Vision

V/O, Sound

TC

Himalayas/Helicopter

FX:  Music/Helicopter

01.00.00

v/o: This is the beginning of a journey - a one thousand kilometre trek down a chasm dividing Pakistan and India - two countries now staring into the nuclear abyss.

00.32

It starts here, at the junction of the Himalaya and Karakoram - two of the planet's mightiest mountain ranges.

00.46

Music

v/o: We pass K2, the world's second highest peak, on our way to a battlefield like no other on earth.

01.00

Our Pakistan army helicopter stays well below the ridge line. Any higher and we'll be exposed to fire from Indian heat-seeking missiles.

01.11

Music

v/o:  Climbing to 19,000 feet, we approach our destination - Siachen Glacier.

01.31

Map India and Pakistan

Music

FX:  Shot

02.09

Soldiers with shells

v/o:  This is Pakistan's frontline, the enemy, India, barely 2,000 metres away.

02.14

Twenty-five thousand troops struggling to survive on the roof of the world - facing an equal number of Indians.

02.29

Officer:  Number one, fire!

02.38

FX:  Shot

Soldiers tramping through snow

v/o:  It's a world deprived of oxygen, where the simplest movements require a huge effort. It's also a graveyard that's claimed 3,000 lives.

02.55

Corcoran: The number one killer up here is weather and the altitude. In winter, the temperatures get down to minus 40.

03.07

Corcoran to camera

Super:

MARK CORCORAN

Entire patrols have been swept away by avalanches, or disappeared into crevices. Others have been felled by the lack of oxygen at this high altitude. Battle casualties due to Indian fire account for a mere five percent of all Pakistan casualties.

03.16

Soldiers cleaning weapons

v/o:  These men are on the northern end of the frontline dividing the disputed state of Kashmir. While a cease fire line was mapped out in the lower country, no one bothered to negotiate a clear boundary up here. Both sides reason the area was uninhabitable, and who, they asked, would want to visit the place?

03.40

But in the early eighties, Indian Army mountaineering expeditions arrived, followed by armed patrols from both sides. Finally, in 1984, the first shots were fired.

04.00

FX:  Shots

Ridge line

v/o:  The Indians hold the high ground, but pay dearly for their advantage. Every day, two of their soldiers are killed or incapacitated by the cold and high altitude.

04.19

Pakistani gunners make life even more miserable for any Indian observers hidden on the ridge line.

04.34

Firing machine gun

FX: Machine gun

04.43

v/o:  Muslim Pakistan was created after the 1947 split with Hindu dominated India. These days, the military embraces its Islamic faith with ever increasing intensity.

04.51

Soldier leads prayers

Soldier:  I seek shelter in Allah from rejected Satan.  In the name of God most gracious, most merciful. What is this day of noise and clamour? And who will explain to thee this noise and clamour? And who will explain to thee what this is? It's a fire blazing fiercely!

05.05

Soldiers:  Truthful is Allah!

Officer:  Well, today you people are going onto the second post. You have a long distance to cover. You people have seven hours to cover it,  and if anyone gets sick, you have the radio.  Inform us in time, and he'll be evacuated in time.

05.34

Soldiers:  God is great! Long live Islam! Long live Pakistan!

05.53

v/o:  Both sides are now well dug in. As the Pakistanis, ready for another patrol, they know its pointless attempting to seize the Indian positions.

06.05

Last time they tried, 150 men died - easy targets as they lumbered up the mountainside through the snow.

06.16

Airlift of supplies

FX:  Helicopter

06.27

v/o:  The brief summer is known as the campaigning season, when both sides do most of the fighting and moving of vital supplies.

06.34

It's a military stalemate that has two of the world's poorest nations each spending $2 million a day.

06.43

Roti cooking

By the time each piece of humble roti or bread reaches the mouths of the hungry soldiers, it has cost $20.

