The New York Times

Friday, July 9, 1999

ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE

For 3K Freedom

Washington - A cry for self-determination is again sending shudders through world capitals. This time it's in Kashmir, a lovely land coveted by autocratic Pakistan, most of it occupied by 600,000 troops of democratic India.

Pakistan unofficially sent a small force across the "Line of Control" to take up mountain peak positions, and the Indian Army is fighting -- literally uphill -- to drive them back.

The purpose of Pakistan's raid is to get world attention paid to India's unwillingness to negotiate the status of Kashmir, which both sides claim. At the moment the world sides with India because it is resisting an act of aggression, albeit symbolic.

What has everybody touchy is that India and Pakistan are now nuclear powers, and a third war between them could depopulate the subcontinent. Last week, Pakistan's Prime Minister felt the need to race to Washington to seek President Clinton's mediation.

Why? My guess is that Chinese intelligence, which has penetrated India's nuclear facilities as much as it has our own, tipped off its longtime ally, Pakistan, about increased Indian nuclear readiness. China also wishes its ally to back off because world pressure on India to end its occupation of Kashmir would set a precedent for Tibet.

As a result, Clinton promised to take a "personal interest" (which India wants no part of). Pakistan's Prime Minister raced home to tell his generals they had made their point -- and should now pull back those supposedly freelancing liberators.

Let's climb up our own mountain peak to survey the international 3K trend toward "protectoration."

In Kosovo, NATO acted forcefully to stop Serbia's bloody assertion of sovereignty. Because we are loath to redraw borders, we deny Kosovo independence but will enforce its autonomy. It is now a protectorate of NATO; after a decent interval, a plebiscite will probably be held to permit self-determination.

In the Kurdish section of Iraq, the U.S. and its allies have bolstered their "no-fly" edict with a "no-go" policy toward Saddam Hussein's tanks. The dictator knows that if he moves on Kurdish self-governing forces in his north, out will go the lights in Baghdad and sirens will sound in his germ warfare factories. Iraqi Kurdistan is a de facto protectorate, dependent on the resolve of the U.S. President.

In Kashmir, we see a protectorate-in-waiting. As the British learned in India, and as the Israelis learned on much of the West Bank, a democracy's administration of a hostile population is ultimately self-defeating.

And India is a democracy. Much as it wants to incorporate Kashmir, it faces growing local resistance and its own ensuing repression and brutalization.

Forget "world opinion"; Indian self-respect and economic self-interest will impel it toward the granting of ever-greater autonomy to the Kashmiris.

But what then? Autonomy is desirable; it is seen as a grand experiment in diversity-within-unity, and works fine in Puerto Rico and Scotland. But in most of the world, autonomy is a peaceful stop on the way to self-determination. In Kurdistan and Kosovo, that means independence.

What about Kashmir? In India's eyes, Pakistan is a garrison state with connections to Afghan terrorists and with missile ties to Communist China and crazy North Korea. It salivates at the prospect of swallowing Kashmir. Would Kashmiris be able to fend off or be better off under militant Muslim rule?

Moderate Pakistanis say: Give Kashmir much more autonomy. Start pulling out your occupation forces. We'll promise not to infiltrate. Let the Kashmiris decide their future.

India won't go for that for years. But Kashmir is like a fault in the political earth, the tectonic plates under growing pressure, and the now-nuclear region has much to fear from the Big One. The answer may well take the form of protectorate as it has in Kosovo and Kurdistan -- but in this case, the intercession would be invited by all three parties rather than punitively imposed.

Nobody planned this protectoration trend. Nor does it offer finality, because the world is not about to take over the world. But it seems to be a way of giving peoples time to sort things out for themselves.