Opinions,
Conclusions, and Recommendations expressed or implied by the Authors' Papers
are solely those of the Author and do not represent the views of the National
Defense University, the Department of Defense, or any other government agency
or nongovernment organization.
A South Asian Peace Process
Ambassador John C. Holzman
A
Golden Bus
Late in the afternoon on February 20, 1999 a golden
bus pulled up a few yards short of the Wagah border crossing that is the only permissible
road link between India and Pakistan.
On each side of the crossing lies India’s Punjab and Pakistan’s Punjab,
products of the 1947 partition of British India, which precipitated the largest
migration in modern times, as Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs were uprooted from
their homes to establish new lives in new countries--either India or
Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister
Vajpayee stepped down from the bus and purposefully strode through the metal
gates into Pakistan, the country with which India has fought three wars. On the Pakistan side of the line, Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif greeted Vajpayee with a quick handshake and a tentative
hug as guns boomed in salute. Vajpayee
was brimming with confidence and why not? India had enjoyed almost ten years of
high growth and seemed bound to emerge in the coming decades as an Asian
heavyweight, playing in the same league with China and Japan. His host, Nawaz Sharif, faced a different
reality—a stagnant economy burdened by huge foreign debt, a polity riven by sectarian
violence, and a government in a state of advanced institutional decay. Pakistanis were unhappy with their state and
wondered if it was failing. The two
leaders boarded a waiting helicopter to be flown to Governor's House in Lahore,
just twenty miles from the border.
The occasion was the inauguration of bus service
between New Delhi and Lahore, but Vajpayee's purpose was larger--to end a half
century of seemingly intractable hostility and begin a new era of peaceful
Indo-Pakistani relations. India and
Pakistan's nuclear tests the previous May and their programs to develop
ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads added urgency and a new
dimension of insecurity to the talks.
Arriving by bus was enormously symbolic and a public relations
masterstroke: common people in both countries still mostly traveled by bus, and
regular service between the two neighbors could be the first thread in an
effort to stitch the open wounds created by partition. As a reminder of the blood that still flowed
from those wounds, just the day before militant separatists had gunned down
twenty civilians, including women and children, in three separate incidents in
Kashmir, the former princely state where Indian security forces and
Pakistan-supported militants waged low intensity warfare. The death toll in Kashmir over the past
decade numbered about 20,000, including militants, security forces, and
civilians.
The results of Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif's meetings
in Lahore more than fulfilled the wishes of those who hoped for a peace process
to end hostility between the two neighbors.
In a joint declaration, the leaders said that they "shared a vision
of peace and stability between their countries and of progress and prosperity
for their peoples." They pledged:
·
To
work harder to resolve outstanding issues, including Kashmir, not to intervene
or interfere in the other's affairs, and to combat the menace of terrorism in
all its forms.
·
To
take early steps to reduce the risk of accidental or inadvertent nuclear war,
and to discuss confidence building measures aimed at preventing either
conventional or nuclear conflict.
The Lahore Declaration seemed to be an auspicious
beginning for a long delayed and much needed South Asian peace process. The symbolism was there, the apparent
high-level commitment was there, and there was substantive meat on the bones of
the rhetoric, in that the elements of the Declaration reasonably took into
account competing Indian and Pakistani interests. India's promise to work to resolve the Kashmir dispute balanced
references to non-interference in the other's affairs and terrorism, which
together could be taken as Pakistan's promise to stop cross-border
violence. Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif
wisely de-linked the negotiation of nuclear confidence building measures from
Kashmir--perhaps more of a concession by Pakistan, since it confronts a much
more powerful India--but still an indication of healthy respect on both sides
for the dangers facing the populations of the world's newest nuclear weapon
states. The confidence building measures identified in a memorandum between the
foreign secretaries of the two countries ranged from re-affirmations not to
test nuclear weapons to improving bilateral communications, including
consultations on security concepts and nuclear doctrines. The two sides agreed to establish ways to
consult on monitoring and implementing existing confidence building measures, a
practice that heretofore had been almost entirely honored in the breach. Vajpayee also visited the Minar-I-Pakistan,
the monument to independence, thereby underlining India's commitment to
Pakistan’s legitimacy as a nation. The
events in Lahore seemed to confirm the view held by South Asian analysts that
the strategic deterrence created by India and Pakistan's 1998 nuclear tests
would lend stability to their relations.