06.57

Soldiers singing

Singing

07.05

v/o:  The loneliness of fighting on top of the world also takes its toll. Some embrace their faith with a passion. Others go mad, struck down by what's called Siachen Syndrome, brought on by the altitude, stress, and the reality of killing the only other humans they may see in three long months up here.

07.13

Singing

Commander pulls up in car

v/o:  Twelve thousand feet below the frontline, we have an appointment with one of Pakistan's Siachen commanders.

07.46

Commander:  We are Muslims, we believe in Jihad and we believe in our cause.

07.56

Commander interview

And the cause is that ours is a principled stand.

08.02

Corcoran with Commander

The brigadier claims India has now moved the fight down from the mountains, to the heavily populated hills of Kashmir.

Commander:  I would say that the enemy wants to entice us - that is why he has taken this battle out of the Siachen area, and wants to extend it southwards - not only towards southwards in the Siachen sector, but also towards Indian held Kashmir.

08.12

Indians have also a habit to use the human beings as a shield. They force the population on the other side to be used as a porters, to be used on the jobs which are to be done on the frontline for the soldiers, so that if we reciprocate on the fire, then they are the casualties and they could later be used for their mischievous designs.

08.30

Mountains

Music

08.53

Car in mountains

v/o:  Of course the Indians say exactly the same things about the Pakistanis.

09.00

And as we head south, down towards the warmer climes of Kashmir, it becomes apparent that the propaganda campaign is every bit as fierce as the shooting war.

09.07

Map showing Athmuqam

Music

We're granted permission to visit the town of Athmuqam, just a few hundred metres over the Pakistan side of the so called line of control.

09.23

The only access - a four hour drive over a mountain pass, a track with a sheer 2,000 foot drop over the side.

09.39

View from car

FX:  Shots in distance

v/o: As we near Athmuqam, the ominous rumblings of Indian artillery pounding the town.

10.04

Stray shells from the Indian guns trigger fires on the pine-clad slopes.

10.12

Corcoran with soldier

We're ordered back behind a hill for our own safety, yet still in full view of Indian troops hidden on the next ridge.

10.19

Pakistani Captain

Pakistani Captain:  There's a small town which is named Athmuqam, and presently they are firing upon the civilians and civilian houses, colleges. There is a degree college. They have destroyed that and...  Have you heard the noise that...?

10.27

Corcoran:  Yes, what was that?

10.48

Pakistani Captain:  That was an artillery shell, 105 Indian field gun.

Pakistani soldier on watch in trench

v/o:  As the Pakistanis sit in their trenches, more than 300 rounds of artillery and mortar fire fall on the town. An experience made all the more disconcerting by reports that last May India tested a nuclear artillery shell.

10.56

Corcoran:  It's not something that bears thinking about, that anyone really wants to think about, is it, a nuclear war?

Pakistani Captain

Captain:  Yes, we should not consider it a nuclear war. But if they open up with nuclear weapons, we have the equipment to face it. We have masks, we have bunkers, and our troops are well dug in.

11.19

v/o:  As the firing dies down, the local commander emerges from a bunker, offering to show us around town.

11.40

Commander and Corcoran in car

Commander:  They do not have the courage to fight a professional army, and they do not find the suitable targets, and I would say they don't have the courage actually to talk and to fire on our posts. And that's why in total frustration they target the civil population, just to create the state of insecurity and harassment in the area. That is the reason.

11.53

v/o:  But again, as we approach Athmuqam, the Indians resume firing.

12.18

Commander:  For your own security, actually I wanted to take you ahead, but because primarily because of your security, I would suggest to you that we should not visit the forward area, because as I told you earlier, that they do not spare anyone.  As far as we are concerned, we are living in the area, we are fighting a war with them. We are absolutely not afraid.

Corcoran:  Could we ask these people what they've seen?

12.48

Commander:  Yes, of course. Stop.

v/o:  Running the gauntlet, a desperate group of villagers have escaped to search for food and medicine for their besieged families.

