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Kashmir : Moderates call for ending armed struggle

	January 22, 2007

The moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference, which is widely believed to be speaking Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s language, has called for ending the armed struggle to resolve the Kashmir issue. In a significant remark after talks with the Pakistan President and leaders of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said that jehad (armed struggle) has only created “more graveyards” and that it was time to give the dialogue process a chance.



The Mirwaiz was speaking at a dinner hosted by the socalled Prime Minister of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir Attique Khan. Earlier, the three-member Hurriyat delegation led by the Mirwaiz had a meeting with Gen. Pervez Musharraf.



The Mirwaiz said: “The dialogue process to resolve the Kashmir issue should be given a chance as efforts through military means have not achieved any results.” With the new strategy, the Hurriyat would convince India to arrive at a more agreeable settlement, he said.



Observing that peaceful negotiations were the only way out, the Mirwaiz criticised the hardline Hurriyat faction led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, which is opposed to the dialogue process. “Some people involved in the struggle could still have some reservations but as far as the All Parties Hurriyat Conference was concerned, we are not prepared to sacrifice any more of our loved ones,” he said.



“We have already seen the results of our fight on the political, diplomatic and military fronts which have not achieved anything other than creating more graveyards,” he said on Jan. 19.



The Mirwaiz, who also met PoK President Raja Zulqarnain Haider, said, it was time for the militant groups to consider giving up the violent movement in Kashmir.



He said “it was crystal clear that there could be no military solution and the only feasible way for durable peace in the region was to bolster the peace process. Any military conflict will be disastrous for the region as both Pakistan and India were nuclear powers and the focus should therefore be on the dialogue process.”



The Mirwaiz said Pakistan and India should extend full support to the intra-Kashmir dialogue as it can bring the people on both sides of Kashmir closer to each other.



Haider said, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s four-point formula can pave the way for a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir problem and India should reciprocate positively.



At a meeting with the Hurriyat delegation, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said, “his country is putting in serious efforts to reach a peaceful solution to the Kashmir dispute in order to promote peace and prosperity in South Asia.” He supported the direction of the moderates, but said that elements that were trying to create confusion about Pakistan’s stand should be discouraged, a reference apparently to hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.



Earlier, the Hurriyat leaders, who were in New Delhi from Monday to Wednesday, on their way to Islamabad, were unable to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for which they had put in a request. The group was keen to meet the Prime Minister before its Pakistan visit, but did not succeed in its effort. Observers say that the Government felt that it would be better to put off the meeting with the Hurriyat till its return from Pakistan. A senior official said, “We are willing to talk to any one who can help find a solution to Kashmir and this includes the Hurriyat. There has to be something concrete to discuss.” Obviously, the Government does not want to lend weight to the Hurriyat posturing of being a mediator between India and Pakistan.



Observers say that India is approaching the Kashmir issue on two fronts - dialogue with Pakistan and finding a consensus among political parties in Jammu and Kashmir. Both processes need time to reach a conclusion and rushing to a meeting just for the sake of it, is not going to achieve much.



Within the state, political parties have been pushing for a dialogue with as many groups as possible, not necessarily confined to the moderate Hurriyat leadership led by the Mirwaiz, who visited northern Ireland as part of a Europe tour to study various models of self-governance.



The Congress, which heads the ruling coalition in Jammu and Kashmir, says that the talks should be seen as part of a strategy that revolves around the India-Pakistan talks and the ongoing dialogue between political parties in the state.



The National Conference is of the view that the Centre should speak to separatist groups, including both Hurriyat factions and Yasin Malik, if it wants to strengthen the importance of the round-table dialogue on Kashmir. But the moderate Hurriyat faction’s absence from the talks should not take away from the dialogue that is already on, the party maintains.



In another signal that hardline elements are not happy with the stance of the Hurriyat chief, there was a grenade attack on the heavily guarded house of the Mirwaiz in Srinagar on Jan. 15, but no one was hurt in the incident. The Mirwaiz said after the attack that he would not be cowed down by such tactics. He said, “the policy of coercion and intimidation is not going to hold us back from finding a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue.”



The hardline faction of the Hurriyat gave a call for a general strike in the Kashmir valley against the visit of moderate leaders to Pakistan. Normal life was affected across the valley on Jan. 17 because of the strike. The moderate faction claimed that there was a total rejection of the general strike call.





