4 | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
world
- An obituary on Thursday about the
Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller in-
cluded a quotation from a statement by
Judith Friedlander, a former dean of the
New School for Social Research in New
York, that conveyed imprecisely Dr.
Friedlander’s thoughts about Ms.
Heller’s death. While some of Ms.
Heller’s colleagues and friends ex-
pressed skepticism about the circum-
stances of her death, Dr. Friedlander did
not.CORRECTION
Kashmir, a mountainous valley that bor-
ders Pakistan and India, has been a cen-
ter of conflict between the two nuclear-
armed countries since the 1947 partition
of British India.
At the time of the partition, the British
agreed to divide their former colony into
two countries: Pakistan, with a Muslim
majority, and India, with a Hindu major-
ity. Both nations covet Kashmir, which is
Muslim majority, and occupy portions of
it with military forces.
For decades, an uneasy stalemate has
prevailed, broken by occasional military
incursions, terrorist attacks and police
crackdowns. But on Monday, the Indian
government decided to permanently in-
corporate the territory it controls into
the rest of India.
The administration of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi revoked Article 370 of
the Indian Constitution, a 70-year-old
provision that had given autonomy to
the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which
includes the Hindu-majority area of
Jammu and the Muslim-majority area of
Kashmir.
The government also introduced a bill
to strip the region of statehood and di-
vide it into two parts, both under direct
control of the central government.
Mr. Modi, a Hindu nationalist, had
campaigned for re-election in part by
stoking patriotic fervor against Muslim-
led Pakistan. He promised the full inte-
gration of Kashmir, a cause which his
party has championed for decades, and
now he is delivering on that pledge.
Pakistan condemned India’s moves.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan,
called on President Trump to follow
through on an offer he made two weeks
ago to mediate the Kashmir dispute.WHAT ARE THE CONFLICT’S ROOTS?
In 1947, the sudden separation of the
area into Pakistan and India prompted
millions of people to migrate between
the two countries and led to religious vi-
olence that killed hundreds of thou-
sands.
Left undecided was the status of
Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim-major-
ity state in the Himalayas that had been
ruled by a local prince. Fighting quickly
broke out, and both countries eventually
sent in troops, with Pakistan occupying
about one third of the state and India the
rest.
The prince signed an agreement for
the territory to become part of India. Re-
gional autonomy, which was formalized
through Article 370, was a key induce-
ment.
Despite efforts by the United Nations
to mediate the Kashmir dispute, India
and Pakistan continue to administer
their portions of the former princely ter-
ritory while hoping to get full control of
it. Troops on both sides of the so-called
line of control regularly fire volleys at
each other.WHAT IS ARTICLE 370?
Article 370 was added to the Indian Con-
stitution shortly after the partition of
British India to give autonomy to the
former princely state of Jammu and
Kashmir until a decision was made
about its rule. It limited the power of In-
dia’s government over the territory. A
related provision gave state lawmakers
the power to decide who could buy land
and be a permanent resident — a provi-
sion that irked many non-Kashmiris.
Although it was intended to be tempo-
rary, Article 370 says that it can only be
abrogated with the consent of the legis-
lative body that drafted the state Consti-
tution. That body dissolved itself in 1957,
and India’s Supreme Court ruled last
year that Article 370 is therefore a per-
manent part of the Indian Constitution.
The Modi government disagrees and
says the president of India, the coun-
try’s ceremonial head of state who is be-holden to the governing party, has the
power to revoke the article.WHY DID THE CONFLICT HEAT UP?
The immediate cause was the Feb. 14
suicide bombing by a young Islamic mil-
itant, who blew up a convoy of trucks
carrying paramilitary forces in Pul-
wama in southern Kashmir.
Indian aircraft responded to that at-
tack by flying into Pakistan and firing
airstrikes near the town of Balakot. The
Indian government claimed it was at-
tacking a training camp for Jaish-e-Mo-
hammed, the terrorist group that
claimed responsibility for the bombing.
The next day, Pakistani and Indian
fighter jets engaged in a skirmish over
Indian-controlled territory, and Paki-
stani forces downed an Indian aircraft —
an aging Soviet-era MiG-21 — and cap-
tured its pilot. It was the first aerial
clash between the rivals in five decades.Pakistan quickly returned the pilot,
easing the diplomatic tensions. But Mr.
Modi exploited a wave of a nationalist
fervor over the Pulwama attack as part
of his re-election campaign that helped
his Bharatiya Janata Party win a sweep-
ing victory.WILL OTHER POWERS GET INVOLVED?
