TFPK01: KASHMIRIS SEEK LOWERING OF BORDERS AS

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
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