Siachen conflict

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Territorial claims in Kashmir: Under Indian control ( Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh ) Under Pakistani control ( Asad Kashmir ) Under Pakistani control ( Gilgit-Baltistan ) Under Chinese control ( Aksai Chin ) Shaksgam Valley (ceded by Pakistan to China, not recognized by India )






The Siachen conflict , also known as the Siachen War , is an armed conflict between India and Pakistan in the disputed region of Kashmir . It began on April 13, 1984 with the occupation of the Siachen Muztagh and the Siachen Glacier by the Indian military ( Operation Meghdoot ). Since the contested area in the high mountains is one of the coldest regions in the world, in which temperatures can drop to -40 ° C and below, there are also names such as The Coldest War (German: The coldest war) and in the media the highest battlefield in the world .

prehistory

Satellite image of the Siachen Glacier

The roots of this armed conflict lie in the Kashmir conflict , which the states of India and Pakistan have been fighting since 1947. However, neither Pakistan nor India maintained a sustained military or administrative presence in the region itself.

When mountaineers became interested in climbing the mountains of the Siachen region in the 1970s and early 1980s, Pakistan allowed 16 expeditions over the Siachen Glacier: eleven from Japan, three from Austria and one each from Great Britain and the United States from America. When the Indian press reported that these expeditions were being escorted by officers from the Pakistani armed forces , a first hint was given in a press article in The Telegraph Calcutta in India in 1982 that the matter could lead to conflict. This article appeared in 1984 as an article "Oropolitics" in the Alpine Journal , London. The term Oropolitics means "mountaineering with political intent". At the time, India also allowed mountaineering expeditions, provided that they started into the region from its area. In addition, the Indian army itself led an expedition led by Colonel N. Kumar, which climbed the Teram Kangri .

In 1984 the authorities in Pakistan allowed a Japanese expedition to climb Rimo I , which lies east of the Siachen Glacier in the part of Kashmir claimed by the People's Republic of China , which India also claims for itself. Since Pakistan obtained Arctic clothing from the same supplier from whom the Indians had ordered, this did not go unnoticed in India. As China supported the Pakistani position in the Kashmir conflict, the Indian armed forces concluded that Pakistan either wanted to take a strategic military position there or to build a trade route from northeastern Pakistan to southwestern China .

occupation

With the Indian reconnaissance expecting a Pakistani advance into the area on April 17, India began Operation Meghdoot on April 13, 1984 under the command of Lieutenant General Hoon, commander of the Indian Army Northern Command, based in Udhampur , Jammu and Kashmir is stationed. Military and paramilitary forces from Ladakh to the north took up positions near the glacier. The Indian troops had already completed training in Antarctica in 1982 .

Air force helicopters were used to transport personnel and equipment to the glacier, and the soldiers took up strategic positions on the mountains and mountain passes. When the Pakistanis tried to deploy their troops to this area , they found that the Indians had occupied the main mountain passes on the Saltoro Mountains west of the Siachen Glacier; they only managed to occupy the western slopes of the Saltoro Mountains. India occupies two thirds of the glacier and two of the three mountain passes in this area, including one of the highest motorable mountain passes, the Kardung La Pass . Pakistan occupies Mount Gyong Kangri and thus dominates the Shyok and Nubra valleys.

The loss of life from Operation Meghdoot is unknown. The President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf , stated in his memoir that Pakistan lost 900 km² of its territory as a result of this operation. According to TIME , India has gained about 1000 km² from Pakistan.

The combat zone forms a triangle from the coordinate NJ 9842 to the Indira Col and Karakorumpass . The coordinate was set in the Shimla Agreement and ends at the edge of the Siachen Glacier about 100 km from the Chinese border.

