Author: Vasantha Arora (IANS)
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: June 7, 2002
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/070602/dlfor43.asp
A US House of Representatives subcommittee
on South Asia has asked Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to immediately
dismantle terrorist training camps and permanently halt incursions into
Kashmir.
The house panel said these would
be the most important steps needed to defuse the India-Pakistan military
standoff.
It underlined the need for Pakistan
to give up its "suicidal policy" of supporting terrorists in Jammu and
Kashmir, whose ownership Islamabad disputes and where escalating terrorism
has brought the two nuclear-armed neighbours to the brink of war.
Republican Benjamin Gilman, who
heads the Subcommittee on South Asia and the West Asia, said: "If Musharraf
is serious about averting a war, he needs to match his words with deeds.
He should agree to joint monitoring of the India-Pakistan border as suggested
by Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
"The US has delivered over $1 billion
worth of assistance to Pakistan since the war on terrorism began. While
we appreciate all that Musharraf has done to help us since the September
11 attacks, we must remember he and the Pakistani military were given an
ultimatum soon after September 11 to stop nurturing and supporting Taliban
and other Islamic militants or else face the consequences.
"He made the right decision then,
and we expect him to follow through with it now.
"People who kill innocent men, women
and children for any cause are not freedom fighters. They are cold-blooded
murderers who must be hunted down and brought to justice. Any support for
them is totally and equally unacceptable."
Gilman, who set the tone for deliberations
during the hearing Thursday, referred to President George W. Bush's oft-repeated
statement that "any nation that harbours terrorists is a terrorist nation".
Democrat Rep. Gary Ackerman said
if Pakistan wants to remain a member of the global coalition against terror,
support for terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir must end -- completely and
permanently.
Ackerman mentioned how Musharraf
made a "courageous decision on September 13 and supported Operation Enduring
Freedom. Without that support, we would have had a much more difficult
time prosecuting the war in Afghanistan".
But in return, he said, the US has
provided significant economic assistance including $600 million during
the past fiscal year.
He said the Supplemental Appropriations
Bill that just passed the house has $40 million more and the administration
is requesting another $250 million in economic and development assistance
for the coming fiscal. This excludes $73 million for border security, additional
$75 million in foreign military aid in the supplemental and $50 million
in military assistance for the coming fiscal.
"After all this, it's time to make
clear to Musharraf that no further economic or military support will go
to Pakistan if he continues to support militant organisations... No military
assistance should go to Pakistan during the current crisis," said Ackerman,
who has visited Kashmir and India several times.
"Musharraf is the architect of the
Kargil incursion that brought the subcontinent to the brink of nuclear
war in 1999. What makes anyone believe a cause for which he was ready to
go to war three years ago is any less dear to him now?"
Ackerman said past experience only
shows Musharraf does not intend to abandon Pakistan's support for terrorists
in Jammu and Kashmir but intends to continue to use violence in the region
to push the global community to intervene.
"We have seen this strategy earlier.
And we have found the next front in the war on terror, Mr. Chairman, and
it is in Kashmir."
Almost all Congressmen on the panel,
including Henry Hyde, Shelley Berkley, Adam Schiff and Joseph Pitts, echoed
Gilman and Ackerman's sentiments and spoke largely in favour of India.
But Rep. Dan Burton and Dana Rorbacher
criticised India for its human rights issue in Kashmir.
Witnesses who testified before the
panel were from Washington DC-based think tanks and included Michael Krepon,
founding president of the Henry L Stimson Centre, and Amit Pandya, senior
fellow for South Asia, Institute for Global Democracy.
Krepon, who has just returned after
a two-week visit to Kashmir, dwelt on the roots of the crisis in Kashmir.
"One of these is Pakistan's designs to wrest the Kashmir valley from India
by force of arms or by diplomacy. Both of these designs have failed in
the past and are bound to fail again and Pakistan has to give up this strategy
to bring stability to the region."
He said avoidance of a nuclear exchange
on the subcontinent demand demonstrable changes in Pakistan's failed Kashmir
policy.
"While failing to wrest control
of Kashmir from India, it has succeeded in generating domestic violence
and the Kalashnikov culture at home. In fact the future of 140 million
Pakistanis has been mortgaged to the fate of five million Kashmiri Muslims
who live in the valley."
Krepon said economic development
in Pakistan had been badly constrained by policies that place a premium
on bleeding India.
