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Clinton faces resistance from India on Kashmir issue

LONDON: President Bill Clinton faces stiff resistance from India to any US attempt to mediate on Kashmir, the potential flashpoint of another Indo-Pakistani war, when he visits New Delhi and Islamabad this week.

India adamantly opposes any international role in settling the half-century-old dispute over Kashmir. It wants to enlist Washington's support in the fight against what it calls Pakistani-sponsored "Islamic terrorists" fighting to wrest the predominantly Muslim region from Indian rule.

Pakistan, meanwhile, has sought to capture American attention by brandishing the possibility of a nuclear war between the two South Asian neighbours if another clash over Kashmir spun out of control.

Aware of the likely Indian response, Clinton has insisted he is not making the trip to mediate in the Kashmir dispute.

But sources close to the White House say he is bound to discuss this potential trigger for a catastrophic war and to renew his offer of good offices.

While Western officials are deeply concerned at the danger of a new, more serious, round of fighting once the snows melts this summer, diplomats in the region say war fears may be exaggerated.

LOOMING CRISIS?

Some 30,000 people have died in Kashmir violence over the past decade.

"Any first step at de-escalating the Kashmir conflict must come from India. Some Indian leaders may enjoy the prospect of an enemy in turmoil, but for India and the world, there can be few prospects more alarming than Pakistan's becoming the first nuclear-armed failed state," Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, in a New York Times article wrote last week.

With the Indian military still smarting from their humiliation by Mujahideen in the Kargil region last year, officials in New Delhi dismiss talk of outside mediation. They say it is up to General Musharraf to restore confidence.

India says it is ready to resume a bilateral dialogue with Pakistan, but Islamabad must first stop cross-border infiltrations and anti-Indian propaganda to create the right atmosphere.

Yet revenge, rather than conciliation, dominates the mood in India. Public opinion was inflammed by the heavy casualties among conscripts in last year's fighting and angered by the failure of Indian intelligence to provide early warning.

Diplomats say the Indian military is itching for an opportunity to bomb training camps of the Mujahideen across the "Line of Control".

An alternative, perhaps more promising, proposal for US assistance to defuse the Kashmir crisis was contained in an article in the US journal Foreign Affairs last December. Anthropologist Jonah Blank, an expert on the region, argued that many Kashmiris reject the Mujahideen and simply want greater autonomy and economic development within India.

"An open wallet would be a clear expression of the 'personal interest' President Clinton has promised to take in the region. How much cash will the United States, the IMF and other organisations provide? How much is the outside world willing to pay to defuse a nuclear time-bomb?" he asked.

To qualify for US or multilateral loans for Kashmir, India would have to make concessions on its nuclear capability, possibly by signing the global test ban treaty, giving commitments to prevent the transfer of nuclear technology and not to develop a full panoply of atomic weapons.

"Keeping the Kashmir issue on the agenda is helpful for the United States because it gives it some leverage over New Delhi on the issue of non-proliferation," said Alexander Evans, a researcher on South Asia at the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College, London.-Reuters