In the course of the Punjab conflict, Sikh militants committed numerous, serious violations of the laws of war, including direct attacks on unarmed civilians, indiscriminate attacks, summary executions, kidnapping, rape, and the use of religious sites for military purposes.(209) The diffusion of advanced small arms and light weapons, many of them originally from the Afghan pipeline, to militant organizations in Punjab clearly exacerbated the human rights situation there. Such weapons were used frequently by Sikh militants directly in the commission of abuses, and allowed them, in violation of international norms, to induce terror deliberately in the general population. The increase in automatic rifles, in particular, facilitated the killing of greater numbers of civilians, by permitting Sikh militants, for example, to open fire on crowds of people with deadly results.
Militants in Kashmir have committed many grave violations of humanitarian law, most notably direct attacks on civilians, summary executions, kidnapping, and rape. The influx of arms has exacerbated the human rights situation in Kashmir, although Kashmiri militants use advanced weapons far less frequently than Sikh militants did in the course of attacks on civilians. It is likely that access to large numbers of more advanced weapons contributed to the ability of Kashmiri militants to instill terror in the Hindu population, 100,000 of whom fled to refugee camps in 1990.
The human rights record of the Indian government in Punjab and Kashmir is appalling. In Kashmir, the situation appears worse than ever, with abuses by government forces clearly on the rise. Government security forces engage in systematic violations of human rights and humanitarian law, including attacks on entire villages in retaliation for insurgent military operations. Frequent instances of torture, extrajudicial execution, disappearance, rape, unprovoked firing on peaceful demonstrations, and violations of medical neutrality are well documented.
The diffusion of vast quantities of weapons to militants in Punjab and Kashmir is linked to the so-called Afghan pipeline: massive, covert transfers of arms by the U.S.cia through Pakistan's isi to the Afghan mujahidin after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. To conceal U.S. involvement, the cia transferred arms secretly, provided limited oversight over the pipeline, and imposed virtually no effective controls over its Pakistan outlet. Similarly, the isi exerted little verifiable oversight over the pipeline; a former chief of the Afghan bureau of the isi has claimed that the agency's usual procedures to keep track of weapons shipments were suspended.
The deliberate evasion of accountability on the part of the U.S. and Pakistani agencies involved allowed weapons to be extensively siphoned off from the pipeline, apparently by members of the isi, and by Afghan fighters who, many claim, sold weapons to raise cash for field supplies or for personal gain. The rupture of the pipeline meant that by the mid-1980s, weapons intended for the Afghan insurgents had made their way into commercial channels. Pipeline weapons are still available for sale in the arms bazaars in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province.
Pipeline weapons have made their way into the hands of Sikh and Kashmiri militants. Evidence points to several sources: Pakistan's isi, the nwfp arms bazaars, and former Afghan fighters. The Arms Project concurs with widely-held expert opinion that members of the isi play a role in the transfer of some of the weapons used by Kashmiri militants; in addition, credible accounts report some isi involvement in the transfer of weapons used by militant Sikhs.
Although virtually all observers agree that isi operatives have provided weapons and military training to militant organizations, especially those in Kashmir, the extent to which Pakistan's central government has actively encouraged or systematically facilitated weapons transfers to Sikh or Kashmiri militants is thus far impossible to confirm irrefutably. However, the isi high command and the central government made possible weapons transfers from the pipeline to Kashmiri and Sikh militants, even if such transfers were not a consequence of programs and policies at the highest level of government. The central government is responsible for failing to account for the compelling evidence of isi involvement in the transfer of weapons to Sikh and Kashmiri militants, for example through a public inquiry, to make clear its policies concerning such transfers, to express concern at the human rights record of those groups assisted by its agencies, or to give any sign that human rights conditions are a feature of such assistance.
Many complex political variables contributed to the increase in violations by the militants and the weaponry available to commit them, but it is clear that the massive diffusion of weaponry into the region from the pipeline contributed to the exacerbation of the human rights situations in those states.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union--formerly India's largest outside arms supplier--several countries, including the U.S., Russia, Israel, Germany, and France, have begun to provide India with arms, transfers of technology and other forms of military assistance, or are negotiating to do so. The Arms Project is concerned that supplier governments have not imposed and enforced serious and systematic human rights conditions on the provision of arms and military-related assistance to the Indian government.
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