"Mirwaiz called upon militants to back the dialogue process. He said that continuing with militancy as the sole means to achieve independence would mean that the Kashmiris would have to lay down another 100,000 lives.

"In The reply to a question whether the Hurriyat wanted militancy to stop in Kashmir, the Mirwaiz said that after 9/11 no movement coupled with violence had received world support.  ‘Hence we call upon our militant leadership to join our efforts aimed at seeking a political settlement of the issue’".

[A clipping from: Time for new ideas: Mirwaiz (GreaterKashmir.com 9/6/2005)]

This seems to be the underlying idea that is behind the whole dialogue process that is going on in Kashmir and is currently the idol of both the Indian and Pakistani mainstream press and those who are interested in conflict resolution without solving the real conflict. The APHC (A) led delegation that crossed the line of control and went to Muzaffrabad and then to Pakistan on June 2, 2005 has become one key political event in Kashmir which would influence the future course of things there for a fairly long period. It will throw up new challenges before the Kashmiri people and their movement for self determination which is being put on the back burner. The new mantra is: build faith through CBMs (confidence building measures); it is less of a question of liberation of a subjugated country (a political one) and more of a bania (economic) nature which has to be resolved through trade, economic measures and bus routes, et al.

One can well say that under the new clamour about the "peace process" the basics of the Kashmir question are being buried deep under the filth of hollow promises of a bright future. It is like neo–liberal solutions of free market economics that demand doing away with national barriers and by letting free economic exchange resolve all the problems of the society and countries. Here, in Kashmir, it means: make the border porus, initiate trade and traffic across the line of occupation, keep the armies intact, execute some measures of limited demilitarisation if the situation (read insurgency) comes under control, build a propaganda that if this is not done the people of the region would end through a nuclear apocalypse, tell the people that a political solution is no longer possible: neither a complete accession to India, nor with Pakistan, nor an independent Jammu & Kashmir. The only fate thus is to accept the harsh reality of occupation and domination, division of the land, killing of the aspirations for freedom once and for all, and abandoning all struggles aimed at emancipation—like a fate they are trying to force on the Palestinians. It is peace under the dominion of the gun. The message is: accept or perish.

A concerted charade is being drummed into the psyche of the people that liberation from oppression and domination is impossible. Mirwaiz Umar Farouq, the leader of one faction of the APHC, while replying to a question says though his party wished for the unification of Kashmir and Pakistan, "but you have to be careful because the Indian government will never like a solution where it has to totally compromise on Kashmir." In other words: ‘India will never allow Kashmir to be liberated, so abandon the struggle for liberation’! There is only one word for this kind of thinking: capitulation. Hence, with the politics of appeasement, he calls on the people to "explore other options."

Interestingly, these "other options" are nothing but the requirements of the present US needs in this region which want to keep both these countries to be at peace with each other in the present times (while arming both of them heavily for a future showdown, a la Iraq, Iran). It pressurized Pakistan not to press for the "liberation of Kashmir" as it would create problems for the US juggernaut which is rolling wild in the Middle East and Central Asia. Ali Shah Geelani, President of another faction of the Hurriyat has rightly said that Musharaf has diluted his stand on Kashmir and bowed before American pressure. He boycotted the trip to Muzzafrabad and Islamabad.

It is an irony of the situation that the Indian government has many a times blocked his entry into Pakistan and Pakistan held Kashmir considering him a hawk. This time the Indian government wanted it but he refused to go accusing both India and Pakistan that they are taking up this exercise at the behest of US imperialism. As Pakistani support to the Kashmir movement has taken an about turn he states, "Kashmiris have not launched the struggle on the behest of anybody, so it will not be ended on some one’s directions." One may not agree with Geelani but he has stuck to his position which he considers principled and Musharraf who criticized the other faction of Huriyyat and praised Geelani has eaten up his own principles, which perhaps, he never had. One can see that those who have compromised on principles have come together. This serves the US imperialists best, given there own record on Kashmir. They too had abandoned support to Pakistan, and have now declared that the right to self determination for Kashmir is no longer applicable in the present world set up.

All those who have given up the UN resolutions and the right of self determination for Kashmir have started traveling together. It is not a strange twist of history that has come in today’s juncture of the Kashmir struggle. Such things always happen when oppressors call the shots and they win temporary friends among the liberation forces.

