Siachen conflict: 'A struggle of two bald men over a comb'

[Sugarcane]

Siachen: India must offer Pak a dignified solution

Amidst alarmist rumours that track-two parleys between India and Pakistan are urging India to 'give up Siachen', Myra MacDonald tells Shivam Vij in an e-mail interview why resolving Siachen without resolving the Jammu and Kashmir dispute may not be easy.

Myra MacDonald is a London-based journalist with Reuters and a long-time observer of South Asia.

She tracks the turning points in Pakistan politics at the Reuters Pakistan blog

MacDonald is best known for her book on the Siachen conflict, Heights of Madness: One Woman's Journey in Pursuit of a Secret War. Published in 2007, the research for the book took her to both sides of the conflict, on helicopter and on ground.

She was bureau chief of Reuters in India between 2000 and 2003.

She then took leave of absence to research the Siachen conflict, becoming one of the very few people to visit the war zone on both the Indian and Pakistani sides. She has given presentations on Siachen to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Amidst alarmist rumours that track-two parleys between India and Pakistan are urging India to 'give up Siachen', MacDonald tells Shivam Vij in an e-mail interview why resolving Siachen without resolving the Jammu and Kashmir dispute may not be easy.

The idea of demilitarising Siachen is being seen by some in India as a demand to hand Siachen over to Pakistan, or at the very least, to 'lose' the territory for which Indian soldiers have made great sacrifices.

Do you agree with such an interpretation of demilitarising the glacier? Do you think India has real strategic advantage with its occupation of the glacier?

The first thing to understand is that the conflict has not been fought over the glacier itself, but for control of the passes on the Saltoro ridge which overlooks Siachen and separates it from Baltistan.

Pakistan has no troops on the glacier itself, and India controls most of the higher positions. There is no strategic advantage in controlling these passes and never has been -- the idea sometimes floated that the Pakistan army could use these to link up with China and threaten India makes no sense when you see how difficult the terrain is.

That said, it is understandable that the Indian Army, having fought so hard for control of the higher positions in the region, would not want to give these up without some kind of guarantee from Pakistan that it would not occupy posts which India had vacated.

India has a greater share of the blame

Siachen was an un-militarised, un-inihabited glacier until 1984.

In both Indian and Pakistani narratives it is the other side that is responsible for the April 1984 skirmish that began the Siachen conflict.

While the Pakistanis say India was the aggressor, Indians says it had to occupy Siachen because Pakistan was conducting mountaineering expeditions there.

What is the truth? Can the responsibility of having started the Siachen conflict be fixed on one side?

Both sides bear some responsibility for the events that led to the outbreak of war in Siachen in April 1984, but on balance India has a greater share of the blame for setting those events in motion.

The origins of the conflict go back to before 1978, when Pakistan authorised foreign mountaineering expeditions to the Siachen glacier.

This was not unreasonable -- access to the glacier historically was far easier from the Baltistan side, across the Bilafond-la, the main pass through the Saltoro.

At some point, foreign maps began wrongly to mark Siachen as Pakistani territory, and this was used as an excuse by India to send a military mountaineering expedition to explore the glacier.

As India continued to send military mountaineering expeditions each summer to the glacier, Pakistan in turn became alarmed, sending its own men to investigate, and in the atmosphere of distrust in South Asia, mountaineering expeditions morphed into military patrols.

Reading the protest notes sent at the time, it is clear that Pakistan genuinely believed India was intruding on its territory -- it is also clear that with dialogue, the problem could have been resolved.

Instead, India decided to send troops in the summer of 1984 to occupy the passes; Pakistan, worried about Indian intentions, prepared its own plan to move in; and India -- by bringing forward its operation to April managed to get there first.

135 Pakistani soldiers and civilian staff died in an avalanche in the Gyari sector near Siachen earlier this year, but heavy costs in terms of life and limb have also been paid by the Indian Army in Siachen.

Why then do you think the Pakistanis rather than the Indians are keener for a quick resolution to Siachen?

Before the avalanche at Gyari, there was no practical reason for Pakistan being keener than India for a quick resolution to Siachen.

Since India occupies the higher positions, it has longer supply routes and is more dependent on helicopters for supplies -- it is therefore costlier for India to keep the war going and tougher on its troops.

The reasons for Pakistan wanting the conflict solved are political -- or even emotional -- rather than practical.

Pakistan has always seen the Indian occupation of Siachen in 1984 as an act of aggression in breach of the Simla agreement which states that no attempt should be made to change the Line of Control by force.

The LoC had been demarcated only as far as map grid reference point NJ9842, from where it was to continue 'thence north to the glaciers.'

