[sacw] India-Pakistan War on the Roof of the World [NYT]

[Harsh Kapoor]

May 23, 1999
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(South Asia Citizens Web)
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex
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India and Pakistan: Frozen in Fury on the Roof of the World

by Barry Bearak

SIACHEN GLACIER, in the Western Himalayas - May 23, 1999 (The New York
Times): For 15 blustery, shivering years, the Indian and Pakistani armies
have been fighting a war along the frigid peaks of the western Himalayas --
in an area named for the Siachen Glacier and known as the battleground on
the roof of the world.

=46or a soldier, this is where hell freezes over, a 46-mile river of
slow-moving ice surrounded by stupendous towers of snow. Temperatures swoon
to 50 below, and sudden blizzards can bury field artillery in minutes. Men
sleep in ice caves or igloos and breathe air so spare of oxygen that it
sends their hearts into a mad gallop. Fainting spells and pounding headaches
are frequent. Frostbite chews its way through digits and limbs.

--------------------------------------------
Barry Bearak/The New York Times
Amid the high peaks of the western Himalayas, where the air is thin and the
temperature drops to 50 below, Pakistan, like India, has about 3,000
soldiers fighting in a border war that is now 15 years old.
--------------------------------------------

The enemy is hard to see in the crags and craters in the vast whiteness --
and harder to hit. Rifles must be thawed repeatedly over kerosene stoves,
and machine guns need to be primed with boiling water. At altitudes of
18,000 feet, mortar shells fly unpredictable and extraordinary distances,
swerving erratically when met by sledgehammer gusts.

While some troops fall to hostile fire, far more perish from avalanches and
missteps into crevasses that nature has camouflaged with snow. This is
especially so now in springtime, as the sun licks away several feet of ice
and opens new underground cracks and seams.

But for all these logistical peculiarities, the Siachen conflict might be
thought of as just another low-intensity border war -- were it not being
fought between the world's two newest nuclear powers. Their combat over a
barren, uninhabited nether world of questionable strategic value is a
forbidding symbol of their lingering irreconcilability.

"This is like a struggle of two bald men over a comb," said Stephen P.
Cohen, an authority on the Indian subcontinent at the Brookings Institution.
"Siachen is the epitome of the worst aspects of the relationship. These are
two countries that are paired on a road to Oslo or Hiroshima, and at this
point they could go either way."

Since gaining independence in 1947, Pakistan, which is overwhelmingly
Muslim, and India, which is predominantly Hindu, have been enemies with a
bent toward military confrontation. In 1949, after the first of three wars,
the nations agreed to a cease-fire line that unfortunately stopped short of
the remote massifs of north-central Kashmir -- a disputed area on the map
where India, Pakistan and China rub shoulders.

The wording in the agreement merely said the line was to continue "north to
the glaciers." For two decades, this vague phrasing was of more concern to
map makers than soldiers, but then in the 1970's several groups of
mountaineers in down outerwear began trekking through the region. If they
could survive the cold and elevation, so might an army. Siachen became
another reason for two nervous neighbors to be reflexively suspicious.

The Highest Ground: Frozen Firearms, Magnificent Vistas

In April 13, 1984, the Indian Army made a "pre-emptive" move into the
glacier and the peaks and passes around it. Within weeks, Pakistani forces
swept in to oppose them, but the Indians have been able to hold on to the
tactical advantage of the high ground.

Most of India's many outposts are west of the glacier along the Saltoro
Range of the Karakoram Mountains. These pickets are reachable to an enemy
only after a strenuous climb and then a frontal assault, a near-hopeless
task in such thin air. After 50 strides, even a well-conditioned man is
gasping for breath with his muscles in a tremble.

--------------------------------------------
Barry Bearak/The New York Times
Pakistan, like India, has about 3,000 soldiers fighting in a border war that
is now 15 years old.
--------------------------------------------

=46ifteen years of refrigerated combat have brought only 15 years of hardene=
d
stalemate. The Pakistanis cannot get up to the glacier; the Indians cannot
come down.

"Nobody can win, no matter how long we fight," said Maj. Gen. V. S. Budhwar,
the Indian commander in Leh, whose region includes Siachen. "But this is our
land. It is a portion of our nation-state, and we will not cede it."

Occasionally, some vital strategic importance is assigned to the Siachen
area, with hypothetical aggressors flooding across mountain highways. More
often, the conflict is described as a simple matter of principle. Imagine,
people say, how America would respond if the Russians overran even a small,
barren chunk of Alaska.

"Siachen is an awful place where you can step on a thin layer of snow and,
poof, down you go 200 feet," said Gen. Khalid Mehmood Arif, the retired
former vice chief of Pakistan's military. "But no nation ever wants to lose
a single inch of territory, so Siachen has psychological and political
importance. Its value is in ego and prestige."

Arduous to live in, the Siachen area is beautiful to look at. Some of the
world's tallest mountains fill the landscape, their snowy tops giving way to
rivulets of white that glitter against the black and purple rock. It is a
moonscape of mesmerizing pinnacles and ridges and drops. Ice formations rise
a mile high. Clouds seem at arm's reach.

