March 24, 2012
By Kuldip Nayar

There was a time when any statement on Kashmir, either by the prime minister of India or that of Pakistan used to create a rumpus. Politicians and the media on both sides would dwell for several days on what a particular remark tried to convey.

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the other day that his country would seek a solution on Kashmir through dialogue, not hostilities. I have not seen any comment in India nor have I found any Pakistani opposition leaders or the press taking notice of it. More significant has been the silence of armed groups. The usual Pakistani reiteration that Kashmir would not be allowed to stay on the backburner is there. President Asif Ali Zardari said last week that Pakistan has not forgotten Kashmir. But this does not change the ground realities which have recognised that the line of control is the border between India and Pakistan.

Gilani has reiterated what the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had enunciated in the Shimla Agreement four decades ago. It says: “In Jammu and Kashmir, the line of control resulting from the ceasefire of December 17, 1971, shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the recognised position of either side. Neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations. Both sides further undertake to refrain from the threat of the use of force in violation of this line.” The agreement has stood the test of time for more than three decades and except for the Kargil misadventure there has been peace.

Perhaps leaders of the Pakistan government, including the hawks, have come to realise that there is no alternative to amity. Perhaps the peace lobby on both sides has got expanded for even the governments to notice making them refrain from giving ultimatums as it used to happen not long ago. Three wars, plus the misadventure at Kargil, have proved that New Delhi will resist with all its might any push by Islamabad. Both the countries have to solve Kashmir or, for that matter, any other problem peacefully. It is a sort of no-war pact without the formality of signing one.

Yet Gilani’s statement should not lull India into complacency. Kashmir continues to be a problem. Every now and then there is an incident in the Valley to register the people’s discontent. Even the elected government, headed by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, has said more than once that Kashmir cannot be sorted out without Pakistan’s participation.

India’s armed forces too are not happy with the situation because the successive army commanders of Jammu & Kashmir have said that it is a political problem, not a military one. Yet India continues to station a large number of troops in Kashmir. The country’s defence is understandable but the forces should be on the border, and not used for law and order purposes. The stationing of forces within the state only confirms that the government has no solution to the situation and it does not know how to settle the problem.

True, New Delhi has tackled the international opinion effectively. There is hardly any adverse notice abroad. But this does not solve the problem. At best it remains suppressed. Still there is civil society in India which has certain obligations that a democratic polity has to carry out.

Gilani’s olive branch

If the Kashmiris remain unhappy and the government they elect too feels that the problem has to be sorted out with Pakistan, New Delhi has to face the fact. This does not necessarily mean that Islamabad’s demands have to be met. The latter too has to take certain realities into consideration and one of them is that India can never have another division on the basis of religion. The Valley, predominantly Muslim, has gone its own way and has kept at distance both the Hindu-majority Jammu and the Budhist-majority Ladakh. It is Kashmir which I believe should get attention after Gilani’s olive branch.

I do not agree with those who argue that what Pakistan could not get through wars it can’t claim on the table. What the two countries have to realise is that they have to give up their entrenched positions. Peace and friendship is more important than hostility. The extremists will continue to talk of hostilities because they have developed a vested interest in an unsettled situation.

I have a solution to offer. Both governments should transfer all subjects except defence and foreign affairs to Kashmiris and soften the border so that the people of Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan-administered Kashmir meet and plan jointly the development of their region. They can have their own air service and trade and cultural missions abroad. Visitors, not from the region, will seek visa to enter either Kashmir.

Pakistan-administered Kashmir will be part of Pakistan and Jammu & Kashmir of India. The case pending before the UN would be withdrawn. My proposal is that the Lok Sabha’s elected members from Jammu & Kashmir should sit in Pakistan’s National Assembly and those of Pakistan-administered Kashmir in India’s Lok Sabha. This is aimed at setting a pattern for the two countries to come closer in the future.

Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and a former Rajya Sabha member.
Source: Gulf News

April 9, 2012
By: Khalid Iqbal

The democratic freedom that India prides itself has been missing from the Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) since 1947. The voice of Kashmiris has been portrayed as a threat to its territorial integrity, rather than treating it as a whistle-blower’s call to mend the ways. IHK has, indeed, been an open cage for the last six decades or so.

The UN Special Rapporteur, Christof Heyns, has yet once again urged India to repeal the controversial law that gives its military special powers to act in troubled areas. On extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Heyns said that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) has become a “symbol of excessive state power” and “has no role to play in a democracy.” These comments came after the conclusion of his 12-day fact-finding mission to India.

The AFSPA has been in force in different parts of India since 1958 and is currently enforced in IHK, Manipur and Nagaland. Human rights workers have accused the Indian troops of illegally detaining, torturing and killing rebel suspects; sometimes even staging gun battles as a pretext to kill. The law also prohibits soldiers from being prosecuted for alleged violations, unless permitted by the federal government. According to official documents, the IHK government sought permission to try soldiers in 50 cases in the last two decades, but New Delhi has refused the request.

