FOREIGN POLICY
INDIA: Delivers Diplomatic Ultimatum to Pakistan
Indranil Banerjie
5 January 2009
NEW
DELHI, Jan 5 (IPS) - India’s Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said
Monday that his government has delivered a dossier to Pakistan
containing evidence of the involvement of Pakistanis in the Mumbai
massacre -- an act that strategic experts say amounts to an ultimatum
to bring the perpetrators to Indian justice.
Signalling that India is not prepared to accept further
vacillation by Pakistan on its demand to extradite the terrorist
masterminds responsible for the terrorist strike, Mukherjee said: "We
have today handed over to Pakistan evidence of the links with elements
in Pakistan of the terrorists who attacked Mumbai on 26 November,
2008.’’
"What happened in Mumbai was an unpardonable crime," Mukherjee
said. "As far as the government of Pakistan is concerned, we ask only
that it implement the bilateral commitments that it has made at the
highest levels to India."
Mukherjee's press conference came just after India's High
Commissioner to Pakistan, Satyabrata Pal, met Pakistan Foreign
Secretary Salman Bashir at the Foreign Office in Islamabad to hand
over, what was officially described as "an information dossier on the
status of investigations thus far by India into the Mumbai terrorist
attacks".
The dossier includes records of interrogation of arrested terrorist
Ajmal Kasab intercepts of the terrorists' communication with handlers
in Pakistan during the attack, details of the weapons and equipment
recovered, including GPS instruments and satellite phones.
Kasab is the sole survivor of the 10-man squad that carried
out the Mumbai attacks and so far Islamabad has refused to acknowledge
that he is a Pakistani citizen. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari
said soon after the attacks, which resulted in 185 deaths, that
‘non-state actors’ from Pakistan amy be involved, but then appeared to
backtrack.
In a separate press conference, Monday, Indian foreign secretary Shiv
Shankar Menon said: ‘’We don't think there is any such thing as a
non-state actor. These non-state actors function within a state. They
are citizens of the state. We found that distinction almost impossible
to believe"
India, Menon said, expects Pakistan to respond with deeds. "All that we
want is action and not words from Pakistan. But, so far, there is no
evidence of it.’’
Menon said: ‘’We have given them material that has come up during our
investigations. We hope Pakistan will investigate this material that
leads to Pakistan, share the results with us and extend to us legal
assistance so that we can bring the perpetrators to Indian justice.’’
Menon said that under the conventions of the South Asian Association
for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) grouping Pakistan was obliged to hand
over the Mumbai attackers to India. He announced that the dossier would
be shared with other countries, including China.
"There is a method in all this,’’ Lalit Mansingh, veteran diplomat and
former Indian ambassador to the U.S. told IPS.
"Once the Prime Minister ruled out the military option, the
only other way was diplomatic pressure,'' Mansingh said. ''A dossier
containing cold hard facts has been handed over which Pakistan cannot
ignore. This dossier is going to all the capitals in the world. The
government clearly has launched a diplomatic offensive on a war
footing".
Mansingh said India expected the U.S. to force Pakistan to heed India's
ultimatum. "This time the Americans are with us.’’
According to Mansingh the Indian government was being
systematic and proceeding in a calibrated manner by first stepping up
diplomatic pressure.
Initial signals from Islamabad were, however, not encouraging. While
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, reacting to news of the
dossier being submitted by India, said that his government was ready to
cooperate with India in the investigations of the Mumbai terror
attacks, he ruled out the extradition of any suspect.
Gilani's statements came after a meeting with visiting US
Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher. Boucher seemed to endorse
Pakistan's tack of "joint investigations,’’ and carried the message to
New Delhi that "the two sides need to exchange information. People have
to work with each other’’.
U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford, however, said his government
supported India’s demand for prosecution of the plotters particularly
as U.S. citizens were killed in the Mumbai attack. The U.S. government,
he said, will ‘’pursue this matter to its conclusion’’.
The Indian government is looking to the United States to step up
financial pressure on the Pakistani government particularly since an
economic meltdown in Pakistan has been averted by U.S. financial
largesse and a generous World Bank bailout.
Washington’s has a stake in containing tensions between India and
Pakistan since it may result in Islamabad from diverting its troops
from its western borders where they are currently engaged in fighting
the Taliban and jihadist groups along its western border with
Afghanistan.
U.S. President-incumbent Barack Obama's recent statement that the
Pakistani military has been taking Washington for a ride is being
viewed as a sign of hope in New Delhi. "The pressure will be on
Pakistan and it cannot escape this time,’’ Mansingh said.
Other foreign policy and security analysts in New Delhi are
less optimistic. "The diplomatic offensive is the right step,’’ feels
Alok Bansal, senior fellow with the New Delhi-based Institute of
Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA).
The danger for India, Bansal said, is that "Pakistan might agree to
extradition of the terror strike masterminds to the U.S. [since U.S.
citizens were killed] but not to India".
Bansal said that the attempt to rope in China was important
because Pakistan appears to take Beijing more seriously than it does
Washington. India, on Monday, shared the dossier from the Mumbai
attacks with China’s visiting vice foreign minister He Yafei.
Other experts point out that India may have painted itself
into a corner. For, should Pakistan choose not respond, India might not
be able to come up with a credible response.
"What options do we really have?" wonders Vikram Sood, former chief of
India's intelligence agency, the Research and Analyses Wing. "We have
said war is not an option and the time for an immediate strike has
gone. So now we can take a dossier and wave it for all the world to
see. But it is not going to get us anywhere. We have no plan B."
Sood believes that the Indian government has not put any real
pressure on Pakistan. "We have not called off the composite dialogue,
we have not stopped the trains, or visas or trade. Nothing has changed.
So why should Pakistan take us seriously?" he asks.
"We expect the U.S. and others to fight our war. They might be
sympathetic but they will not fight our war,'' Sood said.
(END/2009)
[This article was written for the Inter Press Service]