Plain words

An agreement needs to be reached, at least on stopping exchanges across the LoC.

As he prepares to quit the office he has held for six years, Chief of Army Staff (COAS)General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani spoke for the first time on skirmishes between Indian and Pakistani troops along the Line of Control (LoC) dividing the two parts of Kashmir. We can be glad the COAS chose to do so, speaking logically and setting the record straight on a key issue. This is important, given the accusations that had been hurled around, with General Kayani essentially reacting to accusations from Indian Army Chief General Bikram Singh that Pakistan had staged a ‘mass incursion’ into Kashmir ahead of winter, sending in 30 to 40 insurgents. There has also been talk from the Indian side of bodies being found after firing from the Pakistan side of the LoC. This has been questioned even within a normally partisan Indian media and no bodies have been produced.



General Kayani makes a valid point when he asks about the implementation of the 2003 ceasefire agreement on the LoC proposed by Pakistan and agreed to by India. This has clearly not been put into effect with an 11-year-old boy killed and three others wounded in firing by Indian troops across the Nakyal sector of the border on October 11. Clearly, such skirmishes heighten tensions, as we have seen before. So do accusations and harsh words, and quite evidently, given the rise in their tone and ferocity, some response was needed from Pakistan. The COAS broke his silence on a long-standing issue at just the right time.

But, of course, there can be little hope of a lasting peace between India and Pakistan while the Kashmir issue and the resulting firing across the LoC continues. It is also true that the division of Kashmir has kept hundreds of families apart and prevented them from seeing each other for years or even decades. The gatherings at the Neelum River, where they shout across to each other, are sad exhibitions of what they suffer. The problem needs to be solved. Accusation will not do this. A mechanism needs to be found and at the very start, as General Kayani has suggested, an agreement reached at least on stopping exchanges across the LoC.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2013.

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