Running Sore

12 January 2004


Pakistan and India Agree to Restart Kashmir Talks

Pakistan and India have fought three wars, two of them over the disputed territory of Kashmir. So last week's announcement that they will restart talks aimed at settling the dispute received global plaudits. Success is possible, since the Kashmir dispute is a good, old-fashioned argument over territoriality. It is unlikely, though, because of local die-hards.

Kashmir is an agricultural area, well-forested, with the Himalayas giving it a natural beauty ideal for BBC2/PBS documentaries. Upon independence in 1947, Kashmir had a choice between joining Pakistan (which its Muslim majority favored) and India. The Maharaja, Hari Singh, opted to join India after he realized independence for Kashmir was impossible in return for military aid. War resulted immediately, and a replay was held in 1965. Neither side triumphed.

In the good old days, before Woodrow Wilson endorsed the idiotic idea that a people were entitled to rule themselves (which is not the same as democracy), the solution would be simple. Having failed to win by force of arms the entire prize, a division of the spoils would be made, and there the matter would lie. The people's wishes would not matter; peace would reign.

Regrettably, the will of the masses now does count, and there are enough militants that peace may not be achieved. Scarcely had Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee announced future talks on the problem than a group called Jaish-e-Mohammad said the fighting would continue until the Indians had left Kashmir. Hizbul Mujahideen, another militant group, said its military (terrorist?) operations would continue.

The President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Britain, the European Commission President and the Secretary General of the United Nations all applauded the "breakthrough." As Winston Churchill noted, jaw-jaw is better than war-war. However, the people with the guns in Kashmir don't seem to think so.

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