Asia Times: Islamic bloc makes little headway on Kashmir


	July 8, 2000	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Islamic bloc makes little headway on Kashmir
By Mahesh Uniyal

BANGKOK - Six years after it took up the cause of Kashmir, a grouping of Islamic nations has achieved little in its bid to use religious solidarity to push Pakistan's case in the half century-old South Asian dispute.

A meeting of the 56-nation Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in the Malaysian capital last week is seen by analysts in nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, to have paid little more than lip service to the cause. At the same time, the Kuala Lumpur meet also marked a serious bid to change the ''battered image'' of Islam, close OIC observers noted.

The OIC resolution, repeating the grouping's earlier calls for ''self-determination'' in India's troubled province that is claimed by Pakistan, is seen to be little more than rhetoric by media commentators in both nations.

Independent analysts have long noted that Islamic nations are not a monolothic bloc and range from hardline conservative states like Saudi Arabia to modernizing Islamic nations like Malaysia. Indeed, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's opening call to the OIC meet to bring Islam up with the times by embracing modern scientific knowledge, is seen as a powerful nudge to the movement away from the hardline stand of key members. While this will not take Kashmir off the OIC's agenda, it can be taken as implicit criticism of calls for jihad (holy war) routinely made in Pakistan to "liberate" Kashmir.

''Islamic countries are always perceived as illiterate, terrorists, underdeveloped. This is an opportunity to produce something that can give a better perception and view of the OIC,'' Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar was quoted as saying.

Media commentators in India have seized on the new tone of the Kuala Lumpur OIC meet to point to the realization within the grouping of the ''growing international irrelevance'' of its backing of the Kashmir cause. ''That the world has never taken the OIC seriously is only part of the problem. The members themselves do not attach much political weight to the organization and its resolutions,'' said leading Indian media commentator C Raja Mohan.

According to Raja Mohan, Strategic Affairs Editor of The Hindu newspaper and known for his hardline stand on India-Pakistan relations, the OIC member states are known to have their own views on Kashmir which are not always in tune with Pakistan. ''It will be a while before the tension between states like Pakistan bent on promoting jihad and religious extremism and others like Malaysia and Turkey calling for an open and liberal approach to the world is resolved,'' he added.

The OIC set up a Kashmir Contact Group in 1994 under pressure from Pakistan, backed by influential members. The five-member group includes Saudi Arabia, Niger, Turkey, Pakistan and the OIC secretary-general's representative. Based at the UN headquarters in New York, its role is to lobby the world body to endorse Islamabad's stand on the dispute. The Kuala Lumpur meet also called on India to respect five-decade-old UN resolutions on Kashmir and decided to send a fact-finding mission to the Indian-administered part of Kashmir.

However, commentators in Islamabad seem to be sceptical of the OIC's ability to push Pakistan's case. ''All indications are that the OIC will not make much headway in the matter. The most disappointing is the failure of the OIC to play a positive role,'' said the Pakistani daily, The Dawn. In a comment this week, the paper noted that the OIC group on Kashmir has failed in its purpose. ''The group could have played a key role in bringing the conflict to the fore in international forums if it tried hard enough.''

''The contact group's failure in this respect has made the OIC totally ineffective vis-a-vis Kashmir. Admittedly, it cannot be accused of being short on rhetoric. But it has lacked political will and the capacity to act meaningfully,'' it added.

The Dawn was critical of Pakistan's membership in the Kashmir group, which it said, had affected the group's ''credibility''.

''Pakistan's membership has made the body anathema to the Indians. It is important that the OIC contact group should establish its credibility, which should be the basic characteristic of any peace-making body if it is to succeed,'' it noted.

The Kuala Lumpur meet also saw the OIC call on both sides to observe restraint, specially after an undeclared war last summer involving Pakistani irregulars and the Indian army. Pakistani commentators approved of this and spoke of the need for a ''peaceful resolution'' of the conflict.

''All this should normally put one's mind at rest because such sane counsel should, if followed, lower tension in the region and lead the way to a peaceful resolution of the 53-year-old conflict,'' said The Dawn.

(Inter Press Service)

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