15 August 2007

INDIA AND PAKISTAN

These two countries, yesterday for Pakistan and today for India, have celebrate their 60 years of independence.

They had stormy relations. They knew three wars (two for Kashmir and one in 1971 when India helped Bangladesh to get its independence).

After the first two wars, Kashmir was divised in two parts, one on Pasistan side and the other remaining to India, separated by a Line of Control. In 1989 started the Indian Kashmir uprising with the support of the Pakistan Kashmiris.

Worse, in 1998, India, immediatly followed by Pakistan, tested its first nuclear bomb. The word was very worry. So, under the pressure of the USA, the two Prime Ministers, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Navaz Shari met in Lahore for an historic summit in February 1999. It was also the symbolic oppportunity for the opening of the first bus line between the rwo countries.

Infortunatly, in May a short new war started because the Pakistanese Army was helping the Indian Kashemiris to take and keep positions on the Indian side of the Control Line, in Kargill area. Under the pressure of Bill Clinton, Navaz Sharif ordered the Pakistanese to withdraw to the Pakistanese side of the line. That provoked tensions between Navaz Sharif and Army commander General Musharraf and the conclusion was the military coup of 19 October 1999.

For the US, at that time, Pakistan was the black sheep. It was responsible the the Kargill war. It was the support of the Taliban and internationa islamist terrorists had their sanctuary their. In addition, democracy had been supressed. It's why, when Bill Clinton visited South Asia in 2000, he snubed Pakistan.

After the Al Qaida attack against the US, George W Bush asked the cooperation of Pakistan for fighting Ben Laden and the Talibans who protected him. If Musharraf had refused, he could be considered as an accomplice of Al Qaida and also leave the way to an alliance between USA and India. The worse for Pakistan.

On July 2001, an summit between Vajpayee and Musharraf gave few results, but on 5 January 2004, at a meeting of the Saarc, India for the first agreed to have talks on Kashmir question. Since, the tensions between the two countries have slow down, but with no progress.