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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (5060)	7/9/1999 11:33:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Respond to of 12475

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 timesofindia.com

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (5060)	7/9/1999 11:44:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12475

Times of India Editorial - Patriot Games Like all wars everywhere and at all times, the Kargil conflict has brought out the best in some people and the worst in others. If gallant young men with giant hearts are giving their all on craggy uninhabited peaks thousands of kilometres away from their homes, others with small hearts and smaller minds have been wallowing in an excess of jingoistic zeal. In the process, they are squandering away on the moral and ethical plain what our brave jawans have secured on the battlefield. The call by some sections of the sangh parivar for a nuclear strike on Pakistan, the demand for an end to cricketing contests and cultural exchanges with that country, the banning of Pakistan Television and the blocking of Dawn's website by VSNL have all done incalculable damage to India's image as an open and mature society. The latest manifestation of this Dutch auction in chauvinism is the campaign that politicians from the Shiv Sena, BJP, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party have launched against the veteran actor Dilip Kumar. Last year --- after due consultations with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee -- the actor travelled to Islamabad to accept the Nishan-e-Pakistan award from the Pakistani government. Today, Dilip Kumar is being bullied in an attempt to make him return the award. The Nishan-e-Pakistan was given to him in recognition for his immense contribution to cinema and popular culture in the subcontinent. At the time, Mr Vajpayee's view was that the honour would help foster amity and goodwill between India and Pakistan. That belief may have been optimistic, just as the belief that a bus ride from Delhi to Lahore would bring about a sea-change in bilateral relations proved to be. But to conclude that Dilip Kumar was wrong to accept the award -- or that the Prime Minister was wrong to board the bus -- would be to draw an entirely unwarranted conclusion. In giving Dilip Kumar the Nishan-e-Pakistan, Islamabad was not endorsing the Indianness that runs through the veteran thespian's films like Shaheed, Naya Daur, Leader and Ram aur Shyam any more than his acceptance represented an endorsement of Pakistan's stand on Kashmir. In any case, Dilip Kumar was not the first Indian to be given that award. The late Morarji Desai was also a recipient for his contribution to Indo-Pakistani friendship when he was Prime Minister of a coalition government in which the sangh parivar was an important constituent. As far as Dilip Kumar's case is concerned, three points are in order. First, no political party should be allowed to take the law into their own hands and intimidate citizens. Second, cultural, sporting, social and familial links between the people of India and Pakistan should not be politicised and linked to Kargil. Third, and most important of all, nobody has the right to dictate to an Indian citizen what it means to be patriotic. A citizen must abide by her or his own conscience -- and the law -- and not by McCarthyite fatwas of the kind Dilip Kumar is being subjected to. Pakistani soldiers have entered Indian territory and they must be repulsed. But this does not mean that Indians should sever their attachment to the people and culture of Pakistan. If Dilip Kumar is forced to return his award, it will not be long before we are told that it is unpatriotic to read Faiz and Manto, listen to Abida Parveen and Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, and may be even to speak Sindhi. timesofindia.com