Recognise Pandits as genocide victims
WASHINGTON, July 15 — Leading Congressman Frank Pallone has urged India’s National Human Rights Commission to declare the Kashmiri Pandits as victims of genocide and internally displaced persons.

Has Sharif signed CTBT?
ISLAMABAD, July 15 — Has the Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, already signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on the independence day of the USA on July 4?

Revenge behind Hayer killing : police
SURREY (British Columbia), July 15 — The Canadian authorities moved to downplay a political motive for the killing of an outspoken Sikh newspaper publisher, and said the gunman acted out of “personal revenge.’’

OAU nod to charter

China can make neutron bomb

BEIJING, July 15 (Reuters) — China today boasted that it had mastered neutron bomb technology in a veiled threat to Taiwan, which caused a furore this week by junking a key policy that has prevented war between them for decades.

The shock announcement came hard on the heels of a reinforcement of Beijing’s longstanding threat to invade if Taiwan declared independence, cranking up their war of words.

Beijing, meanwhile, held in talks today as part of a struggle to repair severely strained diplomatic ties with the USA. The two sides began discussing compensation for victims of NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.

The formal context of the announcement that China had mastered neutron bomb technology in the 1970s and 1980s was a Cabinet report intended to disprove a U.S. Congressional report that accused China of stealing American nuclear secrets.

But some diplomats said the timing appeared targeted at Taiwan, which enraged Beijing this week by abandoning the “one China” policy — a mutually accepted formula that helped underpin East Asian security for decades.

“It fits the pattern of slowly escalating threats,” one Beijing-based Western envoy said.

Taipei said on Monday the idea of one, indivisible China that included Taiwan had to be scrapped because Beijing was using it to undermine the legitimacy of the island.

Beijing regards Taiwan as a rebel province which must be brought back within the motherland’s fold and is ever vigilant for indications that Taipei sees an independent future.

The Cabinet report did not say whether China had conducted tests, begun mass production or deployed any neutron bombs — nuclear weapons with higher levels of radiation and lower levels of explosive power.

“You can sort of blow up a city and kill everybody in the city, but the buildings don’t get destroyed” with neutron bombs, said Robert Karniol, the Bangkok-based Asian correspondent of Jane’s Defence Weekly.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue declined comment on whether the neutron bomb boast was a threat aimed at Taiwan or whether China would conduct any military exercises near the island in future.

ANI adds: In May, a US Congressional report said China had acquired US secrets about seven nuclear weapons and the neutron bomb through 20 years of espionage.

The report said the USA learned in 1996 that China stole classified US neutron bomb information from a government lab that could be used on Chinese intermediate-range and short-range ballistic missiles.

China, however, denied it stole US nuclear secrets, saying its scientists were fully capable of developing advanced weaponry.

Beijing denounced the US allegation as a ploy to demonise China and divert attention from NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May as part of the Western military alliance’s air campaign against Yugoslavia.

US-developed neutron bombs are designed to kill with extremely high concentrations of radiation while sharply reducing blast and heat effects, leaving buildings largely intact.

USA firm on Wye agreement

WASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) — The USA, reacting to questions raised by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, said it preferred Israel and the Palestinians to carry out last October’s Wye agreement without any changes.

In interviews published in major US newspapers on the eve of his first meeting with President Bill Clinton, Barak said he favoured either partial implementation or amalgamating various Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank.

“Full implementation now is too risky,’’ he told The New York Times. “It would reduce our chances of achieving a permanent peace.’’

To The Washington Post, he said it would be preferable to stage Israel’s withdrawal from Palestinian areas in one big step as part of a single peace agreement.

State Department Spokesman James Rubin yesterday showed no enthusiasm for tinkering with the agreement, in which Israel offered land in exchange for security measures by the Palestinians.

The deal was the result of painstaking mediation by Clinton between former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. It broke down after the Israeli Government added new conditions for giving up land.

“We’re not suggesting that the agreement should be changed. On the contrary. We think that both sides should implement the agreement, period, full stop. It can and should be implemented now,’’ he told his daily briefing.

The USA would not, however, obstruct small amendments accepted by Israel and the Palestinians.

