Crisis India-Pakistan:
Achtergrondinformatie, analyse en nieuws
uit de Indiase, Pakistaanse en internationale media.

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Secular Perspective, December 16-31, 2001
From: "csss"

Is Confederation in South Asia Possible?

Asghar Ali Engineer

(Note:
The unfortunate attack on Parliament by some Jihadis has brought about further deterioration in Indo-Pak relations. But this article is only a future vision and also one of the ways to create better people-to-people relations in South Asia. The validity of the idea of confederation as a future vision is not marred by the condemnable act of attack on Indian Parliament by the extremists.)


Many people talk about confederation of South Asian nations. The noted Indian politician Ram Manohar Lohia advocated it and constantly propagated the idea. He was of the opinion that the confederation can also help solve the communal problem. However, it is true that this idea has been so far mooted by mainly Indians; no known politician from other South Asian nations like Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Sri Lanka or Nepal has propounded it. It is possible that these nations are suspicious of India's big brother attitude.
In the World Assembly organised by The Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World the idea was once again discussed by the participants in the South Asia section. The delegates from India, Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Nepal and Sri Lanka were present. Though one delegate from Nepal referred to the `big brotherly attitude of India, all others endorsed the idea of confederation of South Asia.
However, all the participants felt that there is no question of working for confederation immediately. The participants are neither representatives of these countries nor did they have any authority to talk about it. They were just exploring the possibility. Also, the idea of confederation was more of a future vision than immediate possibility. One has to work for long and create confidence among all South Asian nations to make this vision a possibility. In other words confidence-building measures can play an important role. A task force of some participants was also set up to work in this direction.
It is obvious that in present conditions such an idea appears to be utopian. There are sharp contradictions, conflicts and mutual suspicions. But at times utopia can also turn into reality if one works with patience, perseverance and devotion. The example of Europe is before us and was repeatedly cited by many participants. European nations also had sharp mutual conflict and were at each other's throat not so long ago. Millions of lives were lost in the two world wars. Who ever thought until Second World War that European union will materialise in five decades.
It is true India and Pakistan have fought three wars so far and these two nations are always at logger heads with each other and in present conditions looks near impossible that they can come together in a confederal structure. Both the nations have even developed highly destructive nuclear weapons and it appears that South Asia is the flash point of the world today. India exploded nuclear device first in 1999 to outsmart Pakistan and Pakistan lost no time to explode its own nuclear device not to be outdone by India. So far all efforts to bring the two nations including the Lahore and Agra summits have not yielded results. Lahore summit was followed by Kargil war and Agra summit resulted in no agreement between the two. A cynic, therefore, can apparently maintain that a confederation is not a distinct possibility.
However, even European Union did not come into being in one go. It was preceded by several other measures including a European common market. And though Saarc has no glorious record to be proud of so far, it is an attempt in that direction. No doubt after Kargil war between India and Pakistan Saarc was almost dead it is being revived once again and Saarc meeting is going to take place in Kathmandu in early January 2002. Saarc itself is an important step in the direction of the confederation of south Asia, if one is optimistic and strives to create a proper climate of opinion.
Thus it was also decided that the delegates present in the conference should work to create proper climate of opinion in their respective countries, set up committees and hold wider consultations in their region. It is a complex democratic process, which needs to be speeded up. Among confidence building measures it is highly necessary to relax the present visa regime. Thousands of families are divided across the two countries and they visit India or Pakistan, not merely for tourism, or for political ends but to visit their separated relatives.
It has no meaning to assume that they will spy for each other. Such an assumption is even absurd. The spies do their work anyway despite strict visa regime. It is also absurd that visitors have to specify the cities to be visited and also report to the police. In no other country such a requirement exists. The first step for CBM will be to abolish such strict visa regime and relax it. To begin with specification for number of cities should be abolished right away and, if possible, visa should be issued on arrival, not only at the border as announced by India but also at airports. Slowly the visa regime should be completely abolished as between Nepal and India. The Nepal-India model should be imitated by all south Asian nations.
