Countering Allegations

[The transcript of the oral testimony has not been  corrected or edited for spelling and grammaticalmistakes.]

Mr. Raman : Thank you, Mr. Chairman.What I am going to do is, with your kind permission, I am going to offerclarifications on some of the points which were raised earlier with regardto Kashmir, and then make my own presentation. I will try to be as brief aspossible.

In references made to the United Nations resolution on Kashmir, which waspassed some years ago, in that resolution, it consists of a number of parts.Part I called for the withdrawal of the Pakistani troops from occupiedKashmir before a plebiscite can be held. Pakistan violated that resolutionby refusing to withdraw the troops from the part occupied by it.

Number two, Pakistan committed a second violation of the resolution bytransferring part of the Kashmiri territory to China without the clearanceof the United Nations Security Council. That part which was transferred toChina in 1963 has been integrated by China into the Xinjiang province ofChina.

Number three, Pakistan committed a third violation of the U.N. resolutionby separating what is called the Northern Area, Gilgit and Baltistan, fromPakistan-occupied Kashmir, and merging it as Pakistan. Today, that area isdirectly administered from Islamabad by the federal government of Pakistan.

And number four, it committed yet another violation of the U.N. resolutionby (permitting ?) the Chinese to construct a highway, what is known asKarakoram Highway, along this Gilgit-Baltistan area.

And number six (sic), the sixth violation it committed was it used thishighway for nuclear proliferation. In 2001, the Washington Times, quotingAmerican intelligence sources, reported that some of the consignments of M-9and M-11 missiles from China were brought by this highway, because theChinese and the Pakistanis were afraid that the huge ships for bringingthese missiles from China, American satellites might detect their movement.So they brought them by road, by this road which was committed (sic).In view of all these reasons, the resolution of the United Nations hasceased to be valid.

Mr. Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary- general, visited NewDelhi and Islamabad in the year 2000. When he was in Islamabad, he was askedabout U.N. resolutions, and he replied, I quote, and he said that resolutionhas become irrelevant. "Irrelevant" was the word used by Mr. Kofi Annan.

In references also made to allegations -- these are Pakistaniallegations -- of large-scale atrocities in Kashmir. In certain situations,sometimes violations of human rights do occur. And the government of India,whenever such violations occur, they are taking action, they have got aNational Human Right Commission.

Mr. Robert Blackwell, who was the ambassador to New Delhi -- he recentlyvisited Kashmir a number of times. I don't think any of the U.S. ambassadorsin India had visited Kashmir as frequently as he used to do. He had onediplomatic officer under him in the U.S. embassy whose only charge was tomonitor the situation in Kashmir, and that officer used to visit. Last year,before the elections, the U.S. ambassador, as well as the ambassadors to theEuropean Union countries, were given free access.

They could go anywhere to Kashmir. And I don't think any of them had everreferred to anything about violations like gang rapes of women, et cetera.So I prefer to go by the conclusions of the U.S. ambassador in Delhi and bythe conclusions of his own officers in Delhi rather than by the allegationsmade by General Pervez Musharraf.

Then I come to my own presentation. Recently, as I was coming here, I readin the media a memo had been recorded by Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S.Defense secretary, in which he had reportedly expressed exasperation overthe fact that the more the number of jihadi terrorists which the U.S. forcesput out of action in Afghanistan and Iraq, the more the number of jihaditer> rorists would come out of the madrasses to replace them. He did notmention the country in which these madrasses are located. From the contextof the memo, it was apparent that these madrasses are the madrasses inPakistan.

Last year, Mrs. Jessica Stern, a counterterrorism expert of the HowardUniversity, brought out a very widely read study on the working of themadrasses in Pakistan, where she describes them as jihad factories. In Indiathe problem, the same problem which Mr. Donald Rumsfeld referred, we feel.The more the terrorists who are coming out of these madrasses that they putout of action, the more the terrorists will come out of those madrasses toreplace those whom we put out of action.

The problem which we are facing today in Kashmir is not because ofKashmiri militancy but because of large-scale infiltration of people intoKashmir from Pakistan. Till 1993, the average number of foreigners killed bythe security forces in Kashmir used to come to 32. It went up to 172 perannum between 1993 and 1998. Since 1999, our security forces have beenkilling 951 foreign mercenaries per annum in Kashmir. The majority of themare Pakistani nationals. The rest of them are of 18 different nationalities.

I'll kindly request the distinguished panel to read the reports, theannexes of the report of the State Department on Patterns of GlobalTerrorism during 2002, which was submitted to the Congress in May this year.There they refer to the fact that most of these terrorist organizationswhich are operating today in Kashmir, they are foreigners. I'll just mentionone sentence, for Lashkar-e-Taiba. The State Department report says thatalmost all Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists are foreigners, mostly Pakistanis frommadrasses across the country and Afghan veterans of the Afghan wars. Inrespect to each organization, the State Department report says, inanticipation of asset seizures by the Pakistani government, the organizationwithdrew funds from bank accounts. This shows the extent to which howsincere or how insincere the government of Pakistan has been in actingagainst terrorist funding.

