The Guardian, News, 8 June 1999 The Guardian, News 4 June, 1999

The Independent, LETTERS, 1 June 1999 The Guardian, COMMENT, 29 MAY, 1999

 TIMES, EDITORIAL, 28 May, 1999 The Times, LETTERS, 1June, 1998

 TIMES, EDITORIAL, 29 MAY, 1998 Yorkshire Post, EDITORIAL, 14 August 1997

Yorkshire Post, LETTER, 18 August 1997 TIMES, Article, 28 July, 1997

The Guardian, COMMENT, 25 August 1994 Guardian LETTER, 31 August 1994

The Times, LETTERS, 18 -20 August 1993 The Independent, LETTERS, 15 June 1993

KASHMIR - VIEWS & COMMENTS IN LEADING UK PAPER

 

Monday June 8, 1999

Indians climb from valley of hate to ridges of death Suzanne Goldenberg in Srinagar:

June 7, 1999

When the long army convoys, a cavalcade of munitions and men and howitzers swathed in canvas begin the tortuous ascent towards Kargil, nobody turns out to wave farewell. In the Kashmir valley, some 125 miles from the mountain ranges where India is installing its heaviest concentration of troops and equipment since the 1971 war against Pakistan, there is no sympathy for the Indian soldiers whose corpses lie unclaimed on the heights because it would be too dangerous to retrieve them.

"People are taking pleasure in the discomfiture of the Indian soldiers - and that is putting it mildly," said one of Kashmir's most senior police officers. "They say the Indian army has been killing us for so long, now let them get Killed."

While the politicians in New Delhi and Islamabad spent the weekend threatening war and then retreating, India rushed hundreds of lorry loads of troops and munitions through the Zojila pass. The build-up - and the banning of journalists from the Srinagar-Leh road, now pounded by Pakistani-backed intruders on the ridge line - has heightened expectation of a deepening conflict along the disputed line of control.

Although the Indian army has admitted to only 50 dead since fighting began on May 6, officers privately say the intruders have inflicted heavy casualties. At Srinagar airport, wounded soldiers are being flown out a dozen at a time.meanwhile, their comrades, short of boots, parkas and even food, make the deadly climb towards the ridges.Soldiers from the plains are being sent in without the usual six days of acclimatisation. Within the officer corps, there are growing fears for the morale of the men - fed by their distrust of a local population which wants revenge for the 25,000 people killed by security forces since the Kashmiri uprising.began. In Srinagar, separatist groups have ordered protest strikes and demonstrations against the use of India's air force along the line of control.

"The situation in Kashmir is explosive because the government of India has plugged all means of peace," said Yasin Malik, who started the armed uprising. Mr Malik declared a ceasefire five years ago - but New Delhi has since been deaf to his campaigning."

For the last 18 months the authorities have claimed to have restored normalcy in Kashmir. Those assurances are undermined by the grenade attack against an army bunker in the "sanitised" Lal Chowk area of central Srinagar last Friday, and the relentless targeting of police and politicians by militant hit squads.

"It's not the old-time hit and run. They have been choosing specific targets," the police officer said. "Even when they engage the security forces outside Srinagar, it's per plan. It's gone very sophisticated."

In the last three years the authorities have reported a steep rise in the numbers of Afghan and Pakistani militants smuggled across the border with Islamabad's connivance. With thousands of troops being moved out of the valley to the Kargil front line, some fear the militants will grow increasingly bold. State police say more than 1,100 fighters have crossed from Pakistan to southern Jammu this year. Last week, militants armed with remote-control devices carried out two separate attacks on military vehicles on Kashmir's other lifeline - the sole road route linking the valley to the Jammu plains. Pakistan at the weekend offered to send its foreign minister, Sartaj Aziz, to New Delhi today for talks to defuse the crisis, but India was non-committal about setting a date.

Friday June 4, 1999

Owen Bennett Jones in Bhimber, in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir Friday June 4, 1999

Retired Royal Navy lieutenant IscikharAhmed went to the village of Piana for lunch with his in-laws last Sunday. Soon he was helping to take injured and dying people to hospital. "There were two very loud bangs. Absolute mayhem broke out at that stage.The centre of the village was hit. Five died immediately," said Mr Ahmed. "Relatives rushed to help the injured, then a second mortar shell exploded in the same place, killing one of the relatives outright. Another died in a car on the way to hospital."

