ISLAMABAD, 4 July — Despite speculations the CENTCOM chief‚ Gen. Tommy Franks recent visit almost exclusively dealt with Pakistan-US joint military operations against suspected Al-Qaeda men. While India-Pakistan relations and the LoC barely figured in the talks between the visiting general and his Pakistani hosts including President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. This notwithstanding, Washington remains deeply engaged with the issue of infiltration across the LoC. In the immediate context it puts the onus of curbing infiltration on Pakistan.
It requires evidence that Pakistan is actively blocking the LoC and destroying the "terrorist infrastructure" in Pakistan. Questions about closure of training camps are repeatedly raised. Concrete evidence is being sought; whether temporary or permanent. Pakistan realizes that words will be checked by ground facts.
Washington’s expectations list‚ vis-a-vis what Islamabad must deliver on the India Pakistan front comes mostly from State Department officials. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s early June trip was the only exception. Interestingly Musharraf again repeated his expectation that India will return to the dialogue table on Jammu and Kashmir. Though Rumsfeld reportedly hinted at some dialogue as a possibility, he ruled out immediate resumption of dialogue.
The State Department, however, finds itself as the main interlocutor of whatever indirect exchange occurs between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Whatever the political situation on the ground on the Indian side of the LoC the diplomatic pressure remains on Pakistan. In Pakistan there is realization that a comprehensive approach will now work; one which is committed primarily to a credible political process through which a just and durable settlement to the J & K problems is found. Musharraf has launched a diplomatic offensive to bring Delhi to the negotiating table. The cross LoC infiltration blocked under international and Indian pressure is the olive branch that Musharraf claims he is extending to Delhi. In Delhi, still relishing its diplomatic achievement, policy-makers repeatedly question the credibility of the olive branch. They maintain from the numerous interviews that Musharraf gives there is enough to quote in support of Delhi’s assertion that he is not serious. That his olive branch is conditional and time bound. That the factor of permanence is missing. In Delhi, Musharraf’s latest Newsweek interview is invoked as evidence. Musharraf had said "first of all I don’t call it cross-border terrorism. There is a freedom struggle going on in Kashmir. What I said is that there is no movement across the LoC. I have told President Bush nothing is happening across the LoC. This is the assurance I’ve given. I’m not going to give you an assurance that for years nothing will happen. We must address the root cause, the cause of Kashmir."
Vigorous double-edged defense came from Washington. Reassuring the Indians the US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on June 24 that Musharraf had repeatedly given assurances "to Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage that ending of infiltration across the LoC would be permanent" the US has heard this commitment quite clearly from President Musharraf. "In Musharraf’s defense Boucher said, ‘We’ve seen him carry it out.’ So we have no reason to disbelieve him."
Whatever Washington’s defense of Musharraf, in Islamabad these are difficult times. There are four audiences being addressed in any policy articulation on the J & K issue; Pakistanis, Kashmiris in Indian Occupied J & K, the Indians and the international community. How far is a comprehensively thought through policy is now ready for launch‚ factoring in all these elements is a key issue. Musharraf appears to have worked it out himself. Hence his many statements. Some may be adding to the growing confusion. Earlier in his June 4 Almaty press conference Musharraf had confidently maintained that reports generated by advanced American surveillance equipment will practically demonstrate Pakistan’s pledge to control, to the extent possible, cross LoC infiltration. But the quid pro quo from India he sought was dialogue on J & K. Military de-escalation is "self-serving", is "cosmetic" he maintains. Consistently he repeats this formula. In his June 21 BBC radio interview, Musharraf dismisses Indian military de-escalation as self-serving. He warns that Pakistan "will teach India a lesson if India come across the LoC."
