April 17, 2012
By: Javid Husain

Peace between Pakistan and India is a strategic imperative dictated by economic realities and the status of the two countries as de facto nuclear powers. Both Pakistan and India suffer from widespread poverty, low GDP per head and a low level of human development. Peace between Pakistan and India would enable the two countries to reduce or at least to contain their military expenditures so as to increase significantly the allocation of resources for economic development. The possession of nuclear weapons with credible delivery systems makes an all-out war between Pakistan and India an unthinkable option. Neither side is in a position to dictate to the other through military means. It is, therefore, imperative that the leaders of the two countries take well considered steps to restore mutual trust and confidence, increase bilateral trade and economic cooperation on a level playing field, facilitate people-to-people contacts, and resolve outstanding disputes. Given the history of wars and serious disputes, it is inevitable that the process of peace building between Pakistan and India would not be free of obstacles and hiccups. But the only rational choice for the two countries is to persist in their efforts to strengthen peace and stability in South Asia. Their inability to do so for whatever reason would condemn them to a low level of development and their peoples to extremes of poverty for the foreseeable future. It is in this context that the recent visit of President Asif Zardari to India to maintain contacts between the leaders of the two countries must be welcomed.

According to some estimates, more than 300 million Indians, that is about 25 percent of the total population, live below the poverty line. The situation is equally bad in Pakistan where a high percentage of the population continues to suffer from abject poverty. India’s GDP per head is expected to be only $1940 during 2012, whereas Pakistan would lag behind at $1310, according to the Economic Intelligence Unit. In view of low standards of living and grinding poverty, economic development rather than military expenditures should be the top priority of the leaders of the two countries. Unfortunately, that is not the case. India is expected to spend $40.5 billion on defence during 2012-13, reflecting an increase of about 18 percent over the defence budget for the preceding year. It is also planning to buy arms worth $100 billion over the next five years. While Pakistan’s defence budget is about one-fifth of the size of India’s, it is spending too high a proportion of its GDP on defence (about 3.5 percent) because of the smaller size of its economy. Hopefully, the peace process between the two countries would enable them to divert resources from military expenditures to the task of economic development.

We should learn from China’s experience. In 1980, China under Deng Xiaoping determined economic development as its supreme national goal. Its internal and external policies were subordinated to the realisation of this overarching national aim. Internally, China embarked upon a series of reforms in the rural and urban sectors to accelerate economic growth through unleashing the energies of the private sector. Simultaneously, Deng Xiaoping told his generals to manage the armed forces within a budget of less than 1.5 percent of GDP. Externally, China adopted a policy of defusing tensions in relations with its neighbours with the objective of reducing the risk of an armed conflict. China has not allowed its territorial dispute with India to come in the way of growing commercial and economic cooperation between the two countries. Its trade with India is now estimated to be about $75 billion a year. The net result of these policies was China’s phenomenal economic growth rate averaging 9 percent over the past three decades making it the second largest economy in the world. By way of comparison, Pakistan’s growth rate has been around 2.5 percent per annum over the past three years.

While there is a growing awareness of the strategic imperative of peace between Pakistan and India on both sides of the border, it is important that the peace process is managed by the two countries keeping in view the ground realities. Pakistan-India relations suffer from lack of trust and bitterness caused by wars and outstanding disputes. Inevitably, therefore, the progress in the peace process would be slow and marked by hiccups under the best of circumstances. Confidence building measures (CBM) in the military and political fields to assure Pakistan and India of each other’s peaceful intentions and to eliminate the risk of the outbreak of hostilities through miscalculation or misunderstanding must be the starting point of such a peace process. Fortunately, the two countries have already made some progress in this area although a lot more remains to be done.

Pakistan and India must also engage in mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields and undertake serious efforts to resolve outstanding disputes. A number of considerations must be kept in view in carrying forward the peace process. Mutually beneficial cooperation by definition is not a favour that one country grants to the other. For instance, bilateral trade on a level playing field will work to the advantage of both the countries and, therefore, should not be subjected to the condition of prior settlement of outstanding disputes. It is also true, however, that it cannot be totally dissociated from the overall climate of relations between the two countries.

Currently, access to the Indian market is restricted by non-tariff barriers. The Indian businessmen also enjoy the advantage of institutional and governmental support, whereas Pakistani businessmen not only lack such support, but also suffer from the adverse effects of acute power and gas shortages. Little surprise, therefore, that the current Pakistan-India trade of $2.6 billion per annum is heavily tilted in favour of the latter. This imbalance is likely to worsen to our disadvantage with the planned liberalisation of trade with India, unless our government and the industrial/ trading institutions take necessary corrective measures to ensure level playing field in trade with India. Failing that there is a serious risk that our industry will suffer a crippling blow from which it may not recover easily. It is a pity that our government is rushing into a liberalised trade regime with India without the necessary spadework.

CBM’s, growth in bilateral trade on a level playing field, and increased people-to-people contacts will help strengthen peace lobbies in Pakistan and India, enhance mutual trust, and pave the way for the resolution of outstanding disputes. Realistically speaking, it will be easier to make progress towards the resolution of those disputes which are, relatively speaking, less acrimonious and less complicated. Sir Creek, Siachen and disputes concerning the sharing of river waters would fall in this category. The two countries should also cooperate on the issue of terrorism from which they have suffered grievously.

The Kashmir dispute, in view of its heavy emotional and historical baggage, would be the most difficult to solve. A settlement of this dispute, which is satisfactory to the two countries, does not appear to be feasible in the near future given their recognised divergent positions. Therefore, while Pakistan and India should continue to work towards a final settlement of this issue, they should agree in the interim to measures which would ameliorate the human rights conditions of the Kashmiri people in IHK, grant them maximum possible autonomy, demilitarise the area as the insurgency winds down, and facilitate cross-LOC travel and trade. However, durable peace between Pakistan and India will remain elusive until the two countries reach a satisfactory final solution of the Kashmir dispute and until India gives up its hegemonic designs in South Asia.

