[sacw] SACW #1 | 31 May 02

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire Dispatch #1 | 31 May 2002
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

All are Invited to visit the Updated web pages of South Asians Against Nukes:
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/NoNukes.html
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#1. Limited war is a fantasy (Praful Bidwai)
#2. A road map to peace (L. Ramdas and Arjun Makhijani)
#3. The alternative to my nuclear Ark (Sonia Jabbar)
#4. Letter to the Editor - India and Pakistan confrontation (Angana Chatterji)
#5. Socialist Alliance Public Meeting India-Pakistan Emergency: Say 
no to war (6 June, London)
#6. Kashmir Wants Polls, Not War (Shrabani Basu)

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#1.

The Hindustan Times (India)
May 31, 2002

LIMITED WAR IS A FANTASY
by Praful Bidwai

The Vajpayee government could not have presented a sorrier picture of 
itself than it does after the May 14 Kaluchak carnage and Abdul Gani 
Lone's assassination. Between bouts of bluff and bluster, it 
oscillates: from reaching for the gun to meekly bowing to 
contradictory pressures, internal and external.

The government continues to think muddle-headedly about all manner of 
'tough' options, including 'limited war', a 'covert operations'-based 
'new strategy' against terrorism, and coercive diplomacy, rather than 
straightforward, clean, bilateral approaches, or multilateral 
diplomacy centred on the United Nations.

Traditionally, India has been a strongly multilateralist advocate of 
the UN Charter - both to promote peaceful settlement of disputes, or 
in the event of threats of war, the Security Council's intervention 
under Chapter VII. Such an option is indeed available today through 
Resolution 1373, which obligates all states to prevent terrorist 
activities. India can demand that Pakistan, which it accuses of 
having organised Kaluchak, comply with this verifiably - on pain of 
sanctions.

However, the government - keen to emulate the macho style of the 
United States and Israel - cites the recent attacks as a casus belli 
(reason for war). Its enormous, unprecedented, five-month-long 
military mobilisation of 700,000 troops underscores just that.

But it has failed to produce half-way convincing evidence of 
Islamabad's hand behind the attacks. It has disclosed the identities 
of the militants involved in Kaluchak. This is better than the 
evidence collected for December 13. But it doesn't add up to the 
minimally credible proof needed to establish guilt.

In the absence of clinching evidence, one must rationally exercise 
one's political judgment and assess whether the Musharraf regime 
could have risked-despite its worst intentions-engineering terrorist 
attacks at this point of time, just when Christina Rocca was visiting 
the region.

The frank answer must be, highly unlikely - not because Islamabad has 
suddenly turned noble and benign, but because, post-September 11, it 
operates under new constraints. When Musharraf decided to throw his 
lot with Washington, he narrowed his own freedom of action. He was 
compelled to act against jehadi "freedom-fighters". With American 
troops present in Pakistan, and participating in operations to mop up 
Al-Qaeda-Taliban members on its soil, it would have been 
near-suicidal for Musharraf to order the ISI to unleash terror in 
India.

Unless one weaves fantastic conspiracy theories about the Islamabad 
church bombing and the Karachi attack killing Frenchmen, one must 
reasonably surmise that Pakistan's agencies have no control over 
'rogue' elements and anti-US, anti-Musharraf jehadis.

Thus, it scarcely makes sense to cite Kaluchak as reason for war. If 
the general case for war is weak, that for 'limited war/strikes' is 
nonexistent. It is ludicrous to equate 'limited strikes' and 'limited 
war', as many Indian strategists are doing. The first only denotes 
the action taken by a State; the second one of many possible 
outcomes, which depend on the adversary's responses too. Pakistan, as 
much as India, will shape any military conflict today.

The other "options" that are being bandied about are equally flawed. 
Take coercive diplomacy. If India decides to cancel Pakistan's 
Most-Favoured-Nation trade status, it risks the World Trade 
Organisation's reprimand.

Abrogating the Indus Treaty and depriving Pakistan of its share of 
the river's waters will be illegal and could attract sanctions, 
besides delivering a terrible message to other neighbours. 
Practically, the fact is that the Indus waters cannot be impounded 
for another 10 years or so.

