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

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30 Dec. 2001

Terrorism and War euphoria

V.K. Tripathi

The fidayeen attack on Indian Parliament has escalated tensions between India and Pakistan to a dangerous level. The attack was a grave misadventure indeed. Nevertheless, the chances of its success were slim as the event itself proved. Our reaction to this tragedy has appeared in the form of a war euphoria, which I think is an insincere response. War is not a conflict between ruling elites. It is havoc wrecked upon the masses, who by no strech of imagination can be equated with the ruling elite. In fact the contradiction between the elite and the masses is the most fundamental one of all. The former wield economic and political power while the latter are expolited and meek. We must also remember that the masses of different countries are the same. Hence, war must be avoided at all costs unless pushed totally against the wall. If we cannot justify violence against economic exploitation, how could one justify war against sporadic acts of terror?
The cries for war are imanating from privileged sections. I am afraid, none of these people would ever like go to the battle field and risk their lives. Nor would they like to face any inconvenience or discomfort. They look for fanciful wars, to watch their excitement on TV screens. They are unmindful of their lack of courage and insensitivity. They quote unjust examples of USA's war on Afghanistan and Israel's attacks on Palestinians to justify their thirst for war. Both instances, however, represent gross conditioning. These have weakened the inner vitality of their own people. I think this is a very heavy price any poor country would like to pay. We do not have wealth or weapons. Soul is our strength and its vitality rests on truth and sensitivity. Let us feel the agony of Indian and Pakistani masses and see beyond temporary irritants.
We live in a world of contradictions where intelligence agencies of different countries work at cross purposes against each other and at times target political leaders. Aggrieved parties, criminals and mafia dons also target them. Hence VIPs always run a higher risk. Any flaws in their security must be addressed forth with. However, security of VIPs is not made out a case for war. We lost Rajeev Gandhi but we did not attack LTTE bases in Sri Lanka. Numerous coups were carried out by big powers in third world countries but none of the sponsoring countries were attacked. In 1979 a bomb blast killed 70 top leaders of Iran. In Cuba several attempts were made on President Castro's life. But there were no wars. Tighter security arrangements were indeed made and these were helpful to a significant measure.
As far as fidayeen attacks are concerned we must examine the nature, cause and strength of these groups dispassionately. The fidayeens are not the criminals like Veerappan or Mafia dons who do it for money and to reign their authority. They are intoxicated by the sectarian view of Kashmir problem as also of the strife in Bosnia, Iraq, Palestine and other places where lakhs of Muslims have indeed perished. Their commitment has been reinforced by religous fundamentalism to the level of self sacrifice. However, fidayeens do not have the shrewdness of communalists who strive to capture political power by polarising people. Communalists do not attack the mightiest but the armless and the weak to create an atmosphere of mistrust and hatred. Communalists of all religious shades have been subservient to the interests of rich nations in last fifty years. Now they wield enormous political power in many countries including India and Pakistan. The fidayeens' leaders also served the interests of big powers till a few years ago. Now they indulge in mafia operations for their financial support. This is their weakest point contrary to their hyperbole idealism. Their utter disregard for the lives of fidayeen youth and forcing them to hit against the might of the state with no chance of success will eventually break them. At a subdued level terrorism will always continue as long as Kashmir remains a dispute between India, Pakistan and Kashmiri people, and no genuine initiative emerges to break the deadlock.
A year ago the Government of India had invited Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest terrorist outfit in Kashmir, for talks saying that they are the indigineous group, i.e., of Indian origin. In September 2001, The Hindu published a report that in last 11 years of militancy in Kashmir 1087 militants of foreign origin have been killed. This is only a small fraction of total number of militants killed in Kashmir. These facts imply that militancy in Kashmir to a very significant extent has roots in Kashmir. Only by winning over the people of Kashmir we may conter terrorism over there. As far as ISI support to militants is concerned it must be broken by intelligence and by political and diplomatic means. To revenge seekers I may add that the people of Kashmir, for no fault of theirs, have already paid a heavy price of 40,000 innocent lives to terrorist violence and the armed repression of it by the State.
The present situation has another dangerous dimension too. An air of suspicion is being buit up against the Muslim masses. The forces who raised terrorising slogans like "Babur ki auladon se badla lenge" a decade ago are branding an entire community a terrorist. This must be resisted resolutely. Terrorists beyond the frontires of disturbed states have merely sporadic contacts which can be identified tactfully without torturing the innocent. It is in this atmosphere that POTO would prove disaserous.
At times I wonder whether there is room for nonviolent activism against terror. Armed resistance of terror by the state is fraght with ill effects for the masses leading to their alienation. Nonviolence can succeed if the activists can overcome the fear of death like the fidayeens and develop a nonviolent mode of struggle against the genuine grievances of the masses. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan had created valiant nonviolent fighters from the land known for warrior instincts as he addressed their basic problems. Kashmir and Assam pose a serious challenge for nonviolent activism. So does the growing menace of sectarianism and economic exploitation.