On July 22, Mr. Trump hosted Mr. Khan
at the White House. Although the meet-
ing was focused on how to end the war in
Afghanistan, Mr. Trump told reporters
that Mr. Modi had earlier asked him to
help mediate the Kashmir dispute. Mr.
Khan welcomed his involvement. The
Indian government denied making any
mediation request and has long insisted
on direct negotiations with Pakistan to
resolve the dispute.
Under Mr. Trump, American foreign
policy has shifted away from Pakistan, a
longtime recipient of American aid, to-
ward India, which the administration
views as a bulwark against China’s ris-
ing influence in Asia.
China, for its part, has become a close
ally and financial patron of Pakistan.
The Chinese government recently
urged India and Pakistan to settle their
conflicts through bilateral discussions.
China shares a border with Jammu and
Kashmir State, and India and China still
do not agree on the demarcation line.WHAT IS LIKELY TO HAPPEN NEXT?
The constitutional changes, issued
through a presidential order, could face
legal challenges.
Pakistan said it would “exercise all
possible options to counter the illegal
steps” taken by India.
Mr. Modi’s moves to integrate Kash-
mir into India are likely to be popular in
much of the country. But there is wide-
spread panic in Kashmir, where there
have been decades of protests against
Indian rule.The reasons Kashmir
is a flash point again
BY VINDU GOELIndian security troops standing guard in the city of Jammu. The Indian government has
said it would end the autonomy given to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.CHANNI ANAND/ASSOCIATED PRESSDetail
areaareaarea
New
DelhiDelhiDelhi
INDIAINDIAINDIACHINATAJIKISTANControlled
by Pakistan
Line of Line of
controlcontrolINDIAPAKISTANGILGIT–
BALTISTANJAMMU AND KASHMIR
JAMMUKASHMIRKASHMIR LADAKH
VALLEYVALLEY100 MILES
THE NEW YORK TIMESSuhasini Raj contributed reporting from
New Delhi, and Ayesha Venkataraman
contributed research from Mumbai, In-
dia.Migrants have been held in a wrestling
arena, at a fairground and in govern-
ment offices. They’ve been forced to
sleep in hallways, on an outdoor basket-
ball court, even directly on the hard
ground.
Mexico’s detention centers have at
times reached triple, quadruple and
even quintuple their capacity. Detainees
at some centers have endured extreme
heat, bedbug infestations, overflowing
toilets, days without showers, and short-
ages of food and decent health care.
President Andrés Manuel López
Obrador campaigned for the Mexican
presidency last year on promises that
his migration policy would break from
his predecessors’ emphasis on enforce-
ment and focus instead on respecting
migrants’ human rights and treating
them with dignity. But under threat from
the Trump administration, he has re-
versed course and overseen a sharp in-
crease in migrant detentions and depor-
tations.
This iron-fisted approach has helped
lower the number of migrants trying to
cross the southwest border of the United
States. But it has also resulted in a crisis
in Mexico’s detention centers that, crit-
ics say, is subjecting adults and children
to inhumane conditions, exposing the
Mexican government’s lack of pre-
paredness and serving as a glaring re-
buke of Mr. López Obrador.
From April to June, the Mexican au-
thorities detained about 73,400 mi-
grants, well over double the number de-
tained during the first three months of
the year.
The sudden increase has created “un-
sustainable conditions” in many of Mex-
ico’s approximately 60 centers, said
Salva Lacruz, a coordinator at the Fray
Matías Human Rights Center, a mi-
grants’ advocacy group in the southern
city of Tapachula.
“Everything’s a disaster,” he said.
Under pressure from critics, includ-
ing the government’s human-rights om-
budsman, the López Obrador adminis-
tration has acknowledged in recent days
the sorry state of the detention system
and has promised improvements.
In the meantime, however, things re-
main grim.
Interviews with several asylum seek-
ers released in recent days from a large
detention center here in Acayucan, a
small city in southeastern Mexico,
painted a picture of hardship and
scarcity.
People slept on thin mattresses wher-
ever they could find space. Others didn’t
even have that, and stretched out on the
ground. They spoke of poor-quality food
— and not enough of it. And some said
that even the drinking water would fre-
quently run out.
One Cuban migrant said that right be-
fore he was detained, he had been
mugged and injured in southern Mex-
ico. But in the detention center, he said,
he was denied medical attention for
eight days. He was eventually taken to a
hospital, he said.
The migrants described filthy condi-
tions, which would improve only when
delegations of human-rights observers
or others were scheduled to drop by. In
advance of the visits, the detention cen-
ter’s staff would scour the facility.
“You could get sick from being there,”
said a Honduran asylum seeker whogave only his surname — Escobar — out
of concern for his safety.