Pakistan believes the LoC should continue to join up with the Karakoram Pass, giving it control of most of Siachen; India says it should follow the natural watershed -- the Saltoro ridge, giving it control of the glacier.

While it is possible to argue both claims, it is certainly fair to say that by occupying the passes, India did try to change the direction of the LoC by force -- thus making it the guilty party in breaching the Simla accords.

This is important in the context of the mindset of the Pakistan army, which is keen to assert that it is not wrong in seeing India as a threat.

The fact that India moved into Siachen first is also frequently cited by Pakistanis as justification for its subsequent military operation across the Line of Control in Kargil in 1999 -- for which they were internationally, and they say, unfairly, criticised.

India is not geared towards finding a compromise


The Indian Army insists that demilitarising Siachen must be preceded by recording existing troop positions, but the Pakistani point of view is that that would amount to legitimising Indian control of a disputed territory.

For a short-term demilitarisation without prejudice to the eventual settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, do you think the Indian position is a reasonable one?

India has shifted over the years towards a maximalist position of insisting Pakistan recognise its control over Siachen and the passes before any withdrawal.

Recently, I have seen some articles extending this further -- arguing that since India claims all of the former kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir, including Baltistan, it had every right to occupy Siachen.

Were Pakistan to accept this, it would be, in its eyes, acknowledging India's right to change the Line of Control by force and exonerating it from an act of aggression.

For comparison, it is worth looking at draft agreements floated as far back as 1989, under which both sides would agree a withdrawal and the Indian positions marked only in an annex to the main accord -- a diplomatic finesse which would allow both countries to claim victory.

The Indian position is understandable in as much as it does not want to give up hard-won gains; but is not geared towards finding a compromise that would allow Pakistan to withdraw with a modicum of dignity.

India and Pakistan should run joint scientific expeditions in Siachen

Although a ceasefire was declared in Siachen only in 2003, New Delhi and Islamabad came close to an agreement in 1992 to make Siachen a 'zone of disengagement.'

But India, and two years later Pakistan, went back from the proposed solution.

India hardened its position on Siachen in 1998 and especially after the Kargil war of 1999.

Do you think the 1992 draft can still guide a settlement?

The Kargil incursion by Pakistan sought to cut off Siachen from India and thus hardened the Indian Army's stance over Siachen.

In consequence, would any solution of the Siachen conflict be beholden to the larger J&K dispute?

After Kargil, it seems impossible to agree a withdrawal without a framework agreement on the larger J&K dispute.

There are practical reasons for this -- over the years the Siachen battlefield has sprawled outwards, so much so that posts eventually linked up with those in the Kargil sector of the Line of Control.

Any agreement to demilitarise Siachen would now require a similar willingness to demilitarise the LoC.

The 2008 attack on Mumbai has also further reduced Indian readiness to make any territorial concessions.

However, some small steps could be taken as a show of goodwill. The most obvious would be for India and Pakistan to run joint scientific expeditions in Siachen to establish how much the environment has been damaged by the war and by climate change.

The Gyari disaster should be a warning to both sides that their troops are more vulnerable to an unpredictable increase in avalanches.

Joint expeditions would at least get India and Pakistan working together and, perhaps more importantly, provide an important signal that both countries still consider the Siachen region as 'disputed.'

Otherwise, we are in danger of slipping in Siachen into the same deadlock that prevails over J&K as a whole, which Pakistan says is disputed territory and India says is not disputed.

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[Sugarcane]

Siachen conflict: 'A struggle of two bald men over a comb'

The issue of Siachen is not complicated like the issue of Kashmir; it could be resolved overnight but needs serious consideration, says Tahir Ali.*

"If somebody wants to see hell on earth he should see Siachen," says a Pakistani soldier who has served his tenure in Siachen Glacier.

Siachen was in the news on April 7 when around 150 Pakistani soldiers and civilians were buried 20 feet deep under an indifferent glacier that has brought darkness into the lives of their families. Rescue attempts were foiled by the weather from the very start, which prevented rescuers from reaching the site. Bulldozers and excavators are being used to shift the ice but due to the harsh conditions progress is slow. Four days after the incident not one victim had been located, dead or alive and their chances of survival are very little now.

The Siachen Glacier is the longest glacier in the Karakoram and second-longest in the world's non-polar areas. 'Sia' in the Balti Language refers to the rose family plant, found in the region. 'Chun' references any object found in abundance, so in an ironic twist, Siachen refers to a land with an abundance of roses. In reality, Siachen, instead of roses, presents thorns to the soldiers, of both India and Pakistan.

