[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 32 (Tuesday, March 21, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E370-E371]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     NEW MASSACRE OF SIKHS IN INDIA

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. DANA ROHRABACHER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 21, 2000

  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today, as President Clinton began a 
visit to India, a new act of political violence occurred in Kashmir, as 
35 Sikh villagers were rounded up and killed by gunmen. The New York 
Times reports in the enclosed article that this was the first major 
attack on the small Sikh community in Kashmir since an insurgency by 
Kashmiri Muslims against Indian rule began 10 years ago. Sikhs had 
previously lived peacefully in the only predominantly Muslim area of 
India. It should be noted that in India, government security forces 
have been implicated by international human rights organizations in the 
murders, disappearances and torture of thousands of Sikhs.
  The village of Chati Singhpura Mattan, 42 miles from Srinagar, is 
controlled by Kashmiri groups that abandoned the rebellion and were 
recruited by the Indian army as a counterinsurgency militia force. The 
Indian government has blamed Islamic radicals controlled by Pakistan 
for this heinous crime. However, the Indian government's control of 
this specific area has caused many Sikhs in the United States to 
believe that the gunmen were agents of the Indian government's Research 
and Intelligence Wing [RAW] posing as Kashmiri militants. There are 
more than 700,000 Indian security forces stationed in Kashmir, which 
has been called the most militarized area of this planet.
  A fair and impartial investigation by international monitors is 
necessary to resolve this case and other acts of brutality committed in 
Kashmir. I have repeatedly advocated that fair elections, free of 
violence, that would permit the people of Kashmir to determine their 
own destiny is the best means to end this conflict. In addition, a 
peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue would have a significant 
impact in easing the conflict between India and Pakistan.

                [From the New York Times, Mar. 21, 2000]

                  35 Massacred In Sikh Town In Kashmir

       Srinagar, India, Tuesday, March 21 (AP)--Gunmen rounded up 
     and killed 35 Sikh villagers in the disputed state of 
     Kashmir, the police said today as President Clinton began a 
     visit to India.
       The massacre on Monday night was the first major attack on 
     the small Sikh community in Kashmir since separatist Muslims 
     started their insurgency 10 years ago. Sikhs are considered a 
     neutral minority, but Indian officials had warned earlier of 
     violence by Muslim militants hoping to draw attention to 
     kashmir during Mr. Clinton's visit.
       Both India and Pakistan claim the Himalayan territory and 
     have fought two wars over it.
       The gunmen were not immediately
       Mr. Clinton arrived in New Delhi, 400 miles to the south, 
     on Monday evening after a visit to Bangladesh. He has said 
     that reducing tensions between India and Pakistan is one of 
     his objective of the trip.
       Many Kashmiris were hoping that the president's visit would 
     lead to a breakthrough in the long deadlock on the region's 
     future.
       Mr. Clinton's spokesman, Joe Lockhart, expressed outrage 
     over the killings, saying in a statement that ``out most 
     profound sympathies go out to the victims of this brutal 
     massacre.''
       The attackers entered the village of Chati Singhpura Mattan 
     after dark and forced the residents from their homes, police 
     officials said.
       The assailants separated the men from the women, announcing 
     that they were conducting a ``crackdown.'' Indian security 
     forces operate similarly when searching a neighborhood for 
     militants that they suspect may be hiding there. The gunmen 
     then opened fire on the men, killing 35 of them. One man was 
     critically wounded.
       Sikhs have lived mostly undisturbed in the Kashmir Valley, 
     the only area in predominantly Hindu India with a Muslim 
     majority. Many run the trucking companies that supply the 
     valley.
       In the last six months, attacks by the militants have 
     focused on army bases and patrols rather than random 
     terrorism, and have shown a higher degree of training and 
     expertise, senior army officers have said. They said about 
     3,500 militants were in Kashmir, and many of them had 
     infiltrated the cease-fire line from Pakistan, with the help 
     of the Pakistan army. Pakistan denies giving active aid to 
     the militants.
       The area of the Sikh village is about 42 miles from 
     Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, and is controlled by 
     armed Kashmiri groups that abandoned separatism and were 
     recruited by the Indian army as a counterinsurgency auxiliary 
     force.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 21, 2000]

         Near Clinton's India Visit, Violence Flares in Kashmir

                         (By Pamela Constable)

