Political Tolerance in the Global South by Sten Widmalm

Author:Sten Widmalm [Widmalm, Sten]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780815366935
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

Photograph 4.2Gun vendor and manufacturer in Darra Adam Khel in Pakistan, near the border to Afghanistan, answering to demands from Kashmir separatists

Weapons had long been produced in the Pashtun-controlled tribal areas of north-west Pakistan for the war in Afghanistan – now the output found a growing market in Kashmir.21 But the act of balancing the demands of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and radical Islamic organizations in Pakistan against the impatience of India and the USA soon became a dangerous and hopeless task.

The return of military dictatorship and the War on Terrorism

It is still not clear exactly what induced the army and its chief-of-staff General Pervez Musharraf to give direct support to Kashmiri separatists in Indian-controlled territory in the spring of 1999. One pressing reason may have been the wish to cut the Indian army’s connections with the Siachen Glacier area, where Pakistan and India had been fighting for many years. But it may also have been a sort of concession to the Islamists in the country, who were becoming more insistent in their demands for the incorporation of the whole Kashmir area into Pakistan. Another reason may have been to try to increase the morale of the army. However there is much to suggest that Prime Minister Sharif did not really know what was going on in his own army. For more than ten years, Pakistan had been making areas available for training camps for Islamic militant groups and Kashmiri separatists – both the government and independent organizations in Pakistan had given them training and resources. Now, barely a year after tension between India and Pakistan had risen dramatically when both countries carried out nuclear weapon tests, the army took it upon itself to go a step further. A small group of separatists, together with soldiers of the Pakistan army, entrenched themselves in the Kargil area in the northern section of India-controlled Kashmir.

When this limited invasion was discovered, it provoked near panic in India and a counteroffensive quickly started. However, the mountain areas of Kargil are fairly easily defended by a small military force, so the hostilities went on for some time. Gradually full-scale war between India and Pakistan began to appear imminent and Sharif was summoned to President Clinton in Washington and urged to withdraw his troops from the Kargil region. Sharif obeyed and fighting stopped at the end of July. The Kargil War created a sharp conflict between General Musharraf and Sharif. To keep Musharraf happy Sharif extended his appointment as chief-of-army-staff but while Musharraf was on a mission abroad in October 1999, Sharif announced that he was dismissed. However General Musharraf had foreseen such a possibility and had ordered his commanders to put Sharif under house arrest if he tried to appoint a new chief-of-army-staff. The coup that followed was relatively undramatic, and after a period under house arrest Sharif went into exile in Saudi Arabia. Once again Pakistan came under direct military rule. However, no one then predicted how deep Pakistan would sink into conflict as a consequence.

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