[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 124 (Friday, October 6, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1687-E1688]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        UP THE ANTE ON PAKISTAN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EARL F. HILLIARD

                               of alabama

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 5, 2000

  Mr. HILLIARD. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following articles for the 
Record.

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 11, 2000]

                        Up the Ante on Pakistan

                          (By Arthur H. Davis)

       While bitter enemies form Ireland to Israel are bowing to 
     the dictates of peace and economic development, the threat of 
     war in South Asia continues to loom large. The economy of 
     Pakistan is sinking, yet the focus of the military leadership 
     remains stronger than ever on Kashmir. Pakistan's junta 
     continues to concentrate all of its resources on funding and 
     fueling terrorism in Kashmir on the one hand, while on the 
     other dashing domestic hopes for a return to a democratic and 
     secular society.
       Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the self-appointed chief executive 
     of Pakistan, who also has the dubious distinction of being 
     the coup leader and saboteur of the Lahore peace process, 
     went on record saying that however the people of Kashmir 
     decide their fate will be acceptable to Pakistan. The general 
     also has reiterated his willingness to conduct his own talks 
     with India at any place and any time on all issues, if 
     Kashmir is included. Yet recent events clearly belie hopes 
     that he intends to honor his words.
       In late July the world welcomed the announcement of a 
     three-month cease-fire and the offer of unconditional talks 
     with the central government of India by the Hizbul 
     Mujaheddin, the largest militant group in Indian Kashmir. 
     Majir Dar, the Hizbul commander operating in Indian Kashmir, 
     reportedly made this unexpected announcement after secret 
     meetings with Hizbul followers and presumably with the 
     group's leader, Sayed Salahuddin, who resides in Pakistan.
       To this, the Indian government exhibited a new and welcome 
     flexibility by responding positively to the offer. Lt. Gen. 
     John Mukherjee, commander of Indian forces in Kashmir, 
     announced the cessation of all operations against the Hizbul, 
     while senior officials from Delhi proceeded to Kashmir to 
     discuss the modalities of talks with the Hizbul. 
     Unfortunately, the prospect for peace was not met with 
     similar alacrity by Pakistan's military and fundamentalist 
     religious leaders, who were clearly caught off guard by this 
     show of militant independence. Pakistani security agents 
     reportedly picked up Salahuddin shortly after the cease fire 
     agreement, while his Hizbul Mujaheddin was ejected from the 
     United Jehad Council, the umbrella alliance of Kashmiri 
     militant outfits. And while official Pakistani responses 
     initially were muted, wholesale attempts since have been 
     underway by the junta to employ its influence over the 
     regional militants to derail the
       On the night of Aug. 1, more than a hundred Hindus, many of 
     them pilgrims, were massacred by Pakistani-backed terrorists. 
     The massacre has been followed by the attachment of two deal-
     breaking caveats to Hizbul's offer of ``unconditional'' 
     talks. In a move the State Department has since termed ``not 
     helpful,'' Hizbul has demanded a seat for Pakistan at any 
     talks and also that those talks be conducted outside the 
     scope of India's constitution, thus allowing for a deal on 
     Kashmiri independence. Indian leaders long have resisted both 
     conditions.
       It has been widely stated in Washington and other Western 
     capitals that India must negotiate with the Pakistani 
     military for a definitive peace to be achieved. But the 
     question remains whether the army really wants peace. All 
     three wars between India and Pakistan have been fought when 
     there were military governments in Pakistan. A fourth, under 
     the present military leadership, remains a possibility--this 
     time with a nuclear shadow cast upon it.
       The Pakistani military regime is exhibiting an almost 
     pathological determination to keep South Asia in turmoil, 
     doing little to curb Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism 
     breeding within its borders, while scuttling others' steps 
     toward peace.
       During his visit to the region earlier this year, President 
     Clinton threaded a needle of admonishing Pakistan for its 
     support of violence in Kashmir while keeping the door open 
     for engagement if it abated such activities. Unfortunately, 
     his stern warnings have

[[Page E1688]]

     yet to exact much change. Pakistan's intended destruction of 
     the nascent Kashmir peace process requires a firmer response 
     from the U.S. administration. Declaring Pakistan a terrorist 
     state, and thus putting it on par with the terrorist group it 
     harbors and supports, would encourage the people of Pakistan 
     to remove the military warmongers who have deprived them of 
     sustainable development.
       It is clear who wants peace in the region and who does not. 
     Only by challenging Pakistan's duplicatous ways will peace 
     have a hope of winning.
                                  ____


              [From the Los Angeles Times, Sept. 12, 2000]

                  Armed India Can Help Stabilize Asia

                         (By Selig S. Harrison)

