Issues beyond Siachen

INDIAN Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s statement on Siachen inspires hope but, at the same time, raises some questions. Speaking to Indian soldiers on the first-ever visit by an Indian prime minister to Siachen on Sunday, Dr Singh said it was time the glacier was turned into a “peace mountain”. He admitted that the present situation could not be allowed to continue — a reference to the heavy casualties caused by the harsh climate — and said it was time efforts were made to convert this battlefield into a peace mountain. However, some other parts of his speech seem to run counter to the spirit of the detente that is now sweeping South Asia. He said he was not prepared to accept “any changes in the country’s existing borders”. These borders, he said, were necessary not only for India’s security but related to his country’s “honour”.

Nobody is interested in changing India’s borders. A solution of the Kashmir issue does not entail a change in India’s border because Kashmir is not part of India; it is a disputed territory whose future is yet to be determined. The dispute has led to two wars, besides causing enormous suffering to the people of Kashmir. Since the eighties alone, when the people of Kashmir rose in revolt, no less than 80,000 people have been killed, and no end still seems in sight to their agony. A significant change in the Indian attitude came on April 18, 2003, when Mr A.B. Vajpayee, then prime minister, expressed his willingness to talk to Pakistan without pre-conditions. This was in sharp contrast to the earlier Indian policy which insisted on Kashmir being an “integral part” of India and demanded an end to what they called “cross border terrorism” before talks with Pakistan could begin. Since that speech, the two countries have taken a number of confidence-building measures and pursued the “composite dialogue” they agreed to at the Saarc summit in Islamabad in January last year. Some of the CBMs that followed the Islamabad summit have been spectacular. They include the start of the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus service and, more significant, the arrival of the APHC team in Pakistan. It is in this spirit that progress must continue to be made so that the two countries finally resolve the main cause of war and tension between them — Kashmir.

A demilitarization of Siachen will not resolve the Kashmir issue, but it would certainly be a major step towards consolidating the peace process and quickening the pace for a settlement of the Kashmir issue. Siachen would not have been a battleground if India had not intruded into the icy fastness in 1984 and occupied parts of territory under Pakistani control. However, during Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s talks with Ms Benazir Bhutto in Islamabad in July 1989 on the sidelines of the Saarc summit, the two sides had virtually agreed to a solution. The settlement was aborted because of the compulsions of Mr Gandhi’s domestic politics, because he had an election to face. His assassination in 1991 finally laid the idea to rest, with more Pakistani and Indian troops dying from cold than in combat. Now that Pakistan and India are pursuing the normalization course in real earnest, it is time they ended the confrontation on the world’s highest battlefield. However, the kind of references made to border change and “honour and security” by the Indian prime minister can hardly push the peace process forward.

Gas pipeline must go ahead

REPORTS emanating from Washington suggest that Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri has told his American counterpart Ms Condoleezza Rice of Pakistan’s intention to go ahead with the Indo-Iranian gas pipeline project despite American objections. Transiting through Pakistan, the pipeline on completion will earn and save Islamabad millions of dollars in annual transit fees and gas import bills, besides creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. The project is also seen as a major confidence-building measure that will create a conducive environment for furthering the on-going peace process between India and Pakistan. With such high political and socio-economic stakes involved, it is only logical that Pakistan should stand firm on its commitment made to both India and Iran. Islamabad should not be expected to factor in Washington’s rivalry with Tehran while making decisions on matters of its own vital political and economic interests. As for Iran, it is a friendly, neighbouring Muslim country, and there is no reason why Pakistan should be wary of it to placate a third country.

It is for the Bush administration to decide how best to modify certain provisions of US laws that call for imposing sanctions on countries doing business with Iran and counter political opposition in Congress that Ms Rice reportedly said could affect bilateral relations if the pipeline project went ahead. Such irresponsible statements can only be seen in Pakistan as blackmailing or arm-twisting tactics, not only by extremist elements here but also by the liberal intelligentsia. If Japan can avoid American sanctions while remaining Iran’s biggest trading partner all these years, why not Pakistan, which, because of Washington’s own need and desire, is now a major non-Nato ally? It is time a realization dawned on decision-makers in Washington that we are all living in an increasingly interdependent world that negates unilateralism. One works with one’s allies rather than coercing them into submission and weakening mutual trust and confidence.

A senseless tragedy

THE ugly side of the jirga system reared its head again on Sunday when seven people were killed while trying to settle a land dispute in Hangu in the lower Orakzai Agency. Two brothers had come to a jirga to resolve the dispute but things soon went out of control when a heated exchange of words turned violent and the parties opened fire at each other, resulting in fatalities. This seemingly senseless tragedy is not the first of its kind and judging by the jirga’s continued existence in the tribal areas of the country, it is fair to assume that this sort of horrifying incident is not the last. Barely two weeks ago, this newspaper commented on the gruesome verdict of a jirga which ordered the public execution of two men by a firing squad in the Orakzai Agency. Such primal justice has created a parallel legal system in the country that may have once served some purpose but in contemporary times has little relevance or justification. In Sunday’s case, the brothers may have resorted to jirga arbitration in the hope that it would have settled their dispute, but they could have hardly foreseen that the proceedings would turn violent costing as many as seven lives.

It is, however, unfair to blame Sunday’s event solely on the jirga system. Violence has seeped into our lives to such an extent that it has become part of the psyche. We think nothing of resorting to violence when confronted with any degree of resistance, regardless of the right or wrong of a dispute. To what extent such an attitude is conditioned by a lack of confidence in the normal judicial system is for thinkers and social scientists to decide.