[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 85 (Wednesday, June 16, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1281-E1282]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               INDIAN COLONEL: TROOPS ``DYING LIKE DOGS''

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 16, 1999

  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, all of us have been following with alarm the 
Indian attack on the Kashmiri freedom fighters at Kargil and Dras. 
India has been losing many of its troops in this desperate effort to 
crush the freedom movements within its borders. Casualties are 
mounting. The soldiers they sent to discharge this dirty war are 
demoralized. According to the Associated Press, an Indian colonel said 
that Indian troops ``are dying like dogs.'' A corporal is quoted as 
saying ``Even in war we don't have such senseless casualties.''
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, most of these troops are Sikhs and other 
minorities sent to die for India's effort to suppress the freedom of 
all the minorities. These Sikh troops should not be fighting for India; 
they should be working to free their own country.
  Now there has been a new deployment of troops in Punjab. A mass 
exodus from villages in Punjab is underway because the villagers are 
justifiably afraid that India's war against the freedom movements will 
spread to their homeland.
  India reportedly also used chemical weapons in this conflict, despite 
being a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention. India has a 
record of escalating the situation with regard to weapons of mass 
destructions. India began the nuclear arms race in South Asia by 
conducting underground nuclear tests.
  There are steps that we can take to make sure that this conflict does 
not spread and that all the peoples and nations of South Asia are 
allowed to live in freedom. We should impose strict sanctions on India, 
the aggressor in this conflict. We should stop providing American aid 
to India and we should support a free and fair vote on national self-
determination not only in Kashmir, Punjab (Khalistan), Nagaland, and 
the other countries held by India.
  I thank my friend Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh for bringing this situation 
to my attention, and I urge India to allow the basic human right of 
national self-determination to all the people of South Asia.
  Mr. Speaker, I place the Associated Press article on the conflict in 
the Record.

       ``We are dying like dogs,'' said one [Indian Army] colonel

                     Black Mood Hovers Over Kashmir

                            (By Hema Shukla)

       DRASS, Kashmir--June 11, 1999 (AP): On the eve of talks 
     aimed at ending a month of

[[Page E1282]]

     fighting in Kashmir, a black mood is settling over Indian 
     army camps on the front line. Casualties are mounting. Troops 
     are ill-equipped for high-altitude fighting. The task, they 
     say, is close to suicidal.
       Since early May, the army has mobilized its largest 
     fighting force in nearly 30 years against what India says are 
     infiltrators from Pakistan who have occupied mountain peaks 
     on India's side of the 1972 cease-fire line in disputed 
     Kashmir.
       On Saturday, Pakistan will send its foreign minister to New 
     Delhi to discuss whether the fighting can be ended. India 
     says that regardless of the talks it will persist until the 
     last intruder is killed or flees back to Pakistan.
       In daily briefings in New Delhi, military spokesmen report 
     the fighters are being driven back. Indian airstrikes are 
     punishing them, peaks are being recovered, the ``enemy'' is 
     taking casualties in the hundreds. India's official casualty 
     rate on Friday stood at about 70 dead and 200 wounded. The 
     story on the front is much different.
       In the fading evening light in a forward artillery camp, at 
     checkpoints along a road under steady artillery bombardment, 
     in bunkers where men shelter from showers of shrapnel, 
     soldiers and junior officers grimly tell stories of death and 
     defeat on the mountains. No one can say how many have died, 
     but no one believes the official toll.
       Amid the gloom, however, the Indian troops show a gritty 
     determination to fight and a conviction that the opposing 
     forces must be evicted at all costs. ``We have a job to do 
     and we will do the best we can,'' said one officer. ``We will 
     do our duty.''
       India says the guerrillas in Kashmir are mostly Pakistani 
     soldiers, a charge Islamabad denies.
       On Friday, India produced what it said were transcripts of 
     telephone conversations between two Pakistani generals that 
     proved Pakistan was involved in the fighting. In a transcript 
     from May 26, army chief Pervez Musharraf tells another 
     general that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was concerned the 
     fighting could escalate into a full-scale war.
       ``We gave the suggestion that there was no such fear,'' 
     Musharraf said he told Sharif, according to the transcript. 
     ``Whenever you want, we can regulate it.''
       Pakistan called the transcripts false. ``This can't be 
     given any credence or weight,'' Pakistan army spokesman Brig. 
     Rashid Quereshi said.
       As officials traded charges, heavy fighting continued in 
     Kashmir. The guerrillas are entrenched on the mountain peaks 
     defending their positions against soldiers scaling steep 
     slopes, constantly exposed to gunfire and rocket-propelled 
     grenades. ``We are dying like dogs,'' said one colonel. 
     Recapturing the peaks, said another officer, is ``almost a 
     suicide mission.'' None of the officers could be quoted by 
     name, and senior officers who earlier briefed journalists on 
     condition of anonymity have been ordered not to speak.
       ``This is worse than war. Even in war we don't have such 
     senseless casualties,'' said M. Singh, a corporal and a 
     veteran of India's campaign in Sri Lanka in the 1980s. Some 
     of the casualties are from ``friendly fire,'' either from 
     Indian artillery or aerial bombing meant to provide cover to 
     the advancing troops, officers said. The risk increased after 
     the air force began high-altitude bombing to stay out of 
     range of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Indian troops 
     wade through chest-high snow. The wind is so strong soldiers 
     must be tied to each other with rope so they don't get blown 
     over a cliff. Their opponents can pick them off with rifles 
     or simply send boulders cascading down the mountain on top of 
     them. One major said his unit was returning down the mountain 
     when it came under withering fire from above. The soldiers 
     dove into the icy water of a Himalayan river to escape.
       Some forward units are living on one meal a day, the 
     soldiers said. Mess camps in the rear cook puris--deep fried 
     flat bread--but by the time it is delivered to the front it 
     is frozen and can barely be chewed. The only drinking water 
     is melted snow. There is no chance to pitch tents on the 
     slopes. The men sleep in the open.
       Few troops have had time to adjust to altitudes of 14,000 
     feet or more, where the air is thin and every exertion, every 
     upward step, leaves strong men gasping.
       Despite the difficulties, the tremendous pressure to 
     recapture the peaks continues.

     

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