THEY say that a clever general in the face of a defeat declares victory and retreats. General Musharraf’s handling of the Kashmir issue in the aftermath of the setback at Agra and 9/11 reminds one of this well-known saying.

Since 9/11, General Musharraf’s policy on Kashmir has been marked by a series of retreats from Pakistan’s historically recognised position so that it is now quite close to India’s position which basically has remained unchanged. At this rate we should get ready in the near future for a settlement of the Kashmir dispute on Indian terms. The irony is that General Musharraf and those around him will try to sell it to the nation as a historic achievement. This sell-out, of course, would be a tragedy of historic proportions.

Let us see the developments on Kashmir in perspective since the Lahore declaration to which Pakistan’s military brass apparently had taken umbrage. The declaration, inter alia, reaffirmed the commitment of both sides to the principles and purposes of the UN charter, reiterated their determination to implement the Shimla agreement in letter and spirit, and called for the intensification of efforts to resolve all outstanding issues including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Lahore Declaration, which was signed by the prime ministers of Pakistan and India during the Indian prime minister’s visit to Pakistan in February 1999, was a development of extraordinary importance. It was signed by an Indian prime minister on Pakistani soil after having travelled to Lahore in a bus to inaugurate the Delhi-Lahore bus service. The symbolic importance of the event could not be exaggerated.

The fact that this development took place after the nuclear explosions were carried out by India and then by Pakistan in May 1998 to restore strategic balance in the region showed that India had not only come to terms with a nuclear Pakistan but also recognised the imperative of strengthening peace and coming to a resolution of outstanding disputes for the progress and prosperity of the peoples of the two countries.

It is pertinent to mention that the signing of the Lahore Declaration was followed by the designation by the two prime ministers of special representatives to try to resolve the Kashmir dispute through back channel diplomacy. While the details of the talks between the two representatives (Mr Niaz A. Naik from the Pakistan side and Mr R.K.Mishra from the Indian side) have not yet been made public authoritatively, it is understood that the two special representatives did have a number of meetings in New Delhi and Islamabad until the process was interrupted by the Kargil conflict. (The first meeting between the two special representatives took place in New Delhi at the end of March 1999.)

The assumption of power by General Musharraf’s military government in October 1999 widened the gulf of mistrust between Pakistan and India because Musharraf’s role as the architect of the Kargil operation in his capacity as the COAS was well-known to the Indian side. It took Islamabad and New Delhi two years to resume the process of dialogue at the highest level when President Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee met in Agra in July 2001.

The Agra summit failed to issue an agreed declaration although progress towards drafting the document was made at the level of foreign secretaries and foreign ministers. Each side blamed the other for the failure. Be that as it may, the net result was the inability of the two sides to reach an agreed document on bilateral relations at the Agra summit.

The year 2002 was marked by a state of confrontation between India and Pakistan as the former resorted to coercive diplomacy in the wake of the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001. The situation gradually eased in 2003 leading ultimately to the issuance of a joint statement on January 6, 2004, after the meeting between President Musharraf and Prime Minister Vajpayee in Islamabad on the the sidelines of the Saarc summit.

The key paragraph of the joint statement read as follows: “Prime Minister Vajpayee said that in order to take forward and sustain the dialogue process, violence, hostility and terrorism must be prevented. President Musharraf reassured Prime Minister Vajpayee that he will not permit any territory under Pakistan’s control to be used to support terrorism in any manner.”

The two subsequent paragraphs talked about the agreement of the two leaders to commence the composite dialogue in February 2004 and their confidence that “the resumption of the composite dialogue will lead to a peaceful settlement of all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides.”

The joint statement reflected a diplomatic retreat for Pakistan as compared with the Lahore Declaration. Whereas the Lahore Declaration in the preamble talked about the commitment of the two sides to “principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations”, there was no such reference in the joint statement of January 6, 2004.

Further, the joint statement clearly recognised Jammu and Kashmir as a bilateral issue in contrast with the Lahore Declaration which considered it as an “outstanding” issue. The net result of these two changes was that Pakistan virtually agreed to foreclose the option of referring the matter to the United Nations.

The Lahore Declaration had recognised that the resolution of all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, was essential for an environment of peace and security. In contrast with this provision, the joint statement fails to establish any link between the resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir issue, on the one hand, and the environment of peace and security or normalisation of relations between the two countries on the other.

But perhaps the most damaging aspect of the joint statement from Pakistan’s point of view was the paragraph on the issue of terrorism which virtually gave the impression of Pakistan’s acquiescence in Indian allegations of cross-border terrorism against Pakistan combined with a reassurance by Musharraf to prevent support to any terrorist activity from any territory under Pakistan’s control.

