Singh and Musharraf
debating Kashmir
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF
Associate since 1991
Comments directly to
JonatPower@aol.com
January 17, 2007
LONDON - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has a question
for Pakistan and its military president, Pervez Musharraf. I can summarise
a recent long conversation with him in these few words: how can you expect
me to push through a peace agreement on Kashmir when militants coming
from Pakistan every two months set off bombs in India? No leader can be
too far ahead of public opinion.
The dispute over the Muslim dominated province of Kashmir, claimed by
both India and Pakistan since independence, has led to three wars and,
in the opinion of the CIA, has nearly led to nuclear war on at least one
occasion.
Since the consensus among senior diplomats that it is Singh who is at
the forefront of India’s doves- and if he can’t bring India
to settle then perhaps no one can- then this question of his becomes the
central issue.
But when I put it to Musharraf he responded sharply: “I don’t
agree. If everyone in the world looked for calm and peace before reaching
a solution we would never achieve peace anywhere. It is the political
deal itself than can produce calm. Bomb blasts are a result of the problem.
Let’s not put the cart before the horse”.
Good point, especially since the general atmospherics between the two
countries is now quite benign- witness Saturday’s meeting in Islamabad
between the two foreign ministers where they and their delegations talked
and dined with each other like old friends. At my table it was all bonhomie.
Moreover, much has been achieved on other important issues of dispute-
border delineation in Sir Creek and the Siachen glacier, together with
the opening of crossing points on the “Line of Control” that
divides Kashmir between the two countries. Yesterday the Pakistani foreign
minister, Kurshid Kasuri, told me that Siachen dispute “could be
solved within days”.
Much diplomatic opinion believes that Musharraf has gone the extra mile
in making concessions to India. It is now time for India to respond and
for Singh to bite the bullet on popular opinion, telling the nation straight
that this move is in India’s interest- not only to end occasional
bombings, but to put to rest the chances of another war and, not least,
to open their borders to the immense possibilities offered by two fast
growing economies. But Singh is constrained by not only public opinion
but by conservative forces in the foreign ministry, the intelligence services
and even in the, until now, apolitical military- which is rather ironic
considering Pakistan would not have come this far except under a military
leader whose past credentials, before he took power in a coup, were to
provoke India to war.
Revealingly- because it is constantly denied on the Pakistani side- Musharraf
made no bones in our two hour conversation on Saturday about militants
being active from inside Pakistan. Nor does he deny that Al Qaeda and
the Taliban have hideouts in Pakistan. But he emphasises it doesn’t
help to blame Pakistan, as U.S. intelligence chief, John Negroponte just
did, for not doing enough to defeat terrorism and inferring that Pakistan
is not going all out to unearth both the Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists.
“We are doing more than anybody”.
“Why doesn’t the U.S. blame Mexico for sending illegal immigrants
to the U.S.?” said the president passionately. “ Some problems
are not easily solved. We can’t send the army into the refugee camps-
in Quetta there are 40,000 in just one camp- and start fighting to capture
the militants who hide out there. The damage to innocents would be terrible.”
The terrorists of the present day operating out of Pakistan territory
whether they be fighting in Afghanistan, setting off bombs in India -
the latest big outrage killed 180 people in Bombay last July- or spreading
terrorism around the world are, in Musharaff’s view, left-overs
from the past miscalculations of outside powers. The U.S., having armed
and used the Taliban to defeat the invading Soviet army left Afghanistan
to its own devises with the militants fully armed. Britain walked away
from India and Pakistan leaving Kashmir unsettled. But he didn’t
mention that one of predecessors, also a general who staged a coup, Zia
ul Haq, had a lot to do with building up the power of these extremists.
The present reality is that if India willed it Kashmir could be settled
quite fast. And that would undercut the influence that the militants inside
Pakistan have on public opinion on the Pakistani side. And that in turn
would make it easier for the government to win the cooperation of its
northern tribal peoples to turn against the Taliban and Al Qaeda who presently
hide among them and, of course, the militants who attack India.. Does
Singh weigh that in his calculations? I think not sufficiently.
Copyright © 2007 Jonathan
Power
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