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India-Pakistan

Militants threaten to disrupt Kashmir peace talks

2006-05-21

Islamist militants threatened on Saturday to disrupt a Kashmir peace conference in the disputed Himalayan region next week that will be chaired by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The meeting is the second such gathering since February. It has been called by New Delhi to widen the dialogue process in Jammu and Kashmir, where a separatist revolt against Indian rule by Muslim militants since 1989 has killed more than 45,000 people. Singh is scheduled to attend the meeting in Srinagar, the summer capital of the region, on the opening day, May 24.

"We have made all arrangements to disrupt the round table conference. Kashmir is a disputed territory, the prime minister of India cannot hold such conferences here," four groups said in a media release. "All the separatist political leadership should stay away from the conference. It is aimed at misleading the international community," Al Nasireen, Save Kashmir Movement, Al Arifeen and Farzandan-e-Milat said in a fax to newspaper offices in Srinagar. Intelligence officials said the groups were likely to be a front for bigger organisations such as the Pakistan-based Islamist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen.

Posted by:Fred

#7 John it's the mods..they git moody on Sundays.

Posted by: RD 2006-05-21 19:52

#6 I seem to have been rendered nameless ?

Posted by: john 2006-05-21 18:30

#5 Settling other hindus, outsiders, would violate the Indian constitution and the laws of Jammu and Kashmir.

Seems to me that having jihadis cross the LOC and whack locals and Indian military also violates the Indian constitution and the laws of Jammu and Kashmir. Whatever the joint governments of India and Jammu & Kashmir decide about stopping that nonsense, short of selling out, is fine by me.

Posted by: Old Patriot 2006-05-21 16:53

#4 The Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh populations are minorities in Kashmir.

Hundreds of thousands of the Hindus - the Pandits (Nehru himself was a Pandit) were driven out by the jihadis. Many still live in refugee camps, one of the largest internally displaced populations in the world.

Even if they were reintroduced, they would be a vulnerable minority.

Settling other hindus, outsiders, would violate the Indian constitution and the laws of Jammu and Kashmir.

Posted by: john 2006-05-21 11:13

#3 India needs to rethink and settle the Kashmire problem. By settle I mean retroduce Hindus to the region and slowly use the Army to Over-Creep the area. The Paki can do no more than they're already doing and China is trying to go straight and is no longer the kick-ass big-brother of Pakistan.

Posted by: 6 2006-05-21 11:01

#2 Even more so in India, where for a lot of people, life is cheap.
The death rate in Kashmir is dwarfed by traffic accidents in Delhi and Mumbai.

India doesn't consider itself in occupation of Jammu Kashmir and it will never surrender this state to Pakistan or grant it "independence" (where it beomes an islamist entity that threatens the gangetic plains). It is simply too strategic.

India has so many soldiers and police that it can swamp a region with security forces and grind down insurgencies over decades.

The Indian army has probably lost soldiers to combat every week for the last hundred years.
It expect this. There is no whining about this.
Counter-insurgency is taken as a necessary, expected, duty.

During the Raj there were insurgencies and wild areas barely under control. After independence, several insurgencies continue for decades, many backed by outside powers.

When an army continually fights in urban areas, villages, in deserts, mountains, glaciers, forests, jungles, plains and swamps.... when it readily accepts casualties... when it has manpower reserves in the millions.. no "militants" can defeat it or cause it to give up.

Posted by: john 2006-05-21 10:30

#1 it occurs to me that the "militants" have shot their wad. At some point, the shock value of terrorism wears off and it becomes business as usual. Like auto accidents. 40,000+ die annually from auto accidents in the US. Death in an auto accident is a threat before every meeting or peace talk. But because it is so common, it has little impact.

Terrorists acts are beginning to have the shock value of auto accidents. The media keeps hyping them, but no one really is listening except those who were personally affected by it. As a weapon, terrorism's value is decreasing with each event.

Posted by: 2b 2006-05-21 04:35

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