It's Bullet For Bullet on Line of Control as India rejects UN role
India on Thursday rejected Pakistan’s demand for a UN probe into the LoC incident, saying it would be tantamount to internationalising the issue. The development came as reports from Islamabad suggested that a Pakistani soldier had been killed in firing by Indian troops across the Line of Control (LoC).
Same old trick again
Editorial
The Pioneer
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Pakistan demands third party probe, snubbed
Pakistan’s desperate efforts to bring in a ‘third party’ to resolve the January 8 incident, wherein its troops crossed into Indian territory and killed two Indian soldiers and mutilated their bodies, have rightly come a cropper. Its demand for an investigation by the United Nations Military Observer Group for India and Pakistan has been entirely ignored by the international community including the US, which has instead called for a bilateral solution. In fact, even the UNMOGIP has cold-shouldered Pakistan, preferring to focus instead on talks between the two warring Armies. As for India, its response is possibly best exemplified in National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon’s reply to journalists when he was quizzed about the UN agency’s potential as a mediator. Mr Menon said: “UNMOGIP still exists? I thought they did not have a role.”
There are three reasons why Pakistan wants India to invite an international mediator. First, it wants to buy time and nothing serves the purpose better than announcing an investigation by an international agency. It will take weeks, if not months, before the agency can bring out its report, and in the meantime Pakistan will have ample opportunity to brush the episode under the carpet. Second, Pakistan wants to look above board by claiming that it has nothing to hide and is open to international scrutiny. A smart move, no doubt, but it has fallen flat on its face because the world sees through Pakistan’s doublespeak. This is perhaps one of the most important reasons why even the Obama Administration has refused to involve itself in the dispute. Interestingly, this is the same Administration that had once toyed with the idea of appointing a special envoy to Kashmir. Of course, when Special Representative Richard Holbrooke’s mandate was finally announced in early 2009, it did not include Kashmir — it was limited to Pakistan and Afghanistan — but that was the result of effective lobbying by India. The third reason is that Pakistan wants to internationalise the current border fracas in the hope that this would serve as a diving board for that country’s leaders to then invite third-party intervention in the affairs of Kashmir as well. Because Islamabad realises that it cannot take on India unilaterally, it is seeking to muddy the waters by calling for third-party solutions. It has been persisting with the technique despite knowing well that India has consistently refused foreign interference in the Kashmir dispute and rightly asserted over time that the matter needs a bilateral resolution. This is one of the primary reasons why it has not given cognisance to the UNMOGIP for the past four decades.
Islamabad must understand that such deviatory tactics are not going to work. In the case at hand, it would have done much better to punish its errant soldiers who had mutilated the bodies of two Indian jawans at the Line of Control, and express regret. But Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has straightaway denied the role of Pakistani soldiers in the brutal killing, while that country’s Army has actually dismissed the matter as Indian propaganda. With Pakistan in denial — as it has always been over many recent instances — where is the scope for a peaceful resolution that Pakistani leaders keep mouthing ad nauseam?
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