July 12, 1999

Its not total war in Kashmir but the mood is of total victory. A perverse determination has overwhelmed a country revelling in its international bad-boy image.

By Jason Burke in Islamabad

Drive down the fast, clean highway from Islamabad airport and you will see a few artificial additions intended to beautify the scrubby plateau that leads up to the city and the rocky Margalla hills beyond. Most are rather mundane -- a couple of replicas of Ghauri missiles in green and grey camouflage paint, a few posters extolling the technological ability of Pakistan's scientists. Laid out in white stones on a hillside is Pakistan's national motto, "Faith, Unity, Discipline", stark against the green grass and red earth. But swing under the flyover into Rawalpindi and you are confronted with something that is spectacular. Ten metres high and a hundred metres in circumference, a huge, brown fibreglass model of the dusty Chaghai hills, a barren and arid mountain range in distant Balochistan. The model is so big it almost dwarfs the adjacent motorway. Its true glory is only revealed at night when it glows in steady pulses, as did the mountains themselves when Pakistan detonated six nuclear devices beneath them 13 months ago.

Amid massive public celebrations, parades and rallies, the monument was unveiled on the evening of May 28 this year, the first anniversary of the tests. The day was dubbed the Yaum-i-Takbeer or Day of the Greatness of Allah. The crowds who watched it light up jumped and punched the air, shouting, "Pakistan Zindabad. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar."

When, 36 hours earlier, Brigadier-General Nusrat Sial, the Pakistani soldier in charge of the Indus sector of the Line of Control (LoC), received a call from one of his junior officers stationed a mile or so from the Indian positions, he had heard something similar.

"Allahu Akbar," the young officer had bellowed down the crackling telephone line to his commander. "Two Indian jets are down." Pakistan and India were as close to being at war as they had been for 27 years and the guns boomed loud and long from Siachen to Sialkot.

Since those hot May days Pakistan has been triumphant. Parades march down streets calling for war, Kashmiri Mujahideen go to their graves in coffins adorned with wreaths from the chief of the army staff and the Mujahideen's recruiting offices are packed. The army and foreign office spokesmen brief and brief again -- Pakistan is not to blame, they say, there is no involvement with the freedom fighters on the Kargil ridge, the fault lies only with the Indians and their savage occupation, if war comes we are ready to defend every inch of our soil.

"It's almost as if Pakistan is proud of its bad-boy image," said a western diplomat last week. "The country has almost been revelling in the trouble and in the concern and the attention it has been getting."

Over the last week the rhetoric has been slightly more muted but the crisis has still dominated the front pages of every newspaper. The stories of children embracing shahadat (martyrdom) as a result of Indian shelling on villages near the LoC fill column after column, the army's statements of readiness to repulse any invasion is headline news -- day after day, every detail of the international community's reaction to the crisis is picked up for any sign of partiality or progress. On the inside pages, Mujahideen spokesmen admit minimal casualties and deny any Indian military successes. There are pictures of blown up villages, refugees fleeing shelling, Mujahideen crouched in long grass with rocket launchers, Indian gun batteries, Pakistani AA guns ready to respond. On the letters' pages readers spit bile.

Everyone has rallied round. The Opposition, despite occasional sniping at the Government's poor record on the economy, has been supportive. Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party has restricted itself to criticising the conduct of the war and has praised the army and the militants. The intelligentsia, though their concerns over the situation are widely known, have been silent. Only the forthright news magazines -- Herald and Newsline -- have been critical. "We are critical because we think this can only end up doing extreme harm to Pakistan," said Herald Editor Aamer Ahmed Khan. Otherwise there has been little dissent.

As far as most Pakistanis are concerned, the situation is straightforward: the Kashmiris are brother Muslims and are fighting the oppressive 50-year-old Indian Hindu occupation; Delhi has always wanted to reverse Partition and invade but if war comes, Allah will preserve Pakistan. One almost has the feeling that for many, peace will be a disappointment.

THE STRATEGY
Escalate tension, even use the N-word, to force international intervention to free Kashmir

It was in October last year that senior officers from the Pakistani Army first raised the prospect of military action in Kashmir with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. They picked a good time to do it. The Government had been badly rocked by corruption allegations published in British newspapers and was in no position to risk a confrontation with the armed forces. The proposed action, the army brass said, would be aimed at getting the issue some coverage.

Quite what that operation would entail wasn't discussed but the strategy was clear. Now that both countries had nuclear bombs, their argument went, the minds of the international community would be far more focused on defusing any potential for conflict over the disputed state. In the event of a flare-up stronger pressure than ever before would be brought on India as much as on Pakistan to clear up the issue once and for all. Sharif indicated that he did not, in principle, object.

