Petition against agreeing to an ONG pipeline through Pakistan

To:

The Prime Minister of India

Prime Ministers Office

New Delhi,

India

We are delighted to learn that India and Pakistan have both embarked on a path to attain peace, which is a definite precondition to prosperity in the South Asian neighborhood. However, we are very concerned about one of the confidence building measures (CBMs) that is being insisted by Pakistans new Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, time and again. This CBM calls for building of Oil and Natural Gas (ONG) pipeline from Iran to Pakistan to India. On the superficial layer, the proposal looks very attractive as it addresses the energy needs of Indias growing economy, brings in required petro-dollars for Pakistan thus improving its economy and accords a growing market to Iran. Look in deeper and it spells disaster for India.

Committing to such a pipeline will be a strategic mistake as far as Indias long-term security is concerned and will be detrimental to the economic progress of India in years to come. No amount of guarantee from Pakistan or its friendly states can ever buy India an insurance against terrorist strikes that may hold Indias energy needs as well as economic progress hostage to demands from Pakistan based fundamentalist-terrorists who are, in fact, nurtured by the Pakistans army and Inter service Intelligence. India and its country-men are all for peace with Pakistan but not at the cost of Indias strategic interests. This includes Indias security, economy and freedom.

Lets look at Pakistans history of honoring its promises to the International community. Pakistans General Musharraf has not been able to keep his commitment of not allowing any terrorists to operate from Pakistani soil, at least, terrorists operating against India. The terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed operate with impunity on Pakistani soil, albeit, with new names. The terrorist infiltration bids into India has been continuing unabated. Innocent people of J&K state as well as security personnel and their families have been regular targets of terrorists who come through India-Pakistan border and leave at will after completing their missions of mayhem and terror. Terror training camps and madrassahs are mushrooming near the India-Bangladesh border under the guidance and support of Pakistans ISI agency with the malicious intention of launching terror strikes into India from the eastern border, which would also give Pakistan an alibi, an excuse sort of, to deny its involvement. All this, while India-Pakistan peace process has been going on for more than a year now, which started with the cricket diplomacy.

Pakistans leadership and army, in general, are both obsessed with Kashmir, not only for bigoted reasons such as Kashmir being a Muslim majority state but also for water resource reasons. India had signed the Indus water treaty with Pakistan, which is more biased to the advantage of Pakistan, but still, India has been honoring its commitment for more than four decades now. Such decency can never be expected from Pakistan, not only due to deep rooted hostility with roots in Islamic fundamentalism, but also for reasons such as Pakistans leadership/dictatorship changes with another coup-de-etat. These coups bring with them an increase of hostility with India. In fact, the sole reason of Mullah-Mujaheedin-Military combines existence in Pakistan is perpetual hostility with India.

If Pakistans leadership cannot honor the Simla agreement of 1971 and Lahore declaration of 1998, how can they give India any guarantee on the ONG pipeline? Even though the peace process has been going on for more than a year, Pakistan has still not reciprocated the MFN status to India. This betrays Pakistan's true intentions. General Musharraf still calls the terrorists operating in Kashmir as freedom fighters. He is on record for saying that even if Kashmir issue is resolved to Pakistans advantage, low profile conflict with India will continue. If this is his belief, probably backed by Pakistans army and ISI agency, how can India believe that ONG pipeline will be operated safely and profitably through Pakistani territory?

Lets also accept the fact that India is a Soft State, at least judged from its history. India has always laid down its fight against terror in the most crucial of times - during hijack or sabotage operations by Islamic terrorists. Examples are plenty, but to cite two of them, hijack of IC 814 flight to Kandahar, Afghanistan resulting in the release of deadly terrorists including Masood Azhar, the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist organization and the recent one million dollar ransom paid by Indias external ministry for the release of three truck drivers in Iraq. How do you think India, to be more direct, your government will respond to a sabotage event on the ONG pipeline?

We hope under your leadership, a strategic blunder such as laying an ONG pipeline through Pakistan will never be committed, which would give Pakistan a huge leverage against India, impacting Indias security and economy adversely. Pakistans mal-intentions are clearly revealed when all other CBMs are held hostage to the Kashmir issue in the ongoing peace process, while this particular CBM is pushed again and again. For Indias futures sake, we appeal to the United Progressive Alliance government to not succumb to such negotiation traps.

With regards from,

The Non-Resident Indians & People of Indian Origin (Worldwide)