SOUTH ASIA: Again, War Clouds Thicken after Kashmir Attack

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, May 15 2002 (IPS) - India on Wednesday ratcheted up its war rhetoric against neighbouring Pakistan in response to Tuesday’s suicide attack on an army encampment in disputed Kashmir state, which left 34 army personnel and their family members dead.

Speaking in Parliament, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee vowed to ‘’counter” such ‘’heinous” attacks and called for support from opposition parties on any move his government might make in response to the attack.

Television channels showed Defence Minister George Fernandes visiting the sight of the carnage, carried out by three men dressed in military fatigues and who were shot dead by soldiers.

He blamed Pakistan for the incidents. ‘’Musharraf obviously trains people to kill young innocent women and children. That’s what has been done here,” he said.

Immediately before the attack, Fernandes said India was keen on holding provincial assembly elections in Kashmir as scheduled in September and was not thinking in terms of starting a war with Pakistan before that. But he said Tuesday’s massacre called for ‘’punishment”.

India massed close to a million troops on the border with Pakistan following an attack on Parliament House on Dec. 13, and has refused to withdraw them until it saw evidence that Islamabad has effectively reined in what it calls ‘’cross-border terrorism”.

Tuesday’s attack coincided with the arrival in New Delhi of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Christina Rocca, to counsel restraint.

Addressing a press conference on Wednesday before going to Islamabad on the second leg of her tour, Rocca said Washington was worried by the military standoff on the Indo-Pakistan border. ‘’Continued mobilisation of troops pose a serious threat of an unintended conflict,” she said.

Officials in the foreign ministry said Tuesday’s attacks were proof that cross-border terrorism in Kashmir has continued in spite of Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s widely-praised declaration on Jan. 12 that terrorism in the disputed territory would no longer be tolerated.

Since independence from Britain in 1947 and partition along religious lines, India and Pakistan have fought three bloody wars over the total possession of Kashmir, which is divided by a ceasefire line officially called the Line of Control (LoC).

The officials said it has been conveyed to Rocca that India was ‘’no longer prepared to suffer pain inflicted on it by Pakistan-sponsored terrorism”.

Indian officials expect an increase in what they see as terrorist activity in the Kashmir valley during the summer, when the snow melts in the high mountain passes and makes access over the mountainous LoC easier.

They have also expressed fears that elements of the al-Qaeda network, flushed out of Afghanistan by the U.S.-led attacks last year, after the Sep.11 terror attacks in New York and Washington, are now planning strikes in Kashmir.

A new belligerence was discernible in Vijay Kumar Malhotra, official spokesman for Vajpayees’ pro-Hindu and right-wing, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the coalition that rules the central Indian government.

‘’War is not ruled out, but the decision has to be taken by the government. The government has to take some strong action to deal with terrorism,” he argued.

Malhotra accused the United States of ‘’double standards” in dealing with terrorism. “On the one hand, it talks about a global fight against the menace while on the other, it is not taking any step to stop Pakistan from encouraging cross-border terrorism.”

Even stronger words came from the influential Ashok Singhal, chief of the fanatical Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Council, a close affiliate of the BJP. ‘’The government should direct the armed forces to attack Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and destroy the terrorist training camps thereà. That would fulfil the much-awaited desire of the people.”

The VHP has not bothered to deny allegations that it masterminded a pogrom against Muslims in western Gujarat state, which shares a long border with Pakistan that started after a train carrying its supporters was attacked and burned on Feb. 27.

‘’Instead of raising a hue and cry on the Gujarat issue, (opposition) political parties should become aware of Pakistan’s nefarious designs and help counter them,” the firebrand pro-Hindu leader said.

Military action across the LoC would be easy enough for India, which enjoys a three-to-one superiority in conventional forces but Musharraf has repeatedly warned that Pakistan could retaliate with a nuclear strike.

India refrained from crossing the LoC while ferociously repelling a heavily armed incursion in 1999 at Kargil, using heavy artillery and its air force. But that war, which lasted six months, ended only after then U.S. President Bill Clinton prevailed on Islamabad to vacate the areas it had intruded into.

The man who led the Indian army though the Kargil war, retired general V P Malik, said on Tuesday that peace and stability on the subcontinent was being held hostage by cross-border terrorism. In the present situation, he warned, ‘’things could spin out of control”.

The current standoff is complicated by domestic compulsions on both sides of the border.

Musharraf recently conducted a referendum, called unconstitutional and rigged by critics, to allow him to stay on for another five years.

For his part, Vajpayee runs a minority government that is beleaguered by powerful regional parties and the main opposition Congress party on one side, and the fanatical supporters like the VHP on the other.

Vajpayee has failed to sack Narendra Modi, the BJP chief minister of Gujarat, in spite of his failure to prevent the pogrom against Muslims and his refusal to help resettle some 100,000 people forced to flee their burnt-out homes and live in make-shift camps.

Gujarat is the only major state controlled by the BJP, after it suffered a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Congress party in recent provincial elections.

Hardline elements within the party attribute the reverses to the BJP losing sight of the pro-Hindu campaigns of the early 90s, which brought it to national power by 1998. They also urge a tougher line in dealing with Pakistan and have been urging a military solution to the Kashmir issue.

SOUTH ASIA: Again, War Clouds Thicken after Kashmir Attack

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, May 15 2002 (IPS) - India on Wednesday ratcheted up its war rhetoric against neighbouring Pakistan in response to Tuesday’s suicide attack on an army encampment in disputed Kashmir state, which left 34 army personnel and their family members dead.
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