Five months later -- after the Lahore Declaration -- the army brass returned to Sharif and briefed him on the details of the operation they had planned. March is a wonderful month in Islamabad with cool, fresh days with only the slightest hint of the brutal heat that the summer will bring. May was going to be hotter than usual. A select group of senior army and intelligence officers, including Chief of Army Staff Pervez Musharraf and Director-General of the ISI Lt-General Ziauddin-ul-Haq, told Sharif and a number of senior ministers that they wanted to go ahead with an operation that had been planned several years before. Irritated by the Indian artillery fire and sniping into the Neelam Valley -- as well as the Indian actions on the Siachen Glacier -- Pakistani military tacticians had looked for a site where their neighbours could be given a taste of their own medicine.

Along most of the LoC, the Indians hold the dominating heights so only a few places looked suitable. The most obvious site was the Kargil-Drass sector. The knowledge that every winter the military posts in the area were vacant, and the realisation that the crucial National Highway 1would be easy to interdict made it more attractive. But when the plan was put to Benazir she felt strong enough to refuse the generals and rejected the proposal. Five years later her successor did not.

THE OFFICER AND THE SURVIVOR
The army banked on pressing domestic issues to get Sharif to agree to its Kargil plan

Other than Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Sharif is possibly the most powerful civilian leader the Pakistanis have ever had. In his two and a half years of power he has methodically confronted, and defeated, almost all the major threats to his power. He has emasculated the judiciary, installed his own choice as president -- with vastly reduced powers -- and battered the press into relative submission. His own massive mandate in Parliament is untouched and his main political rival has been dispatched into ignominious exile in the UK. He has imposed direct government rule on the southern province of Sindh -- where his Pakistan Muslim League was in a minority in the local assembly -- and last week dismissed the governor for restoring order and appointed a loyalist. But, despite his obvious strength, Sharif is still looking over his shoulder.

Even after 10 years of democratic politics the army remains a very significant power in Pakistan. As their real political strength has not recently been tested no one is actually sure how mighty as kingmakers they are. But one can be sure that, despite manoeuvring his own choice into the key position of chief of army staff, Sharif still feels that the military can make life very difficult for him. It was not for nothing that he recently increased the soldiers' pay by up to a third and assured them that the defence budget, which according to a recent US State Department report, is currently around 7 per cent of Pakistan's national income, was ring-fenced.

Sharif is an astute, if hardly cerebral, politician. His kitchen cabinet of advisers (comprising his father, his brother Shabaz -- the chief minister of Punjab -- Saifur Rehman, the chairman of the Accountability Cell and Bhutto's nemesis, and Mushahid Hussain, the slick information minister) have all learned their lessons well. Many of them started their rise to power under Zia-ul-Haq. One former aide attributed Sharif's respect for the army and the intelligence services to his days as a young politician under martial law. "Sharif may be strong now but he began his political career under Zia, so he knows what guns and helmets mean in Pakistani politics. He has nightmares about the tanks rolling down Quaid-e-Azam avenue and removing him from power," he observed.

The irony, according to Aamer Ahmed Khan, is that Sharif is actually stronger than he thinks. "He doesn't need to worry so much about the military," Khan said. "There is no constitutional manner now in which he can be removed from power."

Not that it was too hard for the military to sell Sharif its Kashmir proposal. The idea has several advantages for the prime minister. Pakistanis have been distracted from their day-to-day gripes by the crisis. No one has accused the Government of corruption for months. The religious right have been outflanked. And, according to one local journalist, Sharif was never likely to turn down a potentially useful policy. Again and again he has shown that his natural tendency is to keep his options open, to keep things short-term, to give new ideas a bit of a run to see how they turn out. "He would be quite happy in talking peace on the one hand and war on the other. It's classic Sharif. If both policies might prove beneficial, then he'll pursue both. If one doesn't work he'll drop it. It doesn't matter if they are contradictory," the journalist said.

The details of the Pakistani Army plan are still unclear and are likely to remain so. It seems that there were some major purchases of winter military equipment and that certain units with responsibility for defence of the LoC had been reinforced through the early spring. According to intelligence sources in Islamabad, the number of Mujahideen being trained in north-east Pakistan increased markedly towards the end of last year. Around 40 new camps sprang up in the Neelam Valley, around Muzaffarabad and in the barren hills of Baltistan. At the end of the winter, a number of mountain guides in the Skardu region were hired to teach the Mujahideen how to safely cross snow and ice and how to travel fast in the mountains. They were taught to rockclimb and abseil and told how to survive avalanches and rockfalls. In spring locals in Skardu noticed increasing numbers of militants heading across the passes east of the city towards Indian-held Kashmir. When this reporter visited Skardu in April bearded fighters in combat kit, many speaking Pashto -- the language of the North-West Frontier and Afghanistan -- were very much in evidence in the bazaar. Recently hundreds of young Pashtuns have been flocking to recruiting stations set up by Mujahideen organisations.