In Siachen the soldiers are dying for nothing

Siachen is equally dangerous for Hindustani and Pakistani security forces. According to an estimate each year 100 Pakistani soldiers and 200 Indian soldiers are killed by avalanches or inclement weather. Soilders are lost in battles, but it is for a cause. However, in Siachen the case is totally different; the security personnel of both the countries are dying for nothing.

Who could be held accountable for these killing? In a country like Pakistan where civilians and soldiers are being killed in drone attacks, activities of the Taliban or in street battles, in Siachen the weather shows its unpredictable temperament by burying the innocent soldiers.

There is a famous Pashtu saying, 'Ka day Buner ta talay na way mar ba na way' (If he did not visit Buner he would never die.). The question is, who hands these innocent soldiers over to the mercy of the harsh weather.

I dare not venture out to count stars in this part of the world

Stephen P Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution writes about the Siachen Glacier conflict, "It 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.

The Siachen conflict is like a struggle of two bald men over a comb."

Unfortunately, the miseries of these soldiers are highlighted when incidents like that of April 7 take place, but no one cares for the lives of the soldiers at the Siachen Glacier. Last week a Pakistani newspaper published an account of a soldier who had served his tenure at Siachen. The soldier narrates, "My room, call it my studio apartment, is a typical bunker, built on self-help basis, thanks to our meager resources.

Carved out from a hillock, it is a classical one-window room of 14 10 feet. The 10-foot high ceiling had 70 girders. Trivial information, you say? I count them every night before I can sleep. No, I have not grown insomniac, but I dare not venture out to count stars in this part of the world. On one side, the empty cartons have been arranged, covered by gunny bags; the other wall supports the bed (an arrangement of empty cartons) upon which lies an air mattress, along with our sleeping bags."

The radio is the soldier's window to the world

"Tastefully, the big-flower-print bed sheet does not permit the attention to drift to the poor structure of the bed. The dark toilet is an extension of the same room. An old cough syrup bottle has been modified with kerosene oil to serve the purpose of the lamp which practically lights up nothing. The empty ghee cans are our makeshift geysers. Basic instinct is the best aide when it comes to anatomy in the dark bathroom.

The room decor is an artistic arrangement of the empty containers of food, fuel and fire. Food cartons serve as tables, fuel cans as stools and empty (fired) cartridges as bedside teapoy items. The most decorated table has boxes of chicken cubes, noodles, egg biscuits, brick-game and yes, our window to the world, the radio. Other inhabitants include a Fujika (a kerosene-lit heater), petromax, the books and the military phone -- this masterpiece of technology which connects me to you (his family), remains silent.

The weather, the snow, the wind, the electric power everything conspires against our probable communication. Reminds me how Shah Latif narrates the plight of Sassi after she had been robbed of Pannu: 'The camel (which carries Pannu) is my enemy, the wind (which is erasing the foot prints of caravan) is my enemy, the sand is my enemy and so are the brothers of Pannu. And most of all the sun is my enemy, for having risen so late and not waking me up."

Siachen is an ego problem between the two armies



The issue of Siachen is unresolved since 1984; both the countries have lost numerous precious lives. The issue is not complicated like the issue of Kashmir; it could be resolved overnight but needs serious consideration. Even the United States is ready to support Pakistan and India in finding a resolution to the Siachen conflict, but it says that primarily the issue should be resolved by dialogue between the two countries.

"We have made clear to both India and Pakistan that we are prepared to be supportive in any way that might be helpful, but primarily we see this being settled by dialogue between (them)," said State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland.

Pak-India peace activist Tahira Abdullah thinks that it is very simple to resolve the issue but both the countries have made it an ego problem. "This absolutely futile, useless fiasco has been going on since 1984. It is a one-hour job to agree on a solution, but it is now an ego problem between the two armies. Both armies should pull back from the heights. Soldiers are dying and my heart bleeds for them, but it's for nothing," said Tahira.

According to Imtiaz Alam, the head of the South Asian Free Media Association, "Why should we be going for an agreement? If we do that, Indian domestic pressure will also result in a withdrawal there. They will say it is madness to continue."

The recent visit of Asif Ali Zardari and his meeting with Indian premier Manmohan Singh has brought slight hope that both the countries would start talks to resolve their outstanding issues including the Siachen Glacier. Pakistan has lauded India's offer of assistance in rescue operation in Siachen by terming it as a 'good gesture'. But the critics are of the view that instead of collectively digging out the trapped soldiers both the countries should take serious steps to find out a permanent solution to the issues to avoid such incidents in the future.

In this regard the suggestion of civil society organisations is excellent who are calling upon Islamabad and New Delhi to set an example by converting the Siachen Glaciers into the first ever 'peace park' at a height of 22,000 feet.