The Indian base camp is at the very start of the glacier, which gently
curves upward like a giant white tongue. Barracks, helipads, supply sheds,
satellite dishes, a hospital and Hindu shrines are spread across several
acres. It is clear the Indians have been here awhile and are ready to stay.
The command post is carpeted. Curtains hang along the windows.

"We have the heights," said Brig. P. C. Katoch, who runs the operation. In
contrast with the superior vista those heights afford, he said, the
Pakistani soldier sees nothing: "He hears a helicopter and shoots. He hears
artillery and shoots. It's stupid. He doesn't know where he's shooting."

But being king of the hill is costly. The Pakistanis can resupply most of
their posts by road and pack mule. At their forward positions, some as high
as 21,000 feet, the Indians must rely on helicopters. The whirlybirds strain
against the altitude like oversized bumblebees. Many an airdrop is swallowed
by the snow.

Both sides deploy about 3,000 soldiers. While the Pakistanis refuse to
divulge how much they spend in Siachen, the Indians estimate the cost at
about $350,000 to $500,000 a day, said Lieut. Gen. R. K. Sawhney, the army's
director general of military intelligence.

Transporting kerosene is one major expense. Some Indian soldiers live in
igloos made of fiberglass panels. Six soldiers can sleep in jigsaw
configurations, crowded into a room the size of a king-size bed. Others live
in ice tunnels gouged out with a pickax. Either way, small kerosene stoves
are the hearths they huddle around. The hissing competes with the howling of
the wind. Black smoke seems to color everything, including a man's spit.

The highest perches are occupied by only a handful of soldiers, and sleeping
is rarely done at night, for this is the most likely time for the enemy to
sneak up. Sentry duty is bleak work. Hot water bottles do not stay hot for
long. A relay must be set up to exchange frozen rifles for defrosted ones.

During storms, the heavy snowfall seems as thick as long, white drapery. The
wind does pinwheels, and the basics of a hard life gets that much harder.
"At my post, you have to use a crawl trench to get to the toilet," said Cpl.
Joginder Singh. "When it snows, the trench fills up and you have to stand.
The enemy can see you and that's how you die."

It is difficult to know how many men have been killed. Some local news
reports put casualty totals for both sides in the thousands, but this seems
based on conjecture. The Pakistanis do not release such details, and the
Indians say they have lost only the 616 soldiers whose names appear on a
stone memorial at the base camp.

The inscription reads: "Quartered in snow, silent to remain. When the bugle
calls, they shall rise and march again."

A Question of Control: Disputing Borders, Armed With Scorn

Since they were separated at birth, India and Pakistan have fought over the
territory of Jammu and Kashmir, a stunningly lush area that touches both of
their borders.

--------------------------------------------
Barry Bearak/The New York Times
In the thin air around the Saichen Glacier, thousands of feet above the tree
line, even helicopters strain to stay aloft. Still, the armies of India and
Pakistan fight on.
--------------------------------------------

In the complicated and emotional give-and-take that accompanied Partition in
1947, Kashmir, a state with a large Muslim majority, ended up within India.
To Pakistan, this seemed unreasonable. The infant nations were drawn into
combat.

To this day, Kashmir is the issue that most heats the blood. The Indians
claim the area while the Pakistanis argue that the Kashmiris must decide
their own future through a plebiscite. Both countries maintain formidable
armies near the cease-fire line that splits the territory in two. The
killing may slow but it never stops.

Ownership of the mountainous and sparsely-populated northeast is a
particular conundrum. From the Indian point of view, the language of the
1949 agreement is eminently clear: "north to the glaciers" means a line
going slightly northwest along the natural watershed of the Saltoro peaks.
The Pakistanis are equally sure: the phrasing intends for the line to
continue northeasterly as it does through the rest of Kashmir.

"The roots of the Kashmir problem are very tangled, but as far as the
glacier goes, this is simply a matter of Pakistanis sneaking their way into
a place that doesn't belong to them," said India's Lieut. Gen. M. L.
Chibber, retired, who is central to the Siachen saga.

An amiable man who left the army in 1985, General Chibber now follows the
guru Sai Baba and speaks easily about the futility of war. In 1978, however,
he was a commander with responsibility for Siachen. He was alarmed to learn
that the Pakistanis were accompanying mountaineers to the glacier. Just as
troubling were maps printed in the West. They showed Siachen as part of
Pakistan.

By the early 80's, both armies were sending expeditions into the area, and
suspicions accumulated like fresh snow. In late 1983, the Indians became
convinced the Pakistanis were about to seize the glacier, General Chibber
said. This was inferred from intercepted communiqu=E9s. If further evidence
was needed, he said, it came when India sent procurers to Europe to buy
cold-weather gear. They ran into Pakistanis doing the same shopping.

A Military Novelty: Fighting Frostbite and Altitude

India's "pre-emptive" takeover of Siachen was called Operation Meghdoot
after the divine cloud messenger in a Sanskrit play. It soon came to seem a
burdensome success. Like over-eager chess players, the Indians had failed to
plan several moves ahead.