Stop aid to ultras, HRW tells Pakistan

NEW YORK, July 15 (PTI) — A US-based human rights group has asked Pakistan to end all support to the “abusive” militant organisations in Kashmir and stop providing them with indiscriminate arms, including landmines.

“The international community should condemn Pakistan’s support for abusive militant groups operating in Kashmir and make any future arms sales or military cooperation agreements contingent on an end to Pakistan’s support for abusive militant groups,” the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released recently.

“Militant groups should desist from using anti-personnel landmines,” the report said and asked them to stop attacks on civilians, including kidnappings and assassinations, and abide by human rights norms and conventions which prohibit large-scale hostage taking, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatments and executions.

Stating militant groups often include Afghan and other foreign nationals, it noted the foreign mercenaries represent a dangerous development.

They have “no accountability to the local population and engage in acts of extreme violence with little regard for the outrage such attacks elicit from the Hindu and Muslim Kashmiris alike,” HRW said.

The report said the effective actions by the Indian security forces has driven the Pakistan-supported militants to border areas.

The reasons for the geographical shift of militancy from the Kashmir valley to the border areas, HRW said, lay in the changing military dimensions of the conflict.

As Indian forces gained the upper hand in the valley since 1996, militant groups have concentrated on occupying strategic areas along Kashmir’s northern and southern borders, including districts of Rajouri, Poonch and Doda, it said.

“Indian forces have decimated the ranks of the militant groups operating inside Kashmir. The JKLF - a militant organisation that was reputed to command the most popular support among the Kashmiris - abandoned military struggle in 1994,” the HRW report said.

The remaining groups, most of which have close ties with Pakistan, have been largely driven to the more remote areas of Doda and other southern districts from whose rugged terrain they launch attacks on Indian security forces and local civilians,” it said, adding that these groups have “massacred” more than 300 civilians between 1997 and mid 1999.

Though no organisation has claimed responsibility for these massacres, “two militant groups — Harakat-ul-Ansar and Lashkar-e-Toiba are known to operate in the area and both include non-Kashmiris among their ranks,” HRW pointed out.

Unionists boycott Assembly meeting

BELFAST, July 15 (Reuters) — Northern Ireland’s Protestant politicians today boycotted a new assembly, dashing hopes of effective power-sharing in the British-ruled province.

The main Protestant leader, David Trimble, and his party turned their backs on the Northern Ireland Assembly, ending any prospect of a last-minute solution to a crisis in implementing a peace agreement between the warring parties brokered by the Irish Republic and Britain last year.

Mr Trimble, who was to have been the leader of the assembly, said his Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) was not attending the session to set up a new power-sharing executive because the proceedings were unnecessary without UUP participation.

The Unionists insist they cannot share power with Sinn Fein nationalists until republican guerrillas give up their arms. For its part, Sinn Fein is adamant it cannot speak for Irish Republican Army gunmen who have fought British rule for more than 30 years.

The UUP’s rebuff marked a major setback to hopes of ending decades of violence in the province and was a body-blow for Blair and his government.

Mr Trimble urged the British authorities to revoke the session as soon as possible so the peace process could be “parked” and discussed further.

“We will continue to work constructively with the other parties to ensure that we achieve the creation of a genuinely democratic government in Northern Ireland,” Mr Trimble said.

Getting a devolved Belfast Government up and running was a key objective for Mr Blair and an essential part of last year’s historic Good Friday peace agreement.

Under the peace deal, the UUP and the moderate Roman Catholic SDLP were to get three posts each, the hardline Protestant DUP and Sinn Fein two each.

The parties have already nominated the names of ministers but they have yet to decide who gets what portfolio.

Sinn Fein has reacted angrily and said Mr Trimble should be suspended as the province’s First Minister-designate.

“Mr Blair has been made to look very foolish indeed by the tactics of David Trimble,” Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said.

Recognise Pandits as genocide victims

WASHINGTON, July 15 (PTI) — Leading Congressman Frank Pallone has urged India’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to declare the Kashmiri Pandits as victims of genocide and internally displaced persons.

So far, the NHRC has not gone beyond acknowledging the Pandits have been victims of ethnic cleansing as part of the militants’ campaign to get Kashmir to secede from India. Mr Pallone, former co-Chairman of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, told the House yesterday.

