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But there may be other factors at work. In
November, Musharraf declared a unilateral cease-fire along
the Line of Control in Kashmir. India reciprocated, extending
the truce north to the Siachen Glacier. In December, Musharraf
declared that Pakistan would drop its 55-year demand for
a Kashmir-wide referendum on the area's future. While
this was welcomed by India, the latter did not reciprocate,
which angered even moderate Pakistanis and confirmed the
militants in their opposition to the move. But significantly,
in the month following the reciprocal cease-fire declarations,
Indian officials said attacks by the militant separatists
in Kashmir had fallen a third, although the drop in deaths
was much lower. Overall in 2003, the number of soldiers,
insurgents, and civilians killed in Kashmiri violence
exceeds 2,500; estimates of fatalities since the start
of the conflict range from 40,000 to 80,000. There will
be more; some insurgent groups such as Hizb-ul-Mujahideen
and Jaish-e-Mohammad have rejected the cease-fire.
Within India itself, two long-running insurgencies that
had plagued the Assam region appear to be ending. In December,
a territorial council was created for the ethnic Bodo
to oversee economic, linguistic, and educational improvements
in four districts where Bodos predominate. Similarly,
the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), whose operations
base in Bhutan came under sustained assault by the Royal
Bhutan Army in late December, has called for peace talks
with India. A number of prominent ULFA leaders recently
surrendered to the Indian Army, including the group's
ideologist who said that "armed rebellion cannot
bring independence." But this sentiment is not shared
by insurgents in other parts of India; in Andhra Pradesh,
the People's War Group continue their 23-year old rebellion
which claimed more than 225 lives in 2003, up from 191
in 2002 (South Asia Report, October 6, 2003).
Elsewhere, negotiations between New Delhi and Naga separatists
to end 50 years of conflict stalled over the latter's
demand for a "greater Nagaland" incorporating
into the present Nagaland state any neighboring areas
inhabited by ethnic Nagas.
Bhutan
and Nepal
While Bhutan and Nepal seem to be making headway on resolving
the nationality status of 100,000 people stranded for
years in a UN refugee camp in Nepal, the on-off seven-month
peace talks between the Kathmandu government and anti-government
Maoists broke down in late August. The main sticking point
appeared to be the Maoists' demand for a constituent assembly
to write a new constitution. The government offered to
open the current constitution to amendments, but insisted
that the constitutional monarchy, multi-party democracy,
and national unity were non-negotiable (Financial
Times, August 19, 2003). In the ensuing three months,
the government claimed it had killed more than 1,000 insurgents,
a staggering number considering that only one major encounter
took place and most observers place total deaths since
the insurgency began in 1996 at just over 8,000.
Sri
Lanka
Peace talks in Sri Lanka also encountered trouble, but
the insurgents of the Tamil Liberation Front continued
to observe the cease-fire with Colombo, where a power
struggle developed between the president and prime minister.
Norway, which had been acting as a mediator between the
government and the Tamils, placed the peace process on
hold until the government feud was resolved. At year's
end, the U.S. strongly urged the two factions to settle
their dispute and resume the peace talks before the Tamils
lost confidence in the process, abandoned the idea of
expanded regional autonomy within a unified Sri Lanka,
and resurrected their original demand of 20 years for
complete independence. A cease-fire has been in effect
since February 2002, but the Tamils never surrendered
their weapons. Thus, the longer the government factions
squabble, the greater the danger that a conflict that
claimed 65,000 lives will reignite.
This
analysis was prepared by Col. Dan Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.).
Dan, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, is FCNL's
Senior Fellow on Military Affairs.
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