An Olympian idea of Kashmir truce

[Guest guest]

An Olympian idea of Kashmir truce

By Siddharth Varadarajan

 

ATHENS: When the Hizbul Mujahideen had declared a ceasefire in July,

the media carried news of an incredible sporting fixture --Hizb

militants were said to have played an impromptu cricket match with

Army soldiers. Some accounts embellished this news with a result: the

militants apparently beat the soldiers. The possibility of the

`result' being the outcome of a confidence-building measure was not

ruled out.

 

In fact, the match never took place. But the goodwill this fictive

encounter generated was testimony not just to the yearning for peace

in Kashmir but also to the healing power of sport. If a match that

never happened generated a warm afterglow, could the two sides

actually coming together on a playing field become a catalyst for

peace? The idea sounds outlandish, but it is one of several scenarios

being considered by the International Olympic Truce Centre (IOTC) in

the Greek capital.

 

With Athens hosting the 2004 Olympics, the Greek government is taking

the latent political symbolism of the games very seriously. In

ancient Greece, Ifitos, the King of Ellis, asked the oracle at Delphi

for a way to end the wars that were devastating the Peloponnese.

Apollo replied that Ifitos should restore the sports contests in

Olympia as a celebration of peace. Even if the games didn't put an

end to conflict between the ancient city-states, all sides respected

the `Sacred Truce' and suspended hostilities for a month - from one

week before the games till one week after - enabling athletes and

spectators to travel to Olympia and return home in safety.

 

In 1998, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou called for the

revival of the Olympic Truce concept. During the Nagano Winter

Olympics that year, when the US was threatening Iraq over the

question of weapons inspections, the pressure to respect the

tradition of the Olympics forced Washington to delay its bombing

plan. ``That delay gave UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan a window of

opportunity to pursue a diplomatic solution,'' said Stavros

Lambrinidis, director of the IOTC, which was set up in July by the

International Olympic Committee.

 

Lambrinidis hopes that by the time of the 2004 Olympics, the

groundwork would have been done to institute a truce in some of the

conflict zones around the world. He believes the Truce Centre could

play a facilitating role in Kashmir as well, helping to build trust.

One of his ideas is to bring together some children from the militant

groups and from the rest of India for a cricket match on neutral

territory.

 

``The children should play in mixed teams and spend a couple of weeks

with each other,'' he said. ``They will obviously end up talking

about the conflict.'' His reasoning is that small initiatives of this

sort, pursued between Olympics, could help create conditions for a

truce during the games. Of course, truce is not an end in itself.

``Often,'' Lambrinidis said, ``you need something that will help

break the cycle of violence in order to begin the process of

dialogue. Who knows, if the guns go silent for a month, people on

both sides might start wishing for something more permanent''.