Piana lies just over a mile from the Pakistani side of the line of control in the disputed territory of Kashmir. The mortar shells that hit the village were fired from the Indian side. Mr Ahmed has now sought refuge in a friend's house in Bhimber, 20 miles from the line of control. He is just one of hundreds of British passport holders thought to be staying near the line. A substantial proportion of the British Pakistani community comes originally from Kashmir and many make annual visits to see relatives. Mr Ahmed was with two British cousins in Piana at the time of the attack. One of them, Mehboob Ahmed Khan, a sales assistant at Safeway in Birmingham, said:"It was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life. There was blood everywhere".

In the confusion, Mr Ahmed left behind his passport and air ticket. He plans to return under cover of darkness to recover them so he can return to Wolverhampton, his wife and three children are waiting for him "I served in the Royal Navy for eight years but I never saw action like this," he said The Pakistani authorities say that so many Kashmiris on their side of the line of control hold British passports that there are probably hundreds of British nationals currently trying to get away. Among them is Akram Begum, who has lived for 22 years in Dudley. She came to Kashmir because her brother was murdered there three weeks ago. She says she is now desperate to get home to her husband and six children. The local authorities in Bhimber have made available two schools to those fleeing the conflict. But for the majority of them - those who do not have British passports - there is no hope of escape to Britain.

1 June, 1999

Letters: Conflict in Kashmir

Within a year of India and Pakistan detonated nuclear devices, the stakes of another war are raised in Kashmir. The renewed escalation of the long-standing conflict in occupied Kashmir should ring alarm bells everywhere. If a political settlement to the long-standing issue of Kashmiri self-determination is not sought Kashmir will remain a flashpoint between the two nations making it world's most dangerous conflict after Kosovo. Those who question the scope for outside intervention have got to review the stakes here. A precedent has already been set in Kosovo and the United Nations involvement in the form of military observers is already there in Kashmir. What we now need is the will and courage to settle the dispute once and for all.

The Labour government, with a human-rights-first foreign policy, has a moral and political obligation in Kashmir. Kashmir is the last element of the British colonial legacy. Bilateral negotiations between India and Pakistan have got nowhere over the last four decades. The West has made little effort to persuade the two parties seek a settlement by involving the prime party, the Kashmiris, in the negotiations. Hence the dispute has festered with the result that an uncontrolable nuclear arms race has been started. Britain must take a lead in forcing the two countries to accept a UN mandated plebiscite in Jammu-Kashmir to lower the stakes of a nuclear confrontation. The UN must also play its part in ensuring that the unfettered right of self-determination, which includes the right to independence, is secured for the long-suffering people of Jammu-Kashmir on both sides of the Line-of-Control.

Azmat A Khan, secretary general, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) - UK,

Saturday May 29, 1999

A dangerous stumble: Kashmir cries out for a cautious approach

The war in Kosovo may be on Europe's doorstep, but no one should underestimate the dangers of another conflict, which is now threatening to run out of control half a world away. Disputes over Kashmir, a region of stunning Himalayan beauty, have already caused two of the three wars fought between India and Pakistan in the last half century. This time, though, both countries are confirmed nuclear powers and the potential stakes are much higher than ever before. There is no suggestion that either side might contemplate the use of such weapons, but the five big powers with seats on the United Nations Security Council have been rushing to try and calm things down.

Heavy artillery exchanges and air strikes do not yet amount to a full-scale conflict, whatever the rhetoric, and the fact that both countries are still talking directly gives some grounds for reassurance. Both insist they want to resolve this issue peacefully. What worries Washington, London and other concerned capitals is that India and Pakistan could stumble into a wider war because of New Delhi's determination to root out the Muslim insurgents fighting the Indian army in the region. Pakistan plays the role of aggrieved underdog in the conflict, but there are aggressive hawks and nationalists on both sides, and the political situation in both countries is not as stable as many would wish. Too much perceived humiliation for one side or the other could easily tip the balance. Lack of early warning, or miscalculation, could bring escalation with deadly consequences.

Britain and other leading powers must bear their share of responsibility for the nuclear threat over the sub-continent. With an arrogance reminiscent of the colonial era, they demanded India and Pakistan renounce any future development or testing of nuclear weapons while reserving the right to keep their own arsenals intact - a position tellingly criticised as "nuclear apartheid".

Unsurprisingly, Islamabad and New Delhi decided they would not accept one rule for them and while another applied to the big powers. The result was that both conducted nuclear tests last year and both now have ballistic missiles as well. The region is not yet at the edge of the nuclear precipice. But the world needs to take the needs of both India and Pakistan seriously if it is to help prevent a war and convince the two rivals it is in everyone's interest to make disarmament work.

