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Clinton says his South Asia trip ignited fatal violence |
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April 16, 2000
ATLANTA, APR 15 (AP) - President Clinton said Friday his recent trip to South Asia was the impetus for a massacre of "40 perfectly innocent people" in the disputed territory of Kashmir.
"I'm sure they were murdered because I was there," Clinton said during a fund-raising luncheon for Georgia Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney. "Those people lost their lives because I went to India and to Pakistan."
Clinton visited nuclear rivals India and Pakistan last month, but dashed Pakistan's hopes of mediating in their decades-old, border dispute over the ethnically divided Kashmir region.
Police said militants massacred at least 35 people in the Sikh village of Chatti Singhpora on March 20, as Clinton began his weeklong trip.
Clinton expressed outrage over the Sikh killings at the time. But he said he would not be "dragged" into the Kashmir dispute by acts of violence, and would not intervene unless both countries asked. India rejects international intervention, while Pakistan wants the United Nations or other countries to mediate.
More than 25,000 people have died and hundreds of thousands of Hindus have been driven from their homes during a 10-year separatist insurgency in Kashmir. The March massacre was the first time Sikhs were targeted.
Indian police have blamed two Pakistan-based militant groups. Militants and Pakistan's government denied involvement, and instead accused India's security forces of committing the murders to besmirch the separatist movement during Clinton's visit.
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