The failure of international media to comprehend this reality does not bode well for its ability to uncover and confront future genocidal crimes. International media has also failed to recognize that this mayhem has been orchestrated in the region by Pakistan as part of its long-standing designs to spread its brand of Islamic fundamentalism around the world. Pakistan has already succeeded in establishing a puppet state in Afghanistan ruled by the Pakistani-indoctrinated Taliban which has clearly strengthened its hold on the country with the active and crucial support of the Pakistani military. Annexation of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is undoubtedly next on Pakistan's agenda, accompanied by expulsion of non-Muslims in the region and establishment of an intolerant Islamic regime (Kashmir Chronicle, Vol.1, No.1). 

Why did the international media fail so miserably in recognizing the spreading danger of Islamic fundamentalism and Pakistan's terrorist face in South Asia? Why did it take cruise missile attacks for the media to begin to recognize reality? Part of the reason has been its inability to cut through a thin layer of Pakistani propaganda, which cloaks its designs with talk of 'independence' in Kashmir and with constant denials of material, logistical and personnel support for terrorism in Kashmir. To this day, CNN and other news media sources continue to add the following rider to reports about the conflict in the region: "Pakistan ... says it only provides the (Kashmiri) separatists with political and diplomatic support". An overwhelming mountain of evidence exists for Pakistani support in arming, training and indoctrinating Kashmiri, Pakistani, Afghan and other mercenaries that wreak terror and havoc in Kashmir (http://www.kashmir-information.com/Pakistan). The US Tomahawk missiles laid bare part of the machinery employed by Pakistan and numerous reports talked about the "embarassment" and "clumsy cover ups" of the Pakistani government in having its terrorist face unmasked (Washington Post, Aug. 22, 1998, New York Times, Aug. 24, 1998). The embarassment should have been that of international media, whose failure to uncover the support of Pakistan for terrorism, ethnic cleansing and balkanization in South Asia has contributed to the intransigence of the situation.

Part of the problem also has been the less than serious international approach towards terrorism in some parts of the world. MSNBC news (Aug. 25, 1998) exemplified this recently when it reported the "frequent targeting of Hindu civilians by Kashmiri militants, which India regards as terrorism". Clearly targeting of civilians anywhere in the world should be regarded as terrorism. Does the MSNBC reporter imply that targeting of Hindu civilians may not necessarily be regarded as terrorism? Such an approach in the media is particularly dangerous and leaves wide latitude for extremist elements to commit dastardly acts without any fear of universal condemnation by the international community.

While the Tomahawks uncovered a part of the Pakistani machinery involved in terrorism in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, much remains unsaid in the international press about the Pakistani role. Yossef Bodansky, the head of the US Congress Task Force on Terrorism and a leading authority on international terrorism, has written several in-depth articles (http://www.kashmir-information.com/Bodansky) on the Pakistani support for terrorism and points out that Pakistan is using the escalation in Kashmir as a cover for the overall expansion of its terrorist training and support system for operations in Central Asia and elsewhere in the world. The US embassies in Africa bore the brunt of the Afghan terrorist system in the August bombings. The dual role played by Pakistan is highly significant. On the one hand it has claimed to 'cooperate' with the US in trying to apprehend some elements behind the bombings. On the other hand much of the network of Afghan terrorist camps houses Pakistani trainees, and the Pakistani- indoctrinated and supported Taliban regime provides a safe haven for Osama Bin Laden, the brain behind many terrorist movements in the world.

The international media has much work left to do in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. It has yet to report that many terrorist training camps exist in the Pakistani-occupied regions of Kashmir, which are used both as launching pads of infiltration into India and safe havens for terrorists on the run from the Indian military. The international media has also so far ignored one of the worst instances of ethnic cleansing in recent history - the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Hindus by Pakistani-supported terrorists during the last decade. This ethnic cleansing continues to date as many Hindus flee the state to escape the repeated massacres and other acts of terrors by Pakistani-supported fundamentalist elements. While the expulsion of 300,000 ethnic Albanians by Serbs from Kosovo became an instantaneous international issue, the media has maintained a cold silence over the uprooting of an even larger number of Kashmiri Hindus by Pakistani-supported elements. The international press can atone for its past failures in the region by bringing a spotlight on the continuing human tragedy inflicted upon Kashmiri Hindus.