The Pakistani government, which has been tumbling downstreet non-stop since the Kargil days due to US pressures after September 11, 2001 attacks in America, no longer is in a mood to help resistance forces and is conceding one after the other citadel to India. When Manmohan Singh rules out any possibility of redrawing of borders in Kashmir, he stresses the long standing Indian position that no solution will be acceptable which asks for the right to self determination. Musharraf echoes this when he opts for a solution like making "borders soft". Pakistan has been vehemently refusing to part with Kashmir, including the northern areas, it occupies advocating "liberation" for only the Indian held part. Now it has abandoned even this stand too.

Here the words of the former Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, needs mention when he told former Indian Prime Minister IK Gujral: "I cannot take your Kashmir from you and you cannot take my Kashmir from me, let us go for peace." Musharraf is now translating Nawaz’s words according to the dictates of the new situation prevailing internationally and in the region. The "Soft borders" option is another way of saying what Nawaz had said. It may involve not only a bus but also trucks and trains too across the line of occupation if no major change comes in the international setting / or if they (both India and Pakistan) are not forced to abandon plans by the Kashmiri people themselves. Backing out on the UN resolutions (which otherwise mention not a single word on the independence of Kashmir and only calls for acceding to either Pakistan or India) Musharraf now calls to "allow maximum self governance to the people, de-militarise and take some actions to make the border irrelevant."

Mirwaiz’s other options than the right to self determination are nothing but an echoeing of the line of both these reactionary states of the region which have carved up Kashmir between themselves and are deadly against the idea of an independent Kashmir. The ‘confidence building’ in this scenario leads to highlighting only some of the demands, though important, like ending excesses, opening of traffic, trade, people to people exchange, etc. which already are the genuine demands of the Kashmiri people—all these are being considered, not as a part of the overall liberation from occupation, but, as a substitute to it. This makes a mockery of the peace process which does not lead to liberation from occupation and oppression.

So, all talk of a final and peaceful solution of the question, taking Kashmiri leaders and people into confidence (as a third, and not the prime, party), is mere slick talk, where the two states call the shots (without firing any shots as their master wishes so) and the Kashmiris are merely to be used as pawns. These definitely are not the aspirations of the people nor their wish. The Indian leaders talk of making Kashmir and its glaciers monuments of peace without vacating the occupation. Can there be anything more farcical and rhetorical?

The government of both the countries have celebrated the visit of a faction of the Huriyyat saying that the future holds good for the region as the traditional rivals are coming closer. So let us ask them to finish off their nuclear and traditional armaments stockpiles by destroying them because there is no danger of aggression from the outside now, and instead, divert their huge expenditures on the armed forces to public welfare and upliftment of the poor populations! Now the region ceases to be "the most dangerous place on the earth" as American imperialist chieftains have been calling it for long, in order to force their will on both the countries.

The US secretary of State, Condoliza Rice, can now eat rice with satisfaction as she has "succeeded" in bringing the two dangerous nuclear states to become friends of each other and help diffuse the situation. Now she should stop selling armament systems to the two countries. Then what would these death merchants do? Expecting peace from the evil masters of West Asia and the world in this region is a great imperialist fraud for which the governments of these two countries have become a vehicle. The peace that comes with the help and intervention of the US monsters is the peace of the graveyard or the permanence of a conflict and establishment of a system more brutal and inhuman as has happened in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years, not to mention the long black history sheet of more than last one hundred years of imperialist rampage in the name of "peace". Only with total freedom from the oppressors can a real political solution emerge and a real peace be established.

It is now coming to be realized by the common Kashmiri people that the Pakistani factor has done damage to their cause as that they have always had its own interests in mind, while giving support to the movement. They tried to use the liberation movement of the Kashmiri people for their own ends, otherwise it would not have yielded to US and Indian pressures and opted for this kind of peace process that promises no right to self determination or independence to the Kashmiri people. Even the defective UN resolution is being thrown away into the dust bin. The UN has lost all its teeth, even the feeble ones that once existed. It cannot enforce its own resolutions, whether it is on Kashmir, Korea, Palestine or Iraq. Only that happens which suits the US which is a law unto itself and respects no international treaty or verdict when it is not to its liking.

India and Pakistan deny that there is any US pressure. It is an open secret and is talked about in the valley everywhere.

