[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 79 (Wednesday, June 21, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H4913-H4914]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            INDIA IS VICTIM OF PAKISTANI-EXPORTED TERRORISM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.

[[Page H4914]]

  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, it is with a sense of disappointment and 
concern that I rise tonight to respond to a misguided initiative that 
some of my colleagues in this House are involved with. Several Members 
of Congress have attached their names to a letter to President Clinton 
that makes some outrageous and false charges about recent events in 
India. I believe these claims cannot go unchallenged.
  The letter repeats the malicious claims that the massacre of 36 Sikh 
villagers in Chittsinghpora, in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, 
was the work of Indian security forces. That massacre occurred on March 
20, at the beginning of President Clinton's historic trip to India. I 
had the opportunity to take part in the President's trip, and this 
tragic and shocking massacre did cast a shadow over the trip. It left a 
deep sense of sadness among all of us in the American delegation and 
among all the people of India that we encountered. President Clinton 
condemned the attack in the strongest terms.
  Less than a week after the attack, Indian investigating agencies in 
Jammu and Kashmir made an arrest in the case, apprehending one Yakub 
Wagey, a terrorist belonging to the Hizbul-Mujahideen. Mr. Wagey, a 
resident of Chittsinghpora, revealed that the massacre was the work of 
a group of 16 to 17 terrorists, including six militants of Hizbul-
Mujahideen and 11 to 12 foreign mercenaries owing allegiance to 
Lashkar-e-Toiba, the LeT. Both of these terrorist organizations are on 
the long list of terrorist organizations that receive support from 
Pakistan.
  This terrible incident was the first large-scale attack against the 
Sikh community in Jammu and Kashmir, but it is consistent with the 
ongoing terrorist campaign that has claimed the lives of thousands of 
peaceful civilians in that state. This terrorist campaign has 
repeatedly and convincingly been linked to elements operating within 
Pakistan, often with the direct or indirect support of Pakistan's 
government.
  As I discussed in this Chamber earlier this week, the Pakistani-
supported terrorist campaign has ethically cleansed Jammu and Kashmir 
of its indigenous Hindu community, the Kashmiri Pandits.

                              {time}  2215

  The terrorists have also sought to clear out members of other Muslim 
sects or those Muslims who cooperate with the lawful Indian authorities 
of the state. And now with this incident, the ethic cleansing campaign 
has turned on the Sikhs.
  It is no coincidence that this massacre took place during President 
Clinton's visit to South Asia. I believe that these terrorist groups 
and their supporters in Pakistan wanted an incident that would draw 
attention to the Kashmir issue. Pakistan has been seeking to 
internationalize this conflict for years. What better time to 
perpetrate a high-profile atrocity like this then when the President of 
the United States is in the region with all the attendant diplomatic 
and media attention that such a visit brings with it.
  What makes the claim that India was behind the massacre all the more 
absurd, I mean this is why it is absurd. At a time when India was 
before the world stage, what possible motive would there be for such an 
ugly incident to detract from all the positive publicity India was 
seeking to generate. It does not make any sense.
  Mr. Speaker, this allegation really makes no sense at all when we 
look at the record of the two South Asian neighbors, India and 
Pakistan. India is a secular, pluralistic democracy that seeks to 
promote civil and human rights for all of its many ethnic, linguistic 
and religious communities. Pakistan is a military dictatorship that has 
a long record of fomenting instability and violence in Kashmir while 
denying human and civil rights at home.
  One of the motives behind trying to link India to the attack against 
the Sikh villagers in Kashmir is to try to generate separatist 
sentiment against India's Sikh community. Indeed, I understand that an 
organization based here in this country that seeks to promote the Sikh 
separatist cause has lent its support to the letter circulating on 
Capitol Hill.
  The reality is that, in India's State of Punjab, where the Sikhs 
constitute a majority, Mr. Prakash Singh Badal, who happens to be a 
Sikh, has been elected as Chief Minister of the State. The 
predominantly Sikh Akali Dal Party holds a majority in the State's 
legislature. The State government has set up the Human Rights 
Commission whose primary purpose is to investigate claims of human 
rights abuses by government security forces, just as India has done on 
the national level.
  The democratically-elected Sikh political leaders in Punjab are not 
buying the claims of Indian Government responsibility for the atrocity 
that took place in Kashmir this past March.
  Mr. Speaker, finally I want to say, India's Democratically-elected 
leaders will admit that there have been abuses by security forces. 
There is also violence between various religious and ethnic communities 
which is not officially condoned. In both cases, India has sought to 
crack down on these kinds of acts in an honest and effective way that 
makes it a model among the nations of Asia.
  The call by some of my colleagues to declare India a terrorist nation 
is completely unreasonable. Indeed, following from the President's 
recent trip, cooperation against terrorism is one of the major areas of 
U.S.-India bilateral cooperation.
  The idea of cutting off aid to India, an approach that has repeatedly 
been tried and failed here in the House, is even more absurd, seeking 
to send a message by cutting vital nutrition and health care.

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