The third option, 'covert operations' or tit-for-tat terrorism on 
Pakistani soil-publicly advocated by a cabinet minister-is even 
worse. Besides being profoundly immoral, it will remove all practical 
inhibitions on the use of force, and make innocent civilians hostage 
to the wiles of the two rival States' most lawless agencies.

Nothing could then prevent South Asia's descent into virtual 
barbarism. Nothing could more effectively knock the bottom out of 
India's legitimate complaint about 'cross-border terrorism'. This 
option must not even be countenanced. If the government seriously 
wants to explore principled, imaginative and rational ideas, it would 
do well to combine the 1373-based multilateralism with bilateral 
proposals for joint patrolling of the LoC.

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#2.

The Hindu, 31 May 2002
Opinion - News Analysis

A road map to peace
By L. Ramdas and Arjun Makhijani

India and Pakistan stand at the brink of nuclear catastrophe. Many 
people from all over the world - including businessmen, politicians, 
strategic analysts, diplomats, scientists, peace activists and common 
people above all - have all voiced their concern regarding the 
rapidly deteriorating situation in South Asia. Infiltration of 
terrorists from across the Pakistani side of the Line of Control, the 
massing of troops at the border by both countries, and the increasing 
exchanges of artillery fire matched only by the verbal volleys 
exchanged between the leadership of both countries, could escalate 
quickly into a full-scale war.

This, in turn poses the threat of a nuclear exchange, which would be 
catastrophic for both the countries, South Asia in particular, and 
affect the world at large.

India and Pakistan signed the Shimla Agreement in 1972 and the Lahore 
Agreement in 1999.

In both these accords, they agreed to renounce the use of force and 
to resolve all outstanding issues between them by peaceful means.

There has never been a time more urgent and more important to respect 
the letter and spirit of those agreements than now.

We urge the governments of both Pakistan and India to immediately 
step back from the brink of war and nuclear holocaust by committing 
themselves to the following seven-point peace plan. We urge all those 
Governments that endorsed the U. N. resolutions against terrorism in 
the wake of September 11, 2001, to use their good offices with the 
Governments of India and Pakistan to accept this peace plan and to 
help put it into effect with the greatest urgency. The proposed plan:

1) There should be an immediate ceasefire by Indian and Pakistani 
forces along the LoC.

2) Pervez Musharraf should take immediate, firm, and demonstrable 
steps to stop cross-border infiltration from Pakistan-controlled 
Kashmir into the Indian-controlled side. To ensure that these steps 
are being taken, an International Anti-terrorist Monitoring Group 
should be formed and deployed. Pakistan and India should agree to 
full cooperation with this group.

This would provide a neutral means of ensuring that Pakistan's 
commitments about stopping cross-border infiltration are being 
carried out.

3) If these measures are agreed to, India in turn should make a 
commitment not to cross the LoC.

4) Pakistan should also adopt the no-first-use policy of nuclear 
weapons, which has already been adopted by India. These measures 
should be urgently instituted within a time-frame of a few weeks. 
Thereafter, three further steps can be taken to ensure long-term 
peace and towards resolution of a crisis that has now lasted well 
over half a century. These three steps are:

1) India and Pakistan should thin down their military deployments 
along their common border and return to pre-December 13, 2001, levels.

2) India and Pakistan should resume their dialogue on all outstanding 
issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, in the spirit of the Shimla and 
Lahore agreements, and pick up the threads where they left off at 
Agra barely ten months ago.

3) As a part of the dialogue process, India and Pakistan should form 
a joint technical commission to explore and recommend how the mutual 
commitment to no-first-use of nuclear weapons can be verified and 
maintained.

4) Why not a Shimla-II? It would be truly fitting if this could take 
place on July 12, 2002, the thirtieth anniversary of the historic 
Shimla agreement.

(The writers are, respectively, former Chief of the Naval Staff and 
president, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Maryland, 
U.S.)

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#3.