The writer is a retired ambassador.

Email:
javid.husain@gmail.com
-The Nation

April 17, 2012
By Pervez Hoodbhoy

The coincidence between President Asif Ali Zardari’s sprint to Delhi last week, and the $10 million head-money on Hafiz Saeed announced by the US could be purely accidental. But this action certainly refocused Indian attention on the alleged Mumbai attack planner, who heads the pantheon of jihadi ‘heroes’ that now freely parades across Pakistan. In such circumstances, holding the olive branch before PM Manmohan Singh surely required guts. The scepticism to Zardari in India was, of course, predictable.

It is easy to pooh-pooh the visit. Mr Zardari is not a popular president or a clean one, and the PPP is unlikely to survive the elections scheduled in a few months from now. Plus, he wields no power on issues that India considers critical: nuclear weapons, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. Most importantly, he can do nothing to rein in the anti-India jihadist network, a matter that belongs squarely to the army’s domain. Moving against Hafiz Saeed is not an option. Zardari cannot forget Memogate — which he somehow survived but Ambassador Husain Haqqani did not.

And yet, a weak and embattled government did something refreshingly good for the country. According India, the MFN status for trade and related commercial activity is sure to be a game-changer that could bring peace and prosperity to the region.Ignoring the angry howls of the Difah-e-Pakistan crowd, the government for once listened to the country’s majority — most Pakistanis do want trade with India even though they consider it a threat.

Still better news is that the Zardari-Singh joint communique says “practical, pragmatic” solutions will be sought for disputes. Showing his willingness to put Mumbai 2008 on the back-burner, Singh accepted Zardari’s invitation to Islamabad. This is exactly the way it should be; frequent high-level meetings are the best confidence-building measures.

But what should the two sides talk about? Surely, there are many issues but here are the top five on which progress is both necessary and, more importantly, possible.

First, let both countries agree to immediately vacate the killing ice fields of Siachen. This insane war at 22,000 feet has claimed hundreds of lives on both sides; 138 Pakistani soldiers and civilian contractors are still being searched for after a mountain of snow crashed on them last week. Maintaining control over a system of Himalayan glaciers has come at a dreadful cost to human lives and resources, and has also irreversibly polluted a pristinely pure environment. But to what end? There are no minerals in Siachen; not even a blade of grass can grow there. This is just a stupid battle between two monster-sized national egos.

Second, let them talk about water — seriously. But please have the Pakistani side well-prepared for solid technical discussions. This means having real experts with facts at their fingertips. They must know about spillway design, sediment control, DSLs, drawdowns, sluicing, etc. I have seen too many duffers represent our side at Pakistan-India meetings where water inevitably comes up. Their lack of knowledge becomes painfully apparent and the Indians start smirking.

In water matters geography has favoured India; every upper riparian state can control outflows and India could be potentially unfair to Pakistan. But, although there are frequent allegations to this effect, are they really correct? The Indus Waters Treaty, negotiated in 1960, has so far kept matters on an even keel; neutral experts have adjudicated complaints received from Pakistan. Water has therefore not been a strong reason for war until now. But this stability may be drawing to an end because both countries — Pakistan more so than India — are becoming water stressed. Rising populations would strain resources even if the other country did not exist. Therefore, sensible and well-informed high-level discussions are critical.

Third, do away with the absurd and provocative daily flag ceremonies at Wagah. Instead, let the leaders talk about how ordinary people can travel more easily across the border. This is a natural right, and a step towards real peace. If you travel to the other side and see that people there have greater likeliness to you than anywhere else in the world, the urge to go to war diminishes. Yet, for a Pakistani to get an Indian visa, or an Indian to get a Pakistani one, is presently an ordeal.

Fourth, Pakistan and India have technical issues regarding trade and transit rights that need discussion. Although Pakistan has finally granted MFN status to India, the real dividend will come if non-tariff barriers are removed and bank transfers are allowed. There are estimates that Pakistan-India trade could rise to an awesome $8 billion per year. To achieve this goal, the onus lies on India.

Fifth: let them talk about exchanging academics, both teachers and students, between the two countries. Pakistan is starved of good teachers in almost every field, especially at the higher levels of education. The Higher Education Commission’s plan to bring in university teachers from overseas has flopped. A breakthrough is only possible if Indian teachers could be brought to Pakistan. Indians would find it easier to adapt to local ways and customs than others. Plus, they would have smaller salary expectations than most others. The huge pool of strong Indian candidates could be used to Pakistan’s advantage — we could pick the best teachers and researchers, and those most likely to make a positive impact on our system.

The above list has two deliberate omissions. The first is terrorism, which will displease the Indian side. But this matter lies beyond what any elected national leader in Pakistan can do; basically it is for the Pakistan Army to rethink its goals. In all likelihood, change will only come when the internal costs of maintaining strategic jihadist assets become too large. The present informal truce is unlikely to last forever, and jihadists could be attacking their handlers once again in the not-too-distant future.

The second omission is Kashmir, which displeases the Pakistani side. But, given the tortured history of Pakistan-India conflict on this conflict, it is difficult to imagine that progress is possible. Pragmatism therefore requires keeping the conflict on the backburner instead of demanding an instant solution. For now, it is more important that Pakistan and India become normal neighbours and deal with their disputes reasonably.

