Author: Brahma Chellaney
Publication: The Washington Times
Date: October 17, 2001
URL: http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011017-22204020.htm
NEW DELHI - Secretary of State Colin
L. Powell arrived last night in the Indian capital, where the United States'
new security relationship with Pakistan is forcing the government of Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to re-examine its 3-year investment in building
a strategic partnership with Washington.
As Mr. Powell was flying from Islamabad,
the Indian Foreign Ministry contradicted his comment from earlier in the
day that the Kashmir dispute is "central to the relationship" between India
and Pakistan.
Disagreeing with Mr. Powell's remark
made in the Pakistani capital, spokeswoman Nirupama Rao said that "terrorism"
sponsored by Pakistan in Kashmir - not Kashmir itself - was the problem.
"There should be no confusion between
cause and effect," she told a news conference here. "The present situation
in Jammu and Kashmir is a consequence of state-sponsored terrorism and
not the cause, as being portrayed in some sections."
Mr. Powell landed in New Delhi after
talks in Islamabad, where he and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf exchanged
pledges of mutual support while the United States pursues its military
goals in Afghanistan.
Mr. Vajpayee is under mounting pressure
from within and outside his government to consider military retaliation
in case of continuing attacks in Kashmir by Pakistan-based groups. One
such group claimed responsibility for a major attack on the Indian Kashmir
legislature that killed 42 persons late last month.
Government sources said Mr. Powell
will hear firsthand that India is unwilling to help Gen. Musharraf in any
way until he cracks down on terrorist bands staging operations from Pakistani
territory.
Soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks on the United States, India, in a tectonic shift in its strategic
posture, offered to open its military bases to Washington in the campaign
against terrorism.
Despite a close relationship with
Moscow in the 1970s and 1980s, India never provided Soviet forces access
to its military facilities. Mr. Vajpayee dismissed criticism by opposition
parties, defending the strategic shift.
Since then, however, the national
mood in India has changed, with concern and anger increasingly visible
over Washington's pampering of Pakistan and its military regime. The common
Indian reaction has been to question Washington's portrayal of Pakistan,
accused by New Delhi of being a front-line sponsor of terrorism, as a front-line
opponent of terrorism.
India is concerned that Washington
will have to put on hold new planned initiatives with New Delhi as it coddles
Gen. Musharraf and ensures Pakistan's continued cooperation with the military
campaign in Afghanistan.
India is particularly concerned
that it may have to bear the brunt of the unintended consequences of the
new U.S.-Pakistan partnership, as it did earlier when some of the covert
U.S. military aid to the Afghan anti-Soviet rebels in the 1980s was siphoned
off by Pakistani intelligence to ignite a bloody insurgency in Kashmir
after 1989.
Today, as the military campaign
seeks to flush out terrorists from their Afghan hideouts, the only escape
route for these extremists is eastward into Pakistan, where they can mingle
easily with fellow Pashtuns.
Some of these terrorists, New Delhi
fears, may then move to Kashmir with Pakistan's encouragement or connivance.
If that happened, India would face greater terrorist violence, including
attacks on major Indian cities.
India sees itself as a front-line
victim of international terrorism. It has expressed disappointment that
the United States wants to tackle the problem by going after the child
(the Taliban), but not the father (Pakistan).
