US embassy cable - 05NEWDELHI7990

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 NEW DELHI 007990 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR TFPK01 AND SA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/11/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, EAID, AEMR, KISL, PTER, PBTS, PK, IN, Earthquake, Kashmir 
SUBJECT: TFPK01:  KASHMIRIS SEEK LOWERING OF BORDERS AS 
EARTHQUAKE AFFECTS POLITICS, TOO 
 
REF: A. NEW DELHI 7984 
 
     B. NEW DELHI 7947 
     C. NEW DELHI 7910 
     D. NEW DELHI 7880 
     E. NEW DELHI 7877 
 
Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Geoffrey R. Pyatt for Reaso 
ns 1.4 (B, D) 
 
1. (C) Summary: PM Singh and the senior Indian leadership 
have moved swiftly following the October 8 earthquake to show 
Kashmiris that India shares their grief and would help them, 
but relief efforts have been slow to reach some areas.  The 
quake is having its impact in Kashmiri politics, too, with 
the lame-duck Chief Minister and the moderate separatist 
leadership calling for the free flow of relief supplies 
across the Line-of-Control (LOC) as a token of affection for 
their afflicted brethren on the Pakistani side.  Moreover, 
Indian and Pakistani troops along the LOC seem to have worked 
out cooperative working relationships in the immediate 
aftermath.  The Army chief says infiltration is down, and the 
Jihad Council grudgingly announced a ceasefire, although 
terrorists slit the throats of 10 Hindus on the eve of 
Dussehra and, in a first, a female suicide bomber just missed 
an army convoy on October 13.  Separatist leaders, putting 
their dialogue with Delhi on hold for now, are seeking ways 
to leverage the quake's reawakening of a shared Kashmiri 
identity to lower border restrictions even as they and other 
politicians jockey for advantage.  The quake, while terrible, 
could yet yield some small political dividends in Kashmir if 
Delhi addresses the desire of Kashmiris to reduce or erase 
the divide that separates them and handles the PDP/Congress 
transfer of power adroitly.  End Summary. 
 
WE REALLY DO CARE FOR YOU 
------------------------- 
 
2. (C) The Indian government, mindful of how it is viewed by 
Kashmiris, has stepped up to provide relief in the Valley and 
in remote areas along the LOC.  Congress President Sonia 
Gandhi, PM Manmohan Singh, and Defense Minister Pranab 
Mukherjee all visited Kashmir immediately after the quake, 
and have promised lavish amounts of aid for victims.  Sonia 
announced upon her return to Delhi that Chief Ministers 
across India would send aid to Kashmir in addition to the 
Central government's contributions.  In doing this, the GOI 
hopes to change the opinions of Kashmiris, many of whom hold 
conflicted views of Delhi after fifteen years of insurgency 
and counter-insurgency.  Even Opposition Leader LK Advani 
visited Uri to show Kashmiris there that the people of India 
shared their grief.  While relief efforts by the military 
have been praised in J&K, efforts by the Kashmiri civilian 
administration have been hampered by poor planning and 
execution, with much aid failing to reach intended 
beneficiaries.  Separatist leaders have criticized the GOI's 
decision not accept foreign aid, contrasting the situation 
with that in Pakistan, where the US military and foreign NGOs 
are quite prominent.  COMMENT:  India's situation is not as 
dire as that in Pakistan, its resources are greater, and it 
has a track record -- including after the December Tsunami -- 
of getting relief quickly to its people using its own 
resources.  It also wants to show that it can manage on its 
own as part of its claim to being a global power.  END 
COMMENT. 
 
AN OPPORTUNITY IN INDO-PAK RELATIONS 
------------------------------------ 
 
3. (U) Capturing a growing sentiment in Delhi, a senior 
think-tanker, ORF's Wilson John, wrote October 14 that, "The 
quake, howsoever tragic, offers Musharraf a chance to write a 
new chapter in India-Pakistan relations" if he accepts 
India's offers not just of aid, but of joint relief efforts. 
John proposed a joint India-Pakistan task force, a 
jointly-prepared short- and long-term strategy for the 
recuperation of J&K, joint NGO relief operations, cooperation 
in restoring basic services, IAF helo support for relief 
operations with security assurances from India about their 
use and purpose, joint restoration of the 
Srinagar-Muzzafarabad road and bridge links, donation of 
Indian pharmaceuticals, despatch of Indian medical teams, and 
deployment of Indian construction expertise to rebuild 
Pakistani housing. 
 