I would like to draw the attention of the panel also to four other recentdocuments of the U.S. government. On the 14th of October the U.S. Departmentof Treasury issued an order freezing the bank accounts of a supposedlycharity organization of Pakistan called the Al Akhtar Trust, producing asecond observation in that order issued by the U.S. Department of Treasury.But one observation, it says the charity trust was founded by theJaish-e-Muhammad, the same organization which has supporters who have playeda leading role in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl and which hasbeen very active in Jammu/Kashmir. This organization is supposed to havebeen banned -- (inaudible) -- an order issued on January 15 last year. If itwas a banned organization, how did the Pakistan government allow it to starta charity fund, the charity organization and collect funds?

The second significant observation in that order of the U. S. Department ofTreasury is that the Al Akhtar Trust funded jihad not only in Pakistan andAfghanistan, but it's also suspected with funding jihad in Iraq. That meansan organization founded in Pakistan has been collecting funds and fundingattacks on the American troops in Iraq. How did this happen? What action didMusharraf take against this organization? What is action taken by the U.S.Treasury Department on its soil, or in the instance of the Pakistangovernment, what cooperation it got from the Pakistan government, it callsfor a detailed inquiry.

The other order was with the U.S. Department of Treasury. On October 16there is a man called Dawood Ibrahim. He was a man, he's head of a mafiagroup, transnational triangle which is closely involved with the terroristgroups. He was suspected -- he was involved in the explosions in Bombay in1993 along with five others who have been given shelter in Pakistan. Thegovernment of India has been repeatedly asking for their arrest and handingover to Ind> ia so that they could be tried for involvement in terrorism.But the government of Pakistan has all the time been maintaining that theyare not in Pakistani territory. This order, which has designated DawoodIbrahim as a global terrorist, it says, number one, he had links with the alQaeda and with the Taliban and had been helping them by placing his ships attheir disposal, number one. Number two, it also says that he had been livingin Karachi and has given his passport number.

In spite of that, the Pakistan government, to the U.S. also, it has deniedthat he was in Karachi, and it has denied that this passport belonged tohim. It says that this passport did not belong to him.

For these reasons, we find it very difficult when Pakistan -- Musharrafsays that he has been taking action against terrorists, we in India find itvery difficult to accept it, find it difficult to believe it.

One last point I would like to make, with your kind permission. We are allgratified in India recently by the fact that justice has at long last beendone with the families of victims of the Lockerbie tragedy. Your plane wasblown up, was blown up by a Libyan intelligence officer. He planted theexplosives. And this case went on. The United States imposed punitivesanctions against Colonel Qadhafi. They held him responsible for allowinghis intelligence agencies to blow up the aircraft. Ultimately, justice wasdone.

There have been seven instances of attacks, instances of acts ofterrorist, directed against Indian civil aviation: five instances ofhijacking by Sikh terrorists of Punjab; one instance of hijacking by aWahhabi terrorist organization of Pakistan, the Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, 1999;one instance in which an Air India plane, Kanishka, was blown up off theIrish coast, resulting in the deaths of over 200 civilians; and one instancein which an unsuccessful attempt was to blow up another Air India aircraftin Tokyo.

And all these instances took place when the military was in power. Therehas not been a single attack on civil aviation from Pakistan by terroristgroups from Pakistan whenever a democratically elected government was inpower.

All these people who were involved in these offenses -- the hijackers, thepeople who are involved in explosions, et cetera -- they have been givensanctuary in Pakistan. Is it not the responsibility of the internationalcommunity to see that these people, who are responsible for acts ofterrorism directed against civil aviation, that they are brought to trial;that the government of Pakistan cooperates with the government of India byarresting them and handing them over to India, so that they could be tried?

Doesn't the international community -- does it have an obligation to dojustice to the families of all those people whose -- families of all thevictims of the aircraft which was blown up in midair, (just as it required?) justice to the victims of the Lockerbie aircraft? These are some of thequestions which I'd like to put before this panel.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Rep. Leach: Thank you, Mr. Raman.

Rep. Dana Rohranacher (R-CA): Thank you very much. I'm sorry Mr. Daley hadto leave. And just to note that I do accept that heroin production hasdeclined -- I don't know how dramatically -- in Burma. But at the same timewe've had a huge increase in methamphetamine production in the areascontrolled by the government. Let me just note that. And that's no --there's no doubt about that. In fact, different briefings I've had is thatactually the methamphetamines can be traced to Burmese military camps, andthey're being sold all over Southeast Asia.