They also seemed to confound Western commentators who had warned that
crossing the nuclear threshold dangerously raised the stakes in South Asia but
did not alter the fundamental conflict between the two nations.
Naysayers
Despite the good feelings in Lahore, skeptical
naysayers abounded on all sides, most doubting that Vajpayee's bus diplomacy
would lead to much and some opposing the entire concept of Indo-Pakistani
reconciliation. Indian commentators
were miffed that Pakistan's top military brass did not greet Vajpayee at the
border and speculated on the significance--if any--of this perceived
slight. Their concern, however, arose
from a realistic assessment of the military’s decisive role in Pakistani
national security policy and that it remained the most coherent institution in
the country. After all, the military
had ruled Pakistan during almost half of it existence and would exercise control
over Pakistan's nuclear program for the foreseeable future.
Other observers--especially those from
Pakistan--commented that if the two leaders sincerely wished to begin a
meaningful dialogue on Kashmir, then presumably they were considering new
options that went beyond the stated positions of over fifty years. But there was no sign that Pakistan was
willing to compromise on its demand for self-determination for Kashmir, or that
India would reconsider its position that Kashmir was an integral part of its
Union. Neither leader had made any
sustained attempt to prepare his constituents for changes in policy to bridge
the gap between the two sides.
Certainly in Pakistan a proposal from Nawaz Sharif that it was time to
adopt a softer line on Kashmir would have encountered major opposition that
could bring down his government. In
fact, Islamic parties demonstrated against Vajpayee's visit even while he was
in Lahore. They were driven by a
profound sense of injustice that took root as far back as the nineteenth
century and were not prepared to compromise "Pakistan's principled stance
on Kashmir." And within weeks of
the Lahore meetings Nawaz Sharif was scrambling to assure his constituencies
that he had not changed the policy of the past fifty years. Given these realities, Vajpayee's bus diplomacy
was perhaps more a leap of faith than a well-thought out diplomatic
initiative. Perhaps he had put Nawaz
Sharif on the spot and the Pakistani Prime Minister had no choice but to
reciprocate with courtesy or lose face internationally.
Breach
of Trust
Whatever trust the two leaders created in Lahore
vanished in gun smoke just a few months later as Indian and Pakistani soldiers
in the Kargil sector of Kashmir engaged in the most intense fighting between
the two countries in almost thirty years.
In early spring soldiers and fighters from Pakistan quietly slipped
across the Line of Control (LOC), which divides Kashmir into Indian and
Pakistan controlled areas, and dug into the rugged terrain near Kargil, a
mountainous region at an altitude of 14,000-18,000 feet, from which Indian
troops annually pulled back to escape the winter snows. The thrust was a bold
attempt to seize and hold territory across the LOC. When India discovered the intruders, it counterattacked to
dislodge then while threatening to widen the conflict. The fighting could have escalated and
possibly, in the worst case, resulted in a nuclear exchange. After six weeks of fierce battle--and the
personal intervention of President Clinton--in July 1999 Pakistan's forces fell
back across the LOC.
Once the dimensions of the Kargil incursion were
clear, it was apparent to all that the Pakistan Army must have been planning
the operation even as Vajpayee's bus was rumbling up to the Wagah border
crossing and the diplomacy in Lahore was going forward. Moreover, even if Nawaz Sharif was not aware
of the Army's plans at that time, he at least consented to Kargil after having
pledged in Lahore to create a peace process.
The Indian government and press protested loudly that Pakistan had
breached the bilateral trust created in Lahore, that Islamabad had engaged
"in dialogue in winter and aggression in summer." The government claimed that elements closely
connected with the Taliban and Osama bin Ladin were “mixed up” in the
affair. Pakistan’s aim was to alter the
LOC to India’s disadvantage and to allow Pakistan better access to destabilize
the Valley of Kashmir where the insurgency was centered. The Lahore dialogue could not be resumed,
Indian leaders said, until Pakistan restored trust by reaffirming "the
inviolability and sanctity of the line of control" and halting
"cross-border terrorism" in Kashmir.