The process of diplomatic retreat by Pakistan on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute has not stopped with the joint statement of January 6, 2004. General Musharraf in a desperate attempt to make progress towards the settlement of the Kashmir issue has announced Pakistan’s willingness to deviate from Pakistan’s traditional stand based on UN Security Council resolutions calling for a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir to settle the issue. Of course, he has stressed that his gesture was conditioned on similar flexibility from India which considers Jammu and Kashmir as its integral part. New Delhi so far has failed to show the required flexibility.

More recently, General Musharraf has floated his four-point formula for a settlement of the Kashmir dispute involving demilitarisation of Kashmir whose boundaries will be delineated on both sides of the LoC, autonomy for the region, a joint supervisory mechanism including the representatives of India, Pakistan and Kashmir, and easy movement of people and goods across the LoC to make it irrelevant. According to latest reports from New Delhi, India is mulling over the four-point formula.

If a settlement of the Kashmir issue is reached on the basis of General Musharraf’s four-point formula, it would mean the discarding by Pakistan of the UN Security Council resolutions calling for a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir enabling the people of Kashmir to exercise their right to self-determination and the virtual acceptance of India’s contention that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and its rejection of any redrawing of the boundaries.

The people of Kashmir would definitely gain from demilitarisation, autonomy and easy movement across the LoC. As for the joint supervisory mechanism, what Pakistan would gain in Indian-held Kashmir, it would lose in Azad Kashmir.

Such a settlement in effect would be a major retreat from Pakistan’s recognised position on the Kashmir issue which is based on the relevant UN Security Council resolutions while it would be quite close to the well-known Indian position on the issue.

There is a further risk that since General Musharraf’s four-point formula is the opening gambit in the process of substantive negotiations while India is sticking to its original position, the general would be forced to make further concessions before a settlement is reached.

If Musharraf continues to show the desperation that he has displayed so far, the ultimate settlement is likely to be more or less on Indian terms with a fig leaf to cover the historic retreat by Pakistan on the general’s watch.

President Musharraf has made three cardinal mistakes in the process of negotiations with India. Firstly, he has shown extreme desperation in reaching a settlement with India on the Kashmir issue which has been interpreted by India as the sign of a weak hand. India has taken full advantage of this perceived weakness, forcing Musharraf to make concessions even before the process of substantive negotiations could begin as reflected by the joins statement of January 6, 2004.

Secondly, the general has shown his hand by presenting the four-point formula at the very beginning of the process of negotiations while India is keeping its cards close to its chest. Now, at best, the settlement would be somewhere between Musharraf’s formula and the well-known Indian position.

Thirdly, Musharraf has chosen a moment for the final settlement on Kashmir when India enjoys overwhelming advantage over Pakistan politically (democracy in India versus military rule and political instability in Pakistan), economically, militarily and internationally. The essence of strategy is to bring one’s opponent to the point of decision at the time and place of one’s own choice, not of the opponent’s preference. Our military rulers starting from the East Pakistan crisis of 1971 have shown a knack of rushing for a decision at the time and place of India’s choice. General Musharraf seems to be following this historic pattern.

Finally, one may ask whether General Musharraf, the legitimacy of whose rule is questionable, has the mandate of the people to reach a final settlement with India on the Kashmir dispute.

It would be better for him and the nation if in the negotiations with India he would limit himself to steps which would ameliorate the living conditions of the Kashmiri people on both sides of the LoC (e.g. autonomy, demilitarisation, respect for the human rights of the Kashmiri people and easy movement across the LoC) while leaving the task of negotiating a final settlement with India at an opportune time to a democratically-elected government in Pakistan.

The writer is a former ambassador.
E-mail: javid_husain@yahoo.com

THERE was something both deeply sad and painfully predictable about last week’s scenes of renewed internecine violence on the streets of Gaza. For Palestinians everywhere, there is nothing worse than the spectre of a civil war, not only because it is so reprehensible in itself, but also because the moral grounding of the Palestinian cause is thereby undermined: if Palestinians are so ready to kill each other the question is inevitably raised, why should anyone feel sympathy for them in their struggle with Israel?

But that was not all. In the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in north Lebanon, the Lebanese army was battling it out with the renegade Islamist faction Fatah al-Islam. After sustaining unexpected casualties in a surprise attack by the faction, the army retaliated with a largely indiscriminate bombardment of the camp, leaving many civilian casualties.