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The Hindu, Sunday, Dec 30, 2001

'Peace be with you'

C. Rammanohar Reddy

BY the time this short piece appears in print we will know if we have taken one step closer to a war with Pakistan or taken two back from the edge. There cannot be a more depressing note with which a newspaper column ends the year: there can be no certainty about even a few days of "peace" in South Asia. The unfortunate part is that even if better sense prevails and an open war is avoided, this does not mean that India and Pakistan will be any closer to living in peace. It only means that we return to a situation which we seem to have become inured to over the decades: open animosity and permanent low-level conflict.
The strange thing about the widespread anger that has followed the December 13 terrorism is that while most middle or upper middle class Indians are usually contemptuous about politics and politicians, they have lost no time in displaying a hurt pride about the terrorist attack on Parliament. If only such anger was regularly channelled into making our democracy work better, perhaps we would be in much better shape. What we have instead is the frightening ease with which many of the defence (un)thinkers, media commentators and the jingoists have been able to whip up a war hysteria in which all of us are either active participants or silent accomplices.
A day or two after the December 13 attack, there was one of those TV shows in which pundits of different kinds answer questions from an audience. These programmes seem more useful for what they reveal of the minds of the (selected?) audience than for any informed debate. This one was true to form. A college student asked a question which went like this,``If the United States can bomb Afghanistan, if Israel can bomb Palestine, why do we hesitate to bomb Pakistan?''As I have subsequently learnt this is a widespread view. Even our former Prime Minister Mr. V.P. Singh, who these days likes to wear the cap of a wise senior statesman, has posed a similar question. There are many things horrifying about such a query. It takes for granted that the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan is just retribution for the murders of September 11. It says that Palestine deserves to be bombed and that Israel has nothing to answer for. And that all this applies as well to any Indian attack on Pakistan. (If it was disconcerting that a young Indian in his teens could articulate such a view, it was just as worrying that none in that TV panel of pundits even bothered to debate the premises of the question.)
The U.S. war on Afghanistan will henceforth confer legitimacy on the action that any country may take any where in the world in revenge for attacks on itself - real, imagined or threatened and irrespective of whether or not the "target" country is guilty. That is the real legacy of the U.S. bombing - not the end of the Taliban or the Al-Qaeda network. As an aside, do we know what the civilian casualties in such a war are? A friend recently referred me to a careful compilation of the civilian deaths in the bombing of Afghanistan. (Readers may want to see the site http://www.media-alliance.org/mediafile/20-5/index.html for this compilation.)
On a very conservative basis, the barest minimum number of innocents killed in Afghanistan between October 7 and December 3 was 3,752. The actual toll is likely to have been much more. Nobody is raising any questions about these dead civilians. Not the world media. and certainly not the United Nations. The Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, may have won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, but this year will also go down as one in which the U.N. finally lost its fig leaf of independence.
The civilian dead in Afghanistan number the same as the people murdered in the terrorists attacks in the U.S.. An eye for an eye then, except that we know that this is not going to end terrorism by fundamentalists. In much the same way, we all know that a limited war against Pakistan is not going to bring peace to Kashmir. Even when it comes to destroying training camps, senior Army officers tell us that these camps are little more than squares for drills and target practices. Bombing the camps will not wipe out terrorism. It only makes more likely the possibility of an open war between two nuclear powers and with that the eruption of an Armageddon in South Asia.
There must be something wrong when peace becomes a contrarian theme. But gloomy as such times are, one can only pray for peace in 2002. Miracles may indeed happen.

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Asian Age, 30.12.01

AMC ready for nuclear, chemical war aftermath

New Delhi, Dec. 29: The Army Medical Corps is ready to deal with any situation! arising out of a nuclear, chemical or biological war. The director-general (Armed Forces Services), Lt.-Gen. R.K. Jetley, said that the AMC does not need to take any special step to tackle such a scenario. "We have a capsule on the issue in the training that we impart and after the September 11 attack in the United States all that we did was refreshing." Gen. Jetley was interacting with reporters on the occasion of the 238th anniversary of AMC. He said, "The recent conflict in the Asian region after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York followed by biological warfare (anthrax) has given us the impetus to formulate new strategies to protect and treat the fighting troops from the devastating effects of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.

