Facts on Siachen

[Abingdonboy]

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Kayani’s bluff can’t erase
Redeployment from the Siachen glacier without asserting correct delinea-tion of land will mean accepting the Pak claim.

There has been a flurry of interest after Gen Kayani declared that India and Pakistan must live in peaceful coexistence as defence without development is neither viable nor acceptable. Hurrah! He saw all issues as capable of resolution and Siachen as an urgent starting point.

This impassioned appeal followed the tragic death on April 7 of 138 Pakistani troops in an avalanche ‘while on Siachen.’ He said “everyone knows why the army is here...because in 1984, the Indian Army occupied the area and in response to that the Pakistan army was sent in.” The facts are otherwise.

General Kayani has also got the genesis of the problem wrong though he rightly asserts that both sides are paying a high price in blood, treasure and environmental costs. Pakistan’s solution calls for an Indian withdrawal from the glacier.

India in turn is willing to accept a mutual pull back and redeployment of troops to agreed positions provided Pakistan acknowledges the present ‘Actual Ground Position Line’ (AGPL) that it holds.

These are the proffered ‘solutions.’ The Indian Army, however, fears that Pakistan could renege on the agreement and send troops dressed as ‘mujahideen’ to occupy Siachen as it brazenly attempted to annex Kashmir in 1947 and again in 1965 and the Kargil Heights in 1998.

The Siachen ‘solutions’ overlook the problem. The critical date is not 1984 but July 29, 1949, when the Cease-Fire Line Agreement was signed in Karachi by ranking military representatives of India and Pakistan and the UN Military Observer Group.

It delineated the entire CFL, demarcating over 740 km on the ground. With the CFL increasingly running through high mountains and glaciated areas as it traversed north, it often followed a directional path in the absence of clear landmarks. Thus, finally, ‘Chalunka (on the Shyok River), Khor, thence North to the glaciers,’ passing through grid reference NJ 9842.

The delineation of this segment of the CFL was, however, unambiguous: NJ 9842, ‘thence north to the glaciers.’ If everyone of 30 or more earlier directional commands were meticulously followed in tracing the CFL, there was no reason whatsoever for any departure from this norm in the case of the very last command.

“Thence North”, could only mean due north to wherever the boundary of J&K state lay. The CFL was ratified by both sides and deposited with the UNCIP. It was revalidated as the LOC after Simla, and incorporated the military gains made by either side in J&K in the 1971 war. In the Kargil-Siachen sector, all gains thereby went entirely to India which acquired the Turtok salient just south-west of NJ 9842.

Earlier in 1956-58, during the UN-designated International Geophysical Year, an Indian scientific team led by the Geological Survey explored the upper Nubra and Shyok Valleys, mapped and measured the Siachen and other glaciers and publicly recorded its findings.

On the Indian side

No protest followed. Why? Locate NJ 9842 on a detailed physical map of northern J&K and draw a line ‘thence North’ and much of Siachen will be found to lie on the Indian side of the CFL. Pakistani military maps (ref. Musharraf’s Memoir, “In the Line of Fire”. Free Press, London. 2006), depicting Pakistan’s military positions during the Kargil operations, situate the entire Siachen glacier on the Indian side of the delineated line, NJ 9842, ‘thence north to the glaciers.’

All Pakistan, UN and global atlases depicted the CFL correctly till around 1967-72. By then Beijing had commenced its creeping cartographic aggression in Aksai Chin and in 1963 signed a boundary agreement with Pakistan which unilaterally ceded the 5,000 sq km Shaksgam Valley to China.

Thereafter, Pakistan started extending its lines of communication eastwards and began licensing western mountaineering expeditions to venture east of K2. It was emboldened to extend this ‘eastward creep’ when, between 1967 and 1972, the US Defence Mapping Agency, an international reference point for cartography, began extending the CFL from NJ 9842 to a point just west of the Karakoram Pass, unilaterally hardening what was possibly no more than an extant World War II air defence information zone (ADIZ) line into a politico-military divide. World atlases followed suit. So did Pakistan, which followed cartographic aggression with moves to occupy Siachen. Getting wind of this stratagem, India, pre-emptively occupied the glacier in March 1984.

In a US Institute for Peace conference on J&K in Washington in 1991, delegates were delivered a map at their hotel without the mandatory credit line regarding its origins. It was headed ‘The Kashmir Region: Depicting the CFL/LOC, Siachen and Shaksgam.’ This showed a hatched triangle NJ 9842-Karakoram Pass-K2, and Shaksgam in the north, with a legend reading, “Indian occupied since 1983”. The conference organisers disowned what it surmised was ‘possibly’ a CIA map that might be treated as ‘withdrawn!’

Any unqualified redeployment from the Siachen glacier without asserting the correct delineation of the CFL/LOC from NJ 9842 ‘thence north to the glaciers,’ will mean accepting the Pakistan claim and throwing the August 1948 UN Resolution and derivative 1949 Karachi Agreement into the dustbin.

Manmohan Singh’s 2005 peace formula would sanctify the LOC as an evolving international boundary, rendered porous as ‘mere lines on a map’ across which movement and commerce increasingly flowed to bind the peoples of J&K and India and Pakistan together in friendship and cooperation. This is the only viable win-win solution for all in and over J&K. But unless the LOC is firmly anchored to a northern terminus, it will dangle loose and surely unravel, leaving everything for grabs.

