Dragonfire

by Humphrey Hawksley

  Flying at 1,000 feet above the formations were four-man Alouette Cheetahs, two in each sector, used for command and control. They also carried high-ranking officers who would command the sectors once they were secured. Others flew with medical crew to evacuate the critically wounded.

  Three formations flew low and slow towards Yellow sector, with 1,022 men deployed in the first wave. On dropping them the helicopters returned to bring in another thousand within the hour. The larger helicopters carried platoons of Indian Muslim soldiers, so that there would be one with each landing.

  Pakistani resistance was scattered, as if after the overnight battering every man had been left to his own initiative to take out an aircraft. High above, the Indian fighter planes were engaging the few Pakistani pilots who had managed to scramble their warplanes into the air. The Yellow sector helicopter pilots began calling in hits within seconds of crossing the LoC. They were mainly from small-arms and machine-gun fire, but it became clear that this would not be a casualty-free operation.

  ‘Fuel line severed,’ the pilot of a Mi-25 managed to report before power was lost. He skilfully brought it down in one piece, but straight into the fire of a Pakistani bunker. While the pilot was wrestling with the controls on the way down, the crew fired a Scorpion anti-tank missile blindly, and raked the area with a four-barrel 12.7mm rotary gun, causing mayhem on the ground. The commandos were out of the helicopter when it was still six feet off the ground, storming the bunker. The corporal in charge just managed to raise the Indian flag before they were pinned down and killed against overwhelming odds.

  ‘Pilot killed,’ said another report from a Mi-17.

  ‘Secure Ground Yellow, you are off course,’ said the second in command to the leader of a formation, which was trying to get attention with a frantic hand signal that the aircraft’s radio had been knocked out. The Alouette, carrying the sector battalion colonel, took over as command aircraft.

  As they got closer to the designated landing zones, the formation bunched up. From the ground, it might have looked like precision flying, but in the air it was like a sudden traffic jam, with everyone bobbing around at different altitudes and pilots pulling back and going forward to avoid collisions. The pilots had to have nerves of ice to get through the landing. One wrong position, one touch of the rotor blades and a dozen aircraft could go down. Yet fear of making a mistake affected judgement, with less experienced pilots overcorrecting until their helicopter got out of control. The orders of the first wave were to avoid population centres, set up secure positions and call in airstrikes and artillery to clear the ground for the next wave. The first landings were to go no further than Kaksar and the Shingo River.

  But on the ground, resistance was building, and it would be impossible to reach some of the landing zones (LZ) without inflicting an enormous number of civilian casualties. The orders, though, were clear. If civilians stayed around, they should be treated as sympathizers and participants in the conflict.

  For many of the pilots, their assailants from the ground were invisible. Ten aircraft came in at only twenty knots under concentrated fire on the northern side of the Shingo and Dras rivers where the Pakistanis had an artillery command and control centre. All that the Indian troops could see were villagers looking up, shielding their eyes from the sun, with the enemy among them firing up with heavy-calibre machine guns. The crews called in hits every other second. The ships were too high for the soldiers to jump and if they did they would be cut down in a withering field of fire. Then a gunner from a Mi-25 opened up on the villagers with the 12.7mm. Other soldiers from the same craft fired into the crowd and lobbed down grenades, killing women, children, animals and the enemy – any living thing which moved against them. Ten aircraft landed. Ten took off again. The men on the ground secured one of the most strategic areas in Yellow Sector.

  Further along, directly north of Dras, the pilots had to deal with LZs of up to 4,500 metres. Buildings seemed to grip hold of mountainsides of icy wastelands. It was one of the cruellest places to fight a war, but also one of the most strategic. In the second formation of fifty aircraft, fifteen were damaged and ten were shot down while they foundered around the mountains, dropping off troops. Most of the pilots had to carry out pinnacle landings, which they described as like approaching a raft at sea in a storm. Some of the hilltops soared straight up 300 metres above the valleys and the pilots had to keep the landing spot below the horizon. If they climbed above, they were too low and became buffeted by winds.

