Pakistan's problems spill into India
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - India-Pakistan relations touched a new low last week when the
Nowgam sector of the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir that divides
the two countries resounded to the rattle of intermittent gunfire over a period
of 16 hours.
For the first time since their incursion at Kargil in 1999 that resulted in
armed hostilities, Pakistani soldiers entered about 100 meters into Indian
territory. The incident, though, might have more to do with Pakistani domestic
issues than hostility towards India.
All the same, the battles across the LoC have put the five-year-old
India-Pakistan ceasefire under fresh pressure. The ceasefire has
held for much of the time since it came into effect along the entire
India-Pakistan frontier in November 2003.
According to reports in the Indian media, fighting broke out on July 28 in the
Nowgam sector when Pakistani soldiers called for a parley with Indian soldiers
at Eagle 5 to protest what they called an illegal Indian surveillance post. The
Indians refused to vacate the post, a verbal duel broke out, which quickly
escalated into a shootout and an Indian soldier was killed. Before long, the
LoC was alive with the sound of intermittent shelling and gunfire.
"The Pakistanis have been violating the ceasefire over the past few months, but
this is the first time since 1998 that Pakistani troops have crossed the LoC
and fired on the Indian positions," Indian army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel
Anil Kumar Mathur said.
A meeting between commanders of the two sides the following day ended the
fighting for a while. Then on Wednesday, fresh Pakistani firing and shelling
was reported. Six 82 mm mortar shells were fired at Indian border positions in
two bursts in a span of an hour.
According to Indian Defense Minister A K Antony, Pakistani troops have violated
the LoC ceasefire 19 times since January, while Pakistan-backed militants had
made 60 infiltration bids this year, 40 of them coming in June and July alone.
Analysts have been warning that Pakistan is firing at Indian border posts to
provide cover for militants it is infiltrating through the LoC into Jammu and
Kashmir. With assembly elections due in Jammu and Kashmir this autumn,
"attempts are being made to ensure that the run-up to the polls is not
peaceful", points out Brigadier (retired) Gurmeet Kanwal, director of the
Delhi-based Center for Land Warfare Studies. "Hence, the increasing
infiltration and firing across the LoC." The LoC in Kupwara district, where
last week's firing took place, is a popular infiltration route for militants.
Others see a larger game-plan behind Pakistan's firing at Indian posts. "The
LoC clashes are part of a calibrated Pakistani army effort to ratchet up
tensions on the LoC" to provoke a massive Indian retaliation, writes Praveen
Swami, Kashmir expert and associate editor at The Hindu. "Islamabad hopes a
crisis on the LoC will give it the pretext it needs to pull troops out of the
North-West Frontier Province," where the Pakistan army is engaged in limited
military operations against the Taliban and the al-Qaeda, but is reluctant to
escalate matters, despite US insistence, in fear of retaliation across
Pakistan.
Arguing on the same lines, Colonel Satinder Saini, research fellow at the
Delhi-based Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses points out, "To deflect
pressure and resist any [American] demands for an increase in force levels to
undertake concerted counter-terrorist operations in the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas and along the border with Afghanistan, Pakistan could be raising
the bogey of deterioration in the situation and threat on its eastern border
[with India]."
"The provocations are multiple," says a retired Indian diplomat. Besides
"stepping up the frequency and intensity of firing cross the LoC, Pakistan has
tested India's patience with the suicide attack on the Indian Embassy in [the
Afghan capital] Kabul last month," which killed over 50 people, including an
Indian defense attache and a diplomat. India, Afghanistan and the US believe
that Pakistan's Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) masterminded the attack.
There has been a sharp surge in terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and other
parts of India too.
"The ISI's repeated provocations of India must be seen in the context of the
ongoing tug-of-war in Islamabad between the civilian government and the
military/ISI," the diplomat said. Although it was under President Pervez
Musharraf that the peace process with India was initiated, today the
military/ISI would like "to embarrass and undermine the civilian government [in
Islamabad] by engineering the collapse of the ceasefire and the unraveling of
the peace process."
Clearly, divergent signals are coming out of Pakistan. While the military/ISI
is busy trading fire across the LoC, the civilian government is working on
improving trade with India. Under the 2008-09 trade policy announced by the
government recently, 136 new items, including fuel oil, diesel, mining
equipment and agricultural machinery such as paddy harvesters and rice driers,
have been added to the list of imported items from India. Import of compressed
natural gas (CNG) buses from India has been made duty-free. The policy shows a
new willingness to embrace investment from India. Indian companies are being
invited to invest in the power and the mining sectors and to manufacture CNG
buses in Pakistan.
In the third week of July, even as Indian and Pakistani officials were
finalizing at the negotiating table Kashmir-specific confidence-building
measures aimed at easing travel across the LoC in Kashmir, on the ground at the
LoC the situation was bristling with tension. Only a day before the Islamabad
talks, there were three attacks on Indian forward positions along the LoC.
It is significant that some of the most intense firing at Indian posts in
recent months has happened on the eve of important talks between the two
countries. Last week's ceasefire violations came a few days before the Indian
and Pakistani prime ministers met in Colombo on the sidelines of the South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit.
Last week, the George W Bush administration hauled Pakistan Prime Minister
Yousaf Raza Gilani over the coals for alleged links between ISI elements and
Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives. The ISI was leaking information about US
military operations against the Taliban and undermining these operations,
Washington pointed out.
Despite growing suspicion and concern in India and the US that Pakistan has
been diverting US funds meant for counter-terrorism campaigns to build up its
conventional warfare capacity against India, the Bush administration recently
announced plans to divert two-thirds of this year's US$300 million military aid
package, meant for military training and equipment for Pakistan's
counter-terrorism program, to upgrade its F-16 multi-role fighters.
A US State Department notification to the US Congress says that the upgrade
would make the F-16s a more valuable counter-terrorism asset "that operates
safely during day and night operations" and which increase their accuracy,
reducing the risks of civilian casualties.
The F-16s are configured primarily for conventional air-to-air/ground combat
and are of little value against militants operating in mountainous terrain.
In the 1980s, the US provided Pakistan with $3.2 billion in loans and grants,
including 40 F-16 fighter aircraft to get Pakistan's support in fighting the
Soviets in Afghanistan. It strengthened Pakistan's military muscle to fight a
conventional war against India. Washington's funding of Pakistan's military in
the 1980s plunged India and Pakistan into an intense arms race.
That mistake is now being repeated with the proposed upgrade of Pakistan's
F-16s. Although it will be several years before the upgraded F-16s are
available to Pakistan, it will have a serious negative impact on fast-fraying
India-Pakistan relations.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
