Posted on 05/20/2002 6:33:14 AM PDT by blam
India, Pakistan Trade Heavy Fire, Tension High Mon May 20, 5:14 AM ET By Penny MacRae
NEW DELHI. India (Reuters) - Indian and Pakistani forces traded fire across their frontier for a fourth day Monday raising fresh fears hostility between the nuclear-armed neighbors could drag them into war.
Financial markets in both countries were badly hit by war fears but despite signs India was preparing for conflict, most analysts said New Delhi was likely to exhaust all diplomatic channels before taking a military option.
India Sunday streamlined its armed forces' command by putting paramilitary border forces under army control and the coast guard under the navy.
Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said the move was "standard operating procedure" when preparing for war.
But as part of its diplomatic efforts, senior Indian defense officials were due to brief their U.S. counterparts in Washington Monday.
Bloody guerrilla attacks that India has blamed on Pakistan-based militants, that have fueled the border tension, would be high on the agenda.
"What is happening on the border, cross-border terrorism and Jammu and Kashmir (news - web sites)," a defense ministry spokesman told Reuters.
"The entire gamut will come up."
Nearly a million men -- backed by tanks, missiles and warplanes -- have been mobilized by Pakistan and India on their border since a December raid on the Indian parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based rebels.
TENSION SURGES, VILLAGERS FLEE
Fears of large-scale conflict surged after an attack on an Indian army camp last week that India again blamed on Pakistan-based militants fighting its rule in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir state where a separatist revolt has raged for 12 years.
Some 34 people, many of them children and wives of Indian soldiers, were killed along with the three assailants, in last Tuesday's attack.
India says Islamic guerrillas fighting its rule are operating freely from Pakistan -- a charge Pakistan denies.
New Delhi was expected to press Washington to get Pakistan -- a vital ally in the U.S. war on terror -- to live up to a January pledge to crack down on what New Delhi says are Islamic militants battling its forces in Kashmir.
Over the weekend, India expelled Pakistan's chief envoy in protest against last week's raid that Pakistan has strongly condemned.
An Indian defense official said its forces used heavy machine guns and mortars against Pakistani positions in Monday's fighting. A Pakistani official said three villagers were killed while the Indian official said there had been no casualties.
Thousands of panicked villagers have fled Indian border areas over the past few days, joining an estimated 60,000 who ran away after tension mounted last December.
STRONG SIGNALS
Late last week, the United States gave strong signals it would soon send Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to the region to try to cool the tension.
In addition to fears a war could spin out of control, U.S. officials are worried conflict between India and Pakistan could disrupt its drive to hunt down members of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network and endanger U.S. troops stationed in Pakistan.
"The U.S. presence in Pakistan is one of the deterrents to India exercising the military option. But it's one of many factors," foreign policy analyst K.K. Katyal told Reuters.
"An armed conflict between India and Pakistan would come in the way of America's crusade against terrorism," he said. "The Taliban and al Qaeda leaders are still intact and said to be in Pakistan. So the U.S. needs help from Pakistan and will not allow anything to distract Pakistan's attention from the job."
Bin Laden is prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
As war fears mounted, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee (news - web sites) met opposition party leaders to discuss the next move of his government led by his Hindu nationalist-led Bharatiya Janata Party.
Vajpayee has faced pressure from some hawkish BJP members for a strike on some of the dozens of militant training camps that Indian officials say have sprung up recently in Pakistan Kashmir.
But A.B. Bardhan, a leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said he told Vajpayee "war could not solve this problem."
He also said talk of a "limited war" was unrealistic. "There's nothing like limited war at least as far as these two neighbors are concerned with their nuclear armaments."
Fears of war sent shares tumbling in India and Pakistan. Indian shares slid to a three-month low, the rupee eased to within striking distance of its lifetime low against the dollar while government bond yields were close to five-month highs. On Pakistan's Karachi Stock Exchange, shares plunged over seven percent as investors dumped blue chips
All the more urgency to defang Saddam Hussein and his tinhorn neighbors soon!!
India is doing just the opposite. They are expelling the Pakistani ambassador to India, and they withdrew their own ambassador months ago. They've cut communications, travel, and even overflight privileges.
The one thing they are NOT doing is talking to the Pakistan government.
India is either banging the wardrums for domestic political purposes with no intention of actually attacking, or they are simply insane. The latter is not out of the question, because the hatred between those two countries is pathological.
I think India could conquer Pakistan, although not without a devastating nuclear exchange as the cost. But if it did, it wouldn't be able to govern it. The Pakistanis are probably the most heavily-armed citizens on the planet, and Indian troops would never be safe there.
I sympathize with the Indian position. The attacks in Kashmir are unacceptable. But if they're bad in Kashmir, just think what they'd be like if India occupied all or part of Pakistan itself.
India may be able to conquer Pakistan (ie defeat/destroy its armed forces), but it will not be able to occupy/rule Pakistan. It would probably find itself having to ethnicly cleanse Kashmir and Pakistan by driving all the Muslims into Afghanistan or Iran
Not that I think that's right, of course.
I don't quite understand the mentality of those who think that "transfer" is a solution to problems on the border of a country, whether it's here or in Israel. Even if the logistical problems are overcome, all that has been accomplished is a new location for border problems. I think what these people really want is genocide, but it's not considered a polite thing to say.
That solution makes a lot more sense. The Indian/Pakistani conflict could finally be resolved if one of them successfully eliminated the other entirely. Short of achieving that goal, the parties need to sit down and figure out a way to peacefully co-exist.
Neither solution seems to be achievable, for some reason.
No, I do not have any good idea as to what we can or should do. But the lack of attention is very striking. If this thing gets well underway, it may be the only news from the year 2002, that anyone will be studying in 2052.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Besides, it's just a conflict between Hindus and Moslems in a region where toilet paper is rare. There's no Muslim lobby or Hindu lobby in this country to speak of, and the whole region has been off of the American radar for some time. In fact, George W Bush couldn't give the name of the Pakistani president when he was ambushed by a journalist early in his campaign.
There aren't enough Christians, Jews, or "white people" involved to make the situation interesting, I guess. That's completely wrong, of course, but the press is often wrong.
Well, South Asia has already been occupied/oppressed by Arabs (the Mughal dynasty) and Europeans (colonialism).
I guess it is the yellow mans turn.
I mean no disrespect.
MAybe they are quite simply fed up with all this BS. Pakistan formed solely because once the population converted to ISlam, they went insane. There was no reasoning with them.
India wanted to kick some ass but the world(Britian in particular," intervened and thus Pakistan was born.
Its not enough, it is never enough. Yes, they hate eachother in KAshmir but do you honestly think that if INdia walked away, the HIndus would have peace under Muslim governance? THAT is INSANE.
If you think I am sick of them then just imagine hoe India feels...
Right now, it's probably not too comfortable to be a muslim in western India, either, but I think that's generally an isolated problem. Muslims have been historically more intolerant and Hindu extremists we are seeing more of are probably a reaction to that.
Unfortunately, it seems as if it's getting more polarized, not less, at a time when each side is more capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people with their new war toys.
As to why it's insane, read further down the thread. An attack by India might achieve its military goal, but it wouldn't stop terrorism.
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