The Times of India
FRIDAY, MAY 31, 2002

The alternative to my nuclear Ark

by Sonia Jabbar

Somebody, please build me an Ark. It should be large and capacious, 
able to accommodate not only my family and friends and the chance 
acquaintance, but also the neem and gulmohur trees in front of my 
house, a pair of Indian elephants, Bengal tigers, Himalayan bulbuls 
and rose-ringed parakeets, my books and CDs, my dogs, my friends' 
dogs, and any other sentient being on this subcontinent wishing to 
leave.
I don't particularly want to sail away from my beloved land, but at 
this juncture the alternative on offer doesn't really inspire 
confidence.
Amid the sabre-rattling, the battle cries and the glib talk of a 
limited war, which may escalate into a nuclear exchange, comes this 
reassuring piece of news: the DRDO [*] has developed a portable 
nuclear shelter usable for 30 people up to 96 hours, equipped with 
its own power supply, toilets and water tanks. This is the 
alternative to my Ark.
We must rank first among the loony nations. Until yesterday we were 
witness to our government's inability to contain the Gujarat carnage, 
and today we blindly trust it to navigate us through a possible 
nuclear holocaust unscathed - assisted by portable nuclear shelters.
Naturally, neither the government nor the DRDO elaborates what would 
happen to the shelter were it to be three to 30 miles within the 
radius of the blast; whether it would be able to withstand the 
temperatures rising over 300,000 degrees Celsius? This government has 
long since abdicated responsibility of answering such questions. 
Trifling questions, perhaps, when it comes to defending the nation's 
honour, but which must be answered.
The most honourable, patriotic, nationalistic people were the 
Japanese; ever ready to die for land and the emperor until Hiroshima 
put an end to all that nonsense. Taketa San is a man every Indian 
should meet. I met him in '98 right after our nuclear tests.
He was barely in his teens when the Americans nuked Hiroshima. They 
lived out in the suburbs, but his sister was in the city that day and 
they bundled her home in a wheelbarrow. He spoke to us in Japanese, 
but from the tears flowing down his cheeks and the eloquent gestures 
of his hands I knew immediately that his sister was among the 
thousands whose skin had peeled off and had hung down from raw flesh 
like rags.
Her death many hours later had been excruciatingly painful. Taketa 
San keeps the memory of that tortuous day alive, like a festering 
wound. Even though it must cost him physically, mentally, emotionally 
to do so, he recreates it afresh each time for a new audience so that 
we must feel what he felt, must feel the horror of it in our bones, 
so that we never, ever allow it to happen again.
For those who lack a sense of history to temper their bravado: The 
American A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a prototype, a 
crude and smaller version of the kinds of nuclear weapons we have in 
our possession today, and yet it killed over 200,000 people, many 
instantly, and many more slowly and painfully.
A recent study conducted by Dr M V Ramana and his team at Princeton 
showed that a limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan, using 
only a tenth of the weapons in their possession, would kill or injure 
over four million people. Many would die in the immediate blast. 
Others would suffer slower deaths from burns and radiation.
The truly unfortunate would take their lifetime dying slowly, a 
lifetime searching vainly for water in the sere, treeless nuclear 
wastelands.
Admittedly, one good thing about the bomb is that it is perfectly 
democratic. So whether you're the Raja of Race Course Road or the 
Leper of Lodhi, you get fried and no money in the world can bribe 
your way out of this mess. Also, it is perfectly incurable.
One small dose of radioactivity - and there's much of that around 
with the mega-bombs - and cancer with impressive keloids could be 
your lot. As for your children, should they survive, and their 
children's children, factor in the radioactive lifespan of Plutonium 
239, which has a half-life of 24,000 years, and then hedge your bets.
India, as we know it, would be over. This wonderful, mad, exuberant 
civilisation, which took over 5,000 years to build, could be 
destroyed in under five minutes.
On second thoughts I'm not so sure I'd set sail on the Ark after all. 
What if half way across the globe I'd suddenly remember the smell of 
the earth after the first monsoon showers, and know I'd never smell 
that smell again. And if I were to recall Phooli, my cleaning lady, 
who for some reason couldn't come along, who bore her poverty with 
dignity and a toothless grin... or Humayun's tomb or the Sal forests 
of the Terai which would surely be no more, I know my heart would 
shatter into a million irreparable pieces.
No, I think the alternative to my Ark would be to figure out where 
exactly the first bomb was going to drop and then to set up camp 
right there in the middle of it. Chances are, I would be vaporised 
immediately. And you, who will still choose the path to the DRDO 
shelter, consider this: that as your 96th hour draws to a close you 
may just envy me my fate.
--
[*] Defence Research and Development Organisation (India)

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#4.

