Perverse Pervez

As a site for a confessional, the UN General Assembly was a most surprising choice. But on Wednesday, as Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf kept his address aggressively focused on India, he slipped in a stunning admission. Pakistan, he stated, was in a position to ‘‘encourage a general cessation of violence within Kashmir’’. As a fact, there is nothing remarkable about the statement. However, given the unwillingness of Pakistani leaders to own up to any role in cross-border terrorism, it must count as a breakthrough. Embedded though it was in a now familiar rant about outdated Security Council resolutions and an ‘‘indigenous freedom struggle’’ in Kashmir, this acknowledgement of Islamabad’s leverage was astonishingly direct. The Kashmir-centric tirade may have been unexpected, but the cards the general shuffled in New York were predictable. He trotted out cliches about the ‘‘most dangerous dispute in the world’’, he trained his attention on ‘‘Indian security forces’’, and he magnanimously offered a ceasefire along the Line of Control in conjunction with a sustained dialogue.

General Musharraf is so given to grandstanding that is difficult to sift sweeping rhetoric from concrete offer. There is, for instance, nothing new in his ceasefire proposal. Just a little over a month ago, in mid-August, he had made a similar offer. There is, too, nothing new in his seemingly unintended slip about Islamabad’s capacity to calibrate violence within Kashmir; there was that famous January 2002 address promising to rein in militants operating from Pakistani territory. And is there is certainly nothing new about his attempt to keep the focus strictly on India, especially Kashmir.

Before zeroing in on what the general offers, then, it would be more prudent to determine who he was addressing. Power brokers back home in Pakistan, what with opposition parties in Islamabad demonstrating outside Parliament to question his right to address the UN gathering instead of Prime Minister Jamali? The Bush administration, which is overtly supportive of his continuance in power but is being increasingly criticised for tolerating lukewarm efforts by Pakistan to crack down on Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants? Or Prime Minister Vajpayee, who recently affirmed his resolve to see his peace initiative through? To each of them, Musharraf sought to underline his personal worth. Hence, as an exercise is self-preservation, Wednesday’s 15-minute speech was spectacular. But as an indicator of willingness to pursue peace in the sub- continent, it was worthless.