- Britain has drawn up plans for a massive airlift of its
citizens from India and Pakistan as the two countries appear to be sliding
closer towards all-out war.
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- As world leaders battled to stave off the conflict, which
they fear could escalate into a nuclear exchange, British Airways was on
standby last night to airlift thousands of Britons after the Government
advised all UK nationals to consider leaving the subcontinent.
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- Thousands of British passport holders scrambled for the
last few places on commercial flights available last night. Meanwhile,
government officials said they had contacted the airline late last week
to put in place plans for a massive movement of people to Britain.
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- BA is now planning to fly a fleet of 747s to the region
if, as appears likely, the commercial flights leaving the country will
not be able to cope with demand. It will be the largest evacuation organised
by the Government since the Gulf war more than 10 years ago.
-
- There were already reports last night that British nationals
were being told they would have to wait up to a month for tickets out of
India.
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- There are thought to be up to 20,000 UK passport holders
in India and about 700 in Pakistan. BA already flies about 1,000 people
a day out of the country on scheduled services that are already fully booked.
-
- The emergency order, communicated to BA by the Foreign
Office, heightened the sense of panic in the region about a possible nuclear
conflict over the crisis in Kashmir.
-
- Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf,
tried to calm the fears, insisting that the world should not fear a nuclear
conflict between his country and India and said that neither side was prepared
to go to 'that limit'.
-
- Musharraf said: 'I don't think either side is that irresponsible.
I would even go the extent of saying one shouldn't even be discussing these
things because any sane individual cannot even think of going into this
unconventional war, whatever the pressures.'
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- The plan for an 'authorised' evacuation has been drawn
up by the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence. Classified as a Non-Combatant
Extraction Operation by the Ministry of Defence, it is anticipated that
any emergency airlift of Britons from India would be carried out prior
to the outbreak of a war.
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- At the same time other officials in Whitehall have been
asked to find hotel accommodation for staff and dependants working for
the British Government in India and Pakistan who have rented out their
homes and have no accommodation to return to.
-
- The Home Office is also drawing up plans to cope with
an influx of up to 150,000 asylum seekers should the two countries go to
war. Although they are not passport holders, thousands of Pakistani and
Indian citizens have close links with Britain though family or business.
-
- Home Office officials have also met British community
leaders to try to defuse growing tension between Muslim and Hindu groups
in a swath of northern towns.
-
- The plans for an emergency evacuation were drawn up after
several days of meetings between senior Foreign Office and MoD officials
to decide the appropriate response to the crisis. The decision to draw
up detailed contingency plans followed a meeting of the Cobra Cabinet committee,
which meets in a war room beneath Whitehall in times of war and national
emergency.
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- 'Plainly and palpably when you have one million men under
arms on either side of the line of control, all in a high state of alert
and readiness, both countries have nuclear weapons and one of them - Pakistan
- has said they reserve the right to use them first, then we have a dangerous
situation,' the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said yesterday.
-
- 'I think it was prudent and appropriate for us to issue
the advice, which has been paralleled by advice issued in Washington by
the US, in Canada and by the United Nations.'
-
- Concern was raised to crisis levels last week by Pentagon
intelligence reports suggesting that both sides were now ready for war.
-
- A Pentagon official in Washington said: 'We have received
reports of a steady flow of mobilisation towards the border from inside
India which would appear to move beyond just intimidation to preparation
for fighting and winning a war.'
-
- The official added that both sides had drawn up battle
plans: 'They seem to think they can fight this war and take the consequences.
'
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- More than 200 staff and family members at the British
High Commission in Delhi were preparing to leave yesterday, while thousands
of other Britons scrambled for seats on commercial airliners.
-
- 'Jack Straw's remarks completely freaked me out,' Barbara
McKinlay, who was leaving behind a home in Delhi, said before boarding
a Virgin Atlantic flight back to Britain yesterday, with her children Christian,
nine, and Amelia, seven.
-
- In the interview with CNN, Musharraf yesterday defended
his country's nuclear policy which - unlike India's - allows for the first
use of a nuclear weapon.
-
- Instead he called for a 'no-war pact' with India, whose
forces have been mobilised on the border with Pakistan for the past six
months.
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- Military observers believe Pakistan could be tempted
to use a nuclear weapon because its conventional armed forces are vastly
inferior to India's.
-
- There was a growing sense of despair among the international
community last night that diplomatic efforts to avert a war - including
a trip by Straw last week - had failed.
-
- The US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in Delhi
and Islamabad next weekend in a last-ditch attempt to persuade both countries
to step back from the brink.
-
- Musharraf and India's ailing Hindu nationalist Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee are both expected to turn up at a summit
next week in Kazakhstan called by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
-
- But Vajpayee has refused to meet Pakistan's military
dictator - and says infiltration into India by Pakistan-based Islamist
militants must stop first.
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- >http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,726432,00.html
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