It was an easy mistake. The Ukrainian helicopter crew was blameless. The map co-ordinates provided by the UN in Islamabad were slightly awry. One remote valley in this terrain looks much like another—conifer-studded hillsides, streaked with landslide scars. The helicopter was supposed to take a group of UN officials and journalists to the earthquake-devastated village of Chinari in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Instead, it landed a few miles away on one of the Indian army's helipads, on the wrong side of the line of control (LoC) that divides Kashmir in the absence of an agreed international border.
Not long ago, this could have caused a big international fuss. Pakistan and India have fought two big wars and one smaller one over Kashmir, and it is only two years since their soldiers stopped shelling each other over the LoC. Now, however, the Indian soldiers were merely bemused. The soldiers, like the locals on both sides of the LoC, had suffered from the massive earthquake that hit the area on 8th October. Their barracks had been destroyed. It would be good to think that their relaxed handling of our intrusion was part of a broader co-operative push prompted by the earthquake. Sadly, however, any such push is in its very early stages, while the second wave of humanitarian disaster caused by the quake is well advanced.
The following day, 7th November, was the date set for the opening of five crossing-points along the LoC to allow families and relief workers to cross and help in the struggle for survival. But only one of the points was ready. Pakistan blamed India for the delay, caused by the need to unblock roads and process the papers of those who had applied to cross. Not one new applicant had been cleared in time. A big, disappointed crowd turned up on the Pakistani side, and was dispersed by tear gas.
Some relief supplies were allowed to cross, however. They were sorely needed. When the UN, the Pakistan government and others say that this catastrophe is worse than last December's tsunami, many people are puzzled. Surely the tsunami, with its 250,000 deaths from Indonesia to Somalia, set a new benchmark for natural calamity? But in the countries hit by the tsunami, there was no "secondary" disaster. In Pakistan, the numbers without shelter and the onset of winter make this a catastrophe that is deepening over time.
The number of those known to have died on 8th October climbs relentlessly as the army and aid workers reach villages such as Chinari for the first time. After a month, the toll stood at more than 86,000 in Pakistani Kashmir and neighbouring parts of Pakistan, and 1,400 in Indian Kashmir. More than 3m people are homeless, and despite the influx of almost all the available "winterised" tents in the world, many of them are still without shelter, with the first snows already falling in the mountains.
Louise Paterson of the American Refugee Committee estimates that 1m people are at risk of hypothermia. But the relief operation is hobbled by a shortage of funds. Only a quarter of the $550m the UN has said it needs just for emergency relief has been raised.?
Paterson and many aid workers are full of praise for the army. But most Pakistanis blame it for a slow initial response to the disaster, and for the bungling of some aid distribution. Indeed, the military government has suffered a serious blow to its standing. Among the beneficiaries have been the Islamic charities, some of which are front organisations for banned jihadi groups that for years have been sending cannon-fodder to the insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir. Not only were the Islamists swift to mobilise their relief effort after the quake; many local Muslim leaders are teaching that the quake was the wrath of God.
If there was a glimmer of hope in all this, it was in the prospect for improved Indo-Pakistan relations. The quake has been modestly helpful—war seems even less conceivable, and the opening of the LoC is an important symbolic step. In other respects, however, an opportunity has been squandered. Pakistan turned down the offer of Indian helicopters, but there was no justification for this when other countries' choppers have been flying over Pakistani Kashmir. It meant that villages such as Chinari were cut off for much longer than necessary.
India, for its part, has prevaricated over the opening of the border. Yet it does have genuine security concerns. The insurgency in Kashmir, which has claimed 80,000 lives since 1989, has seen more than 1,500 deaths this year, some of them, including the assassination of a senior politician, since the earthquake. In its list of the "terrorists" it has killed, the Indian army describes about one third as "foreigners"—jihadis, mostly Kashmiri, from the Pakistani side of the LoC. On 29th October, Delhi suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. Three co-ordinated bomb blasts killed more than 60 people. They were blamed on one of the Pakistan-based militant groups.
Even so, it is hard to understand why it needed to take a month to allow Kashmiris to visit relief camps on the LoC. A chance to show Kashmiris that their welfare matters more to the two governments than political point-scoring has been lost, or at least postponed.
