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COVER STORY: INDIA-PAKISTAN RELATIONS
Cease-fire Isolates Pakistan
The Ramzan cease-fire
was, on the face of it, a daring game plan by Vajpayee. He decided that
the Kashmir issue was too important to be left only to individual ministries
that were usually at war with each other. The plot was to downgrade Pakistan's
key cards in Kashmir so that when a dialogue between the two countries
resumed its ability to bargain would be considerably weakened. The strategy:
be proactive rather than allow Pakistan to determine the pace of events
in the Valley.
The unilateral cease-fire initially put Pakistan
on the backfoot by swinging international opinion strongly in India's
favour while winning rare support in the Valley. By agreeing to hold talks
with all groups in Kashmir, the Centre was for a while able to sow confusion
among the All Party Hurriyat Conference leaders and make them speak, as
one official put it, "in 13 different voices".
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UNENDING VIOLENCE: The number of
security personnel killed shot up during the cease-fire
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Realising that India was rapidly gaining the
upper hand, Pakistan quickly beefed up militant activity in the Valley,
using the dreaded Lashkar-e-Toiba to upset the Indian game plan. Apart
from ordinary people, the militants chose high-security targets such as
army camps to show that they could strike at will and demoralise the forces.
Attacks against civilians and security forces showed a steep rise (see
graphic). Compared to four suicide attacks on army and security camps
in the previous six months there were 17 fidayeen attacks during the six-month-long
cease-fire. The security forces, fighting with one hand tied behind their
back due to the cease-fire, said there was a limit to the casualties they
could take and warned that demoralisation was setting in.
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FUTURE STEPS
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Pressure Musharraf into ending cross-border
terrorism and bringing down infiltration.
Keep the loc cold. Desist from cross-border
artillery duels.
Isolate the pan-Islamic jehadi groups
such as Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed from the dominant ethnic
Kashmiri militant groups like Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.
Reduce violence to revive political activity
in the Kashmir Valley.
Both sides may look for limited, short-term
gains.
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Meanwhile, a shaky Musharraf began to tighten
his grip on Pakistan. He created political space for himself by first
exiling the troublesome Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia with a commitment
to pardon his crimes. Benazir Bhutto, another former prime minister, got
a surprise reprieve from the Supreme Court which ordered a retrial of
the cases against her. But Musharraf made her postpone her plans of returning
home by threatening to slap more charges against her.
Emboldened, Musharraf declared that he might
run for presidency. He consolidated his hold on the army recently by appointing
his trusted aide Lt-General Muzaffar H. Usmani as the deputy chief of
army staff. As a Pakistani analyst says, "It is unlikely there will
be a coup within the coup."
If anything could fell Musharraf it is the poor
state of Pakistan's economy. Its GDP growth rate has dipped to 4 per cent,
exports are stagnant at Rs 900 crore while inflation and unemployment
are rising. But with US intervention, the IMF is likely to approve a plan
to help Pakistan reduce its external debts to manageable limits. Musharraf
has also begun to gain international acceptance by visiting 10 countries
in the past few months and even played host to Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji
in May. In fact, in April the MEA's assessment was that the general was
here to stay and India should seriously think of doing business with him.
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