Struggles

Since 1984 Pakistan has tried to drive out the Indian armed forces with little success. Forty attacks were carried out by the Pakistanis, mainly in 1990, 1995, 1996 and 1999, and in 1996 they succeeded in shooting down an Indian helicopter. These attacks did not change the status quo, the front remained unchanged. The most famous attack was carried out in 1987 by the later President Pervez Musharraf with Pakistani special forces, which were supported by US American special forces. This special force of 8,000 men was formed in Khaplu . They captured the Bilafond-La Pass , but were thrown back to their original position in a face-to-face battle.

India awarded the officer Bana Singh with a medal after he had conquered an important strategic Pakistani post at 6,700 meters by climbing a 457 m high ice wall. The last major confrontation took place on September 4, 1999, when the Pakistani soldiers fired cannons at Indian soldiers walking the slopes of the Turtuk , killing nine Indian soldiers. Artillery battles took place between the two sides until 2003.

negotiations

The two states have been negotiating the border on the Siachen glacier since 2005; have not yet come to a conclusion.

The uncertain border line runs between the two parts of the country in the middle of the glacier. India insists on an agreement prior to troop withdrawal, while Pakistan insists that both armies withdraw to the positions they occupied before the Indian army occupied most of the glacier.

Around 1,000 Indian and 1,300 Pakistani soldiers lost their lives in the Siachen conflict; other sources assume a total of 4,000 soldiers were killed. The loss of people results less from fighting than from the circumstances such as altitude sickness , cold and avalanches that prevail at such altitudes. In 2013, 10 Indian soldiers died from avalanches, eight in 2014 and nine in 2015. In the first two months of 2016, 14 soldiers lost their lives on the glacier.

According to Der Spiegel , the conflict cost India ten billion dollars and Pakistan seven billion dollars by 2005.

Current development

Since autumn 2007, India has allowed mountaineers to explore the Siachen region. It is believed that India wants to show internationally that it holds all the significant heights in the Saltoro region west of the Siachen Glacier. Pakistan also allows expeditions to the area with the participation of an officer. Pakistan has not protested since then when trekking and mountaineering expeditions from India are being carried out.

India is planning a flight service from its military base in Thoise and in Pakistan trekkers and mountaineers fly to Skardu so that they can reach or climb K2 , which is 33 km from the Siachen area. The K2 is the highest mountain in the Karakoram . At 8,611 meters, it is the second highest mountain on earth and is considered by mountaineers to be far more challenging than Mount Everest , and many even as the most difficult of all fourteen eight-thousanders .

India operates one of the highest landing sites for helicopters at 6,400 m and installed the highest telephone booth for its soldiers on the Siachen Glacier so that they can get in touch with their families.

Due to a serious avalanche accident on the glacier - an avalanche buried a Pakistani camp on April 7, 2012 and buried around 100 soldiers - international attention was drawn to this highest arena of combat in the world.

ecology

Since 1984 the Indian armed forces have been digging bunkers in the ice on the glacier, building heliports and the Siachen base camp as well as other facilities. During this encroachment on the Siachen Glacier, they leave tons of chemicals, metallic and organic residues behind. The Indians built a 598 kilometer long road from Leh in Ladakh to the glacier, on which the oil and other transport vehicles drive, through an untouched high mountain landscape that is difficult to regenerate after surgery . In the glacier there is a 120 km long oil pipeline for heating the igloos, keeping weapons warm and melting ice into drinking water. According to the hydrologist Arshad H. Abbasi, the former head of the Planning Commission of Pakistan and current advisor to the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad , the troops on both sides have caused irreparable damage to biodiversity, ecology and hydrology after 25 years . According to Abbasi, the Siachen Glacier is a climate regulator and an ecological resource for South Asia and especially for China, Pakistan and India; and this is threatened. With its melt water, the glacier is an important prerequisite for the life of people living further down the valley. The Siachen Glacier has lost 25 percent of its ice mass in the last 25 years, the largest loss of all glaciers in the Himalayas .