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Asian Age, 30.12.01

Pak bans all Indian satellite TV channels

Islamabad, Dec. 29: The Pakistan government on Saturday directed all the cable TV operators in the country to stop relaying broadcasts of all Indian satellite TV channels including the Star TV network on the grounds that they indulged in propagating "injurious material against the security of Pakistan." Pakistan said that Indian channels were propagating injurious material against the security of Pakistan and their relay by cable TV operators was in violation of the conditions of the license issued by Pakistan Television Authority to them. "PTA has hereby directed all cable TV operators to stop relaying all Indian and Star satellite channels over their network forthwith," it said.

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Economic and Political Weekly, Civil Liberties, 29 December, 2001

Academic Freedom and Kashmir

by A.G. Noorani

The Kashmir University campus has been declared out of bounds for the media and the vice-chancellor has instructed university teachers to keep away from the media and avoid expressing their opinions on political matters. This is nothing short of an assault on academic freedom and fundamental rights and the silence of the national media on it mirrors the media's indifference to all the other outrages perpetrated in Kashmir.

It is not only India's secularism and democracy which are barred from crossing the Pir Panjal range in Kashmir, so is its academic freedom. The silence of India's media and academia on the recent assaults on academic freedom in Kashmir fits into the pattern of similar indifference to other outrages there.
First, the facts as reported in three dailies, in chronological order. The Times of India published this very brief report in its issue of October 21, 2001 from its Srinagar correspondent, under the headline 'Kashmir Varsity Teachers Instructed Not to Discuss Politics or Talk to Presspersons'. The report is reproduced in extenso:
The Kashmir University campus has been declared out of bounds for journalists by its vice-chancellor Jalees Ahmad Khan Tareen. University teachers have also been instructed to keep away from the press and avoid talking about politics.
Sources said that governor G C Saxena, who is also the chancellor of Kashmir University, was upset by some lecturers talking about the situation in Jammu and Kashmir on private TV channels. The VC subsequently passed the orders whereby all print and TV journalists will require permission from the VC's office to enter the campus. The controversy erupted when some university teachers made some anti-national remarks during a discussion in a programme on a private TV channel. A J and K minister was also participating in the discussion. The government has taken objection to the remarks made by a lady teacher in the programme and is contemplating action against her, according to sources.
The fundamental rights of students and teachers were thus wantonly flouted. A university campus is not a prison. It is a body corporate set-up by statute and squarely falls within the definition of 'the State' in Article 12 of the Constitution. In consequence the entire Part III on fundamental rights applies to all concerned, the students and the teachers included. "Reasonable restrictions" can be imposed as are appropriate to an educational institution, in the interests inter alia of discipline. This cannot serve as an excuse to deny or abridge the rights.
Section 43(1) of the British Education Act, 1986 provides an instructive parallel. "Every individual and body of persons concerned in the government of any establishment to which this section applies shall take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that freedom of speech within the law is secured for members, students and employees of the establishment and visiting speakers."
A university is a public body, not a cloistered establishment. Journalists are even allowed access to prisons to see for themselves and report to the public the conditions that obtain there. It is insulting to suggest that a university campus should grant less freedom of access to the press. Many newspapers have special correspondents who report on developments on university campuses. The vice-chancellor's order is plainly a violation of Article 19(1)(a)(b) - respectively, the guarantees of freedom of speech and of assembly - of the Constitution.
However, Tariq Bhat's report from Srinagar in The Indian Experss of October 27 was even more disturbing. It read thus:
Alarmed by the recent utterances of some teachers and the anti-US and pro-Taliban protests on the campus, Kashmir University is planning to constitute an 'intelligence wing' to spy on 'erring' teachers, scholars and students. The intelligence wing will record all activities of staff and report the same to the vice-chancellor for action. The idea of keeping an eye on staff, especially teachers, was mooted by chief minister Farooq Abdullah, also the university pro-chancellor, at the apex university council meeting on Sunday [October 21] sources said. "The chief minister asked the VC to constitute an intelligence wing, probe the activities of teachers and students and throw all such elements out of the university", an official who attended the meeting said. [more ...]

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Indian Express, 29.12.01

Pak villagers fleet as tension rises

ISLAMABAD, DECEMBER 28: AS INDIA and Pakistan continue trading fire across the border and imposing a range of political and economic sanctions on each other, frightened Pakistani villagers have begun fleeing their homes once again. This despite messages of reassurance from Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, who has gone out of his way to play down fears of a war. "There is no need for anyone to worry," Singh said on Thursday. His words may have been designed to calm fears in Islamabad, Washington and other diplomatic centers, but they appear have had little impact in the border regions.

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Statesman, 29.12.01

Bush wants India to notice Pervez's sincere moves

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD, Dec. 28. - US President Mi-George W Bush today said his administration was actively trying to bring calm in Indian subcontinent by asking India and Pakistan to stop escalation of force and praised Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf for moving against terrorists.



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