C'MON PEOPLE NOW, SMILE ON YOUR BROTHER... 
------------------------------------------ 
 
4. (U) In a step that could also aid India-Pakistani 
relations, Kashmiris are pushing for further lowering of 
borders as a result of the tragedy that has befallen them. 
J&K Chief Minister Mufti Mohamed Sayeed asked the Central 
government, including PM Singh, October 12 to allow Kashmiris 
to cross the LOC with relief materials as a "token of love 
and affection" between people from both sides.  Mufti was 
reported as saying, "People-to-people contact is essential in 
this time of crisis.  People here...want to take relief 
across."  The CM also asked the PM for approval to establish 
phone links between Srinagar and Muzzafarabad, since people 
in Pakistani Kashmir, he noted, could call their relatives in 
India, but the reverse was not true. 
 
5. (U) Signalling the broad stirring of pan-Kashmiri 
sentiment, moderate separatist leader Mirwaiz Omar Farooq 
also called for India and Pakistan to undertake joint relief 
operations in J&K, while Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front 
(JKLF) leader Yasin Malik announced he would travel to 
Pakistan to deliver $250,000 in aid.  Malik said many people 
he had spoken to in Srinagar and its environs also expressed 
a desire to travel to Muzzafarabad to try to be of assistance 
to people in need.  Meanwhile, the only sanctioned travelers 
across the LOC were Srinagar-Muzzafarabad bus passengers 
returning home (via Wagah in Punjab due to damage to roads 
and bridges in Kashmir) to assess damage and mourn their dead. 
 
THE ARMY:  NOT JUST FOR COUNTER-INSURGENCY 
------------------------------------------ 
 
6. (U) Kashmiris also had positive things to say about the 
immediate, visible, and significant Indian Army and Air Force 
relief effort.  TV and newspapers have covered the military's 
relief effort extensively.  Indians have taken great pride in 
the fact that their troops responded so quickly to civilians' 
plight in Kashmir even as soldiers suffered their own losses 
due to the quake, including a reported 100 soldiers dead and 
105 injured in various places along the LOC.  IAF helicopters 
have been airdropping food in remote areas and army medical 
teams have been providing care in even the most remote 
locations.  Kashmiris have been quoted in the press and seen 
on TV applauding the army's efforts, including provision of 
tonnes of relief and medical supplies, 2500 tents, ten chow 
halls, 13,000 food packets, and mobile surgery and rescue 
teams.  The IAF has flown 400 fixed wing and 300 helicopter 
sorties, delivering 500 tonnes of supplies, including 135 
tonnes of blankets, and evacuating 475 seriously wounded 
people. One journalist to whom we spoke said the reaction in 
Kashmir to the relief aid from the army and the west had been 
"a reappraisal of our having branded you as Kaffirs 
(unbelievers)."  By contrast, journalists and separatists had 
scathing criticism for civilian administration relief 
efforts, and wondered why the GOI would not permit foreign 
NGOs and the USG to provide aid. 
 
THE RAMADAN AND DUSSEHRA ARMISTICE? 
----------------------------------- 
 
7. (U) The Indian newspapers are awash in stories of 
cooperation all along the LOC between Indian and Pakistani 
army units.  One story had Pakistani troops returning Indian 
soldiers who strayed across the LOC due to the quake, while 
another had Indians digging Pakistanis out of a bunker that 
collapsed within sight of their positions.  Yet other stories 
went a step further, saying the troops also helped rebuild 
the bunker, but Pakistan and India denied those rumors and 
India later said -- in an effort to calm the growing uproar 
in the Pakistani press over Indian troops allegedly crossing 
the LOC -- that its troops had only provided Pakistani 
soldiers tools with which to dig for their compatriots 
following a bunker collapse.  Indian army spokesmen did, 
however, reiterate their desire to be helpful in any way with 
relief efforts across the LOC/border, which in some areas is 
only 15 kilometers from Muzzafarabad, even to the extent of 
providing helicopter support if requested. 
 
TERROR, INC. SENDS MIXED SIGNALS AND LICKS ITS OWN WOUNDS 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
8. (U) The amity between soldiers did not, however, 
immediately extend to insurgents.  In a disturbing first, a 
female suicide bomber killed herself in Awantipura on October 
13, just missing an army convoy.  The Jaish-e-Muhamad (JeM) 
claimed responsibility.  Terrorists also slit the throats of 
ten Hindus in Rajouri on the eve of Dussehra even though the 
insurgents' umbrella organization, the Jehad Council, 
grudgingly announced an earthquake ceasefire that same day. 
Army Chief of Staff GEN JJ Dhillon did state prior to the 
quake, however, that infiltration had indeed gone down, 
reducing tension and boosting terrorism.  The General 
attributed the drop to better countermeasures by the Army and 
the ongoing Indo-Pak dialogue.  Terrorism analyst B Raman, 
writing on www.rediff.com said the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) had 
admitted extensive damage to its infrastructure in Pakistani 
Kashmir, as well as the death of 70 of its cadres, and that 
Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) had admitted 100 deaths.  Raman noted, 
however, that terrorist camps generally consist of tents and 
makeshift structures that were easily shifted to evade 
detection.  Raman theorized the terrorists' biggest obstacle 
may be disruptions due to the quake and the ubiquitous 
presence of foreign relief teams, weakening their 
deniability.  On October 14, the Times of India cited 
intelligence sources as claiming upwards of 1500 
insurgents/terrorists had been killed in Pakistani Kashmir 
due to the quake. 
 