The Express Tribune

April 18, 2012
Shahzad Chaudhry

By now all of us know MJ9842, the actual ground position line (AGPL) on the Saltoro Ridge, and the three passes that flow downwards from Saltoro to Pakistan’s northern areas merging into the erstwhile combined territories of AJK &NA. We know the history of this conflict and its current state; also the respective positions that both India and Pakistan hold on the way forward and the divergence in those views which when stated plainly makes any resolution a non-starter unless one side gives in.

The recent interring of 139 Pakistani troops and their battalion headquarters, however, has brought the spotlight back on the utility of such senseless deployment on both sides. I also have on record a statement of some retired, and still responsible, senior Indian military officers who have categorically declared Siachen without any strategic value to India. The Pakistanis too make the same point having been on the receiving end of a 28 year old war which hasn’t seen a bullet fired in anger since 2003. Yet 8000 have lost their lives on both sides of Saltoro Ridge.

This is why? The Siachen Glacier as the 90 km long and about 50 km wide snow-mass sits between the Karakoram in the north and the Hindu Kush in the west. It juts out from within these physical boundaries through the various passes that saddle the divide along Saltoro. The farthest of these along this ridge is the Indra Kol. The eastern most point on the Karakorams is the Karakoram Pass where the three countries, India, China and Pakistan meet before the terrain moves further east into Tibet from that point.

Almost a subtended centre of this northern base is the demarcated point MJ9842. This makes this bounded region an inverted triangle whose apex sits at 9842, while its base runs along the Pak-China border between Indra Koli and the Karakoram Pass. With India having occupied the Saltoro Ridge in 1984 in a pre-emptive move, this entire triangle now is under its occupation.

The Indian stance, when negotiating on Siachen, is to disregard the 3500 square kilometres area bounded by the triangle and instead focuses on the AGPL alone which contains their deployed positions on the Saltoro Ridge. Similar to the Simla Agreement they seek the conversion of the AGPL into a LoC extending from its present position at MJ9842 to their current line of holding. Pakistan, however, seeks to declare the entire area within the inverted triangle as the contested region just as the Kashmir dispute stands formulated despite an LoC that demarcates the two parts of Kashmir under the control of the two nations. India only grants the ridge as the line of conflict, disregarding the area behind while Pakistan seeks settlement of the entire region enclosed within the triangle.

Pakistan, though, is willing to settle for any interim solution in Siachen without prejudicing the claims of either side. Both sides will do well to emphasise that any interim solution that they ‘may’ reach will not prejudice their respective claims till a final settlement is reached. But I get too far ahead of me, though it is an important point to register. That explains the intractability of the Siachen issue.

Let’s now move to the evolving grander design. To anyone who looks at the map it will become abundantly clear that the terrain slopes down the Saltoro Ridge into the northern areas of Pakistan and thence to the adjoining Kashmir region under the control of Pakistan. The snow-mass that submerged the Pakistani positions last fortnight drifted down along these slopes.

It remains the impassability of the terrain which has kept India from moving down the slopes in a grand encirclement manoeuvre, at least in the theoretical sense, along the Northern Areas of Pakistan to envelop the Pakistani controlled territories of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. That explains the strategic potential, though the force and the terrain needed to execute this would be almost impossible in quantum, capacity and capability with a terribly long logistic chain. Who says that isn’t strategically significant for a nation whose strategic vision is still evolving?

Next, by sitting across at the Karakoram if the triangle is ceded to India – as she desires by recognising and recording her current position along the AGPL – she sits on the door between China and Pakistan and also on the western gate to Tibet. Keep in mind that China has linked its Western Sinkiang Province to Tibet through a network of highways and planned railroads that will sit just across the Indian position on the Karakoram. It doesn’t get more strategic than that for all sides. India also assumes that China has made a steady foray into the bordering regions of India in Pakistan’s Northern Areas in the garb of developmental works such as the Karakoram Road Project and the Neelum-Jhelum Power project and is happy to have driven a wedge of sorts in a physical sense.

The strategic relevance thus exists if indeed terrain alone was the issue. The more we peel the core off its trappings, paradoxically the more complex it becomes. The other way is to take the altruistic view and relate to the undo-ability of this entire grand scheme and instead invest in protection, preservation and sustenance of a common resource which Siachen is to both India and Pakistan. It feeds two rivers, Nubra and Shyok, of which Shyok then feeds into the Indus. The Indus water system remains eternally dependent on what happens to these glaciers and to their life over the coming centuries.

If under the weight of external defacement by troop presence and associated activity, the river sources dry, the entire civilisational system of the Indus valley will be disrupted. Dependent on water as the source of life and thus in its absence facing certain extinction hordes, nay civilisations, will migrate into adjoining regions causing chaos and disruption never experienced before. If that doesn’t endanger life, regional and global stability, what else will?

Siachen has gotten more warped in countless complexities with time. What may have just begun as a pre-emptive up-man-ship between the two competitive neighbours has now developed a life of its own, difficult to shed and difficult to untangle. The only strategic significance thus that needs to be played in the issue of Siachen is the tenuous civilisational future in South Asia. The loss of the 139 soldiers in the Gayari sector of Siachen and the 8000 others that have been lost mostly to elements cry for rectifying a serious strategic miscalculation. It must be righted forthwith. The short term geo-strategic interest may only prove to be some dastardly distraction. Avoid it!

The writer is a retired air-vice marshal of the Pakistan Air Force and served as its deputy chief of staff. Email: shhzdchdhry @yahoo.com
-The News

April 19, 2012
Taj M Khattak

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s acceptance of President Zardari’s invitation to visit Pakistan has not raised many expectations here regarding improvement of relations between the two countries. The reasons for this lack of enthusiasm are fairly obvious: 1. India’s insistence during the last 45 years to restrict all discourse on resolution of outstanding disputes, to a bilateral framework but one that lacks a sense of purpose, has caused stagnation in the whole process of normalisation; 2. Congress’ position in the UPA government in India is the weakest since 1996, when Narsimha Rao lost power; 3.Eeven if Zardari retains presidency till the year’s end, he has nothing to offer except perhaps reciprocate the culinary hospitality.

