“And as far as the attacks over the last few months in Tibet by so-called Tibetan dissidents are concerned, perhaps it may have more to do with a renewed round of genocidal activities being undertaken by your armies there rather than the Dalai Lama’s ailments or any other supposed theories that Beijing is attempting to come up with.
“Further, the prime-minister has gone to great lengths to make statements of support at a time when the emotions of our own citizens are high and when such statements tend to weaken his position within his own people. Keep pushing this government and you will find a far colder atmosphere in New-Delhi than what you might have prepared for. Don’t make the situation worse for both of us. I would much rather have you over for tea than not,” and with that both sides had drawn an unseen line across the table that separated them. Jiang absorbed the blow, but recovered his composure quickly:
“I am sorry for my emotional comments. But as you said it, these are difficult times. I will pass back your government’s offer for mediations back to my government.”
Ambassador Jiang glanced at the paper in his hands. A few seconds later he finally spoke again:
“There is one other matter that my government thought you might need to know. There was an attack six days ago on a civilian convoy that cost the lives of more than three dozen civilians. The attack took place on the section of the highway just north of the border in Ladakh.” The Ambassador stared back into the eyes of the host who returned the favor:
“And I express my sympathies for the loss of lives, Ambassador. But apart from the geographical proximity to the Line of Actual control, what makes the attack different from all the others so far across Tibet?”
“Just that the close proximity of the attack near the border warranted a mention. It seems the Tibetan rebels have begun attacking civilian targets closer and closer to the border with India ever since our security forces began pushing them out of the cities,” Jiang concluded with a straight poker face that he was known for. Fifteen minutes later he left, and the Indian foreign-minister returned back to his office and sat back down in his chair before staring out of the windows again.
They are thinking something and its taking them in the wrong directions…
But what the hell is it that they are thinking?
The noise from random bursts of gunfire was still echoing in the hills. The sun had begun to lower under the western peaks amidst a darkening orange and red sky. And the rebels had taken a beating from PLA forces after a botched ambush had turned into a drawn out fire-fight. It had left dozens killed in the outskirts of the once pristine village. The battles had shifted now into the hills outside the village as the rebels attempted to retreat to the east, across the river that cut the village along a northeast-southwest axis. Buildings west of the river were nothing more than smoldering remains and PLA troops were everywhere, initiating movements across the river to push the rebels out from the rest of the village.
“There they go,” Gephel noted neutrally without removing his eyes from the binoculars.
“There’s a lesson in here somewhere,” Major Ngawang replied as he crept up in deliberate slow motion alongside the Lieutenant-Colonel. Both men now lay behind the rock cover at the top of a ridgeline west of the valley below. Gephel grunted his disgust at the outcome of the battle between the Tibetan rebels and the PLA.
“Absolute idiots! When will they learn what force composition is all about? You don’t engage an entire PLA battalion in conventional combat, damn it. Not when you are outnumbered ten to one!”
“In broad daylight too,” Ngawang said as he lowered his optics and looked around, seeing the rest of the combined team deployed behind them on security within the rocks and boulders. “They aren’t going to last too long with such poor tactics. At this rate this revolt will be over before it ever started. Of course, that’s where we come in,” Ngawang noted with a smile.
Gephel smiled but did not take his eyes away from the binoculars. Looking at the smoke rising into the pink colored evening skies above, he wondered about the symbolism of it all. It had started with similar symbolism several months ago…
Tibet was burning with the fires of a fledgling rebellion over the last several months. What had started as yet another season of silent protest through strikes and the few odd incidents of self-immolations had been exacerbated with rumors of the worsening condition of the Dalai Lama accelerated by his old age. The regional Chinese leaders had not helped the situation by reiterating Beijing’s stand that the future Tibetan leader would be selected by Chinese party officials, putting aside the age old traditions of the Tibetan people and their culture. And hence had started a renewed phase of struggle by the Tibetan people to free themselves from the stranglehold of Beijing that attempted to choke and snuff them out of existence.
The problem was that the Tibetan people were not equipped to fight the Chinese armed forces in Tibet on their own terms. Weapons and equipment were barely available and mostly obsolete. So much of that had been smuggled across the Himalayas by Tibetan rebels staging from India. This had not pleased the party leaders in Beijing very much and the relationship with New-Delhi was strained. The New-China-News-Agency, or NCNA, was blasting anti-India and anti-Tibetan vitriolic daily over the airwaves across China. And the Dalai-Lama’s condition did not allow him to urge for peace within his people. Beijing saw this as conditional approval on his part to the rebels and their actions. The rebels saw it the same way. The rebellion had become stronger as a result, and now the PLA was cracking down as well. The PLA had rushed massive reinforcements to the Tibet Autonomous Region, or TAR, a as it was called. And the result was that the Tibetan rebels were on the verge of being defeated…
Of course, New-Delhi was not entirely blind to the plight of the Tibetans. And while the government could hardly provoke war with China for their cause, they were willing to look the other way as the Tibetans began gathering covert support across their population in India for manpower and finances. The threshold that had not been crossed was with regard to supplying the Tibetans with arms. At least, not visibly anyway…
There were many in the corridors of power in the Indian capital who wished to see China brought to its knees over this affair. 1962 had not been forgotten. Neither had the scars gone away. But the question remained: how to proceed? Arming the Tibetans was a start, but to what end? Unless the Indian government went on a massive arming initiative, the rebellion would sputter and spark but would die a cold death in the end. As it had in 1959. The average Tibetan rebel, despite his martial heritage and build, was not trained for the intricacies of modern combat. And unlike 1959, when the PLA had been little more than a people’s army, the current army was a mature and modern force. So what else could be done? After several meetings between senior officials in the Indian foreign intelligence agency and the secretive strategic operations cell of the Department of Defense within the Ministry of Defense, it had been decided that China would be made to bleed as much as possible while the rebellion lasted. They would be forced into a situation where their control over Tibet would seem tenuous and perhaps force them into more compromising terms with India.
Special teams of soldiers would be sent inside Tibet disguised as Tibetan rebels and would wage covert war alongside them against PLA forces. The soldiers would be of Tibetan ethnicity for the most part and would speak the language to allow them to merge within the locals. But where would such soldiers come from? The Special Frontier Force, or SFF, trained from Tibetan refugees who had fled to India over the years, had become too public over the years thanks to their employment in various operations and wars. They were too closely watched by the Chinese and posed a security threat to the entire objective. Instead, the men had been gleaned from other sources and regular units of the newly formed Indian Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, as it was called. They had been covertly trained over the year and were armed and equipped for combat. And having entered Tibet within a few months of the start of the initial protests, were now waging covert war against the PLA regular forces deployed in the region.