“Immunity provision effectively blocks any prosecution of members of the armed forces…….During my visit to Kashmir, the AFSPA was described to me as ‘hated’ and ‘draconian’. It clearly violates the international law. A number of UN treaty bodies have pronounced it to be in violation of international law as well…….The main finding in my report is that despite constitutional guarantees and robust human rights jurisprudence, extrajudicial killings continue in India and it is a matter of serious concern…….The guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court, many of which have been incorporated through amendments in the Code of Criminal procedure, are not sufficiently complied with,” Heyns claimed. Also, the prevalence of communal violence, encounters, custodial deaths and the plight of dalits and adivasis are other areas of concern mentioned in the report.

He has proposed a number of provisional steps to be taken to address these concerns, including the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry, consisting of respected lawyers and other community leaders. “India also should ratify a number of international treaties, including the Convention Against Torture and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance,” he maintained. His final recommendations, however, will be submitted as a comprehensive report to the Human Rights Council. Earlier on, successive UN Special Rapporteurs have demanded investigations to trace thousands of missing persons in the occupied valley and account for the mass graves of 2,700 Kashmiris.

Moreover, Amnesty International has urged India to scrap the Public Safety Act (PSA) that allows the police to detain a person up to two years without charge or trial if he or she is deemed a threat to the state. “Kashmir authorities are using PSA detentions as a revolving door to keep people they can’t or won’t convict through proper legal channels locked up and out of the way,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific Director. A new report from the group said that up to 20,000 people had been held under the law, since the start of insurgency in 1989. The Indian authorities detained hundreds of people each year without charge or trial in order to “keep them out of circulation,” it said. According to an official count, 47,000 people have died in over two decades of rebellion. Amnesty has called for “an independent, impartial and comprehensive investigation” into reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees.

In January, Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, Margaret Sekaggya, too, demanded a repeal of the draconian laws. India’s record about human rights violations in Kashmir also came under scrutiny in December 2011, when the leaked diplomatic cables said that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had evidence of systematic torture by Indian security forces. The ICRC, according to Wikileaks, told US diplomats in 2005 about 177 visits it had made to Kashmir’s detention centres that revealed “stable trend lines” of prisoner abuses.

Stanley Wolpert. in his book entitled India and Pakistan, writes: “The people of Kashmir themselves must be permitted to choose their own leaders in free and fair elections, as do the Indians in other states in that union, and New Delhi solemnly commit to supporting Kashmir’s provincial autonomy and rights of its people, as it does to the autonomy and rights of the people of Punjab, Maharashtra or West Bengal.”

Nevertheless, the UN is squarely to be blamed for the miseries of the Kashmiris, since it has failed to hold a plebiscite in the disputed valley. Meanwhile, Pakistan has supported them at various stages in varying degrees to wrest their freedom from India. Its support may have been inefficient, but was not illegal. In the post-colonial period, for instance, international law has evolved instruments and articulations on decolonisation that make it legal to support, even militarily, the struggle of the people under foreign occupation. Pakistan, indeed, lost several strategic opportunities for securing Kashmiri rights and freedom; Its effort to evolve a bilateral solution through ‘back channel’ diplomacy was a strategic fiasco. Such a ‘solution’ would have legitimised the status quo and forsaken the rights of the Kashmiris for good.

Pakistan should continue to publicly express and uphold its legitimate position on Kashmir. That a final settlement must be based on the UNSC resolutions, agreed by and, hence, binding upon Pakistan and India. Its articulations must be bold and recurring. As settlement of Kashmir dispute is likely to take indefinite time, therefore, without prejudice to the final settlement, it needs to work out a provisional mechanism to ensure representation of the people of AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan in the National Assembly and Senate.

Here, an appeal is in order to the collective conscience of the American people that before casting their votes in the upcoming presidential elections, they must scrutinise President Barack Obama’s actions towards fulfilling his Kashmir-related pledges during his previous campaign. Moreover, an urging is due to the American Senators and Representatives to take notice of the human rights abuses in Kashmir and hold a hearing on this pressing issue. Sanity demands that Representative Dana Tyron Rohrabacher should focuses on HR situation in Kashmir, which is a UN recognised conflict, instead of wasting his breath in pressurising Pakistan via Balochistan.

n The writer is a retired Air Commodore and former assistant chief of air staff of the Pakistan Air Force. At present, he is a member of the visiting faculty at the PAF Air War College, Naval War College and Quaid-i-Azam University.