28 May, 1999

KASHMIR FIRE: A blaze easier to begin than to control

While other actors have been absorbed by events in Kosovo, India and Pakistan have edged towards another armed struggle in Kashmir. Over the past two weeks, India has moved 70 frontline aircraft and more than 10,000 troops towards one of the world's most dangerous disputed frontiers. It has made it clear to Pakistan that it would not tolerate the presence of what it describes as "Afghan mercenaries" on its side of the border. In a series of air attacks yesterday India struck against the insurgents. Although the two countries regularly trade artillery and mortar fire across the nominal "ceasefire line", this is the first occasion in what passes for "peacetime" in this part of the world that airpower has been deployed in such an assertive fashion.

It is, unfortunately, very unlikely to be the last. India has said that it will continue these raids until it is satisfied that rebel forces have been eliminated. It has accused Islamabad of encouraging terrorist activity on its territory. Pakistan has claimed that its own sovereign soil has been struck and placed its army on a state of high alert. Only three months ago a meeting between Atal Behari Vajpayee, India's Prime Minister, and Nawaz Sharif, his Pakistani counterpart, held in Lahore prompted cautious optimism that the two sides might be edging towards an accommodation with each other.

The art of distinguishing fact from fiction in this dispute is especially taxing. Pakistan has protested that it offers little more than diplomatic and spiritual support to those who have taken up arms against Indian rule in Kashmir. According to Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan's Foreign Minister "no one knows where they come from and who they are". This interpretation of matters is, to put it mildly, contestable. The guerrillas include recruits from religious schools within Pakistan and are actively assisted by the Taliban. That is not to suggest that Delhi is an entirely innocent party in this latest set of skirmishes. The Indian Prime Minister's argument that he had to deploy firepower on this scale in order to shift some 600 fighters a distance of about four miles is very contentious. Mr Vajpayee has shown little serious interest in external mediation.

The sad truth is that both sides have their own incentives to raise the military and political stakes at the moment. The Hindu nationalists at the heart of India's outgoing administration realise that a confrontation over Kashmir will assist their attempt to secure re-election in September. Mr Sharif, who has spent most of the past two years bringing the presidency, legislature, judiciary, army and even opposition parties under his control, knows that he is still vulnerable to an increasingly effective Islamist opposition. He will feel obliged to match provocation with overreaction.

The chance of an open military clash of unknown form and intensity between these two nuclear nations is considerable. The prospects of restraint are not helped by the limited influence of outside powers. Neither India nor Pakistan was obliged to endure serious sanctions after both decided to detonate atomic devices twelve months ago. They have no reason to fear further retribution for this incident. Nor is there any indication that the United States is willing to utilise whatever small diplomatic leverage might be left at its disposal. Mr Vajpayee and Mr Sharif may feel that, in current circumstances, they can incite yet another conflict over Kashmir. Whether they can control the hostility that will be unleashed is a more disturbing question.

1 June, 1998

LETTERS: Danger from tests in sub-continent

From Dr Scilla Elworthy

Sir, When Pakistan said it would test nuclear weapons, we in the West threatened and cajoled. It had no effect.

And now we condemn. This is equally ineffective, for a simple reason. Thirty years ago we made a treaty with the non-nuclear world, that if they would undertake not to develop nuclear weapons, we would take serious steps to nuclear disarmament. Today, the nuclear nations between them still possess over 27,000 warheads. To impose sanctions and cancel aid is a weak reaction; as we know from Iraq, it hurts women, children and the poor, and has little effect on decision makers; the Governments of India and Pakistan calculated very precisely the effects of sanctions and withdrawal of loans before they went ahead. We need a wiser and more powerful response.

The choice is no longer how many nuclear weapons we in the nuclear club can have. The choice is, quite starkly, between arranging for the elimination of nuclear weapons or anticipating their proliferation to many other countries and sub-state groups. In spite of strenuous and laudable efforts by the Western powers, especially the United States, it is no longer very difficult to obtain the materials and know how to make a nuclear bomb. There are three initial steps we could take now, with no risk to our security and great potential benefit. We could take our own nuclear weapons off full hair-trigger alert, and agree with other nations to do the same. We could negotiate a treaty to ban the production of uranium and plutonium worldwide. And we could make an agreement not to be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

Britain could then take the lead in involving other nuclear nations in negotiations towards a multilateral agreement on the global elimination of nuclear weapons. A draft of such a treaty was tabled in the United Nations towards the end of last year and the nuclear states have the opportunity to move forward on this.

