The Game of High Stakes
From the BOARD of EDITORIAL ADVISORS, Ms NASIM ZEHRA talks about the serious loss of diplomatic and political credibility that Delhi has suffered following the December 24 hijacking of IC 814
Worse has been the serious loss of diplomatic and political credibility that Delhi has suffered. In the closing days of the twentieth century it was the Indian media that carried across the world, its government's Pakistan-bashing campaign. It was one based on unadulterated lies, baseless claims, endless retractions and contradictory assertions. Amazed the international community and especially the South Asians have looked on as Delhi's power-wielders and intellectual mandarins, systematically undermined the India's image and honour abroad through their gross mishandling of the hijacking crisis. An India aspiring to be a world power had thus reduced itself to a sorrowful state within diplomatic, media and political circles. Above all it had unwittingly further tightened the Kashmiri noose around its own neck. In the coming days it is on the Kashmir front that Delhi will be hardest hit by its own hijacking-related misadventure.
The blame game continues. The leading men of the Indian government including the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister and the National Security Adviser all continue to claim that the five hijackers were Pakistanis. Any call for evidence of this claim evokes no credible response. On January 4 Vajpayee claimed in Pune, said that 'the information now available and later developments made it clear that last week's hijacking was an integral part of the Pakistan-backed campaign of terrorism.'' He claimed that ``Pakistan's active and sustained role in fomenting terrorism in India is now too obvious to be any longer overlooked by the international community.'' Taking his shrill to a pitch, India's otherwise respected statesman made the expected demand that ``India, therefore, strongly urges major nations of the world to declare Pakistan a terrorist state.'' The following day Vajpayee again claimed that 'We have enough evidence of Pakistan's involvement in the hijacking of the Indian Airlines aircraft ... we will disclose at an appropriate time.' Obviously if evidence was readily available Delhi would have immediately made it public. Instead it is buying time to 'manufacture' evidence.
Equally baseless has been Singh's accusation that an Afghan official had revealed that the hijackers headed for southwestern Pakistan. His statement quoted by Associated Press that ``I have with me a statement of the Taliban information minister that all five hijackers, along with the terrorists, have left for Quetta, Pakistan'' was promptly contradicted by the Afghan information minister. Reiterating their earlier position that the agreement to free the hostages involved not revealing where the hijackers had gone , the Afghan government's principled position again contrasted with Delhi's position of not honouring the agreement reached between the Indian government and the hijackers.
Delhi continues with its losing war game. Unsubstantiated assertions made by Indian officials include that the hijackers had wired the plane to explode and may have kept rifles, pistols and grenades in the cargo hold ``from the beginning.'' Also with the identity of the hijackers not known to the Pakistanis, Delhi is demanding that Pakistan apprehend the hijackers.
The only link that Delhi has established between the hijacking and Pakistan is that the three men , held illegally in Indian jails for at least half a decade and now freed on the hijackers demand are Pakistanis. Contrary to Indian claims one of them is a Pakistani, one a resident of Srinagar and the third a British national. None of the three have been convicted by any Indian court and have in fact been under illegal Indian detention. In Pakistan, the state can take no action against them because they have committed no crime and they evidently enjoy support among groups working for the liberation of Indian occupied Kashmir.
Nevertheless, undeterred by the trauma and the self-inflicted national humiliation India has suffered, Delhi continues with its anti-Pakistan campaign. In drawing parallels between so-called 'Pakistani state-sponsored terrorism' and Osama bin Ladin, Delhi hopes to evoke sympathy and support in western and regional capitals. Frustrated by Washington's logical refusal to consider Delhi's absurd demand that Pakistan be declared a terrorist state on January 5 the Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes attacked Washington for 'turning a blind eye to the menace of cross-border terrorism in the region. Pleading Washington's intervention in the region selectively against Pakistan Fernandes complained that 'When it comes to Bin Laden, the United States fires not one but scores of missiles with high precision technology - What the United States and the world need to realise is that terrorism understands no country borders.'
The same, day however, the Indian government exposed its contradiction in seeking Washington's intervention. Washington's role was ruled out in the resolution of Indo-Pak problems, thereby restricting Delhi's desperate call for US intervention in the region to only combat terrorism. When asked to comment on the US Annual National Strategy Report presented to the Congress by President Bill Clinton declaring that easing of tensions between India and Pakistan would top his agenda this year, an Indian External Affairs spokesman said, 'We do not see any role for a third party in resolution of bilateral issues between India and Pakistan.' Instead he referred to the 1972 Simla Agreement and the 1998 Lahore Declaration under which the two countries were committed to seeking bilateral settlement of outstanding issues.