 Jammu & Kashmir, as an independent State, formally acceded to the Secular Republic of India, pursuant to related British-Indian legislation. While the ruling government of J&K was going through the process of making its choice, the neighbouring Islamic Republic of Pakistan sought to pre-empt this and forcibly occupied the parts now called Pak-Occupied-Kashmir (PoK). Pakistan was unambiguously declared an aggressor by the UN Rapporteur Sir Owen Dixon. PoK has become the "lawn" in our analogy described in the introduction. The Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is the "garage", while Pakistani-trained terrorists infiltrating into this "garage" are the "pit-bulls".

 Pakistan failed to implement the first two of four clauses of the August 1948 recommendations of a UN Rapporteur (not UN resolutions) on Kashmir:
a) withdraw all Pakistani troops from J&K;
b) restore the jurisdiction of Srinagar government over entire J&K;
c) reduction of Indian troops in J&K;
d) plebiscite.

 Significantly, UN mediator Gunnar Jarring in 1957 reported that if they were not immediately implemented, rapid changes in ground realities would render them unimplementable.

 Post-1972, Pakistan has continued to violate the mutual trust envisaged in the Indo-Pak 1971 Simla Accord, which embodied India's belief that a stable Pakistan evolving towards democracy is the best security for both. Its continuing proxy war in Kashmir is unpardonable and unrewardable.

 An integral "self-governing" part of a democratic India, J&K has more autonomous powers and consumes more per-capita grants (versus loans) than any other state in India.

 In order to understand why this state continues to be 'disputed territory', it is high time to look at the seeds of what has been described as the most dangerous terrorist breeding grounds of the world.

 The military-clergy-feudal ruling establishment in Pakistan, is always unstable from ideological extremisms and contradictions, coming under pressure from modern aspirations of a very ambitious and hard-working people. This is because religion as a political foundation has succeeded neither in uniting the people, nor in giving them the promised peace, power and prosperity. They are still trying, with reports coming in lately that the justice system will consider the Quran and the Sunnah as the supreme law. This 'Islamisation initiative' of Mr. Sharif picks up the unfinished task of late dictator, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. It needs amending Article 239 of the Pakistan Constitution and requires a two-thirds majority in both the National Assembly and the Senate. However, the Government has sought to waive this requirement for the "removal of any impediment in the enforcement of any matter relating to Shariah". For such matters, the Government will now be able to move a Bill in either House to be passed by a simple majority.

 The nature of the beast of politics is such that it is often considered blasphemous to acknowledge that the adopted ideology works not, particularly in egalitarian communist and religious ones that seek to eliminate natural differences in every way, manner or form. When expectations of the public are unfulfilled, a filibuster or distraction becomes highly attractive. In the context of Pakistan's history, this temptation has been exercised more frequently in submission than in resistance; and the easy availablity of arms, extremists and 'conquerable' territories fuels this fire like nothing else. It was mentioned somewhere that this might be related to the origins of the word PAKiStan - supposedly founded with the aim of including Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Islam, Sindh and BaluchisTAN.

In the midst of the Afghan war and US overtures to Pakistan, then dictator Zia-ul-Haq devised the ingenious or infamous "Operation Topac", to send mercenaries into Kashmir Valley, as a long-term project. His April'88 address to the Pak Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which is on the Web at http://www.kashmir-information.com/Miscellaneous/OperationTopac.html, enunciated the following 3-phase plan:
1. Create insurgency and chaos in Kashmir through terrorism. (Use foreign mercenaries, since Kashmiris are peace-lovers).
2. Attack Indian Army positions to give cover to infiltrators.
3. Final armed assault to "liberate" Kashmir.

 Indeed, since 1989, terrorists have brutally killed over 25,000 innocent men, women and children; and indulged in abduction, rape, murder, arson, extortion and looting, targeting Government officials, political leaders, workers, judges, presspersons, doctors, particularly Kashmiri Hindus. Religious "codes of conduct" were "decreed". Over 400 secular schools and 40 Hindu temples were destroyed, often overriding local Muslim opposition. Systematic genocide of the indigenous Kashmiri Hindus forced over 350,000 to flee and today live as refugees in their own country. Many villages lost their only doctor. Many Muslim families were disrupted via extortion, forced marriage-and-divorce, kidnapping of teenagers for the cause, etc.

 So much for Pakistan's claims of "only moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri cause" and its protestations for a "fair solution to the Kashmir 'dispute'". This sham has been exposed after the recent US strikes in response to terrorist attacks against American embassies in Africa. The US missiles destroyed the Pak-Afghan joint terrorist training camps cum religous schools, killing over a dozen militants preparing for suicide missions in Kashmir. These militants belonged to the renamed Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, successor of the dreaded Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA). The former was created solely to outwink western laws that would affect the latter. It may be recalled that HUA was responsible, in 1995 in Kashmir, for the abduction of five Western hostages, of whom one was beheaded and the others are yet to be found.

