HURRIYAT UPBEAT ABOUT MEETING WITH PM SINGH AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 NEW DELHI 003130

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/05/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER PBTS PINR KDEM PHUM KISL PK IN
SUBJECT: HURRIYAT UPBEAT ABOUT MEETING WITH PM SINGH AND
PROSPECT OF FURTHER DIALOGUE WITH DELHI


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Classified By: PolCouns Geoff Pyatt for Reason 1.5 (B,D)


1. (C) SUMMARY: The moderate separatist Kashmiri Hurriyat led
by Mirwaiz Omar Farooq was quite pleased with their May 3
meeting with Indian PM Singh and his commitment to dialogue
on the full range of Jammu and Kashmir issues and to improved
human rights. The Hurriyat are also gearing up to begin a
regular detailed dialogue with Home Minister Shivraj Patil.
While the Hurriyat leaders remained non-committal in public
about joining the PM's May 25 J&K roundtable discussions,
they told us privately they would carefully consider
participating if the participants list was right. They also
complained bitterly about fence-sitters such as Yasin Malik
and Shabir Shah, whom they derided for being duplicitous,
ego-mad, and not taking big risks -- as they had -- for peace
through dialogue. They also lauded the transformed public
opinion in India and Pakistan that earnestly seeks lasting
peace. Interestingly, they were silent about the May 1
massacre of Hindus in Doda, reminding us of the blindspt
Kashmiri Muslims have for the travails of non-Muslim,
non-Valley citizens of J&K. END SUMMARY.

PALAVER WITH THE PM
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2. (C) Mirwaiz and Bilal Lone told D/PolCouns May 4 that PM
Singh had told them he was available to talk to them at any
time, and that, "for Kashmir, I always have the time to
talk." Photos in the papers showed Mirwaiz wearing a big
smile following the May 3 meeting, and their readout to us
the next day revealed that the atmospherics had been
excellent. Mirwaiz said the initial October talk with the PM
had given them much hope, but the February roundtable with a
broader set of all J&K regional representatives had worried
them and diluted their hold on the dialogue. By meeting
again with them, the PM had shown the importance of the
Hurriyat and the separatist cause. This had given them
confidence in his bona fides, and might prompt them to
participate in the May 25 second round of the roundtable
dialogue, but only if the invitation list was more selective
(particularly difficult, they said, would be sitting
side-by-side with National Conference leaders like Omar
Abdullah whom their "vote bank" detested as Indian
quislings). Bilal sniffed that political players were more
important than NGOs and their ilk. The PM, they added, had
acknowledged the human rights issues, saying his government
was "trying its level best" and had taken "strong cognizance"
of security force lapses.

TIME FOR SERIOUS TALKS
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3. (C) They were also upbeat about the PM's agreement to have
the Hurriyat engage in expert-level talks with the Home
Ministry, led by Shivraj Patil. Mirwaiz expressed enthusiasm
that they could finally start conveying concerns about the
very cumbersome modalities of cross-LOC bus service and other
aspects of daily life in Kashmir. The Hurriyat will urge MHA
to allow persons from both sides to use "state subject"
certificates as a basis for bus usage, as opposed to the
lengthy rigamarole currently in place, so that cross-LOC

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traffic can be "like the US-Canada border". The PM, they
said, had welcomed thoughts on such fixes, and urged them to
use the MHA dialogue to accomplish such changes. The Mirwaiz
Hurriyat will also push for both sides to reopen two miles of
the Poonch-Uri road that are bisected by the LOC, so that
residents can avoid a mammoth detour to travel what had been
a well-frequented route before India divided. In the talks
with MHA, Mirwaiz added, they must be able to show the people
of the Valley concrete progress. To that end, they will seek
expert advice in Delhi, Islamabad, and elsewhere on legal,
security, and bureaucratic issues, but would keep in mind how
violently allergic the GOI would be to any ideas that seemed
to have come from Kashmiris based in the USA.

