[Still, military and
ideological hard-liners in both countries consider the bitter conflict over
Kashmir, which erupted just after independence in 1947, as the core issue that
needs to be resolved. Pakistan and India, both of which claim the mountainous
territory in its entirety, have fought two wars over the region.]
By Declan Walsh
 |
Mukesh Gupta/Reuters
Kashmir remains a point of confrontation between India and Pakistan.
|
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani and Indian troops exchanged gunfire across the disputed Kashmir border
early Sunday, leaving one Pakistani soldier dead in a relatively rare fatal
confrontation between the two neighbors.
As usual, the rival
armies, which have been engaged in a face-off in Kashmir for decades, disagreed
about who started the shooting or what happened next.
Pakistan said Indian
troops crossed the disputed boundary, known as the Line of Control, into
Pakistani-controlled territory, where they attacked a remote outpost and
wounded two soldiers, one of whom later died.
“Our army troops
effectively responded and repulsed the attack successfully,” said a Pakistani
military spokesman, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Indian Army troops
left behind a gun and a dagger.”
But the Indian military
said that its troops had not crossed into Pakistani territory and that it was
only responding to an unprovoked Pakistani shelling across the Line of Control
that destroyed a civilian house.
“None of our troops
crossed the Line of Control,” Col. Jagadish Dahiya, an Indian Army spokesman,
told Reuters. “We have no casualties or injuries.”
The clash was an unusual
breach of an almost decade-long cease-fire that has largely held between the
two rivals, whose leaders have concentrated on building economic and diplomatic
ties.
In the last major shooting,
in September 2011, Pakistan claimed to have lost three soldiers while India said
one of its officers was killed. There have been other, smaller, clashes in
recent months.
But in the last year,
encouraging signs have emerged that relations are thawing.
The two countries have
eased travel restrictions for Kashmiris living on both sides of the de facto
border, and introduced encouraging economic initiatives intended to foster
bilateral trade.
It was unclear whether
Sunday’s clash would affect any of that. The Pakistani cricket team is visiting
India, and on Sunday, a match was played between the two sides in New Delhi,
the Indian capital.
Still, military and
ideological hard-liners in both countries consider the bitter conflict over
Kashmir, which erupted just after independence in 1947, as the core issue that
needs to be resolved. Pakistan and India, both of which claim the mountainous
territory in its entirety, have fought two wars over the region.
Pakistan said that
Sunday’s clash occurred at a remote border post in the Bagh district, more than
50 miles east of the capital, Islamabad.
One encouraging sign is
that the recent warming of relations could not have taken place without
approval from Pakistan’s generals, who at any rate are increasingly absorbed by
the fight against Islamist militants along their western border with
Afghanistan.
That fight has been
complicated by tense relations with the United States. On Sunday the Central
Intelligence Agency continued to press its drone strike
campaign in Waziristan, with three missile attacks against suspected militant
bases that killed at least 12 people, according to Pakistani intelligence
officials.
In one strike, in South
Waziristan, a remotely piloted American aircraft fired 10 missiles into a
suspected Pakistani Taliban training camp, one intelligence official said,
speaking by phone on the condition of anonymity.
A senior Taliban
militant, speaking by phone from Waziristan on the condition of anonymity,
confirmed the strike. Three senior Taliban commanders were believed to have
died, he said, including one who had masterminded a jailbreak in nearby Bannu
last year that allowed 390 inmates to escape.
Another commander who is
believed to have died, Wali Muhammad, who is also known as Tuffani Mehsud, was
considered to be the leader of the Pakistani Taliban’s suicide bomber squad.
“It is a major blow to
our organization,” the Taliban militant said.
Salman Masood and Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud
contributed reporting.
SUPPORTERS BACK STRIKE ATNEWSPAPER IN CHINA
[Many of
the people who showed up Monday at the newspaper offices in Guangzhou, the
capital of Guangdong Province, carried banners with slogans and white and
yellow chrysanthemums, a flower that symbolizes mourning. One banner read: “Get
rid of censorship. The Chinese people want freedom.” Police officers watched
the protesters without immediately taking any harsh actions.]
