Posted on 05/23/2002 1:06:59 AM PDT by KQQL
NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - India's prime minister meets his security advisers in disputed Kashmir on Thursday after telling troops confronting Pakistani forces to prepare for action after a week of cross-border firing.
Atal Behari Vajpayee, on a three-day visit to the state at the root of two of the three wars between the South Asian neighbors, has sent extra troops to India's border with Pakistan and extra warships to the Arabian Sea off its coast.
Pakistan, which has repeatedly called for talks, explicitly pledged for the first time on Wednesday to stop cross-border raids by Islamic militants from all areas under its control.
But with the nuclear-armed nations trading bellicose warnings and cross-border fire, the United States and its European allies were working behind the scenes to stop the two sides slipping back into war.
"The message clearly to everyone is that it is a dangerous situation and that our hope and all of our efforts are aimed at encouraging them to lessen the tension along the border, both in Kashmir and elsewhere," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.
Rumsfeld said he had spoken to Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes and expected to talk to him again soon.
State Department officials echoed Rumsfeld's concern.
"What we want to do right now is prevent a war," one senior official told reporters.
India blames Pakistan for attacks by Islamic militants in Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state, and further afield. A December attack on the Indian parliament in the capital New Delhi triggered the latest military standoff between the rivals.
Vajpayee, who meets his security advisers in Indian-controlled Kashmir's main city of Srinagar, told his troops on Wednesday to prepare for action.
"Be prepared for sacrifices. But our aim should be victory. Because it's now time for a decisive fight," Vajpayee said in a speech broadcast live across the nation by state television.
Pakistan responded by warning India against any military "misadventure" and vowing to use "full force" if attacked.
Both Vajpayee and Pakistani military leader General Pervez Musharraf are under considerable domestic pressure to appear tough in dealing with their old rival but it is unclear how close the two countries really are to war.
The crisis has launched a diplomatic flurry. European Union External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten will be followed by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw early next week and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in early June.
EXCHANGES OF FIRE
The sabre-rattling has been matched by heavy exchanges of border fire over the last week since an attack on an Indian army camp in Kashmir in which 31 people, mostly wives and children of soldiers. India blamed Pakistan-based militants.
The two sides traded heavy fire across the Line of Control, a cease-fire line dividing Kashmir on Thursday, officials from both sides said.
An Indian defense official said one Indian soldier was killed and a woman wounded in the latest exchanges while Pakistan officials and witnesses said four Pakistanis were killed and about 12 people wounded as Indian troops fired on villages in Kashmir and into Punjab province.
Dozens of civilians and soldiers on both sides have been killed and wounded over the past week. Tens of thousands of villagers on both sides have fled their homes in recent months and more were leaving on Thursday, Pakistani officials and witnesses said.
The two nations have massed a million men, backed by tanks, missiles and fighter jets, on the border since India blamed Pakistan-based Kashmiri rebels for the December parliament raid.
Vajpayee was in Jammu and Kashmir, his first visit to the state in nearly two years, to express solidarity with victims of last week's attack and boost the morale of India's troops.
India's navy said on Wednesday five warships from its eastern fleet were reinforcing its western fleet in the Arabian Sea off Pakistan to increase the level of preparation in the area.
Pakistan, while warning India it would use full force if attacked, reiterated a pledge made by Musharraf in January, saying it would not allow its territory to be used for terrorist activity -- a key Indian demand to end the standoff.
Pakistani analysts said Wednesday's pledge by Islamabad went further than earlier assurances as it was Pakistan's first public commitment not to permit terrorist activity from the part of Kashmir it controls.
India is demanding proof of such assurances.
India and Pakistan have gone to war three times since independence from Britain in 1947. India sees Kashmir as an integral part of its territory. Pakistan wants a plebiscite to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
Violence from a revolt that began in Kashmir in late 1989 has killed more than 33,000 people.
India will start a limited war with aims to take back the Kashmir.
Predictably they will stomp the bejeezus out of Pakistan who will then nuke Punjab and other places to extract revenge.
Then India will wipe Pakistan off the map.
I hope and pray that you are correct.
Desperate Pak ready to nuke India
The gist is that they are desperate because they are Muslim, their country is a he!!hole as a result, so they have nothing to lose by throwing some nukes around. And this is supposedly coming from a military leader!
Only India knows if they will truly go to war with Pakistan or not. It's up to them. They have got to figure that if they go to war- Pakistan will use its nukes. So why wouldn't India just pull an overnight surprise nuclear first strike? If they were successful, they would take out Karachi and Islamabad and possibly key tactical targets- thereby hampering any effective response. The worst that could happen is Pakistan will respond with nukes- which, presumedly, they would do even in the advent of convential war. So really, what would India have to lose by going the first strike route?
Pakistan on the other hand must gamble that India will back down in the face of its threats to use nukes- because in the end, India could just be rattling sabres. So their best bet is not to use a preemptive first strike. They have to hope that with American military interest in the region Washington will be forced to calm India down, and normally I would be inclined to agree with them- but India is angry. They see us taking our war against terror to our enemy- why shouldn't they? The Israelis have uttered a similar complaint and I agree with them- they should be allowed to exterminate the terrorists that are killing them. The same goes for India.
I don't want to see some big nuclear war or anything, but I firmly believe India has a right to demand that Pakistan end this terrorist activity and if they do not comply India has the right to defend itself.
You see for me, the fundamental thing is- I have no idea what motivates either of these two nations and I only have the Cold War example to fall back on. It was a safe assumption to figure that the Soviets did not want to be annihilated- hence Kennedy was correct in pushing all the way in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
But this thing? I haven't a clue. I don't how their minds work. I don't know what they consider "acceptable losses"- India has a billion people, if 50 million die is that okey dokey in their thinking? So if I'm sitting back scratching my head, wondering what they're likely to do, I can only do so from my own frame of reference- which is my own nation's experience with it.
I don't think the Indians are going to forget all those Hindus murdered on that train a while back. There have been riots and reprisals ever since. Internally, things were starting to get pretty hot for India, though I don't know how things are there now. Then there was the explosion at their Parliment building, too.
I'm not so sure this is mere sabre rattling this time, but I guess we'll find out for sure very soon now.
Tuor
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