Chinese tipoff made Sharif rush to US?
By Ramesh Chandran
(The Times of India News Service)
WASHINGTON: Chinese intelligence, having penetrated India's nuclear facilities just as it did with sensitive US laboratories, tipped off its ''longtime ally, Pakistan'' about Indian ''nuclear readiness''. This compelled Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to ''race to Washington'' to seek President Clinton's mediation.
This is the ''theory'' offered by one of America's best-known columnists, William Safire, in The New York Times on Friday. Known for his excellent connections in the innards of successive administrations - especially on intelligence matters - Safire, in his essay titled ''For 3K Freedom'', analysing self-determination for Kashmiris, Kurds and Kosovars, states that what has got the world so ''touchy'' is that ''India and Pakistan are now nuclear powers, and a third war between them could depopulate the subcontinent''.
He writes that China wants its ally Pakistan to back off because world pressure on India to end its occupation of Kashmir would set a ''precedent for Tibet''. Having obtained Clinton's ''personal interest'', Sharif dashed back to tell his generals they had made their point - and should now ''pull back those supposedly freelancing liberators''. Climbing the mountain peak to survey the ''international trend toward protectoration'', Safire, who also prides on displaying his investigative prowess in what is essentially a ''views column'', proffers the ingenious idea of a ''protectorate'' status in Kashmir.
He writes: ''In Kashmir we see a protectorate-in-waiting. As the British learned in India and the Israelis on much of the West Bank, a democracy's administration is ultimately self-defeating.'' Safire, who has been a trenchant critic of Clinton and his administration, argues that India is a democracy and much as it wants to incorporate Kashmir, it is not ''world opinion'' but ''Indian self-respect and economic self-interest'' which would impel it towards granting ever greater autonomy for Kashmiris.
He concedes that India is a democracy, while Pakistan is ''autocratic''. Scrutinising the options between India and militant Muslim rule, Safire does not offer with exactitude how this ''protectorate'' idea is supposed to work. However, the columnist maintains: ''Kashmir is like a fault in the political earth, the tectonic plates under growing pressure, and the now nuclear region has much to fear from the Big One. The answer may well take the form of protectorate as it has in Kosovo and Kurdistan - but in this case, the intercession would be invited by all three parties rather than punitively imposed.'' This is the precisely the sort of argument that prescient observers in India had warned against.
Meanwhile, in his briefing, state department spokesman James Foley was asked if the US thought whether Sharif had enough influence over the militants to compel them to withdraw from the Indian side. He responded: ''Yes, we do. We believe that it is indeed possible for Pakistan to ensure that those forces that have crossed from its side of the LoC to the Indian side be withdrawn. And this is what Sharif committed to do when he was here and met President Clinton.'' Asked to comment on the precise composition of the Pakistan-supported forces fighting in Kargil, he opted not to do so in public. But added that Washington had made it ''very clear'' that these forces had crossed over from the Pakistan side and ''should be withdrawn".
US COLUMNIST'S VIEW
* Chinese intelligence has penetrated the Indian nuclear establishment
* Beijing believes India is in nuclear readiness, and Pakistan was tipped off on this
* Nawaz Sharif rushed to Washington following this tip-off
* Like Kosovo, Kashmir should be turned into a protectorate
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