Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=05/29/02

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

TITLE=INDIA / PAKISTAN / KASHMIR FEUD

NUMBER=6-125690

BYLINE=JOHN GUCHEMAND

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: The disputed territory of the province of predominantly Muslim Jammu and Kashmir has been the source of two wars between India and Pakistan during the past forty years.

With Indian and Pakistani troops facing each other over Jammu and Kashmir's disputed borders, the threat of conventional or even nuclear war is moving to the top of many U-S newspaper editorial columns. Now, here is _______________ with a summary of editorial comment from the U-S press on the situation in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: While international pressure on Pakistan to avoid a military conflict with India continues, The Baltimore Sun writes that India is the country that should take the first step toward peace. The Sun points out that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is not in a position to step down because of a likely toppling and dispersion of his power to radicals.

VOICE: As it is, it's difficult to see how he (Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf) could publicly give in to Indian demands without threatening his hold on power and if the Pakistani security services, which oversaw the rise of the Taleban were to toss him out, it would be a disaster for the United States.

India has chosen to focus on Mr. Musharraf's harshest words. Common sense suggests that it should reverse course and make a dramatic show of taking the first step toward peace. That would ease the pressure on the Pakistani President and perhaps allow him to do the right thing. And that would be the first genuine good news from the region in a long time.

TEXT: Adorned with a photo of a Pakistani missile blasting off, this editorial in today's Los Angeles Times finds value in Russia's role in keeping the peace.

VOICE: The leaders of India and Pakistan should take advantage of Russian President Vladimir . Putin's suggestion that they hold an informal side meeting next week at an Asian regional conference in Kazakhstan. Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is happy to see [Mr.] Putin, President Bush and leaders of NATO countries pressuring Pakistan to stop terrorists crossing into Kashmir. But he also should be willing to talk with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf without demanding that Pakistan first stop abetting terrorism.

TEXT: From the Los Angeles times to Cleveland's [Ohio] Plain Dealer, which is also worried.

VOICE: India has remained relatively calm during the latest buildup, (of Kashmiri militants) even in the face of some recklessly provocative Pakistani missile tests. But India's leaders also face intense pressure to extract some retribution for attacks at Jammu and on the parliament in New Delhi last fall. "We are not at the brink of war," an Indian defense official said yesterday. But, he admitted, they are not far from it, either.

TEXT: In Texas, The Austin American-Statesman says the "entire world has "a stake in [the] India-Pakistan conflict" and notes that estimates of deaths in a nuclear war are "as many as 12-million people." While in today's New York Times we read: "

VOICE: At a time when the world is pleading for statesmanship, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of India and General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan have irresponsibly escalated threats of war. . The focal point of the . conflict is the future status of Kashmir, India's only Muslim-dominated state, where a guerrilla insurgency has periodically flared since the late 1980's.

TEXT: Today's Memphis [Tennessee] Commercial Appeal ponders the situation's nuclear complexities.

VOICE: Nuclear weapons have their drawbacks: They are expensive to build and maintain. Since they have been used only twice, almost 57 years ago, their strategic and tactical utility is a question mark. And today, under most circumstances, any nation that first used a nuclear weapon would become an international pariah.

TEXT: Finally, The Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle writes that the war between India and Pakistan is not just another war, but a religious war; one which threatens to turn nuclear in spite of the fact that nuclear war is deadly not only for India and Pakistan, but for the whole world.

VOICE: If the Kashmir dispute was in the hands of ordinary military and civilian leaders, Pakistan and India like the U-S and Soviet Union during the Cold War would realize both could lose everything if one attacked the other with nuclear weapons.

But the Kashmir crisis is now taking on aspects of a holy war especially among Pakistan's militant Muslims. They know that in a conventional battle of armies, India would win. So, Musharaff, to appease the militant Muslims, many of whom are in his army, makes thinly veiled nuclear threats against India.

TEXT: With those comments from Georgia's Augusta Chronicle, we conclude our editorial sampling on the current standoff between India and Pakistan.

NEB/JEG/RH