SRINAGAR, India
July 12 (AFP)
Indian and Pakistani guns fell silent across the Kashmir border Monday for the first time in two months, after both sides agreed to a military disengagement in the region.
However, Indian military officers said the army remained on high alert despite evidence Islamic infiltrators had already begun withdrawing from their positions on the Indian side of the border.
The �disengagement� agreement between senior military officials from both sides was reached Sunday as India claimed to be nearing total victory in its offensive to evict the infiltrators.
The Indian campaign was launched May 9 after the incursion across the Line of Control (LoC) dividing Indian- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir was first detected.
A military commander said here Monday that Indian troops had advanced almost up to the LoC in two key battlezones.
�We have already reached near the border in Drass and Batalik areas and pushed the enemy out of our territory,� the officer said in Srinagar, Kashmir�s summer capital.
�Our troops are celebrating,� he told AFP. �There are no signs of resistance, but we are still taking all precautions,� he said, stressing the continued threat posed by landmines left behind by the infiltrators.
In New Delhi, national security advisor Brajesh Mishra said there was evidence hundreds of Pakistan-backed Islamic fighters were already moving out of Indian Kashmir.
�It is our hope that in seven days the status quo ante of the LoC will be restored,� he said.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Sartaz Aziz said Sunday the �disengagement� had started and would gradually be completed across all strategic hills lining the LoC.
The two-month battle in Kashmir was the most serious Indo-Pakistan conflict for nearly 30 years, although Islamabad always denied New Delhi�s claim that Pakistan soldiers were fighting alongside the militants.
According to official Indian figures, a total of 333 Indian soldiers have been killed since fighting broke out, compared to 679 infiltrators.
The disengagement accord will be viewed with immense relief by the international community, which had feared the conflict between the world�s two newest nuclear powers could escalate into all-out war.
Sunday�s agreement came a week after Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met US President Bill Clinton in Washington and pledged to use his influence to affect a militant withdrawal.
The pledge attracted stiff domestic criticism from hardliners who accused Sahrif of selling out the Kashmiri Moslems, who have been fighting a 10-year insurgency against Indian rule.
Despite Sunday�s agreement, the situation remained tense and sporadic gunfire and shelling was reported outside the batllezones in border areas close to Jammu, Indian Kashmir�s winter capital.
�Shelling is still continuing,� said Deputy Inspector General of Police K. Rajendra Kumar. �There is no change in the attitude of Pakistan in this sector.
�They are paying lip service to peace, but the ground reality is different.�
Another officer of the paramilitary Border Security Force added: �We are firing on them whenever they fire at us.�
But residents in sectors which have seen the fiercest fighting in the last two months woke Monday to a long-forgotten calm.
�There has been no firing or loud explosions since last night,� said Mohammed Sadiq, who owns a hotel in Kargil � the command hub of the Indian offensive.
He said hundreds of Kargil residents who had fled the shelling were now returning to their homes. �Shops are doing brisk business.�
Another resident, Manzoor Ladakhi, added: �We hope peace returns once again and guns fall silent for ever so that we can return to a normal life.�
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since independence over Kashmir. India controls the southern two-thirds of the region and Pakistan the remainder.
By Alessandro RAIMONDI
LUGANO, July 9 (THE GLOBE)
With much glamour and an outstanding interest that has decreed its success, Lugano�s Modigliani�s painting exhibition has come to an end few days ago.
Opened on March 28th, �99 the remarkable display of the Italian painter and sculptor�s works has captured the attention of Swiss as well as foreign visitors by the thousands, for a solid 3 months, at the Museum of Modern Art of this lake city.
Villa Malpensata, this the name of the building hosting the exhibition, has been equipped for the occasion with an electronic ticketing device to speed up access procedures to the various halls by the public.
Lugano�s MOMA is no new to such exceptional events having started back in 1992 a yearly exhibition of European impressionists, and, given the deserved success, it has aimed even higher ever since. So that this year�s Amedeo Modigliani�s � Modi�, as the French were calling him � has followed the successful pattern of the displays organized by Rudy Chiappini, director of Lugano�s museums, in the previous years: Varlin in �92, Francis Beacon in �93, Emil Nolde in 1994, Chaim Soutine in 1995, Constant Permeke in 1996, Georges Roualt in �97 and Edvard Munch last year.
The exceptionality of this year�s exhibition, however, lays in the fact that as for Modigliani it doesn�t exsist a nucleus of the artist�s works from where to get some to set up a significant display. Modi�, in fact, has short lived � he died in 1920 at 36 � so that his overall production counts only 300 paintings, by now spread all over the world. Almost impossible, then, the task of gathering the 60 paintings, 20 drawings and 2 sculptures presented at Villa Malpensata, but Lugano�s MOMA has made it to the benefit of a daily constant flow of enraptured public.
The last anthological exhibition of Modi�s works took place at Milan�s Palays Royal, Italy, in 1958, so that a great expectation has filled the days prior the 3-month exhibition held in this Canton Ticino city.
Not only many of the works shown at Villa Malpensata had never been exhibited in Europe, but a data can also highlight the importance of this display: in all his career Modi� has painted only 4 landscapes, two of them were at Lugano!
Many museums around the world have contributed their precious pieces, among them New York�s Metropolitan, Honolulu Academy of Arts (Hawaii), Nagoya City Art Museum (Japan), Washington�s Hirshorn Museum of Sculpture Garden, Rome�s National Gallery of Modern Art, Helsinki�s Ateneum (Finland), Rouen�s Mus�e des Beaux�Arts (France), Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art and Philadelphia Museum of Art. Some other works have been contributed by private collections as far away as Tokyo and New Zealand! By now all lucky owners have recollected their treasures while Lugano�s MOMA can herald a well deserved satisfaction.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
© 1998 IPA House. All Rights Reserved.