laden's organization Al Qaeda and Pakistan-based terrorist outfits operating in Kashmir.

The prime minister said that Musharraf's remarks constituted a "serious set back to the India- Pakistan dialogue process". He ruled out any visit by him or by external affairs minister Jaswant Singh to Pakistan in the foreseeable future. In his own way Atal Behari Vajpayee had responded to the general's call to India to "lay off " Pakistan.
 


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