Posted on 05/26/2002 3:21:22 PM PDT by lyonesse
WASHINGTON: Pakistan's military dictator Pervez Musharraf has claimed that terrorist infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir has already stopped, and aggressively demanded that India respond by withdrawing its forces from the cities and towns of the state and initiating talks.
In a remarkable show of chutzpah after being universally pressured to stand down on the issue of using terrorism as a policy, Musharraf, in an interview to The Washington Post in Islamabad, demanded reciprocal moves from India even before it could be established that Pakistan has conformed to world demand.
"There is nothing happening on the Line of Control,” Musharraf was quoted as telling the Post four times in course of the interview. "I repeat: There is nothing happening on the Line of Control. That is what I would like to repeat. And I would like to repeat again: Reciprocation is important."
Musharraf then brazenly set conditions for backing down, telling the paper he would not consider "de-escalation alone" by India along the border an adequate response, and demanding in addition "initiation of [a] dialogue process [and] reduction of atrocities within Kashmir."
"And when I say that, on defining it, it really means that as a first step, the [Indian] military should leave the towns and cities of Kashmir and be in the outskirts," he said.
The interview was conducted by the Post’s Managing Editor Steve Coll, who served as the paper’s New Delhi-based South Asia correspondent in the 1990s.
The interview baffled South Asia hands, as Musharraf sought to thread the line between showing the world that he was responding to the general condemnation of Pakistan’s use of terrorism, while at the same time flexing his muscles at the audience in South Asia, especially his domestic fundamentalist constituency that would construe as a weakness any backing down on Kashmir.
The General did not exactly say whether the infiltration had already stopped or he was in the process of ordering it to be halted. At one point in the interview, he says, "We will ensure that terrorism does not go from Pakistan anywhere outside into the world… That is our stand, and we adhere to it."
Coll says Musharraf demurred when asked to describe concrete steps he had taken that would reassure outside observers about this claim. Asked if the absence of militant infiltrations he described had been achieved through specific decisions made in the last week or two, he again says, “There is nothing happening on the Line of Control.”
Although he is ambiguous and evasive in his replies, Coll writes that Musharraf appeared to be signaling the West and India that he was prepared to be held accountable on the issue of cross-border attacks in Kashmir, “although his precisely chosen, repetitive invocations made it difficult to be certain.”
The General’s dissembling, which Indian officials say they are familiar with since the time he lied about Kargil, came amid continuous pressure from the United States to reverse Pakistan’s policy of using terrorism to force the Kashmir issue on to the table.
Bush and his National Security team, have finally stepped over the Pakistan groupies in the State Department, to tighten the screws on Musharraf.
In addition to asking Musharraf to halt the infiltrations into India on Saturday, Bush has also expressed deep disappointment over Pakistan's provocative missile tests.
But evidently worried about being seen as succumbing to pressure, especially from India, Musharraf is also full of military swagger in the interview, telling the paper that his army is capable of “offensive defense” in the event of an Indian attack. “These words are very important… We'll take the offensive into Indian territory,” he said.
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