 |
Tuesday,
June 11, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
|
Musharraf unclear on India’s response
Militants
to defy Pervez
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Troop withdrawal must to reduce tension: Pak
|
||||||||||
|
Musharraf unclear on India’s response Islamabad, June 10 “We are watching. I have to see what their exact response is. I am not very clear what their response is. ...The response we expect is initiation of dialogue process on Kashmir. ...There are other minor responses, which we will keep examining what they are really meaning,” he told mediapersons before leaving for a visit to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. About the chances of reduction of military tensions, he said: “As long as the forces remain deployed and as long as there is capability with the forces on the border to change their opinions and change their intentions and take actions at short notice the danger is not over”. His comments follow Pakistan Information Minister Nisar Memon’s statement yesterday welcoming reports that India was considering military and diplomatic gestures to de-escalate tensions between the two countries. During his visit to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, General Musharraf, besides holding talks with leaders of the two countries, will also perform prayers at Mecca. He is accompanied by Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar and Finance Minister Shoukat Aziz. General Musharraf is scheduled to return on June 12 before the expected visit of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Meanwhile, General Musharraf has sought to allay Bangladesh’s concern about a possible conflict in the region by claiming his country believed in the policy of “maximum restraint” and settlement of the Kashmir impasse by peaceful means. Speaking to Foreign Minister of Bangladesh M. Morshed Khan, who is on a visit to Pakistan to convey Bangladesh’s concerns regarding the prevailing tension between Pakistan and India, General Musharraf yesterday affirmed that Pakistan wanted durable peace in South Asia, the daily Frontier Post reported. Earlier, Mr Khan met his Pakistani counterpart Abdus Sattar, who apprised him of the steps taken by the government to de-escalate tension with India. The two ministers also touched upon ways and means to improve bilateral relations and General Musharraf’s visit to Bangladesh next month.
PTI, UNI |
|
Militants to defy Pervez New York, June 10 “Our men manage to sneak past the Indians, so how can the Pakistanis stop us,” ‘Newsweek’ quoted one of the “commanders”, who met the magazine “clandestinely”, as saying. It identified him as Irfan of radical Harkat-ul Mujahedin. Another, identified as Atif, said, “we will continue to fight. God always creates ways for us.” Musharraf’s order, the magazine said in its upcoming issue, was given to two dozen commanders by a Major General from the Inter-Services Intelligence agency during a meeting at a Pakistani army base, 40 km from the front lines. Atif told Newsweek that the commanders denounced Musharraf by name. “After ditching the Taliban, Musharraf has now betrayed the Kashmiri cause,” shouted one commander. “How can we accept this?” The commanders size up their chances of defying the infiltration ban: they know how to work covertly; they continue to get funding; they can acquire weapons and they know the law of the land better than anyone, the magazine said. “What do we need to fight? Not much,” another commander was quoted as saying. “Hand grenades and Kalashnikovs are available everywhere.” Irfan claimed that hundreds of his men have been waiting impatiently for orders to infiltrate into Kashmir. “Our volunteers are becoming increasingly upset over the long delay,” he told Newsweek. Atif also claimed there are between 1,200 and 1,500 Pakistani militants already inside Kashmir. “Many of our men are stuck across the line,” Irfan said. As a result, he said, some of these men may step up attacks on their own. “If they can’t come home, they’ve got nothing to lose.”
PTI |
|
Pak wiping out Kashmiris from PoK OVER the years Pakistan has steadily colonised the portion of Kashmir illegally occupied by it in 1947 with Punjabi Muslims of Pakistan and forced the original Kashmir population either to flee or seek refuge in places outside PoK. As of now more than two-third population of the PoK is non-Kashmiri. The Hindu Kashmiris have been reduced to zero through mass murder and aggression and the original Muslim Kashmiris to less than 9 per cent. About 80 per cent of the leaders of the two dozen odd militant jehadi organisations operating from the PoK are non-Kashmiris and a chain of nearly 100 training camps within the PoK and other parts of Pakistan, photographs of some of which have been recently shown on television, are manned by non-Kashmiri “commanders”, mostly Punjabi Pakistanis and hired foreign mercenaries who describe themselves as “mujahideen”. This clearly indicates that while Pakistan has carried on a proxy war against Kashmir and India across the LoC, it has also carried on a steady elimination of the Kashmiris in the Pak-held area of Kashmir. This is the cleverest case of genocide which needs to be looked into by world human rights organisations as well as the International Court of Justice. If one compare the situation in the areas of Kashmir forcibly occupied by the tribal raiders and the Pakistan armed forces in 1947 soon after the Partition of India with the present time one can realise the gravity of the continuing demographic aggression and steady elimination of the Kashmiri population of the PoK. On top of all this the PoK has also become an international base camp for the fundamentalist terrorists, trained for export to any and every part of the world, besides its major target, Indian territory of Kashmir across the LoC. There are some simple truths which the international community needs to know about how Pakistan has been plotting a demographic deceit in Pak-occupied Kashmir. It is important to be able to see behind the claims of Pak-sponsored campaign of militancy and terror in the name of Kashmiris for whom the leaders of Pakistan have neither real sympathy nor even ethnic affinity. At the time of the Pak-sponsored aggression by the “raiders”, who were tribesmen of non-Pakistan and non-Kashmiri origin, led by regular officers of the Pakistan army in civilian clothes, the total area of the Jammu and Kashmir state was 2,22,236 sq km. Of this, despite the UN resolution, Pakistan refused to clear an area of 78,114 sq km which remained under the illegal occupation of the “raiders” and the Pakistani military to begin with. Then in a covert deal, Pakistan handed over 5,180 sq km of this territory illegally to China. In the illegally occupied territory are areas closest to the Pakistani territory of Pothuwar. Rawalpandi and Islamabad being part of the Pathuar region. The people of this region of Pakistan, who have been the undercover agents of the trans-border incursions and militancy in Kashmir, are neither ethnically, nor linguistically Kashmiris.