Additionally Musharraf argues that while tension had eased the threat of war could quickly build up again in the event of a terror attack blamed on Kashmiris. For Delhi complete peace inside its side of the LoC will signify no infiltration from Pakistani side of the LoC. This is the logical inference drawn by Delhi’s position that the armed struggle in the Indian controlled J &K is completely foreign inspired. A fact that Indian Home Minister L. K. Advani contradicted when he said that Hizbul Mujahideen are our own misguided youth. Extending the Musharraf argument other Pakistani officials argue that law and order inside Indian Held Kashmir is not Pakistan’s responsibility. Delhi with its over six hundred thousand security forces inside the state should successfully manage the situation if there is no genuine peoples‚ struggle being conducted.
On the question of "permanent" closure of the LoC Musharraf’s key foreign policy men however identify three factors they claim influence LoC closure.
One that despite all efforts made by the government to stop infiltration "free-lance jihadi" elements may still cross over; two, that given the rugged terrain along the LoC zero-infiltration is not possible given that India’s mining of the LoC and three-tiered Indian troop stationing on its side has not worked; three, that unless there is reciprocity from the Indian side in the form of re-opening dialogue on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute the policy of blocking the LoC will not be sustainable. Officials present in the meeting with Armitage claim that the president had clearly stated the permanence of closure of LoC will be conditional on Indian reciprocity.
They, however, maintain that from this statement inference cannot be drawn that Pakistan is threatening to deliberately support cross-LoC infiltration. While closure is not conditional they claim in Pakistan there is peoples support for the legitimate azadi (freedom) struggle in Jammu and Kashmir. Combined with this maybe the potential to privatize the Kashmir policy. There exists in Pakistan, beyond the control of the state trained human capital for such an undertaking. It is the yield of the CIA-supported policy of creating a potent mix of religion and gun to defeat the evil Soviet empire. Conceptually there is clarity on going back to the pre-1989 Kashmir policy. For supporting the primacy of the political struggle. Talking to India Today a high ranking official of the Musharraf government maintained that "In today’s world you cannot hide anything so there cannot be dichotomy in policy because you lose your credibility. You cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hound." However, because of factors within and outside of the government control this conceptual clarity cannot necessarily translate into neat policy implementation.
Especially if Delhi conveniently concludes that Musharraf cannot be trusted and decides to keep the diplomatic pressure on Pakistan instead of reciprocating to the closure of LoC with a dialogue.
Musharraf has found himself in a difficult position. His maverick and bold approach on Jammu and Kashmir shows no immediate dividends.
It cannot. The dominant policy thrust in international circles calls for end to "cross-border terrorism." The Kashmir freedom struggle is relegated to the back-burner. At least the issue is being seen internationally from Delhi’s lens.
Against this backdrop Delhi feels no compulsion to reopen dialogue with Pakistan on the J & K issue. It hopes continued diplomatic pressure on Pakistan till the October elections in J & K will buy Delhi some time‚ to pursue its election within the Indian Constitution. However, the question for Delhi to ask itself is whether such a policy will translate into indeed a successful Jammu and Kashmir policy? Will pressure on Pakistan and the international diplomatic support help to politically deliver‚ to Delhi and to the Indian Union, the people unquestionably struggling for "azadi" in the state? Delhi’s pursuit of a short-sighted Kashmir policy banking on disinformation, force and quick-fix politics will unlikely yield for the Indians what it has actively sought for the last 55 years — integration of the disputed Jammu and Kashmir in the Indian Union.
Meanwhile Islamabad and Delhi, both have expectations from Washington. Often differing ones. Islamabad wants Washington to deliver resumption of a "high level Pakistan-India dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir" leading eventually to a political solution. Delhi hopes this current policy of exerting continuous pressure on Pakistan calling for permanent closure of training camps and ending "cross-border terrorism" will lead to making LoC a permanent border. For now Washington is tilting the Delhi way. According to a Srinagar daily The Observor’s June 27 report, from Delhi a US Embassy delegation visited Srinagar on June 26.
The purpose of the visit was primarily to examine the possibility of a fair and free elections, being held within the Indian Constitution, becoming the basis of a solution to the J & K dispute between India, Pakistan and the people of Jammu and Kashmir.