Recent events in Jammu and Kashmir, where radical Islamic militants have infiltrated into Indian territory with the support of, and apparently active collaboration by, Pakistan, have drawn international attention to the mountainous region, he said.

Now that Pakistan has agreed to withdraw its fighters who had crossed into the Indian side of Line of Control, the attention of the USA and the world community should finally focus on the long-ignored plight of the Kashmiri Pandits, he said urging his colleagues to join him in writing a letter to the NHRC.

“I have often cited the NHRC as a model for other Asian nations, and developing nations the world over. It is an example of India’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law. I am sure the commission will give serious consideration to these requests.”

“The Pandits have been among the most afflicted victims of the Pakistani-supported campaign of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. Virtually the entire population of 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits have been forced to leave their ancient homes and property. Threatened with violence and intimidation, they have been turned into refugees in their own country”, Mr Pallone said.

“There has been a disturbing pattern of massacres of civilians carried out by the militants operating in Kashmir. While it is predominantly Hindus who are the victims of these attacks, we have also seen attacks against Muslim residents who have dared to assist the legitimate state authorities in putting a halt to the violence.”

“This,” said Mr Pallone, “is the true face of the insurgency in Kashmir.”

The militants have transformed a peaceful, secular state into a killing field, the prominent Congressman said and added it was wrong to continue to ignore the plight of the Pandits.

“We must address their concerns and, hopefully, the NHRC will do so and reconsider some of the decisions that it has already made.

Has Sharif signed CTBT?

ISLAMABAD, July 15 (UNI) — Has the Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, already signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) on the independence day of the USA on July 4?

Mr Sharif was in Washington on that day holding talks with President Bill Clinton on bailing him out from the mess he got in because of the infiltration into the Kargil sector by Pakistan-backed militants.

The end product of the meeting came in the form of a joint statement which committed Mr Sharif to withdraw these militants from the Indian side of the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

While the joint statement has kicked off a bitter controversy in Pakistan, people are feverishly speculating on what really transpired at the three-hour meeting between the leaders of the two countries. For example, what made Mr Clinton promise a “personal interest” in India-Pakistan talks.

Former spy master Hamid Gul says it is very likely that during this meeting Mr Sharif could have been made to sign the CTBT. Lt. Gen Hamid Gul (retd), former chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is strongly opposed to Pakistan signing the CTBT even if India does so.

Revenge behind Hayer killing : police

SURREY (British Columbia), July 15 (Reuters) — The Canadian authorities moved to downplay a political motive for the killing of an outspoken Sikh newspaper publisher, and said the gunman acted out of “personal revenge.’’

The murder last year of Tara Singh Hayer, publisher of North America’s largest Punjabi-language newspaper, has been widely viewed as part of a battle between modernist and traditional factions of the international Sikh religious community.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have made no arrests in the case, but said yesterday the international investigation was focused on a “long-time’’ resident of Edmonton, Alberta, who was apparently angered by an editorial Hayer wrote.

News reports have identified the suspected killer as a 38-year-old truck driver who is a member of the International Sikh Youth Federation — which has been described by US officials as a “terrorist organisation.’’

OAU nod to charter

ALGIERS, July 15 (Reuters) — African leaders meeting in Algeria have agreed on an anti-terrorism charter with wide-ranging powers of arrest and extradition and have called for a global convention and a UN-sponsored meeting to combat the menace.

The charter, approved by the 35th summit of the Organisation of African Unity which ended yesterday, will come into effect 30 days after 15 of the OAU’s 53-member states sign and ratify it.

Anti-Taliban killing
ISLAMABAD: Unidentified gunmen shot dead an anti-Taliban Afghan tribal leader, Abdul Ahad Karzai, in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) agency reported on Thursday. Two other persons were also killed in the attack by two motor cycle-borne gunmen outside his house, the agency said. — DPA

Plea rejected
THE HAGUE: The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal on Thursday rejected a Bosnian Serb’s appeal of his 1997 war crimes conviction, and instead found him guilty of nine counts he was originally acquitted on, including five murders. The UN court’s five-judge appeal panel rejected former cafe owner Dusan Tadic’s claim that he had an unfair trial because the Bosnian Serb authorities prevented his lawyers from interviewing witnesses and gathering evidence to build a defence case. — AP