Email:khalid3408@gmail.com

April 15, 2012
By Adil Akhzer

The stage is set for the visit of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, who is scheduled to travel to India just in few days(April 8). His itinerary as reported in the media indicates that he is scheduled to hold talks with Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh during a luncheon meeting, before he departs to Ajmer to visit the famous Sufi shrine of Saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. Though not much progress is expected during this short interaction between the two leaders, Zardari’s visit assumes significance in the backdrop of a series of positive developments in the bilateral relationship.

Particularly Kashmiris would be eagerly watching this visit, given the recent talk of both the countries relegating the Kashmir issue to the backburner, so as to facilitate forward movement in other areas. While the centrality of Kashmir issue to the Indo-Pak relations is something which needs no reiteration, it is equally true that both the sides have used the Kashmir issue, as per their mutual convenience, leaving an ordinary Kashmiri, high and dry.

Given the relatively peaceful 2011 in J&K and a simultaneous decline in the militant violence, an ordinary Kashmiri hopes that both the countries, would find it prudent to discuss the Kashmir issue and take decisive steps for its resolution. In this context, the recent invitations extended by the Pak Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to the Kashmiri separatist leaders of Hurriyat Conference, to visit Pakistan, to discuss the Kashmir issue, is also a welcome step, though similar invitations have been extended earlier also. While the Pakistani leadership and establishment have reiterated their ‘moral, diplomatic and political’ support to the Kashmiris, it has in reality done not much for the resolution of the Kashmir issue. Though India is somewhat reluctant to talk to Hurriyat leadership, particularly the hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani faction, New Delhi has to realize that the longer it avoids talking to Hurriyat, more protracted the resolution of Kashmir issue becomes. Hence, it is imperative that India initiates the dialogue process with the separatist leadership of all hues. The separatists too have realized that in order to remain relevant in the Kashmiri political discourse, they have to show a little flexibility and the recent statements from Hurriyat leaders talking about local development challenges facing Jammu and Kashmir, are indicative of a trend in this regard.
It is in this background that an ordinary Kashmiri is perturbed by the recent media reports which have speculated that both India and Pakistan have decided to put the Kashmir issue on the backburner. If indeed this is the decision by New Delhi and Islamabad, then the repercussions of this would be terrible for an ordinary Kashmiri who was expecting to derive benefits out of the thawing relations between India and Pakistan. Concomitant to this is the dawn of realization among the younger generation of the Valley, which has seen the worst of militant violence and excesses of state power, that even as the rest of India, is making strides in terms of economic development, their state has seems to be stuck in a time warp. This generation has realized that it can no longer this kind of life. Though there is a general disdain towards politics in most of the Valley youth that has not prevented them from venting their anger and frustration on social networking sites like Facebook.

While there are many vested interest groups, who would like to have a status quo on the Kashmir issue, one has to discern the fact that a meaningful resolution of the Kashmir issue, would play a significant role in bringing durable peace between the two South Asian neighbors and more importantly to the lives of ordinary Kashmiris. While there are many militant groups in Pakistan/PoK who keep on reiterating that they would not rest till they bring Freedom to Kashmir People.

Though there are no immediate indications or signals coming from either New Delhi or Islamabad that whether or not Kashmir issue will be discussed during Dr. Singh-Zardari meeting, it is imperative that both leaders pay cognizance to the feelings of Kashmiris. Though both the countries may prefer to talk about other issues which define the relationship, it is important to understand the fact that people in the Valley, are tired of instability in Kashmir and want to live a life which is full of economic prosperity and peaceful environment.

Pertinently the statement of J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in the J&K Assembly also needs a mention. Although Abdullah had only suggested to have a fresh look at confidence building measures related to Kashmir which according to him would boost cross-LoC trade and travel, it is noteworthy that the mainstream leadership in the Valley to does not want to put the Kashmir issue on backburner. For both the countries, this meeting presents an opportunity to move ahead on Kashmir issue. Who knows that a forward movement on Kashmir may bridge trust deficit between the two countries and Kashmir can become the foundation on which the rest of the bilateral relationship flourishes.

Author Is a New Delhi Based Journalist. He can be contacted at pzadil@gmail.com

Source: countercurrents

May 7, 2012
By: Khalid Iqbal

Excerpts from the Governor General of India’s letter of October 27, 1947, to the Maharaja of Kashmir make an interesting read: “Your Highness’s letter dated October 26 has been delivered to me by Mr V.P. Menon. In the special circumstances mentioned by Your Highness, my government has decided to accept the accession of Kashmir to the Dominion of India. Consistently with their policy that, in case of any state where the issue of accession has been the subject of dispute, the question of accession should be decided in accordance with the wishes of the people of the state, it is my government’s wish that, as soon as the law and order has been restored in Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader, the question of the state’s accession should be settled by a reference to the people.

