SOUTH ASIA: Kashmiri Separatist Leaders to Appeal to Annan

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Mar 13 2001 (IPS) - Disappointed by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s stand that the Kashmir dispute must be resolved by India and Pakistan alone, key Kashmiri separatist leaders say they will directly appeal to Annan for the world body’s intervention. The All Party Hurriyat Conference — a coalition of 14 Kashmiri political separatist groups — decided Tuesday to send a senior leader to meet the U.N. secretary general when he arrives in the Indian capital Thursday, on the final leg of his South Asian tour.

Annan began his week-long visit to the region in Islamabad, where he stated that the key to resolving the five decade-old dispute between the nuclear capable, South Asian nations, lay in existing bilateral agreements, rather than in U.N. resolutions dating back to the year 1948.

Annan also told reporters at a press conference there that the U.N. resolutions on Kashmir could not be compared to those of the world body on Iraq and East Timor.

Dismay in Islamabad at Annan’s statements, was evident in comment in the hawkish Pakistani ‘Nawai-e-Waqt’ newspaper.

“For a long while, Pakistan indulged in wishful thinking that an honourable settlement of the Kashmir dispute is possible with the help of the international community and the U.N.” the paper said.

The daily added: “…the only way to resolve the Kashmir issue is to strengthen Pakistan in economic and defence-related areas and to step up ‘jehad’ (holy war) and take it to its successful conclusion.”

Expectedly, Annan’s statement was “music to India’s ears”, as described by Indian media.

An Indian foreign ministry spokesman Tuesday said Annan’s statement “vindicated India’s long-held position on Kashmir”.

The Hurriyat which, along with Islamabad, wants U.N. mediation in the Kashmir dispute, was also disappointed.

“It is the primary duty of the U.N. to ensure peace all over the world and Kashmir cannot be an exception,” Hurriyat chief Abdul Ghani Bhatt said in a press note.

“We have decided to tell the (U.N.) secretary general of the serious consequences in the event of war between India and Pakistan, if the Kashmir issue is not resolved peacefully immediately,” said a Hurriyat spokesman in Srinagar, the capital of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state, which includes the disputed Kashmir Valley.

The Hurriyat is also disappointed with the Indian government’s refusal to accept the separatist grouping as a mediator in the India-Pakistan dispute.

India’s tough-talking Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani has also denied some Hurriyat leaders, permission to travel to Pakistan for a dialogue with leaders of Pakistan-based, Kashmiri militant outifits.

In keeping with a bold Kashmir peace bid in the past few months, New Delhi has for the first time, decided to allow the Kashmiri separatist leaders to travel to Pakistan.

The Hurriyat leaders are expected to persuade Pakistan-based, Kashmiri militant groups to accept a three-month-old Indian ceasefire offered to Kashmiri militants.

Indian media commentators have criticised the refusal of travel permission to all Hurriyat leaders. ‘The Hindu’ newspaper said Tuesday that this would underme New Delhi’s Kashmir peace bid.

The Hurriyat visit to Pakistan was “for clearly confidence- building purposes rather than any mediatory intervention,” the respected daily said in an editorial.

The denial of travel permission had dented Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s pledge to “steer away from the beaten track of polemical diplomacy” in tackling the Kashmir issue, it added.

“Advani’s refusal to allow them (Hurriyat leaders) to visit Pakistan shows an attitude that is not based on facts. He looks like going against the general opinion in the country, which favours Hurriyat’s trip to Pakistan,” said eminent media columnist Kuldip Nayyar.

But the Hurriyat itself has lately been troubled by dissent, with one group led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani — one of those denied a passport — insisting that the Kashmir dispute was essentially religious in nature.

Pakistan argues that Muslim-majority Kashmir should have been made part of Pakistan when the subcontinent was partitioned on religious lines by former colonial British rulers in the year 1947.

Kashmir’s Hindu ruler joined India soon after the subcontinent’s independence, which led to the first of two India-Pakistan wars over Kashmir.

Geelani, who leads the conservative Islamic, ‘Jamaat-e-Islami’ group, is also a member of the Constituent Council of the ‘Rabita Alami Islami’ (World Muslim League), based in the Muslim holy city of Mecca.

Geelani was not invited to the Hurriyat meeting to discuss Annan’s statement. A Hurriyat spokesman said after the meeting that senior Hurriyat leader Abdul Gani Lone would seek a meeting with Annan in New Delhi.

Lone is to tell the U.N. secretary general about the “aspirations of the Kashmiri people, the worsening human rights situation in the Kashmir valley and the urgency of a quick resolution.”

This will be Annan’s second visit to India as U.N. secretary general and he is expected to urge New Delhi to resume diplomatic dialogue with Islamabad, which was broken off after the undeclared India-Pakistan war two years ago.

New Delhi feels that Annan has strengthened its position by his assertion that the Kashmir dispute must be tackled in the spirit of the 1972 Shimla treaty and the Lahore Declaration, issued during the Indian premier’s historic bus ride to that Pakistani city, two years ago.

“His endorsement of the Lahore Declaration and the Shimla Agreement (which commits both sides to avoid third party involvement in the dispute) has certainly made things easier for us,” said an Indian foreign ministry official.

New Delhi, however, insists that Pakistan stop backing “cross- border terrorism” in Kashmir, before talks can begin.

Media commentators here think that New Delhi will have to modify this stand. “Any argument at present by New Delhi against the urgency of a direct re-engagement with Islambabd will lend itself to severe scrutiny, perhaps by the larger international community,” said the Hindu.