Bilateralism is enshrined in the UN Charter and there is nothing wrong with it per se. In fact, India and Pakistan are the only countries which have reinforced it further by establishing formal regimes of principles in successive agreements at Tashkent (1966), Simla (1972) and Lahore (1999) for conducting bilateral relations and settlement of disputes when inter-state obligations were already conjoined with the UN charter. But the problem arises when the stronger of the two countries employs it negatively by neither engaging in meaningful negotiations nor agreeing to alternative international mechanisms for conflict resolution between sovereign states. This over-committal in letter has never been matched in spirit to implement the substantive and vast regime of these accords. The most important principle of non-interference in each other’s affairs, stressed repeatedly in the agreements, has seldom been followed.

The 1965 war didn’t end on an unfavourable note for Pakistan. It is therefore surprising that Ayub Khan, with assistance from his brilliant Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, agreed to include the bilateralism clause in the agreement at Tashkent. It is well-known that their parting of ways began at Tashkent, but there is no evidence to suggest that the discord stemmed from this clause, which has since been used by India to gridlock Pakistan in its quest for early resolution of outstanding issues with its eastern neighbour. Was it lack of vision on our part, or would Pakistan have been any better if relations between Ayub and Bhutto were more cordial, have little relevance today. The cynics go a step further in suggesting that Lal Bahadur Shastri actually died out of jubilation for having tied Pakistan in knots for all times to come.

At Simla, India and Pakistan resolved “to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means agreed upon between them.” This has not only been a failure, it has also blocked the way for other efforts in neutral settings with better prospects for eve n handedness and acceptance in the street of any accords reached.

It is true that Bhutto had very few cards in his hand when he arrived in India after Pakistan had lost half the country, but by agreeing to the concept of bilateralism with a country which only a year earlier had violated all international norms and conventions and dismembered Pakistan, he repeated Ayub’s folly of foreclosing all other options to the dictates of an intransigent Indian establishment. If Ayub Khan was out of his depth at Tashkent, Bhutto wasn’t much different at Simla, such being the perpetual deficit in national leadership.

All the three agreements have been formulated around Jammu and Kashmir. While Tashkent and Simla agreements mention it as a core dispute, the Lahore Declaration refers to it as a constituent or one of the disputes needing redress. But Musharaf’s unwise climb to Kargil’s heights or Nawaz Sharif’s dash to Washington are unrelated to the Lahore Declaration. They simply lacked the vision required of their exalted offices, or else they wouldn’t have precipitated a crisis of that magnitude and raised the nuclear spectre as if nuclear weapons were an inventory of mainstream weaponry and not weapons of mutually assured mass destruction to wipe out both populations.

In substance, Indo-Pakistani relations have made little progress towards normalisation within the framework of bilateralism. It has to be said that we too didn’t quite discharge our obligations with respect to Azad Kashmir’s status as stipulated in the August 1948 UNCIP Resolution. The induction of a massive military force in Indian-held Kashmir for years and untold human rights abuses not visible to the UN or powers presenting themselves as defenders of the violated and oppressed, has now turned the once solvable dispute into perpetual and unending agony.

India may have succeeded in dragging on the disputes over decades but it has created more complications to the detriment of people in both countries. Mutual suspicions have accelerated the nuclear race in the region. More dangerously, the deadlock is pushing people in Pakistan towards use of religion as a vehicle for resistance against injustices towards Kashmiri Muslims in and againstIndian domination. The latest evidence of this phenomenon is the emergence of Difa-i-Pakistan Council to add to the already large number of religious outfits which thrive on anti-Indian sentiments; anti-US feelings being a relatively newer phenomenon.

Mixing religion with politics is dangerous everywhere since so much blood has been spilled in its name, but more so in the Indo-Pakistani historical context. The perception that Islam is a proven force of resistance against injustices and attempts at domination by unfriendly states is attracting greater following in the Islamic world, and Pakistan is no exception. In Egypt, for instance, the call to Islam by the Muslim Brotherhood has been used against successive dictatorial regimes for years. These days, it has been turned against Israel quite successfully, thus tearing up the once historic Camp David agreement. The only way to reduce space for religion in politics is to follow far-sighted and intelligent political policies, where people can genuinely hope for justice and a fulfilment of their dreams and aspirations.

If bilateralism isn’t working, there is no harm in resorting to other mechanisms, just as Bangladesh and Myanmar have done, resolving their outstanding dispute over delimitations of the boundaries in the exclusive economic zones and on the continental shelf through arbitration by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Germany. The commission awarded a 110,000-square- kilometres sea stretch in the EEZ and the outer continental shelf to Bangladesh, the immediate impact of which is that the country will now be able to carry out exploration in several potentially promising offshore blocks. It is now intending to follow the same route with India, which will be interesting, since historically, India has not yielded an inch of land or sea to any of its neighbours in its territorial demarcations. The impact of demarcation of Sir Creek on the EEZ and outer continental shelf in terms of area is much less than the Bangladesh-Myanmar dispute over the status of St Martin Island at the mouth of Naaf River.

The MFN status to India and any intentions to follow the India-China trade model is unlikely to help as it will always be relationship without a soul, besides each trade relationship has its own distinct motherboard circuitry. India-China trade has touched the $70 billions mark because it is not weighed down by the historical baggage of the India-Pakistan variety. Global trade is in a state of constant flux. The German Central Bank today has succeeded where the country’s Panzer Division failed in World War II: control of Europe. Will the Indian businessman overwhelm us where New Delhi’s Cold Start Doctrine failed? That is a genuine apprehension, and one hopes not.