The Lebanese army’s actions echoed those of Israel in Gaza, posing yet another pernicious question: if an Arab army is allowed to assault Palestinian civilians in pursuit of “terrorists”, who can blame the Israelis for doing the same?

The actions in Gaza and north Lebanon represent a new low for a cause that has become accustomed to setbacks, retreats and defeats. Just days before the 40th anniversary of the six-day war of June 1967, the sight of Palestinian civilians fleeing Nahr al-Bared, terrified children clinging to women with meagre belongings carried on their heads, evoked the very worst images of recent Palestinian history.

There is no doubt that Israel and its 40-year occupation are culpable beyond measure for what is happening today. Here are just a few facts: since 1967 Israel has annexed East Jerusalem (including the old city’s holy sites), unilaterally expanded its boundaries dozens of kilometres into the West Bank, and settled it with some 250,000 Israeli Jews. Tens of thousands of housing units have been built for Israeli Jews in East Jerusalem; very few for the Palestinian Arabs on their own soil.

Another 250,000 Israeli Jews have been packed into dozens of Jewish-only settlements on the West Bank now serviced by Jewish-only roads. The West Bank is being laced by a 700km-long separation wall and fence that will effectively annex 12 per cent of the West Bank. Another 60 per cent of the West Bank along the Jordan Valley is inaccessible to the Palestinians on security grounds. Despite Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Gaza remains besieged and isolated, and there is virtually no normal movement of goods and people in and out of the strip, or between it and the West Bank.

Since 1967, between 650,000 and 700,000 Palestinians have been detained or jailed by Israel out of a current total occupied population of 3.8 million. Since the first intifada of 1987, 80,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded, the vast majority unarmed civilians.

Yet despite the sustained brutal weight of the longest occupation of modern times, it is not enough to blame it all on Israel. There are other factors at play. What was once a dedicated and vibrant Palestinian national movement is today almost bereft of effective leadership.

It negotiators appear incapable of rising to the vast national challenges ahead. The old nationalist-Marxist factions have become marginalised. Fatah, once the embodiment of broad national aspirations, is faction-ridden and incapable of reviving its lost glory in the absence of its founder, Yasser Arafat. Hamas is politically inexperienced and boycotted by the outside world. Its appeal is too narrow to replace Fatah or supplant the broad church of Palestinian nationalism with an Islamist discourse and goals.

Fatah and Hamas are also locked in a mortal struggle for power. Elements on both sides cannot forgo this struggle and will not contemplate the demands of cohabitation or political coexistence. But even if they did, the US and Israel — supported by Britain — seem bent on undermining the Palestinian national government by actively seeking to build up the PA’s ‘Presidential Guard’ to intimidate Hamas and eventually put it down, by force if necessary.

Despite such outside support, the PA remains paralysed and incapable. The Presidential Guard is likely to do no more than add to the proliferation of armed groups on the Palestinian scene, and will break apart if and when it is put to the test against its fellow Palestinians. Armed clans now hold sway in Gaza, as the PA’s writ fades and becomes increasingly irrelevant.

Meanwhile, the infestation of Al Qaeda-type salafism has already reached Gaza, and the US- and EU-sponsored embargo and support for continued occupation and promotion of internal Palestinian conflict can only feed such trends in the future.

There seems to be no immediate cure for the accumulated consequences of multiple Israeli and external pressures and the disastrous internal decline afflicting the Palestinians today. A rapid and genuine end to the occupation would help, but this is not on the cards. And the Palestinians’ deteriorating conditions do not inspire confidence that they would be able effectively to control any areas that Israel might vacate.

Meanwhile Israel’s political system is suffering from deep flaws of its own, and its weak leadership is incapable of making decisions and seeing them through.

Today, the moment is not for grand peacemaking, despite the optimism generated by the Arab peace initiative and the pretence of movement offered by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The best that is likely to be achieved is a consolidated inter-Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire that will allow both sides to catch their breath and think again. In their own interests, the Israelis need to think hard about the corrosive long-term consequences of the occupation and its effect on their own future as a supposedly safe haven for the Jewish people. The Arabs cannot continue to claim sympathy for the Palestinians while subjecting the most defenceless of them to wanton violence.

The Palestinians have to think hard about their future prospects. The priority must be to revive their national political movement in the spirit of genuine partnership and achievable common goals. The alternative will not only allow for the perpetuation of the occupation but will feed the notion that the Palestinians, decades on, are somehow not “worthy” of the freedom they are rightfully due and so passionately desire. — Dawn/The Guardian News Service