India and Pakistan have made up, but the breach shows how frail the peace between them is, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad It was, finally, all smiles at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana. President-General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to resume Indian-Pakistan peace talks after a two-months hiatus. "The peace process must be maintained and respected and success is important for both countries and the region," said Singh. "I am very happy," said Musharraf. And both condemned "all forms of terrorism". The sighs of relief could be heard as far as Washington. The peace had been sundered by serial bomb blasts in the Indian city of Mumbai in July, a so far unclaimed carnage that left 182 people dead and 900 wounded. After initial caution, Singh said the attacks were "instigated, inspired and supported by elements across the border without which they could not act with such devastating effect". Musharraf denied the charge, condemned the bombings and offered Pakistan's help in any investigation. But his foreign minister noted how "the Mumbai incident underlines the need for the two countries to work together ... but they can only do so if they resolve their dispute". The Indians cried appeasement, and severed all diplomatic contacts. It was the worst crisis to have hit the peace process (termed here the "composite dialogue") since it began in January 2004. It also exposed the mutual suspicion on which it rests. For when Indians refer to "elements across the border" they mean Jihadi groups harboured in Pakistan and sponsored, allegedly, by its Inter-Service Intelligence force (ISI). And when Pakistanis refer to the "dispute" they mean the divided territory of Kashmir -- cause of two of the three Indo- Pakistan wars and epicentre, for the past 16 years, of a nationalist-Islamist insurgency against Indian rule that has cost at least 45,000 lives. Both charges hurt because both, in part, are true. Over the last two years, India has promoted trade, observed a ceasefire and allowed some people-to-people contact across the two halves of Kashmir. But it has done little to withdraw or even relax a martial regime characterised (according to Human Rights Watch) by "arbitrary detentions, torture and custodial killings", particularly against the Muslim majority that resides in the Indian-held Kashmir Valley. "Kashmiris continue to live in constant fear as perpetrators of human rights abuses among Indian soldiers go scot-free," said Brad Adams, HRW Asian director. Similarly, in 2004 Musharraf vowed to shut down all Jihadist military camps in Pakistan- administered Kashmir. He hasn't done so. In the aftermath of the Pakistani earthquake last year it was Jihadist fighters who were the first to shovel out the victims. Will he do so now, post-Havana? No, says military analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi. "Pakistan will continue discouraging militants, as it has done for the last few years. But if you think this phenomenon (of infiltration) can be eliminated altogether, then it is not possible". It's not possible for two reasons, he says. Unlike Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, whom Musharraf now routinely designates "terrorist", the same epithet is rarely used to describe the "Jihad" in Kashmir. This is because Musharraf, his army and Pakistanis generally do not see the Kashmiri struggle as "violence". They see it as a national fight for independence against an imposed and illegitimate Indian occupation. Until India withdraws the military regime -- and offers at least meaningful autonomy to Kashmir -- "raiding Jihadis on India's demand is not going to be an item on President Musharraf's agenda," says analyst Syed Talat Hussain. The other reason is political weakness. With general elections less than a year away -- and lacking any constituency other than the army -- Musharraf is not going to take on the Islamists over Kashmir or, it seems, any other matter. This was graphically demonstrated this week in the Pakistan parliament. For the last few months Musharraf has been urging his ruling Muslim League (ML) party to reform Pakistan's draconian Hudood Ordinances. Introduced by Zia-ul-Haq as part of his Islamisation campaign in 1984, the ordinances are amongst the most misogynist laws on the planet and have long made Pakistani women's lives an absolute misery. To take one example: for rape to be proven a woman must produce four male witnesses or risk being charged herself with fornication, a criminal offence. Unsurprisingly very few men have been charged with rape despite its epidemic scale in Pakistan, while thousands of women have been jailed for "adultery". Musharraf had wanted rape tried under secular law and for the amendment to be in place before he meets George Bush in Washington later this month. It's not going to happen. Faced with the threat of resignation by the Islamist parties, the ML caved in. The fear is not so much due to the Islamists' electoral clout -- which commands no more than 10 per cent of the vote. It stems rather from their ability to spread violence in Pakistan's cities, across Kashmir and, perhaps, inside India. Nor are Musharraf and the ML alone in their timidity. Pakistan's "feminist" prime minister in the 1990s, Benazir Bhutto, also never seriously tried to repeal the Hudood, while its other civilian leader, Nawaz Sharif, tried to introduce the full Sharia. And neither curbed the Kashmir "jihad".
