Thu, 24 Aug 2000

Kashmir awaits another peace chance

By Sanjeev Miglani

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters): Kashmir, shaken by a spiraling cycle of bloodshed in recent weeks, is looking for another chance at peace.

Many of Kashmir's eight million people and tens of thousands of weary Indian soldiers are hoping that a short-lived ceasefire declared by the biggest guerrilla group is renewed.

Days after the frontline Hizbul Mujahideen called off its unilateral 15-day ceasefire in Kashmir, Indian forces are yet to resume an offensive against the group which accounts for nearly half the 3,000 guerrillas operating in the Himalayan region.

Indian officials are at pains to point the finger of blame at other Pakistan-based guerrilla groups for a string of violence in recent days including a car bomb in the center of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, that left 12 people dead.

"There are straws in the wind, our information is that the HM (Hizbul Mujahideen) has not gone back on the offensive," a top security official leading India's 10-year-effort to quell the revolt in the Himalayan region said.

"Even our posture towards them is to avoid confrontation."

New Delhi is still counting on the Hizbul, largely comprising indigenous Kashmiri fighters, to help crack open the door to peace in the battle that has so far killed 30,000 people.

"If even 500 of these chaps come overground, that would be a big thing," the official said.

Hizbul guerrillas are most feared in the Kashmir Valley for they know the terrain, the language and help foreign guerrillas in targeting government informers and renegade militants.

Experts, however, said peace was unlikely to hold in Kashmir until India included arch-rival Pakistan in efforts to resolve one of the world's oldest territorial disputes.

"The keys to this complicated problem lie more in New Delhi and Islamabad than here in Srinagar," said Noor Ahmed Baba, the head of political studies at Kashmir University.

"No solution is going to be viable even if New Delhi and Srinagar come to an agreement."

The pro-Pakistan Hizbul called off the ceasefire earlier this month after New Delhi ignored its deadline to accept three-way talks including Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute.

India, which controls some 45 percent of Kashmir, blames Pakistan for stoking the unrest in the region, and says it will hold talks with the estranged neighbor if it stops aiding militants.

Pakistan, which holds a third of Kashmir, denies direct involvement but says it offers moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiris in what it calls a struggle for self-determination.

Kashmir's main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, has suggested that it could act as a bridge between India and Pakistan to get the peace process back on track.

"This is my personal idea that the seven-member executive council of Hurriyat can be divided into two groups, and each group will talk to India and Pakistan simultaneously on the future dispensation of Jammu and Kashmir," the group's chief Abdul Gani Bhat said.

Hurriyat bands 22 political, social and religious groups fighting for implementation of a 1948 UN resolution calling for a plebiscite to determine the future of the troubled region.

Indian officials privately said talks with Pakistan could not be put off indefinitely. "We have talked to them in the past, and we will talk in the future," said an Interior Ministry official in New Delhi.

"The problem this time was they (Pakistan) were brought in too early in the game, these talks were only to finalize the ceasefire modalities but even this was not acceptable to them," he said.