Hurriyat awaits 'official' offer

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, APRIL 5. The All Party Hurriyat Conference leadership today reacted non-committally to the Centre's reported offer to hold talks with the militant groups in Jammu and Kashmir within the framework of the Constitution. It maintained that it would react only after it hears about the ``offer'' directly or officially, than through media.

However, official sources were quite unambiguous that a ``dialogue'' was on the cards.

Curiously, both the Hurriyat leaders and officials are inclined to agree that the Government's sudden decision to release Syed Ali Shah Geelani and two other leaders is the direct outcome of President Clinton's recent visit. Home Ministry officials agree that the Hurriyat leaders' release could be cited to Washington as New Delhi's willingness to be reasonableness; after this show of reasonableness, New Delhi could impress upon Washington to put pressure on Gen. Pervez Musharaff to call off the militant groups in Kashmir.

Nonetheless, Mr. Abdul Ghani Lone, senior Hurriyat leader, told The Hindu that neither was any ``spade work'' done or ``back channel'' communication opened, nor ``lessening of atrocities by the security forces.''

Mr. Lone, along with Syed Geelani and other leaders, is scheduled to leave for Srinagar in a few days.

On the other hand, Home Ministry sources suggest that another senior Hurriyat leader, Mr. Yasin Malik, could be the next to be released. The sources concede that probably the timing of the Hurriyat leaders' release was somewhat ill-timed, and the unfortunate incident of police firing in Anantnag means that those released would have no option but to engage in quite a bit of posturing.

Both Mr. Geelani and Mr. Lone did not rule out the prospect of a dialogue between India and the ``people of Jammu and Kashmir,'' they pointed that there was no change in the basic Hurriyat position that it was a ``three-way'' dispute, and no two parties could hope to resolve it by themselves.

Mr. Lone regretted that the idea of dialogue could have been mooted two years ago when political organisations, such as the Hurriyat, still had the political and moral ``superiority,'' vis- a-vis the armed groups.

Interestingly enough, Mr. Advani has cited the example of the Union Government's ongoing dialogue with the NSCN (IM) group as the possible model for negotiations with the Kashmir groups. It is pointed out that before the dialogue started with the NSCN (IM) at no time the Union Government insisted on the group declaring its adherence to the Constitution. The dialogue with the NSCN (IM) group is going on the basis of three conditions: (1) totally unconditional format; no pre-condition from either side; (2) talks to be held outside India; and (3) talks to be held at the Prime Minister's level. The Government has accepted all the three talks, and a special emissary (former Union Home Secretary, Mr. K. Padmanabhaiah, has been appointed as the Prime minister's envoy).

Meanwhile, another significant political leader, Ms. Mehbooba Mufti, of the Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party, demanded a dialogue in the State on the pattern of ``north- east.'' ``It sounds strange that we are talking in terms of track-II diplomatic contacts with Pakistan but are unwilling to talk to our own people in Kashmir. I know that the discredited State Government will obstruct such direct contact between New Delhi and people of Kashmir. But there is no alternative to such a direct dialogue.''

Ms. Mufti regretted that the political opinion in the rest of the country was mobilised unwisely. She pointed out that while there had been entirely understandable outpouring of anger over the massacre of the Sikhs in Chatti Singhpora, there were no similar expressions over the Anantnag episode.

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