Dragonfire

by Humphrey Hawksley

  Leung turned to a smaller map of Asia on the wall. ‘We have already allowed the American and Indian satellites to photograph troop movements near the border at Mazar close to Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, Zanda and Garyarsa in the Himalayan foothills of Himachal Pradesh and far to the east around Lhunze and here near Nyingchi. We assume that this information has been passed on to India, which also has its own imagery. Our plan is simple. We draw attention away from Tibet and towards our military response to India. As a global superpower, everything we do will be justified, mature and measured.’

  ‘Comrade Song,’ said Tao, ‘it will be your task to explain the policies to the international community and retain the relationships we have carefully built up over the years. But first, I would like Comrade Tang to tell us how far he has got in finding the escaped prisoner, Togden.’

  Lhodrag, Tibet, China

  Local time: 0500 Friday 4 May 2007

  GMT: 2100 Thursday 3 May 2007

  They had been walking now for three days, but Major Choedrak knew the worst was still to come.

  He had planned two routes out. The longer was to the south-west to Gangtok in Sikkim, 400 kilometres from Lhasa. In the old days, a single runner could do the journey in six days. With Togden, it could take them up to a month. This was the way Choedrak had wanted to go, because once in India he believed Togden would be safe. His second choice was to go due south to the tiny Kingdom of Bhutan, a journey they could do in five days, if they pushed it hard, which was what the men had been trained to do.

  After escaping into the mountains south of Lhasa, Choedrak led the party south-west down the Yarlung Tsangpo Brahmaputra river valley to Chushul, a strategic town at the intersection of the four main highways linking central, western and southern Tibet. It also had a key bridge with a strong Chinese military presence around it. They crossed the bridge with false papers in the early morning of 4 May. Two hours later, SFF units in Chusul attacked Chinese military positions and blew up the bridge, cutting off the main route of pursuit. More units pinned down Chinese trying to cross the river by boat, holding them back until all the Tibetans were dead. As word of the battle in Chusul spread through the community, spontaneous uprisings broke out in all towns in southern Tibet. Hundreds were killed, but thousands of Chinese troops were tied up in crushing rebellions, giving Choedrak the precious space he needed for the escape.

  Choedrak kept twenty men with him, putting ten ahead and ten behind at all times. The next centre after Chusul was Gongkar on the banks of Yarlung Tsangpo Brahmaputra, where the Chinese air force kept a squadron of SU-27 ground-attack aircraft. As they hurried south, Choedrak’s men fought skirmishes with approaching Chinese troops. Sometimes whole villages would turn out as human barricades across the road to stop armoured vehicles. Once, as they reached the pass in sight of the Yamdrok Tso lake, they heard small arms fire of close combat behind them. Chinese mortar shells killed two Tibetans in the party and wounded another, who took cyanide rather than be captured or delay the party more. It was then that Choedrak decided to strike out due south to seek sanctuary in Bhutan, which was less than 100 kilometres away. The mountain passes were higher, the weather fouler and the refuge less certain.

  The Yamdrok Tso was considered by Tibetans to be sacred, a beautiful expanse of blue, grey and white water covering more than 750 square kilometres. They found communities so remote that they were able to rest for a few hours in warmth and recover their strength. When the villagers guessed who Togden was, they vowed that not one Chinese soldier would pass through while any man in the village was still alive. The party headed along a vast high-altitude depression towards the town of Nagartse, which was on the Lhasa–Gyantse highway. This had become the headquarters for the search operation to find Togden. They had another 1,800 metres to climb in freezing temperatures and nine passes to go through before reaching Bhutan.

  Choedrak gave a wide birth to Nagartse and for a whole day it seemed the Chinese had lost them. But that morning the microlights had come, then the fighter planes, not hitting them, but slowing them down, making them hide out, unable to move around. After the first air attack Choedrak gave orders for them to shoot down the micro-lights, breaking their cover, but hitting two – and hopefully deterring more from coming. They had to reach Lhodrag, and then strike out south-west to Langdo, but if the weather closed in, it could be days away, or death on the mountain. The final few kilometres of the route which Choedrak had chosen were along the Monla Karchung glacier pass. It was one of the most awesome journeys a man could make.