Yours sincerely, SCILLA ELWORTHY,

Director, Oxford Research Group,

51 Plantation Road, Oxford OX2 6JF.

May 29.

From Lord Howell of Guildford

Sir, One central point is often missed: India and Pakistan were already nuclear nations. What the tests have done is to bring an unhealthily (and thinly) disguised situation into the open. The international community, led by Washington, is now in danger of reacting in quite the wrong way.

Instead of issuing threats and wringing their hands this ought to be the moment for the declared nuclear powers to put the whole non-proliferation regime on a much sounder and more realistic basis.

They should be embracing the two nations as members of the club and welcoming the new and more visible degree of nuclear balance being established in that region. The dangers are there, of course, but they were there already.

If the five existing nuclear powers cannot strike a more positive note and seize the opportunity then perhaps it is time for the Commonwealth to find its voice and take a lead - although I have heard nothing from that direction so far.

Yours faithfully, DAVID HOWELL, House of Lords. May 30.

From Mr Azmat Khan

Sir, Pakistan may have foolishly played into Indian hands but the real reason for the nuclear arms race in the Indian sub-continent is Kashmir.

Fifty years ago both India and Pakistan promised at the UN to withdraw from Jammu-Kashmir and let the people there decide their political destiny. No serious effort has been employed by world powers to resolve that issue.

The world community is responsible for the dangerous arms race as it has allowed Kashmir to become a flash point in the region. The spectre of nuclear war has now been raised. That should be reason enough to change old attitudes and take a proactive approach towards resolving the Kashmir conflict. Northern Ireland is a good example of how protracted and difficult disputes can be resolved around a table.

Yours etc, AZMAT A. KHAN (Secretary General),

Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front,PO BOX 55, Bradford, BD3 8YF. azmat@jklf.com

May 29, 1998

29 MAY, 1998

THE PAKISTAN FALLOUT

Outrage is not enough to halt the threat of war. Five more nuclear devices were detonated in the Sub-continent yesterday, spreading shock waves of anger and alarm across the globe and triggering further sharp cuts in Western aid to millions of people whose future has been Mortgaged by their leaders. The Pakistan tests hardly came as a surprise: ever since India detonated its own bomb, the domestic pressure on Nawaz Sharif's Government to respond in kind has been intense. Islamabad virtually announced that it was going ahead by its alarmist, and mendacious, warning on Wednesday that India was about to attack. Delhi, now counting the huge moral and political cost of its adventurism, did its best to goad Pakistan, hoping that a Pakistani test would retrospectively justify the Government's action to voters at home and break India's moral and political isolation. Foolishly, Pakistan played into Indian hands.

The world has responded with predictable frustration. President Clinton, personally rebuffed after repeated attempts to counsel caution, said he had no choice but to impose the same sanctions ordered on India. Japan and Germany announced the suspension in aid programmes, and many other donors will follow suit. Significantly, China, the country that for years has armed Pakistan and even encouraged its nuclear ambitions, voiced "deep regret" and raised the spectre of a deadly new arms race in South Asia.

Nawaz Sharif anticipated all this. He also knew that Pakistan, with an economy only a tenth of India's and already in deep trouble, can afford a suspension of vital development aid far less than its neighbour. He knew what he was throwing away the chance of increased American aid, a position of moral superiority and the opportunity to halt the spiral of recrimination and retaliation. Yet he argued that Pakistan's vital security demanded a nuclear response. In doing so he rode roughshod over the real interests of his impoverished countrymen. And he underlined the fatilty of Pakistan's own cohesion, which is increasingly determined solely by enmity to India.

In both capitals there has been a cacophony of injured self-justification. Each government, scarcely in full command, has courted short-term domestic popularity with nationalist gestures. Yet each has felt the need for a figleaf to cover its belligerent posturing. India has offered a treaty of no first use of nuclear weapons; Pakistan, within hours of its tests, said it was ready to discuss all outstanding issues, including a non-aggression pact. These offers, insincere and hedged around as they might be, should be immediately taken up. For the next stage of this deadly cycle is far more alarming: the race to arm newly developed long-range missiles with nuclear warheads. For the moment the two countries will pause, to take stock of each other and the whirlwind they have unleashed. Washington has little leverage in the region. But collectively the big powers do. And their collective determination to stop a nuclear arms race was made vigorously clear at the recent Birmingham summit of the Group of Eight. Now, therefore, is the time for the eight countries that account for most of the trade, aid, arms exports and political influence in the sub-continent, to involve them selves. They should appoint a political negotiator to visit the region. Canada, a fellow Commonwealth country and passionate advocate of arms control, is the best placed. A senior Canadian should now visit Delhi and Islamabad to attempt the first step at de-escalation, including discussion of Kashmir. Outrage is not enough to halt the threat of a new war.