ADNI |
|
Troop withdrawal must to reduce tension: Pak Islamabad, June 10 “The first step towards de-escalation of tension would be the disengagement of troops from the offensive posture,” Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan said addressing a press briefing here. “Otherwise the tension can start again any moment,” he noted, adding that Pakistan was not setting any pre-conditions. He said the withdrawal of troops could be followed by a “comprehensive, meaningful and result-oriented dialogue” to resolve all outstanding disputes, including the core issue of Kashmir. He said Pakistan was also ready for third-party mediation. Answering a question, he said Islamabad had so far received no formal proposal from New Delhi for the de-escalation of tension. He said he had also not heard anything about the visit of US President George W Bush to South Asia. Asked as to what commitments were given by Pakistan to the US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage during his visit, which had led to visible signs of reduction in tension with India, he claimed that ‘’Pakistan’s consistent efforts to prove to the international community that no infiltration is taking place have finally started bearing fruit”. He said Pakistan’s position had been that “belligerence does not pay and wars do not solve problems”. The spokesman said: “Pakistan does not want a nuclear or even conventional war with India and is ready to sign a no-war pact with it.” He said right from the time the tension started, Pakistan had been asking for de-escalation and settlement of issues through negotiations. “President Pervez Musharraf, in his January 12 speech had made it clear that activity across the Line of Control (LoC) was taking place and it was reiterated time and again on an official level,” Mr Khan stated. He said Pakistan had offered international monitoring of both the sides of the LoC through “a credible mechanism in a visible and verifiable manner”. Mr Khan stated that Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s proposal at the CICA summit in Almaty last week was nothing new. The two sides had discussed it in the past and found it unworkable, he said.
UNI |
|
Hostage leaves for home Manila, June 10 Burnham was rescued on Friday when Filipino soldiers ambushed her captors, members of the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group. Her husband Martin and Filipino hostage Ediborah Yap were killed in the two-hour shootout. She smiled on arrival at the airport but her voice cracked and she appeared near tears as she delivered harsh words for her captors and praise and thanks for her rescuers and supporters. “We needed every single prayer you said for us during our ordeal in the jungle,” said Burnham (43). “We especially want to thank the military men, the Americans, the Filipinos who risked and even gave their lives to rescue us,” she added. Burnham, who suffered a year of poor diet and frequent shootouts in the jungles of the southern Philippines, said her captors “are not men of honour” and should be treated as “common criminals.” Burnham was shot in the right thigh during the rescue mission and was brought to the airport in a wheelchair.
AP |
|
Israeli troops enter Ramallah
Ramallah, June 10 The Israeli military and Palestinian witnesses denied reports that soldiers entered Mr Arafat’s compound in Ramallah and completed destruction of buildings hit in an earlier operation. The army spokesman said soldiers surrounded the compound to prevent gunmen from entering but did not go in. Palestinian officials also said the Israeli forces remained outside the compound and did not attack buildings. Mr Arafat was inside the compound and was unharmed, the officials said. Last Thursday, Israeli tanks and bulldozers stormed into the compound, the size of a city block, and blew up three buildings in retaliation for a Palestinian suicide bomb attack that had killed 17 Israelis a day earlier. The latest incursion began today when tanks, armoured personnel carriers, jeeps and infantry on foot entered the town. Soldiers moved among houses around the Amari refugee camp, entering one house as two trucks parked outside. It was in the camp that the Palestinian was killed.
AP |
|
Loya Jirga delayed Kabul, June 10 Spokesman Omar Asamad quoted the head of the Loya Jirga Commission as saying the inauguration had been delayed for 24 hours. “He gave no reason,” he said. Afghan and foreign sources said General Arif, the intelligence chief in the interim government headed by Mr Hamid Karzai, had sent armed men into the massive tent where 1,501 delegates had gathered for the inauguration. But the sources said that was not the reason for the delay. The Loya Jirga, an Afghan decision-making institution that has been around for 1,000 years, had already been delayed several hours by disagreements between the Northern Alliance faction in the government and supporters of former King Zahir Shah.
Reuters |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 122 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
