Author: MV Kamath
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: August 9, 2002
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/090802-fpj.html
Is the United States taking India
for a ride? And who, pray, is colin Powell, US Secretary of State, trying
to fool? And what does he think India is: a banana republic ruled by boot-lickers?
By now he should have known fully well that Gen. Musharraf is an accomplished
liar. For all the big talk of helping the United States stem terrorism
indulged in by the Pakistan leader, it is by now common knowledge that
Osama bin Laden is very much alive and is in hiding in Pakistan, courtesy
of the Islamabad government. If the United States does not know it either
it is poorly informed or it is turning a Nelson's eye to what is going
on right under its nose.
When Defence Minister George Fernandes
told the British Channel 4 News that he had received authentic information
that bin Laden was very much alive and was moving from place to place in
Pakistan and Pakistanis were taking good care of him, that was not a piece
of gossip. It is the truth and the whole truth and if the United States
does not want to hear it, India can hardly be faulted.
But Colin Powell's demand on India
that it permit international 'monitors' to keep watch on the elections
in Kashmir scheduled for October, is little short of impertinence and was
very rightly rejected. Even to think of such a demand is an insult to India
and no self-respecting nation would ever accede to it. What is even more
shocking is Powell's insistence that India release "political prisoners"
held in Jammu & Kashmir prior to the elections. Political prisoners?
These are anti-national terrorists who have been rightly put behind bars.
If Powellis so concerned about the
welfare of alleged 'political prisoners' why hasn't he asked Pakistan to
hand over some twenty odd anti-Indian gangsters presently residing in Pakistan
and whose transfer to India has been demanded by Delhi? Let this be said:
India, more than anyone else, wants to hold free and fair elections. To
ensure this it has even asked the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir
to step down, much to his displeasure, so that there is President's Rule
in the state and nobody can accuse the government of tampering with the
voting. Besides, no one is stopping foreign correspondents and even foreign
diplomats from visiting the state at the time of elections. More than the
United States, more even than any western power, India is anxious that
its fair name is not sullied. What the United States should, on its part,
do is to see that Pakistan-supported terrorists will not interfere with
the electoral process.
Musharraf is telling a blatant lie
when he says that he has done all he can to prevent cross-border terrorism.
Cross-border terrorism is continuing unabated. There have been 232 incidents
involving terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir in June 2002 alone. Of these,
as many as 122 were attacks directed against Indian security forces. In
these 'incidents' 224 people, including personnel from the security forces
had been killed. And, among the terrorists killed or apprehended in June,
70 per cent were foreign mercenaries, including a number of Afghan veterans.
Satellite images monitored by India have identified 67 tented 'khemas'
housing 3,500 terrorist inmates. Over one hundred trainees have similarly
been identified in the Naukot Sharif, Chananian, Mandakuli and Chumula
camps in the Lipa Valley. Similarly, 150 trainees are known to be based
at Jura, Shankot and Kundal Shahi camps in the Neelam Valley.
A July 6 intercept picked off the
jaish Radio Afaq had a man called Khizr Bhai telling a field operative
called Nayeem details of a planned suicide attack on Minister of State
for External Affairs Omar Abdullah during a visit to Udhampur on 10 July.
Indian security agencies had to persuade Omar to put back the trip. Indian
security forces are constantly intercepting phone calls made by terrorists
based in Jammu & Kashmir to their bosses in Pakistan. And the transcripts
of all these calls on frequencies 143.27 MHz, 152.55 MHz, 139.08 MHz, 142.10
MHz, 144.17 MHz and 145.12 MHz have been given to Powell. Nothing has been
kept secret from him. In the face to such massive evidence how can Powell
certify that Musharraf is doing the best be can? The best is just not good
enough. Powell is plainly indulging in double talk. On the one hand he
says that infiltration across the Line of Control, has gone down? How can
he possibly say that in the face of accumulating evidence of continued
infiltration & terrorism and the killing, as recently as 13 July, of
28 Hindus, including several women and children? When he goes to Islamabad,
Powell blandly says he "appreciates the assurances President Musharraf
has given to me on the previous occasion and which President Bush has received
as well".