“Meanwhile, in response to Your Highness’s appeal for military aid, action has been taken today to send troops of Indian army to Kashmir to help your own forces to defend your territory and to protect the lives, property and honour of your people…….”

Notwithstanding the credible research that these two letters were written after the Indian army had physically entered Kashmir and that the Maharaja had declined to sign the letter attributed to him, it remains a well documented fact that the Governor General’s acceptance of accession of Kashmir was temporary and tied down to the final settlement through ascertainment of the will of the people.

It is in this context that remarks by the UN Secretary General (UNSG), Ban Ki-moon, about the Kashmir dispute – during his recent visit to India – were appreciated by almost everyone. While urging for an amicable settlement of the Kashmir dispute, he emphasised that the “will of Kashmiris must be respected while finding any solution.” Ban said: “I hope this issue (Kashmir) is addressed peacefully without violence and respecting wills of the people there…….fully respecting the human rights sentiments there.”

Commenting on the efforts to boost bilateral relations by Pakistan and India, he opined: “I am pleased with the continued efforts to improve the relations between India and Pakistan. This has a broader significance for the region and for global peace. I realise there are many outstanding issues, but I encourage leaders of both the countries to persist with these efforts.”

The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leader, Nayeem Ahmed, commented: “It vindicates our stand. It is unfortunate that different conflicts were resolved, but Kashmir dispute has been left out.” He urged that the UN should not restrict itself to statements only; otherwise, its credibility would be at stake. Liberation leader Javed Ahmed Mir said: “We have been waiting for the Kashmir resolution for over the past six decades. The UN should play a key role in solving the Kashmir issue in the same way it has resolved East Timor and Ireland issues.”

A Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) spokesperson welcomed the stance by the UNSG as the voice of millions of Kashmiris awaiting the settlement of the dispute. He said: “We welcome the statement of UN Chief. He has talked in favour of a suppressed nation, which is appreciable.” He further opined that that the Kashmiri leaders should be included in the negotiation process between Pakistan and India to settle the Kashmir problem.

The pro-India parties, including Congress, Peoples Democratic Party and Communist Party of India (Marxist), have also welcomed the statement. The Chairman of United Jihad Council (JUC), Syed Salahuddin, said that peace and stability in South Asia hinges on a just and equitable settlement of the Kashmir dispute. “The UN Secretary General’s statement on the issue of Kashmir is quite optimistic, however, there is dire need that the world body should take practical measures to settle this long-pending issue in accordance with the aspirations of Kashmiris,” he said. He further added that Kashmiris had offered huge sacrifices for its peaceful settlement in line with the UN resolutions, but India’s traditional intransigence and obduracy remained the main hurdle in the implementation of the relevant UN resolutions.

The Executive Director of Kashmiri-American Council, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, has also welcomed the statement: “We deeply appreciate the statement of the Secretary General…….The people of Kashmir are, therefore profoundly grateful to the Secretary General for upholding the position of principle, which the United Nations has sustained throughout the existence of the contentious issue relating to the status of Kashmir.” In a statement released last week, he said: “The Secretary General was also right in saying that he was pleased with the continued efforts to improve the relations between India and Pakistan. This has a broader significance for the region and for global peace.” While supporting the Indo-Pakistan dialogue process, Dr Fai maintained: “The urgent goal of resolving the Kashmir dispute could not be left to the two governments. It requires the engagement of a multilateral effort on the initiative of the United Nations.”

He also suggested that to avert drift and deterioration in the present situation, it was necessary to induct a suitable presence of P-5 in the area of conflict. A person of high international standing, like Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, needs to be appointed as the representative of either the P-5 or the Security Council or the Secretary General of the UN. “For associating the people of Kashmir in a credible peace process, it will be imperative to secure their representation on a principled basis by election in Kashmir under the control and supervision of the UN. This would enable all the different ethnic communities and zones in Kashmir to elect representatives, who, in turn, would appoint a team or teams with the mandate to negotiate a settlement with both India and Pakistan,” Dr Fai added.

This is a stark reality that Pakistan and India by themselves will not be able to settle the Kashmir issue, which attracts a huge political baggage in their domestic politics. Hence, it would be in the fitness of things that the UN plays an effective role by appointing a representative of the Secretary General to take up the task in line with the UN resolutions. The starting point could be by urging India to withdraw the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act and other laws that give its security forces sweeping powers to stampede human rights in Kashmir. A number of human rights organisations have highlighted this issue on countless occasions. The Secretary General’s remarks have, indeed, rekindled a hope in millions of Kashmiri hearts; we hope that the good offices of the UNSG would carry forth the process.

n The writer is a retired Air Commodore and former assistant chief of air staff of the Pakistan Air Force. At present, he is a member of the visiting faculty at the PAF Air War College, Naval War College and Quaid-i-Azam University.