In fact there is more problem between India and Pakistan than between other South Asian nations though even these nations are not entirely free from mutual suspicion. However, relations between other South Asian nations are not as grave as between India and Pakistan. It is more on account of partition and two-nation theory on one hand, and problem of Kashmir, on the other. In fact it is Kashmir problem which is major obstacle rather than two-nation theory.
But it is closer ties and confidence building measures, which will help solve the problem of Kashmir also. It is not proper to maintain that without solving the Kashmir problem no other problems between the two countries can ever be solved. In fact it is otherwise. Closer we come through trade and other measures, easier it will be to resolve Kashmir issue. What we need is sincerity, commitment to solve problems and bold initiatives. It is not the peoples of India and Pakistan who pose problem but powerful vested interests, mainly political.
It must be remembered that basically India got divided not on account of religion but because of mutual suspicions and antagonism created by lack of confidence in each other. Partition could have been averted if the leaders from both sides had shown sagacity. Anyway it is history. History should not mar our future. There is no doubt that future lies in greater mutual co-operation and some kind of confederation, if possible.
As far as India and Pakistan are concerned it is not only that nature of problem is formidable; there is also other human perspective. There are divided families on both sides. One has to bring to bear compassion to reunite these families. Muhajirs who were mainly instrumental in creating Pakistan are facing the worst plight today. They are on the receiving end from both sides of the border. They long to meet their relatives in India and find it difficult to visit them on account of strict visa regime, they are finding themselves rootless culturally and socially in Pakistan. Muhajirs have to fight for their very survival in Pakistan today.
They not only long to visit India repeatedly but also want some measures which can undo estrangement between India and Pakistan. Many friends from India hugged me warmly on my visit to Pakistan and pleaded with me to launch a movement for a confederation between the two countries. Thus human angle is as important as other political and economic angles.
All south Asian nations are quite poor and are battling with the problems of poverty, illiteracy, health and unemployment. And, at the same time, they are spending astronomical sums on maintaining large armies and are buying weapons worth billions of dollars. Had these sums of money been spent on eradication of poverty and illiteracy in last fifty years both nations would have immensely benefited. It is quite possible there would have been no such levels of poverty and illiteracy in South Asia.
Moreover it is not only the question between India and Pakistan. The ethnic conflict between Tamils and Sinhalas in addition to claiming more than 65 thousand lives in Sri Lanka has involved huge expenditure on army. A country like Sri Lanka can ill affords such avoidable expenditure. The Tamil civilians are also paying very high price not only in terms of money but also in terms of human life. Tamils are also divided between India and Sri Lanka as sub- continental Muslims have been divided between three countries, India, Pakistan and Bangla Desh.
We would like to clarify one thing here. Sub-continental confederation, if at all it materialises in future (near or distant) it would not mean giving up sovereignty of these nations and it would have nothing to do with the Hindutva ideology of Akhand Bharat with hegemony of any religion or culture. In fact such an ideology was the root cause of trouble and was contributory in bringing about partition of sub-continent. Respect for South Asian cultural, religious and linguistic pluralism is the only way out without allowing any religion, culture or language to hegemonise over others.
Series of measures like strengthening religious harmony, promoting closer trade relationship, internal democracy, writing proper text books (kind of text books being taught in India and Pakistan are, to say the least, highly divisive and have been written with political agenda in mind rather than teaching history as a discipline) and establishing liberal visa regime with a long term goal of abolishing it would go a long way to promote right atmosphere for ultimate goal of confederation in South Asia or United Nations of South Asia.
Yes, it is a vision but future of humanity is based on such visions. Nations in 21st century should not establish rigid boundaries but only togetherness of shared culture and history. Widespread immigration to other countries for better living is already delivering a blow to the old concept of nation. Nations in cultural and linguistic sense are now dispersed in several countries rather than confined to narrow geographical boundary. Let South Asia lead the world in this respect.