14 August, 1997

Comment

FIFTY YEAR LEGACY

As both India and Pakistan prepare to celebrate their half-century of independence from British rule, there is one major dispute between the two countries, which remains unresolved - Kashmir. Two wars have already been fought for the high altitude, ethnically diverse region, and a third remains a distinct possibility. For all their pretensions to democratic maturity both Pakistan India are governed by weak and unstable elite whose members might find a renewed border conflict a useful diversion from their domestic woes. Why else would Pakistan allow Islamic terrorists to seep across its porous mountain border into Indian-controlled Kashmir?

What began as grass roots revolt against tyrannical Indian rule in Srinagar has been transformed over the years into an international proxy war between two nuclear-armed powers. The result is a hugely expansive stalemate, characterised by brutality, torture and slaughter on all sides. The dispute has even resulted in British citizens - one of whom still unaccounted for being kidnapped by the insurgents and held for ransom.

Yet the bloodshed (50,000deaths in recent years) continues with no real attempt at international mediation, Why? In part, because Pakistan has no interest in revolving the dispute. Without a hot border to separate it from its neighbor, much of Pakistan's reasons for existence would disappear. But also because successive Indian governments have thought that independence for Kashmir would precipitate secessionist fever in numerous other Indian provinces thus unraveling the sub-continent to militant nation states. But the plight of Kashmir should not be drowned out of the din of 50th anniversary of celebrations. Back in November 1947, Jawarlal Nehru, independent India's first Prime Minister said " we have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. We are prepared, when peace and law and order have been established, to have e a referendum held under international auspices." That promise has been broken: the referendum never held.

Before Labour came to power it backed Kashmir calls for plebiscite. Not any more. Since taking office the new British government appears to have slipped into neutral stance of the old government. If Labour really wanted to contribute to the anniversary celebrations it could begin by calling for India to complete Nehru's unfinished legacy. Without such a vote Kashmir, faces another half century of subjugation.

MONDAY, 18 August 1997

LETTERS

A nation with nothing to celebrate

Well done YP for not forgetting the plight of a small nation in the foothills of Himalayas in the hype of the Jubilee celebrations (Leader, August 14).

After 50 years of independence India and Pakistan need to reflect upon their neo-colonial attitude toward Kashmir which has been occupied ever since they gained independence from Britain:

For the 13 million Kashmiris, sandwiched between the two arch foes, the Golden Jubilee marks nothing but 50 years of betrayals and broken promises amidst death and destruction. Today, after having fought two wars over Kashmir, both countries - now in possession of nuclear weapons capability - show no signs of compromise.

While you have rightly reminded the Labour Party of its promises, the international community as a whole should accept its failure to end oppressive rule in Kashmir where all dreams for a peaceful political settlement faded with time despite nearly a dozen United Nations resolutions on the issue. The roots of the conflict may not extend back to the British army Generals, Gracey and Butcher who respectively lead the Pakistani and Indian forces on a collision course in Kashmir in 1948, but India's last viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, could have played fairer to prevent the first Indian invasion.

Supporting the Kashmiris' right to self-determination, some 37 MPs have signed an Early Day Motion (227) in the House of Commons to commemorate 50 years of Kashmir tragedy, and while that support grows it will be interesting to see how foreign secretary, Robin Cook, will handle Kashmir at the forthcoming Commonwealth Conference where Kashmir's friends and foes will be sharing that historic platform which helped turn the South African dream into reality.

As Kashmir's trauma is likely to extended into the 21st century, will there be a Kashmir Issue in another 50 years if it continues to elude world peace makers and the champions of human rights in the West: Not if the current killing rate (10-12 daily) is maintained by the occupation forces of India.

