“Unless they agree to cut Kashmir in half along the Line of Control,” he says, “they will fight for another 50 years.”Mr Vajpayee came through Kashmir last week on his way to address soldiers on the front line. He announced a huge package of financial assistance to the state  61bn rupees, more than [...]
“Unless they agree to cut Kashmir in half along the Line of Control,” he says, “they will fight for another 50 years.”Mr Vajpayee came through Kashmir last week on his way to address soldiers on the front line. He announced a huge package of financial assistance to the state  61bn rupees, more than £890m  but Kashmiris were not impressed. A strike to protest his visit called by separatist groups was very widely observed. Abdul Ghani Bhat, chairman of the separatist umbrella group All-party Hurriyat [Freedom] Conference, said “We are back at square one. When the Indian leaders refuse to recognise the realities on the ground, things are bound to go back to square one.” Mr Vajpayee has floated several initiatives to kick-start a peace process with the mass of disaffected Kashmiri Muslims who are opposed to remaining part of India, but each has been strangled at birth by hawks in his cabinet.
And the hawks on the Pakistani side have ensured that any Kashmiris speaking the language of reconciliation with India come to a nasty end. The latest was the moderate separatist leader Abdul Gani Lone, who had called for the foreign militants active in the Kashmir Valley to go home. He was shot dead on Tuesday, probably by agents of a militant group based in Pakistan. State elections are due to be held in Kashmir in the autumn, a demonstration by India to the world of how its citizens exercise their democratic rights But it is fated to be a charade. The separatists have vowed to boycott it, the militants will threaten anyone planning to vote with a bullet in the back of the head.
The few parties that favour continued membership of the Indian Union will again carve up the state between themselves. “The election has no relevance,” Abdul Gani Lone said on the day he died “For us it would be a diversion. Instead of arguing for liberation, we would be arguing whether or not the polls were rigged.”. Pakistan conducted its second missile test in two days today, as the international community struggled to pull India and Pakistan, two nuclear neighbours, back from the brink of war. Pakistan says the tests have nothing to do with the current situation.
India says it is not worried.Yesterday Pakistan tested the medium range surface-to-surface ballistic missile called the Ghauri. on terror, and that is stop the incursions across the line,” Bush said.The disputed Kashmir, divided between Pakistan and India, has been the flashpoint of two previous wars between the uneasy neighbours in 1948 and in 1965. They fought a third war in 1971 over Bangladesh, or what was then East Pakistan.Relations between the two neighbours has always been troubled, but tensions soared in December after the Indian parliament was attacked. India blamed Pakistan-based Islamic insurgents.The threat of war loomed then and India conducted missile tests of its own.Musharraf went on national television in January and outlawed five militant Islamic groups, easing tensions somewhat. But last week’s assault on an Indian army camp that killed 34 people, most of them wives and children of Indian soldiers, sent tensions soaring again.
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