Asia Times: Peace hinges on Track Two diplomacy


	April 6, 2000	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Peace hinges on Track Two diplomacy
By Ranjit Dev Raj

NEW DELHI - With India ruling out resumption of dialogue with Pakistan until it sees evidence of ''cessation in cross-border terrorism'' peace between the nuclear-armed neighbors hinges on people-to-people contacts, known as Track Two diplomacy.

Last week, a 41-member women's group from India succeeded in meeting Pakistan's military ruler Pervez Musharraf and extracting from him a pledge to ''talk any time, any place and at any level''.

Organized by the Women's Initiative for Peace in South Asia (WIPSA), the visit was at the invitation of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the Aurat Foundation and the Pakistan chapter of the Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPDF).

More than 100 activists of the PIPDF were to board a train at Lahore on Monday to attend a convention in the southern Indian city of Bangalore after being denied permission by authorities on both sides to cross the border on foot, Sunday. ''Both governments should have allowed us to cross the land border on foot. This is a sign of petty-mindedness,'' said I A Rehman, joint chairperson of the PIPDF and director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

According to officials here, the PIPDF delegation is now expected to cross over into India by rail on the bi-weekly Samjhauta Express - regular travel on which is approved.

Overland travellers can also use the Lahore-New Delhi bus service inaugurated last February by Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who was on board the first trip as part of a major peace intitiative.

However, dialogue broke down soon afterwards over the infiltration into the Indian side of the Line-of-Control (LoC) at Kargil in disputed Kashmir by heavily armed separatist militants backed by Pakistani army regulars. The two countries then fought a fierce three-month-long undeclared war at Kargil which ended in July with U S President Bill Clinton prevailing on Islamabad to get the militants to withdraw.

Clinton, who made a week-long tour of South Asia, last month, ended it with a televised address to the Pakistan people in which he urged resumption of dialogue, emphasised respect for the LoC and warned against any attempt to ''redraw borders in blood''.

Musharraf responded to Clinton's message by announcing readiness for dialogue at a press conference but India rejected the possibility of talks until it saw tangible evidence of an end to Islamabad's support for militancy in Kashmir.

India has also tightened security operations in the Kashmir valley claiming to have shot dead several ''foreign mercenaries'' allegedly responsible for the massacre of 35 Sikh men at Chitsinghpura village on March 20 even as Clinton began his tour.

India's foreign minister Jaswant Singh has blamed the Chitsinghpura massacre on militant groups which he said were based in Pakistan and had the backing of the Pakistan government. Singh holds Musharraf responsible for the armed infiltration in Kargil and has steadfastly refused to have anything to do with him or the military regime he set up in Pakistan following a bloodless coup in October.

India, however, does not disapprove of ''people-to-people'' contacts between the two countries and facilitated the WIPSA trip to Pakistan which took in programs in several cities.

Similarly, visas have been granted to members of the PIPDF to attend the convention in Bangalore even if they have not been allowed to cross the border on foot ''for security reasons'', an official said.

Veteran peace activist Nirmala Deshpande who led the WIPSA team consisting of prominent women journalists, film makers, teachers, lawyers, doctors and artists to Pakistan said its motto was goli nahin boli or ''dialogue not bullets''.

Other delegation members said far from the official-level hostility displayed by both sides they found ordinary Pakistanis in the cities of Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Taxila and Panja Sahib full of warmth and goodwill. ''Coolies would not accept money from us and a by-stander insisted on paying for calls made to Delhi by some members of the delegation,'' recalled Vidya Rao, an artist.

Mohini Giri, former chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW), said the people they met blamed the media, both Indian and Pakistani, for playing into the hands of politicians and perpetuating tensions.

Giri said with ''war clouds hanging in the air'', the visit of the delegation took many people by surprise. ''India and Pakistan have to decide if they want to mutually destroy one another or live in peace as partners,'' she said.

A delegation of Pakistani women is expected to make a reciprocal visit to India later this month according to Sayeeda Hamid, a delegate and prominent member of the NCW, which enjoys the status of a statutory body.

Joint-statements by women's groups in both countries have called for visa restrictions between the neighbors to be lifted as a means to facilitate people-to-people contacts with a view to building peace. Delegations cannot count on automatic approval for visits. Last month, a dozen Pakistani scientists were refused visas to attend an international conference on rice in India.

Both India and Pakistan have common cause in international patents being taken out under the World Trade Organization regime on the prized ''basmati'' variety of rice which is grown only in the Himalayan foothills.

''Both governments have created such a problem that they are now scared of doing anything rational which may risk a public backlash,'' Rehman said.

(Inter Press Service)

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