       In May, 1998, India conducted five nuclear tests. More than 
     two years later, the United States, with a record of 949 
     nuclear tests during the five decades since Hiroshima, is 
     still enforcing punitive economic sanctions against New 
     Delhi, poisoning the entire relationship between the world's 
     two largest democracies.
       President Clinton should quietly bury this self-defeating 
     policy when he meets with Prime Minister Atul Behari Vejpayee 
     at the White House this week. Pressuring India to reverse its 
     commitment to develop nuclear weapons merely strengthens 
     Indian hawks who oppose closer relations with Washington and 
     favor an all-out nuclear buildup that would stimulate nuclear 
     arms races with China and Pakistan.
       The United States should accept the reality of a nuclear 
     armed India as part of a broader recognition of its emergence 
     as a major economic and military power. Such a shift would 
     remove the last major barrier blocking a rapid improvement in 
     Indo-U.S. relations. President Clinton has kept up the 
     pressure on India to forswear nuclear weapons despite the 
     fact that all sections of Indian opinion strongly favor a 
     nuclear deterrent.
       Instead of persisting in a futile effort to roll back the 
     Indian nuclear weapons program, the United States should seek 
     to influence the current debate in New Delhi over the size 
     and character of the nuclear buildup. A more relaxed 
     relationship with New Delhi would facilitate U.S. cooperation 
     with moderate elements in the Indian leadership who favor 
     nuclear restraint.
       A U.S. policy focused on nuclear restraint rather than 
     nuclear rollback should not only seek to minimize the number 
     of warheads but also to keep them under civilian control and 
     to limit the frequency of missile tests. Other key U.S. goals 
     should be to get India to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test 
     Ban Treaty and to formalize de facto Indian restrictions on 
     the export of nuclear technology.
       Moderate elements in New Delhi are sympathetic to many of 
     these objectives but need U.S. quid pro quos to make them 
     politically attainable. For example, the continuation of 
     sanctions makes it impossible for the Indian government to 
     sign the test ban without appearing to surrender to foreign 
     pressure. Equally important, the sanctions have blocked $3 
     billion in multilateral aid credits for power projects and 
     other economic development priorities.
       Together with the removal of sanctions, the U.S. should 
     greatly reduce the blanket restrictions on the transfer of 
     dual-use technology that were imposed after the 1998 tests. 
     These restrictions cover many items with little relevance to 
     nuclear weapons.
       The most important U.S. quid pro quo would be the 
     relaxation of the existing U.S. ban on the sale of civilian 
     nuclear reactors badly needed by India to help meet its 
     growing energy needs. Indians find it galling that China is 
     permitted to buy U.S. reactors, while India is not.
       The reason for this blatantly discriminatory policy lies in 
     legalistic hair-splitting in the 1968 Nuclear Non-
     Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Since China had tested nuclear 
     weapons in 1964, it was classified as a ``nuclear weapons 
     state'' under the treaty. As such, Beijing was eligible to 
     sign the NPT, along with the other powers then possessing 
     nuclear weapons, the United States, Russia, Britain and 
     France.
       All other states were barred in perpetuity from the nuclear 
     club and asked to forswear nuclear weapons formally by 
     signing the treaty. India branded the NPT as discriminatory 
     and refused to sign. Now it would like to sign as a nuclear 
     weapon state but the U.S. will not permit it.
       The NPT itself does not bar its signatories from providing 
     nuclear technology to non-signatories such as India. However, 
     the U.S. Congress went beyond the NPT with a law stipulating 
     that non-signatories cannot receive U.S. nuclear technology 
     even if they accept International Atomic Energy Agency, or 
     IAEA, safeguards on its use, which India is willing to do. 
     This legislation even bars the U.S. from helping India to 
     make its nuclear reactors safer.
       Significantly, Hans Blix, the respected former IAEA 
     director who now heads the U.N. arms inspection mission to 
     Iraq, has urged that the ban on civilian nuclear sales to 
     both India and Pakistan be lifted if they are willing to make 
     two major concessions: signing the test ban and agreeing to 
     freeze their stockpiles of weapons-grade fissile material at 
     present levels.
       ``There is nothing in the NPT that would stand in the way 
     of such an arrangement,'' Blix noted at a Stockholm seminar, 
     and as matters stand, ``India and Pakistan are most unlikely 
     to discard whatever nuclear weapons capacity they possess. 
     There is even a clear risk of a race between them to increase 
     fissile material stocks.''
       The United States has been pushing India to join in a 
     multilateral moratorium on fissile material production but 
     without offering clear incentives. Blix has proposed a more 
     realistic approach. U.S. policy should be based on a tactic 
     recognition that a multipolar Asian balance of power in which 
     India possesses a minimum nuclear deterrent will be more 
     stable than one in which China enjoys a nuclear monopoly.

     

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