Blog from Pakistan: PPP and Kashmir

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Keywords: Kashmir, Pervez Musharraf

The author of the article, Wajid Shamsul Hasan is close friend of PPP Co-Chairman, Asif Ali Zardari and late Pakistan prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. He was a former UK ambassador from Pakistan and has also written Benazir Bhutto's last will. The views and ideas expressed in this article are entirely his own.

An out of context quote of PPP Co-Chairman Senator Asif Ali Zardari in a section of the media about Kashmir dispute recently stirred a strong Kashmiri reaction on both sides of the divide and of course the diaspora. Many Kashmiri leaders-quite a few of those who are puppets on the strings of invisible hands-jumped to their guns. Without realising the unimpeachable commitment of PPP and the Bhuttos to the Kashmiri cause-they became tools in the hands of those who were defeated in the elections despite selective rigging and overwhelming support from the President. A number of pen-pushers too joined the chorus. For them any bad news is good news. Any quote that can be twisted and turned is a ball game for them.

Notwithstanding the strategic national interests of Pakistan, what is good for its survival and honourable existence — from its inception PPP has sustained all through history a Kashmir policy that seeks the core issue's solution on the basis of right of self-determination. Without prejudice to the UN resolutions for plebiscite in Kashmir the PPP has sought to settle the dispute through bilateral negotiations. And at no stage-while discussing various options, it has never indulged in about turns on the matter as a tactical methodology that General (Retd) Musharraf has often resorted to.

During his ten-years in his office-both as chief of army staff and as President, we have seen him float various "solutions" including a seven-division formula and categorical abandoning of the UN resolutions granting right of self determination to the people of Kashmir. Being a commando and a military general he even followed into the footsteps of Field Marshal Ayub Khan (the author of Operation Gibraltar in 1965) and did his own Kargil operation that also failed with most deplorable consequences. Ayub rushed to blame Pakistan Foreign Office under Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for his military fiasco and went all the way to Tashkent to sign a most humiliating treaty with India under the aegis of the erstwhile Soviet Union. Musharraf went on to repeat history. While he was the sole author of Operation Kargil, when he failed he made Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif responsible for it. It is another story that Nawaz Sharif saved Musharraf's second skin and got American President Clinton's timely intervention to avert a full-scale war with India.

His Kargil's Pyrrhic misadventure was part of his overall Kashmir strategy before he committed series of about-turns in the post 9-11 period. He had laid bare his policy vis-à-vis India on April 11, 1999 addressing the English Speaking Union in Karachi just five months before ousting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He came on record following the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's "historic bus yatra" to Lahore that Nawaz Sharif-Vajpayee Lahore Declaration seeking a 'composite dialogue process' was nothing but 'hot air'. In his speech Musharraf had summed up, "India is a hegemonic power. Low-intensity conflict with India will continue even if the Kashmir issue is resolved."

His seven-division formula had made it an extraordinary feat of exclusive diplomatic bravado since he had kept his Foreign Office and his Foreign Minister in the dark about it. Only person who was privy to his magic solution of Kashmir dispute was APHC leader Maulvi Mirwaiz Umar Farooq with whom Musharraf had shared it under the glare of the famous red lights of the city of Amsterdam where the two had met. It was otherwise a top secret. This formula also signalled the formal burial of Pakistan's traditional stand on Kashmir based on the UN resolutions.

Some known quarters who had been kept fed by the Pakistani intelligence had described his proposal as a giant step forward towards confidence building measure with Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, however, did not mince his words in putting it straight: "I have made it clear to President Musharraf that any redrawing of the international border is not acceptable to us. Any proposal which smacks of further division is not going to be acceptable to us."

Musharraf has been indulging in lot of deception vis-à-vis Kashmir while PPP has been very clear and committed to the cause and its just and honourable solution. Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto parted his ways with Ayub over his handling of Kashmir at Tashkent. And despite Pakistan army's total and most humiliating defeat in 1971 war when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto went to Shimla (1972) as the leader of a vanquished and fractured nation to negotiate peace treaty with the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi-he managed to get a most honourable outcome. Shimla Agreement ushered longest ever peace in the region until now, except periods of stands off, especially the Kargil misadventure. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto did agree for bilateral negotiations on the Kashmir issue without of course prejudice to the UN resolutions as well as not conceding Pakistan's right to seek UN intervention in case bilateral talks failed. He also recovered West Pakistan's 5000 square miles of territory captured by the Indian army.

During General Zia's time, the Kashmir issue was put in cold-storage and almost forgotten by a man who wanted to keep India in good humour by his back-bended, hands-folded-tooth-paste-ad smile cricket diplomacy. Kashmir was pulled out of the back burner and brought on the centre stage as a human rights issue by martyred Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto when she became prime minister although generals like Hamid Gul conspired against her. She was responsible for getting APHC observer status at OIC and other international forums. When she appointed me High Commissioner to London her brief of priorities was to develop trade with Britain, mobilise foreign investment and internationalise Kashmir issue as a human rights issue where UN resolutions were flouted.