Pakistan at first claimed that the fighters at
Kargil were irregulars, indigenous Kashmiri insurgents acting on their own, but
mounting evidence of the Army's official role soon punched multiple holes in
that effort at plausible deniability.
Pakistani officials later explained that their intent was to draw the
world's attention to Kashmir as a nuclear flash point, thereby stimulating the
U.S. and other major powers to intervene to bring India and Pakistan to
terms. If so, then Kargil was in part
the result of years of gathering frustration that so little progress had been
achieved on the one issue on which virtually all Pakistanis agreed--that
Kashmir was rightfully theirs and India should give it up. Pakistan's dilemma was that while India
insisted that Kashmir must be settled bilaterally, as called for in the Simla
Agreement of 1972, episodic discussions between the two sides had been
singularly unfruitful. Moreover, given
the entrenched positions on both sides of the issue, states from outside the
region were extremely reluctant to get involved to produce a settlement.
From Pakistan's point of view the reason for the
lack of progress was India refusal to accept or even discuss the possibility
that the status of Kashmir might be in dispute, which is the essence of
Pakistan's official position. Pakistan
does not have the arms or influence to force India to take a more flexible
approach--hence the need to raise the ante, to demonstrate to the U.S. and
other major actors outside the region that they must engage on the issue of
Kashmir to avoid a nuclear exchange. If
this was the case, and if Pakistan's initial assumption was that the nuclear
tests created strategic cover, then Kargil was indeed a risky exercise in
brinkmanship.
However, Pakistan succeeded to some degree as
demonstrated by President Clinton's role in helping to end the crisis and by
his commitment to travel to South Asia, notwithstanding strong U.S. disapproval
of the nuclear tests. Clinton stated at
the time that he intended to take "a personal interest" in
encouraging Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif to resume the dialogue begun in
Lahore. His view was that South Asia
was "the most dangerous region" in the world. But during his visit to India and Pakistan
in March 2000, Clinton clarified to the Indian Parliament, and later to the
Pakistani people in a televised address, that while the U.S. supported a
resumption of dialogue between the two neighbors, it would not mediate Kashmir.
Downward
Spiral
In the wake of Kargil, Indo-Pakistani relations
moved from one new low to the next.
·
In
August 1999, the Indian National Security Advisory Board "draft
report" on nuclear doctrine declared a "no first use" policy but
that India would develop a "triad of aircraft, mobile land-based missiles
and sea-based assets to counter any threat of use of nuclear weapons. While official Indian policy on nuclear
weapons remained undefined and perhaps less bellicose than the Advisory Board's
draft report, it was not disavowed, leaving Pakistan to draw its own
conclusions based on worst case scenarios.
Pakistani officials responded that they would not allow India's moves to
compromise the credibility of their deterrent.
·
In
October 1999, General Musharraf, the chief of Pakistan's Army overthrew Nawaz
Sharif and became Pakistan’s Chief Executive.
Infuriated that the architect of the Kargil operation was now ruling
Pakistan, India adopted a policy of refusing to deal with the new military
government, either bilaterally or within the SAARC (South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation), and of trying to isolate Islamabad. New Delhi renewed its call on the U.S. to
declare Pakistan a terrorist state and repeatedly criticized Pakistan for its
support of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
·
In
December 1999, Islamic militants of the Pakistan-based Harakat-ul-Mujahideen--a
militant organization fighting in Kashmir--hijacked an Air India flight from
Kathmandu that finally came to rest in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the home base of
the Taliban. The hijackers murdered one
Indian citizen and threatened to blow up the plane and its passengers unless
India released from jail a Pakistan-born cleric and a large number of other
individuals active in the Kashmiri insurgency.
The Taliban brokered the negotiations.
Despite a policy of having no truck with terrorists, India eventually
gave in, releasing three prisoners, including the cleric. He triumphantly returned to Pakistan where
he called for jihad--or holy war--against India and founded a militant
organization to fight in Kashmir.
Jihad
in Kashmir…and in Pakistan?