Corcoran:  What's happening there now?

13.00

Group of villagers

Man:  Very heavy fire! Very heavy fire is going on now.

Man 2:  We only saved our lives with great difficulty - and arrived here. When we left our homes we didn't know if we would reach our destinations.

Corcoran:  Where are the women and children?

Commander:  They said that we have taken refuge in the places, the safe places, and we have taken them there.

13.30

Corcoran:  So what were you doing back there today? Why were you back in the...

13.37

Commander:  He says that the children, the ladies, they are finding refuge just underneath the trees, and they have not got their meats for the last six to seven days, because of this firing.

Corcoran:  How many people have died?

13.56

Commander:  He says that something like 60 people have died in the recent firing.

v/o:  The meeting is cut short by an urgent message - Indian fire is moving towards our location. As we depart, the first rounds come hurtling overhead.

14.05

FX:  Shots

Corcoran in car

Corcoran:  It's coming towards us now.

14.27

Officer:  Yes, it's about two to three hundred yards away from...

Corcoran:  From our position?

Officer:  Yes.

Corcoran:  Oh, there's the smoke, look!  Just back where we were.

14.36

Officer:  Yes, I think we should leave now.

v/o:  This is air burst artillery, shells designed to explode just above the ground, spraying deadly metal fragments over two hundred metres.

14.45

FX:  Explosion

Corcoran:  Just on the road.

14.58

Officer:  Please, please come now. Move back inside. Please get inside. Let's leave this area now.

v/o:  Just up the road at an army hospital, those who weren't so lucky.

15.26

Hospital/Doctor

Doctor:  Basically this is an agricultural area, and either they are busy in the bazaars doing their normal businesses, or they are cultivating something in the fields. They're not soldiers. Basically civilians who are just caught in the enemy fire.

15.35

Patients in hospital

v/o:  For the villages, there's always been an element of danger to living on the line of control. Before 1990, there was the odd rifle shot. After Muslim Kashmiri separatists started their campaign against India, the occasional artillery shell. But since the nuclear tests in May, life has become a living hell, with tens of thousands of shells fired by both sides.

15.54

Wrecked houses

Music

16.24

Athmuqam

v/o:  The following morning the shelling has stopped, and we finally enter Athmuqam.

16.36

This once thriving community of four thousand people is all but deserted.

16.47

Men sifting through rubble

A handful of men remain, picking up the pieces as Indian gunners reduce their lives to rubble.

17.00

Corcoran with soldier

Corcoran:  What's happened here?

17.13

v/o:  A key target yesterday, the offices of a local political group flying flags of support for the Kashmiri militants just over the border. India claims the guerillas are armed and trained by Pakistan.

Soldier:  ...firing at this place. And this is one incident. Hit directly.

Corcoran:  Would they see that as justification for shelling this town, because these people would support the guerillas in Indian Kashmir?

Soldier:  How is it possible that they are supporting them from this place? You see, they are sitting just in front of us - them.

17.46

Men sorting through rubble

v/o:  Hardly a convincing answer. But there's little doubt that many of these people simply want the fighting to stop, so they can return to the familiar rhythms of rural life.

17.55

Safely out of range of the guns, refugee camps are taking on an air of permanence.  Few see any chance of returning to the stunning beauty of their home valleys.

18.11

Raja Izhar Khan:  I'm here since 1990 October --

18.24

Raja Izhar Khan

Because the Kashmiri people started jihad with the Indian army for freedom...  and the Indian army started to kill our innocent youths  and they started to gang-rape our women and burn our houses.

18.30

v/o:  Camp leader, Raja Izhar Khan, has met dozens of diplomats, aid workers and journalists. He's pessimistic about the future. And like so many here, scarred by the past. He recounts his own personal nightmare, having to smother a three year old child as he fled Indian Kashmir.