By Edward Wong
The journalists, who work for Southern Weekend, a
relatively liberal newspaper that has come under increasing pressure from
officials in recent years, also received support on the Internet from
celebrities and well-known commentators.
“Hoping for a spring in this harsh winter,” Li Bingbing, an
actress, said to her 19 million followers on a microblog account. Yao Chen, an
actress with more than 31 million followers, cited a quotation by Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, the Russian Nobel laureate and dissident: “One word of truth
outweighs the whole world.”
Many of the people who showed up Monday at the newspaper
offices in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, carried banners with
slogans and white and yellow chrysanthemums, a flower that symbolizes mourning.
One banner read: “Get rid of censorship. The Chinese people want freedom.”
Police officers watched the protesters without immediately taking any harsh
actions.
The angry journalists at Southern Weekend have been calling
for the removal of Tuo Zhen, the top propaganda official in Guangdong, whom the
journalists blame for overseeing a change in a New Year’s editorial that ran
last week and was supposed to have called for greater respect for rights
enshrined in the constitution under the headline “China’s Dream, the Dream of
Constitutionalism,” according to the China Media Project at the University of Hong
Kong. The editorial went through layers of changes and ultimately became one
praising the current political system, in which the Communist Party exercises
authority over all aspects of governance.
A well-known entrepreneur, Hung Huang, said on her microblog
that the actions of a local official had “destroyed, overnight, all the
credibility the country’s top leadership had labored to re-establish since the
18th Party Congress,” the November gathering in Beijing that was the climax of
the leadership transition.
One journalist for Southern Weekend said Monday afternoon
that negotiations between the various parties had been scheduled later in the
day, but there were no results from any talks as of Monday evening.
It was unclear how many employees in the newsroom had
heeded the calls for a strike. It appeared Sunday that many of Southern
Weekend’s reporters had declared themselves on strike. A local journalist who
went by the newspaper’s Beijing office on Monday said the building appeared to
be open but quiet. One employee told the journalist that the people there were
not on strike. Dozens of supporters showed up outside the building at various
times, some carrying signs and flowers.
The conflict was exacerbated Sunday night by top editors at
the newspaper, who posted a message on the publication’s official microblog
saying that the New Year’s editorial had been written with the consent of
editors at the newspaper.
According to an account from a newspaper employee posted
online on Monday, that statement was made after pressure was exerted on the top
editors by Yang Jian, the head of the party committee at Southern Media, the
parent company that runs Southern Weekend and other publications. Southern
Weekend’s editor in chief, Huang Can, then pressured an employee to give up the
official microblog password so the statement could be posted on the microblog.
Neither Mr. Yang nor Mr. Huang could be reached for comment
Monday.
Some political analysts have said the conflict raises
questions about whether the central government, led by Xi Jinping, the new
party chief, will support the idea of a more open media by moving to support
the protesting journalists. In his first trip outside Beijing, Mr. Xi traveled
to Guangdong and praised the market-oriented economic policies put in place by
Deng Xiaoping, the former supreme leader. But more recently, Mr. Xi has said
that China must respect its socialist roots.
Resolving the Southern Weekend tensions could also be a
test for Hu Chunhua, the new party chief in Guangdong and a potential candidate
to succeed Mr. Xi as the leader of China in a decade. Mr. Hu’s predecessor,
Wang Yang, was regarded by many Western political analysts as being a
“reformer,” but he presided over a tightening of media freedoms in the province
and specifically over Southern Media.
On Monday, People’s Daily, the party’s mouthpiece, ran a
signed commentary that referred to a recent meeting of propaganda officials in
Beijing and said propaganda officials should “follow the rhythm of the times”
and help the authorities establish a “pragmatic and open-minded image.” Some
people have interpreted that as support for officials in adopting a more
enlightened approach in dealing with the news media.
But Global Times, a populist newspaper, ran a scathing
editorial that said Southern Weekend was merely a newspaper and should not
challenge the system.
“Even in the West, mainstream media would not choose to
openly pick a fight with the government,” the editorial said. Xinhua, the state
news agency, published the editorial online.
Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting. Mia
Li and Shi Da and contributed research.