The hijacking incident was emblematic of the
changing complexion of the Kashmiri insurgency, which began in 1989 as an
indigenous struggle against heavy-handed Indian rule. Pakistan quickly moved to support the insurgents, partly out of
real sympathy for the plight of the Kashmiri people, partly in hopes of
demonstrating the illegitimacy of India's hold over Kashmir, and partly to
bleed India in Kashmir and to tie down Indian troops. Even though many, perhaps most, Kashmiris were no more anxious to
be part of Pakistan than of India, they welcomed the help. Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence
Directorate funneled money, weapons, and equipment to the insurgency, including
militant groups based in Pakistan, trained fighters and helped infiltrate them
across the LOC. What home grown
Kashmiri insurgents may not have realized was that with Pakistan's aid would
eventually come growing numbers of non-Kashmiri militants, often educated in
fundamentalist Islamic madrassahs in Pakistan or Afghanistan, and bent on
continuing the Afghan jihad in Kashmir, not on achieving a political solution. Pakistan Chief Executive Musharraf, an
individual generally known for his secular orientation, appeared to endorse the
concept of jihad in Kashmir when he stated, "Islam does not preach
terrorism... Islam believes in jihad, a fight in the path of God. Wherever Muslims are being victimized or
killed, Islam asks all Muslims to come to their aid.”
However, Pakistan’s embrace of armed militant Islam
also carried costs for its own society.
As Jessica Stern explained in an article in Foreign Affairs,
Pakistan was coping with "a principal-agent problem," where the
interests of the Pakistan Government—the principal—did not coincide with those
of the agent—the militant organizations.
The Inter Service Intelligence Directorate was financing and arming
jihadi groups who served Pakistan's perceived interests in Kashmir, principally
attacking and killing Indian soldiers and generally attempting to demonstrate
that Kashmir should be separate from India.
But some of these same groups had also helped create the plague of violence
that afflicted Pakistan’s own society.
Elements of the militant organizations were responsible for much of the
violence in Karachi, Pakistan financial capital, which had resulted in deaths
in the thousands during the past decade, and for the chronic Sunni-Shia
killing--often wholesale slaughters in mosques during prayers--that had become
virtually a weekly occurrence. These
same organizations had links to Osama bin Ladin and terrorism against Americans
and other Westerners. An offshoot of
the group that hijacked the Air India flight took five Western hikers hostage
in Kashmir in 1995 and murdered four of them.
Successive Pakistan governments have tried without
success over the past decade to disarm the militant organizations within their
society while more precisely directing their activities to serve the state’s
interests. Musharraf’s government holds
similar goals and only recently proposed a law against organizations and groups
that engage in sectarian terrorism. It
has also tried to strictly implement a ban on the display of arms and making of
inflammatory speeches. However, the
tangled relationship among entities of the government, political parties, and
various militant groups has become such a welter of overlapping and conflicting
interests, with Kashmir as the central unifying element, whatever Musharraf's
intentions, his power to bend the militant groups to his will remain in doubt.
South
Asian Thaw
The summer of 2000 brought signs of a thaw in Indo-Pakistan
relations and positive movement in Kashmir, but the warming trend has yet to
bear fruit in the form of direct political discussions between the two
neighbors. Weary of a decade of
bloodshed, Kashmiris--not the governments of India or Pakistan—were the first
to begin a process that might establish an atmosphere in which engagement would
be possible, and after some hesitation and false starts, Islamabad and New
Delhi joined in. In June 2000 the
Kashmir State Assembly, led by the pro-India Farooq Abdullah, petitioned the
Indian government to restore Kashmir to its pre-1953 autonomous status. In
July, the Hizbul Mujahideen, a major Kashmiri insurgent group with ties to
Jamaat-i-Islami (Pakistan's largest mainline Islamic political party), declared
a unilateral cease-fire to permit a dialogue with New Delhi. Both efforts died aborning as the Indian
cabinet firmly rejected the idea of autonomy, and Islamabad squelched the
cease-fire, fearing it would be excluded from a Srinagar-New Delhi dialogue. Pakistan's action to pull back the Hizbul
Mujahideen may have ironically offered cover to Vajpayee's government, which
was being assailed for allegedly contemplating negotiations that might
compromise India's position on Kashmir and go against the constitution.