One Pakistani reporter joked last week that the bazaars had emptied of chappli kebab -- the burger-like, spicy meat snack that is a delicacy for Pashtuns -- stalls because the hawkers had either joined the Mujahideen or were doing brisk business with the men in the queues at the Mujahideen offices. "It only quietens down at Friday prayers," the reporter said.

Though Osama Bin Laden, the Islamic extremist, has been linked in the press to Kargil, his involvement is indirect at best. He has been associated with one of the major Mujahideen groups -- Harkat-ul-Mujahideen -- in the past and is thought to have sent a message of support recently, but that appears to be all. A number of his associates are thought to be fighting with the Al-Badr group but there is no evidence that he has ordered them to travel to Kashmir. They are merely some of the many hundreds of fighters who have temporarily left Afghanistan to fight in a different Jihad.

It would be a mistake, however, to overplay the Afghan involvement. There are believed to be 2,000 Pakistani volunteers on the plains north of Kabul for an attack on the positions of Ahmed Shah Masood and there is no indication that they are planning to move on to a different theatre of war, and a different variety of unbeliever, in the near future.

So, even after seven weeks of combat, no observer can be quite sure exactly who or what is on the ridge above Kargil. Western observers say with certainty that men from Pakistan's Northern Light Infantry regiment are deployed on the heights. The Pakistanis deny it and nobody has yet put forward any conclusive evidence either way.

But what is clear is that as far as the army and the ISI are concerned, their strategy is working. At the cost of, at most, a hundred men -- possibly regulars, possibly militants -- and a large quantity of ammunition, the Pakistani Army has caused immense problems for its Indian counterpart. Pakistan's international image may have suffered but one key aim has been achieved: to publicise and globalise the Kashmir dispute. "The whole point is just to pressure India -- it doesn't matter how," says Saboor Ali Syed of the Islamabad-based Institute for Policy Studies.

There are deeper forces at work too. Zia built an army in his own mould. Under his regime, the Sandhurst-educated, polo-playing officers were gradually forced out and a new, dour, lower middle class, staunchly and stolidly Islamic officer class inducted. These men are now occupying the senior positions and they genuinely believe that their army is an Islamic army, of an Islamic state and one that is threatened from every side. For many of these men, the "liberation" of Kashmir is not a military exercise or even a diplomatic objective, it is a religious duty.

For them a compromise peace with India would be a betrayal of Kashmir and of the ideals of Pakistan. After all, this is a country where schoolchildren, putting up a play for a visiting dignitary, would enact a story about brave jawans fighting the Hindu hordes. By the end of the drama the stage is kneedeep in dead eight year-olds. It is not surprising that such men are deeply suspicious of the Lahore Declaration and all it symbolised. Though their plans had been laid before the "bus diplomacy" of February, the sight of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Sharif shaking hands added an urgency that wasn't there before.

The army knows, however, that they must avoid a full-scale war. Though, as the State Department report says, "It is unlikely that (India) could win a decisive victory over Pakistan in a conventional war", none of the brass really wants to risk the huge gamble of an all-out conflict. Instead they are following the path they trod in the '80s. For 12 years, the ISI successfully managed the jihad in Afghanistan, forcing the Russians out without ever provoking them into an attack on Pakistan, so now they are employing the same tactics on their eastern frontier. "We'll keep it going at the same level," one military official explained last week. "At the moment it is going well. We are losing very few men and the Indians are having a nightmare. The politicians might stop us but nothing else can."

Thankfully, the chances of the conflict going nuclear are slim. The fear of a mad Pakistani general unleashing a holocaust are understandable but misplaced. For a start, he would be unlikely to get his hands on a nuclear-capable missile as Pakistan is yet to weaponise its nuclear devices. To hit Delhi a plane, probably an F-16, would have to fly over the city and drop a bomb on it. Secondly the nuclear establishment, from its research scientists to its red button, is firmly under civilian control. Obviously the army would be deeply involved in decisions about the use or otherwise of nuclear weapons but the black briefcase would never be chained to a khaki wrist.

And, though Pakistan's economy is still very weak, there is no reason, say analysts, why the current level of military activity shouldn't be sustained for several months with western financial firms based in the country. "Foreign-exchange reserves are as low as $1.7 billion, enough for only six or seven weeks of imports but it seems that the army's stockpiles of ammunition are sufficient for the moment," explains one analyst. "And though investor confidence has suffered there has been little impact on the economy otherwise. A big war would be a serious strain but a localised conflict can be continued almost indefinitely."

