By: Dr.Ghulam Nabi Fai, Executive Director, and Kashmiri American Council
When President elect Bill Clinton takes office on Jan.20, 1993, a number of foreign policy issues will command his immediate attention: the U.S. humanitarian mission in Somalia, the dismantling of the Soviet nuclear arsenal in the C.1.S. And the ethnic warfare in the former Yugoslavia.
One issue is not yet on the President-elect’s “radar scope.” But it will pose as great a challenge to the incoming Administration as any of the above. It is the crisis in Kashmir.
Just as the armed conflict in Yugoslavia threatens the stability of the Eastern European nations and the greater Balkan region, the crisis in Kashmir affects the stability of the entire Indian subcontinent.
And, just as the task of disarmament in the former Soviet Union has implications for regional and global stability, the continued hostilities between India and Pakistan over Kashmir pose a nuclear threat not only to the Indo Pakistani region, but indeed to the world.
History of Conflicted United Nations considers Kashmir to be a “disputed territory.” Located in a famed Valley between India and Pakistan, the region was temporally divided between the two newborn countries following the end of colonial rule and British withdrawal. In 1948, and again in 1949, the United Nations examined the region’s status and passed two resolutions: Kashmir’s final Status was to be determined by national plebiscite, in a position supported both by India and Pakistan as well as by the United States. That promise was never fulfilled: Calling Kashmir an “integral part™ of its territory, India summarily and illegally annexed that portion of the region then under its control. Pakistan continued to hold its portion “in trust.” The status of “disputed territory” is still maintained today by the United Nations for Kashmir.
Kashmir has since been the cause of two wars between India and Pakistan. As a result of this dispute, the two regional powers have accumulated massive weaponry to stare each other down a long a U.N. demarcated ceasefire line. According to intelligence sources, both sides are working towards the buildup of nuclear arsenals.
The cost of this standoff for India and Pakistan can be calculated in the amount of resources diverted from two impoverished populations dedicated to maintaining military superiority over the other.
The cost of the people of Kashmir, however, is incalculable. The Cost of an unfulfilled promise: When the Kashmiri people rose up to demand their right to self-determination as promised by successive United Nations resolutions, the Indian authorities responded with a campaign of terror. Over half a million troops were sent to Kashmir to “control” the population.
These authorities, sanctioned by the Government in New Delhi, resorted to extreme measures to “manage” the population: The raising of entire neighborhoods, the arrest. Torture and murder of any suspected Kashmiri male above the age of 13; the rape of women; a Virtual embargo on outside assistance including medicine and food supplies.
These accounts, which at times have been too horrific to imagine, much less describe, have been documented by many prominent human rights organizations (Amnesty International, Asia Watch, Freedom House and the Bureau of Human Rights of the United States Department of State). Many prominent news organizations, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Cable News Network and the Independent of London have filed detailed reports time and again.
In their forthcoming report for release in early 1993, Asia Watch and the Physicians for Human Rights detail increasing human rights violations committed by Indian Security personnel. They descended the firing on funeral processions and on unarmed crowds of demonstrations; the detention and torture of Kashmiri men and the subsequent denial of medical care for their wounds; the burning of entire villages. The report describes one horrifying case in which the Indian Authonty looked a man and a woman in their shop and set the building on fire burning the couple alive. A policy doomed to failure: The Bush Administration had no policy on Kashmir. Its efforts in the region were dedicated to encouraging five party conferences on nuclear nonproliferation. While this is an important policy goal, the efforts were doomed to failure. How could one talk of disarming India and Pakistan when the cause of the tensions the unsettled status of Kashmir was not up for discussion.
Reducing the threat of a nuclear exchange in South Asia is inexorably linked to resolving the status of Kashmir.
The other fundamental error of the Bush Administration policy was the exclusion of the Kashmiri people from any negotiations. Using the 1972 Simla Agreement as its guide, the Bush Administration held that India and Pakistan would determine what was best for the Kashmiri people. No one but the Kashmiri people can speak for Kashmiri interests.
How much blood must be spilled in Kashmir, or, for that matter, 1n Bosnia, in Somalia, before the Western world appreciates the power of ethnic and national identity? A real policy of crisis resolution: The Clinton Administration must pursue a Consist resolution policy in Kashmir. Time is not on our side. Every day more and more atrocities are being committed by the Indian security forces. Everyday a larger segment of the Kashmiri population becomes alienated, and everyday more Kashmiri youths tum to vi0lence as the means of achieving self-determination.
The Clinton Administration must make several fundamental changes in the United States policy towards Kashmir: 1) The United States must recognize that the status of Kashmir be an integral part of any regional dialogue one cannot deal with the nuclear proliferation question in South Asia without simultaneously addressing the question of regional conflict m Kashmir, 2) Any talks between India and Pakistan must also include legitimate representatives from Kashmir. The talks must be tripartite; 3) The United States must bring pressure to bear on India to stop its campaign of terror in Kashmir. U.S. foreign assistance and trade benefits should be directly linked to India’s performance on human rights; 4) the people of Kashmir must have the final say in their status. Their wishes, determined by a majority of the population through a free resolutions of 1948 & 1949, which called for the holding of a national plebiscite, must remain the guiding principles to any settlement; 6)Justas it has m the Middle East, the U.S. must work proactively to bring the parts of the dispute to the negotiating table.
Kashmiris have reason for hope. Last year, the current vice president-elect Albert Gore sponsored legislation Sires 91 which called on India to cease its atrocities in Kashmir and for all parts to seek a negotiated settlement to the dispute. His support for Kashmir in the Senate bodes well for the Clinton Gore Administration’s future policy toward the region.
While the humanitarian considerations for action in Kashmir are great, the geostrategic considerations are even more compelling. Kashmir’s strategic location makes it a “nuclear trip wire™ for South Asia a trip wire more unstable than the threat posed by the vast nuclear arsenal of the CLS.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 22, 1993
