COVER STORY

An effective game plan

By creating a serious military problem for India in Kargil without "its direct involvement", Pakistan believes that it has played a winning card.

AMIT BARUAH
in Islamabad

"...to take such action as will defreeze Kashmir problem, weaken India's resolve and bring her to a conference table without provoking a general war. However, the element of escalation is always present in such struggles. So, whilst confining our acti on to the Kashmir area we must not be unmindful that India may in desperation involve us in a general war or violate Pakistan territory where we are weak. We must therefore be prepared for such a contingency."

- Directive from President Ayub Khan to General Mohammad Musa, Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, on August 29, 1965, quoted in A History of the Pakistan Army by Brian Cloughley (Oxford University Press, 1999).

NOT much seems to have changed in the 34 years since Pakistan launched Operation Gibraltar in 1965 by sending "hired Mujahids" and regular soldiers to take over Kashmir. The aims and objectives laid down by Ayub Khan seem to remain in place. This is evid ent from what India now experiences in Kargil.

Since the start of the Foreign Secretary-level dialogue in April-May 1997, Pakistan's objective has been clear. The Kashmir issue, along with matters of peace and security, came to the fore in the agenda agreed upon for discussion in June 1997 in Islamab ad. However, it was part of a composite dialogue process, a part of the "two plus six process". The first substantive round of discussions in October 1998 between the Foreign Secretaries must have made it clear to Pakistan that India would not yield on t he Kashmir issue. In fact, India made it clear that the first confidence-building measure Pakistan needed to undertake was to stop pushing infiltrators across the Line of Control (LoC).

Pakistan's decision to send in hundreds of infiltrators in the Kargil-Drass sector was part of a plan to put the spotlight on Kashmir and simultaneously, undermine the LoC as a frontier that had basically held good during the last 27 years. Pakistan need s to remember that only borders are properly demarcated; not a ceasefire line which was turned into an LoC. Pakistan's interest in securing the involvement of the United Nations in demarcating the LoC on the ground is obviously a part of its propaganda t actics. As Brian Cloughley, a writer sympathetic to Pakistan, points out in his book on the Pakistan Army, the Delineation of the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir Resulting from the Cease Fire of 17 December 1971 in Accordance with the Simla Agreemen t of 2 July 1972 is an "unambiguous" document. "Its territorial precision is remarkable," writes Cloughley, whose book reflects the access granted to him by the Pakistan Army.

According to Cloughley, it contains these descriptions: "The Line of Control runs from NR 313861 to NR 316865, thence to NR 319867, thence EAST to NR 322868, thence NE to NR 331872, thence to a monument on ridge line at NR 336874 approximately 500 yards SE of Point 10008 (NR 3387), thence to a point NR 338881 on the Nullah such that point NR 336874 and point NR 338881 are connected by a counter clockwise arc with a radius of 500 yards, thence NE to junction..." Cloughley admits that the only point that was not precise was what happened after NJ 9842. At the time of delineation, Indian and Pakistani officers agreed that "anyone who wanted to lay claim to ice, snow and rocks was welcome to them."

At some stage during the India-Pakistan composite dialogue, the Pakistani establishment realised that this process would not benefit it on the Kashmir front. It became cleat that India's real interest was in trade and a general improvement in relations, and that as far as Kashmir was concerned, it simply wanted an end to infiltration. In contrast, Pakistan's policy of bleeding India, executed first by President Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s in Punjab, and then in Kashmir, and later by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the intelligence agencies, is a constant; the Pakistani establishment has never envisaged a change in this. Clearly, India must continue to pay for aiding the formation of Bangladesh. Kargil is the new front where Indian soldiers must pay with their lives, apart from the serious loss of face for New Delhi. Pakistan's game plan is simple and has been executed excellently in military terms.

AP
Nawaz Sharif with Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

The Lahore declaration is today not worth the paper it is written on if Nawaz Sharif has indeed been kept in the dark by his Army with regard to the current situation in Kargil, then he must distance himself from it. At the very least, he should replace Gen. Pervez Musharraf as the Chief of the Army Staff. (Gen. Jehangir Karamat was given the marching orders in October 1998 by Nawaz Sharif for criticising civilian authorities.) In the absence of such a move, it must be construed that the Pakistani milit ary and political establishments are, for all practical purposes, working in tandem.

By creating a serious military problem for India in Kargil without its "direct involvement", Pakistan believes that it has played a winning card. Unlike Operation Gibraltar, the mercenary militants are in a good position to pick off Indian soldiers. The joy over Indian losses is apparent from a remark made by Gen. Musharraf to Lt. Gen Mohammad Aziz, his Chief of General Staff, during a telephone conversation on May 29, the transcript of which has been released by India. A portion of the transcript goes as follows: "Aziz Saheb (Sartaj Aziz) has discussed with me, and my recommendation is that dialogue option is always open. But in their first meeting, they must give no understanding or no commitment on ground situation." True to the brief given by Lt. G en. Aziz, Foreign Minister Sartaj Azi, who was in India to hold talks, made no commitment on the ground situation in Kargil. Sartaj Aziz stuck to the brief "given" to him by the Army. The Foreign Minister took the position that it was India which had esc alated the conflict situation by resorting to air and artillery strikes; and that expert-level talks between the two countries would be possible only if India turned down the heat.

Clearly, Pakistan wants to sustain the crisis in Kargil as long as possible. In such a situation, where Pakistan's links with the mercenary militants stand confirmed by the phone conversation between Lt. Gen Aziz and his Chief, there seems little to talk about between the two countries.

All those Indians who sincerely believe in the need for better relations with Pakistan must be afflicted with a feeling of being let down. A parallel anti-India track was continuing even as Vajpayee's bus rolled up to stop before Nawaz Sharif at Wagah on February 20. The Lahore-Delhi bus diplomacy remains confined to the status of bus diplomacy.

While Pakistan has played its cards well on the military front, its hopes for diplomatic success in the international arena have been belied. The United States has called for a return of those who have crossed the LoC; there has been no "emergency meetin g" of the U.N. Security Council as envisaged by Pakistan. Despite the failure of the Sartaj Aziz-Jaswant Singh talks, Pakistan will, in all probability, remain interested in continuing a "dialogue" with India on Kashmir as long as it can use the Kargil l ever. And for now, Islamabad has nothing to gain by undoing the Kargil intrusion.

And, it has demonstrated conclusively that the Pakistani establishment is not to be trusted and is manned by the masters of double-speak.