35 SIKHS MURDERED IN INDIAN-CONTROLLED KASHMIR -- [FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, MAR. 21, 2000] (Extension of Remarks - April 04, 2000) --- HON. DAN BURTON in the House of Representatives TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2000 * Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, on the evening of Monday, March 20, 2000, in a Sikh village located in the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir, several armed men roused Sikh villagers from their homes, lined up 35 of the men, and shot them to death. According to Associated Press (AP) reports, witnesses said the gunmen entered the village about 7 p.m., dressed in what appeared to be Indian army uniforms. They knocked on doors, forced the adult men to come out with their identity cards, lined them up in two groups and opened fire. * There has been much speculation about who is responsible for these gruesome murders. India claimed that Kashmiri militants were responsible for the massacre, and accused neighboring Pakistan of supporting the rebels. On the eve of President Clinton's visit to India, and considering Pakistan's current situation, it is difficult for me to believe that Pakistan would take this sort of a risk to their relationship with the United States. * That is why I am inserting into the Record a press release from Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan. Dr. Aulakh, who has conducted a peaceful, democratic, nonviolent effort for a free and sovereign Khalistan, suggests that this, as the AP reported, may be the handiwork of the Indian government. * Mr. Speaker, the Indian government has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984; 200,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947; more than 65,000 Kashmiri Muslims since 1988; and tens of thousands of Assamese, Manipuris, Tamils, and Dalits. With a track record like that, I certainly believe that Dr. Aulakh's assertion merits a closer look. Washington, DC, March 21--Thirty-five (35) Sikhs were murdered in Kashmir today by agents of the Indian government's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) posing as Kashmiri militants. There are over 700,000 Indian troops stationed in Kashmir, yet the murderers disappeared without detection. The murders were carried out during President Clinton's visit to South Asia. Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, strongly condemned the murders. `These murders are evil, cowardly, and stupid acts designed to pit one community against another and prop up India's image for the President's visit,' Dr. Aulakh said. `Whoever carried out these brutal acts, they are cowards,' he said. `They may escape justice in this world, but they will face the justice of God. That will be worse for them.' `Sikhs and Kashmiris are allies in the struggle for freedom,' said Dr. Aulakh. `What motive would Kashmiri freedom fighters have to kill Sikhs? This would be especially stupid when President Clinton is visiting. The freedom movements in Kashmir, Khalistan, Nagaland, and throughout India need the support of the United States,' he said. Khalistan is the Sikh homeland declared independent on October 7, 1987. The murders continue a pattern of divide-and-rule terrorism by the Indian government. The government has recently tried to blame Sikhs for the murder of Christian missionary Graham Staines by arresting a Hindu man who uses the alias Dara Singh. Every Sikh male uses Singh in his name. Yet it was reported at the time of the Staines murder that he and his two sons were burned to death in their jeep by a mob chanting `Victory to Hannuman,' a Hindu god. That mob was affiliated with the Fascist RSS, the parent organization of the ruling BJP. In November 1994, the Hitavada reported that the Indian government paid the late Governor of Punjab, Surendra Nath, $1.5 billion to organize and support covert state terrorism in Punjab, Khalistan, and in Kashmir. The book `Soft Target', written by two respected Canadian journalists, proved that the Indian government blew up its own airliner in 1985, killing 329 people, to blame the incident on the Sikhs and provide an excuse for more repression and bloodshed. This is a well-established modus operandi of RAW. The Indian government has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, according to figures compiled by the Punjab State Magistracy and human-rights organizations. The figures were published in `The Politics of Genocide' by Inderjit Singh Jaijee. The government has also killed over 200,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947, more than 65,000 Kashmiri Muslims since 1988, and tens of thousands of Assamese, Manipuris, Tamils, Dalits, and others. The U.S. State Department reported that the Indian government paid more than 41,000 cash bounties to police to murder Sikhs. Amnesty International recently reported that there are thousands of political prisoners, including prisoners to conscience, held in Indian jails without charge or trial. Some Sikh political prisoners have been in this illegal detention since 1984. `This shows that there is no freedom for minorities in India,' Dr. Aulakh said. `For minorities, India is no democracy,' he said. `As U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher said, for the minorities `India might as well be Nazi Germany.' `I urge President Clinton and Ambassador Richard Celeste to confront India on these brutal murders, as well as the recent harassment of journalist Sukhbir Singh Osan, getting Sikh and other political prisoners released, and the ongoing, massive, and brutal human-rights violations against Sikhs and other minorities,' Dr. Aulakh said. `If the United States wants to see an end to these incidents, it should support self-determination for Khalistan, Kashmir, Nagaland, and all the other nations seeking their freedom from India,' Dr. Aulakh said. `Only a free Khalistan will end India's corruption, tyranny and genocide against the Sikh Nation,' he said. `India is on the verge of disintegration. The Sikh leadership should immediately begin a `Shantmai Morcha' to liberate our homeland, Khalistan.' -- [FROM THE WASHINGTON POST, MAR. 21, 2000] (BY PAMELA CONSTABLE) Srinagar, India March 20: While their government and most of their countrymen are hoping President Clinton will play down the sensitive topic of Kashmir during his visit to India this week, people in this depressed, wintry city at the political heart of the disputed, violence-torn region are praying for just the opposite. Today, in the worst single attack on civilians in a decade of guerrilla war, unidentified gunmen massacred 35 Sikh men in the Kashmiri village of Chati Singhpura Mattan, wire services reported. Security officials had feared that armed Pakistan-based insurgents, who