May 29, 2002

Dear Editor,

As India and Pakistan face each other in a grave confrontation, the
mainstream US media continues to be largely inattentive to, and uninformed
about, the serious situation in the subcontinent. As 1.4 million Indian and
Pakistani troops and nuclear arsenals are on high alert, as leaders and
generals play political games over divided Kashmir, as Pakistan conducts its
third missile test in three days, the sun sets on the Pacific Ocean. South
Asians in the United States remain terrified that India and Pakistan stand on
the verge of a dangerous war over Kashmir.

The Indian central government, dominated by Hindu nationalists, continues to
prioritize sectarian and non secular agendas. India pledges that it will go
to war with Pakistan unless Islamic separatists stop their attacks on Indian
Kashmir. India continues to insist that the situation in Kashmir, in which
thousands have died, is entirely the responsibility of Pakistan and Muslim
separatist groups. India's persistent refusal to address the Kashmir issue
might well leave the fate of the Kashmiris in the hands of Islamic
fundamentalists. India is yet to take responsibility for its systematic
violation of the rights and lives of Kashmiris, while Pakistan continues to
use terrorism as state policy.

In addition, in the recent carnage of Muslim minorities in Gujarat in
February and March this year, the saffronized central and state government
demonstrated an abysmal display of militant Hindu dominance. The police and
government in Gujarat perpetrated violence against Muslims in the State.
Police mistreatment in India of 'lower' caste and class peoples, minority
religious groups, women, tribals, intellectuals, activists, political groups
and others bears evidence to the unstable and insecure conditions in which
non dominant and disenfranchised communities in India continue to live. All
that is sacred in the Constitution, all that our ancestors struggled for, all
that remains of the memory of M. K. Gandhi, is being desecrated.

In the midst of this, the majority of the Hindu Indian business community in
the US maintain a complicitious silence, refusing to accept the vicious
consequences of Hindu nationalism. They continue to actively fund
fundamentalist Hindu organizations that are registered as charities in the
US, ostensibly working to promote and protect Indian heritage and culture.
Such organizations utilize funds raised in the name of 'culture' to foment
social division, intolerance and brutalization of minorities in India. Groups
across the US, such as the Coalition Against Communalism and other
progressive organizations, meet and struggle to build a political culture
where Hindu xenophobia can be confronted. Hinduism, unlike Islam, has a
benevolent image in the West/North as a religion of peace. Hinduism in the
West is often held and peddled as an abstract textual entity, vacant of the
radical inequities that make up its cultural and historical reality. Hardline
Hindu organizations maintain that Hindu culture and Hindus in India are being
marginalized, that there is an Islamist plan for the genocide of Hindus, and
that Hindu fundamentalism is a fiction conjured by the secular left.

As an Indian I struggle against the failures of India's democracy, and I am
horrified at who we have become as a nation and as a people. I ask myself how
India might commit to a secular and democratic society that addresses its
injustices and entrenched oppressions. Violence in the name of religion has
to stop and as a nation India must accord full and executable rights to
minority groups. We must defy Hindu nationalism and its systematic use of
violence against minorities. We must insist on examining the present
political climate in which relations between India and Pakistan continue to
deteriorate, and the crimes committed by both states in the name of freedom.
We must not support the fabric of resistance connected to the use of terror
on the part of states and groups. We must take responsibility for the unjust
histories through which our nations were conceived. It will require
extraordinary courage and commitment of us all.

Angana Chatterji
Professor
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
California Institute of Integral Studies
San Francisco

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#5.

Socialist Alliance Public Meeting

India-Pakistan Emergency:
* Say no to war
* For unity and peace
* Halt arms sales to India and Pakistan

Thursday 6 June
7:30pm
Conway Hall
Red Lion Square, central London
(Holborn tube)

Speakers:
Asad Rehman, Newham Monitoring Project
Gita Sahgal, film-maker, Women Against Fundamentalism
Mike Marqusee, Socialist Alliance

The confrontation betwen India and Pakistan threatens the future of 
more than a billion human beings. This confrontation is not a result 
of hostility between the people of India and Pakistan, but policies 
pursued by the elites of both countries. It is also the result of the 
US-led 'war on terror' , which has strengthened communalism and 
militarism on both sides of the border.