Email:khalid3408@gmail.com
-The Nation

May 30, 2012
Mohammad Yasin Malik

GLOBAL security and the world order are in the process of being re-jigged. The 2012 Chicago summit is one reflection and indication of this.

America’s and Nato’s scheduled exit from Afghanistan which forms the grist and mill of the Chicago summit is most likely to herald a new global security situation.

‘Taliban’ may be taken on board and negotiated with, a semblance of normalcy and a political solution in accord with American preferences be implemented, Pakistan be dealt with and then an exit made.

Overlaying this security situation and condition are the contours of a world order in which unipolarity is gradually giving in to a somewhat ‘loose multipolarity’ wherein the US appears to be viewing the rise of some emerging powers like India favourably and is consequently reviewing its alliance systems.

Concomitantly, the European Union is still mired in a structural morass and unable to form and come up with a coherent foreign policy posture. And, collectively, the West, led by the US, coming out of the global economic crisis of 2008, appears to be consolidating itself. China, in the meantime, is playing the international game of politics astutely and focusing on what it calls a ‘peaceful rise’.

What is glaringly absent and missing from this portrait of international politics and global security is the fate of peoples and communities which continue to languish in a political, economic and cultural morass.

These putative political communities titillated and inspired by the principle of self-determination wallow in a grey one wherein their aspirations continue to be unmet. The reasons for this morass are the classic ones: state obstructionism, arrogance, historical amnesia, myopia and power politics.

The political community that I have in mind and of which I am a representative is that of Kashmir and the Kashmiris — a people caught in a conflict that now has been comprehensively frozen in the echelons of power.

The fate of Kashmir and the Kashmiris appears, for all intents and purposes, to have been stuck in the great game of international and power politics.

This has two dimensions: one, on the level of the nation state against which the Kashmiris raised their collective will and voice against India. The other is the international legal-power political dimension.

The former, a condition where the Indian state feels complacent about Kashmiri, suggests that the state, for some bizarre reason, feels that it has ‘won’ in Kashmir.

This sense of victory stems from military might and the attendant forces of attrition where the Indian state, resting on its laurels, feels that it has Kashmir in its kitty.

This reflects arrogance and historical amnesia and myopia. History suggests that the will of the people may be somewhat dulled by state power but can never be controlled and curbed. It will raise its head, time and again, under different guises.

Complementing this aspect is the great game of power politics where a reshuffling of alliances and power is taking place. In this great game, conflicts like the Kashmiri conflict, inspired by the concept of self-determination, are seen as a mere inconvenience — something to be brushed under the carpet.

This approach again suggests and reflects historical myopia and amnesia. Modern history is the history of nationalism and the struggle of people’s aspirations. Power politics has never really curbed this natural human desire and instinct and taking recourse to history again, one can cite innumerable examples of frozen conflicts reviving and recidivism as being the name of the game.

Whether it is the Treaty of Versailles or the frozen conflicts on the periphery of Europe where artificial borders were foisted upon the people, the story is the same: under propitious historical conditions, the desire for self-determination and justice animated the people and reared its head time and again.

The same can be said to be the case in Kashmir. State power which controlled and contained the insurgency is held to be the medicine for the people’s quest for self-determination. And power politics, at the international level, is ignoring this quest and desire. What more can be said about the politics of short-term historical myopia and amnesia?

It is time that the international community as well as sober opinion in India heeded the lessons of history. The transition of the conflict in Kashmir from a violent one to a peaceful one should not be taken as the end of the conflict in Kashmir.

The conflict has not died: it is alive, at least in the recesses of the Kashmiri collective unconscious. Power and power politics will do nothing to alleviate this conflict. Kashmir may not be as important to global security as Afghanistan or Pakistan. This does not mean that a blind-eyed approach be adopted towards it.

A sincere approach by all stakeholders — India, Pakistan, the international community and above all the Kashmiris — is the need of the hour. Let the Indian state and the international community renew their interest in the Kashmiris and let the politics of imagination be accorded primacy over sterile politics.

Tailpiece: Whatever the exigencies and reasons for talking to the Taliban, the gesture and the approach has implications and consequences for Kashmir and the Kashmiris. The natural conclusion and implication that Kashmiris will draw from this is that violence pays.

It is only violence that gets the attention of policymakers and makes them come to the negotiating table. The new generations of Kashmiris will then draw this lesson and may take to the gun as a means of protest to make themselves heard.

It is this potential scenario that policymakers, the international community and all stakeholders should try and pre-empt. The time for this is now.