These aborted initiatives were signs of ferment
across the spectrum of Kashmiri political opinion that was producing a more
positive perspective and an opening for a new peace effort. Vajpayee saw an opportunity to begin a
dialogue with Kashmiris while not trying to entirely exclude Pakistan from the
picture and not directly challenging India's stated position on Kashmir. His initiative probably reflected a
realistic appreciation that India and Pakistan had no choice but to move
towards resumed dialogue, bound as they are by geography, a common heritage,
and a growing need as nuclear weapon states to manage their differences. It also probably sprang from Vajpayee's
awareness that the troubled relationship with Pakistan was the greatest
obstacle to India achieving its ambition of a larger role in global affairs.
In late November Vajpayee declared that Indian security forces would not initiate combat operations
against militants in Kashmir during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He hoped that the militants--and presumably,
Pakistan--would respond gesture by ceasing all violence in Kashmir and
infiltration across the LOC. The
All Party Hurriyet Conference, an umbrella organization that covers most of the
Kashmiri political parties associated with the insurgent groups, welcomed
Vajpayee’s initiative as a "positive change in Indian thinking." Islamabad was at first guarded in its
response, but by early December pledged that its forces along the LOC would
“exercise maximum restraint.” Pakistan
also said that a cessation of military operations would only be meaningful if
they were accompanied by “purposeful dialogue” and proposed tripartite talks
with New Delhi and the Hurriyet.
However, the non-Kashmiri jihadi groups were hostile to Vajpayee’s
initiative and stepped up their attacks on Indian security forces. The best funded and most radical of the
groups, Lashkar-I-Tayeba, carried out high profile suicide attacks against the
Srinagar airport and the Red Fort in New Delhi, a symbol of Indian independence.
In late December Vajpayee declared his government
satisfied with the results of the “cease fire,” noting that violence in Kashmir
had declined as had attempts at infiltration across the line of control, and
that “relative peace” prevailed on the LOC.
Vajpayee informed Parliament that his government would extend the
cease-fire for a month and “initiate exploratory steps….so that the composite
dialogue process with Pakistan could be resumed.” The phrase “composite dialogue” was taken from the Lahore
Declaration and indicated that India was willing to discuss all issues,
including Kashmir. Vajpayee added that
his government was steadfast in its commitment that all Indian citizens in
Kashmir should participate in the country’s progress--a clear sign that India’s
essential position on Kashmir had not changed.
In the meantime, the Hurriyet offered to send a
delegation to Islamabad to consult with the Pakistan government and to persuade
jehadi groups to join the cease-fire, an idea that Islamabad welcomed. This could have been a precursor to the type
of tripartite discussions that Islamabad had proposed. However, as attacks by non-Kashmiri
militants continued, the Indian Government adopted a tougher line, continuing
to extend the cease-fire, but refusing to allow all the members of the Hurriyet
delegation to travel to Islamabad, and insisting that "cross border
terrorism" must cease before a dialogue could be resumed. In early February, Musharraf telephoned
Vajpayee to offer sympathy for the victims of the Gujurat earthquake after his
government had sent relief supplies to India.
The call was the first direct contact between Vajpayee and Musharraf
since the latter came to power in the October 1999 coup and measurably warmed
the chilly atmosphere between New Delhi and Islamabad.
All these were good signs but hardly constituted a
peace process, since New Delhi and Islamabad have yet even to initiate regular
political level contacts. Hard-liners
in both countries were already reinforcing established positions and agitating
against the possibility of a process that might entail compromise. In New Delhi, there was growing anger that
Indian security forces were restricted from offensive operations while
militants had intensified their attacks.
Indian casualties were said to be up while militant deaths were
down. Vajpayee's government also faced
new pressures from a corruption scandal that could threaten its survival. Meanwhile in Pakistan, militant groups
remained as strong as ever and as intent on jihad in Kashmir. Friends of the region could only offer their
support for an early and productive dialogue based on the Lahore Declaration,
but realists understood that working through the problems would take political
courage, creative leadership, and perseverance, commodities that are all too
rare in South Asia--or elsewhere.
A
South Asian Peace Process
Both India and Pakistan have long
since accepted that the Kashmir dispute cannot be settled by military
force. Yet they have been unable to
begin a joint search for peace and have allowed Kashmir to fester and become
one of the most enduring disputes in the world. Crossing the nuclear threshold makes it all the more important
for India and Pakistan to stabilize their relations, as Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif
recognized in Lahore. Yet the peace
process that the Lahore Declaration was intended to launch failed within
months. Only now, more than two years
later, are the leaders of India and Pakistan beginning to consider resuming the
dialogue envisaged in the Lahore Declaration.
