Defiant on J&K but defensive on LoC, terror

And although these were couched in defiant language (‘‘the enemy’s forces are deployed at the borders,’’ for example), meant for his own audience, the General seemed to have bought himself some time to deliver on infiltration at the behest of the international community.

Significantly, the General not only condemned again the December 13 attack on Parliament but also the May 14 Kaluchak massacre, saying that those responsible for the latter were also ‘‘out to destabilise Pakistan.’’ That statement, some analysts feel, indicated a struggle for power going on within Pakistan, where the General was blaming those guilty of Kaluchak—said to be terrorists controlled by Pakistani agencies.

Interestingly, New Delhi seemed to focus tonight on the crux of the speech, that is on disallowing terrorism across the Line of Control. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh is scheduled to give an official reaction tomorrow in which he is expected to do some toughtalking to counter Musharraf’s defiant tone.

But the silence in New Delhi this evening indicated that the government would carefully wait and watch and verify whether infiltration had really stopped on the ground over the next few days.

It might not be unreasonable to expect that New Delhi’s time-frame will be bound by the visit of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who comes to both New Delhi and Islamabad on Wednesday and later next week by Deputy US Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who visits Islamabad and New Delhi from June 5-7.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair today spoke to PM Vajpayee in Manali, where the PM repeated the message of India’s patience ‘‘wearing thin’’ for lack of action.

Musharaf’s tension on screen had also communicated itself to viewers in India. At one point, he interruped his own Urdu and spoke directly in English, as if reminding the world that he was willing to participate in a pact brokered by it and that India, should in turn also deliver its own promise by deescalating on the border and a return to negotiations.

‘‘Pakistan is not doing anything across the Line of Control,’’ Musharraf said in English, adding, ‘‘Pakistan has never allowed the export of terrorism to anywhere in the world from within Pakistan…I urge the world to ask India to move towards the normalisation of relations including deescalation and reduction of tension on the border, initiation of dialogue, cessation of hostility in Kashmir and allowing the international media and human rights organisations to enter Kashmir and see realities on the ground.’’

The beginning and the end of the address, and the middle for good measure, was taken up by battle-ready formulations where the General promised his home audience time and again that Pakistan ‘‘would not go to war, but if war was thrust upon us, we are ready.’’

Significantly, the General, lest anyone accuse him of giving up the ‘‘freedom struggle in Kashmir’’ even as he committed himself to stopping terrorism, sent out a direct message to his ‘‘Kashmiri brethren’’—that he would stand by them in their hour of need and trial.

Analysts here pointed out that the next few days would show whether or not May 27 will turn out to be Musharraf’s July 4, 1999, when Nawaz Sharif was persuaded by the US to withdraw from hte Line of Control.