INDIA’S decision to withdraw 15,000 troops from Kashmir provides a major political and psychological boost at a critical moment, not just for itself but also for Pakistan. In Kashmir, the decision, made just ahead of government talks with the Kashmiri separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference is a valuable confidence-building measure and should ease the atmosphere at the talks. For Pakistan, with the army heavily involved in the offensive against the Taleban in South Waziristan, it should ease fears about transferring troops from the border region, leaving it insufficiently defended.
This decision together with the “new chapter” in the peace process in Kashmir launched by India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh — his offer to talk to any separatists providing they renounce violence — are highly encouraging developments. Negotiations have been on hold for too long in Kashmir. The Indian authorities had been in talks with Hurriyat but not in the last three years and following last year’s Mumbai attacks, which were blamed on Kashmiri militants, Delhi actually suspended the dialogue.
That was dangerous. Kashmir is the anvil on which good relations between India and Pakistan can be either forged or broken. It has already been the cause for three wars between the two countries. It would be folly to assume that it will never be so again. Manmohan Singh understands that. His related offer to discus all outstanding issues with Pakistan is clear evidence that he, like US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Russians, wants to push the restart button with his neighbor.
The welcome these offers have received in Pakistan indicates that the authorities there, or most of them, share that ambition. That too is encouraging. But it is no small ambition. Even if a Kashmir settlement could be agreed between Islamabad and Delhi, even if the Indian troops withdrawal were to become the first stage in what must one day happen — the demilitarization of the Indo-Pakistani border — it is not going to be easy eradicating the deep mutual hostility and suspicion that exists in both countries.
That knee-jerk response has been seen all too vividly in the accusations from Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik. A week ago he said Delhi had been “involved in almost every terrorist activity in Pakistan”. The absurdity of such a statement is self-evident: India is hardly going to collaborate the very people — the Taleban — who are attacking it. But that has not stopped Malik’s outburst against India. On Monday he accused it of funding the Taleban; he had “no doubt” about it. Last September, he claimed that militants arrested in Swat had confirmed that India was involved in terrorism there. Not all the government in Islamabad, it seems, seeks to hit the restart button.
India wants the Taleban destroyed as much as Pakistan. Its withdrawal of troops is as much about helping the Pakistani Army to do precisely that as it is about calming tensions within Kashmir. It should do both, hopefully, and could lay the foundations for a new era of cooperation between the two countries. But the situation is not helped by populist outbursts, even if no one believes them.
Cause for celebration
The Humane Society of the United States’ arrangement with the convicted football player Michael Vick deserves the public’s support, said Los Angeles Times in an editorial on Thursday. Excerpts:
For its 11 million members, as well as millions more nonmembers that sport fur, feathers or scales, the Humane Society of the United States’ public relations and legislative coups in the last few years have been cause for celebration. Its undercover video of cows too sick to walk at a meatpacking plant in Chino led to a federal ban on the slaughter of “downer” cows for human consumption. It sponsored Proposition 2 in California, a successful ballot initiative mandating more humane treatment for chickens and other farm animals. And most notably, in 2007, it championed the prosecution of former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick for running a dogfighting operation in Virginia. The Vick case raised the organization’s profile and that of its president, Wayne Pacelle, as he called for the Falcons to drop Vick, for Nike to sever ties with him and for passage of new state laws against animal fighting. Since then, 21 states have complied.
But after Vick served his 23-month sentence and the two men had lengthy conversations, Pacelle made a controversial decision: He decided to join forces with the football player and bring him on board as part of the Humane Society’s anti-dogfighting program; Vick, now a player for the Philadelphia Eagles, spends some of his free time lecturing schoolchildren about animal cruelty. The move shocked and angered many society members who feel Vick deserves no quarter — no matter how willing he is to atone. The images of dogs mauled and maimed are unforgettable, and the public was rightly horrified at Vick’s callousness.
We don’t always agree with Humane Society initiatives, but the organization’s partnership with Vick is a smart move. A pattern of cruelty to animals often starts at a young age — Vick himself was exposed to dogfighting at age 8. The Humane Society, whose members tend to be white and middle class, doesn’t have a lot of influence with inner-city kids, but in Vick it has found someone uniquely suited to educate them. There’s little doubt that Vick needs the image boost this public-service stint can provide, but the society needs him just as much.
