DATE=10/25/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=KASHMIR IMPASSE
NUMBER=5-44608
BYLINE=NINIE SYARIKIN
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
INTERNET=YES
CONTENT=
NOT VOICED
INTRO: There is no end in sight to the long and bloody
dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. That
is the conclusion of experts who attended a VOA
symposium in Washington last week. We have a report
from Ninie Syarikin.
TEXT: The two neighbors went to war twice over
Kashmir, once in 1948 and again in 1965. With the
emergence of both India and Pakistan as nuclear
powers, and their fresh military conflict from May to
July, the potential for disastrous war in an area of
more than one billion people is cause for global
concern.
A former professor of history at Columbia University
in New York, Ainslie Embree [male], says India and
Pakistan have different objectives in Kashmir.
/// EMBREE ACT ///
Pakistan has never claimed Kashmir and Jammu;
India does, of course. So, one has to begin by
recognizing that the two countries are looking
at a very different kind of problem. What is
Pakistan's claim of involvement? Not that it
claims territory, but it claims the rights to
intervene on behalf of what they regard as
oppressed people.
/// END ACT ///
Professor Embree believes it is very unlikely that the
United Nations will be able to make any contribution
to a settlement, or that third-party negotiation could
work. He says Pakistan would welcome more involvement
from the United Nations and the United States, but
India would not.
Professor Embree says leaders of India and Pakistan
should engage in a dialogue without preconceptions and
listen to what the Kashmiris are saying.
A senior researcher with the Asia Division of Human
Rights Watch, Patricia Gossman, says the Indian
approach to Kashmir remains brutal and abusive, and on
the Pakistan side journalists dare not write
anything that differs from government policy
Ms. Gossman says intimidation, assassination, and
violence in general in Kashmir have left the people
too weak to confront Indian government policy.
/// GOSSMAN ACT ///
One thing that I have always found most tragic
about being in Kashmir is isolation. Meeting
with activists, meeting with journalists there,
how cut off they have always felt, not only from
the rest of their international colleagues, but
even in India, from any support from any groups
that should be advocates for change, should be
advocates for human rights.
/// END ACT ///
Ms. Gossman says the international community must keep
up the pressure on both India and Pakistan to
reconcile their differences, because there will be no
peace in Kashmir as long as they are at odds.
One U-S group exploring solutions to the conflict is
the Kashmir Study Group, co-founded by Farooq Kathwari
[pron: farook kathwaree], a Kashmiri-American.
/// KATHWARI ACT ///
Kashmir should not hold one billion people of
India and Pakistan hostage; nor should people of
Jammu and Kashmir be held hostage due to the
lack of courage and wisdom of the leadership in
India and Pakistan. The south Asia region needs
to move on to improve the welfare of its people.
They can only do so by creating an environment
of regional peace and cooperation.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Kathwari believes the issue of Kashmir is
solvable, if India and Pakistan take the initiative to
normalize their bilateral ties and address the
sufferings and aspirations of the five million people
of Kashmir. He thinks the timing for resolution of
the conflict is better now than it has been.
The director of the South Asia Program at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in
Washington is Teresita Schaffer, a former U-S
Ambassador to Sri Linka. She says India and Pakistan
have three unsettled agendas: border issues;
normalization issues such as visas, cultural
relations, and trade; and risk reduction to avoid a
nuclear conflict.
Ms. Schaffer says the latter issue is the most urgent.
/// SCHAFFER ACT ///
The United States, in looking at the Kashmir
problem, has for the past 17 years, basically
opted for managing the problem rather than
trying to solve it. There are good reasons for
that, what the obstacles are to a real
settlement. They are very real and they are very
powerful. Especially under present circumstances
-- with nuclear weapons on both sides -- the
most important goal is simply to ensure that the
war doesn't break out.
/// END ACT ///
Ms. Schaffer says it is unrealistic for the world to
expect to solve the Kashmir problem, but perhaps it
can, with effort, manage it. (Signed)
NEB/NGS/GM/KL
25-Oct-1999 13:12 PM EDT (25-Oct-1999 1712 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