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Times of India, 15.12.01

Two months of planning, 20 involved

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police have established the suicide squad that stormed Parliament on Thursday comprised two Afghan nationals, two Kashmir residents and a Pakistan national. Top police sources said the probe also indicated the five arrived in Delhi early Thursday morning. A contact picked them in the same Ambassador car used in the attack. The attackers had entered Delhi in a fruit truck from Jammu, through the northwest Delhi border.They were later driven to the Walled City area, where the car was "prepared" for the attack and the weapons handed over to them.

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Asian Age, 15.12.01

Lashkar behind suicide attack, claims Jaswant

New Delhi, Dec. 14: India on Friday held Pak based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba responsible for the suicide attack on Parliament House and demanded that Islamabad prove that it is sincere in its pledge to fight international terrorism. After external affairs minister Jaswant Singh met the visiting Afghan foreign minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah he told reporters that India had technical evidence which suggested that the attack was the handiwork of a terrorist organization based in Pakistan that is the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

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Times of India, 14.12.01

Suicide raid stuns nation

NEW DELHI: In an audacious suicide attack, five armed terrorists barged into the Parliament House premises and gunned down seven persons before security personnel killed them on Thursday morning. Seventeen others were injured in the strike. One of the terrorists had explosives strapped to him and blew himself up. No member of Parliament was injured in the attack. But the Vice President Krishan Kant had a narrow escape. His security men were killed by the terrorists. He himself was expected to step out of the Parliament building at that time. Armed with automatic rifles, pistols, grenades and explosives, the five terrorists engaged security personnel in a fierce gunbattle which lasted for over half an hour. They also lobbed grenades.

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The Daily Star (Bangladesh), 13 Dec 2001

Dangerous Games

M.B. Naqvi

Karachi December 12:
The games the intelligence agencies play can be dangerous and tiresome. Dangerous because they manipulate media by feeding distorted and partial information for extraneous purposes of their own. It is tiresome for careful readers and viewers to evaluate factual news by separating the contaminated chaff from the grain of fact.
This thought arose from two stories on one and the same day in the Pakistan press on Tuesday. One was lifted from New York Times in bulk that threw a lurid light on ISI activities as a state within a state and as a den of pro-Taliban operatives, the utter vulnerability of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the close links of Pakistani nuclear scientists with Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and Taliban in general. It naturally extolled the American secret services efficiency and seemed calculated to pave the way for the Americans to get the custody of an unspecified number of Pakistani scientists or engineers who were connected with their country's nuclear programme.
The other story was clearly inspired by Pakistan's own secret services and it tried to show how it was Pakistan President himself who briefed the CIA chief George Tenet on Dec. 2 in Islamabad about the Big Story of Al Qaeda's nuclear ambitions and activities with all the particulars and sources in Kabul, advising him to go in person to Kabul and see for himself. Tenet is reported to have done just this. Apparently, the story is correct. But that says nothing for the contacts between the original two scientists and Taliban inside Afghanistan apparently for humanitarian purposes of their NGOs --- supposedly long after their retirement from government service.
Pakistan government had apparently been interrogating these two retired scientists for about two months. They are Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmoud and Ch. Abdul Majid. They have had contacts with Taliban and they are being questioned ostensibly for breaching the service rules about not taking official prior permission for visits outside the country. That is, if the official explanations are correct.
But the CIA and other foreign agencies are apparently pushing for the custody of not only these two impugned scientists but of at least six others, two of whom or an additional two, are required to be interrogated. Many here think that some of it is professional rivalry, if not turf war, among a variety of intelligence agencies of different countries including Israel, a close associate of American agencies. There are also too many political prepossessions of each agency and unavowed hidden agendas. Pakistani intelligence services, especially ISI, are suspected of infiltration by pro-Taliban officers by all western agencies as so many stories in the US media suggest.
Pakistani agencies appear to have their own suspicions of the Anglo-American secret services of strong anti-Pakistan bias, as stories that reek of inspiration from them suggest. The gravamen of Pakistani spooks' suspicions is the American intent to somehow get at, or into, Pakistan's hitherto secret nuclear programme; and their efforts to get the custody of Pakistanis who have worked for the nuclear programme on the suspicion that they may have helped Al-Qaeda acquire nuclear know-how or materials may be only a smokescreen for that purpose.
While America and Pakistan are in fact cooperating closely with each other in the war in Afghanistan, their old suspicions and wariness appears to be still at work. The US-Pakistan relationship is obviously ambivalent, with hostile attitudes almost seething below the surface. This question of Pakistani scientists contacts with Al-Qaeda, whether true or false or in between, hold the potential for much mischief both for Pakistan-America relations and for domestics politics in the country.

