Kashmir reacts with gloom, anger and despair as summit fails
Kashmir reacts with gloom, anger and despair as summit fails
SRINAGAR, India (AP): Kashmir reacted with gloom, anger and despair Tuesday at the failure of the India-Pakistan summit, which had raised hopes of modest progress toward resolution of the five-decade dispute over the Himalayan territory.
After spending most of the last three days glued to their television screens, Kashmiris emerged Tuesday to gather at tea shops, vegetable markets and each other's homes to discuss Monday night's announcement that the talks had fallen through.
"We were hoping that some good news will come out of this and maybe peace will return to the Valley," said Hazifullah Mir, a government employee walking to work. "But when I saw the flash on STAR TV that the talks had failed, I was very disappointed."
The three-day media blitz brought nonstop details and analysis of the summit into every home, though the actual talks between Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee were kept confidential. The apparent camaraderie between the two had led some to expect gains for peace, but many others said the outcome was inevitable given India's refusal to budge from its long-standing position on Kashmir.
"We were watching TV and every time we could hear India saying that Kashmir is an integral part. So it was expected that talks will fail," said Ali Mohammad Mir, a 55-year-old tea stall owner who sat sipping kehwa, Kashmiri tea, with his patrons.
Though there was no official statement on why talks broke down, it appeared that the stumbling blocks involved language over how to describe the dispute over Kashmir and the militants that India calls terrorists and Pakistan calls freedom fighters.
Militant groups in Pakistan said Tuesday that the collapse of the talks had given an impetus to their campaign to separate Kashmir from India and they would intensify attacks.
India's Border Security Force on Tuesday displayed for journalists the bodies of three men said to be militants killed Monday night northeast of Srinagar. That raised to 89 the number of people filled in fighting between the guerrillas and Indian forces during the three-day summit.
Most militants train in camps in Pakistan and sneak into India across the mountainous border. But Islamabad denies New Delhi's charges that it arms and aids the Islamic militants. Islamabad says it gives only moral support. As many as 60,000 people have died in Kashmir since 1989.
Naveed Bashir, 16, and his friend Azum Hafiz, 17 walked despondently to school under the gray skies of Srinagar, freshly washed with summer rain.
"We were hoping that the talks will be successful and that peace will come so that we can go trekking," said Hafiz, whose parents refused him permission to take off with his friend into the mountains.
"But unfortunately failure of talks means more violence, death and destruction," said Bashir.
Since they were little, the boys, like most Kashmiris, have lived restricted lives, fearing to step out lest they be arrested by security forces or become the victim of random violence by Islamic militants fighting for Kashmiri independence or for a merger with Pakistan.
The boys said their parents' recounting of their vacations in some of Kashmir's popular tourist destinations was a distant dream for them. Now, with militants threatening more violence following the failed talks, such travels appear more remote.
"It is sad," said Ali Imran, a political analyst in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state. "It means pushing the people of Jammu and Kashmir into another era of suffering and misery."