Peace bus disappears in Kashmir flashpoint
Peace bus disappears in Kashmir flashpoint
By John Chalmers
NEW DELHI (Reuters): The warm rhetoric and neat symbolism of
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's journey of peace to
Pakistan last February has been consigned to the history books.
One year on, Kashmir is once again convulsed by violence and
there is more talk of war than amity.
Mutual suspicion between the nuclear-capable foes is running
high, and the breakdown of diplomacy has heightened the risk of
miscalculation as their armies stand on hair-trigger alert.
Analysts say that U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to India
next month could do little to resolve the Kashmir dispute, over
which both sides have publicly hardened their positions.
India refuses mediation, and Clinton has accepted that he
could only act as a go-between if requested by both sides.
"Peace-wise there is no point in Clinton visiting the
subcontinent, as his presence will be treated just as a PR
jamboree," said Brian Cloughley, a commentator on South Asian
affairs and former deputy head of the UN mission in Kashmir.
"Matters are going from bad to worse, and the chances or war
are high," he said.
When Vajpayee joined the inaugural run of a bus service from
New Delhi to Lahore on Feb. 20, 1999, he became the first Indian
prime minister in a decade to visit Pakistan.
The emotion and hope generated by the arrival of a humble bus
was staggering: millions on both sides watched Vajpayee's
bunting-and-brass-band welcome live on television.
The next day, he and the then Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz
Sharif, signed the most substantive accord between the two
countries for 30 years, agreeing on confidence-building measures
to cool tension and reduce the risk of a nuclear war.
The euphoria was short-lived.
By May, hundreds of heavily armed intruders were holed up on
strategic Himalayan heights in Kargil on the Indian side of the
Line of Control, the ceasefire line dividing Kashmir.
The bloody battle which raged for the next 10 weeks took India
and Pakistan to the brink of their fourth full-scale war since
independence from Britain in 1947.
Coming so soon after the Lahore Declaration, the Kargil
intrusion generated a deep sense of betrayal in Indian public and
official circles, and the peace process stopped in its tracks.
These days Vajpayee sounds no conciliatory notes.
He says talks with army Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized
power from Sharif four months ago, cannot resume until Pakistan
stops sponsoring militancy in India's Jammu and Kashmir state.
A senior Indian security official told Reuters this month that
the number of militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir had more
than doubled to 5,000 since the Kargil clash last year.
There has been a rash of attacks on security camps in the
state this winter, a season when heavy snows normally bring a
slow down in the now-decade-old separatist violence in India's
only Moslem-majority state.
Pakistan says it only provides moral and diplomatic support to
the struggle for self-determination by the people of Jammu and
Kashmir, where popular frustration over poverty, corruption and
the failure to deliver on a promise of autonomy is on the rise.
Vajpayee has also said that Pakistan must be willing to
discuss the return of the one-third of Kashmir under its control.
Although no departure from policy, his public reiteration of the
territorial claim marked a hardening of the Indian stand.
"Public opinion in both India and Pakistan make it very
difficult for either government to move on the issue," said
Alexander Evans, a research associate of the Center for Defense
Studies at King's College, London.
"Because the positions have been fixed over such a long period
of time and because they are publicly stated I think it is very
difficult for Indian or Pakistani policy-makers to be innovative
in how they deal with the issue."
Evans saw little room in the next two years for peace.
He said that confidence-building measures -- perhaps to reduce
tension on the Line of Control or improve communication between
the two armies -- were a possibility, but such steps have always
fallen by the wayside at the first rise in tension.
And while there may be no new Kargil-like clash, Evans argued,
there is a risk that India could consider crossing the Line of
Control to choke the flow of militants.
Diplomats say a clash on the border last week in which at
least four Indian soldiers were killed demonstrated that the
Indian army is doing more than repulsing attacks already.
New Delhi has sought international condemnation of Pakistan as
a "terrorist state" which harbors militant Kashmiri separatist
groups such as the one believed responsible for the hijacking of
an Indian Airlines plane in December.
But analysts said this in itself carries the risk of
strengthening forces in Pakistan most inimical to India.
The United States has made it clear that it sees engagement as
a safer policy than isolation. Clinton has not ruled out a brief
stop in Pakistan on his way back from India, perhaps with the
hope of prodding both sides into resuming dialogue.
"The bus trip was about a dialogue, and a dialogue moves ahead
with fits and starts," said Nasim Zehra, a prominent India-
Pakistan expert. "Yes, there was the hijacking of the bus over
the last one year... but we can get back on track."