The Hindu : Bid on Musharraf can tell on dialogue process: Nambiar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 28, 2003

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Bid on Musharraf can tell on dialogue process: Nambiar

By C. Gouridasan Nair

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Dec. 27. India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vijay Nambiar, says that though the two attempts on the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf's life during the last fortnight might mostly have an "internal dimension," it can have implications for the ongoing attempts to normalise relations between India and Pakistan.

In Kerala on a holiday, Mr. Nambiar told in an exclusive interview that his own assumption was that the attacks might be the result of Gen. Musharraf's decision to take action against terrorists in the aftermath of September 11 and the turnaround vis-a-vis terrorist outfits operating out of Pakistan. "What has happened in the past is that such actions were announced by the Pakistan authorities in the context of relations with India and no serious effort was made on the ground, partly because many of these extremist elements had received nourishment, support and even financial backing from the establishment, particularly the Army. But in the post-September 11 context, there was no possibility of any equivocation," he said.

Mr. Nambiar, who was India's Ambassador to Pakistan till he was recalled following the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament, said that it was very much a case of the Pakistan authorities being forced to cross the Rubicon, like what the Chinese say "You live, I die."

"Either you finish off the extremists or you die. Probably, that enhanced the threat perceptions of the extremist elements. It could also be a reaction to his attempts to clamp down on sectarian outfits. But, inevitably, the kind of planning that could have gone into the attacks indicate that there must be some element of either tacit or active collusion from sections of the power structure. It could be some elements in the Army or elements who were retired, but felt threatened. If that was so, then that had another dimension. Inevitably, there would be an impact, whether you like it or not, on the bilateral dimension with India," he said.

Whether or not the latest developments had a reference to what the President had said about the applicability of the U.N. resolutions to the India-Pakistan tangle was something on which it would be difficult to draw a direct conclusion. "He was trying to move the universal discourse away from the traditional position, to shift it slightly, ever so slightly. Clearly, he was trying to make a kind of a change. What the exact implications of the attacks were, whether they were meant to get him back to the straight and narrow or whether there were elements within who may have lost their faith in his being able to safeguard the traditional interests of Pakistan, one could not say at the moment," he said.

On bilateral dialogue, Mr. Nambiar said: "One moment, they will give you the impression that they are looking more realistically at things and then there will be pressure from other side. We will have to face this situation. My own feeling is that this can represent a decisive change. President Musharraf has come out, first in attacking the extremists and, second, in addressing the bilateral question. He has shown a certain amount of political courage. He will have to persist with that. He has shown a certain amount of courage in building the relations with the United States in the face of a fair amount of domestic opposition. If he is able to persist in that, he should be able to persist in a bilateral situation as well."

Mr. Nambiar said that though he might be in a minority in India, he believed that there was a wellspring of good faith in what Gen. Musharraf wanted to do. "One has to accept that if you go by historical record, there is not much reason to have this kind of a confidence, but I think one has to work on the basis of some kind of faith that there will be some change on the ground vis-à-vis India and Pakistan. I would like to believe that a shift is possible."

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