  Parliament Building, Islamabad, Pakistan

  Local time: 0800 Friday 4 May 2007

  GMT: 0300 Friday 4 May 2007

  Hamid Khan’s newly appointed ministers, a mixture of technocrats, Islamists and military officers, took the seats of the former Pakistani cabinet in the Parliament chamber. The elected members were allowed to keep their seats, although many who supported the old regime boycotted the special session. It was highly unusual for an emergency session of Parliament to be called on a Friday morning, and be addressed by a general in full military uniform. But Khan wanted to emphasize the character of his government and make his statement before the imams spoke during prayers in the mosques.

  ‘Pakistan was created under the concept of Hezira,’ he began. ‘It is the concept that Muslims must not live under tyranny or oppression from other people’s faith. Since the partition in 1947, the threat against Pakistan has increased many-fold. India has transformed itself from being a secular state under the Congress Party to becoming a Hindu and nuclear-armed state under Hindu nationalism.’

  Khan had planned to mention Pakistan’s founders, men like Chaudhury Rahmat Ali and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, but he had accepted China’s advice to stick only to policy and avoid the use of personalities and heroes.

  ‘Under Hezira, Muslims remake their lives elsewhere and move from Dar-ul-Harb to Dar-ul-Islam. It is a concept which dates back to ad 622, when the Prophet travelled from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution. With partition, we had hoped that there would be peace between the two countries. But that has not happened. The reasons are plentiful. Human weakness and rampant moral and economic corruption in both countries have kept Pakistani and Indian societies poor and close to war.

  ‘India with its much-heralded democracy has failed to provide any better life for its people than Pakistan with its rotten ruling elite, whether military or civilian. The people of Pakistan, the Cold War ally of the United States, are as pathetically poor as the people of India who proudly chose to be non-aligned. I have heard numerous wretched excuses for the state we are in. We have blamed the British for allowing partition; the Americans for betraying our alliance; the Indians for threatening our existence; the multinationals for exploiting our workforce. The new government of Pakistan has heard all the excuses, but it will no longer use them or listen to them. The hard truth is that Pakistan has been incapable of governing itself.

  ‘Why have Taiwan and South Korea managed their relationships with the superpowers and created decent places for their people to live in? How come Slovenia and Hungary have steered their way out of Communism and into the global village to stability and success? How can other Islamic countries like Malaysia and Jordan balance obligations towards their cultures and religions against the forces of Western influence? The answer is because the governments there think, plan and implement. From today, this is what Pakistan will do as well.’

  Khan paused and noticed seats in the chamber filling up. The door at the back constantly swung open and closed as those members who were keeping an ear on the speakers in the lobby decided to come in and see for themselves.

  ‘I will now briefly outline the policies of the new government and then turn to the latest conflict with India.’ He rearranged his papers, allowing time for people to sit down. ‘Pakistan is now a military dictatorship and it will remain so until our economy is close to First World standards. We will follow the models of Taiwan and South Korea, whose dictator
ships were far more ruthless than ours will be. We will not be euphemistic about what we are. Democracy has failed Pakistan. Our foreign policy has not protected us. Our economic policies have not made the people rich. I suggest, therefore, that you give the new government a chance.

  ‘We will introduce strict laws against corruption, based on the Independent Commission against Corruption set up in Hong Kong in the 1970s. Efforts will be made to pay our civil servants enough money so they don’t have to take bribes. We will encourage foreign investment, trade and research to create our own manufacturing base. We will work towards opening our border with India to trade, resuming direct shipping routes, increasing air routes and introducing an exchangeable currency. Technocrats, not politicians, will work out the details.

