Green light for peace talks

Green light for peace talks
Amrita Abraham

Wednesday’s consensus among political parties shows confidence in the course the government has embarked on in Jammu and Kashmir. Hope is alive that the ceasefire can lead to better days. The government should feel encouraged to go further and initiate talks.

Three months on, there is little to show for the ceasefire. The killing has gone on and the government has not been able to move the process forward. Although Islamabad's restraint on the Line of Control and bid to place restrictions on jehadi groups in Pakistan appear supportive of India's peace moves, continuing terrorist acts by jehadi groups and incidents like the incursion of Pakistani surveillance planes send contrary messages. Pervez Musharraf himself speaks in two voices, alternately conciliatory and hawkish.

As bad as it is, it is not worse than before. And backing down from a course of action which everyone recognises as courageous is no option. It would be an admission of weakness. To expect terrorism to end with the declaration of a unilateral ceasefire or the security forces, recouped and retrained in three months, to be spectacularly more successful in preventing violence is not realistic. The justification for the cessation of a pro-active policy against militants in J&K, which is what the ceasefire amounts to, is that it confirms the government's intention to find a political solution and it invites those who believe there can never be a military solution to cooperate in fashioning a peaceful one.

All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leaders who are inclined towards talks with India are the presumed moderates who have been threatened by terrorist outfits for welcoming the ceasefire. Those Hurriyat leaders would be running fresh risks for precious little and the hardliners would be strengthened if the government showed a lack of conviction in its own peace initiative or allowed it to get bogged down in futile arguments over passports or between the so-called doves and the hawks within the cabinet.

The APHC remains central to any political strategy. The Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest of the separatist groups, indicated its willingness last year to negotiate with the government in its own right. Abdul Ghani Lone has said he favours talks, Yasin Malik and Javed Mir appear to, and even Umar Farooq seems to have shifted to a more sober stance. Pro-Pakistanti leaders, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Abdul Ghani Bhatt, need to be engaged too and can best be engaged through a portmanteau organisation like the APHC. Given its importance, the APHC views on the ceasefire are instructive. Public statements suggest scepticism in the absence of moves towards talks but the really telling reaction is the suspension of Hizb activities. That speaks louder than words of expectations from the ceasefire and of the effectiveness of the pressures which brought about last July's unilateral Hizb ceasefire and continue to operate today.

And what does the ceasefire actually mean on the ground? The jehadis are not given free rein. The army would surely not tolerate that. It means essentially a policy of restraint towards groups who unlike the religious fundamentalist jehadis have political objectives which need to be discussed.

Both the government and the APHC ``moderates'' have an interest in a process which isolates the wreakers of violence from potential peacemakers and shows Kashmiris exactly where Pakistan stands in the line-up. The jehadis have made all the running in the last three months. This has two sides to it. With the dominant Hizb out of action because of the ceasefire, the jehadis can either grow stronger or be picked off more easily by the security forces. Success in the latter enterprise depends in turn on the situation on the border.

The relative quiet on the Line of Control and the reported drop in infiltration are gains from the ceasefire so far. Pressure from the major powers could continue to constrain Pakistan and force it to reduce material assistance to the jehadis. The ceasefire in tandem with stepped up intelligence gathering and aggressive diplomacy is necessary to deepen the peace on the border. But India must show it plans to move ahead, albeitcautiously.

Haigam and Maisuma make it essential that the ceasefire be followed soon by other measures to reinforce the government's credibility as a peacemaker. Jehadi action has taken three forms: daring, attention-getting attacks on command posts of the security forces; operations aimed at minorities like the Biharis and Sikhs; and action calculated to provoke the security forces to fire on civilians. It is unclear as yet whether any jehadi group played a part in incidents in which security forces fired on stone-throwing, kangri-throwing civilians protesting about human rights violations. Public opinion was inflamed. It is certain jehadi outfits will recognise the intifada-type potential of what happened at Haigam and Maisuma. Balraj Puri of the Jammu Autonomy Forum points out that the number of demonstrations against human rights violations have increased since the second extension of the ceasefire. He says this does not necessarily indicate an increase in the number of actual violations but may reflect higherexpectations of peace. It could also be, as the army suspects, because political activists have been busy. Either way the situation is ripe for exploitation by jehadi groups.

It has been a 12-year long anti-insurgency, anti-terrorist battle for troops who have not always been well-equipped and highly trained. Fatigue and panic have got the better of them on more than one occasion. Fresh paramilitary battalions are being raised but will not be ready immediately.

None of this justifies the lack of accountability. Pathribal, Brijbehara, Barakpora all carry a terrible resonance for Kashmiris. Only the last has been impartially investigated and resulted in official action. The claims of human rights must be given high priority.

The ceasefire will be prone to collapse unless there is movement forward. Given the political complexities, the divisions within the government, that public apprehensions have not been addressed, incremental steps towards talks and other kinds of confidence-building measures are all that can be expected. But those steps should follow soon.

Haigam and Maisuma make it essential that the ceasefire be followed soon by other measures to reinforce the government's credibility as a peacemaker.