  The pilot of a Mi-26, loaded with five tonnes of equipment and twenty men, made that mistake. His aircraft became impossible to control and it smashed into the mountain, mushing up like a squashed paper cup. It rolled down the slope, spewing out men and equipment all the way down until it exploded into a ball of fire. Some of the areas were so unstable that the skids would slip on the ice and get caught somewhere, so the pilots couldn’t take off. They had to get lift by bringing the nose up first, making sure both skids were free. If one got stuck the aircraft would flip over and crash.

  On Pakistan territory across the LoC from the town of Minimarg, eight helicopters came into land amid extraordinary scenes of welcome, as if they were a liberating force. Four Mi-25s landed first and the assault squads set up positions around the rest of the LZ, with the villagers backing away from them, but staying. Then the Mi-26 came down and, as soon as the wheels touched the ground, the men on board four Mi-17s jumped out from a hover, secured the area and began unloading equipment. That was when the Pakistanis opened up. A handheld anti-tank missile exploded against the cockpit of the Mi-26. Machine-gun fire, criss-crossing the LZ, cut down a swathe of men, scrambling to get weapons to defend themselves. Rocket-propelled grenades destroyed two helicopters before the assault units were able to lay down fire.

  The battle around Minimarg lasted for hours with the bodies of children lying wounded and dying in between the two sides. Every helicopter was wrecked and it wasn’t until the third wave of the Yellow sector assault arrived that India could lay claim to the area.

  Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi

  Local time: 0930 Saturday 5 May 2007

  GMT: 0400 Saturday 5 May 2007

  ‘Tell General Hamid Khan and President Tao that I want to speak to them personally and set a time. Chandraji, see the Americans informally and tell them what’s going on. We will handle this bilaterally and regionally. We will not internationalize it. If they want to send special envoys, we will accept them with courtesy, but not as negotiators. If the democratic world wants its values to survive in Asia, they will have to help us anyway.’

  Joint Staff Headquarters, Pakistan

  Local time: 0915 Saturday 5 May 2007

  GMT: 0415 Saturday 5 May 2007

  ‘Prime Minister Dixit is on the hotline, sir,’ said Masood as Hamid Khan, alone in his office, was reading the latest military reports from Kashmir.

  ‘Have all our aircraft left Kashmir?’ asked Khan, reaching for the telephone.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How many have we lost?’

  ‘Eighteen on the ground. Ten F-16s and eight F-7s, all from the attack on Skardu. We lost two F-16s in dogfights. The enemy lost one aircraft, a Mirage 2000.’

  ‘Cold comfort, Captain. It is my fault for not anticipating their swift response.’

  Khan picked up the phone. ‘Prime Minister, General Hamid Khan here.’

  ‘General, I will not speak unclearly, nor will I be diplomatic,’ said Hari Dixit as soon as Khan came on the line. ‘India holds you responsible for aiding and abetting the Chinese attack on Dharamsala, for murdering the former Indian Chief of Army Staff and the Home Minister, and for planning a terrorist campaign throughout India in which many lives were lost.’

  ‘Prime Minister, you are talking rubbish,’ interrupted Khan.

  ‘Shut up, General,’ snapped Dixit. ‘India will continue to form a fifteen-kilometre buffer zone across the LoC. We will attack any military installation, anywher
e in Pakistan in order to achieve our objectives. Your attempts to draw Europe, the United States and China into this dispute will fail. You are an unelected military leader with a history of aiding insurgencies. You are not a man of the modern world.’

  ‘You have twenty-four hours to withdraw your forces from Pakistani territory, Prime Minister,’ said Khan. ‘And twelve to stop all hostilities.’

  ‘We will stop only when we have achieved the security of our borders.’

