Musharraf has no mandate to visit India: Jamaat

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, JUNE 18. The u-turn by the Jamaat-e-Islami chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, on the coming summit meeting between the Pakistan Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and the Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, should be a cause for concern to managers of the military establishment here.

There are indications that Gen. Musharraf would meet the Jamaat chief as part of an exercise to elicit views from a cross-section of society before his Delhi visit.

Jamaat circles said that if the Chief Executive's Secretariat requested a meeting, Mr. Ahmed would call on Gen. Musharraf with a party delegation. Implied in this is Mr. Ahmed's desire that he would not like to be seen engaged in a one-to-one closed-door meeting with the Chief Executive.

Within days of Mr. Vajpayee's invitation, Jamaat announced support for Gen. Musharraf's visit to New Delhi. However, in a complete change of stance Mr. Ahmed said on Sunday that Gen. Musharraf had no mandate to visit India.

He argued that someone who had come to power through the back door had no right to decide on matters of national interest.

The announcement caught everybody by surprise, coming as it did during the Jamaat chief's U.S. visit. Mr. Ahmed accused the military government of engineering the ceasefire and denounced it as being against the interests of Kashmiris.

Earlier, Mr. Ahmed had said that the party expected Gen. Musharraf to reflect the aspirations of Pakistan and the Kashmiris during his meeting with Mr. Vajpayee. Pakistan should also urge India to include the Kashmiris in the talks and resolve the issue in accordance with U.N. resolutions.

He warned the military regime that if it made any attempt to deceive the nation, the people would never forgive it.

But on Sunday, he said Gen. Musharraf should not prove himself ``a traitor'' to the hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri ``martyrs'' by holding talks with Indian leaders. He contended that Gen. Musharraf had neither launched a jehad nor he would be able to stop it.

The initial support by Jamaat was seen as great help to Gen. Musharraf as it was in the forefront of organisations opposed to the bus ride of Mr. Vajpayee in February 1999, which culminated in the Lahore declaration.

The party had denounced the declaration as a ``sell out'' and charged the former Prime Minister, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, of comprising the position of Pakistan on Kashmir.

The endorsement was also significant as the party was engaged in a war of wits with the Chief Executive. At one time, Mr. Ahmed had even called Gen. Musharraf a ``national security risk'' and appealed to senior Generals to find a replacement.

Irritated with the intemperate language used by Mr. Ahmed, Gen. Musharraf, in one of his interviews, had said that in his view the Qazi was ``imbalanced''.

Jamaat has always enjoyed good relations with military regimes, the Musharraf Government being the sole exception. Its relations with the present regime soured after the Hizb-ul- Mujahideen, a close ally, announced a unilateral ceasefire in July last year.

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Section  : International
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