The bourgeois press has termed the peace process in Kashmir a Win Win opportunity which must not be frittered away by any of the two countries. It is a common theme of every single Indian newspaper. Unfortunately, there are very few in this country that would stand up to support the just cause of the Kashmiri people, and against the national chauvinism of their own government which oppresses other nations and nationalities.

There is another dimension to this whole exercise on Kashmir: India and Pakistan’s desire to earn and get oil and gas from the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipe line. The US told them to open trade between the two countries to join together to earn from the oil and gas of Central Asia instead of fighting with each other over Kashmir. The US itself has huge interests in such pipe lines with the possibility of earning gigantic profits. The advice is: let the economic relations grow, the political problem of Kashmir will take care of itself. So both the countries are in a race to implement the dictates of the imperialists and their institutions like the WTO, World Bank and IMF etc. and are fast opening up all their resources and labour for exploitation by the imperialists. In addition to trade across the line of occupation, the possibility of the oil flow from Central Asia is another factor which has brought the two together.

The US has encouraged them to work on the proposal to extend the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline to India so that its new and bigger ally of the region is benefited. Plus, another line form Qatar is being considered which would also be a joint enterprise of India and Pakistan. This is in case Iran still refuses to join in the US’s West Asia Plans to control the region and / or to pressurise it to do so, as the pipeline from Turkmenistan would be looming on the horizon as an alternative. It appears the US is, for the present, stressing the alternative to the Iran pipe line. This question was asked by the journalist to the Indian and Pakistani Oil Ministers in Islamabad after the two held a joint conference. Mani Shankar Aiyar, petroleum minister of India and his Pakistani counter-part both denied the reports that there was US pressure on this score. For exerting pressure Condoliza Rice does not have to stand over their heads all the time. Incidentally or not, the negotiations between the two countries on pipelines coincided with the visit of the Huriyyat delegation. Both the countries would collaborate with imperialist finances from the Asia Development Bank.

The JKLF leader, Yasin Malik, also accompanied the delegation to Muzaffrabad and Islamabad though the JKLF is not a part of the All Party Huriyyat Conference. It decided to remain outside of the conglomerate orgnaisation when both the factions had split in 2001. For the JKLF’s political position of an independent and united State of Jammu and Kashmir there are no takers in the Pakistani government. One important outcome from this visit was the unity of both the factions across the line of occupation. The Amanullah led organization across the line and Yasin’s JKLF on this side have agreed to merge once again and work for an independent Jammu and Kashmir.

The JKLF had declared a ceasefire in 1995 and since then it has been concentrating on "democratic methods of Struggle." By this they actually mean "peaceful means of struggle". Of course, there is little scope for ‘democratic’ means of struggle in Kashmir, with an occupation army in lakhs occupying every inch of the valley. There is little report about what the JKLF leader has been able to gain in terms of winning others to his position. The liberation of a nation, however, does not come without smashing the state machine which oppresses a people. Genuine independence does not come without the power of arms as it has to confront an armed power to gain freedom. It never comes as a favour from the oppressors.

The so-called peace process is going on without the Indian armed forces restraining themselves from executing the militants. The onslaught of the Indian armed forces continues unabated. There are calls to the militants to give up armed struggle and join the peace process. Pakistan has always only used it as a pressure tactics to further its own interests in Kashmir. The Indian Home Ministry has even retracted on its commitment given six months ago to constitute a committee to merely discuss autonomy. No freedom of the Kashmiri people can be expected from the rulers of these two countries.

A war of liberation is never fought as a tactic for exerting pressure to push forward to a negotiated settlement. Negotiations come when arms force the enemy to come to the table to accept the ultimate goal of the movement. This may or may not happen in all wars. But the current ‘peace process’ in Kashmir is not in anyway to convey to the oppressor that its ultimate fate is standing at the door and he must accept defeat on the table. It is the other way around now: the oppressors want all resistance stopped and that the militants accept defeat unambiguously. This ‘peace’, of course, is not going to end oppression in any way.

How the majority of the Kashmiri People would take it remains to be seen. The Pakistani factor will take its toll, as their active support has ceased. Once again we quote Ali Shah Geelani: "Kashmiris have not launched the struggle on the behest of anybody, so it will not be ended on some one’s directions."