We are in an age of strategic alliances where India and Pakistan stand to gain a great deal from fair and mutually beneficent trade with a sharp eye to simultaneously improving the regional environments. A suggested starting point: defrost bilateralism; explore its scope to benefit from its wisdom. Alternatively, disengage from it and examine other international avenues.

The writer is a retired vice admiral. Email: tajkhattak@ymail.com
-The News

April 19, 2012
Farrukh Saleem

In 1981, the generals of Bharatiya Thalsena, the Indian Army, and the air marshals of Bharatiya Vayu Sena, the Indian Air Force, began planning to capture some 3,000 square kilometres of Pakistani territory, including all major passes of the Saltoro Ridge one as high as 18,665 ft above sea level. In 1982, troops from the Kumaon Regiment were ‘acclimatised to the extremities of glacier warfare through a training expedition to Antarctica’ under the Indian Antarctic Programme.

In early April 1984, Operation Meghdoot, after the divine cloud messenger Meghaduta, was launched. Bharatiya Vayu Sena used Ilyushin Il-76, strategic air-lifters to airdrop supplies and Aerospatiale Allouette III utility helicopters to transport personnel. A full battalion of the Kumaon (Infantry) Regiment, with its regimental centre in Ranikhet, and units of Ladakh Scouts, the Snow Warriors, also an infantry regiment specialising in high-altitude mountain warfare, was ordered to move on foot to avoid detection. By April 13, around 300 Indian troops, equipped with Arctic battle gear, had captured Sia La, Gyong La and Bilafond La, the three major passes of the Saltoro Ridge.

Cost of Operation Meghdoot: $3.5 billion – a startling $3.5 billion spent just to capture barren, icy heights that attracted little or no strategic attention for a full thirty-seven years since 1947. India’s 28-year accumulated Siachen tab, in addition to Operation Meghdoot, stands at a colossal $10 billion. Currently, India spends an average of $1 million a day every day of the year (Pakistan’s costs run about two-third of India’s because of favourable land access).

A few days after April 13, Pakistani troops advanced to control the glacial valley -and block the Indian movement – approximately 5 km west of Gyong La. The Pak Army then raised an SSG garrison in Khapalu some 40 km from Saltoro and in 1987 Brigadier Pervez Musharraf led a daring but unsuccessful mission to retake Bilafond La. There have been other rather courageous assaults in 1990, 1995, 1996 and 1999 but India has managed to retain heights occupied in 1984.

The coldest of all cold wars has been on for more 10,000 days. Both armies refuse to disclose casualties but on average a soldier dies every day of the year not from enemy fire but from frost bites and avalanches. According to Dr Maleeha Lodhi, India and Pakistan have held twelve rounds of talks between December 1985 and May 2011. On June 17, 1989, a Pakistan-India joint statement stated that there was an agreement on the “redeployment of forces” in Siachen. Apparently, PM Gandhi failed to sell the agreement to the Indian Army. And the war went on – and goes on.

The Pak Army has offered to withdraw to pre-1984 positions. The Indian Army, the biggest of all impediments to a resolution, is adamant on Pakistan’s acceptance of the so-called actual ground position line (AGPL). And the war goes on, soldiers continue to die.

The most logical of all logical resolutions of the Siachen blunder is for both the armies to unconditionally withdraw to pre-April 1984 positions. But that is not acceptable to Bharatiya Thalsena. For the Pak Army ‘aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed’.

The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email: farrukh15@ hotmail.com
-The News

April 19, 2012
By Ahmad Rafay Alam

The avalanche that engulfed the Gayari camp located on the Siachen Glacier, burying 124 soldiers and 14 civilians, is a national tragedy. It has also brought attention to the Siachen Glacier conflict and questions are now rightly being asked of the tactical and strategic importance of having troops posted on the world’s highest battlefield.

Nawaz Sharif has called for Pakistan to be sensible and to withdraw its troops from Siachen. This is the first time I can think of a mainstream Pakistani politician (and former prime minister) calling for a troop withdrawal with respect to India.

For a number of years now, several academics and environmental activists, have been arguing that the environment can be an effective means of conflict resolution. Specifically, he has been advocating for both sides to declare the Siachen Glacier a peace park. He is not alone. Civil society, opinion makers and academics from around the world have been advocating the same.

The IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas has nearly 200 transboundary protected areas. The UNESCO world heritage list identifies important natural heritage. There are also numerous examples of transboundary management of contiguous protected areas where countries have joined hands for the preservation of the environment. There are too many instances to list here, but noteworthy examples are the cooperatively managed Indian Kutch Desert Wildlife Sanctuary and Rann of Kutch Wildlife Sanctuaries. Even Israel, Egypt and Jordan have recognised the paramount importance of the environment and have agreed to jointly manage the marine ecosystem near the Sharm-el Sheikh Peninsula.

There is good reason to be concerned about the environment in Siachen. It is the world’s largest non-polar glacier and sits — along with the other glaciers of the Hindukush, Karakoram and the Himalayan ranges — on the earth’s Third Pole: the waters of these glaciers provide food and drinking water to nearly one billion people. Both India and Pakistan are extremely vulnerable to climate change and face similar food and water security issues. Meanwhile, Siachen has turned into the world’s highest waste dump as none of the supplies, food, oil, equipment — and quite often soldiers — ever return. The IUCN has estimated that the Indian occupation of the Glacier results in about 2,000 pounds of human waste being dumped into it every day. Information about the Pakistani side is tough to come by, but Colonel (retd) Tahir Kardar told me that it includes a helicopter that landed, froze and could never be salvaged.