  ‘While you are violating ours. Hari, listen to me. For the sake of God, listen. If you were a military man you would understand what is happening. Pakistan cannot respond to Indian airstrikes by sending up its air force. We have four hundred combat aircraft. You have twelve hundred. We would end up being slaughtered. Pakistan has two deterrents against Indian aggression. Insurgency – or terrorism, as you call it – and the nuclear option. The former has kept us enemies for more than half a century. The latter would destroy us both in half a day. We’re unlucky in that we don’t rule a country like Switzerland, whose citizens are more happy with peace than with war. Our people are warriors. It needs extra-special skills for us to guide it through, Hari. Real imagination.’

  ‘General, that is a very nice speech. But if you are genuine, why are you picking a fight?’

  ‘I am lancing a boil, Prime Minister, like NATO lanced a boil in the Balkans by bombing Serbia. They caused many more casualties than if it had been left to fester. But the problem was exposed so that it could be solved.’

  ‘All right, General. You have one shot. Give me your solution.’

  ‘You set up your buffer between Tithwal and Marol along the northern sector of the LoC and I will not fight back. You will have secured the most militarized sector. I can’t let you do it along the western flank because it brings you too close to Islamabad. All hostilities cease. Prisoners are sent back. The dead returned. We then make a joint announcement on a referendum for Kashmir – a referendum which will take place. Once details are drawn up, I will do everything in my power to bring back the mujahedin. We have control, as you know, but it’s not total.’

  ‘The UN resolution stipulates that Pakistani forces must be withdrawn from the disputed territory before any referendum takes place,’ said Dixit, jotting down the points Khan had made.

  ‘If you don’t want me to internationalize this issue, let’s forget about a defunct UN resolution passed by the very same men who allowed this bloody partition to take place.’

  ‘I’ll get back to you.’

  ‘And the invasion continues?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi

  Local time: 1000 Saturday 5 May 2007

  GMT: 0430 Saturday 5 May 2007

  ‘Thank you for making the time, President Tao,’ said Dixit. ‘I am sure you agree that if we talk personally we might be able to see a way through the fog.’ Interpreters were on the line. Tao insisted that his Foreign Minister, Jamie Song, join in the conversation, so Prabhu Purie was called in as well.

  ‘I don’t see any fog,’ said Tao abruptly. ‘Your government has maintained a force of anti-Chinese Tibetan guerrillas who have now invaded Chinese territory. You give sanctuary to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile, which is fomenting disturbances leading to deaths and injuries among Chinese citizens. The Dalai Lama has stayed outside China since the failed rebellion of March 1959 by a small number of splittists of the Tibetan upper class. Since then he has gone further and further down the road of dividing the Motherland. He preaches about his aim of turning the Tibetan Plateau into a holy land filled with peace and non-violence, where people can live in harmony and nature – yet he sends terrorists to Tibet to blow up buildings and kill innocent people.’

  Tao was speaking simultaneously with his interpreter who was so efficient in the translation that she must have been working from a prepared text. On a signal from Purie, Dixit let the Chinese President continue.

  ‘The facts of the Tibetan issue are as follows. Tibet under the rule of the Dalai Lama was still in the feudal age with its aristocracy holding absolute power. The democratic reforms in Tibet in 1959 put an end once and for all to the barbarous and backward serfdom. Life expectancy for Tibetans has increased substantially from thirty-six, before 1959, to sixty-eight today. In India, your official statistics show that life expectancy is only sixty-three years. Ninety per cent of the population was illiterate or semi-literate. Now 73.5 per cent of Tibetan children of school age have access to an education. In your country only 52 per cent of the young people can read and write. In old Tibet, there were only two small government-run clinics in Lhasa. The region now has more than a thousand medical institutions, with 2.3 hospital beds and 2.1 doctors for every thousand people.’

  ‘I think I get your point, President Tao.’

  ‘The Dalai Lama did not construct one single road. We have built a road network of more than twenty thousand kilometres.’

  ‘I accept many of those things.’

  ‘It would be better if you waited for the President to finish,’ said Jamie Song, intervening in English.

