WSN Service
As Col Mohammad Ali Khan strode Thursday through the border wheat fields that soon may be an international killing ground, he said little about the brewing war between Pakistan and India.
He talked instead of The Wall the hundreds of kilometers of barbed wire, searchlights, electrified fencing and machine gun nests.
“We call it the new Berlin Wall,” the Pakistani soldier told reporters seeing for the first time key sections of the extraordinary 625 km fence that India has spent two years and millions of dollars building along its western border.
“The Berlin Wall has gone. But here, the New Berlin Wall has come to take its place. I suppose one can say that it is a powerful sign of our very troubled times.”
Indeed, the barrier is a stark and enduring symbol of the deepening rift between these two Asian neighbors.
Earlier, Khan’s superior officer, Lt Gen Alam Jan Mahsud, had explained the basis for Pakistan’s assertion that India is for war.
The general said that more 25,000 Indian troops including full armored brigade, have been moved toward Pakistan from peace time positions in recent days.
In addition he said India’s strike corps, which includes 50,000 infantrymen, heavy artillery and at least 300 tanks, remains poised just 50km from Pakistan’s southern border.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 4, 1990
