Brown Amendment

AS India-baiting Republican Senator Hank Brown endorsed the elections in Kashmir? It would seem so, going by what he told some Indians during his visit here on August 5 and 6. Senior Indian interlocutors who met Brown before he left say that he told them that though the elections were not fully satisfactory, they had generally helped bring down the political temperature in the Valley and could be the beginning of the political process.

바카라 웹사이트Though Brown has visited India many times, this was his first visit to Kashmir since the state blew up in 1990. Some analysts here feel allowing him to go to Kashmir was a good idea. Apart from meeting Indian officials, he met Hurriyat leaders, including Shabir Shah, now suspended from the Hurriyat conference.

바카라 웹사이트Brown reportedly told his interlocutors that the Hurriyat leadership did not seem to have a cohesive idea of what they wanted in Kashmir. Saying there were no restrictions on his access to people he wanted to meet in Srinagar, he added that the Islamic extremism of some of the militant groups had had a "peculiar" impact on him and he did not think that this kind of extremism was good for the plural societies of this region. He noted that the political aspirations of the people in the Valley were rather complex and not two-dimensional in the sense of choosing India or Pakistan. He is believed to have also said that though he had no definite way of assessing what the people wanted, there was certainly no overwhelming desire on their part to join Pakistan. Rather, he felt they wanted their political identity to be autonomous. He apparently acknowledged that every time he comes to India, he rediscovers the vibrancy of the Indian democracy.

The disarming Brown glided through his visit here. There was neither any hullabaloo nor a rash of statements objecting to it.

바카라 웹사이트Brown is well known in India. He piloted the Brown Amendment in the American Congress, which gave Pakistan a one-time waiver from the Pressler Amendment that barred economic and military aid for Islamabad for violating US nuclear nonproliferation laws. This allowed the US to release arms worth $368 million to Pakistan that had been blocked earlier.

Given the fact that he has carried on a powerful campaign against India, the Indian Government naturally did not want to be seen to be kowtowing to him. Which explains why neither Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda nor External Affairs Minister I.K. Gujral met him. He met only Foreign Secretary Salman Haider, besides ex-prime ministers A.B. Vajpayee and Narasimha Rao. Brown compounded matters by writing an article, published in a US magazine just before his arrival here, that India too should be punished under the Pressler law.

바카라 웹사이트The snub deeply embarassed US officials. Asked if Brown had met Gujral, a US official parried the question. When pressed, he said Brown couldn't meet Gujral as the latter was indisposed. But that wasn't true.

That evening Gujral had found time to grant an interview to an American TV network. In contrast, whenever Brown and Raphel visit Pakistan, they get to meet Premier Benazir Bhutto. In fact, America's access to Bhutto is so easy that in July 1994, she went to the US Embassy in Islamabad and cut a cake on the American Independence Day. Catch an Indian prime minister doing that.

India has been following the policy of downplaying visits by those Americans who are seen to be anti-India. Earlier, visiting US Congressmen used to regularly meet the external affairs minister and sometimes even the prime minister.

But some Indian analysts feel the snub was unwarranted. They argue that since Brown is the head of the Senate Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Committee, Gujral should have met him. "We do not have to go by what Brown says, but we should at least convey to him what we feel on certain things," said an analyst.

The real focus of Brown's visit, who left for Islamabad from New Delhi wasn't India and Pakistan but Afghanistan, where he will spend about a week. He is expected to meet both President Burhanuddin Rabbani and Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Observers see in this an American signal that it wants the Rabbani-Hekmatyar coalition to stabilise and a definite message against the Taliban.바카라 웹사이트