Azmat A Khan, Secretary General, JKLF - UK/Europe

PO BOX 55, Bradford, BD3 8YF,

28 July, 1997

Kashmir a pawn in rivals' war game, by Christopher Thomas

India and Pakistan approach the fiftieth anniversary of partition next month still embattled over Kashmir in a contrived conflict without economic, territorial, religious or military purpose. Kashmir is a dangerous and pointless battleground, engaging as it does two politically unstable nuclear powers. Delhi has hinted at peace terms, being ready to accept the 1947 cease-fire line as an international border and drop its old, meaningless territorial claim over Pakistan's "Azad" (free) Kashmir. This is the most realistic and important peace overture in 50 years.

Islamabad rejects Delhi's overtures for three reasons, none publicly expressed: the guerrilla war to "liberate" Kashmiri Muslims in India goes down well domestically; the conflict costs India millions of pounds a year, and it avenges India's military support for the secession of the former East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in 1971. Kashmiri Muslims no longer support secessionist war. They hate the militants have no love of Pakistan and would probably settle if grudgingly for peace within India if the near-total autonomy the region had before 1953 were to be restored.

What began as a nationalist uprising in 1989 petered out a few years ago; it continues as a fake rebellion perpetuated by outsiders. Even more contrived is the conflict at 20,000ft on the uninhabitable Siachen Glacier in the Hamalayas - the ultimate banality and one that summarises the state of relations.

Delhi has offered to withdraw its troops; Islamabad refuses to reciprocate. Pakistan partly defines itself by its belligerent relationship with India and the whole point of Pakistan, its reason for existence, might come into question if there were cross-border harmony. Muslims in Indian Kashmir have no desire to join Pakistan, which they resent for hijacking a nationalist rebellion and turning it into a religious crusade. They ideally would like what the dithering Maharajah of Kashmir tried to achieve 50 years ago: independence.

Sir Hari Singh was the Hindu ruler of a state the size of the United Kingdom, with four million people, three quarters of them Muslims. He was a cantankerous man who died in an apartment block in 1961 after squandering his last years indulging a lifelong fondness for drink, tobacco and horses. He had been in exile for 12 years, after being driven from Kashmir by Sheikh Abdullah his old nemesis.

Neither Pakistan nor India would tolerate Kashmiri independence, Pakistan grabbed a third of the realm before Sir Hari signed the instrument of Accession with India, giving Delhi legal justification for sending in troops and confining the Pakistan invaders to the western third of the state. It is a matter of fierce dispute whether Sir Hari meant the accession to be temporary. In November 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India's Prime Minister, said on All India Radio: "We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. We are prepared when peace and law and order have been established to have a referendum held under international auspices like the United Nations".

That pledge was never honored, which was only the first of many betrayals. Most elections in Kashmir have been rigged, the people have been brutalised by security forces and increasingly, terrorised by Pakistani-backed gunmen. Fifty years after coming under the Indian flag, without ever being asked their opinion in the matter, the people of Kashmir face a future perhaps as traumatic as the recent past.

25th April 1994

NUCLEAR KASHMIR

Indian relations with Pakistan, already soured by recent exchanges over Kashmir have now been ratcheted to new heights of tension. A mischief-making statement by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif about Pakistan's possession of nuclear weapons may only confirm, what is widely believed,( indeed as much has been hinted before). But while it puts his successor Benazir Bhutto on the defensive - which was no doubt the intention - it allows India to take the offensive demanding international action and implying that otherwise it may go the whole way down the nuclear road. The result is a victory for intolerance and chauvinism on both sides and slim chance of meaningful dialogue is further deferred.

The issue of Pakistan's nuclear weapons (and India's too) takes us into a notoriously unreal world. Islamabad admits to have the capability: Delhi denies even that. In reality Pakistan probably has the actual bomb while India already has the capability - but the difference may only reside in the length of time needed to assemble an operational weapon. There is a fruitless speculation on whether either or both countries already have the bombs in the basement "with the last wires unattached". No one can find out because neither Pakistan nor India ahs signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty or the IAEA's safeguards accord. The question is not whether the sub-continent has been nuclearised. Regrettably it has been.

We are paying the price now for the cold-war rejection of proposals to make the area a nuclear-free zone when India was non-nuclear. Mr Sharif merely removed the thin veil of pretence. Yet the real focus of tension remains Kashmir. It was no accident that Mr Sharif, belabouring Ms Bhutto for her alleged softness should have been speaking in that part of Kashmir controlled by Islamabad. Both sides have been stirring this dangerous pot recently. After Miss Bhutto had spoken of the 'unfinished agenda' of the 1947 partition plan, and pledged support of Kashmiris fighting Indian rule, prime minister Narasima Roa responded with defiant insistence that Kashmir would remain an 'integral part of India". Rationally, both prime ministers must know that Kashmir cannot be allowed to fester for ever. Pakistan has to restrain its opportunistic support of terrorism there and (and else where too if the recent revelations on last years Bombay blasts are correct). India has an appalling human rights record to correct and some day will have to allow the people in the Vale to decide their own future. In a world where intractable problems are being tackled else where, why should the subcontinent be an exception.

