Mirwaiz

Srinagar, Feb. 5: Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, has denied the charge that his organisation had become the mouthpiece of Pervez Musharraf.

“It is wrong to say that General Musharraf dictates and we follow. But yes, we feel that his approach to the Kashmir question is useful,” the Mirwaiz argued.

He felt that for the first time, a Pakistani leader was “talking of what the Kashmiris can get out of a settlement and not what Pakistan gets out of it”.

Did he agree with Musharraf that the Hurriyat represented the Kashmiri people, and if so, whom did people like Yasin Malik, Sajjad Lone, Syed Ali Shah Geelani or even the other Kashmiri parties represent?

“We have never said that we represent all the Kashmiris. We represent the broad sentiment of those who have sacrificed for Kashmir. There are other parties and groups also. We are willing to work with them both in Azad Kashmir (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) and in J&K,” Farooq said.

About Musharraf’s proposals — of joint management, self-governance, demilitarisation and porous borders — the Mirwaiz felt the movement was towards an “interim arrangement” and not a final solution.

“Joint management would mean an arrangement which gives maximum autonomy to the Kashmiris — as it existed on August 14, 1947. This arrangement has to involve all the five regions of Kashmir — Jammu, Ladakh and Kashmir in India and two in Pakistan, namely, the Northern Areas and AJK (PoK).

“It cannot be just advisory in nature nor can there be separate arrangements on the two sides. We see the joint mechanism as joint guarantees about the structure of governance for all the five regions,” he explained.

As for the idea of self-governance, Farooq felt that India and Pakistan could jointly control defence and foreign affairs for Kashmir. “The rest will be with the Kashmiris, including internal security. There can be five regional councils to deal with regional issues, with maximum autonomy and a legislative Assembly to which the regions send their representatives. India and Pakistan can also nominate people so that their concerns are also addressed,” he suggested.

Another idea, he said, could be “to treat the areas under Indian and Pakistani control as two separate regions, move towards interim arrangements of self-governance on both sides and then explore their unification”.

On the proposal for demilitarisation, the Mirwaiz felt that the Indian Army should move out completely except from the international border. “We recognise that this has to go with complete cessation of militant hostilities. Therefore, we want militancy to end if Indian troops have to move out,” he explained.

The movement across Kashmir on the two sides had to be free and “on the basis of the state subject act”, he argued.

How would that address the Indian concern of undesirable elements slipping from Pakistan to Jammu and Kashmir and then into the rest of India? “Before 1953, we had permits for Kashmiris to go to India or Pakistan. This system could be operational again,” he said.

The Mirwaiz did not seem to agree with Musharraf that the militants had no role in the peace process. “You have to make a distinction between those groups who want to be a part of the peace process and those who don’t.

“Nearly 70 per cent of the parties in the Jihad Council are willing to be a part of this process if India shows flexibility. But even Musharraf does not want a role for Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba,” he claimed.

In his meetings with the Jihadi leaders in Pakistan, the Mirwaiz said, his message was that there can be no military victory. “We told them the settlement has to be political and that they should accept dialogue as part of the resistance movement. And although those who have wielded the gun tend to have a different mindset, I think they understood this,” he claimed.