The writer is the chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front.
-Dawn

March 12, 2013 . 49

Though the scenes witnessed during the past few days in Occupied Valley are a routine affair that the Kashmiris have to bear, the horror they relay make a case for impartial plebiscite. The state army arrested around 200 men, baton charged the demonstrators who came out on the streets to protest the arrests, and then put Yaseen Malik under house arrest. Others including Hurriyet leader Ali Shah Geelani are already locked up in their homes.

Such state repression reflects an average day in the life of a Kashmiri, who has to face the possibility of arbitrary arrest, torture, frequent cordon searches and extra-judicial killings. Youngsters resorting to as innocuous an activity as stone-pelting are seen as freedom fighters to be thrown in jail; the unlucky ones end up in mass graves as the recent discovery of 3,000 mass graves in the northern part of the Valley proves. The Indian police and the army empowered with special laws can storm houses, rough up the residents, and go back with impunity. Terrorism has in fact taken on an entirely different meaning there; what the UNSC resolutions categorically say is the right of self-determination, New Delhi propagates that it is terrorism despite the fact it was Jawaharlal Nehru who took the case to the UNSC that led to the grant of such a right.

The pity is that today there are not many Indians who can echo that promise. Those like Aurandhati Roy who dare run the risk charges of sedition. That is India, often bragging to be the champion of the free world. What a dark, gloomy and claustrophobic life it has forced upon the hapless Kashmiris.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...cupied-kashmir

March 16, 2013 . 9

As expected National Assembly’s strongly worded resolution passed on Thursday censuring the hanging of Afzal Guru and demanding his body be brought back to Pakistan sent shock waves through Lok Sabha that lashed out at it the very next day as ‘interference in internal matters of India’. In the heat of the moment, the furious Lok Sabha passed a resolution stating that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir including the part under Pakistan’s control, “is and shall always be an integral part of India” but offered to the world community yet another instance of its blatant disregard for the UNSC resolutions that regards the territory as a disputed piece of land whose fate is to be decided by the people of the state themselves.

Since this is what the Indian Parliament has barracked and so coldly, this should be more than enough to shatter the illusion that the present PPP regime has been basking in so far. JUI-F Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman is justified in warning that India should not be given the MFN status without the approval of the Kashmir Committee. The pity is that the ruling setup’s posturing has softened in the backdrop of the continued human rights abuses by the Indian security forces that shot in cold blood another youngster the other day. The high-handed reaction to the demonstrations against the extra-judicial killings whereby the state army resorted to curfew – a routine affair – in parts of the Valley makes mincemeat of the Lok Sabha’s mantra of integral part. With such a maniacal obsession to impose itself on Kashmir, it was quite natural for Indian parliament to lose its nerve over Pakistan’s resolution questioning its atrocities, although given the record of the past five years, the PPP government stands accused of maintaining a guilty silence.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...her-resolution

Osman Khan

Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri citizen, was hanged in Delhi’s Tihar jail on 9th of February this year. His crime was his innocence presence in the precinct of crime scene on the day of attack on Indian Parliament building.

The abrupt hanging of Afzal Guru without giving him a chance to exercise his right to approach Indian Supreme Court against the rejection of his mercy plea by the Indian president reflects Indian civil and military establishment’s inhuman approach towards Kashmiri people and their basic rights. Afzal Guru’s death reminded Maqbool Bhat’s abrupt hanging, the Kashmiri leader who too was hanged in controversial circumstances in the same month of the year 1984. However, the resolve of Kashmiris to struggle against Indian occupation and exercise their right of self determination only gets firmer with each episode of Indian brutality. India has virtually declared war on Kashmiris. There is not a single Kashmiri family that is not, directly or indirectly, a victim of the India’s State sponsored violence in Kashmir.

The recent report of ‘Tribunal for Human Rights and Justice in Indian –administered Kashmir and the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons -2012’ exposes India’s hollow claims of being a secular and democratic nation having a responsible and a professional army. The report was prepared over a period of two years by these two notable human rights organizations based in the Kashmir valley. The unearthing of 6000 mass Kashmiri graves in the valley followed by verification of other cases of Indian atrocities on innocent Kashmiris has put a big question mark on secular democratic India.

The report has identified around 500 perpetrators in 214 cases of violence committed against the Kashmiris in the Valley. Amongst those 235 from the Indian army, 123 from paramilitary forces, 111 from Jammu and Kashmir Police and 31 from government personnel have been identified as having supported militants’ in their activities. Conspicuous amongst the Indian army perpetrators are two major generals, three brigadiers and ninety other officers ranging from Colonels to captains of the Indian army. Besides these, the other perpetrators identified were 37 senior officials of paramilitary forces, a former and a serving DG of J&K Police. The report also confirms that political and judicial impunity for the civil and military agencies deployed in the valley has resulted in 8000 forced disappearances and 7000 deaths at the hands of Indian armed forces.
The authors of the report have compiled their report from information documented in various court cases, official documents of the Indian government and the state-run agencies in the valley. Ironically, documents in the possession of the State themselves indict the Indian armed forces, paramilitary forces and the police with strong and convincing evidence of their respective roles. The official documents highlight that the impunity fostered by the judicial process has been compounded by the existence of draconian laws in the Kashmir Valley such as Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1990.
The official documents also point towards the fact that India has been traditionally obstructing justice for Kashmiris by willfully dismissing allegations of killings and other violent crimes committed against the personnel of its armed forces.