-----------------------------------------
Courtesy of the Pakistan Military
Pakistani soldiers at prayer in base camp in the Karakoram Mountains, where
there has been a stalemate with the Indian Army since 1984.
-----------------------------------------

"No one had ever carried out military operations at these altitudes and
temperatures, so we figured after the summer ended, we'd have to pull out,"
General Chibber said. "But with the first snows, we realized it was possible
to stay up there all winter. If we left, the Pakistanis would take the
glacier and then we'd never get it back."

In the conflict's first years, with the armies inexperienced at such a cold
war, the number of casualties mounted quickly. Valiant, if foolhardy,
assaults were attempted. Frostbite, snow blindness and pulmonary and
cerebral edema took a huge toll.

Daring raids are now rare, the Pakistanis say, though the Indians often
boast of victorious defensive skirmishes, killing three here and a dozen
there. Each side makes claims the other vigorously denies.

These days, the blasts of artillery and mortar shells are the war's steady
cadence. "We fire at them and they fire at us, but this is not a place where
the usual calculations of trajectory and distance apply," said Capt. Hamid
Mukhtar, a Pakistani artillery officer.

Captain Mukhtar was serving at a forward post at 18,000 feet, near a ridge
line known as the Conway Saddle. "There are crevasses on either side of
these paths," he cautioned as he walked. "Step into the wrong place and you
will go to meet God beneath the snow."

Daily patrolling is necessary, if for no other reason than to tread on a
marked trail so it will not disappear. In February, in a typical
catastrophe, an avalanche crushed 13 Pakistani soldiers tethered together
with rope. A single survivor led the search that later recovered the
pristine dead, their bodies preserved as if locked in cold storage.

Melting leads to snow slides. The noontime temperature in early spring was
10 below, but the sun was bright enough to rapidly turn an exposed nose the
color of a radish. Sweat is a problem because it becomes ice in a soldier's
gloves and socks. Frostbite is then quick with its work.

Even after a day's exertion, most soldiers have little appetite at these
heights. Rations come out of tin cans. Fresh produce is rare. An orange
freezes to the hardness of a baseball; a potato cannot be dented with a
hammer.

Despite the hardships, both sides report an oversupply of volunteers. Stints
in Siachen usually last three months or less. "This is my country's soil,
and whether something grows here or not, I would gladly die to protect it,"
said Cpl. Mohammad Shafique, a Pakistani.

The Options: Peace by Rocket or by Bus Ride

=46ew soldiers know much about the other side's territorial claims, but they
seem untroubled by doubt of the enemy's murderous skulduggery. While many
people in India and Pakistan hope for rapprochement, others merely heap
fresh animosity upon the old. Evil is presumed.

General Budhwar, the Indian regional commander, said Pakistanis suffer from
a "deformed growth," becoming brainwashed in school "with all the dos and
don'ts" of Islamic fundamentalism. "Their very existence depends on being
inimical to India," he said.

One of his counterparts is Brig. Nusrat Khan Sial, who commands Pakistan's
Siachen operation from the city of Skardu. He called the Indians "cowards"
whose Hindu beliefs lack reverence for human life. He said he suspects they
have used chemical weapons in Siachen, which the Indians vehemently deny.

"It will be the Indians, not us, who will trigger this situation up to the
level where both sides resort to nuclear weapons," he said.

Last month, both nations tested ballistic missiles as they develop enough
tit-for-tat firepower to give an adversary pause. Following the example of
superpowers, they are pursuing peace through nuclear deterrence, their
leaders say: Smaller disputes are less likely to provoke all-out wars when
the possible outcome includes annihilation.

At the same time, a less costly path toward peace is being undertaken.
Earlier this year, with brass bands and polite embraces, India's Prime
Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, made a heralded bus trip to Pakistan and met
with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

More talks are in the offing, but optimism is in irregular supply.

Over the years, Siachen itself has been the subject of seven "major rounds
of talks," said Robert G. Wirsing, a scholar at the University of South
Carolina.

Under various Governments ruled by various parties, negotiators have agreed
that the conflict is futile -- and some have even called it lunatic. But one
side or the other has always been too afraid of a double-cross to complete a
deal. Domestic politics are also a hitch. Any compromise involving Kashmir
looms like a lit fuse, especially to unstable Governments.

So the two armies fight on, proud of conquering the elements if not each
other. Their doctors have become experts at high-altitude medicine, their
helicopter pilots adroit at skirting the cliffs. Solar panels are affixed to
some igloos.

On the Indian side, a kerosene pipeline is being completed. A ski lift will
ferry soldiers across the canyons. A pulley system has begun to hoist
supplies up the mountainsides. Bacteria are eating human waste in machines
called biodigesters.

"We have become specialists at high-altitude fighting -- probably the best
in the world," boasted General Sawhney, sounding as self-congratulatory as
his Pakistani counterparts. "We can tolerate the harsh elements. We have
made livable conditions."

We are prepared, both sides say, to battle on the roof of the world forever.

[Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company]

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