Any war between India and Pakistan will have global repercussions,
including among Britain's south Asian community. That's why the 
Socialist Alliance has called this emergency meeting, and why we will 
work with all those committed to India-Pakistan peace to increase the 
international pressure on both governments to draw back from the 
brink of disaster.

Asad Rehman is an anti-racist and human rights activist and currently 
chair of the long-established Newham Monitoring Project. Gita Sahgal 
is a film-maker, a long-time activist in Southall Black Sisters and 
in Women Against Fundamentalism. Mike Marqusee is the author of books 
and articles about south Asia and an active member of the Socialist 
Alliance.

The Socialist Alliance recently helped organise the highly succesful Unity
Tour for India-Pakistan Peace, which brought peace activists Achin 
Vanaik (India) and Muhammad Tahseen (Pakistan) to cities and towns 
across England. The public meeting on 6 June is a follow-up to that 
tour, and part of the Socialist Alliance's continuing commitment to 
global solidarity.

For more information telephone Socialist Alliance on 0207 791 3138

Note: pdf of leaflet attached; please photocopy and distribute widely.

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#6.

The Telegraph (Calcutta)
31 May 2002

KASHMIR WANTS POLLS, NOT WAR

FROM SHRABANI BASU

London, May 30:
As the war clouds gather over the subcontinent, a survey conducted in 
Jammu and Kashmir suggests the vast majori through elections, felt 71 
per cent of the people and 28 per cent disagreed.

At least 75 per cent in each of the three regions of the state agreed 
that economic development, free and fair elections, direct talks 
between Delhi and representatives of Kashmiris, an end to violence 
and stopping infiltration would help bring peace.

The results of the poll from Jammu and Leh should come as no surprise.

But what should gladden policymakers in Delhi is that despite the 
widespread cynicism about the way polls have been conducted in the 
past, 52 per cent in and around Srinagar still believe in its 
peacemaking power.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government appears determined to press ahead 
with elections, scheduled in September, no matter what the 
provocation by way of militant violence.

Opinion brought out by the survey, however, shows that 65 per cent 
did not believe free and fair elections can be held if the violence 
continued, while 34 per cent thought it was possible.

Sixty-one per cent would prefer to remain Indian citizens while 33 
per cent said they did not know. Only 6 per cent wanted to be 
Pakistani citizens. That is cold comfort for the Indian government 
because in Srinagar as many as 78 per cent of the people said they 
did not know if they would be better off, politically and 
economically, under India.

Another worrying factor for Delhi is the stand on Pakistan, the 
popular mood in the Valley clearly reflecting what many Kashmiri 
groups, like the Hurriyat Conference, have been saying: that a 
solution is not possible without Islamabad's involvement. Only 23 per 
cent thought Pakistan's involvement in the region has been bad, 35 
per cent felt it to be good and 41 per cent believed it has made no 
real difference.

Asked whether a new political party was needed to bring about a 
permanent solution, 53 per cent agreed, while 46 per cent did not. 
Support for preserving the region's cultural identity - Kashmiriyat - 
in any long-term solution was overwhelming at 81 per cent. In tune 
with this mood, 80 per cent felt that the return of Pandits would 
help peace.

The majority, 53 per cent, wanted the role of security forces to be 
scaled down. But perceptions differed on the behaviour of the forces. 
No one in Leh or Jammu believed human rights violations by the 
security forces were widespread, whereas in Srinagar 64 per cent of 
the population thought they were.

Again, on whether there were human rights violations by militant 
groups, the opinion was divided. In Srinagar, 33 per cent believed 
these were non-existent, while 96 per cent in Jammu thought otherwise.

The poll was commissioned by Lord Avebury, chairman of the Friends of 
Kashmir and widely seen to be a Pakistan sympathiser. All the 850 
people interviewed were over the age of 16. They were from 22 
localities in Jammu city, 20 in Srinagar and six in Leh.
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