The human occupation of Siachen is an environmental hazard. The effects of climate change on glaciers is a subject of topical concern, but little research on Siachen has been undertaken because of security issues. The waste produced at the Glacier feeds the Nubra River and then flows into the Shyok River and eventually joins the Indus.

In an excellent paper published in the Stanford Law Review, Neal A Kemkar set out strong grounds for legal intervention because of these environmental concerns. Both India and Pakistan are signatories to the Rio Declaration of 1992, which states that “States shall … respect international law providing for the environment in times of armed conflict”. Both countries are also signatories to the Hague Conventions, Geneva Convention and Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification, which all stress on the four fundamental principles armed conflict must follow: necessity, proportionality, selectivity and humanity. The Siachen Glacier dispute, in terms of lives and money cost versus strategic benefit obtained, fails on these counts.

Both countries also have robust environmental rights and laws. The Supreme Courts of both countries recognise the fundamental rights of citizens to a clean and healthy environment, as well as access to unpolluted water. Both countries also have legislation that protects the environment. However, the problem with the legislation is that it is of the ’command and control’ variety, in that it sets limits for pollution in industry and then enforces those limits. However, neither state has an industry on Siachen to command or control. The Glacier is in the control of the armed forces and the governments of India and Pakistan do not have control over the Siachen ecosystem. Herein lies the problem.

Both countries can make enormous headway using the environment as a platform of exchange. The platform is uncorrupted by Kashmir, the war on terror or other issues that form the composite dialogue. A declaration or accord recognising both countries’ commitment to protecting the environment and acknowledging the challenges of climate change could easily pave the way for a Siachen peace park management system, where elected representatives from either side act as co-chairs along with representatives from the armed forces and an international NGO (such as the IUCN or the WWF), and line ministries could set about demilitarising the Glacier and preparing a transition of control from the military to environment managers. The international goodwill that would be generated by such an act could also be leveraged by either country to its advantage.

The Express Tribune

April 19, 2012
SHAHID ZAHUR, Rawalpindi

Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani also expressed his desire that the Siachen issue should be solved and more money be spent for the welfare of the people instead. Peaceful coexistence is the solution for moving forward in all the fields. The resent natural calamity at Siachen in Gayari sector has brought the more than 30 years old dispute at lime light. The human losses at this sector run in thousands from both sides. The casualties are not due to the fight between India and Pakistan but due to exceptionally harsh weather. A lot of resources of these two poor neighbors are being spent in this futile issue instead of fighting the poverty and illiteracy. Pakistan has asked the Indians number of times for resolving the different issues through dialogue but unfortunately the response from other side is always lukewarm. I think gone are the days of occupying or capturing land of other countries; therefore the solution of all the problems is talking to each other. Ex prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharief has spoken in favour of solving this issue and most of the people also have the same opinion. In the past it has been blamed by the politicians that powerful army of Pakistan is not in favour of solving the issue and wants to keep the pot boiling. Now the opportunity must be seized by both the democratic governments to solve this issue for the betterment of the people. The hardliners or hawks have kept hostage the governments and people of India and Pakistan for any settlement of the disputes. Attempts or initiative made by different leaders have been foiled by these so called self proclaimed custodians of ideologies of both countries. The bold initiatives are required to break the shackles of ego and statuesque. There is also a realization on both sides of the border that irritants must be solved as said by Mr Shatrogun sinha in a TV show on 17th April 2012. Number of confidence building measures has been taken by Pakistan and India, like giving the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India, meeting of President Asif Ali Zardari to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, resumption of dialogue and discussion on Turkministan-Afganistan-India and Pakistan (TAPI) gas pipeline. India is spending huge amount on defence which can be diverted for the welfare and prosperity of the people. The whopping $38.6 billion budget for the year 2012-13 is having 17 per cent substantial increase from the yester year’s defence budget and India is the number one buyer of the weapons since last 5 years. Soviet Union collapsed due to huge spending in defence and I am afraid that same may be the case with India. Pakistan has always tried to go an extra mile in having good relations with India but unfortunately response from other side is very slow. No progress has been made since last 64 years on the issues of Kashmir, Sir Creek and Siachen and the water storage. The need of the hour is that both countries should make concerted efforts and fight against poverty, illiteracy, terrorism and fanaticism and give their people a prosperous and happy future.

April 20, 2012
By Kuldip Nayar

It is churlish on the part of a few Indian circles to oppose a visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh until Pakistan makes amends for the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai. The matter is before the courts of both countries and everyone should wait till the process of justice is complete.

Similarly, I do not understand why some elements in Pakistan are making noise over an 18-hour visit to India by President Asif Ali Zardari. People should take into consideration that the ice has been broken after the Zardari-Manmohan Singh meeting. There is suddenly an atmosphere of give-and-take at the highest level. This will help peace efforts.

Two words that Manmohan Singh used after his meeting with Zardari at Delhi have been missed in the midst of media hype and extra caution on the part of officials. He said that they discussed all problems between India and Pakistan and found “pragmatic and practical” solutions. In other words, both leaders went beyond the official and public line on Kashmir and other pending issues.

Whether and how the solutions they discussed would be implemented is not possible to guess. Essentially, the steps they would take are dependent on the consensus they are able to build in their respective countries. The Zardari government has been left with less than a year before it faces fresh elections. It has many masters to placate to retain a majority in the National Assembly. And then the biggest party is the army, which is the country’s third chamber.

Zardari was himself conscious of the forces he had to reckon with. Therefore, he met the Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani at Lahore before leaving for Delhi. Zardari — by now an astute politician — must have been briefed about the contours within which he had to stay.

