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Kashmir rebels
mount fresh attacks, resist pressure
(Reuters),
Khaleej Times, 31 May 2003
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan/SRINAGAR, India - Kashmiri militants vowed on Saturday to resist Pakistani efforts to close their offices in Pakistani Kashmir, while India reported fresh attacks in its part of the Himalayan territory.
Leaders of several
anti-India militant groups said Pakistan had given them until May 31 to
close down offices in Pakistani Kashmir, a move seen as part of
Pakistan’s efforts to mend ties with nuclear-armed rival India.
“There is a consensus,
so far, among the mujahideen groups that they would not leave the base
camp,” a militant group member said before a meeting of anti-Indian
groups in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir. Mujahideen, or Muslim
holy warriors, refer to Pakistani Kashmir as their base camp. Muslim
separatist rebels have battled Indian forces in the Indian part of Kashmir
since 1989 in a conflict that has killed more than 35,000 by official
count. India has long been
calling for a crackdown on the militants who it says are armed and trained
by Muslim Pakistan. Pakistan denies the accusation, saying it only gives
moral, political and diplomatic support to what it calls Kashmiri freedom
fighters. The decision to close
militants’ offices follows a thaw in ties between the two countries in
the wake of an announcement by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee
in April that he was prepared to resume talks with Pakistan.
In recent weeks the neighbours have announced the resumption of
full diplomatic ties and easing curbs on transport links, cut in the wake
of a bloody December 2001 raid on India’s parliament that India blamed
on Pakistan-based rebels. Militants said Pakistani
authorities were trying to stop them crossing a ceasefire line dividing
Kashmir, known as the Line of Control (LOC), into Indian Kashmir for the
first time in years. The move was a betrayal of their cause, they said. “Since early April,
mujahideen are not being allowed to cross the LOC,” an official of the
outlawed Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group told Reuters. Pakistan says it has
taken measures to stop cross-border militant strikes by cutting funding
and banning parties that support the guerrillas. Pakistan’s Foreign
Minister Mian Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told Reuters on Thursday the sooner
peace talks between the two neighbours began, the sooner Pakistan could
address Indian concerns about the rebels. In Indian-controlled
Kashmir, a police spokesman told Reuters 13 people including two soldiers
were wounded, some of them seriously, when militants attacked a patrol in
Kulgam, south of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier on Saturday, a
civilian was killed and three soldiers wounded when a gunbattle between
army and separatist guerrillas broke out in Budgam, Kashmir’s central
district, police said. Suspected
rebels also shot dead two civilians, including an activist of India’s
main opposition Congress party since Friday. India and Pakistan have
fought three wars since 1947, two of them over Kashmir. They nearly went
to war again last year in the wake of the raid on India’s parliament
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |