Sunday Times 2
Kashmir black day: UN should play its role to solve 67-year dispute
The world is no more living in caves age. But the international politics has made some areas of the world as a mark of injustice for their political interests and to appease their alliances by not allowing the people of those areas to exercise their legitimate right of freedom. Palestine and Kashmir are a living example of such treatment by world powers who determine the fate of other countries in the name of their national interests. Kashmir is a unique example of such discrimination by the so-called champions of human rights.
An Indian soldier stands guard on a deserted street during a Black Day strike in Srinagar on October 27. AFP
Pakistan has always voiced for the right of self-determination for the Kashmiris living under India’s occupation. Recently Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif while addressing the session of the United Nations General Assembly reiterated Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir issue and boldly urged the member countries to force India to abide by the UN resolutions on Kashmir issue.
The premier said Pakistan’s “support and advocacy of the right to self-determination of the people of Jammu and Kashmir is a historic commitment and duty, as a party in the Kashmir dispute.” Stressing that the issue must be resolved for the betterment of the region, he said. “Pakistan is ready to work for the resolution of this problem through negotiations.” The prime minister also said that the ongoing UN reforms must be comprehensive. “We support a reform of the Security Council that would reflect the interests of all member states and not the ambitions of a few,” he said.
As usual the Indians responded in the shape of violation of ceasefire along the line of control and on the permanent boundary with Pakistan. The new Indian Premier, Narendra Modi, at a public meeting called it a lesson for Pakistan and ordered UN observers on the Indian held side of line of control to leave the area. Pakistan, however, took UN observers on the line of control to witness the happenings.
Reason to observe Black Day
The design to annex Kashmir began to unfold on August 16, 1947, with the announcement of the Radcliffe Boundary Award. When the Award was announced, it did a great injustice by awarding the Gurdaspur District — a majority Muslim area — to India so as to provide a land route to the Indian armed forces to move into Kashmir.
Other accomplices in this greatest human tragedy were Hari Singh, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, and Cyril Radcliff, head of the Boundary Commission. In blatant violation the Partition Plan and against the popular will of the Kashmiri Muslims, India announced the accession of Jammu and Kashmir under a controversial Instrument of Accession, although Jammu and Kashmir was a Muslim majority state and had a natural tendency to accede to Pakistan in view of its geography, people’s aspirations, culture, and religion. The people of Kashmir did not accept India’s position and started an armed struggle. Every year, the day is marked as Kashmir Black Day by total strike. Different functions, protest demonstrations and anti-India rallies take place in the whole of Kashmir, Pakistan and in other countries. This year too, the Kashmiris observed October 27th as the Black Day to demonstrate to the world that they will never yield to Indian repression.
UN and Kashmir Resolutions
During their indigenous struggle for freedom Pakistan also responded militarily against the Indian aggression. On December 31, 1947, India made an appeal to the UN Security Council to intervene and a ceasefire ultimately came into effect on January 1, 1949, following UN resolutions calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir. The UN Security Council through its successive resolutions impliedly nullified Indian occupation of Kashmir declaring it as a disputed territory. It approved a ceasefire, demarcation of the ceasefire line, demilitarisation of the State and a free and impartial plebiscite to be conducted under the supervision of the world body. Although the ceasefire and demarcation of the ceasefire line were implemented, demilitarisation of the occupied territory and a free and impartial plebiscite under the UN supervision remain unimplemented to date.
As a result of the demarcation, about 139,000 square kilometers area of Jammu and Kashmir remained with India while 83,807 square kilometers constituted the territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Indian rulers announced till 1957 that they would provide the Kashmiris the right to decide their future, which has yet not been unfulfilled. The Security Council adopted resolution 47 (1948) of April 21, 1948 which promised a plebiscite under UN auspices to enable the people of Jammu and Kashmir to determine whether they wish to join Pakistan or India. On February 5, 1964, India backed out of its promise of holding plebiscite. Instead, in March 1965, the Indian Parliament passed a bill, declaring Kashmir a province of India — an integral part of the Indian union.
Freedom Struggle
In 1989 the Kashmiris started a massive uprising to end the status quo and secure their right to self-determination. This struggle forced India to come to the negotiation table with Pakistan in 2004. The dialogue process between the two countries continued without yielding any results with regard to the resolution of the Kashmiri dispute. Since the initiation of the peace process, New Delhi has been missing no opportunity to halt it on one pretext or the other.
The continued Indian aggression, particularly since 1989, has made the life much difficult for the Kashmiri people. The Indian troops, under the protection of draconian laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and the Disturbed Areas Act are committing human rights violations. During the last 25 years more than one hundred thousand Kashmiris have been martyred. Thousands of innocent youth have been disappeared while in custody.
Human Rights Watch & Amnesty International
The Human Rights Watch has documented several failures to ensure protection of human rights. It has called for the repeal of laws which provide the armed forces with extraordinary powers to search, detain, and use lethal force, leading to numerous human rights violations.
While in its various reports, Amnesty International has also pointed out grave human rights violations in the Indian occupied Kashmir by indicating: “The Indian government’s disregard for human rights in Jammu and Kashmir means that in practice people reportedly died in custody and that the whereabouts of the disappeared persons continue to be unknown… government forces continue to commit serious violations of humanitarian law… the Muslim majority population in the Kashmir Valley suffers from the repressive tactics of the security forces. Under the Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act, and the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act and Public Safety Act, security forces personnel have extraordinary powers to shoot suspected lawbreakers, and to destroy structures suspected of harboring militants or arms.”
Kashmir-India & UN
India is bent upon to change the composition of the territory’s population by making the Muslims into a minority. The observance of Black Day is aimed at drawing the world attention towards the miseries of Kashmiri people and to urge the international community to take notice of the urgency for resolving the issue in accordance with the UN Resolutions and the Kashmiris aspirations.
It is really surprising that the permanent members of the United Nation’s Security Council have not given a serious thought to the Kashmir issue, which has resulted so far in the loss of a large number of human lives due to the blatant atrocities still being committed by Indian forces and wars between India and Pakistan. Either the UN is not mandated to get implemented its resolutions or it is only serving the purpose of the Superpowers. NATO and Allied forces attacked Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries to implement the UN resolutions while UN apparently seems to eyewash its Kashmir resolutions by urging both Pakistan and India to resolve the issue through dialogue.
Pakistan has always opted for dialogue to resolve the Kashmir dipsute and other issues with India but India has not taken the process seriously. The world should know that both the countries have nuclear weapons and in the absence of resolving the core issues it can harm the whole region of South Asia.
This is the time for the UN member countries and the UN secretariat to come forward and mediate to settle the core issues between Pakistan and India otherwise nations other than the permanent members of the Security Council will be forced to consider for other options and the fate of UNO may not be different than the League of Nations, which is now an episode of past. Pakistan is determined to support the cause of basic human rights of the people of Indian held Kashmir, as envisaged in the UN charter and listed in the Kashmir resolutions, on the political and diplomatic levels.
(The article was forwarded by the Pakistan High Commission to mark the Kashmir “Black Day”)