  ‘Those with vested interests will oppose, some violently, and they will be handled forcefully and without hesitation. And to those of you in this chamber who are already plotting to overthrow me, I ask you to consider one thing, and one thing only: count not your personal loss from the new system, count only the country’s gain. Think of your children and your grandchildren and the day that they will be able to hold their heads high as citizens of Pakistan without making excuses for the poverty and suffering of our people.’

  Khan had been mostly reading from notes, his manner not theatrical, but humble, his voice soft, diffident and at odds with the forthright speech he was making. But now he looked up, moving his eyes around the chamber, accomplishing the personal contact needed to bring the assembly onto his side.

  ‘There is, though, one terrible obstacle to this plan, and that is India, whose policy is to threaten our very existence. India is the only threat we face, and the only real issue of contention is Kashmir. Underlying Kashmir, however, is the unwritten perception that India does not accept Pakistan’s right to exist. We live with the flawed inheritance of partition.

  ‘Yesterday, Indian aircraft crossed into Pakistani airspace and attacked our territory. It is not the first time. Perhaps it is not the last. Civilians died and our sovereignty was violated. It is an apt time, therefore, to end the issue of Kashmir once and for all. We will let this one airstrike go unpunished. In return, I am going to take an initiative which may well cost me my life, but could settle once and for all the cancer which the Kashmir dispute has inflicted upon our development.

  ‘I believe that Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC would prefer independence to rule either by Pakistan or by India. In the past, we have claimed the whole region and would perhaps let the southern Jammu area and eastern Ladakh, which has a Buddhist majority, stay with India. But that would mean further partition, and I am not convinced that partition has worked either for either of our countries. Therefore, I am proposing a referendum to be held among all Kashmiris, under the auspices of the United Nations and checked by international monitors. If the vote is for independence, it will be a blow to the psyches of both India and Pakistan. There will be grumbling within the armed forces about wasted lives. But Kashmir will remain a predominantly Islamic society. The war will be won by waging peace. Kashmir will look to us for support in creating the world’s newest state, and we will give it unequivocally in our quest for peace. India will play its role. It will also realize that severing Kashmir from both our sovereignties will not lead to the break-up of India. It will mark the beginning of peace, prosperity and development.’

  Khan paused, allowing the significance of what he had said to sink in.

  ‘This offer from Pakistan is not negotiable,’ he continued quietly. ‘If India attacks us again or rejects the referendum, we will punish her so severely that she will end up as a rump of her former self. My government’s policy is unequivocal. We will make safe our territory and modernize. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will stand in our way to provide the life that our people deserve.’

  Hamid Khan collated his papers, which he had ignored for the last five minutes of his speech. He walked slowly down the aisle of the chamber, as if inspecting a guard of honour on a parade ground, his hands clasped behind his back, the papers rolled awkwardly, holding them more like a swagger stick than the notes from a politician’s speech. Just before he reached the door, the first cheer broke out, timid at first and far away. But within seconds it spread with clapping, then the shuffle of feet as member after member in the chamber rose to give the military ruler a standing ovation. Khan stopped, looking around, clearly surprised at the reaction. He turned to Masood more for refuge than anything else. Masood had the door open. The bodyguards stepped back to let the general through.

  Khan turned back towards the chamber and held up his hand to speak again. The applause quietened. ‘Threats of sanctions from the West have only just begun. For a while, Pakistan will be branded as a pariah state. The members of my government will be demonized as monsters. Pakistani money now in Western banks may be frozen. We will be denied visas. Those of you who manage to travel abroad will be followed and spied upon. Every tool of the Western powers will be used to intimidate us. But ride through it, ignore the arrogance of the developed world, and we will find that the sanctions will fade away.

