BY EVA CHENG
In a televised speech on January 12, Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf banned two Islamist groups active in Kashmir — Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. The bans have helped ease military tensions between India and Pakistan.
Musharraf has also called for a negotiated political settlement for the disputed territory of Kashmir, which has been the cause of several wars between India and Pakistan since 1947.
In additional to the two groups named by India, Musharraf banned three other similar organisations. Pakistani police arrested more than 1100 members of these organisation in the days following Musharraf's speech.
But Musharraf's moves have drawn mixed reactions from the left of the two countries. Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya in a January 13 statement called upon the government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to "make a positive response and engage Pakistan in a serious and comprehensive dialogue".
Bhattacharya emphasised any negotiations require "absolutely no need for any third party intervention, and least of all American intervention, in the bilateral affairs of India and Pakistan... India must restore direct and full-scale diplomatic ties with Pakistan and stop treating the US as the arbiter of Indo-Pak relations".
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) is also in favour of the "resumption of bilateral talks ... without any third party mediation", according to a January 13 party statement. In its statement the CPI (M) claimed that Musharraf's January 12 pledge to suppress Islamic terrorist groups represents "a serious effort to deal with the problem of religious extremism".
The Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), in a January 13 statement, is far more critical of Musharraf, arguing that his regime has done nothing to tackle the root causes of religious fundamentalism.
To start removing some of those root causes, the LPP argues, Pakistan's "blasphemy laws" should be junked, since these laws "promote religious fundamentalism in Pakistan".
The LPP statement calls for the repeal of the myriad of laws that helped strengthen the religious character of Pakistan, a "Muslim" state carved out of multi-religious India. It calls for banning the participation in political activities of religious parties. It also opposes Musharraf's moves to give "religious schools" a role in the educational system.
While the LPP statement doesn't comment on possible negotiations between India and Pakistan, it expresses opposition to any military confrontation. It argues that resolution of the Kashmir dispute is only possible through India and Pakistan respecting the "wishes of the Kashmir masses" for their national independence.
The statement calls for a referendum to ascertain the position of the Kashmiri people should be held under the auspices of "committees of the Kashmiri representative bodies". The LLP rejects "any involvement of UN forces in the solution of the Kashmir problem".
From Green Left Weekly, January 23, 2002.
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