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India has enough evidence for Pakistan to be branded a sponsor of terrorism. But is the US listening? 

By Harinder Baweja

Listen Vajpayee ... we want to convey to you that if you do not stop atrocities in Kashmir and withdraw your forces, then invading your office is easy for us Mujahideen. Vajpayee, even in your army, there are elements that would help the Mujahideen. Your army sells itself for money. They flee after giving us weapons and taking money. You are nothing in front of us ... I even say to General Musharraf that the Kashmir issue would be resolved in the battlefield of jehad and we have taken this decision. Pakistan Army is the army of the Mujahideen and liberating Kashmir is its duty ... I offer the Constitution of Allah to General Musharraf.''
This is the speech of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the chief of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, delivered at its annual congregation in Muridke near Lahore. The contents of the speech and the forum at which it was delivered are enough for US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to take a look at India's repeated plea that Pakistan be declared a terrorist state.

The criterion under which Albright can put Pakistan on notice are simple and clearly laid out. A country is declared a sponsor of terrorism if it:

• gives training to militant groups.
• allows them to operate on its soil.
• provides them sanctuary, funds, weapons and logistical support.
  

For several years now, India has been making the case against Pakistan for its role in sponsoring cross-border terrorism. The appeal was renewed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee soon after the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar and the matter is likely to be taken up when US President Bill Clinton arrives in India on March 20. But a senior US diplomat says, "We have no evidence that the Government of Pakistan had any foreknowledge of the hijacking.''
Soon after the hijacked passengers arrived in Delhi, Home Minister L.K. Advani, in an effort to bolster Vajpayee's demand, put forth the Government's case against Pakistan. The arrest and interrogation of four Mumbai-based ISI operatives, he asserted, confirmed that the hijacking was an ISI operation executed with the assistance of the Harkat-ul-Ansar which is headquartered in Pakistan. The US was quick to react and, as in the past, maintained that Indian interrogations were suspect unless independently corroborated by documentary or technical evidence. A senior US diplomat, in fact, reveals that a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team arrived in Delhi on January 1 but could not meet with senior officials monitoring the hijacking for over three weeks. Finally, they were given the same material -- photographs of the hijackers and the statements of their accomplices -- as had been shared with the media.

"America relies very heavily on evidence that we collect ourselves or that we see first hand,'' says a State Department official. Asserts J.N. Dixit, former foreign secretary: "America's stand vis a vis Pakistan is hugely tempered by political factors and they will look at our dossier only when it serves their interests. Right now, they are interested in what Osama bin Laden is doing to them and not what Pakistan is doing to India.''

The State Department's negative reaction, as also the rejection of India's stand by South Asian experts like Michael Krepon of the Stimson Centre and Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institute, both of whom were sarcastic about India renewing its complaint against Pakistan, has caused considerable consternation in Delhi. In the State Department's lexicon, international terrorism is one that involves the citizens of more than one country. In Kashmir, innumerable Pakistani and Afghan nationals are involved in the insurgency. Besides, it is clear that Pakistan is training and arming terrorists.

The Harkat-ul-Ansar, which changed its name to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen after it was banned by the US in 1997, continues to operate from Pakistan with impunity; and this fact, amongst many others, has been repeatedly brought to the attention of the US. But as defence analyst Major General (retd) Afsir Karim puts it, "Just because it suits India it doesn't mean that it is also in the US interest.'' Quite like the stand it has taken on the coup in Pakistan -- seeing some merit in not breaking all contact with the Musharraf regime while still maintaining that a democratic government should return -- the US has almost laughed away India's case while claiming that it is under review. "It is a polite way of saying no,'' says Karim adding, "they took no time in the case of Libya or Syria.''

This Janus-faced attitude of the US culminating with the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane has been in evidence over the years:

In 1992, when the Narasimha Rao government shared information with Washington and urged that Pakistan be declared a terrorist state, the US expressed its inability saying that the evidence was circumstantial. But in the World Trade Centre and Oklahoma bombing cases, US courts ruled that in terrorism-related cases, conviction could be based on circumstantial evidence if it was strong enough.

After the Mumbai blasts in March 1993, the Rao government invited counter-terrorism experts from the US and other western countries to visit the spot and make their own examination. An Austrian expert gave a written report to the Indian government saying that the hand grenades used by the terrorists in Mumbai had been manufactured in a Pakistan ordnance factory with technology and machine tools supplied by the Austrian company.

An unexploded explosive was taken to the US for examination with Indian permission. Later an unsigned report certified that the timer was of US origin and was part of a consignment of timers supplied to the Pakistan Army. When told of this clinching evidence, the Americans came up with a seemingly ingenuous reply: that since there was considerable pilferage of arms and ammunition from the Pakistan Army stocks, it could not be concluded that the explosive had officially been given to the terrorists.

Pakistani newspapers are awash with names of Pakistanis who, they say, have been martyred in Kashmir. Both the Lashkar and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen are headquartered in Pakistan and funds are openly collected for the "liberation of Kashmir''. But none of this has been taken into account. Nor for that matter have Musharraf's statements been considered. To a question on why his government was protecting the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, he said, "Islam does not recognise boundaries between Islamic states.''

Worried about the response Clinton will get on arrival here -- in view of increasing tension on the Indo-Pakistani border and the public reaction to the sight of charred and headless bodies of Indian soldiers -- the US President's media managers are trying to paint his visit as a good-will mission; even pointing out that India and the US now have a joint working group on counter terrorism. The FBI, they say, is awaiting permission to open shop in India and will soon be gathering its own evidence to bolster India's case against Pakistan. Albright's recent statement that Pakistan was a transit point for terrorists is being viewed in Foreign Ministry circles as a "salutary" statement

At the same time, US officials are quick to point out that they haven't taken any action against India despite its much talked of backing to the LTTE. Indeed, one of their complaints is that India wants to use the US as a proxy -- that unlike Indira Gandhi who was quick in banning all Pakistani civil and military flights through Indian airspace after an Indian Airlines plane was hijacked to Lahore and subsequently blown up when the crew and passengers had alighted, the Vajpayee Government has not taken any stern measures against Pakistan.

Foreign Ministry officials point out that there is very little evidence against some of the countries -- Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria -- that the US has branded as sponsors of terrorism. Cuba, for instance, continues to be on the list even though a State Department report stated in 1996 that "although there is no current evidence that Cuban officials were directly involved in sponsoring specific acts of terrorism last year, Cuba is still a safe haven for several international terrorists ...'' India has more than the safe haven clause to back its case; but as Dixit pointed out: the decision is tempered with political considerations. India's case does not necessarily have to be America's.

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