Source: http://www.dawn.com/2000/05/06/top9.htm

Former Indian General seeks peace with Pakistan

By Intikhab Hanif

LAHORE, May 5: An Indian general who spent a major part of his military career in occupied Kashmir and the Siachen sector is now trying to broker peace between Pakistan and India.

Lt-Gen M. L. Chibber (retired) is on a private visit to Pakistan to promote reconciliation which he says will come through close contact between the peoples of the two countries.

But while pleading for reconciliation - which he says may come sooner than "most of us think" - he avoids a direct answer as to how the core issue of Kashmir should be resolved.

"For India, Kashmir is not a disputed territory," the general told Dawn during an exclusive interview here on Friday. But he doesn't comment when it is put to him that for Pakistan this is the main issue which requires resolution above all other problems.

He does not agree that it was India that started the confrontation in Siachen and silently occupied parts of it. He alleges that India had only pre-empted Pakistan.

When asked about the link between his long career working against Pakistan and his new role as a peace keeper, General Chibber says the desire for reconciliation emerged from within him and it was motivated by a man of "infinite wisdom in India, Sai Baba, who has been working for the unity of man for so long."

The general sees no chance of any war between Pakistan and India at present and believes that a nuclear war is out of the question.

General Chibber and his wife, Dr Ramesh Chibber, have been in Pakistan since April 21. He says his visit is due to correspondence with General Pervez Musharraf. He started his visit from Islamabad on April 21 and before moving to Lahore on May 2 he had held four formal interactions at different forums besides having a 75-minute meeting with the chief executive.

The two are leaving for Karachi on Saturday from where they will go to Bombay on May 10. The itinerary includes a meeting with the Sindh governor.

Hailing from Abbottabad, General Chipper had joined the British India Army in 1945. He came to the scene in 1949 when he was involved in demarcation of the then Ceasefire Line in Kashmir. Then as a captain in Kargil he indulged in what he says normal shootouts across the line from 1955 to 1957. He was again in Kashmir as a brigade commander from 1968 to 1970. He commanded another brigade in the Kashmir sector during the 1971 war.

He was director of Indian Military Operations from 1976 to 1979 when various game plans against Pakistan were formulated. He became commander of the Indian Northern Areas Command from 1982 to 1985 when India occupied Siachen.

General Chibber retired from the army on August 31, 1985 and says that on September 1, 1985 he wrote to General Ziaul Haq that he was starting a campaign for peace. Since then, he has been writing of his desire for peace to almost all army chiefs in Pakistan.

He says he had also contacted General Pervez Musharraf when the latter became the army chief in 1998 with the same motive and wrote another letter to him when he took over power in October last year.

The general says at the time of partition he had opted for Pakistan and offered to join the 13th Frontier Force at Abbottabad but later migrated to India along with his family.

His wife, who belongs to Rawalpindi, was studying in the King Edward Medical College, Lahore, at the time of partition and later completed her medical education at the Lady Harding Medical College, New Delhi.

The general says he has no backing from his government or any other agency for his peace mission. "People of India and Pakistan are with me. The problem has been not the people but the establishments in the two countries. The establishments preserve their public image and it is the duty of people like me to raise hopes for the future."

"My conviction after spending 12 or 13 days in Pakistan is stronger than ever before that reconciliation will come soon. It is a feeling deep in the hearts of the people in both the countries," General Chibber says.

While replying to a question on the Siachen glacier, he says the world must recognize the truth behind the issue. Lt-Gen Jehan Dad Khan (retired) of Pakistan has mentioned many hidden truths of the issue in his book published in 1999.

The general claims that Siachen was an undemarcated area and India came to know in 1978 that some enterprizing agent in Pakistan was pursuing mountaineering expeditions there. He alleges that many developments that followed indicated a Pakistani desire to occupy the area in May 1984. And India occupied the place on April 13 in order to prevent it.

General Chibber says the Nawaz-Vajpayee meeting was a breakthrough which he alleges was damaged by the Kargil issue. Mr Vajpayee is also a follower of Sai Baba and had taken the peace initiative despite criticism from some quarters. And he was belittled and ridiculed when the Kargil issue erupted.

"But I have no doubt that the people of India who are angry with the Kargil issue, will settle down."

When asked why if the people of India wanted peace, Mr Vajpayee was rejecting repeated offers of talks by General Pervez Musharraf, he says trust is not something which "you can switch on or off." Time and action marking no covert or overt violence will regenerate confidence, he says.

The Indian general agrees that it is the governments which will ultimately chose the future path, but says things will change with an exchange of views between the peoples of the two countries.

He says there is no immediate danger of war despite "routine" exchange of shelling across the LoC between the two sides. "This is my professional judgment that has come from learning the art of warfare."

He says war can be averted by avoiding tough talk. "This is my advice to both the countries because it is action that shapes human destiny. I will also request the media to stop looking for sensational headlines."

General Chibber avoids a direct reply to a question regarding his suggestions for the resolution of the Kashmir issue and says he had himself sought an answer to this question during his meetings in Islamabad.

But he blames Britain for "pitting the people of the subcontinent against each other."

General Chibber says that when he retired he had advocated that India and Pakistan must go nuclear to ensure eradication of the curse of atomic weapons from earth. Nuclear weapons can only be eliminated by their proliferation and not through the monopoly of five nations over them, the general says.

"I felt vindicated when two days ago I read that the five nuclear nations have given a notion of completely destroying the nuclear weapons," he says.

Replying to a question regarding the increase in Indian defence budget, he says, for a developing country, whether its India or Pakistan, spending more than three per cent of the GDP on defence means it is driving itself towards bankruptcy.

Even the developed countries which spend more than five per cent of the GDP on their defence are creating problems for themselves.

In the case of India, the general says, its defence budget was less than two per cent of its GDP till 1962 but when it was thrashed by China, India it tried to overcome the problem and raised its defence budget up to 3.5 per cent. In the last 20 years, he says, the defence budget has gone up in gross terms but has been reduced in terms of inflation.

In General Chibber's words, there can be no lasting solution to the Kashmir issue without trust between the two countries. Unhindered interaction among people of the two countries in every area of human activity can promote reconciliation because he says there is an enormous stock of goodwill lying latent in their hearts. Reconciliation and trust will automatically convert Kashmir into a bridge rather than a battleground between the two countries.

"Hostility between India and Pakistan is artificial. It can be removed if people are not insulated from inter-acting with each other freely," the Indian visitor believes.