Print

Mail

wiki links

Trans-Kashmir bus trip a step toward peace between rivals India and Pakistan

The first trans-Kashmir bus in decades has rolled and dozens of families have been reunited across the divide, but real progress by nuclear-rivals India and Pakistan on their core dispute over Kashmir remains a long way off, analysts say.

"We basically see this as one of the confidence-building measures," said Ajai Sahni of the New Delhi-based Institute of Conflict Management.

"We must understand that for Pakistan, none of the fundamentals have really altered in terms of intent or claim."

The first bus service spanning divided Kashmir in nearly 60 years ran simultaneously Thursday from Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir and Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistan-administered zone.

Passengers crossed the heavily-militarized Kashmir frontier despite attempts by militants on the Indian side to derail the historic journey with a blast along the route and an attack a day earlier on a guesthouse complex in Srinagar where the passengers were staying.

At the end of the day, 30 people travelled the 160km route from Muzaffarabad while 19 -- down from an original 29 -- went in the opposite direction.

They were greeted with sweets and garlands by thousands of people when they arrived on the other side, while members of divided families hugged each other with tears rolling down their cheeks.

"All these measures can easily be reversed the moment the circumstances are altered for Pakistan," Sahni said. "And President [Pervez] Musharraf has made this abundantly clear when he says that unless Kashmir is solved, there can be more Kargils."

Indian and Pakistan-backed intruders fought a short duration conflict in the high mountains of Kargil sector of Kashmir in 1999. Nearly 1,000 combatants on both sides were killed.

I.A. Rehman, director of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, sounded a similar cautionary note.

"It was good that despite the fire and the shooting the buses reached their destinations and the two governments did a splendid job," he told reporters in Islamabad.

"[But] it does not mean that there are no hurdles left. There is a long way to go, but the road to peace is getting clear."

Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan after a 1947 war but it is claimed in full by both countries.

Family members separated by the division of the picturesque Himalayan region have longed to meet each other again but have had to take a long roundabout route which also depended on being granted hard-to-get visas by New Delhi or Islamabad.

Though the bus has been hailed as a powerful symbol for peace by the media and analysts on both sides, there is little dispute that the event marks only a small step on the long road to rapprochement for the nuclear rivals, who have fought three wars -- two over Kashmir -- and came close to a fourth in 2002.
This story has been viewed 1904 times.