Pakistani interference is not confined
to Jammu & Kashmir. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been
operating in India's North East, pumping quantities of fake currency into
the region from Shillong to areas round about. If that is not all, there
was Pak shelling in the Batalik and Kaksar sectors on the eve of Vijay
Diwas, the anniversary of the Kargil conflict. Indian troops had to respond
in kind to silence the enemy guns. But Musharraf keeps saying that he won't
make any more concessions. What is he talking about?
Stopping terrorism is not a "concession":
it is a moral imperative, a civilisational necessity. Musharraf is doing
no favour to India by halting sponsored killing. He is merely making it
that much easier for a future Indo- Pakistan dialogue to take place.
Powell meanwhile has been quoted
as saying that Kashmir is an international issue. If that be so, the first
thing the internationalists should do is to tell Musharraf to behave. That
they won't because they want a strong bootlicker to do as he is bid to
do in 'their' interests. What is increasingly becoming all too familiar
is that Washington cannot overcome its fascination for dictators.
In a recent article in 'News-India
Times', Garold A. Gould, professor at the Centre for South Asian Studies
at the University of Virginia made the point that it is a 'myth' to think
that Pakistan is still politically redeemable and can somehow be propped
up as a counterfoil to rapidly rising Indian power and influence. "Even
at the best of times" he wrote, "it never was a workable strategy in South
Asia". 'In fact' he added, "regional stability on any basis can never be
achieved as long as the Pakistani elites persist in doing nothing about
the institutional flaws in their political culture which condemn their
country to endless cycles of political chaos, cynically motivated Islamic
jingoism and military dictatorship punctuated by periodic wars with India".
Well said. Pakistan is a state 'governed' - if that is the right word -
by terrorists; such a state can have no future. If Messers Bush and Powell
do not understand this simple fact, they understand nothing. They seem
to be still obsessed with friendship with Pakistan.
Gould put it right when he wrote:
"America's strategic obsessions blinded its leaders to the fact that it
had always made more sense to tilt toward India because its democratic
institutions were from the outset, as Ambassador Chester Bowles always
insisted, a more effective bulwark against penetration into the region
either by Soviet imperialism or grass roots communism than an over-militarised,
totalitarian Pakistani state ever on the threshold of political and economic
collapse.
Now that a new breed is attempting
to rectify America's past strategic miscalculations, there is a predictable
backlash, impinging no doubt upon all key members of the Bush administration,
emanating from the hawkish Cold 'warriors still around who were responsible
to them in the first place'. What Powell has been advising India to do
is clear evidence of that backlash. Powell has been saying that the United
States wishes to be a friend of India while simultaneously being a friend
of Pakistan. He must be told that he is living in a dream world. Sooner
or later he has to make a clear choice: it has to be either Pakistan or
India. The choice lies with Washington. At the same time international
opinion must also understand that there is no way a democratic India can
live permanently in peace with a terrorist Pakistan ruled by militarist
thugs. India's patience is wearing thin and if international opinion does
not bring Pakistan to heel, there may still be a war, howsoever limited.
And then let not India be blamed. Right from 1947 India has had to do with
the double talk of western powers, most notably the United States, Britain
and France who did all that was in their power to embarrass and hurt India.
That India has survived western machinations has been due to its own inner
strength. No thanks are due to Washington, London or Paris.
If the western world means business,
then it has to overthrow Musharraf and work for a secular democratic Pakistan
willing and ready to live in peace with India, forgetting Kashmir. To tell
the truth, there is nothing for India to discuss with Pakistan, unless
it be for India to tell Pakistan to leave Kashmir alone. If Pakistan does
not by now know that it can never get Jammu & Kashmir howsoever hard
it tries, it needs to be firmly told so by its western friends. All else
is folly. There has been too much playing around with words. America must
be told the harsh truth. If it won't listen, it is best that India declines
to play host to President Bush and goes its own way. At some stage in history
we must put an end to international hypocrisy. We must behave like a power
in our own right. That we can; and we should.
