The Rediff Special/ Amberish K Diwanji
Political instability, Pak insincerity
held up Siachen agreement, reveals Dixit
Predictably, the talks between India and Pakistan on the Siachen glacier failed last week. And, even more predictably, both sides blamed each other for the failure.
Pakistan claimed that an agreement had been reached way back in 1989 to withdraw the troops on both sides and get down to the task of demarcating the boundary to the north of map grid point NJ9842, where the Line of Control drawn in 1972 ends. The Indian side stopped just short of denying outright any such deal, pointing instead to the talks on the same subject in 1992 as proof that there had been no deal three years earlier.
Where lies the truth? Rediff On The NeT spoke to Jyotindra Nath Dixit, who was India's foreign secretary in 1992.
"From 1989 to 1992, we had four rounds of talks on Siachen in two sections. The first was between the defence secretaries assisted by military officials. The second was between the two directors-general of military operations," Dixit said.
He admitted that in 1989 an agreement was reached to withdraw troops on both sides, and to refrain from reoccupying the positions on the Siachen glacier and the Soltoro range.
By November 1992, the details of the agreement had been hammered out. "We had an agreement, supported by documents on where the troops would withdraw to, how the area evacuated would be jointly monitored by both sides, and we were to initial maps showing the positions that had been occupied, and the positions to which the troops would withdraw."
It was here that the first hurdle arose. Pakistan did not want to initial the map showing the positions from where the troops where to withdraw. "We said nothing doing, both maps have to be initialled. And by November 1992, we had managed to persuade the Pakistanis to sign the agreement," Dixit said.
One reason why Pakistan did not want to initial the map could have been because it planned to occupy the positions vacated by India. "Often in agreements, each side uses different names for the same location. But a map uses a grid of longitude and latitude, and this allows for no confusion," he explained.
The agreement was to be endorsed by the two governments and implemented in the summer of 1993.
But by then another problem had arisen. The political situations in India and Pakistan were no longer conducive to an agreement that promised to bring the boys back home from a frozen battlefield 6,000 metres high.
The prime ministers of India and Pakistan then were P V Narasimha Rao and Benazir Bhutto, respectively. "Both were unwilling to accept the agreement," said Dixit. "Bhutto didn't want to implement the agreement unless India was willing to accept that the boundary from NJ9842 goes east, which we could not accept. And in India, the Babri Masjid had just been destroyed [on December 6, 1992] and Rao was in no position to sell the idea of a pullback to a belligerent Parliament and Congress."
The positions of both prime ministers had been weakened. Both feared the pullout would be exploited by their political opponents. Indeed, Bhutto was dismissed by the president a year later, while Rao was devastated by the Babri Masjid demolition. "After December 1992, Rao simply lost his authority," said Dixit.
The former foreign secretary pointed out that as per the agreements signed in 1949 and 1972, the border was to run north from NJ9842 up to the Chinese border. But later, as the Karakoram Highway was built, Pakistani maps showed the border running east up to the Karakoram Pass. "India would have lost about 3,500 square miles of territory according to their maps," said Dixit.
Both countries missed a great chance in 1992 to resolve a dispute which is extremely expensive in terms of human lives and costs, rued Dixit. "I hear it costs anywhere between Rs 1 crore and Rs 3 crore (Rs 1 crore roughly equals $ 239,000) a day to keep our men in Siachen, that it costs Rs 400 (about $ 9.5) to deliver a single cooked chapati (an unleavened Indian bread) to our soldiers," he said.
Dixit blamed the Pakistanis for just letting the talks drift. "They should either have rational talks or forget it. There is no point in starting all over again repeatedly," he pointed out.
But he also added that talks must continue. "To keep talking is good because it prevents any break in communication."
Indeed, that is what the present round of talks seems to be all about: keeping communication alive!
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