‘self-determination’. On February , a day celebrated in Pakistan as
‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’, he visited a refugee camp outside Muzaffarabad.
Amidst slogan raising during his speech, he distinguished between terrorism
and those ‘freedom fighters’ who were fighting for their self-determination
against the Indian government. ‘There are some splinter groups, some
misguided people who bring a bad name to the mujaheddin. Those people
should desist from any form of terrorism, whether it is hijacking of planes,
killing of innocent civilians or bomb blasts.’
10
Politically, however, Musharraf
was still insisting that the UN resolutions were the acceptable way to resolve
the conflict. He also adopted an injured tone towards India, saying that he was
prepared to talk ‘anywhere at any time’ with Prime Minister Vajpayee and that
he was ‘sorry to say’ that the major obstacle to re-starting the dialogue was
Indian intransigence.
11
The Indian prime minister remained unmoved,
indicating that although the Pakistani ruler may have forgotten about Kargil,
the Indian people had not and there was no point in holding talks while
‘terrorists’ continued to infiltrate across the line of control.
12
Internationally, the Government of India appeared to have gained the
upperhand in the publicity stakes. In March, President Clinton made the first
visit to India by an American head of state for twenty-two years. But his visit
was overshadowed by news of a massacre of Sikhs in Kashmir. On the
evening of March, a group of about fifteen men, dressed in army battle
fatigues and armed with grenades and assault rifles, went to the village of
Chittisinghpura in Anantnag district, fifty miles south-west of Srinagar. After
the villagers had finished their evening prayers, the men were separated from
their families and made to sit in two groups against the walls of the temple,
ostensibly to check identification papers. ‘After ordering the women and
children to leave, they shot dead all the males at point-blank range in firing
that continued for at least ten minutes,’ said Gurmukh Singh, an eyewitness.
13
Described as the worst massacre in the state since the insurgency began,
men were shot, one later dying of his wounds
14
. It was also the first attack on
Kashmir’s , Sikh community, which had remained as a neutral party
throughout the insurgency. Indian officials immediately blamed the Lashkar-i
Toiba and the Hizb-ul Mujaheddin for the attack, stating that their intention
was to ‘internationalise’ the Kashmir dispute on the eve of Clinton’s visit. But
when three human rights activists investigated the incident, they concluded
that the finger pointed towards ‘renegades’ rather than the militants. It was
also noted that a unit of Rashtriya Rifles was stationed nearby but did nothing
to help the villagers and only visited the scene the following day. The inquiry
did not, however, believe that the perpetrators were from the security forces.
15
During his high-profile visit to India, President Clinton dismayed the
Kashmiri activists by neither referring to Kashmir during his address to the
Indian Parliament nor in the ‘vision statement’ which he signed with the
Indian Prime Minister. In their discussions, Vajpayee assured the Americans
that, despite appearances, the region was not a ‘nuclear flashpoint’. ‘We have a