Unjustified scare on Kashmir stand

THE President’s interview telecast by NDTV the other day regarding Pakistan’s legal position on the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir is being misinterpreted by some elements who claim that General Musharraf s observations indicated a possible shift in our position on the issue The President simply stated that Pakistan never claimed the disputed state as an integral part of Pakistan. Islamabad remains committed to UN Security Council’s resolution and continues to consider the state as disputed The people of Jammu and Kashmir have yet to be granted an opportunity to decide through a UN-supervised plebiscite as to whether they wish to join Pakistan or India. On the contrary, New Delhi unjustifiably maintains that the state was an inseparable part of India and that Kashmiris’ future had been decided by the questionable accession treaty signed by the then Ruler of the state in 1947 with the Government of India.
The two South Asian neighbours who are now nuclear armed had gone to war earlier on three occasions on the issue. Subsequent developments have obliged Islamabad and Pakistan to resolve the issue through dialogue which continues to move at a slow pace. Several proposals have been advanced to help settle the issue. The Indian Army despite its relentless efforts and use of brute force has failed to win over the hearts of the Kashmiris. There is now a growing feeling that the Kashmir is wish to be left to themselves. Their genuine leadership however supports any move that could result in their liberation from Indian military rule. Over one hundred thousand Kashmiri fighters who have been resisting Indian occupation have since been martyred. Thousands others have disappeared. Indian Army’s atrocities have however not dampened the spirit of Kashmiri people.
President Pervez Musharraf has been taking bold initiatives to facilitate a diplomatic resolution. Without prejudice to Pakistan’s legal and principled stand on the dispute, he has made a number of proposals and floated various ideas to address the problem. New Delhi has so far shown no flexibility. However, rigidity never pays and in the changed world the two countries can not afford to resort to use of force or to impose their will on the other party. A negotiated solution of the dispute is the only option. The major powers as also all peace-loving nations know it for sure that the simmering dispute could escalate into a nuclear conflagration. The world has to avoid this.
Having failed to make any tangible progress in negotiations over Kashmir, the parties need to have outside help to facilitate peaceful settlement of the issue. The US-the sole super power- continues to press the two countries to move forward on the issue. Chinese President Hu Jintao who recently visited South Asia has offered his services for settlement of the issue. The two countries have reached a stage where third party mediation appears the only way out.

Pinochet

The communist Chilean administration of Salvador Allende was an early example of a democratically elected government in which Washington ignored the popular choice because it did not suit its purposes. For three years, the then Nixon White House authorized the CIA to spend tens of millions of dollars stirring up discontent, sabotaging the economy and generally undermining Allende. On Sept.11, 1973, the Allende government was overthrown in a military coup. Thereafter tens of thousands of Chileans were imprisoned for leftist sympathies. More than 3,000 of them were executed, some without trial. A significant number simply disappeared, snatched by the police or military, tortured and then murdered.
The man who led that coup, Augusto Pinochet, died this week aged 91. His passing was the cause for wild celebrations among leftists in the streets of Santiago, the Chilean capital. A far smaller number of the dead dictator’s supporters wept openly. Today the general who ruled Chile with an iron fist will be accorded a military funeral, in recognition of the fact that before he overthrew the government, he was his country’s top military commander. What Pinochet did, with US connivance, must now be judged by historians since the man himself twice escaped a verdict by a court of law. An attempt in 1998 by the Spanish to extradite him from the UK, where he had been arrested while having medical treatment, failed. After 17 months, the Blair government decided Pinochet was too ill to be tried. Back in Chile, the immunity from prosecution he had given himself upon relinquishing power was revoked. Thus began a long period of attempts to try him for crimes committed during his rule. Clever lawyers and his own increasing infirmity meant that no trial was ever completed.
Liberals now say that the man should have been prosecuted far earlier and that he should never have escaped justice. They are wrong. What Pinochet and the Chilean military did was inexcusable. His supporters cannot justify his rule because of its rapid economic recovery and growth. But, in October 1988, Pinochet held free elections which he thought he would win. Nearly 55 percent of voters rejected him. He could have ignored the result and carried on, as many in the military urged him. But two years later, he quit the presidency making himself a senator for life.
His immediate successors, Patricio Aylwin and Eduardo Frei, both freely elected, moved carefully to curb the power of the military. Precipitate action against Pinochet would very probably have sparked a new coup. However strong the moral case of liberals, politics is always the art of the possible. In the end, it actually does not matter that this once brutal leader, shrunk into his dotage, was not prosecuted. Enough is known about the depravities of the military’s rule. A successful trial would only have encouraged extremists on both sides. During and after 15 years of military dictatorship, Chile has learned bitter and bloody lessons about consensus and compromise. And ironically it was the ruthless Pinochet who was the country’s teacher.

—Arab News