The fact that the Indian government does not want to address human rights issues in Jammu and Kashmir is reflected from its inaction over a report on unearthing of mass graves in three different parts of the Valley submitted to the State Human Rights Commission on 13th August 2012 by Home Department of J&K. The State also refused to conduct DNA tests of the dead bodies with a plea that in the whole country there are only 15-16 laboratories that can conduct the relevant tests but they will not be able to handle such a huge work load. This unwillingness of the Indian government to proceed ahead with the case of unearthing of mass graves and identify the perpetrators needs a focused attention of the world community. Despite the fact that the available official government documentation do indict the perpetrators in the killings and criminal violence unleashed by the Indian armed forces in the Valley, the Indian government is not permitting prosecution of the members of the armed forces citing the impunity granted to military personnel in Kashmir through Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1990 (AFSPA). Its refusal to allow the prosecution indicates that the Indian State and its agencies have a direct role in the commission of crimes against the Kashmiri nationals. The mention of official designations of the Indian army personnel in the Tribunal’s report for crimes committed by them in the Kashmir Valley and the Indian government’s willful resistance to allow their prosecution also indicates Indian government’s involvement in these crimes.

In view of India’s intransigence on prosecuting the perpetrators of crimes against Kashmiri nationals, there is a moral obligation on the international community to debate the issue in the United Nations Forum and move the security council to punish the Indian military perpetrators of crimes in Kashmir through international criminal courts or military tribunals to put aside general perceptions that it adopts a select approach when it comes to human rights violations in different parts of the world. Whereas, it castigates other countries for alleged human rights violations like China, it must also take on India where the magnitude of human rights violation in occupied Kashmir sometimes crosses the limits of shame.

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Asif Haroon Raja

The freedom struggle which started against the Dogra rule before Partition is continuing unabatedly because of illegal occupation of two-thirds Kashmir by Indian security forces in October 1947. The Kashmiris are fighting for their freedom in a bid to complete the unfinished work of the Partition of India.
Some people call it a battle for the conception of another Pakistan in the womb of India. The delivery would of course materialize if the passion to sacrifice and die in the way of cause remains young; so says the breeze blowing in the Valley, known as paradise on earth but turned into hell by Indian security forces. The Muslims of Kashmir who have always been known to be docile, peace loving and inward looking were forced by circumstances to pick up arms and demand their right of self determination as laid down in UN Resolutions of 1948 and 1949.

The armed freedom struggle in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) which suddenly erupted like a volcano in January 1990 is 90% indigenous and the fractional 10% can be traced back to the natural and wholly unavoidable fraternal involvement of their kinsfolk in Azad Kashmir. In the last 22 years, well over 100,000 Kashmiris have laid down their lives to attain freedom from the alien rule, while tens of thousands have been maimed, their houses destroyed and their women folk raped by the occupation forces. Countless numbers are in illegal detention centres and quietly suffering worst kinds of torture with none to hear their shrieks of agony and with no light at the end of the tunnel. Several black laws are in practice to give a free hand to security forces to arrest suspects without warrant, or to shoot to kill any person seen as a possible threat.

Taking advantage of her closeness with the sole super power, India has misrepresented indigenous freedom movement as terrorism backed by Pakistan. The global anti-terrorism laws framed by Washington after 9/11 are being misused by India to crush the aspirations of Kashmiris demanding right of self determination and to project Pakistan as a terror abetting state. She stubbornly clings to her stance that Kashmir is integral part of India and will not part with it under any circumstance. India misses no opportunity to harm or badmouth Pakistan. She has maintained her aggressive and negative stance even after signing peace treaty with Pakistan in January 2004. She remained on a warpath after Mumbai episode in November 2008 for over two years. Finally when she decided to soften up and resume stalled composite dialogue and to promote two-way trade and Pakistan responded by agreeing to give her Most-Favored-Nation status, Indian military deployed in Kashmir upped the ante by first heating up the Line of Control through intrusions and then making a bizarre allegation that one of the Indian soldiers had been beheaded by Pak military.

