Author: Randeep Ramesh
Publication: The Guardian, UK
Date: November 1, 2002
URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,823666,00.html
Britain and the US have "lost the
right" to lecture New Delhi on how to respond to terrorist provocation
by displaying double standards by tracking down bombers in Pakistan but
letting them operate freely in Kashmir, India's foreign minister said yesterday.
In an interview with the Guardian,
Yashwant Sinha warned that relations between Pakistan and India remained
tense despite the withdrawal of hundreds of thousands of troops from their
shared 1,800-mile border. "There is a tremendous anger in the minds of
the people of India," he said. "They are angry even with us. They feel
we have taken a very soft line with Pakistan."
India has been smarting from what
it perceives as the west's softly-softly approach towards Pakistan, which
the government claims was behind the attack on the country's parliament
last year and a recent upsurge in violence during elections in the Muslim-majority
state of Kashmir. The two nuclear-armed countries have edged towards war
twice in the past year.
Mr Sinha indicated that India will
block any attempt to lift sanctions against Pakistan today when an eight-country
Commonwealth committee meets in London. The sanctions, imposed after a
military coup brought General Pervez Musharraf to power in 1999, limit
aid and bar Islamabad's officials from attending Commonwealth meetings.
Commonwealth sources said the mood
of the committee had swung towards the stance of Australia and India, its
most hawkish members.
Mr Sinha accused Pakistan of sabotaging
economic cooperation in South Asia and voiced doubts that India would attend
a summit of seven regional leaders scheduled for January in Islamabad.
"What is it the summit will do? On the weighty issues like trade there
is a lack of will from Pakistan to make any progress," he said.
New Delhi has been furious that
the west has not taken a harder line with President Musharraf, who pledged
to crack down on militants crossing into Indian Kashmir before the elections
in the state earlier this month.
Mr Sinha said 800 people were killed
in terrorist violence during the election campaign, including candidates
and a state minister.
"Terrorism in Kashmir is entirely
imported and exported by Pakistan," he said. "The international community
calls Pakistan a stalwart ally, so the terrorists in Pakistan are bad and
the terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir are good.
"If the international community
want to live with this definition then good luck to the international community.
But it is the same al-Qaida fellow who comes into Jammu and Kashmir, who
goes to Bali, who goes Singapore, who goes to the US and who comes to Europe."
It was the responsibility of countries
such as the US and Britain to force Pakistan to act, he said. If they could
not, then India would respond "without restraint".
"The international community has
lost its right to advise India," he said. "The international community
came and told us this is the promise President Musharraf has made [to curb
infiltration into India by Islamic militants]. Yet Musharraf has clearly
failed to deliver."
New Delhi also claims that the recent
elections in Pakistan are evidence that President Musharraf is merely consolidating
his hold on power, rather than moving from "dictatorship to democracy".
The EU described the elections as
"seriously flawed", after its observers reported that polling officials
had rigged the process to favour pro-Musharraf candidates.
Mr Sinha said that instead of promoting
a "vibrant democracy" in Pakistan, Britain and other countries preferred
to look the other way.
"You have to trust the will of the
people. People have the right to govern and misgovern themselves," he said.
"The stability of Pakistan should not be confused with the stability and
preservation of President Musharraf in power."