       Srinagar, India, March 20--While their government and most 
     of their countrymen are hoping President Clinton will play 
     down the sensitive topic of Kashmir during his visit to India 
     this week, people in this depressed, wintry city at the 
     political heart of the disputed, violence-torn region are 
     praying for just the opposite.
       Today, in the worst single attack on civilians in a decade 
     of guerrilla war, unidentified gunmen massacred 35 Sikh men 
     in the Kashmiri village of Chati Singhpura Mattan, wire 
     services reported. Security officials had feared that armed 
     Pakistan-based insurgents, who have stepped up attacks here 
     in recent months, might stage a dramatic attack during 
     Clinton's stay in India.
       Clinton condemned the attack in Kashmir.
       ``On behalf of the president and all Americans let me 
     express our outrage at the attack on a village in Kashmir 
     last night,'' White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told 
     reporters in New Delhi.
       Many Kashmiris believe that only a world leader of 
     Clinton's stature can put pressure on Indian officials to 
     start meaningful negotiations with Pakistan over the 
     mountainous, predominantly Muslim border region where 
     separatist sentiment is strong, guerrilla violence is rapidly 
     rising and
       ``If Mr. Clinton can make a difference in places like 
     Chechnya and Bosnia, why not in Kashmir?'' said Shah Khan, 
     22, who sells shirts and pants in the teeming alleys of Lal 
     Chowk bazaar. ``We are happy because at least his visit will 
     bring some attention to our problems, but we wish he would 
     come to Kashmir and see for himself. Then we would all tell 
     him one thing: we want freedom.''
       But this message is highly unlikely to reach Clinton's ears 
     or the Indian capital this week. On Sunday, about 50 Kashmiri 
     independence activists were arrested and jailed as they tried 
     to board buses that would take them to New Delhi for a 
     protest rally near Parliament, where Clinton is scheduled to 
     speak Wednesday.
       In a brief interview in jail today, the group's leader 
     Shabir Shah, 44, said they had been tear-gassed and dragged 
     into police vans as they prepared to leave. He said the 
     group, which seeks Kashmiri independence from India, had 
     planned to stage a peaceful rally and a symbolic hunger 
     strike.
       ``President Clinton says he wants to help ease tensions in 
     the region, and he will be talking with India and Pakistan, 
     but we wanted to tell him that it is futile until we 
     Kashmiris are taken into account,'' Shah said.
       Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan, has 
     been the major source of friction between the two neighbors 
     and nuclear powers for a generation. Since the early 1990s, 
     the Indian-occupied part has been the site of a violent 
     conflict between anti-India insurgent groups and Indian 
     security forces, which has cost tens of thousands of lives. 
     Last summer, a 10-week border conflict in the Kargil 
     mountains left hundreds dead.
       Today's attack on the Sikhs seemed to represent an 
     especially gruesome escalation of

[[Page E371]]

     violence and attempt at ethnic cleansing in the Kashmir 
     Valley, where Muslims dominate the population and the 
     insurgency has become increasingly directed by Islamic groups 
     based in Pakistan. The victims were separated from their 
     families by unidentified gunmen who entered their village 
     after dark and shot them.
       In the past, Kashmiri insurgent groups have concentrated on 
     military targets and have denounced terrorism against 
     civilians. But in recent weeks, there have been a half-dozen 
     attacks on Hindu truck drivers and on scattered villages of 
     Kashmiri Pandits, or local Hindus, many of whom were 
     violently driven from the region years ago. Now Sikhs, who 
     have lived peaceably in northern Kashmir for years, appear to 
     have become their latest target.
       Clinton, who had called Kashmir ``the most dangerous place 
     in the world,'' has repeatedly expressed interest in helping 
     to defuse the tensions and to nudge India and Pakistan back 
     toward dialogue. But Indian authorities are adamantly opposed 
     to any foreign intervention in the dispute, and have declared 
     they will not resume talks with Pakistan until it stops 
     arming and training Kashmiri insurgents.
       In interviews over the weekend, some Srinagar residents 
     said they were skeptical that Clinton's talks with Indian 
     leaders could make any difference. They said the United 
     States was too concerned with bigger issues, such as trade 
     and nuclear nonproliferation, to let Kashmir become an 
     irritant to improving relations.
       ``Clinton is coming as a guest, so he won't want to 
     embarrass his hosts. What he says in America about Kashmir 
     may not be what he says here,'' said Masood Ahmed, 30, 
     another shopkeeper in Lal Chowk. ``He already knows that 
     thousands of people have been killed in Kashmir, but he is 
     only coming to see the Taj Mahal.''

     

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