rating

There are varying ratings of this military operation. A consideration assumes that non-strategic land was occupied and the measure is merely symbolic. Another assessment considers the heights of the Saltoro Mountains on the west side of the glacier to be tactically important, as the Indian army used the more than 70 kilometers long glacier as well as the neighboring high mountain passes such as the Sia-La Pass , Bilafond-La Pass and Gyong La Pass can control. On the other hand, attention is drawn to the high costs of stationing. Another assumption is that India feared that access to Ladakh via the southern Karakorum Pass could be blocked and India therefore initiated Operation Meghdoot. One opinion takes into account that the political relations between India and China were tense at the time and India saw the area around the Siachen as an insurmountable barrier. In the meantime, the political relationship with China has relaxed and the mountains and glaciers are no longer needed as a bastion against China. Relations between China and Pakistan have long been cooperative and unencumbered.

A written concept for the demilitarization of the conflict zone on the Siachen Glacier has been available since 2009. Another plan suggests a Siachen Peace Park, a concept of the Transboundery Park initiatives .

In 2016, the Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parikar declared that there were no plans to withdraw the troops from the glacier because the Pakistani side was not trusted to take advantage of the situation. In 2005, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proposed that both sides should withdraw their troops without an agreement on the borderline and that the mountain should become a 'mountain of peace'.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d Manning the Siachen Glacier at www.bharat-rakshak.com ( Memento from June 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 28, 2009
  2. Brig. Ghazanfar Ali and Brig. Akhtar Ghani Siachen - The World´s Highest Battlefield on Pakistan Military Consortium Brig. Ghazanfar Ali and Brig. Akhtar Ghani Siachen ( Memento of September 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 28, 2009
  3. The Coldest War. P. 3 ( Memento of April 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 28, 2009
  4. ^ Pervez Musharraf: In the Line of Fire: A Memoir . Pp. 68/69. Free Press 2006. ISBN 0743283449
  5. The Himalayas War at the Top Of the World, July 31, 1989 , accessed December 28, 2009
  6. Information on siachenglacier.com ( memento of October 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 28, 2009
  7. ^ JN Dixit: India-Pakistan in war & peace. P. 39. ISBN 0415304725
  8. Braving the heights on hvk.org ( Memento of 9 March 2012 at the Internet Archive ), accessed 28 December 2009
  9. Report on www.siachenglacier.com ( Memento of 15 March 2011 at the Internet Archive ), accessed 28 December 2009
  10. ^ Sophie Mühlmann: India and Pakistan want to clear the border line. Welt on May 27, 2005 , accessed December 28, 2009
  11. a b c Pakistan and India want to freeze glacial war, Spiegel from May 26, 2005
  12. Information on siachenglacier.com ( memento of October 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 28, 2009
  13. a b Siachen costs Army dearly; 14 soldiers die in 2 months in: Greater Kashmir, March 3, 2016, accessed on March 3, 2016
  14. India opens Siachen to trekkers. Times of India of September 13, 2007
  15. Information on thaindian.com ( memento of October 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 18, 2011
  16. ^ India Installs World's Highest Phone Booth Soldiers Fighting Along Kashmir Glacier Can Now Call Families ( July 14, 2014 memento in the Internet Archive ), accessed December 28, 2009
  17. spiegel.de: Avalanche buried a hundred Pakistani soldiers
  18. Interview with the Pakistani hydrologist Arshad Abasi on ips.org from December 17, 2009 ( Memento from December 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 28, 2009
  19. Review on realitycheck.wordpress.com , accessed December 28, 2009
  20. ^ Map of the glacier region , accessed on December 28, 2009
  21. Demilitarization of the Siachen Conflict Zone: Concepts for Implementation and Monitoring ( Memento of April 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 3.4 MB), accessed on December 28, 2009
  22. ^ Concept of the 5th World Parks Congress (Durban / South Africa) for a Siachen Peace Park from 12.-13. September 2003 , accessed December 28, 2009

Coordinates: 35 ° 28 ′ 2 ″  N , 77 ° 3 ′ 0 ″  E