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People indifferent to separatists



Observers say that common people in the Kashmir valley are fed up with the infighting and mudslinging approach of the separatist groups in the state. There has been a proliferation in the number of separatist groups with not much following. There is hardly any group without factions and with each faction claiming to be the real one.



Prior to September 2003, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), than an amalgam of 23 political, religious and social groups, was the postal address of the separatist movement with its headquarters in posh Rajbagh locality. But a split on covert participation of one of the constituent groups in the 2002 Assembly elections spelt doom for the amalgam. It broke into two groups, each adopting a distinct line vis-a-vis settlement of the Kashmir issue and the dialogue process with India and Pakistan. A host of groups, however, chose to remain equidistant from both factions, struggling to establish their own identity and role.



On Jan. 17, the Valley observed a shut down following a call from Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who leads the hardline faction of the amalgam. This was the first time in separatist history of Kashmir that a secessionist group called a strike against another group. Whatever the reasons for the response to the strike call, it communicated to the people that the separatist camp was in total disarray.



A prominent Urdu newspaper published a cartoon on its front page depicting an ordinary Kashmiri reading a newspaper with photographs of two rival Hurriyat Conference leaders on opposite sides. He does not look at them saying in Kashmiri, “one is going this way, another going that way, why should I pay heed to them.”



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Cross-border firing by Pakistan Rangers



While Pakistan has been talking of finding ‘out-of-the-box’ solutions to the Kashmir issue, there are signals on the ground that it is reverting to its old policy of encouraging infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistani rangers fired at Border Security Force troops guarding the Akhnoor sector on Wednesday, Jan. 17, apparently in a bid to provide cover to a group of infiltrators trying to cross the border. The Foreign Office spokesperson said on Thursday, Jan. 18, “We have taken up the matter with Pakistan and expressed concern.” Two BSF jawans were injured in the incident.







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Pakistan lobbying to overturn EU report on PoK



Pakistani embassies in major countries, especially in Europe, have launched an all out campaign to water down the European Union Foreign Affairs Committee Study Report that brings out the shameful state of affairs in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. The report presented by rapporteur Baroness Emma Nicholson says that Pakistan has failed in terms of law enforcement, promotion of literacy and health care and the rule of democracy in the part of Kashmir occupied by it. The ten-page report says Pakistan has consistently failed to fulfil its obligations to introduce meaningful and representative democratic structures in PoK. Also, there is an absence of Kashmiri representation in the Pakistan National Assembly. Pakistani and Kashmiri separatist leaders have met the Baroness, the latest one on the list being Shabir Choudhary, senior leader of the London-based Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. “Kashmir is not a territorial dispute....between India and Pakistan,” said Choudhry, adding that it was “in essence ..about the rights and identity of the people of Jammu and Kashmir who wanted to determine their future.”



Pakistan, rettled by the report, has embarked on a “massive damage-control exercise” in Britain and other European countries. Fearing censure by the European Union, Pakistan’s ISI has also been working to get it diluted and has roped in the services of Kashmiri separatists for this.



While there were reports suggesting that hundreds of amendments had been suggested to the mere 10-page report, the sources said ISI had roped in the Islamabad-based Institute of Strategic Studies (ISS) to prepare a draft and give directions to the Kashmiri separatists on the same lines.



Indian diplomats in Europe pointed out that Pakistani embassies in major countries were lobbying to seek amendments to the report, but New Delhi is banking on the first-hand observations of the EU team that was given unfettered access to all parts of militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir.



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Opposition Bill passed



In a setback for the Congress-led government in Jammu and Kashmir, the People’s Democratic Party, a constituent of the ruling coalition allied with the Opposition to get a National Conference sponsored Bill passed in the State Assembly on Jan. 16. At the prompting of senior PDP leader Muzaffar Hussein Beg, all PDP MLAs, but one, voted for the Bill which proposes a stiffer sentence and higher fines for revenue officials guilty of issuing fake permanent resident certificates to people who are not natives of Jammu and Kashmir. The Bill proposes that the guilty officials should be sentenced to two years imprisonment and fined Rs. 2 lakhs in place of the existing fine of Rs. 50,000.



Chief Minister Azad was not present in the House when the Bill was taken up. The Bill’s passage is an embarrassment for the Government as it showed that even PDP Ministers do not support the Government on crucial issues.