Rediff On The NeT: New York Times Editorial Urges Pakistan To `Force' the Militants From Indian Territory


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June 23, 1999

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New York Times Editorial Urges Pakistan To `Force' the Militants From Indian Territory

A P Kamath in New York

Pakistan should encourage or "perhaps even force the militants from their incursion into Indian territory," The New York Times said in its lead editorial on Tuesday. "Then talks can commence on steps to improve relations and eventually settle the status of Kashmir."

The editorial dismissed Pakistan's claim that it has merely supplied "moral support" to indigenous "freedom fighters."

Mentioning how a guerrilla force seized positions in the mountains, The Times added: " It appears that they could not have done so without Pakistani help."

The Times was not only one to chastise Pakistan.

Throughout last week a number of Congressmen including Gary Ackerman (Democrat- New York) demanded Pakistan should take responsibility for ending the conflict.

Speaking at the Indian American Friendship Council's inaugural event on June 12 in New York Ackerman, the co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on India, reiterated his earlier statement that the State Department should declare Pakistan a terrorist state if Islambad does not immediately withdraw the forces inspired and paid by it. He asserted that there was clear and convincing evidence about the source of trouble in Kashmir.

He was joined by two recently elected Congressmen, Joseph Crowley and Anthony Weiner (Democrats form New York). "These incursions should stop," Crowley said. "They are blatant terrorism."

Their thoughts were echoed in the story The Times ran on Sunday about the seriousness of the escalating war in Kargil. It was perhaps for the first time the Times discussed in detail how Islamic radicals from Pakistan and Afghanistan were involved in the incursion.

The editorial on Tuesday reflected the strand of thinking in India that rogue army officials had backed the incursion upset over Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's bus trip to Lahore. The Pakistani army bosses perhaps wanted to upstage their own Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief, the Times hinted.

In Tuesday's editorial the newspaper, which has over 2 million readers, also asserted that "no rapprochement can occur without some sort of a political resolution of Kashmir's status."

"Any such solution would probably have to be a creative mixture of self-government for the Kashmiris with some kind of political association with both India and perhaps Pakistan," it said.

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