31 August, 1994

LETTERS

A flash point between arch enemies

Now the "thin veil of pretence" is removed from the nuclear capabilities of Pakistan and India (comment, August 25), shouldn't the international community focus more on the core issue of conflict over which two of their three wars were fought ? It would be wrong to dismiss the war of words between the two arch enemies of South Asia as routine match of rhetoric; both India and Pakistan are among the worlds poorest countries but together spent $19 billion on conventional arms during the years 1988-92, with India spending $12.2 billion on weapons used by her 500,000 strong armed forces to crush the rebellion in Kashmir.

Undoubtedly the Jammu-Kashmir question is a potential flash point between the two countries. An unresolved legacy of the colonial Raj, it has resulted in unprecedented strife and bloodshed in the recent years with nearly 40,000 killed. It is not an issue of territorial sovereignty but a question of self-determination for over 12 million Kashmiris whose national will never accounted for by India or Pakistan in the past, still remains ignored.

India allowing the people of the Vale, as you have suggested, will not work. Both India and Pakistan will have to allow all people of Jammu Kashmir under their respective control to decide their future. That is not likely to happen unless there is substantial international pressure upon the two governments to do so.

Azmat A Khan, Bradford, W Yorks

Wednesday, August 18, 1993

LETTERS

From The Acting High Commissioner of India

Sir, the Article by Mr Barnard Levin entitled "India's army on the rampage" (August 10) made shocking reading - shocking because of his "abiding love for India". On both counts, one would have expected a presentation of the situation in Kashmir, which was not over-simplified, more balanced and much objective. It is particularly sad to note Mr Levin's compliment to terrorists because "they did not indiscriminately slaughter their opponents". The 400,000 Kashmiris who have fled the Kashmir valley because of the murders, kidnappings, rapes ethnic cleansing and various intimidatory activities by terrorists would surely have a different view. Would Mr Levin wish to comment on last week's selective killing by terrorists of 15 Hindu passengers in a bus in Kashmir (report, August 16)?

In your editorial of August 12, you say that "India is at war in Kashmir". But this is a proxy war imposed on India by Pakistan, which trains and arms several thousand youth - now joined by mercenaries and fundamentalists from other countries (report August 7). In this proxy war, terrorism, religious fundamentalism and a well oiled disinformation campaign have forged an alliance to pose a challenge to India's secular and democratic framework and its territorial integrity.

Terrorists, not the security forces, target civilians; they also have a vested interest in preventing revival of the democratic political process - which is why militants who begin a discreet dialogue with the government are often attacked. We would expect friends of India to be conscience of India's track record in dealing with internal problems posed by its ethnic linguistic and other diversities in a humane and democratic way, and to realise that in the free world an open society that India is, it is simply not possible for large scale excesses of the kind alleged to be committed by security forces to go unreported, uninvestigated or unpunished.

In recent months the Indian government has meticulously investigated allegations of human rights abuse, produced detailed reports and punished those guilty where punishment was merited. But in a vast majority of cases, the allegations had no bases.

As the Punjab situation has shown, it is only when the back of terrorism is broken that the exercise of democratic rights can be restored to the people.

However difficult the process might be, it will be repeated in Kashmir; but the world must recognise that it is terrorism which is the enemy of democracy and human rights.

Yours faithfully, K V Rajan, The High Commissioner of India India House, Aldwych, WC2

August 16, 1993

The Times, London, LETTERS

20 August, 1993

Kashmir's sufferings

From Dr M F Dar

Sir, Bernard Levin deserves all my congratulations and thanks for his article, "India's army on the rampage", August 10. He also deserves the congratulations of all the Kashmiri people whose plight he has so very well portrayed. Although the whole world, in particular the west, is very busy in solving the problems of Bosnia and Palestine, that of Indian-held Kashmir has been largely ignored.

