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We will put an end to cross-border terrorism: PM

By Amit Baruah

UNITED NATIONS Sept. 13. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, on Friday accused Pakistan of ``nuclear blackmail'' following India's efforts to stamp out cross-border terrorism and said that to succumb to such ``blatant nuclear terrorism'' would mean forgetting the bitter lessons of September 11.

Speaking in Hindi at the 57th United Nations General Assembly session, Mr. Vajpayee devoted a major portion of his speech in rebutting the allegations made by the Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, in his address on Thursday. India, he said, had repeatedly clarified that no one in the country wanted a war — conventional or otherwise. ``Nor are we seeking any territory,'' he said, adding that New Delhi was committed to putting an end to cross-border terrorism with ``all the means at our command''.

Mr. Vajpayee said that they heard on Thursday the ``patently false and self-serving claim'' that Muslims and other minorities in India were the target of ``Hindu extremists''. Stating that India had a larger Muslim population than Pakistan, he said: ``We are proud of the multi-religious character of our society. Equal respect for all faiths, and non-discrimination on the basis of religion, is not just our Constitutional obligation....it is the signature tune of India's civilisation and culture''.

At a time when the international community wants India and Pakistan to sit down to dialogue, the speeches at the General Assembly can only draw more attention to the problems in South Asia. Mr. Vajpayee, perhaps, was left with little choice but to respond harshly to Gen. Musharraf's remarks. The Prime Minister referred to the extraordinary claim that the brutal murder of innocents was a ``freedom struggle'' and that the elections in Jammu and Kashmir were a farce. ``It requires an effort of legal acrobatics to believe that the carnage of innocents is an instrument of freedom and elections are a symbol of deception and repression!'' India's unhappiness with the international community and its new embrace of Pakistan was also made plain by the Prime Minister when he asked: ``How can the international community condone Pakistan-directed killings of thousands of innocent civilians — women and children included — to promote a bizarre version of self-determination''.

``If Pakistan claims to be a crucial partner in the international coalition against terrorism, how can it continue to use terrorism as an instrument of state policy against India,'' Mr. Vajpayee asked. ``Those who speak of underlying or root-causes of terrorism, offer alibis to the terrorists and absolve them of the responsibility for their heinous actions — such as the September 11 attacks on the U.S. or the December 13 attack on our Parliament,'' he said.

`Democratic dictator'

Taking a potshot at the ``democratic dictator'' in India's neighbourhood, Mr. Vajpayee said: ``Those who had to adjust voting and counting procedures to win a referendum — and achieved constitutional authority by the simple expedient of writing their own Constitution — are ill-placed to lecture others on freedom and democracy.'' "Gen. Musharraf has himself admitted that rigging was responsible for his winning the referendum by a dubious margin of 90 per cent in April this year. As for the true democracy he intends to establish in Pakistan, he has rendered it impotent even before the elections are held next month."

Contrasting India with Pakistan, he said: ``Democratic societies are far less prone to ideologies based on violence or militarist yearnings, since they do not have their fingers permanently on the trigger of a gun. We have to be vigilant against threats to democracy worldwide arising from forces that are opposed to it, be they rooted in fundamentalist political dogmas or extremist religious ideologies.''

He said the international community, which had taken some collective decisions to tackle terrorism and choke off its lifelines, must ensure that the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Committee, under the framework of Resolution 1373, moved beyond ``information compilation and legal assistance to enforcing compliance by States known to be sponsoring, sheltering, funding, arming and training terrorists''.

Changing tack, Mr. Vajpayee said there was a growing perception — particularly among the weaker and poorer countries — that responses to issues of far-reaching impact often seemed arbitrary or contradictory. ``A common destiny is at stake. The world needs collective multilaterism. It needs the United Nations — the coming together and working together of all its nations in the development of a common and collective perspective,'' he said. ``Conflicts arise when there is no spirit of democracy within and among nations. A genuinely democratic framework enables us to respect alternative points of view, to value diversity, and to fashion solutions responsive to the aspirations of the people,'' the Prime Minister said.

The world had to recognise that the ``developmental divide'' between the North and the South was becoming deeper by the day. ``Over the last decade, 10 million people have been joining the ranks of the poor each year. A quarter of the world's population lives in extreme poverty.''

`Gujarat was an aberration'

NEW YORK, SEPT. 13. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, said here on Thursday that the recent communal violence in Gujarat was an ``aberration'' and that the situation there was ``now under control''.

When the Gujarat events came up during Vajpayee's interaction with American Jewish leaders, Mr. Vajpayee said much ``misunderstanding'' had been spread about the State since the riots. ``What happened recently (in Gujarat) was an aberration. However, everything is now under control, things are normal,'' he said.

Many foreigners visited the State recently and could make judgments about the current situation. In fact, different communities had been living together in Gujarat for centuries, he said, adding they had a history of tolerance in the State and this was the State that produced Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. - PTI

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