U.S. businessman claims credit for peace plan

By Amit Baruah

SINGAPORE, NOV. 22. An influential American businessman, Mr. Mansur Ijaz, has claimed that he had proposed a framework for dialogue on Kashmir to both the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, and the Pakistani Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, earlier this year.

In a comment published in today's International Herald Tribune, Mr. Ijaz, known to have shuttled between New Delhi and Islamabad, said the latest ceasefire offer by India was a welcome gesture and Islamic militants should rejoin the search for an earnest peace.

Confirming suspicions that several go-betweens have been keeping the channels of communication open between India and Pakistan (despite New Delhi's policy of officially not engaging the Pakistanis), Mr. Ijaz said his dialogue framework also had the backing of the U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton.

Most importantly, it was supported by Syed Salahuddin, leader of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Kashmir's largest indigenous group of freedom fighters. Pakistan's Islamic fundamentalists then got wind of the proposal. The mere thought of slowing down or stopping their well-financed jehad was heresy, Mr. Ijaz wrote.

The businessman makes it clear that the previous unilateral ceasefire announced by the Hizb earlier this year had the backing of Gen. Musharraf as had been suspected all along. ``When I met Gen. Musharraf in late May of this year, I counselled him that Pakistan was in danger of losing the moral authority it once held in Kashmir by allowing, indeed encouraging, increasingly indiscriminate violent behaviour by Islamic radicals... I implored him to do what no one expected of him, to persuade the mujahideen under his control to opt for non- violent means as a platform for ending the conflict,'' Mr. Ijaz wrote.

According to the writer, he could only do this knowing how India would react with an immediate and unconditional acceptance of an offer to cease hostilities and negotiate a permanent solution for Kashmir. But as with many things which Gen. Musharraf had done since taking power, he developed cold feet when the July ceasefire he initiated with Mr. Salahuddin was portrayed as a sellout. Mr. Ijaz claimed that Mr. Vajpayee, too, fell prey to fundamentalist Hindus and pulled out of the ceasefire then.

``Not to be undone by extremists, we resurrected in August our framework to resume the peace with Mr. Salahuddin's blessing. We proposed centering it around his call to widen the ceasefire net, so it would include all militant groups operating in the Kashmir Valley,'' says the article. Pakistan, the comment said, would be brought to the negotiating table at the outset of political discussions after the ceasefire had taken hold, first bilaterally and then at the Kashmiris' request, trilaterally.

``India's adamancy to not talk to Pakistan unless cross-border terrorism stopped would disappear in the Valley-wide ceasefire call from Mr. Salahuddin. He would receive critical support from General Musharraf to bring unruly Islamists on board.''

The plan, he revealed, also envisaged verifiable reduction of Indian force levels in Kashmir in return for the withdrawal of Pakistani militants. This framework to resurrect meaningful dialogue aimed at stable and permanent peace was agreed to by the Indians, and conditioned on Pakistani intelligence accepting it, by Mr. Salahuddin in late August. With virtually all of Islamabad's demands met and a historic opportunity to find a permanent solution, why has Pakistan not yet embraced it?

``The world has a right to know what was possible to prevent the now almost-inevitable escalation of hostilities in Kashmir. Until Gen. Musharraf finds the courage to stare down his religious extremists as the real enemies of Pakistani and Kashmiri welfare, violence and bloodshed will continue,'' the write-up concludes.

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