Incidentally, the caption to the picture accompanying Mr Levin's article, showing mourners attending the funeral of Dr Abdul Ahad Guru refers to Dr Abdul as a prominent Kashmiri militant". Dr Abdul was a leading cardiothoracic surgeon in Kashmir, who through his surgical skills, openly helped all the victims of Indian security's onslaught.

Yours faithfully, M.F. Dar, Ackworth, Pontefract.

August 18, 1993

From Mr Azmat A Khan

Sir; India's Acting High Commissioner, K.V. Rajan (letter August 18), is wrong when he claims that 400,000 Kashmiris were made to flee Kashmir by terrorism. They were, in fact, evacuated by the then governor Jagmohan's administration (1990-91) on government trucks. Some of the 30,000 Hindus who fled the Kashmir valley during Jagmohan's days have had letters printed in Kashmiri papers, form transit camps in Jammu and Delhi, regretting their move and claiming that the governor had warned them to leave before starting a ruthless campaign against the majority Muslims who are seen as "separatists" by India.

I believe no Hindu in any of these camps could testify in support of the claims made by Mr Rajan. Many left their house keys with their Muslim neighbours who still await their return. In contrast, the physical torture endured by the surviving 40,000 Kashmiris Muslims who made it to Pakistani-controlled "Azad-Kashmir" can be seen on many of their bodies. They stand witness to the terror campaign suffered at the hands of Indian forces.

Yours faithfully, Azmat A Khan

(Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front - UK) 18 August, 1993

5 June 1993,

Letters

Human rights infringements draw contradictory responses

From Baroness Chalker of Wallasey,

Sir, Tony Worthington (letters, "Jets to Indonesia: fly in the face of human rights", 14 June) is wrong to suggest that British aid has been used as a bribe to obtain the £500m Indonesian order for Hawk aircraft, the negotiations for which lasted well over two years.

Indonesia is a poor country with an impressive record of economic management. According to the World Bank, the proportion of Indonesians livings in absolute poverty reduced from 60 per cent (70million people) in 1970 to 15 percent (27 million people) in 1990. Our aid to Indonesia covers civil infrastructure projects that promote economic development - and offer opportunities for British exporters to establish themselves in an expanding market - and technical co-operation in such areas as primary education, forestry conservation, energy efficiency and public administration. We continue to monitor closely the human rights developments in Indonesia and, when necessary, make our concerns clear to the Indonesian government both bilaterally and in company with our EC partners.

But we do not think that the cause of human rights or that of economic and social development in Indonesia would be well served by suspending in our aid program. The latter has no connection with the Hawk aircraft deal, which has been negotiated by a British commercial company.

Yours truly,

CHALKER OF WALLASEY, Minister of Overseas Development, London, SW1,

14 June, 1993

 

From Mr Azmat A Khan

Sir; While the international community discuss the issue of human rights in Vienna under the auspices of the United Nations this week, some of the world's best-known "democracies" are engaged in curtailing the very rights of individuals, communities and nations, using the military might made available to them by our "champions of human rights".

Systematic massacres, extra-judicial killings, false imprisonment, gang rape and torture in prisons and interrogation camps are a few of the many forms of excesses committed by the agencies all round the world. Jammu-Kashmir is one such unfortunate and forgotten place, where India's 500,000 armed forces and paramilitary troops are reported to have been engaged in the worst type of human rights abused recorded in Indian history.

With numerous UN resolutions on their side, the people of Kashmir still await the day when the world community will pay due attention to their plight. The continual denial of self-determination, the most fundamental of all rights, to the people of Kashmir has led to bloodshed, repression and human rights violations by the world's biggest democracy.

In November 1978, the UN Rapporteur included Jammu-Kashmir in the list of 'Specific situations concerning the right of the people under colonial and alien domination to self-determination", which have not been settled. If the Vienna conference is not just and exercise to link self-interests to the issue of human then the UN must form a binding chapter, an additional covenant, to link international aid for countries to their human rights records. The calls to establish a UN Commission to look into and assess claims for self-determination, particularly where there is a high risk of human rights abuses and violence ought to be given serious consideration.

If lessons are to be learnt from the bloody saga of the Yugoslavian break-up and the military conflict in Somalia, then the mechanism to develop an early warning system to prevent conflicts of this kind ought to be given top priority. To begin, the UN could use diplomacy to avert a major new conflict in Kashmir. If peace is the objective, then peace-building measures should include preventive intervention. Violations of basic rights should no longer be treated as an internal affair for any country.

Yours faithfully, Azmat A Khan

Bradford, West Yorkshire. June 14, 1993