SEA CHANGE ON BOTH SIDES AMONG MANY BUT NOT ALL
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4. (C) Marvelling at how far they had come, Mirwaiz and Bilal
said the PM's attitude reflected the transformed mood of the
Indian public, and that the Pakistani people also have come
to conclude that "it is time to move on." Musharraf, they
relayed, had told them in a recent trip, "I will be happy
with whatever you can come up with in working with PM Singh."
The transformation of popular attitudes in Pakistan, they
explained, had given them much more space to maneuver. The
Mirwaiz said there were some who still did not get it,
however, and relayed an anecdote about his visit to the
Jamaat Islami in Muzzafarabad. There, JI leaders paraded a
long line of family members of "martyrs" who had died in
operations across the LOC. Mirwaiz, unimpressed, harangued
them for "boxing us in with martyr's blood" when they needed
to try new approaches to forge peace. The reaction, needless
to say, was one of shock, added Mirwaiz. But overall, he
said, Pakistani society was changing. On PTV the other day,
Bilal and Mirwaiz had been shocked to hear Niaz Naik and Ayaz
Ali condemn the "militants" (not/not "freedom fighters") who
slaughtered 35 Hindus on April 30/May 1. Such a semantic
shift was very important, they stressed.

FENCE-SITTERS "DANGEROUS"
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5. (C) Bilal got hot and bothered when discussing JKLF leader
Yasin Malik and separatist Shabir Shah. Those
"fence-sitters" are opportunistists who play a dangerous and
cynical game, he argued. Mirwaiz agreed, saying he and his
group were sticking their necks out for a negotiated
improvement -- and he and Bilal had both lost dear family
members to terrorists -- while Yasin and Shabir sit on a
fence and criticize. Ultimately, Mirwaiz said, it required
zero risk to do nothing yet attack any constructive efforts.
Bilal said Yasin Malik is using his talks with the
Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Hizb-ul-Mujahedin to assert that he
represents the true aspirations, but his was a dangerous game
because he was also essentially endorsing the same people who
continued to kill people. When D/PolCouns argued that Yasin
had at least urged these groups to abandon violence and start
dialogue, Bilal was dismissive, saying, "The ISI controls the
gun in Pakistan. They turn it on and off, not the LET and
Hizb." Mirwaiz and Bilal also attributed Shabir and Yasin's
persistent refusal to join the dialogue process to their

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inability to overcome the fact that neither would be first
among equals.

KASHMIR AS ROTTEN AS EVER
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6. (C) Lamenting the dirty games of Kashmiri politics,
Mirwaiz said all sides of the conflict had a vested interest
in its perpetuation, from separatists to terrorists to
security forces. New Delhi, he said, needed to rein-in their
forces who had become too comfortable with making money
there. The grenade blast April 24 in PDP strong-hold Pattan,
he alleged, was a security force dirty trick to embarass
Mehbooba Mufti. The recently-publicized sex scandal
involving porn tapes of a young Kashmiri girl were not only
revolting but the fact that four state Ministers and six
senior police officials were involved (he alleged) proved
that Kashmiri society and the state administration were
rotten. Values had eroded. On the successfully-concluded
April 24 election, they said the high turnout was because the
campaign revolved around pressing municipal issues.

HINDU MASSACRE? OH YEAH...
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7. (C) As much as Mirwaiz and his ilk represent the positive
face of peaceful Kashmiri separatism, their tunnel vision
focused intently on Kashmiri Muslims was apparent again in
our May 4 conversation as neither Mirwaiz nor Bilal even
mentioned the massacre of 35 Hindus just a few days prior
until we brought it up. After the massacre they had
condemned it, but it was clear when we met that it did not
preoccupy their thoughts. Proving the Kashmiri tendency to
consider the Valley the center of the world, only Jammu
shut-down in protest of the terrorists' actions. We have
seen this sort of exclusivist thinking surface before when
Kashmiris asked us, shocked, why the President had not made
Kashmir the focus of his South Asia trip in March. When told
that bilateral transformation with India was his focus, they
shook their heads.

COMMENT: PM SINGH CHARMED THEM
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8. (C) Given how positive Mirwaiz was, it was clear that
Manmohan Singh had again said all the right things. After
his hawkish bureaucracy had thrown a spanner in the
Hurriyat's works with the February roundtable -- which also
showed Mirwaiz India's displeasure at his comments made from
the Pakistani side of the LOC -- the Hurriyat had been frozen
out for months. The decision to bring them back to Delhi and
re-open direct lines of communication means the PM's vision
of constant movement in forging lasting peace cannot be
deterred. Delhi-Islamabad dialogue has been humming along,
and Delhi-Srinagar dialogue just received an important
jump-start. When asked, Mirwaiz said they no longer need to
play Kabuki-theater on TV and in the media to get another
invitation to Delhi. They now have a direct line, he said,
to the PM. In that regard, Manmohan Singh has done the right
thing yet again.


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