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India needs to adopt fresh strategy to curb infiltration

India needs to adopt fresh strategy to curb infiltration

Author: Manoj Joshi
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 15, 2002

The massacre in Jammu on Saturday night is a clear signal that Pakistan is not yet ready to abandon terrorism as an instrument of its foreign policy A little over a month after Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf pledged to end infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC), Indian officials say that the situation remains unsatisfactory

According to an official, "Infiltration has come down in the past month or so, but some disturbing questions remain." First, says the official, is the extent of infiltration that continues, and second is the retention by Pakistan of the infrastructure of the launch and training camps" across the LoC. "Wireless traffic came down for a while, but it is back to normal- yet another pointer to the fact that Pakistan retains the capacity to restore infiltration to its former levels."

On Saturday, external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha confirmed this and said that the decline that took place last month "had actually evaporated and fresh incursions were noted". He said that Pakistan had not taken any concrete steps to dismantle the infrastructure supporting terrorism.

Just how this seems to work became apparent in the last week of June when, following one of Gen Musharraf's particularly virulent speeches, infiltration suddenly displayed a marked upswing, notes the official. The speech in question was the one delivered on June 22 when in an interview to the BBC Gen Musharraf rejected India's de-escalatory measures, saying India was not doing Pakistan a favour by taking these steps. He also repeated his familiar theme of "teaching India a lesson".

The strategy being followed by Islamabad is to use the infiltration tap to extract more concessions out of Washington and New Delhi. This is the reason why Gen Musharraf is so dismissive of the de-escalation steps India has taken until now. Islamabad will insist on an Indian commitment to resume dialogue before it takes other demonstrable steps, and even then it will not really end support to terrorists in Kashmir. "Gen Musharraf has been so weakened within that he feels that giving concessions on the so-called Kashmir struggle will be suicidal," says one Indian intelligence analyst.

Indian intelligence officials say that their assessments of Pakistani activity are not being challenged by their western counterparts, even though official spokespersons are giving a different gloss to the situation. One official says that the west is itself in a quandary as to how it ought to deal with Gen Musharraf.

This is the reason why US secretary of state Colin Powell is planning to visit the region at the end of the month. "The west found our build-up more than useful, since Indian pressure helped Islamabad and Washington divert attention from the unprecedented level of US and British military activity in the federally administered tribal areas and the access provided to the FBI to operate across Pakistan," one official said.

Indian and American diplomacy is likely to be severely tested in the coming days. There are so many variables affecting the situation that it is impossible to predict the outcome of the most carefully laid out plans. To compound these problems, Pakistan, or elements in Pakistan, seem, determined to foil the American game-plan in Afghanistan as well. This seems to be the message from the recent assassination of Afghan vice-president Haji Abdul Qadir.
 


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