Manmohan Singh is adept in compulsions of the coalition dharma. The support accorded to Zardari’s visit by former Indian foreign minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha indicates that the party known to have an anti-Pakistan image also backs steps for normalisation. This makes things easier. Manmohan Singh’s problem will be from within his own party. One indication was the absence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi from the lunch given in honour of President Zardari. She — who monopolises the party — did not consider her participation important.

The most charitable explanation of her absence is that Sonia Gandhi wanted her son, Rahul Gandhi, to get all the limelight when he was introduced to the heir apparent, Bilawal Zardari, son of Benazir Bhutto and grandson of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Maybe, she would have emerged in a better light if she had blessed the scions of the new generations of the two dynasties.

Zardari’s visit — which began with a pilgrimage to Ajmer and developed into a political event — has made Manmohan Singh’s trip to Pakistan easier. Both sides have discussed ways to accelerate the process of prosecution of LeT detainees in Pakistan. Yet, this legal or somewhat motivated delay must not come in the way of Manmohan Singh’s visit. At stake is missing the aperture which Zardari’s one-to-one 40-minute talk has provided.

It is apparent that the alleged mastermind of the 26/11 attacks, Hafiz Saeed, was discussed in detail. Zardari must have felt that action against Hafiz Saeed is a litmus test, which will enable India to measure whether Pakistan is really keen on punishing those who attacked Mumbai from its soil. Pakistan, too, is beleaguered by the elements which Hafiz Saeed has unleashed. This calls for a firm action. What is needed is a joint mechanism to eliminate the Taliban.

Now that the American and Nato forces would be leaving the region in another two years, it is imperative for New Delhi and Islamabad to think of filling the resultant vacuum. Kabul’s sovereignty is important, more so because it is bearing the brunt of the Taliban.

Pakistan has experienced how the Taliban behaved when they took over the Swat valley. Pakistan does not have the resources to fight this battle alone, particularly at a time when relations with the US are turning sour.

The Express Tribune

April 22, 2012
By Aakar Patel

The first time I came to Pakistan, I was taken aback at how good some of the infrastructure was. The airports at Karachi and Lahore were small, but they were efficient and well designed. I think my host told me the Japanese had built one or both of them, and those airports were a very different thing from the ones I had just taken off from in India.

This was when the government made airports, and as with all things the Indian government takes up, our airports were clumsy and barely functional. But a few years later this changed. Today the airports at Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore are pretty good. They are not world class (nothing in India can ever be), but they are not embarrassing as the earlier ones were.

The differences that I had thought were significant, turned out not to be so.

This led me to think of how similar we were as nations. Not in the sense that Mohammad Ali Jinnah meant. I think it is fairly obvious that the character of India and of Pakistan is different when we observe their Constitutions. India’s secularism is fundamentally Hindu in its nature. Pakistan’s Constitution is Islamic by design and in appearance. Though this is an important aspect of nationhood, it is only one aspect.

What I mean is how we are one nation in all the negative aspects. It is difficult to find a country whose people are more filthy than those in India and Pakistan. Our neighbourhoods and streets are among the most shameful in the world because we are selfish and blind to the concern of others. Delhi’s drivers are as terrible as those in Lahore (and the women of Delhi and Lahore would concur on the behaviour of the loutish men of those cities). Half of us are illiterate and the half who are literate don’t really read much. The comments sections of Indian and Pakistani websites are the most dreadful in the world, without qualification. Hateful and pedantic, the product of minds who are only functionally literate. We think time will bring some big change in our society but it is not easy to see where this change is going to come from.

I know of few other nations where people would not be embarrassed at the thought of keeping servants. Few cultures would be so unaffected, so uncaring of privacy to not mind the constant presence of a servant in the house. I am not even talking about the bestial manner in which we treat them, because every reader of this piece, whether Indian or Pakistani already knows what I mean.

We divide ourselves into nations based on things like which animal the other eats or does not eat. The outsider probably sees no difference between us, and rightly so.

We produce very little that is of meaning to the outside world, and it is tough to think of what our contribution is to the nations from whom we take so much. In science and technology we have nothing to offer the West, despite the boasts of Indians that we gave the world Arabic numerals and zero (I agree with that; we have given the world zero).

Pakistanis stake claim to Islam’s golden age. The Jang columnist, Hassan Nisar, often takes up this point. He says that the Arabs laugh when Pakistanis own Islam’s achievements. What aspect of the conquest of Spain or the scientific revolution in Baghdad did Punjabis and Sindhis participate in?

To the world we are one people in that sense.

My friend Colonel (retd) Iftikhar, from General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s batch in the Pakistan Military Academy, said he discovered this horrifying fact when he went to Makkah a few decades ago for Haj. He met some Saudis, one of whom asked him where he was from. “Lahore”, said Ifti. “Where’s that”, the Saudi asked (this was in the 1970s). “Pakistan”, said Ifti proudly. “Where’s that”, the puzzled Saudi asked. Ifti took out a map and pointed. “Ah”, said the Saudi to his friends, “he’s Hindi”.

Our problems are so primitive that they should make us stop and mend ourselves immediately. But they don’t seem to affect us at all. Our media carry on like we are normal people. Reading the militant bombast of the strategic affairs experts in newspapers of these two nations, the outsider would never suspect that these were two nations unable to even keep their public toilets clean.

The Express Tribune

April 23, 2012
Asif Ezdi

Last Tuesday, ten days after a battalion headquarters of the Pakistani army in the Gyari sector of Siachen was engulfed by a massive landslide, Nawaz Sharif became the country’s first political leader to visit the area. Zardari followed the next day, when he left the presidential bunker for a few hours to make the obligatory journey. Both of them viewed the avalanche site from their helicopters. Neither of them undertook the jeep ride-admittedly not very comfortable-to the place of the disaster.