A blundering Delhi's lying has also led to its distortion of the fact that after India's nuclear tests of May 11, 1998 it was the Indian Home Minister L.K.Advani who took to nuclear brandishing. Advani had claimed on May 18 that 'Islamabad should realise the change in the geo-strategic situation in the region and the world and roll back its anti-India policy especially with regard to Kashmir. Advani's war mongering had been reprimanded by the State Department spokesman on May 19. Advani's words the spokesman had said, 'seems to indicate that India is foolishly and dangerously increasing tension with its neighbours.' Lying blatantly the Indian Defence Minister claimed during his January 5 talk at the IDSA Institute that 'they (Pakistan) held out a nuclear threat to us on May 31, 1999, and did it again yesterday without absorbing the real meaning of nuclearisation, that it can deter only the use of nuclear weapons, but not conventional war.' He was responding to General Pervez Musharraf's comment that Pakistan would use nuclear weapons if it was threatened.
In Islamabad the hijacking has provoked two parallel responses. One of satisfaction that Delhi's hackneyed blame game stands utterly exposed. Second of articulating a clear line on its relations with India. Drawing upon the logic generated by the India-authored current Pak-India tensions Islamabad led by its Chief Executive cum Chief of Army Staff General Pervez Musharraf has stated its own position. One that no normalization of Pak-India relations is possible unless India agrees to resolve the Kashmir issue. Two no Pak-India talks can take place unless Kashmir tops the list of the talks agenda. Three that Pakistan's support of the Kashmiri freedom movement will continue until Kashmiris achieve their goal of self-determination. Four that any Indian attempt to militarily subdue Pakistan or to undermine its territorial integrity could provoke Pakistan to use nuclear weapons.
Pakistan is evidently keen to prevent an all out war with India but determined to ensure that the freedom movement continues in the Valley. Already the structures and personnel in the Valley, of the Indian occupying power India, are under continuous attacks by the freedom fighters. Casualties have been mounting even since the Kargil withdrawal reaching to about fifty in December alone. The December- January attacks contradict the earlier pattern of reduced winter-time guerilla activity. This signals a studied escalation by the freedom fighters and an unprecedented preparedness by the freedom fighters to take on the occupying forces. The Indian strategy to counter the heightened guerilla activity would include intimidation of Pakistan through its shelling campaigns from across the LoC , through its word war, through RAW's sabotage activities within Pakistan and finally through international pressure. Already Indian shelling in the Leepa valley has led to a few civilian casualties.
The Pak-India war over Kashmir will intensify in days to come; political, diplomatic, propaganda and covert war. As the pressure mounts on India over Kashmir the ball is in Delhi's court. Will it take the unlikely step of genuinely addressing the Kashmir problem through dialogue? Clearly in Pakistan , with a military government in power a Kargil-type retreat is not on the cards. Buoyed by the political gains for the freedom fighters and diplomatic gains for Islamabad courtesy's Delhi's mishandling of the hijacking, Pakistan would like to see increased pressure on India. It will view any mediation aimed at upholding the status quo in Kashmir as purely academic.
Decoding the Indian plea that the international community led by Washington help Delhi to fight 'cross-border terrorism' reveals the simple truth about India's intent; get us off the hook in Kashmir. Like the Israelis and its allies who continued to demonize the Palestinian freedom fighters as terrorists, the Indians have adopted a similar strategy against the Kashmiri freedom fighters and their Pakistani supporters.
While Pakistan can claim innocence in the hijacking case its position on the Kashmir issue and on military support to the Kashmiri freedom fighters is a complex one. Outside of the official circles but in the complete knowledge of the official circles organisations like Hizbul Mujahideen and Harkat ul Ansaar provide human and military support to freedom fighters inside the Valley. In their determined support of the Kashmiri freedom struggle these organisations call for a struggle against the states supporting Indian occupation of Jammu and Kashmir. Israel and the United States are identified as the key accomplices. Washington has labelled Harkat ul Ansaar as a 'terrorist' organisation. Islamabad, therefore, needs to define its divergence from some of the terrorism-related US positions while assuring the international community of its commitment to international norms for fighting terrorism. This perhaps will be the greatest challenge for Islamabad as it pursues a dual track policy of condemning terrorism and yet carving out an autonomous position towards organisations militarily fighting state sponsored terrorism in Indian Occupied Kashmir.
Clearly Islamabad has opted for a difficult policy and one that allows its strategists and diplomats no margin of error. In this game of high stakes and deadly fall-out the calibre of statesmanship of both the Indians and the Pakistanis will be severely tested.
