U.S. Waiting for Invitation to Mediate 47-Year Dispute Over Kashmir

By M.M. Ali

There is hardly an international forum dealing with Asia where the Kashmir dispute does not emerge as a major issue. In almost all cases, human rights violations by the Indian occupying forces in the Valley and the political promise of a plebiscite made to the Kashmiris by the U.N. are recalled. This exercise not only embarrasses New Delhi but has started annoying outside powers, including the United States. However, it underlines the seriousness of the case, especially in the light of the nuclear capability of both powers, India and Pakistan, feuding over Kashmir.

Kashmir took center stage at the Asia Society's September conference in Washington, D.C. to discuss its Study Mission report: "South Asia and the United States after the Cold War." In her keynote address, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Robin L. Raphel said, "Kashmir is at once a political, economic, law and order, security and social issue."

Current U.S. Thinking

Explaining current U.S. thinking on the subject, she observed: "A military victory cannot be won by any of the parties...Political processes in Kashmir must be transparent so the inhabitants genuinely see and understand that they are in full and unencumbered possession of the political authority to which they are entitled." Answering a question, she replied: "We [the United States] are willing to mediate, provided we are invited to do so."

Kashmiris in fact have asked the United States repeatedly to intervene to bring about a cessation of hostilities and to help resolve the dispute that is taking a very heavy toll in human lives.

Pakistan also has invited the U.S. to mediate. India alone has shied away from third-party intervention, insisting instead on bilateral talks with Pakistan. However, historically such bilateral talks have produced no results.

The stronger posture that the U.S. appears to be taking in its regional policy toward South Asia, of which Kashmir is a part, generates hope. It does not, however, mean that the world is on the verge of a Kashmir settlement or on the threshold of lasting peace in the area. India may never issue that invitation for U.S. mediation.

As to whether the growing nuclear and ballistic missile capability of both India and Pakistan is of enough concern to move the U.S. to use more concerted efforts to help remove the primary cause of friction between India and Pakistan, Raphel is unclear.

"A military victory cannot be won by any of the parties."

U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali's recent offer to mediate the dispute did not draw any public response from either New Delhi or Islamabad. Without public support from the major powers, particularly the United States, Boutros-Ghali cannot be an effective mediator. It was in this context that Pakistani Foreign Minister Sardar Asif Ahmed Ali, in his own address to the Asia Society meeting, asked for U.S. assistance in the resolution of the increasingly emotional, and dangerous, Kashmir dispute.

It came after President Clinton's successful orchestration of Israeli-Jordanian talks that culminated in the White House handshake between King Hussein and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. That event conveyed one sure message across the globe: if the United States, by virtue of its unique position in world affairs today, has the will to make things happen, all major frictions and disputes can be peacefully resolved.

A month before this historic event, Sardar Abdul Qayyum, the prime minister of Azad Kashmir (the part of Jammu and Kashmir territory that is under Pakistani rule), expressed to me a similar confidence in the ability of the United States. Whether Kashmir is seen as the potential cause of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, or a particularly offensive case of the denial of human rights and self-determination to a struggling people, resolution of the dispute is long overdue, and the U.S. needs to turn the levers a little more forcefully.

Some 40,000 Kashmiris have been killed and maimed in the Valley in the past six years, and 400,000 Indian military and para-military personnel are stationed there. Accounts of the human tragedy inside Indian-occupied Kashmir have trickled out in bits and pieces during the past 47 years, despite heavy censorship by New Delhi.

Reports of mass murder, widespread torture, thousands of cases of rape, and imprisonments for many years without trial now are well documented by the few human rights organizations that have managed to get inside. These organizations include the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the London-based Amnesty International, and Asia Watch.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) addressed a letter to the National Human Rights Commission in India complaining about the continued detention of Kashmiri leaders "who have reportedly been arrested, detained, beaten and placed in solitary confinement for peacefully expressing their nonviolent views." The senator went on to say: "I urge the government of India to allow Amnesty International to send a team to Kashmir to investigate other allegations of human rights abuses committed by the parties to this tragic conflict."

General Secretary Ghulam Mohammed Safi of the All Parties Hurriet Conference, Jammu and Kashmir, an umbrella organization of eight major political parties inside Indian-held Kashmir, was interviewed by the Washington Report during an August visit to the U.S. He rejected the idea of a breakup of the state as a solution put forward by some interested Indian circles and denied Indian government-inspired press reports that the Hurriet Conference was willing to come to terms with New Delhi.

With international pressure mounting, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao has expressed his desire to conduct elections in Kashmir "to diffuse the current tension." The possibility of such elections in the near future, however, has been ruled out by Indian intelligence sources themselves.

The prospect of Kashmir elections, therefore, may be a ploy to stall talks on the issue with Pakistan and to convince Washington of India's good intentions. Further evidence of the continued militant mood of the Kashmiris was provided at the funeral of Qazi Nisar Ahmed, who was jailed in India from 1990 to 1992, and killed by gunfire in Kashmir this year. More than 100,000 people attended the funeral.

International politics aside, and political expediencies notwithstanding, Kashmir is above all a human-rights issue. The Kashmiris were promised self-determination by the United Nations two generations ago. They still are waiting.

M.M. Ali is a professor at the University of the District of Columbia.