The U.S. Department of State and Amnesty International have recorded such human rights violations by the Indian army as suppression of freedom of speech and press, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, rape and political killings.

In Lahore, Pakistan, large banners in English hang over major roadways protesting the treatment of Muslims in Kashmir by the Indian army. They ask why the United Nations and the United States don’t give that situation the same consideration they gave Bosnia and Kosovo. The daily papers emphasize the aggression of the Indian army and carry headlines such as "India suffers heavy losses: Two Pakistani soldiers embrace shahadat: Appropriate measures taken after repulsing enemy attack."

The main fear is that if these border attacks escalate into a battlefield war and one side takes a large toll in casualties, it might decide to use tactical nuclear weapons. At that point everything could spiral out of control.

Brinkmanship

If these were two small nations that didn’t have atomic weapons, one could pass mutual aggression off as not important to U.S. welfare. But this happens to be two major countries each with nuclear arms and each convinced of the rightness of its stance. Pakistan, with 160 million people, and India, with 900 million, both have major support from other countries, which complicates the issue. Pakistan and India have China on their northern borders, and if open warfare erupts, China will likely side with Pakistan. India has been cozy with Russia in the past and could expect some support from that quarter.

Pakistanis see themselves as friends of the United States and believe they have stood behind us in the past and expect us to stand by them now. A recent front-page headline in an Islamabad paper reported, "Congressmen urge Clinton to declare war against India for Kashmir." This was a bit of wishful thinking on the editor’s part since the actual request of the congressmen was for President Bill Clinton to declare a nonviolent and diplomatic war against India to internationalize the Kashmir dispute and to free the Kashmiri people from the clutches of the Indian regime.

The Indians, on the other hand, believe Kashmir is theirs by right of historical occupation, and they are unwilling to give away any more of their territory. In fact, they feel mistreated having had to give up a part of their country to create Pakistan in 1947. After all, they say, Muslims were interlopers and invaders and not the original owners. Pakistan was artificially cut out of what was historically India.

No one I met believed that having both parties talk about the issues would do any good. Each party is convinced of the rightness of its position and that the basis of the conflict lies with the bad behavior of the other party. Pakistanis are incensed at the brutality shown by the Indians to the resident Muslims in India’s part of Kashmir. The Indians are equally convinced that the problem lies with Pakistan’s support of "terrorists and insurgents" on their territory. The Pakistanis call the same individuals "Freedom Fighters."

While I was there, I heard the accusations fly back and forth as to who is responsible for the problems. For example, representatives of each country accused the other of having done things to encourage or to help the hijackers in the recent situation where several jailed terrorists were released and the hijackers disappeared into the crowd.