  ‘No society has developed from poverty to wealth as a democracy. The repression of Victorian Britain was an appalling spectrum of suffering and human rights abuses. The apartheid and racism of twentieth-century America is a blight upon that country’s history. Democracy has pulled Africa and South Asia into debt, humiliation and beggary. Autocracy in East Asia has created wealth and self-confidence. We may have democracy, but not in our lifetime, although today the unashamed dictatorship of Pakistan has laid the first seeds towards creating a fairer, juster and freer society than this country has ever had before.’

  The members were still standing, but they had fallen quiet. Khan left the chamber in silence.

  Back in the Prime Minister’s office, Hamid Khan picked up the green hotline telephone on his desk. ‘This is Hamid Khan in Islamabad,’ he said softly. ‘I would like to speak to the Indian Prime Minister, please.’

  Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi

  Local time: 1000 Friday 4 May 2007

  GMT: 0430 Friday 4 May 2007

  ‘We haven’t spoken directly before,’ said Khan to Hari Dixit.

  Chandra Reddy happened to be with Dixit when the hotline call came through, and as the Prime Minister spoke he slipped transcriptions of Khan’s speech onto the desk, highlighting the final section about the airstrikes and referendum. The tape recorders were on.

  ‘Only a solution to Kashmir can lead to permanent peace in South Asia, and this is the way to do it,’ Khan said. ‘I can only remind you that the original idea for a referendum came not from us but from India in 1947.’

  ‘The UN resolution of 13 August 1948 specified that Pakistan withdraw from Jammu and Kashmir, which you haven’t,’ replied Dixit. ‘The second resolution of 5 January 1949 stated that people should be consulted about their future only after the withdrawal and after normalcy had returned. That hasn’t yet happened.’

  ‘The resolutions were overtaken by the Simla Agreement of 1972,’ Khan said. ‘But in any case, all this is long ago. Let’s press ahead without dragging up history.’

  Dixit interrupted. ‘The resolutions still stand.’

  ‘We must focus on the future and not the past.’

  ‘You have been organizing an insurgency in Kashmir for the past twenty years,’ Dixit continued, calling in every political and diplomatic instinct to prevent himself from slamming down the phone. ‘Two days ago the Northern Army Commander and the Home Minister were murdered by the shooting down of their helicopter with a Stinger missile.’

  Khan paused, then said: ‘I have only just taken power. Some things have gone further than I would have allowed.’

  ‘Did you order the Stinger attack?’

  ‘My information is that it was carried out by extremists, attached to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi guerrillas.’

  ‘Where did they get the missiles from?’

  ‘The Taleban.
We have told the Afghan government that we will not tolerate another such incident. All Stingers in the hands of the Pakistan government are accounted for.’

  Reddy, hovering behind, wrote TIBET in prominent capital letters and put it on top of the papers in front of Dixit. ‘And the attack on Dharamsala,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘We have a Pakistani suspect, caught with weapons.’

  ‘I know. But I can’t add anything. Let us start from yesterday. My intention, Hari, is to end conflict, not begin another one.’

  ‘Well, General,’ said Dixit, refusing to be drawn into a first-name relationship, ‘I will consult and get back to you within the day. But as you know, the Indian people would be reluctant to permit the incorporation of Jammu and Kashmir into Pakistan simply because the majority of the people there are Muslims. The impact on the Muslims in India would be dangerous and it would threaten the secular basis of our society.’

  ‘Don’t talk about history again, Hari,’ said Khan. ‘India is no longer secular. It is a Hindu state and Pakistan is a Muslim state. Once you accept that, Kashmir will solve itself.’

  When Dixit ended the call, Reddy said: ‘We can’t accept, sir. It would be political suicide.’

  ‘I know,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘Let’s get out a statement saying that.’

  New China News Agency, Lhasa, Tibet, China

  Local time: 1300 Friday 4 May 2007

  GMT: 0500 Friday 4 May 2007

  Dateline: Lhasa

  Recent disturbances in Lhasa and other areas of Tibet created by a handful of splittists have ended.

  Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London