have stepped up attacks here in recent months, might stage a dramatic attack during Clinton's stay in India. Clinton condemned the attack in Kashmir. `On behalf of the president and all Americans let me express our outrage at the attack on a village in Kashmir last night,' White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters in New Delhi. Many Kashmiris believe that only a world leader of Clinton's stature can put pressure on Indian officials to start meaningful negotiations with Pakistan over the mountainous, predominantly Muslim border region where separatist sentiment is strong, guerrilla violence is rapidly rising and Indian troops patrol with an iron fist. `If Mr. Clinton can make a difference in places like Chechnya and Bosnia, why not in Kashmir?' said Shah Khan, 22, who sells shirts and pants in the teeming alleys of Lal Chowk bazaar. `We are happy because at least his visit will bring some attention to our problems, but we wish he would come to Kashmir and see for himself. Then we would all tell him one thing; we want freedom.' But this message is highly unlikely to reach Clinton's ears or the Indian capital this week. On Sunday, about 50 Kashmiri independence activists were arrested and jailed as they tried to board buses that would take them to New Delhi for a protest rally near Parliament, where Clinton is scheduled to speak Wednesday. In a brief interview in jail today, the group's leader, Shabir Shah, 44, said they had been tear-gassed and dragged into police vans as they prepared to leave. He said the group, which seeks Kashmiri independence from India, had planned to stage a peaceful rally and a symbolic hunger strike. `President Clinton says he wants to help ease tensions in the region, and he will be talking with India and Pakistan, but we wanted to tell him that it is futile until we Kashmiris are taken into account,' Shah said. Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan, has been the major source of friction between the two neighbors and nuclear powers for a generation. Since the early 1990s, the Indian-occupied part has been the site of a violent conflict between anti-India insurgent groups and Indian security forces, which has cost tens of thousands of lives. Last summer, a 10-week border conflict in the Kargil mountains left hundreds dead. Today's attack on the Sikhs seemed to represent an especially gruesome escalation of violence and attempt at ethnic cleansing in the Kashmir Valley, where Muslims dominate the population and the insurgency has become increasingly directed by Islamic groups based in Pakistan. The victims were separated from their families by unidentified gunmen who entered their village after dark and shot them. In the past, Kashmiri insurgent groups have concentrated on military targets and have denounced terrorism against civilians. But in recent weeks, there have been a half-dozen attacks on Hindu truck drivers and on scattered villages of Kashmiri Pandits, or local Hindus, many of whom were violently driven from the region years ago. Now Sikhs, who have lived peaceably in northern Kashmir for years, appear to have become their latest target. Clinton, who has called Kashmir `the most dangerous place in the world,' has repeatedly expressed interest in helping to defuse the tensions and to nudge India and Pakistan back toward dialogue. But Indian authorities are adamantly opposed to any foreign intervention in the dispute, and have declared they will not resume talks with Pakistan until it stops arming and training Kashmiri insurgents. In interviews over the weekend, some Srinagar residents said they were skeptical that Clinton's talks with Indian leaders could make any difference. They said the United States was too concerned with bigger issues, such as trade and nuclear non-proliferation, to let Kashmir become an irritant to improving relations. `Clinton is coming as a guest, so he won't want to embarrass his hosts. What he says in America shout Kashmir may not be what he says here,' said Masood Ahmed, 30, another shopkeeper in Lal Chowk. `He already knows that thousands of people have been killed in Kashmir, but he is only coming to see the Taj Mahal.' [FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, MAR. 21, 2000] Srinagar, India, Tuesday, March 21 (AP): Gunmen rounded up and killed 35 Sikh villagers in the disputed state of Kashmir, the police said today as President Clinton began a visit to India. The massacre on Monday night was the first major attack on the small Sikh community in Kashmir since separatist Muslims started their insurgency 10 years ago. Sikhs are considered a neutral minority, but Indian officials had warned earlier of violence by Muslim militants hoping to draw attention to Kashmir during Mr. Clinton's visit. Both India and Pakistan claim the Himalayan territory and have fought two wars over it. The gunmen were not immediately identified and no group claimed responsibility for the attack, the police said. Mr. Clinton arrived in New Delhi, 400 miles to the south, on Monday evening after a visit to Bangladesh. He has said that reducing tensions between India and Pakistan is one of his objectives of the trip. Many Kashmiris were hoping that the president's visit would lead to a breakthrough in the long deadlock on the region's future. Mr. Clinton's spokesman, Joe Lockhart, expressed outrage over the killings, saying in a statement that `our most profound sympathies go out to the victims of this brutal massacre.' The attackers entered the village of Chati Singhpura Mattan after dark and forced the residents from their homes, police officials said. The assailants separated the men from the women, announcing that they were conducting a `crackdown,' Indian security forces operate similarly when searching a neighborhood for militants that they suspect may be hiding there. The gunmen then opened fire on the men, killing 35 of them. One man was critically wounded. Sikhs have lived mostly undisturbed in the Kashmir Valley, the only area in predominantly Hindu India with a Muslim majority. Many run the trucking companies that supply the valley. In the last six months, attacks by the militants have focused on army bases and patrols rather than random terrorism, and have shown a higher degree of training and expertise, senior army officers have said. They said about 3,500 militants were in Kashmir, and many of them had infiltrated the cease-fire line from Pakistan, with the help of the Pakistan army. Pakistan denies giving active aid to the militants. The area of the Sikh village is about 42 miles from Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, and is controlled by armed Kashmiri groups that abandoned separatism and were recruited by the Indian army as a counterinsurgency auxiliary force.