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By David Rohde
Under intense pressure from the United States, the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, promised in May that his Government would do all it could to stop the infiltrations. In a speech on Thursday, Gen. Musharraf repeated the promise. ``I want to categorically state that the Government of Pakistan is neither allowing, nor sponsoring, nor encouraging any kind of movement across the Line of Control,'' he said. Any claim to the contrary was "motivated and false.'' In an interview in New Delhi on Thursday, the U.S. ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, told Indian journalists that American officials believed infiltrations in Kashmir had increased recently. The Pakistan Government spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, however, denied the claims of the militants and the American ambassador. He suggested that unknown persons in Pakistan could be posing as militants to undermine the Government and insisted that Pakistan was neither aiding nor even tacitly encouraging border crossings. But members of the three militant groups said in separate interviews that while Islamabad had halted all infiltrations in May, it had signalled in late July that small-scale infiltrations could resume. They said Pakistan continued to finance their groups and allowed them to buy weapons. ``There was a green signal from the authorities,'' said an official from a militant group. "Because of that the groups took the initiative.'' Ershad Mahmud, an expert on Kashmir at the Institute of Policy Studies, a research organisation in Islamabad, said he could not confirm that the Pakistani Government was still financing the groups. But he said that small-scale infiltrations had resumed, and that Gen. Musharraf was "under intense domestic political pressure" to allow them to continue. In June and July, Gen. Musharraf was seen in Pakistan as having made a major concession to India by halting infiltrations, he said, but he had received nothing in return from New Delhi. With the approach of parliamentary elections, scheduled for October, Gen. Musharraf might be trying to outflank nationalist and religious parties, which could accuse him of being soft on Kashmir. ``He is gradually changing his position,'' Mr. Mahmud said. ``There is limited infiltration.'' For months, India and Pakistan have been locked in a standoff along their border, where both sides have massed more than a million troops. At the centre of the tension is a dispute over whether Pakistan is actively aiding a 13-year-old Islamic insurgency in Kashmir. Tensions flared last week at the United Nations General Assembly when Gen. Musharraf demanded that the Kashmiris be allowed to hold a U.N.-mandated referendum on independence. He has denied that Pakistan is aiding the militant groups in Kashmir, but he often refers to the separatist drive there as a "freedom struggle.'' The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, responded by again accusing Pakistan of financing, arming and training militants. He also accused Pakistani intelligence agents of assassinating candidates in the elections to the Kashmir Assembly. In the interviews, an official from one of the militant groups, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the largest Kashmiri group, spoke on the condition of anonymity but said that his organisation could be identified.
Officials from the three other groups asked that their organisations not be identified. Two interviews were conducted by a New York Times correspondent and two by a Pakistani journalist working for The Times. An official from one militant group said that in the past, Government officials had provided money, issued weapons and led groups of 10 to 15 guerrillas to points along the border where they could cross into Kashmir. The Pakistani officials had told his group in May that in response to intense international pressure, Pakistan was temporarily halting incursions. "We were assured it was on a temporary basis,'' the official said. After May, the money the group received from the Government increased, he said. "In a sense, it was a bribe,'' a way of keeping them happy. But camps and communication points in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir were closed and his group was barred from publicly raising money. ``For the previous two or three months they were totally shocked and dispirited by the decision,'' the official said, referring to members of his group. "But now they think that the Government of Pakistan is returning to its previous position.'' In late July, Pakistani officials signalled that infiltrations could resume, he said. His organisation established new communication posts and began sending small groups of three to five cadres over the border. Officials from the Hizb and another large militant group said in interviews with the Pakistani journalist that Islamabad had signalled to them that small-scale infiltrations could resume. They also said their organisations continued to receive Government financing.
But the representative of the fourth group insisted that the crackdown on infiltration was continuing. And that his group was receiving no Government aid. — New York Times
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