The Rediff Special/ P N Lekhi

Part I: Cease-Fire or Cease-Fixers: Story of many betrayals

The Taleban provided the Harkat-ul Mujahideen with training camps in eastern Afghanistan alongside the camps which it provided Osama bin Laden. The Gulf countries and our friendly Iraq funded the Harkat-ul Mujahideen.

In August, in a joint declaration, the Central Asian presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan asked for international intervention to resolve the ongoing civil war in Afghanistan to prevent the spread of Islamic extremism. President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan said, 'While there is a war in Afghanistan we can't guarantee security in Central Asia. The source of conflict and rebel groups are people in Afghanistan.'

This one-day summit was convened after a series of incursions by Islamic extremists into southern Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan through Tajikistan by Afghan-trained jihadis. The Central Asian presidents signed a treaty with Russia whereby Moscow would provide Russian forces to defeat the jihadis. There was no cease-fire. The Islamic states of Central Asia were threatened by Islamic fundamentalism. And their way to meet that threat was not word of mouth, but the barrel of the gun.

The Afghan-trained Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, based in Tajikistan, has raised alarm bells in Russia, China and Europe. Russia, the US and Turkey have sent military advisers to Uzbekistan. China has supplied equipment to meet the threat from the Taleban-trained IMU insurgents. Early last year Britain sent a reconnaissance party to assess whether it should be involved. In the face of this, India seeks to provide to the Afghan-trained jihadis operating in Indian territory a respectability they do not command.

The secular opposition might feel enraged to read what Maulana Ubaidullah Bhutto, chairman, Jamiat Ulema-e-Sindh, Pakistan, had to say about madrasas. Speaking at a recent seminar in Islamabad, he is reported in The Nation, Lahore, saying, 'It also remains a fact that in certain parts of the country fanaticism is growing, where madrasas have become sanctuaries of ultra fundamentalists, and which are churning out herds of narrow minded and ill-educated students-cum-ulemas.' He pleaded for a government ban on such madrasas.

Interior Minister General Moinuddin Haider, in April 2000, speaking on Pakistan's madrasas, said, 'They take a child under care and poison his mind and he starts thinking that others are kafirs and there will be recompense to kill them.'

Ardeshir Cowasjee, the well known columnist of the Dawn, Lahore, wrote on February 20, 2000 'the madrasas system of education has been institutionalised. Most of it turns our thousands of young blindered bigots who have been taught only to parrot the misguided teachings of illiterate mullas ignorant of the true tenets of their religion. There are also a sizeable number of madrasas which send out into the world militant youths, schooled to fight, to kill and to die for the 'cause'. Politicised and established are terrorist groups such as the Lashkar i Taiyba and the Harkat-ul Ansar, funded by the CIA, which was declared a terrorist organisation by the US state department last year and promptly changed its name to Harkat-ul Mujahideen. These groups practise their own version of jihad. The Taleban sitting on our border, were admittedly created by Pakistan, but at the instance and with the help of the CIA. That Pakistan is regarded by some as a terrorist state, encouraging and aiding international terrorism, must largely be credited to the CIA.'

We know the second largest group of jihadis operating in India are from amongst the Taleban. Who will win them over? The Hurriyat Conference leaders? Have the cease-fixers of India reckoned with this question? The Afghan-trained jihadis will not listen to the visitors from the valley. This message the jihadis have already publicly conveyed to them on the telephone.

It is noteworthy that at the meeting of 22 Islamic countries on October 21 last year, the Organisation of Islamic Conference summarily rejected the demand for a jihad against Israel. Was that because the US was keen to broker a peace between the Palestinians and Israel?


But General Musharraf did not find it odd to preside over the jihad conference in Pakistan advocating jihad in India. And yet the cease-fixers of India are keen to manipulate and shape events so that it may ultimately be possible for them to sit across a conference table with Musharraf or his surrogates.

Afghanistan's Taleban government secured recognition from only two countries -- Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Even the Saudis got disgusted with that government and withdrew its envoy from Kabul in December 1998. It has not seen any replacement to Kabul since. The cease-fire fixers are treating those jihadis, recruited and trained in Afghanistan, as parties whose views matter in questioning India's territorial integrity, in challenging the provisions of the Constitution of India and Jammu and Kashmir that the state is an integral part of India.

The average killings during the 'cease-fire' are statistically at level with the average killings when there was no cease-fire. The much trumpeted withdrawal of troops by Pakistan from along the Line of Control has been contradicted by India's defence minister.

The white paper on ISI activities promised by the Union home minister is still awaited although a full year has run its course. Therefore, there is no necessity to issue any white paper on 'Why cease-fire?' The drawing room intelligentsia is resigned to the necessity for a cease-fire and support its silent assent by framing the question: Tell us then what to do?

One answer is provided by Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake. He said terrorism should be defeated by military means and at the same time the grievances of the communities should be addressed.

Who was the governor Indira Gandhi sent to Jammu and Kashmir in 1984? That year saw a popular state government being toppled with huge bribes. Governor Jagmohan's mission was to topple Farooq Abdullah's National Conference government. His successor was Dr Abdullah's brother-in-law, G M Shah. Mrs Gandhi was satisfied with Dr Abdullah's removal. But did the change work for the better?

The Nehru family is the jinx as far as Jammu and Kashmir is concerned. The father tied the tether around India's unity by his escapade to the UN Security Council; his daughter sowed the seeds the crop from which, after being free from the Russians, the Taleban would try to harvest in Kashmir.

And what about that governor? He is presently a Union minister. His removal from the Cabinet will send proper signals to the people of Jammu and Kashmir the welfare of the people is the Union's concern, not the selfish political ambitions of any individual in power. That would also purge Farooq Abdullah of his autonomy fad. His autonomy resolution has done no service to India and the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir under which he has taken the oath of office.

The US bugbear of Islamic fundamentalism will vanish once that country has Osama bin Laden hauled up before a US court. That US doublespeak needs to be exposed.

Organisations like the Harkat-ul Mujahideen or Harakat-ul Ansar are retained amongst 25 others in the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations, but when such jihadi organisations operate in Jammu and Kashmir they are not referred to as terrorist organisations, but as foreign organisations engaged in a struggle.

The US is only concerned with terrorism if the lives of its citizens or properties belonging to its missions abroad or in the US are threatened. The US believes in military strikes against terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan, but will not support the idea of similar action by India against the bases in Pakistan or for that matter either in Afghanistan or Pakistan occupied Kashmir. If the inspiration for the cease-fire has any US connection, let us stop fooling ourselves.

The government should firmly tell the US that if that country is against terrorism it should have no truck with countries which aid and abet organisations in the FTO list. But other countries are seriously and genuinely worried. Included in such a list are Islamic countries. Russia has already demonstrated its will in Chechnya and is making no bones about the Taleban.

It is high time the government enters into workable arrangements with other countries whose security, law and order are endangered by Islamic fundamentalist outfits and chalk out a common strategy to meet such a challenge. To depend on the US administration alone will be very dangerous and risky.

Or does the hope of a Nobel Peace Prize haunt those responsible for extending the cease-fire beyond January 26?

Design: Lynette Menezes

P N Lekhi, the well known lawyer, has fought many cases of public interest.

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