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OPINION

Visiting Pakistan to thaw Siachen
ATUL COWSHISH

It now looks certain that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Islamabad before the summer is out; it is in a sense returning Gen Pervez Musharraf’s visit to Delhi in April 2005 actually on a self-invitation to watch the Pakistani cricket team play a one-day international at the Ferozshah Kotla ground. His presence at the stadium in the city of his birth was inspiring enough for the Pakistanis to thrash India, something that the General had failed to do on the battlefield of Kargil five years earlier.

By a coincidence Kargil is likely to be the centrepiece of the prime minister’s visit to Pakistan, the land of his birth. Manmohan Singh may be flying to Islamabad with a proposal for resolving the problem of troop positions on the icy heights of Siachen glacier adjacent to Kargil. A final ‘settlement’ of the Siachen problem was quite possible. A solution to the prickly problem of marking the boundaries in the Sir Creek swamps in Gujarat is also said to be ready, awaiting Pakistan’s signature.

The manning of Siachen heights, where apparently ‘not a blade of grass’ grows, has been a very costly affair for the nation, both in terms of men and money. Many more soldiers are said to have died on Siachen from exposure to the extremes of winters than from enemy bullets. An agreement to withdraw forces from that highly inhospitable region will indeed be welcome as will be the agreement on Sir Creek or any other bilateral dispute, for that matter.

But a fear looms large in many quarters that the moment Indian forces are pulled out of the Siachen glacier, the Pakistanis, as is their wont, will be putting into action their plans to move into positions vacated by India and consolidate their positions there.

Indian army as well as security experts are unanimous in saying that once vacated it will be extremely difficult for Indian forces to re-occupy the positions held in Siachen at this moment. The whole Kargil war was about Pakistani perfidy in moving into heights that had been left unmanned by India from the beginning of the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan. The Indian jawans had to make tremendous sacrifices to push the intruders out because of the logistic advantages the latter had gained by occupying the Kargil heights from where the Indian forces had voluntarily and unilaterally retreated.

The Pakistani army, General Musharraf included, continues to maintain that it had the upper hand in Kargil and had not the then prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, catapulted on ‘orders’ from the then US president, Bill Clinton, the Pakistani army would have been firmly perched on the Kargil heights. From that vantage position, the Pakistanis would have posed a permanent threat to a major highway in the upper reaches of Kashmir. What makes the Pakistanis believe that they had breached no contract in Kargil is the fact that even as India and Pakistan fought over Kashmir and later agreed on an ‘Actual Line of Control’, no such demarcation in Kargil was ever outlined or accepted by the two countries.

Not willing to be outwitted again and wiser after Kargil, India now says it is seeking ‘iron clad’ guarantees from Pakistan in authenticating the troop positions held by the two countries in Siachen. The National Security Adviser, M. K. Narayanan, has said that India and Pakistan are ‘closer’ to a ‘final point’ on the Siachen. His remarks have come amidst reports that Pakistan will under no circumstances agree to authenticate the actual ground positions held by the two armies. Given the apparent contradictions in the stands of the two countries it is not clear how can it be said that a ‘final point’ in resolving the Siachen problem is about to be reached.

This view may appear to be a misguided fear of a layman or someone who is not part of the security loop, much less the inner thinking of policy makers. It is said that there are some international models of making such agreements work. But if past lessons about Pakistan showing contempt for treaty obligations and promises made are kept in mind a layman’s instinct cannot be dismissed outright. Forget what happened in Kargil or the fact that Pakistan has never honoured the very UN resolution it swears by to pull out its forces from the part of Kashmir it forcibly occupied in 1948. Till the other day, Musharraf rarely missed an opportunity to say he does not recognise the Shimla agreement, which, in his view, Pakistan had signed under ‘coercion’.

Several knowledgeable persons in India, the ones who have been part of the inner circles, have said that after the Pakistani rout in the 1971 Bangladesh war, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, assured Indira Gandhi that he would convert the line of control in Kashmir into international border between the two countries, once his troops were back home. Bhutto forgot his promise the moment his 90,000 troops, which had surrendered to the Indian army, returned home. Soon he was talking of a 1000-year war with India and Pakistanis willing to eat grass to build a nuclear bomb.

While many in India continue to criticise Indira Gandhi for trusting Bhutto, it has to be remembered that Bhutto’s predecessors as well as successors did not act differently in regard to promises or assurances given to India on certain vital matters. Pakistan does not hesitate to violate even an international treaty like the WTO or its obligations as member of SAARC when it comes to trade relations with India.

Even in matters far removed from politics and diplomacy, like visit of Indian artists or allowing screening of Indian films, the Pakistani rulers either come up with whimsical objections or tie up the issues to the ‘final’ resolution of the Kashmir dispute. But Islamabad is very keen to make an exception to this ‘Kashmir first’ rule on matters like a gas pipeline from Iran to India because it will bring it billions of dollars in revenue, the money that it will promptly spend on buying lethal arms for use against the ‘enemy’.

It has been said that Manmohan Singh does not want to visit Pakistan for the sake of only returning Musharraf’s visit but wants to carry with him something that will substantially contribute to improving relations. The ‘solutions’ that he may be carrying may sound good and may also be mutually acceptable, but India will not be ready to accept another act of perfidy by Pakistan.

If during their talks in Pakistan, the prime minister or his aides are not completely sure about Pakistan’s intentions on Siachen it may be best to postpone resolution of the dispute. India can offer its solutions to other disputes like Sir Creek. If Pakistan rejects them all, at least the world will know that India has shown sufficient interest in sorting out matters with Pakistan even as, unlike Islamabad, New Delhi believes in step-by-step approach to resolving Kashmir.


Courtesy : Syndicate Features

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