Terror against secularism

quot;I am an Indian journalist. What are your views on Kashmir?quot;

Really! Some of my tribe are in convulsions, stimulated by whoever they spoke to in the establishment, that the referendum in East Timor might give the international community ideas about Kashmir.

Ironically, this baseless fear was set at rest by the State Department Spokesman, James Rubin. quot;I urge you not to get trapped into facile analogies that don8217;t apply: Kashmir is not East Timorquot;.

Where,pray, is the comparison? East Timor was a Portuguese colony right up to the last days of dictator Salazar in Lisbon. Portuguese withdrawal from East Timor, Angola and Mozambique all happened at about the same time in the mid 8217;70s.

Communists came to power in Angola and Mozambique. Berlingner in Italy, Marchais in France and Corrilo in Spain represented powerful forces even though the West had softened the danger by labelling it as Euro Communism.

Even thinkers like Kissinger, after the defeat in Vietnam, feared the possibility of a Marxist Europe. The right-wing joke about d8217;tente in Washington in those days was: d8217;tente is like going to a wife swapping party and returning home alone. It was Reagan who really put an end to American participation in the wife swapping party.

The opposition was armed to the teeth to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Communists in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Angola. There was a rash of probes and counter-probes by the Soviets and the Americans in every conceivablenook and corner of the globe. Remember how strategically important Trincomalee harbour in Sri Lanka had become those days?

That was the general framework in which the West, whose pet project in South East Asia was Suharto, encouraged the Indonesian army to make East Timor safe against Communism. East Timor in hostile hands would be a nightmare for the Comman-der in Chief for the Pacific CINPAC headquartered in Honolulu.

Where, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, is there any room for a comparison with Kashmir?

Ah! It is that word quot;referendumquot; that sends us scurrying for cover. In that case let us prepare to be jumpy all over again because there is another UN sponsored referendum coming our way in July next year. And this referendum is due on a real estate disputed by two of our closest friends in Arab north AfricaAlgeria and Morocco. The real estate in question happens to be Western Sahara.

Here again the Gordian knot to be unloosed is a remnant of colonialism and the Cold War. AfterFranco8217;s, death in 1974 when Spain decided to vacate this vast territory, a home grown movement against the colonialists and the monarchy in Rabat received Algerian support with Moscow8217;s full backing.

Among the quot;progressivequot; regimes in the vanguard of the Non-Aligned Movement, Afro-Asian solidarity, Algeria ranked only next to Nasser8217;s Egypt in New Delhi8217;s scheme of things. Morocco, in those days, was firmly in the Western camp.

Indira Gandhi sent Mohammad Yunus, a close friend of the family, as India8217;s ambassador to Algiers. When Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister he, like almost everybody else, assumed the Cold War was a permanent reality and even as New Delhi sought to improve relations with the West, Moscow and Left-leaning friends like Algeria had to be harmoniously managed. On his way to Washington in 1985 he stopped over in Algiers and proceeded to accord diplomatic recognition to the Polisario, the movement laying claim to Western Sahara but having its headquarters in Tindouf, well insideAlgerian territory.

The Cold War end-ed. India8217;s relations with Morocco burgeoned even as Algeria coped with terrorism and fundamentalism. The fertiliser plant at Casablanca is the largest Indian investment overseas. Oberois are embarked on five new hotels. The late King helped modify the OIC8217;s view of Kashmir.On the other hand, President Bouteflika is reconstructing his country and places great store by friendship with India. Morocco would like New Delhi to break with the Polisario; Algiers would see such a step as an insult.

Meanwhile the UN is busy verifying voters who will participate in the July referendum. This is a near impossible task because tribal chiefs from Tindouf as well as Laayne in Morocco disagree on the legitimacy of certain voters. The UN process therefore is a huge pressure on Algiers and Rabat to put their heads together just as Dublin and London have done in Northern Ireland.

Where, for heavens sake, is there any resemblance in all of this with Kashmir?

Yes, creative policymakers must take a good hard look at all these instances just in case there is a nuance here or there which can give us an idea or two. Did the Oslo pro-cess facilitate Mideast peace or not? Is Cyprus a problem between Turkey and Greece or has the problem been sorted out on the ground, at least until Rauf Denktash lives?

Both London and Dublin have ensured that the will of the people of Northern Ireland shall be respected. But the more dynamic is the equation of trade, tourism, ecology, dairy and fisheries between the two Irelands, within the framework of Europe? Is there a lesson in it for us in SAARC?

The international community has recognised Kashmir as a problem of militancy disguised as Islam. Of course we have mishandled that paradise over the past decade. We have not handled Kashmiris with compassion. But the real problem is transborder terrorism. It is militancy nursed in Afghanistan and Pakistan which has found targets in Kashmir, Central Asia, Egypt, Algeria, having links which end up with theWorld Trade Centre in New York. Next week Kazakhstan is hosting a conference on this and allied themes.

Moreover, Indian secularism protects the world8217;s second largest Muslim population of which Kashmir is a part. No one in the world would want this whole edifice to come apart at the behest of militants. Where on earth is there any comparison with East Timor?