POLITICS-SOUTH ASIA: India Keeps Kashmir Peace Talk Door Open

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Aug 13 2000 (IPS) - Despite failed Kashmir peace talks and renewed terror strikes, New Delhi is keeping the door open for a dialogue with militants to end the decade-old secessionist violence in India’s troubled province.

Speaking in parliament, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee took care to accuse Pakistan rather than the leading Kashmiri militant group, the Hizbul Mujahideen, of masterminding the Aug. 10 blasts in Srinagar city, which killed 11 people and maimed 20 others.

The authoritative newspaper, ‘The Hindu’ reported Saturday that government troops in Indian-controlled Kashmir are “unlikely to launch fresh operations against Kashmiri militants” despite the end of a cease-fire by the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Srinagar bomb blasts.

The daily was told by unnamed senior government officials that the army has been advised to “refrain from operations which could impede the possible revival of the peace dialogue with the militants, especially the Hizbul Mujahideen.”

However, security forces would continue “routine counter- insurgency operations without making any exception for the Hizbul Mujahideen,” the daily learnt.

The Hizbul Mujahideen sprang a surprise late July by its unilateral offer of an unconditional, three-month cessation of militant strikes and peace talks with the Indian government.

The Indian government quickly sent senior officials to meet Hizbul Mujahideen negotiators in Kashmir. But two weeks into the cease- fire, the militant group suddenly insisted that Pakistan be included in the talks, a condition rejected by India.

After calling off the cease-fire, the Hizbul Mujahideen leadership, based in Pakistan, threatened even bigger terror strikes in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Pakistan holds on to a third of Kashmir. The two South Asian neighbours have fought two wars over the former princely state, which joined India soon after departing British colonial rulers partitioned the subcontinent into India and Pakistan half a century ago.

“India will have to pay a heavy price for rejecting the cease- fire…we will launch the biggest bombings in the last ten years,” Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin was quoted as saying by Pakistan’s popular Urdu language daily ‘Jang’.

However, New Delhi has not been put off by this and is said to be hoping for a resumption in the talks with the militant group at a later stage. Indian negotiators are encouraged by the statement of Abdul Majid Dar, the top Hizbul Mujahideen leader based in Srinagar.

Dar was quoted as saying that “a consensus had emerged among the Hizbul Mujahideen leadership on both sides of the border for a purposeful dialogue which should lead to a peaceful solution of the problem.”

Dar is reported to have gone underground, but Indian Home Ministry officials in New Delhi have claimed that contacts with him were alive. According to police in Srinagar, the Aug. 10 bomb attack, which killed 10 policemen and the photographer of a leading national newspaper, was carried out by foreign mercenaries.

Authorities have blamed the Lashkar-e-Toiba (soldiers of god) outfit, which consists of Afghan and Pakistani nationals, unlike the Hizbul Mujahideen whose members are purely Kashmiri.

The Lashkar-e-Toiba opposed the cease-fire and claimed responsibility for the massacre of nearly 100 people in a series of separate terror strikes in Kashmir late July and early August.

Meanwhile, the United States has condemned the Aug. 10 blasts and criticised the Hizbul Mujahideen for demanding Islamabad’s inclusion in the peace talk between the militants and the Indian government.

Washington has been increasingly involved in the Kashmir dispute since U.S. President Bill Clinton intervened to end the undeclared border war between India and Pakistan last year.

“It is not helpful for the Hizbul Mujahideen to insist on a new conditions after the cease-fire and offer of dialogue was announced and accepted by India,” U.S. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher was quoted as saying in Washington.

Washington has reiterated that a solution to the Kashmir issue can only be found by talks between India and Pakistan. But first, “a climate of trust must be created through efforts to end the violence and of course, taking the wishes of the Kashmiri people into account,” Boucher said.

The Indian Express newspaper reported from Washington that the Clinton administration was working to declare the Lashkar-e-Toiba a terrorist group and would place the Hizbul Mujahideen on a ‘watchlist’ for similar treatment.