Raja Izhar Khan

Raja Izhar Khan:  We crossed 12,000 foot mountains in five days. We were 1,400 people.  We killed a three year old baby... because we were crossing the Indian Army the nearest way, and the baby started to weep and we paused, like that - only for three minutes - and when we started... two hundred yards behind the army we saw he was dying. And I told his mother that we sent her son back to his grandmother. So she doesn't know.

19.13

Raja in camp to Mother's house

v/o:  It's a harrowing tale of sacrifice and survival, but one that's impossible to verify. Raja says the mother of the dead boy now lives in the camp, and takes us to meet her, warning that she's still unaware of her son's fate. Bewildered by all the sudden attention, there's very little to say.

20.13

Raja with mother

Raja:  Are there any letters or news from across there?

Mother:  Five children are here - one was left behind.

Raja:  Right...

Mosque in Islamabad

Music

20.45

v/o:  Next stop on our trek south, Islamabad, the capital of a nation now desperately racing to mount nuclear warheads on missiles. Missiles named after Muslim warlords who conquered ancient India.

20.53

Syed interview

Super:

MUSHAHID SYED

Pakistan Information Minister

Syed:  It doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be an arms race. I would say it's a new balance of terror in south Asia. Similar to the one that you had in Europe after World War II, between the Soviets and the Americans, which held the peace for 50 years.

21.10

Corcoran with Dr Ahmed

v/o:  But not everyone cheerfully subscribes to the so-called balance of terror. Strategic analyst, Dr. Samina Ahmed, watches Islamabad's political machinations with a growing sense of dread. Dr. Ahmed says the nuclear balance is a dangerous myth.

21.24

Dr. Ahmed:  And in the context of India and Pakistan it doesn't even begin to apply. This is now an extremely unsafe place. If anything has introduced an element of instability in this region, it has been a conventional arms race, and now even more so a nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan.

21.40

Syed with colleagues

v/o:  Information Minister, Mushahid Syed, is a powerful figure in the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

22.03

He's keen to project an image of a government in control  of the mounting crisis, and in charge of the military, which has dominated political life here for 50 years.

22.10

Syed interview

Syed:  We have a regular institutional system of communication - at the political level, between the two Prime Ministers, there's a hotline. And also at the military level, between the military operations chiefs of both armies. So that's not a problem. We've known each other for 50 years, we've fought wars also, we've talked peace also, we've negotiated also. So we are not strangers to each other.

22.21

Dr. Ahmed interview

Super:

Dr. SAMINA AHMED

Strategic Analyst

Dr. Ahmed:  You have very short warning times. We've had an incident last year when an Indian fighter plane broke through Pakistani airspace. We heard the sonic boom right here in Islamabad. And then went back into Indian airspace, and could not be intercepted. And any attack means that there'll be very short warning time, and a decision has to be taken very quickly.

22.44

And as we've seen in the past, neither the Indian nor the Pakistani political leadership is really mature enough to take these kinds of decisions under that kind of pressure.  That increases the danger of using nuclear weapons in a first strike capability.

23.10

Military parade

FX:  Applause

23.27

v/o:  And so to our final destination, the only Pakistan-India border crossing still open, at Wagah, in the Punjab.

23.33

Given the killing a few hundred kilometres up the road, this is perhaps the most bizarre ritual on the subcontinent.

23.46

FX:  Applause

v/o:  Every day at sunset, the opposing armies engage in a kind of parade ground test match, complete with spectators.

24.00

Spectators:  Long live Pakistan!

Spectators:  Pakistan will become India!

v/o:  In one sense, this is the biggest divorce settlement. It's half a century since the British Raj was carved up into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu dominated India. Yet they're still fighting over ownership of Kashmir.

24.34

And like a divorced couple, when the formalities are over, there may be a tingling sense of nostalgia.

24.56

A brief realisation that perhaps the differences were not so great after all. Maybe it's an unrealistic outlook, given the half century of bloodshed here. But in this nuclear age the alternative is far too terrible to contemplate.

Ends

25.33