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Musharraf's
Hard line
What
others
say..........
One can see several reasons why
Musharraf has started talking tough on Kashmir. And his audience is
as important as the message. He has been talking to officers and
ranks of an army unit in Quetta. The Pakistan President has been
watching with a certain degree of unease when his foreign secretary
talked to his Indian opposite number in tones of peace and the need
for addressing other issues too before the two countries take up
Kashmir.
In the first week of this month, the Pak foreign minister talked to
Natwar Singh, emphasising the necessity of continuing the dialogue,
without losing sight of the central issue of Kashmir. Not exactly a
flip-flop style. He has agreed on the urgency of evolving
confidence-building measures, leading to a fruitful assault on the
summit issue of Kashmir. On both occasions, indications have been
that talks will continue and there is no other way in which modern
nations do business with each other, however complicated the
situation may be.
Now, Musharraf, the strong man in Islamabad, fears that his foreign
minister and the foreign secretary might have given the impression
that Pakistan is softening. And a reasonable solution depends on
give-and-take on the part of both the countries. A former US state
department official saw a ray of hope in the tone and temper of
Indo-Pakistan negotiations and he hoped that the line of control may
become an acceptable boundary. None from either country has
commented on the suggestion. Now Musharraf has seen some danger if
the talks are allowed to go on along this reasonable path.
The international community has got the impression, the general
fears, that Pakistan has come to realise the importance of solving
small but relevant issues between the two countries before taking up
Kashmir. Now Musharraf has asserted that Pakistan would never give
up Kashmir because it fought two or three wars for snatching away
Kashmir. The immediate provocation for Musharraf is that in a month
or two he will have to get out of his uniform if he wishes to
continue as the President of the country. Musharraf will never let
go his uniform which alone entitles him to power. He could plot
against India in Kargil because he was the army chief. If he is not
the army chief, his power base will crumble.
Since there is so much discontent among the middle level officers
and in the top echelons, Musharraf has no clue about what is in
store for him. This humongous wave of discontent in the army has
been the cause of the two attacks on his life. In both cases, army
men are involved. While Musharraf is all for fighting militancy, he
is rather subdued when it comes to infiltration by jehadis into
Kashmir. Then it becomes a question of the future of Kashmiris.
He has no hesitation in bringing in long-standing political disputes
and their solution with the help of the international community
before terrorism can be eliminated. Which is a comment on the US
attitude to Iraq and Palestine in particular and other trouble spots
like Chechnya and Afghanistan in general. Musharraf thinks that he
has done everything to control infiltration, though the US deputy
secretary of state recently said that more needed to be done which
was not appreciated by President Bush and his Iraq warriors. Perhaps
Musharraf is finalising his agenda for talks with Manmohan Singh at
the UN.
{The Free Press Journal}
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