PARTY POLITICS TAKES NO BREATHER... 
----------------------------------- 
 
9. (C) As in all things Kashmiri, the quake quickly assumed a 
political edge, with separatists and politicians vying to 
show they were "delivering" the goods.  Local Congress party 
cadres, who sense they may soon take power from CM Mufti in a 
power-swapping deal struck three years ago, accused Mufti's 
ruling PDP of diverting relief supplies for political gain. 
Punjab's Congress-ruled government then announced it would 
only deliver the state's contributions to relief efforts to 
J&K Congress officials, not state functionaries.  JKLF's 
Yasin Malik accused Congress MLA and J&K Minister for Food 
Taj Moh-i-ud-din of visiting Uri in a 20 car motorcade 
carrying "not a single piece of bread for hungry survivors" 
even though Malik's organization had provided relief aid. 
Malik also complained that government relief was not getting 
to remote areas, and urged the GOI to permit foreign NGOs to 
provide aid. 
 
10. (C) Meanwhile, contacts indicated the much-rumored 
transfer of power from PDP to Congress was given a boost when 
the PM visited Kashmir with CM Mufti's presumed replacement, 
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, but a PDP 
contact said the tragedy will at least postpone the October 
31 transfer.  Azad's continued presence in Kashmir to oversee 
relief operations has also exacerbated tensions between PDP 
and Congress.  Mufti remains popular, and well-connected 
political columnist Harish Khare, writing in the "The Hindu," 
warned Congress would sacrifice much goodwill if Sonia 
decides to replace Mufti with Congress party "in-house 
intriguers" conspiring to take the Chief Minister job. 
Mufti, Khare argued, had successfully erased the perception 
that the CM was Delhi's errand boy by doing a fine job in his 
three years in power.  Further complicating all this 
speculation is the impending shift of the J&K government from 
Srinagar to its winter seat in Jammu. 
 
BUT THE DELHI-SRINAGAR DIALOGUE WILL RECESS 
------------------------------------------- 
 
11. (C) As for the dialogue between Delhi and the Mirwaiz 
Hurriyat, scheduled to take place in mid-October, separatist 
Bilal Lone told us that politics must wait until people get 
help.  Journalists we spoke to agreed that the dialogue would 
be postponed for now.  Hurriyat spokesman Professor AG Bhat 
said talks might take place toward the end of November if 
relief efforts went well.  Such a delay is reasonable to 
expect given the scale of the calamity. 
 
COMMENT:  KASHMIRIS CRY OUT FOR LOWERED BORDERS 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
12. (C) Yasin Malik's efforts to take relief supplies to 
Pakistan show that the separatists want to underline in this 
moment of tragedy Kashmiris' shared identity, despite borders 
and lines of control.  Separatists have sought to rise above 
petty politics, and have pushed for direct aid, reconnected 
telephone connections, joint relief operations, and resumed 
transport links across the LOC, reinforcing Kashmiris' sense 
of shared identity.  In this regard, the tragedy has provided 
separatists and politicians on both sides an opportunity to 
advance the implementation of PM Singh's vision of soft 
borders.  Moreover, the image of Indian relief helicopters 
ferrying victims and supplies could help Delhi recast itself 
in the eyes of Kashmiris.  The gelling consensus in Kashmir 
in favor of the PM's vision of reducing the LOC's salience is 
encouraging.  Delhi now needs to make sure it does not 
destroy this opportunity to make real progress either by 
brusquely shoving aside popular Chief Minister Mufti in favor 
of a loyal Congress figure or by failing to sustain its 
nascent dialogue with the separatists about the concerns of 
average Kashmiris.  If Sonia makes the right decisions now, 
tragedy in Kashmir could give rise to new hope, especially if 
Pakistan matches Delhi's moves.  END COMMENT. 
 
13. (U) Visit New Delhi's Classified Website: 
(http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/sa/newdelhi/) 
BLAKE