This meddling must stop



IT is a matter of concern that India should have chosen to stoke the fire in Balochistan by sending arms and ammunition to the militants. On Monday, while President Musharraf informed a high-level meeting about the routes through which terrorists in Pakistan were getting Indian arms, the Foreign Office spokesperson accused New Delhi of trying to destabilise this country. The president’s statement is significant, for it absolves the Afghan government of any involvement against Pakistan. Even though Afghan territory was being used for subversion in Pakistan, the president did not believe the Karzai government had anything to do with it. Instead, he said the Indian consulates in Afghanistan and Iran were organising the supply of weapons to militants in Balochistan. According to the president, the arms were being smuggled across the India-Pakistan border at Rahimyar Khan, reaching Balochistan via Sanghar and Jacobabad, while on the western border Zhob and Chagai served as the conduit for arms. RAW, India’s intelligence agency, was pumping arms and money into Balochistan, but the president said his government had sealed all the routes.

It is difficult to see how the peace process can move forward if the present slide in relations between the two countries continues. The big blow to the detente came with the Mumbai blasts of July 11, with the Indian media accusing Pakistan of involvement in the carnage even before preliminary investigations had begun. Then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh implicitly accused Pakistan of involvement in the blasts and announced a freeze of the peace process. Visiting Mumbai after the tragedy, Dr Singh said the peace process would remain frozen “until Islamabad starts acting on its assurances to crack down on terrorists”. The Indian government took a unilateral step towards freezing the peace process by cancelling the secretary-level meeting scheduled for Islamabad on July 20-21. The secretaries later met at Dhaka on the sidelines of the Saarc ministerial committee meeting, but, like all Saarc conferences, it produced nothing positive. Instead, India accused Pakistan of failing to carry out its obligations under the South Asia Free Trade Area. August saw two more unpleasant developments: first, there was a tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats, and on Aug 15, speaking on India’s independence day, Dr Singh repeated the threat that the peace process would remain frozen unless Pakistan took “concrete steps” to rein in terrorists. Things hit a new low when, following Nawab Akbar Bugti’s killing, India came out with a bit of gratuitous advice to Pakistan on how to deal with its domestic problems. This was astonishing, since Balochistan is Pakistan’s internal problem and it does not need to be told how to go about it.

In sharp contrast, the Pakistani attitude towards India’s domestic problems has been one of restraint, even though India is vulnerable on several counts. For instance, whatever is happening in India’s north-east has attracted the attention of international rights agencies and some of India’s own NGOs, besides censures from the US State Department’s annual reports on the atrocities being committed on the civilian population by India’s security forces. Yet Pakistan has chosen not to meddle in India’s internal affairs. The basic question is India’s sincerity about the peace process. New Delhi has two choices: either it should push the process forward, or it can choose to destabilise Pakistan. Pursuing the two objectives at the same time is contradictory.

Note: Taken from Dawn Editorial