Conditions within the detention sys-
tem have been criticized for years. But
the failings have become more evident
in recent months amid the enforcement
crackdown.
In April, after overseeing a sharp drop
in detentions and deportations during
his first four months in office, Mr. López
Obrador suddenly started to get tough
on illegal immigration. Spurred by Pres-
ident Trump’s threats to close the border
with Mexico to thwart illegal immigra-
tion, the Mexican government moved
quickly to increase detentions and de-
portations.
These efforts accelerated in June
when Mr. Trump threatened to impose
punitive tariffs on Mexico.
But while the Mexican government
may have been quick to respond to Mr.
Trump’s demands, it apparently made
little effort to prepare its detention net-
work for the resulting stress.
The National Migration Institute,
which oversees the migrant detention
system, had already been struggling in
the face of Mr. López Obrador’s effort to
bring down the cost of government. As
part of this austerity program, the agen-
cy’s budget was cut by 23 percent this
year.
Since the spring, reports of the deteri-
orating conditions have multiplied.
“There is concern about the violation
of rights for people who will inevitably
go to immigration stations,” the CitizensCouncil of the National Migration Insti-
tute, a group that advises the migration
agency, said in a statement in mid-June.
“Due to the increase in immigration con-
tainment, the stations become satu-
rated, causing overcrowding and pre-
carious conditions.”
Yet the situation has barely improved.
In an interview, Edgar Corzo Sosa,
rapporteur for migrant issues at the Na-
tional Human Rights Commission, an
autonomous government agency, said
that in “a normal migration flow,” space
in the system would be sufficient. But
Mexico is experiencing what he called
“an intense migration flow.”
Mr. Corzo picked up a document — the
government’s daily population count for
each of the detention centers — and be-
gan citing statistics. Some of the facili-
ties were way over capacity.
In the northern border city of
Reynosa, 210 migrants were crowded
into a facility designed for 50, Mr. Corzo
said. In a center in Palenque, there were
210, nearly double the capacity. Some 86
migrants were jammed into another
center fit for 30.
During a recent visit to a center in the
southern state of Chiapas, Mr. Corzo
documented about 400 detainees in a
space meant for no more than 80.
Another Chiapas shelter, Siglo XXI in
the city of Tapachula with a capacity of
about 960, saw a daily average of more
than 1,400 in recent months, at times
reaching about 2,000, according to gov-
ernment statistics from the first sixmonths of the year.
“Tell me if this isn’t problematic,” he
said. “There are many complications.”
A few days earlier, a Salvadoran mi-
grant had died while being held in an im-
provised detention center in the offices
of the National Migration Institute in the
northern city of Monterrey. It was a rare
death of a migrant inside the nation’s de-
tention system. Mr. Corzo said the au-
thorities were investigating the cause.
Migration officials have also been
wrestling with a large and increasing
number of child migrants traveling ei-
ther unaccompanied or with families.
About 130 percent more migrant chil-
dren from Central America were de-
tained during the first six months of the
year than during the same period last
year, according to the National Migra-
tion Institute.
In May, a 10-year-old Guatemalan girl
died after falling from a bed bunk in a
major detention center in Mexico City,
officials said.
Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign sec-
retary, owned up to the poor conditions
of the detention centers: “They are very
bad,” he said during a news conference.
“The assessment presented to us is
terrible — the drains do not work, the
abandoned bathrooms,” he said. “An im-
mense, enormous effort has to be made.
It’s not so much the money but the com-
mitment.”
The López Obrador administration
has earmarked some $3.1 million to im-
prove several major detention centers
in southern Mexico and says it intends
to renovate centers in the north as well.
But migrants’ advocates point out
that the government has not made an
equivalent commitment to expanding
the resources of the government’s over-
burdened asylum agency, which was on
the verge of collapse even before the
surge in detentions.
“In the budget allocations, you can
measure the political will,” said Ana Saiz
Valenzuela, general director of Sin Fron-
teras, a migrants’ advocacy group in
Mexico City.Migrants in Veracruz, Mexico, waiting to be assigned to detention centers. Critics say an increase in migrants has created “unsustainable conditions” in many of Mexico’s centers.VICTORIA RAZO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGESHot, crowded and filthy
ACAYUCAN, MEXICOMexico’s tough approach
to migrants overwhelms
nation’s detention centersBY KIRK SEMPLEPEDRO PARDO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGESAbove, migrants at the Siglo XXI detention
center in Tapachula. Left, an immigration
checkpoint in Comitán de Dominguez.
Spurred by President Trump’s threats to
close the border with Mexico to thwart
illegal immigration, Mexico has increased
migrant detentions and deportations.LUIS ANTONIO ROJAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESР
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