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saLT |
the-south-asian Life & Times Oct - Dec 2011 |
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Cover Story SALT
interviews
From
Battlefield to
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Siachen – From
Battlefield to ‘Peace Park’? By Kunal Verma
The 48-mile-long Siachen Glacier is one of the
world's longest. Twenty-seven years of ‘refrigerated combat’ on this icy yet
beautiful stretch at 18,000 feet, surrounded by some of the highest
mountains in the world, have brought only twenty-seven years of casualties
(from gunfire, frostbite, snow blindness and pulmonary and cerebral oedema),
huge financial costs – and an impasse.
A less costly path on the glacier would be one
toward peace. Many people in India
and Pakistan, including the negotiators, agree that the conflict is futile,
and are hopeful of an accord, but mutual distrust and fear of deception have
been the major road blocks.
For the past several years, various
organisations, groups, and individuals in South Asia and beyond have been
trying to establish a jointly managed conservation area or “Peace Park” in
this stretch of east Karakoram Mountains. “It is a call for support based on
both science and symbolism.”
Read the entire article in the print edition of The South Asian Life & Times subscribe@the-south-asian.com
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