The experts add that the Pakistani economy has recovered substantially since the immediate aftermath of the nuclear tests last year. Foreign debt has remained at around $30 billion, inflation is at a 15-year low of 6.5 per cent and GDP growth in 1998-99 is claimed to have been 5 per cent. Though the recent budget has widely been dismissed as laughably optimistic, there have been some more realistic attempts to clear up the mess left by the hiatus in aid caused by the sanctions that were imposed after the nuclear tests and not lifted until late last year. The army is now effectively in charge of WAPDA -- the state electricity utility -- and state-owned banks now have new managers who appear committed to collecting at least some of the bad debt that is crippling the economy. The Karachi Stock Exchange index, which plunged after the nuclear tests, may not have regained its former level but is stable. The rupee is relatively firm against the dollar, losing less than 10 per cent of its value since the crisis began.

And then there is the black economy. Amanullah Khan, a major businessman and former president of the Islamabad Stock Exchange, says Pakistan's huge "undocumented" economy would help it sustain substantial economic strain for a considerable time. "People are ready to make sacrifices. If they have to give money for Kashmir they will," he continues. "The Government is right, the Mujahideen is right and we are supporting this together. We can overcome any hardships, any problems. We did last summer and we can again."

But, as Khan and other Pakistani patriots know, the country's economy is propped up by loans from agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Any delay in the disbursement of that money will cause very serious problems.

Pakistan is due to receive a $100 million tranche of an IMF structural-readjustment loan worth $1.6 billion shortly. Last week officials in Washington seemed to be hinting that the money might be withheld if Pakistan does not agree to withdraw its troops from Kargil. If the money is delayed, other loans, totalling $17 billion, would be jeopardised. That would push the economy over the edge. Though State Department officials later denied any such plan, the powers-that-be in Pakistan are rattled. "The economy is on a life- support machine. Stopping the loans would be like turning the machine off," says one Karachi-based analyst.

BUS DIPLOMACY AS HISTORY
Any reconciliatory bid by Sharif will be lost on the battle-hardened militants of Kashmir

Last Wednesday Information Minister Hussain held a lunch for foreign journalists in the Crystal ballroom of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel. Before the assembled hacks could start on the chicken tikka and mooli salad, there was an hour and a half of the minister, ably supported by Brigadier Rashid Qureshi, the new head of the armed forces inter-services public relations, putting across Pakistan's view again and again. "We want peace," the minister repeated a dozen times. "We want dialogue and de-escalation. We don't want a war. We don't want things to go out of control."

Hussain's back-slapping bonhomie and his pacifist rhetoric served to reinforce the sense of a division within Pakistan. It is clear that much of the public, the army and the political establishment is as gung ho about Kargil now as they were seven weeks ago.

Yet the growing diplomatic isolation of Pakistan is making Sharif and his advisers very nervous. A little international support is being made to go a long way. The prime minister's trip to China -- which produced little more than a call from the Chinese for dialogue on the Kashmir issue -- has been trumpeted as a major diplomatic triumph and the entirely predictable support for Pakistan from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Burkina Fasso has been hailed as outweighing the brickbats thrown at Islamabad by the US and almost all western nations.

It is clear -- from private statements and from the back-door diplomacy that he has initiated -- that Sharif is looking for a way out. Ministers are finally admitting that Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani foreign secretary, travelled to Delhi on a specially chartered jet last weekend. Hussain has made Sharif's stance explicit. "The prime minister wants peace," he told India Today.

Last week some Urdu newspapers, quoting "sources close to the prime minister", said Sharif is actually very angry at the position he has been put in by the military. Others say sharp words have been exchanged between "dove-like" senior ministers and a "hawkish" military brass. The problem is that Sharif needs to find something he can sell to the army and to the Pakistani public. And that will not be easy.

"The life and blood of the people of Kashmir is at stake," says General Mirza Aslam Beg, former chief of army staff. "It is part of the faith and the belief of every Muslim and every Pakistani to fight for the freedom of the Kashmiris. How can Sharif compromise on that?"

What Sharif has to do is de-escalate public opinion and expectation within his country as much as de-escalate the fighting on the loc. It is a hard task but not impossible. After all he managed to sell February's bus diplomacy to a sceptical public.

Aamer Ahmed Khan points out that Sharif's very strength could help him win peace. "He can face down to any opposition without being afraid of being ousted," he says. "He can make almost anything work if he wants to. He can change the way Pakistanis think about Kashmir, can persuade them that only diplomacy and dialogue will win in the long run." But that depends, to a great extent, on a measure of trust and co-operation from the Indians -- and from the Mujahideen.

Any face-saving deal, even with the full support of the Indians, would bring about a cessation of official hostilities and avert the threat of escalation but may well fail to bring an end to the war. The brutal fact is that there is no guarantee that the Islamic militants in Kashmir will obey the orders of Islamabad.

Just because the ISI helps the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Tehrik-e-Jihad and the other dozen or so groups fighting in Kashmir does not mean they control them. "For once the world is listening to us," a Tehrik-e-Jihad commander in Muzaffarabad said last month. "Why should we stop shooting now?"

When, or if, the shooting stops, the struggle for peace will have only just begun.

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