Pakistan leader attacks Indian 'tyranny'

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 05/28/2002 | Ahmed Rashid and Toby Helm

[Pokey78]

President Musharraf of Pakistan blamed "Indian tyranny" last night for the crisis that has brought the two countries to the brink of war.

	Gen Musharraf said he was not seeking war with India

In a long-awaited state of the nation address that provoked a swift and hostile response from Delhi, Gen Musharraf said he was not seeking war with India, but insisted that the army would defend the country to its "last drop of blood".

Dismissing accusations that Pakistan was fuelling the 13-year insurgency in the disputed state of Kashmir, he said that Pakistan would always support the struggle of the mainly Muslim Kashmiri people against Indian rule.

While he said that Pakistan would not allow its territory to be used as a base for terrorism, he added: "I want to make one thing clear: liberation movement is going on in occupied Kashmir and Pakistan cannot be held responsible for any action against Indian tyranny and repression."

In comments that riled the Indian leadership, he urged the world to take note of the actions of "Hindu extremists and terrorists" who were perpetrating terrorism against Muslims, Christians and Sikhs in India.

In New Delhi, Omar Abdullah, the minister of state for external affairs, said: "I think it is obviously going to make us very angry - the stuff we had about Hindu terrorists and the rest of it. I have yet to hear of Hindu terrorists operating in Kashmir."

The general made his uncompromising statement hours before Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, arrived in the region for talks with the two nuclear powers.

Mr Straw, speaking before he left Berlin, said the conflict could degenerate into "a conventional and then nuclear conflict of a kind we have never seen before".

The loss of life and economic damage would be unimaginable, he said - "death, destruction, disease, economic collapse, affecting not just the immediate war theatre but many parts of the subcontinent and lasting for years".

On Kashmir, Mr Straw conceded that there was a limit to what he or any other foreign politician could do to influence what was essentially a "bilateral dispute".

"But the fact that we can't do everything does not mean we should not do anything," he said.

Gen Musharraf's speech seemed certain to make Mr Straw's mission more difficult. Its bullish tone will have done little to persuade India to end its troop build-up along the Pakistan border and it will pacify the international community only if he clamps down on Islamic militancy.

India and Pakistan have massed nearly a million men along their frontier since the attack on India's parliament in December, which Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based Kashmiri militants.

Tensions were reignited by an attack on the wives and children of Indian troops, which killed 33 people.

Gen Musharraf denied charges from Indian and world leaders, including George Bush, that his country was helping Kashmiri militants to cross from Pakistan into Indian Kashmir.

"I said in my January 12 speech that Pakistani soil will not be used for any terrorist activity and I repeat it again to the whole world," he said. "No infiltration is taking place from the Line of Control."

He accused India of creating war hysteria and of failing to react positively to his Jan 12 speech. He said it was constantly blaming Pakistan for every act of terrorism on its soil while Pakistan itself was facing terrorist attack.

"This aggressive naming and blaming coming from the Indian leadership is extremely irresponsible," he said. "It creates a situation of war hysteria and we do not accept it at all."

The world should recognise what he had achieved since the war on terrorism began, Gen Musharraf said.

It should do more to convince India to normalise relations with Pakistan and to recognise the struggle of the Kashmiris.

In an effort to win more support at home, Gen Musharraf announced that elections would be held between Oct 7 and 12 and held out an olive branch to politicians, the majority of whom want him out.

"I would like to assure all the politicians that in October democracy will come in practice in Pakistan," he said. "I promise that these elections will be fair and transparent."

Separatists in Indian-administered Kashmir welcomed Gen Musharraf's words of support.

Abbas Ansari, an executive member of Kashmir's main separatist alliance, the All Party Hurriyat Conference, urged India to give up "intransigence" and start a dialogue with Islamabad and the people of Kashmir to resolve the dispute over the Himalayan region.

"If the issue is resolved, there would be no problem at all between the two nuclear powers," he said.

[Fish out of Water]

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