Siachen has no intrinsic strategic value. Both sides should withdraw or redeploy from there once there is clear acceptance of the 1949 CFL-cum-LOC. Thereafter the triangle NJ 9842, K2 and the Karakoram Pass can be designated an International Glacier and World Weather Park, hopefully with Shaksgam as a partner, to study and measure climate change. India should therefore welcome Kayani’s second thoughts and pursue it without getting snow-blinded regarding the facts, larger perspectives and the national interest.

Facts on Siachen



It is rather senseless all this but the fact remains this situation will continue, despite what any Pakistani may say, because the IA simply can't trust the PA to not re-occupy the had fought for posts once they leave. Their is precedent for this and I just can't see a way around this impasse, Pakistanis may say one thing today but what about tomorrow?


But, as it has always been, it will be these poor fools who suffer for their leaders' shortcomings:


India:




Pakistan:

[Adnan Faruqi]

Whole Kashmir belongs to India and there is no need to buy fake assurances and empty talks of peace.

Only concrete steps will do like withdrawing pak troops or handing over of LeT's Hafeez Saeed or Dawood Ibrahim.

Till then

[Abingdonboy]

Whole Kashmir belongs to India and there is no need to buy fake assurances and empty talks of peace.

Only concrete steps will do like withdrawing pak troops or handing over of LeT's Hafeez Saeed or Dawood Ibrahim.

Till then

But that's the problem, what's to stop them re-occupying once India reciprocates in kind?

[Papa]

But that's the problem, what's to stop them re-occupying once India reciprocates in kind?

We are not going to withdraw our troops at any cost. They can do whatever they want. We don't bother at all.

[Leviza]

Whole Kashmir belongs to India and there is no need to buy fake assurances and empty talks of peace.

Only concrete steps will do like withdrawing pak troops or handing over of LeT's Hafeez Saeed or Dawood Ibrahim.

Till then

Whole of the Kashmir belongs to Pakistan and do what ever you guys want to do ,,,,, Kashmir is going no where,
Hafeez Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim , there are no proofs against them ,..

[Rocky25]

We are not going to withdraw our troops at any cost. They can do whatever they want. We don't bother at all.

What had happened to Pakistani troops can happen to Indian troops. So incase of another avalanche we should recover our troops alive.

Whole of the Kashmir belongs to Pakistan and do what ever you guys want to do ,,,,, Kashmir is going no where,
Hafeez Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim , there are no proofs against them ,..

Yes in your dreams! India needs a undercover surgical strike team, till that day India has to fea for terrorism emanating from Pakistan.

[Abingdonboy]

[rashtriya.rifles]

When none of our troops have died in siachen from 2004, why do we need to empty the post ? Let them go away.. I see no profit for us but only the chance of loosing the land.

If they can't afford soldiers there at the top why is it our headache./

[Papa]

What had happened to Pakistani troops can happen to Indian troops. So incase of another avalanche we should recover our troops alive.

So what, no one has control on natural disasters! What had happened in Kargil can happen in Siachin too. Isn't it? I have the same opinion as Captain Bana Singh

[Indian009]

People beware before posting
One Indian member got banned for talking defeat of SSG in Siachen in Jet pack thread. Labeled as inhuman and disrespect

[rashtriya.rifles]

So what, no one has control on natural disasters! What had happened in Kargil can happen in Siachin too. Isn't it? I have the same opinion as Captain Bana Singh

Recently more than 110 Indian jawans were also buried alive during an avalanche... but all of them were successfully rescued due to IA's competitiveness..

And I am taking what Captain BANA said as a fact.. NUFF SAID !!

[Rocky25]

So what, no one has control on natural disasters! What had happened in Kargil can happen in Siachin too. Isn't it? I have the same opinion as Captain Bana Singh

Yes no one has any control on natural disasters! We can't even bear -53 C for one minute, It causes severe depression! Life is very very difficult at such great heights. I am advocating that we should not keep in searching for soldiers like Pakistan did when there was a avalanche last time. We should buy equipments which speeds up the search process many folds!

We should have high class medical facilities such that no one dies! India holds the worlds highest battle field! No other country is in Siachen, Not even 5KM near Siachen... It is not a easy job! Pakistan will not accept on AGPL, and India will not remove its soldiers! End of story!

[rashtriya.rifles]

I would just reiterate... what in this world can we even gain by simply removing soldiers from siachen ? what are we ? some lunatics who likes to play everest everest ??

Why the hell are we even talking about any talks entailing removal of soldiers just like that without anything in return ?

GAH !!

[Indian009]

I would just reiterate... what in this world can we even gain by simply removing soldiers from siachen ? what are we ? some lunatics who likes to play everest everest ??

Why the hell are we even talking about any talks entailing removal of soldiers just like that without anything in return ?

GAH !!

Cause recently our neighbours come to know that they can't afford the costs to station soldiers there and they can't risqué their soldiers in any accident so they propose peace and our peace loving GOI following the lead of peace dance. Simple

[Abingdonboy]

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I would just reiterate... what in this world can we even gain by simply removing soldiers from siachen ? what are we ? some lunatics who likes to play everest everest ??

Why the hell are we even talking about any talks entailing removal of soldiers just like that without anything in return ?

GAH !!

If you look at it though, no one in India (in an official capacity) has actually said anything about removing Indian troops from Siachin only Pakistanis have said as such because their catastrophe. Indian side has done well to keep shut over this contentious issue.