The first and most important requirement for such an undertaking is that
both sides commit to the proposition that a peaceful settlement is worth the
high political price it will bear in the form of compromised positions long
held sacred. Such compromise will
engender political strains at home that could jeopardize their
governments. If the two sides committed
themselves to such a search for peace--a commitment that went beyond
rhetoric--what would be the parameters of that process? The three interlocking elements should be
greater trust to create atmosphere for negotiations, an agreed conceptual
framework to rule out maximalist demands, and early tangible and positive
results to encourage an expanding peace constituency.
Greater Trust
The first step towards greater trust is to reduce
the violence in Kashmir. Just as the
Oslo peace process in the Middle East collapsed under a wave of violence, a
South Asian effort cannot be realistically contemplated so long as thousands are
killed annually in Kashmir. Pakistan
and Kashmiri groups may resist this idea for fear that it would lessen the
pressure on New Delhi to pursue a dialogue.
Militant jihadi groups may reject an effort to stop the violence, just
as they rejected New Delhi's cease-fire initiative, which begs the question of
the Pakistan Government's willingness and ability to rein them in. If Pakistan commits to stop the cross border
violence, New Delhi should respond by opening Kashmir to scrutiny by
international human rights organizations, including from Muslim countries. New Delhi's tradition position is not to
accept international observers or monitors in Kashmir or elsewhere. These would be big, new initiatives for both
governments, and the trust that would come from them--and from a reduction in
violence--would be a strong foundation for a peace process.
The second step towards creating trust--implied by
the first--is that each side must be able to see that the leadership on the
other side is taking steps to create a constituency for peace through
compromise. Indian and Pakistani
leaders should encourage public efforts that challenge stated positions and
attempt to devise alternatives that go beyond them. Leaders in both countries have too often allowed extremists to
close down domestic debate that could have evolved new options. They should also be proactive in toning down
the negative and destructive propaganda that emerges from both governments and
from the media about the other side.
The third step towards creating trust would be for
India and Pakistan to accept that the dispute now involves three parties, not
just two. Kashmiris on both sides of
the LOC are already a part of the process, but India and Pakistan have yet to
accept fully that no settlement can endure unless those who will live with it
each day of their lives must participate in its making and trust in its
fairness. This would mean that India
and Pakistan should allow Kashmiri leaders to travel freely for the purpose of
consulting their brethren on the other side of the LOC or, for that matter, the
respective governments in New Delhi and Islamabad. If this freedom is abused, for example to foment violence, then
the process will fail.
A Conceptual Framework
Maximalist demands are the bane of all peace
processes. They can be achieved only
through military victory, which India and Pakistan have ruled out. To the extent that the Middle East peace
process has succeeded, it has been on the basis of UNSC Resolutions 242 and
338, which together established the principle of land for peace, a balanced
concept that limited the ability of all sides to pursue their dreams. India, Pakistan, and Kashmiri leaders need
to agree on a conceptual framework, however rudimentary, that will serve a
similar function--to check maximalist demands and build confidence in a process
that leads somewhere. Two suggestions
for such a framework follow:
Any South Asian peace process will be a long-term
undertaking and will be repeatedly challenged by domestic opponents. Building domestic constituencies through
positive results will be essential to the survival of the process. Therefore progress in resolving other issues
should not be held hostage to movement on Kashmir, which will probably require
years of effort before a settlement is reached. Steps to liberalize visa procedures between the two countries,
for example, would be extremely popular and give common people a stake in a
peace process. The two governments
could early on re-open their consulates in Mumbai and Karachi,
respectively.
The critical security issue of India and Pakistan's
nuclear capabilities should also be kept separate from Kashmir. Both countries and their populations can
only gain from efforts to clarify and stabilize nuclear deterrence in the
region. This goal is difficult enough
given the asymmetries between India and Pakistan and their apparent shared
commitment to further develop their nuclear weapon and missile capabilities. Linking Kashmir to the nuclear issue would
effectively block progress on both.
Improved security is an important early benefit that Indians and
Pakistanis should drive from a peace process.