No Fingers Pointing

Following the Havana Summit between President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in September 2006, and the subsequent establishment of the much touted "Joint Terror Mechanism", reticence about Pakistani sponsored terrorism and a reluctance to speak candidly on the subject has become a hallmark of Indian diplomacy. Not surprisingly, the United States—which is itself following such an approach, despite irrefutable evidence of Pakistani support to the Taliban and tolerance of the presence of the top al Qaeda leadership in Waziristan—has praised both New Delhi and Islamabad for their new approach to bilateral relations. It was, consequently, not surprising that, when Pakistan’sforeign minister Khurshid Kasuri arrived in India barely forty eight hours after train blasts shook the Delhi-Attari Special Train that links up with the Samjhauta Express between the two countries, killing 68 people—both Indians and Pakistanis—his Indian hosts pleased him by eschewing "finger pointing". Indeed, they went even further, tamely promising to furnish evidence gleaned from their investigations into the train blasts, at the first meeting of the ‘Joint Working Group’ on Terrorism, scheduled to meet in Islamabad on March 6, 2007.

Barely a week before Kasuri’s arrival in India, the extremist Sunni group Jundullah carried out two terrorist strikes in Zahedan, the principal city of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan Province close to the Pakistan-Iran border. Fifteen members of Iran’s Revolutionary guard were killed in this terrorist strike. The next day, a bomb exploded near a girls’ school in Zahedan. Following preliminary investigations, the Pakistan Ambassador was summoned to the Iranian Foreign Office, with Tehran protesting that Pakistan’s territory was being used for terrorism against Iran. Barely a week later, the semi-official Tehran Times accused Pakistan of providing "logistical and political support" on its territory, to the Taliban in Afghanistan. 

Significantly, Washington has shown an unusual interest recently in ethnic and sectarian faultlines within Iran, with some think tanks attempting to bring together the Baluch, Kurdish, Azeri and Turkmen minorities in Iran on a common anti-clerical platform. There are, therefore, reasons to believe that, on issues of peace in the Middle East and on Iran, General Musharraf is making a determined attempt to ingratiate himself with the Americans as a steadfast ally leading a ‘moderate Islamic State’. This alone can explain American reluctance to candidly address issues of General Musharraf’s support to the Taliban and to Jihadis operating in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere in India. New Delhi would do well to bear this in mind.

The suave and sophisticated Khurshid Kasuri, while he was in Delhi, appeared to be extremely optimistic about an imminent breakthrough in ‘back channel’ talks on Jammu and Kashmir. Quite appropriately, he argued that premature disclosure of the contents of these talks would be counterproductive. The long-pending agreement on reducing the risk from nuclear accidents was finally signed. It was good to see Pakistan come up with new ideas on liberalizing the highly restrictive visa regime now in force. As an open society, India should be more than forthcoming on liberalizing, if necessary unilaterally, procedures for issuing visas to Pakistanis wanting to visit India to meet friends and relatives, participate in academic exchanges, visit places of worship, to secure medical treatment and for group tourism. It was agreed that there would be further talks on issues such as Siachen and Sir Creek, and that the ‘Joint Terror Mechanism’ would meet for the first time next month. Kasuri met leaders of the ‘moderate’ All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) faction led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq as well as the ‘hardline’ faction led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Not surprisingly, Geelani stuck to his guns and reflected the views of his mentor in Pakistan, the Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who has been a vociferous critic both of General Musharraf’s domestic and foreign policies. 

While it is naturally to be wished that Kasuri’s optimism on Jammu and Kashmir will be translated into reality, there are still nagging doubts and queries about what General Musharraf has proposed, which need to be clarified. Do his proposals for self governance, demilitarization, joint management and making borders irrelevant constitute the basis of a ‘Final Settlement’ on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, or are they merely ‘suggestions’ for an ‘Interim Settlement’ that becomes the basis to reopen the issue after a few years lapse, with Pakistan then maintaining that Kashmir remains a part of the ‘Unfinished Agenda of Partition?' While India and Pakistan can work out ‘Joint Mechanisms’ to collaborate on issues like tourism, education, health, environment and water management in Jammu and Kashmir, any possibility of ‘Joint Management’ that touches on issues of sovereignty can be ruled out. Finally, leave alone ‘demilitarization’, can one even think of ‘troop reduction’ as long as groups like the Muttahida (United) Jihad Council (UJC) based in Muzafarabad continue to promote terrorism across the Line of Control? These are issues that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will have to clarify to the people of India during the ongoing budget session of Parliament. 

The bomb blasts in the Samjhauta Express were the first terrorist incident on Indian soil in which Pakistani nationals also perished. One would normally have expected that both countries would send out a clear signal, manifesting their determination to tell the terrorists involved that their plan to deter people to people contacts would not succeed. The best way to have done this would have been to announce that the two countries had agreed to reopen their Consulates General in Karachi and Mumbai immediately and that the biweekly Samjhauta Express would be converted shortly into a daily service, with far better amenities and comforts for the passengers. Instead of taking this logical step, the two sides ended up bickering about the astonishing and insensitive Pakistan action to pull out critically hurt patients from the Safdarjang Hospital in Delhi and airlift them to Lahore. Matters were made worse when Pakistan’s rather shrill and excitable spokesperson accused New Delhi of refusing to allow two of its nationals to fly back, when in actual fact, both these unfortunate people were in Panipat trying to recognize the charred bodies of their children, who had perished in the flames that engulfed two bogies of the Samjhauta Express.

It is now evident that even as talks on issues like Jammu and Kashmir continue, General Musharraf has no intention of abiding by the commitment he made to Prime Minister Vajpayee on January 6, 2004, that he would not allow territory under Pakistan’s control to be used for terrorism against India. Pakistan now stands accused by all three neigbours with whom it shares land borders—India, Iran and Afghanistan, of allowing its territory to be used too promote terrorism. General Musharraf has evidently calculated that, given his indispensability in American eyes for promoting American goals in the ‘Greater Middle East’, the US will have to live with what he does in Afghanistan and India. China in the meantime, has blocked efforts to get the UN Security Council to declare the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (the new name for the Lashkar-e-Toiba [LeT]) as a terrorist organization. General Musharraf also knows that he has run circles around Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his aides, who can now do little to deal with issues of terrorism, apart from delivering alarmist speeches inMunich.

G. Parthasarathy is a former Indian High Commissioner / Ambassador to Pakistan, Myanmar and Australia.Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal