[nukkad] [Fwd: Fw: Significance of Kargil]

[Ninad Chhaya <ninad@bom4.vsnl.net.in>]

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• To: "Nukkad" <nukkad-list@mumbai-central.com>
• Subject: Fw: Significance of Kargil
• From: "Amit A Mayekar" <Amit_A_Mayekar@ril.com>
• Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 04:00:42 -0400 (EDT)
• Old-Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 13:21:57 +0530

>Dear Friends,
>Have you noticed how many interesting things have been taking place off
>late.
>Some infiltrators sneaked into this side of LoC and took position at the
>top of a hill in the second coldest inhabited part of the World.  All
>these years such people have tried to enter the plains of Srinagar Valley
>and to climb to the top of a hill in this apparently insignificant place
in
>Kashmir called Drass-Kargil. Indian army believes that the Kargil
>infiltration would have taken at least 6 months to prepare. It requires
>prior planning, high altitude acclimatisation of the troops,special
>equipment, ground reconnaissance, training of participants etc.  The
>entire process must have started before January'99.
>Now let's look at what does it mean to occupy Kargil area for Pakistan.
>Kargil is a place on the Srinagar-Leh highway. This highway is
>the only supply route for Indian troops in Ladakh who protect Akshai China
>border with China. On the other hand the place is very close to Skardu,
>the base for Pakistani operations in Siachen. Just by blocking this road
>Indian  hold on Ladakh can be weakened which gives advantage to China
>and Pakistani hold can be increased by improving the supply line for
Siachen
>and the overall LoC can be changed.
>> >>
>> >>The obvious question which arises at this juncture is what do
>they gain by occupying this rugged and difficult region on the Himalayas.
>There is a highway between Pakistan's Northern Area and China's Kashgar,
>known as Karakoram Highway. This highway is extremely strategic from two
>angles.Firstly, it can withstand blockade even during intense warfare.
>> Secondly,in the language of Pakistan's Lt Gen Sardar F S Lodi - "Our all
>weather land route to China via Karakoram Highway is the modern version
>of the old Silk Route, which is the considerable economic and strategic
>> significance to the two countries and also the Central Asian States (who
are
>all Islamic states) to the north." If it dominates western gateways to
China,
>> Pakistan will be in a position to exert influence over the entire
>Trans-Asian Axis. Unfortunately this main portal to China passes through
J&K. This
>> >>geo-politico-economical issue is the route cause of our entire
>Kashmir problem (not just of this latest Kargil crisis).
>> >>
>> >>But this issue could not be solved earlier since Pakistan and
>China were not in good terms during the cold war period. Problems in
Kashmir
>> started in 1990 when cold war was getting over. Things took some more
>years before China and Pakistan came to a position of joining hands. In
these
>years what did Pakistan do? They changed the Kashmir struggle from being a
>freedom movement into a drive for Kashmir's unification with Pakistan.If
>> anything serious had to be done it had to be done by Pakistan. But
>Pakistan used to be militarily very weak compared to India. After Russian
>withdrawl from Afganistan US stopped arms supply to Pakistan. That means
>Pakistan had to find out another partner to arm itself against India.
Because of
>this common interest in Kashmir this source became China itself. China
>> supplied Pakistan with nuclear bomb design and fuel; tritium gas for
>fission bombs; M-11 missile components; technology to enrich uranium;
helped
>build the Hatf missile (known as Ghauri); built the 300MW nuclear reactor
>at Chasma; a secret 70MW plutonium reactor at Khusab; a missile factory in
>> Rawalpindi and several other things. These were not of immediate concern
to
>India since Indian capability was far superior. Things became extremely
>> dangerous when last year Pakistan successfully test-fired Ghauri
missile.
>It made every strategic site within India vulnerable. Only answer to this
>was to create a strong deterrent for India. That gave the reason for
>nuclear tests last year. Immediate reaction from Pakistan is also known by
>everybody. So, the situation turned into both sides having strong
deterrents.
>This means now because of Kashmir both countries will never go into an
>allout war. That is time has come when a war can be fought with India over
>Kashmir without Lahore and Delhi getting destroyed. So, a war in Kashmir
>will remain contained in that region only. All what was left at this
>point was to set the stage for the invasion.
>> >>
>> >>The preparations:
>> >>1. You cannot use Ghauri (long range) in Kashmir. You need a
>medium range Shaheen which was test fired in April'99.
>> >>2. Since April 6 China redeployed its medium and long range
>missiles against India.
>> >>3. As a red herring Lahore declaration was already signed by
>Vajpayee and Sharief.
>> >>4. On April 7 The Tribune wrote - "Sources disclosed, the Chinese
>> >>leadership was also wanting to concentrate only on one political
>party in India, which it felt could be in power very soon'.
>> >>5. Admiral Bhagwat issue was raised in the same month of April to
>its  peak.
>> >>6. Government loses ground on the floor of Loksabha.
>Coincidentally this happens to be the same Goverment which tried to raise
the
>awarenwss level of the common mass to the fact that not Pakistan but China
is our
>main security threat.
>> >>7. And obviously all this time the would-be infiltrators were
>taking preparation somewhere.
>> >>
>> >>After this it was just a question of when the ice starts melting
>on those mountains. It happened to be the beginning of May. That is
>exactly when the infiltration happened.

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