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How Hizb-ul-Mujahideen used its ceasefire to play politics By APARISIM GHOSH August 9, 2000 Web posted at 2:00 p.m. Hong Kong time, 2:00 a.m. EDT When I predicted last Thursday that the ceasefire in Kashmir would not last the weekend, I hoped fervently to be proved wrong. Sadly, I was off the mark by only 48 hours.
Salahudin had also been sidelined within the United Jihad Council, an organization of 14 geurrilla groups. And worst of all, Hizb was losing its legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Kashmiris. When I visited the Valley last October, practically every conversation I had involved Lashkar and Harkat when Hizb came up at all, it was usually a lamentation of the group's decline. Clearly, Salahudin needed to pull a rabbit out of his hat to restore his group's credibility. Hey presto: a ceasefire! It was plain from the start that Hizb's unilateral offer of a three-month cessation of fighting was a sham. After calling for unconditional negotiations with the Indian government, Hizb promptly set two conditions of its own -- that New Delhi must talk outside the framework of the Indian constitution and must bring Pakistan into the parleys. India has long maintained that it would do neither, so the Hizb leadership knew full well that their conditions would never be met. Nor did Salahudin attempt to get other members of the UJC to join in the ceasefire, effectively dooming it to failure. All that was left was the public posturing about peace and the feigned anger at Delhi's duplicitousness. As a political gambit, it worked to perfection: Hizb is back in the headlines and in the minds of Kashmiris. Its fighters will undoubtedly be energized by all the attention they've been receiving. Salahudin's suspension from the UJC will quickly be revoked: he will be welcomed back as a hero. But in the long run, like all too many political ploys, this one will do more harm and good to the cause of peace. Delhi, always reluctant to consider non- military solutions to the Kashmir crisis, will now feel justified in sticking to its guns -- literally. Freed of the strictures of the ceasefire, the Indian Army will seek vengeance for the slaughter of scores of innocents in the Valley last week. Hizb fighters, meanwhile, will want to prove that the ceasefire is over. The dogs of war will once again run loose in Kashmir. The Subcontinental Drift message board -- sound-off about the news in South Asia to TIME Write to TIME at mail@web.timeasia.com Search for recent Asia Buzz
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