Despite Clear Shift In U.S.-UK Policy, Jack Sraw Returns Empty-Handed

By Md. Zeyaul Haque, IOL South Asia Bureau

NEW DELHI, July 21 (IslamOnline) - UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw returned home after his failure to convince India to de-escalate in return for Pakistani action on what it calls "cross-border terrorism", as promised earlier.

Both U.S. and UK have confirmed that the level of infiltration from Pakistan-administered areas into the Indian-administered Kashmir has "considerably come down" but India is insisting that for any dialogue to start, infiltration will have to cease completely.

It seems Pakistan too is not happy with the weak leverage UK and U.S. have on New Delhi. Straw was given lukewarm welcome in both Delhi and Islambad, where both Vajpayee and Musharraf avoided seeing him this time round.

Lately, there has been some clear shift in U.S. policy. But America's give-some take-some policy has not pleased the Indian establishment. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca's submission Friday, July 19, before the House International Relations Subcommittee that the U.S. does not support Pakistan's persistent demand for a plebiscite in Kashmir was music to Indian ears.

The new U.S. position is particularly pleasant to India because so far the U.S. has been backing an early UN resolution for a plebiscite in Kashmir. India, over the decades, backed away from the plebiscite commitment because Pakistan never fulfilled a primary requirement of the UN resolution -- withdrawal from J&K areas it captured in 1947 and calls Free Kashmir (to Indians, Pak-Occupied Kashmir). Later, Pakistan parceled off some of the territory to China following a border agreement.

Rocca's assertion that the U.S. favors the bilateral format for resolving all disputes between the two countries, as stipulated in the Simla Agreement signed by India's then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her Pakistani counterpart Zulfiaar Ali Bhutto in 1972, is very much in tune with India's stand, which insists on a bilateral format.

However, it does not suit Pakistan, although it was signatory to the agreement. Pakistan feels that some nudging from an outside power, preferably the United States, would get India to the negotiating table.

Despite the favorable turn in the U.S. stance, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), leading the coalition government at Center, expressed disappointment with the United States for what it called refusal to declare Pakistan a "terrorist state".

Earlier in the week, the hawkish Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani had told Parliament that Pakistan would have curbed terrorism if only the U.S. had threatened to declare it a terrorist state.

For quite some time now, BJP has been hoping that the U.S. would declare Pakistan a terrorist state. The hope grew in the wake of September 11 attacks, only to be rudely dashed with Pakistan's co-option by the U.S. as a frontline ally in its campaign against militant Islam.

BJP leaders objected to the U.S. stance, saying Pakistan could never be an ally in the global campaign against terrorism, because it was "part of the problem."

BJP is incensed over the U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher's statement on Wednesday, July 17, that "Pakistan is a very stalwart ally in the fight against terrorism."

Boucher stated that infiltration of militants across the Line of Control (LoC) was down since President Pervez Musharraf pledged to curb it. However, more action had to be taken to completely stop it.

India believes that Musharraf has of late gone back on his word. Pakistan has proposed deployment of international monitors at the LoC to monitor violation of the pledge. India does not favor this arrangement and wants Pakistan to take the onus.

The Pakistani reply is that if India's 700,000 troops amassed on the LoC are not able to stop infiltration, it is not realistic for Pakistan to do that with smaller number of personnel.

BJP spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said in New Delhi Friday, July 19, that the United States had two different yardsticks for Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Afghanistan, the U.S. was fighting Taliban and Al Qaeda, but it turned a blind eye to Pak-inspired terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan calls it an "indigenous" freedom movement.

BJP's disappointment is understandable. In the wake of September 11 it had seen its dream of Islam and Muslims crushed worldwide coming true as a result of the global anti-terror campaign.

BJP's sister organizations like Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had openly been talking about an imminent Muslim-Christian Armageddon. "We would be on Christian side," declared Ashok Singhal of VHP.

Now that no such thing is happening, a certain amount of disappointment is visible. VHP's stance is contradictory in an important way -- it has declared support to a future Christian war against Muslims worldwide, yet it has been viciously attacking Christians at home. Indian Christian religious bodies have frequently accused it of murder of Christian priests, rape of nuns and arson attacks on churches.

BJP has been unhappy with both the United States and Britain for the same reasons -- not declaring Pakistan a pariah state. India expressed its concern over continuing infiltration of militants from across the LoC to the visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who arrived here Friday, July 19. It was Straw’s third visit to the Sub-continent in the last six months.

From here he went to Pakistan. The area has been frequently visited by high American officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfield, in a bid to prevent India and Pakistan from coming to blows.

The Pakistani side has complained that they had been sincerely fighting terrorism and trying their best to stop infiltration across the LoC, but the U.S. and British assurance of getting India to the negotiating table has not been fulfilled.