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The Hindustan Times (India), Thursday, December 13, 2001

The Business of War

by Amit Sengupta

Remember the frenzied super-nationalism of the ruling regime those days, when bodies of soldiers were coming back in the coffins? It was India's first television war. The images arrived from the high altitudes of Tololing and Drass bringing with them the intimacies, the violence and angst of war.
Young soldiers writing letters, thinking of home and warmth, fighting till the last, dying suddenly. Their eyes, fingers, memories, their olive green uniforms, their volleyball games, their long trek uphill into the frozen valley of death.
There were other stories also. That they did not have the special shoes which could protect them in the freezing cold of Kargil, that they lacked proper equipment, that they were victims of intelligence failure. The entire country knew that Pakistani mercenaries and jehadis had entrenched themselves in Indian territory for long, that they had equipment of international standards, even televisions, and that they were perched in strategically advantageous terrain.
We also knew that the Indian defence establishment had badly goofed up, for which the nation had to pay a heavy price. More than 500 dead soldiers and officers, most of them in their 20s.
But these questions were buried in the BJP's (and Sangh parivar's) war campaign against their favourite enemy; because the line between Pakistan-bashing and Muslim-bashing is often so very thin. If you dared to question they would shout back: "You are anti-national, anti-India, ISI agent." They would doubt the patriotism of those who stood against the unfolding tragedy of our young soldiers dying for other people's mistakes.
But such was the hysteria created by war-mongering fanatics that every form of dissent was crushed. Even journalists were not able to write critically. Patriotism meant praising the government. There was this invisible censorship everywhere. And the threat: You are either with the war, or against the nation. The nation was left with only one option: to run with the rabble-rousers.
We all thought they will drag the war to the ballot box. After all, war is the most heady trump-card for any ruling party. Especially when thousands starving to death or jobless, or the 350 crore people below the poverty line do not even have a straw to float across.
For a divided, cynical nation which is economically sinking, emotionally drained and morally battered, war is packaged as the supreme aphrodisiac, the opium of the masses.
Thank god for Bill Clinton, who supposedly told Nawaz Sharif to back off. Otherwise, who knows - they would have dragged the war till the elections. That would have also meant more imported aluminium coffins.
Then came the elections. Rally after rally, the memory of the martyrs of Kargil was sold by the BJP top brass and its allies in the marketplace of crude vote bank politics. Such insensitivity can only be the forté of fanatics. Not a thought was spared for the feelings of mothers, fathers, lovers, who still felt the presence and the absence of their lost ones; the music he played, his jogging tracks still hanging on the door, the poster on the wall.
It's difficult to reconcile with a young son's death. It's more difficult when the bell rings and he is not there. He will never be there.
How will the mother whose son died in Kargil feel now? Now that she has seen Bangaru Laxman taking a wad of cash with her own eyes? Or the use of the defence minister's house to clinch defence deals by shady agents? Or the shameless return of George Fernandes? The hounding of Tehelka?
What does she feel about patriotism - now that the coffin's lid has once again been thrown open, so that the entire nation can see how they have sold the nation for a briefcase of cash?



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