 Where Kashmiris ran amiss was that in their democratic setup, they failed to spot the bad fish building an army of zealots in the shadows. Fringe groups harbouring delusions of theocracy shunned elections, fearing exposure of their limited support and foreign connections. Targeted teenagers were promised the mythical pleasures of heaven that danced in their eyes as they died for the conquest of Dar-el-harb ("land-of-strife" - a term for non-Islamic lands). Their desolate parents were unable to fathom the "Secrets Of The Shaheed". In Kashmir while the fringe ISI-propped groups silenced every other opinion by intimidation and terrorism, the West blithely towed the US line in ignoring Indian protests against Pakistan-based terrorism and choosing to listen only to squeaky Pakistan rhetoric on human rights in Kashmir. The Western media noticed only a tip of the iceberg when the Harkat-Ul-Ansar (HUA) took western hostages. During 1994-95 visits to J&K, ambassadors to India from Venezuela, Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary, Mexico, Colombia, Canada, Senegal, Bulgaria and Nigeria went on record to condemn Pakistan's terrorist acts in Kashmir.

 The true danger to peace lies not in proliferation of atomic arsenals (which is 50 years old), but in their possession by avowedly extremist states like Pakistan, where many Fundamentalists believe their sacred duty "is to annihilate the non-Muslims or at least reduce them to tributaries".

 Pakistan's terrorist campaign in Kashmir is a chilling example of this ideology in action. Whether and what punishment accrues due to such evidence is best left to diplomats, but the imperatives of international law are clear. By Law, Pakistan is undoubtedly a terrorist state, and by Law, the whole of J&K undeniably belongs to India; usurpers and terrorists must vacate it. 

The stark differences between the two South Asian neighbours begin with their attitudes towards democracy and tolerance. While India believes in a secular democracy and equal rights for all religions and ethnicities, Pakistan's brand of democracy begins and ends with full freedom for the practice of Islamic fundamentalism. Pakistan's interest in Islamic fundamentalism does not end within its own borders. Its brand of fanaticism has been exported into Afghanistan, and a sustained decade-long attempt is being made to export Islamic fundamentalism into the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Russia and several Central Asian republics have recently warned Pakistan about its actions in Afghanistan. Pakistan has not hesitated to use the weapons of international terrorism and fomenting of ethnic cleansing to further its fundamentalist goals. Pakistani connections have been evident in numerous recent instances of terrorism against the United States, including killings of US citizens in Pakistan, the CIA shootings and the World Trade Center bombing. When most of the terrorists killed in the missile attacks in Afghanistan turned out to be Pakistanis, it was no coincidence. Osama Bin Laden has clearly thrived symbiotically with the Taliban, itself an offspring of Pakistani fanaticism. A detailed look at the Afghanistan-Pakistan fulcrum in Central and South Asian terrorism is available on the Internet (http://www.kashmir-information.com/Afghanistan).

Pakistan was recently characterized as a "worrisome country" by the US Ambassador to the country, Thomas Simons (Indian Express, July 20, 1998), and with good reason. During the recent nuclear stand-off with India, many high-level Pakistani officials have made irresponsible, arrogant statements that are indicative of the immaturity of the political structure in the country. Dr. A. Q. Khan, head of the nuclear program of the country, boasted recently that his missiles could "hit any Indian city in 15 minutes, many times" (Rediff.com, July 31, 1998). Pakistani nuclear blackmail on the issue of Kashmir goes back as far as 1990, when the then Pakistani Foreign Minister threatened to "shower the sky with flames" if the Kashmir issue was not resolved (The Hindu, July 6, 1998). While India immediately offered a "no first use" deal after its recent nuclear tests, Pakistan refused to consider it "until the Kashmir issue was resolved" (The Hindu, July 2, 1998). Pakistan's nuclear brinksmanship is discussed and analyzed in detail by Yossef Bodansky in one of his articles (http://www.kashmir-information.com/Bodansky).

Clearly Pakistan is a prime supporter of international terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, apart from being a less than mature country which may be willing to use nuclear blackmail to resolve international disputes. The international war against terrorism and fanaticism will not even begin seriously unless the United States recognizes Pakistan's central role and adds it to the list of countries under terrorist watch. On the flip side, the United States can greatly improve its reach against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism by collaborating with India, which has considerable and continuing experience in this arena.