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Journalism of Courage
As a site for a confessional, the UN General Assembly was a most surprising choice. But on Wednesday, as Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf kept his address aggressively focused on India, he slipped in a stunning admission. Pakistan, he stated, was in a position to 8216;8216;encourage a general cessation of violence within Kashmir8217;8217;. As a fact, there is nothing remarkable about the statement. However, given the unwillingness of Pakistani leaders to own up to any role in cross-border terrorism, it must count as a breakthrough. Embedded though it was in a now familiar rant about outdated Security Council resolutions and an 8216;8216;indigenous freedom struggle8217;8217; in Kashmir, this acknowledgement of Islamabad8217;s leverage was astonishingly direct. The Kashmir-centric tirade may have been unexpected, but the cards the general shuffled in New York were predictable. He trotted out cliches about the 8216;8216;most dangerous dispute in the world8217;8217;, he trained his attention on 8216;8216;Indian security forces8217;8217;, and he magnanimously offered a ceasefire along the Line of Control in conjunction with a sustained dialogue.
General Musharraf is so given to grandstanding that is difficult to sift sweeping rhetoric from concrete offer. There is, for instance, nothing new in his ceasefire proposal. Just a little over a month ago, in mid-August, he had made a similar offer. There is, too, nothing new in his seemingly unintended slip about Islamabad8217;s capacity to calibrate violence within Kashmir; there was that famous January 2002 address promising to rein in militants operating from Pakistani territory. And is there is certainly nothing new about his attempt to keep the focus strictly on India, especially Kashmir.