The Indians have somehow remained obsessed with the thought that liberation of Kashmir will set in a chain reaction thereby tearing India into pieces. This fear in fact has been fed by Indian military which doesn’t want to part with Kashmir under any circumstance. As a matter of fact, ignoring ground realities and deceiving the world by obfuscating truth and clinging on to Kashmir which is not theirs may eventually lead to disintegration of India. Indians must pick up heart to admit that the feared chain reaction is already in motion in India as can be gauged from 19 separatist and insurgent movements taking place in several states of India. Over 1500,000 Indian security forces are deployed to counter the insurgencies. Among all the movements, Naxalite and Kashmiri movements are the most dangerous. However, Kashmiri movement being Muslim enthused is the Achilles Heel of India.

India being an imperialist power is governed by a strong hegemonic impulse. She wants to become super power of South Asia and a world power. The current generation of Indian leaders has still not overcome the desire to create mythical Mahabharata as aspired by earlier Hindu leaders. Illusionary Mahabharata spans the space between Afghanistan and Indonesia. Mired in dozens of insurgencies, India considers Pakistan as the lone stumbling block in the way of her imperialist ambitions. Indigenous freedom movement in IOK has become a bleeding wound for India and a cause of embarrassment. Despite massive human rights abuses and horrendous cruelties perpetrated by 750,000 Indian forces deployed in a small valley since 1990 and given license to kill under specially enacted brutal laws to stifle the voice of Kashmiris languishing in open prison under miserable conditions, the movement continues undeterred. Each case of brutality and injustice further fuel their hatred against India. Holding of farcical elections every five years under the barrel of the gun and forming puppet governments through massive rigging in elections has added to their frustration and resentment.

The Amarnath Shrine Board dispute in occupied Kashmir in the summer of 2008 galvanized the Kashmiri youth, born in 1990s, after a lull of few years. This time they decided to launch their protests without arms. Their protests became more menacing in 2009; and in 2010 teenagers with stones clenched in their small fists came in the forefront and braved the bullets of pitiless marauders. Thousands of teenagers chanted Azadi slogans with unprecedented fury. Stones hurled by teenagers were responded by bullets by Indian security forces. They indiscriminately fired at the teenagers, some of them as young as eight years old, killing hundreds and wounding as many.
It is indeed most unfortunate that champions of human rights and advocates of human dignity and honor are mute like the stone effigies. The US-Western-Jewish media turns a blind eye to gross human rights violations committed against Kashmiri women, children and elderly persons. This is in spite the fact that quite many independent NGOs, Human Rights Watch and even notable Indians have highlighted the reign of terror unleashed by Indian forces upon hapless Kashmiris. International Peoples’ Tribunal for Human Rights in IOK and Association of Parent of Disappeared Persons (APDP) released a 355 paged report in December 2012 uncovering atrocious and viciously barbaric acts of Indian Army, Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Forces and elements of other Security and Police Forces, all violently striking against unarmed Kashmiris. The report gives precise details of many established and proven cruelties, which the “largest democracy” on earth (India) did not bother to acknowledge or investigate. The report also uncovers truth behind Indian allegations that violence in IOK was caused by Pakistan.

Notwithstanding the biased stance of foreign media, it is distressing to note that our political leaders and our media deeply immersed in internal political battle have failed to take note of this report and to condemn India. It is the moral obligation of every Pakistani to give full moral support to the Kashmiris in distress and to expose the real face of Indian security forces involved in raping women, extra judicial killing of innocent people, detaining and torturing suspects without charges, ransacking their houses and looting their property. The world needs to be reminded that people of Kashmir have endured immeasurable pain and anguish and are continuing to suffer unabated miseries. They should be allowed to exercise their right to live the way they want to. It must not be viewed as a territorial dispute, but seen as an international issue since it has been duly recognized as such by the United Nations. The vicious cycle of carnage must come to an end and the oldest dispute resolved at the earliest.

(The writer is a retired Brig and a defence analyst)

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President Zardari’s assertion that Kashmir is a centrepiece of our foreign policy is welcome though for five years, the dispute figured low among PPP setup’s priorities. Now merely a lame duck, he seems to be rubbing salt on the wounds of the Kashmiris who have been surprised to see the PPP bending over backwards to placate New Delhi, even giving it the MFN status. Kashmir had always been one of the linchpins of Pakistan’s foreign policy but that reality changed ever since the rulers compromised on their conscience. Successive governments for instance, have been gradually conceding ground to New Delhi which has begun to assume that we are not quite serious about the issue.
However, despite all that Kashmir never was and never will be part of India although hundreds of thousands have been martyred. With every atrocity, only the resolve of the people is strengthened. As Quaid-i-Azam aptly called it our jugular vein, we have to accord the freedom struggle moral and political support until and unless the dreadful Indian yoke is shattered to pieces and the people breathe again as free humans. The error of judgement that the PPP has displayed should not be repeated by Pakistan. Kashmir should not merely be at centre-stage of the foreign policy in words but in deeds also.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...hmir-neglected