Author:
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 16, 2002
Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee has
said if the international community fails to persuade Pakistan to stop
cross-border terrorism, India will have to find its own way to achieve
its objective.
Addressing members of the Congress
from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut on Saturday night, he said India
was as determined as the US had been since September 11 last year to secure
itself against Pakistani and Pakistan backed terrorism in Kashmir.
He expressed the hope that voices
of reason in the international community would help persuade Pakistan to
stop cross-border terrorism. "If the international community is unable
to persuade Pakistan, India will have to find its own ways to achieve its
objective," he said.
India, Mr Vajpayee pointed out,
had joined the international coalition against terrorism in the conviction
that only a global and comprehensive effort would help eliminate this menace
and counter the forces of international terrorism. The coalition, he said,
had made considerable headway in Afghanistan but "a lot more needs to be
done further east".
Mr Vajpayee said tension in South
Asia continued because Pakistan had not lived up to the commitments made
by Gen Musharraf. At another meeting, Mr Vajpayee virtually called Gen
Musharraf a liar, and left experts on the region wondering where it would
take the relations between the two countries to.
In the annals of public diplomacy
between the two sides, there has not been an instance when the leader of
one country directly accused another one of lying-a word that is banned
in the Indian parliamentary lexicon. Not even at the height of the Indo-Pak
wars.
But Mr Vajpayee not only accused
Gen Musharraf of lying but of "crossing all limits of lying". He did not
even use the fig leaf of saying Gen Musharraf doesn't speak the truth.
Indian officials reiterated that
the Prime Minister's remarks were a result of Gen Musharraf's "multiple
lies and distortions" from the time he took office and his "duplicity in
exploiting every peace gesture made by India to further his career and
hold on power".
"He lies, dissembles and distorts
events for his convenience without any regard to facts. He is the one who
began public diplomacy through grandstanding at Agra," one official accompanying
the Prime Minister said, while listing Gen Musharraf's "perfidies".
Among the instances he cited: "Lying"
about Pakistani infiltration in Kargil and arguing that Pakistani forces
were not involved despite copious evidence; "lying" about the presence
of most of the 20 wanted fugitives in Pakistan, including Dawood Ibrahim;
"lying" about not have committed to ending infiltration permanently
American analysts said Gen Musharraf's
diatribe against India at the UN and New Delhi's return fire was a setback
for peace in the region. "Pakistan has taken a giant step backward by bringing
out all the old complaints and going back to the plesbiscite question.
They have brought out the worse in India too," said South Asia scholar
Stephen Cohen of the Brooking Institution.