  ‘In the past there were nearly a thousand families of beggars and poor people in areas around Lhasa,’ Tao was saying, ‘and it was also common to see prisoners in handcuffs, shackles and on wooden trolleys begging along the streets. These scenes have been eradicated by the democratic reforms. The overwhelming majority of farmers and herders now have enough food and clothing. Why, then, is India championing the cause of the splittist Tibetan aristocracy by providing them with men and weapons? What has India’s hero the Dalai Lama done for Tibet in all these years? How has he improved the people’s living standard? India should know that Tibet is an integral part of China and the splittist Dalai Lama has given no thought to the fundamental interests of the country. He has only tried to spread lies and stir up riots.’

  After the interpreter finished the last sentence, no one spoke for a few seconds, until Dixit said: ‘We very much appreciate your view of the situation.’

  It was Jamie Song who replied, in Chinese, with a different interpreter coming in: ‘President Tao has unfortunately had to go to an urgent meeting. He asked me to convey his deep regret that you had to inexplicably cancel your visit to Beijing and would be very happy to receive you in the near future should you be able to find time to come.’

  ‘Thank you, Foreign Minister,’ said Dixit. ‘I will ask Mr Purie to be in touch with you about that. Meanwhile, as you know our bilateral dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir has escalated this week. We would like your assurances that China will not side with Pakistan to escalate the crisis even more.’

  ‘Human rights are a global issue, Prime Minister. Some of the reports of civilian massacres are difficult to ignore.’

  ‘As are the pictures of your troops opening fire in Tibet, Jamie,’ added Purie.

  ‘For China, the Kashmir issue is a dispute between India and Pakistan,’ responded Song, ‘You must remember though that Pakistan is a very old friend of China. My government is more concerned about the Tibetan issue. I am sure—’

  ‘Excuse me, Foreign Minister,’ said Dixit, impatiently, as Chandra Reddy burst into the room, slipping an urgent note onto his desk. Dixit quickly read it: ‘I’m sorry, Foreign Minister, I have been told that Chinese aircraft and ground troops have invaded the Kingdom of Bhutan. The King of Bhutan has called on India for help.’

  Briefing

  Bhutan

  The tiny Buddhist Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan has deliberately made itself one of the world’s most isolated countries. A hereditary monarchy was established in 1907 and, with a population of only six hundred thousand, the first king signed a treaty with Britain to safeguard the kingdom against attacks from China. In 1949, after its independence, India drew up a similar replacement treaty. But it was not until 1963, in the aftermath of the Sino-Indian war, that the Indian Military Training Team (IMTRAT) was established in Bhutan, with India supplying military hardware
, advisers and trainers for the Royal Bhutan Army. India regards Bhutan as a strategic buffer state. Any attack on it would have to be repelled to preserve the delicate balance of power in South Asia.

  China–Bhutan border

  Local time: 1023 Saturday 5 May 2007

  GMT: 0423 Saturday 5 May 2007

  Choedrak and his fighters sat against the mud-brick wall, silently savouring the moment of success. This was one of the greatest moments of the Tibetan struggle. This was why so many of his men from the SFF had died. Togden was recovering with a mug of yak tea and the guards were cranking up the radio to try to get a helicopter in from the capital, Thimpu. Around the hut there was the hum of conversation and the smell of a wood fire. For the final few kilometres, there had been firing behind them, single shots as the Chinese tried to start an avalanche in the Monla Karchung pass. Two SFF men, rotting with frostbite, had volunteered to stay behind to stop them.

  Choedrak only had five men left. It took four to carry Togden’s stretcher, and they stumbled along the valley of the Bumtang River until they spotted a spiral of smoke. When he explained who they were and who they had with them, the Bhutanese guards embraced them with admiration and brought them into their hut. Word spread around the communities and villagers crammed in to look at the man who was being hailed as one of the great Buddhist leaders of Tibet.

  Choedrak dozed and lost track of time and when he heard the steady thud of rotor blades he thought it was the Bhutanese helicopter come to pick them up. He pushed himself up, getting his balance against the wall, and gave an order to prepare the stretcher. Then a machine gun opened up. The bullets ripped through the hut as if it were paper.