After his aerial tour, Zardari expressed appreciation for the efforts being made by the army in the search-and-rescue operation and-through a press release of the government – ”paid glowing tributes to the valiant soldiers.” But, inexplicably, he did not personally utter a single word to express sympathy for those who lie buried under a mountain of rock and ice, and for their families.

The government and the political parties have also failed in other ways to give expression to the sentiments of the public over this calamity. The business of government cannot be stopped, but a countrywide dua could have been held for those who have been separated from us while protecting the country from foreign incursion. For their part, our political parties could have called a truce in the mutual mudslinging that passes for politics in our country.

Some of our private TV channels have followed the same business-as-usual attitude. They could at least have suspended their entertainment programmes for the duration of the search-and-rescue operation. Our “civil society,” quite well-rehearsed in holding vigils when people of their own class are victims, has also not bestirred itself into action over Gayari.

Nawaz Sharif became the first, and so far only, national political figure to have visited the families of the Gayari victims to offer his sympathies. But much of what he said to the media at Skardu that day on the Siachen dispute betrays a poor knowledge of the facts and an even poorer understanding of the dynamics of the problem.

Nawaz again harped on his talks with Vajpayee in 1999 at the Lahore Summit and called upon governments in both countries to follow up on the dialogue on Siachen that he had launched at the time. Nawaz does not seem to know that Siachen remains a fixed item on the agenda of the bilateral dialogue. The 12th session of this series was held last May and the next round is due in Islamabad shortly.

The two countries reached an understanding on demilitarisation of the glacier in 1989 but the finalisation of an agreement was scuttled by Indian hawks. India has since then been inflexible in its demand that demilitarisation should be preceded by delineation of the AGPL (Actual Ground Position Line) and the authentication of the military positions on the map. Naturally, this condition is not acceptable to Pakistan as it would amount to legitimising India’s incursion into Siachen in violation of the Simla Agreement.

In an editorial last Thursday, a Karachi newspaper famous for its pro-India proclivities suggested that Pakistan should agree to the Indian demand for recording the current ground positions on a map, as a way of getting the Indians to climb down from the heights that they have occupied. However, such a concession by Pakistan is unlikely to be acceptable to mainstream public opinion in the country.

Some sections of our press have carried reports saying that India has welcomed Kayani’s call for demilitarisation of Siachen. This is not quite true. All that Indian minister of state for defence Pallam Raju said was that he was glad Pakistan also “realised the challenges and the economic problems of maintaining troops on the Siachen Glacier.”

There is in fact little ground for any optimism that Delhi would moderate its stance on Siachen after the Gayari tragedy, or in response to the peace overtures of Pakistan’s political and military leadership. On the contrary, the expectation among many Indian experts is that Pakistan will now become more amenable to the Indian demand for authentication of ground positions prior to demilitarisation and withdrawal of troops.

This viewpoint would no doubt gain weight from the dovish noises made by Nawaz and by a few of our “liberal” commentators. That, in turn, could induce Indian policymakers to further dig in their heels, making a mutual accommodation between the two sides on the Siachen dispute even less likely.

As regards the impact of Kayani’s demilitarisation call on future bilateral negotiations on Siachen, The Times of India reported last week that a breakthrough is regarded by the Indian establishment as “elusive” unless Islamabad agrees to authenticate the ground positions of the troops. In other words, there would be no change in the Indian stance. After Kargil, the newspaper went on, the Indian army is even more wary of Pakistani intentions.

A fresh justification being advanced by India now for its refusal to honour the bilateral understanding on troop redeployment reached in 1989 is the alleged presence of Chinese construction and engineering teams in Gilgit-Baltistan. One Indian “security analyst” writes that any ultimate agreement on Siachen has to be part of an overall package that would address not only India’s concerns relating to the “increasing Chinese presence” in the area but also the “suppression of the Shias of Gilgit-Baltistan who have ethnic links with the Shias of (Indian-occupied) Jammu and Kashmir.”

In his meeting with the press last week in Skardu, Nawaz was reported to have called for the unilateral withdrawal of Pakistani troops from Siachen. He has since denied having made this proposal. But he still maintains his belief that “if we withdraw the army from Siachen, India would definitely withdraw too.” “Considering my political career as two-time prime minister,” he said, “everyone should trust my opinion.” He still does not seem to know how little the people of Pakistan trust his “opinion” after his two failed terms as prime minister.

Besides calling for troop withdrawal from Siachen, Nawaz also demanded that the money spent on the troops should instead be used to improve the lot of the common man. It is true, as Kayani said a day later, that the country cannot “keep spending on defence alone and forget about development.” But economic development requires an atmosphere of internal and external security. And security comes with a price tag. That price has to be paid by the soldiers with their blood and their lives and by the citizens with the payment of taxes.

While Nawaz called for diverting funds from defence to development, he did not say anything about the payment of taxes. Because our ruling classes cheat on their taxes, Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio is just 10.2 percent. That ratio is 15.3 percent in Sri Lanka and 17.7 percent in India. If we reach the tax rate of Sri Lanka, we would generate nearly $10 billion in additional revenue per year, or nearly twice our current defence expenditure; and if we attain the same ratio as India, we would have additional revenue of $15 billion.

As regards our defence budget, it is doubtful that we can cut it down drastically, given our security environment. According to figures on global military spending released by SIPRI last Monday, Pakistan spent $5.685 billion on defence in 2011. This compares with $44.282 billion spent by India, 7.8 times that of Pakistan. Pakistan’s defence expenditure as a share of GDP was 2.8 percent, while that of India was 2.7 percent of its GDP.

We definitely need to spend far more on our economic and social development, but without compromising our defences. The money for development should come instead from the pockets of members of our ruling classes who do not pay their taxes and who siphon way national wealth through rampant corruption.

Email: asifezdi@yahoo.com
-The News