So we'll have a ... I'm sure I'll have ... continue to have my discussionwith the State Department and their desire to bestow upon the government ofBurma a mantle of respectability, as compared to what I would bestow uponthem.

Mr. Raman, just a note. I mean, you can come up with every excuse in theworld, India is not permitting the people of Kashmir to have a vote, todetermine their destiny by a vote. This will all be over if the people ofKashmir will be given the right to determine their destiny with a vote.

All the other things you say may be true. Forty years ago, somebodystepped on somebody's toe. Twenty years ago, somebody didn't go by therules. You know, 10 years ago, somebody gave somebody a passport whoshouldn't have had a passport. The bottom line is right now we need to solvethe problem, and Americans believe -- and I believe Indians believe it'strue as well -- that people have a right to control their own destiny viathe ballot box. And I would suggest that people of good faith in India andin Pakistan get together to try to find a solution to which the people ofKashmir will vote for and approve.

My personal suggestion is, as a compromise, knowing that there are largechunks of people in Kashmir that would be part -- that want to remain partof India, if you accept the idea that people have a right to determine theirdestiny, Kashmir need not remain a whole unit, and those parts of Kashmirthat want to remain part and vote to remain part of India in the ballot box,they should remain part of India.

But every -- I have seen -- I have heard no one ever deny the fact that alarge proportion of the people of Kashmir are not satisfied and would voteeither to be independent or be part of Pakistan.

Let's try to solve it. Let's quit lying. Let's quit changing the subject,which is every time you -- I happen to be -- have more sympathy with Indiabecause it's trying to be a democratic society than I do with Pakistanbecause they're a military dictatorship, you know. But -- it's as simple asthat. And, Charlie, when they have a free election, I'll be happy toreassess that. But the people of India have tried to have democracy, and Irespect that. And I think they tried a lot harder and their leaders havetried a lot harder at democracy than the people who led Pakistan have. Butto solve this problem, it goes right down to let's give the people ofKashmir a right to determine that. It's going to go on and on and on tillthat.

I want to give kudos to India on one thing. I noticed in the paper thatsome of the leadership in India have been talking about we're willing todiscuss autonomy for Kashmir.

And that's a step in the right direction. And until we solve that problem,all the rest of these problems are going to fester. Pakistan will continueto be destabilized because what we're doing is we're empowering THE mostradical elements in Pakistan by keeping the Kashmir an issue. So I wouldhope that we can do that. I would -- even if it's a -- I would admonish myown government for not taking as tough a stand on trying to find a solutionfor Kashmir.

And again, I -- the testimony of this panel has been terrific. And I'velearned a lot from each and every one of you, and I appreciate that. And soI would -- let me just ask one question. Is there a reason that -- foroptimism that we can -- in South Asia? We've got terrorism running amuck nowbecause we haven't paid attention to some of these fundamental problems. Isthere a light at the end of the tunnel, and are people beginning to seethat -- a solution, a way out of this, or is this a -- are we going to gothrough a lot more turmoil before there's even hope? And just very quick,maybe a 30-second answer down the panel.

Mr. Raman : Well, the honorable member said that India is trying to be ademocracy; India IS a democracy.

Rep. Rohrabacher: Right. Right.

Mr. Raman : It's not trying to be a democracy, India is the mostwell-functioning democracy in the Third World. It's as healthy a democracyas the United States.

Rep. Rohrabacher: Right.

Mr. Raman : It's as healthy a democracy as the United Kingdom. There's noquestion of India trying to be a democracy.

So far as the question of Kashmir is concerned, we have got a politicalprocess going in Kashmir. There are many parties, there are mainstreampolitical parties which have been -- with the government of India -- whichhave been strongly opposed to the activities of the terrorists in theterritory. And even at the height of terrorism, we had held elections inJammu and Kashmir. Last year we held elections in Jammu and Kashmir. In 1996we had held elections in Jammu and Kashmir. Last year we told everybody,every embassy in Delhi, if you want to go and observe the elections there,you are welcome to go and observe the elections. And the elections, we havean Independent Election Commission in India. This commission recently wasgiven the Magsaysay Award for the way it conducted the elections in Kashmirlast year. And all the Western ambassadors who went there, including theU.S. ambassador, the ambassadors of the European countries, they were allsatisfied that the elections were free and fair.

In spite of threats held out by Pakistan that they would kill people whoparticipate in the election process, people went out --

Rep. Rohrabacher: So then why not give them a chance to vote on whatcountry they want to be part of?

Mr. Raman : Oh, there's no question. See, will the United States, iftomorrow, if one of the states here, it says it wants to have a referendumin order to decide -- for example, if Hawaii tomorrow says it wants to havea referendum in order to decide whether Hawaii should continue to be a partof the United States or not, would the United States tolerate?

Is there a provision in the U.S. Constitution --