Asia Times: India, Pakistan back at each other's throats



	August 12, 1999	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

India, Pakistan back at each other's throats
By Ranjit Dev Raj

NEW DELHI - The downing of a Pakistan naval aircraft by Indian airforce fighters on Tuesday has quashed any hope of an early resumption of dialogue following the recent Kashmir border conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

So have continuing attacks by heavily-armed infiltrators on Indian army camps deep inside Kashmir which, since Friday, have left 10 Indian soldiers dead.

Tuesday's incident in which Indian MiG 21 fighters shot down a French-built naval aircraft, described by an Indian defense ministry spokesperson as having anti-submarine and surveillance capability, has exacerbated tensions, with the armed forces of both countries being put on alert. Both countries claim the plane was attacked within their territory, but wreckage has apparently been found on both sides of the border.

India's Defense Minister George Fernandes said the plane was shot down after it was intercepted and ordered to land but instead took hostile action. Fernandes said frequent intrusion of Pakistan's aircraft into Indian territory was part of that country's threat to open up ''more Kargils''. ''Today they got caught in the net,'' he said.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz responded to the downing of the aircraft, which killied five officers and 11 crew, by saying the country ''reserved the right to make an appropriate response''. The warning by Aziz set the clock back to the bellicose threats and contrary claims which marked 10 weeks of fierce fighting during May, June and July on the Line of Control (LoC) which divides the two countries in Kashmir.

The fighting ended after Pakistan, under pressure from US President Bill Clinton, withdrew a mix of army regulars and heavily-armed militants from the mountain heights they had occupied in the Kargil sector. Clinton had also urged the two countries to resume the ''Lahore process'', a diplomatic initiative which saw Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee take an overland bus ride to the Pakistan city of Lahore in February.

But on Monday, an Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman declared that India would resume a formal dialogue with Pakistan only after there was an end to ''Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism''. At political rallies ahead of general elections in September and October, Vajpaee has warned that there there is a ''limit to India's patience'' and that there will be no talks ''at gunpoint''.

With such rhetoric current, expectations that leaders of the two countries will meet at the United Nations General Assembly session next month are running low. Apart from electoral compulsions, India's tough line may be a reaction to its army getting hopelessly bogged down with counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir while holding on to heights recaptured in Kargil. The infiltration of an estimated 1,500-2,000 armed insurgents into Indian Kashmir over the past three months has stretched the army badly.

(Inter Press Service)

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