Struggle of Kashmiris cannot be characterised as terrorism: Pakistani envoy tells UN

UNITED NATIONS: It was regrettable that decades after adoption of UN resolutions‚ the people of Jammu and Kashmir remain deprived of their fundamental rights, railed Ambassador Masood Khan, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), as he brought up the issue of Kashmir in the UN General Assembly on Monday.

“Pakistan is the worst victim of terrorism, whose sources, strategies and execution emanate from our immediate neighborhood. We demanded that all networks to destabilize Pakistan through terror be dismantled forthwith.” said Masood Khan. PHOTO: NNI/FILE

Pakistan highlighted the fact that the people of Jammu and Kashmir have been denied the right of self-determination for close to six decades now.

He was presenting Pakistan’s viewpoint at the UN Third Committee Session on Right of People to Self-determination and elimination of racism‚ racial discrimination‚ xenophobia and related intolerance.

Khan said Kashmiris “continue to face widespread repression and gross and consistent violations of human rights, which have been documented by independent international human rights organisations.”

The ambassador added that Pakistan, UN and people of Jammu and Kashmir are agreed to hold plebiscite in Kashmir, only India has to say yes and engage with Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue.

“The struggle of the people of Jammu and Kashmir cannot be characterised as terrorism. Nor can ‘epicenter of terrorism’ be wrongly located by India to Pakistan, simply because it raises the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in the United Nations,” he added.

Khan was referring to the statement made by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the UN at the General Assembly in September.

“Pakistan is the worst victim of terrorism, whose sources, strategies and execution emanate from our immediate neighborhood. We demanded that all networks to destabilise Pakistan through terror be dismantled forthwith.”

Speaking at the meeting, the ambassador said that discrimination on the basis of religion is one of the contemporary forms of racism. He further added that Muslims around the world had become a target of intolerance and discrimination because of condemnable terrorist acts by some individuals and entities.

India dismisses Pakistan’s Kashmir concerns

Speaking at the session after Pakistan, India dismissed Pakistan’s attempt to raise the Kashmir issue at the UN General Assembly as “unwarranted” and reasserted that the state remains an integral part of the country, Press Trust of India reported.

India called Pakistan’s reference to Kashmir issue at the UNGA as a distraction from the issue of the rights of Palestinian people to self-determination that was being discussed in the committee.

“We regret the unwarranted reference made in this forum to the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir. Let me be clear and reiterate that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India, and references such as this only detract from the important cause of the Palestinian people and their inalienable rights to self-determination,” said visiting Member of Parliament from India P Rajeev.

US does ont want to get involved or mediate in Kashmir issue: Experts

Washington: The US does not want to play the role of a mediator in resolving the Kashmir issue and there is a very strong consensus here that it is not an area where the country wants to wade in deeply, an American expert has said.

“I think that there’s a very strong and probably durable consensus in Washington that Kashmir is not an area where the US wants to wade in deeply,” Daniel Markey, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think-tank, said.
 “The US is certainly willing to help with any kind of initiative that India and Pakistan would pursue on their own, but it doesn’t want to pursue a role as a mediator, it doesn’t want to make itself a third-party to any kind of discussion,” Markey, author of the new book ‘No Exit From Pakistan: America’s Tortured Relationship with Islamabad’, said. 

Markey, responding to a question on the statement made by Sharif at a Washington event in which he sought US role in resolving the Kashmir dispute, said, “In answer to….Is it constructive for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to raise this in Washington, my short answer would be, no, I don’t think it’s especially constructive.”

 The expert also cautioned the Pakistani leadership against believing that the US would side with it or supports its position on Kashmir, if their desire of American help in this regard is fulfilled.

 

 

Nawaz Sharif, in his address to the US Institute of Peace had said, “With its growing influence in India, the US now has the capacity to do more, to help the two sides resolve their core disputes, including Kashmir, and in promoting a culture of cooperation,” ”I do think that it’s politically expedient, that is, it’s important for him to show his countrymen that Kashmir has not disappeared from the agenda and that he will raise it in international fora, including with the US,” Markey said,  giving an explanation for Sharif’s raising Kashmir issue time and again despite that the US’ refusal to his wish.

 “I think that the Prime Minister would be wrong to think that if the US were to engage in that role, that he would have a strong American partner. That is, I think historically Pakistanis have seen the Americans have been more or less on their side on the Kashmir issue, or have believed that,” 

Markey said. ”I think in recent years, the US sees this really not as an issue where it would take Pakistan’s side, but as an issue where it would prefer that India and Pakistan resolve it on their own. And that’s not going to change, regardless of what Nawaz Sharif suggests to the White House,” he said. 

Former US Ambassador to Afghanistan and Pakistan Cameron Munter said the US can at the most encourage the peace initiative between the two countries, but Kashmir is purely a bilateral issue

Injustices Against Women

Kashmiri women are facing the worst ever rights abuses at the hands of Indian security forces and state machinery. Rape or molestation which is painful for one and all , the police men and troopers continue to pursue old strategy in order to break the freedom will of Kashmiris psychologically.

The sexual violence has been routinely perpetuated on Kashmiri women, with 11.6 percent prevalence of the same in Kashmir. Ironically, the figure is higher than that of Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and Chechnya, which was reported by a study conducted by Medecins Sans Frontiers in mid-2005.

Some non-governmental organisations put the figure of rape and molestation cases to 9,894 from January 1989 to November 2008. The factual figure goes higher as many such cases remain unreported due to the social stigma and reprisal of authority sponsored agencies. For those cases, that are reported, most of them are not brought to any logical conclusion, giving an air to the crime. This stands well indicated by chain of inhuman incidents that have occurred from time to time against women of Kashmir.

There is endless list where Indian troopers and army personnel have resorted to rape in Jammu and Kashmir. Chanapora, Kunanposhpora, Handwara, Bandipore, Banihal, Doda, Budsam and Shopian are some of the examples which were reported and published in the media. How many were raped and molested? The list is endless.

The mass rape incident of Kunan Poshpora, wherein the Indian soldiers of 4^th Rajputana Rifles (Rajput Rifles) raped 32 women including aged, young, married and unmarried after herding the men out of the village of Kunanposhpora on the night of February 23, 1991 is the most heinous amongst such acts in Kashmir. Till date the culprits of the crime have not been punished.  A survivor at Kunan Poshpora has not looked into the mirror ever since she was gang raped. “Looking into the mirror reminds me of the horror of that dreadful night.”

There are many women and girls who have been victims of violence, directly or indirectly. These interminable miseries of women have put them to tremendous psychological pressure. With every bullet or teargas shell that shot in valley and with every bomb blast, a woman lost her brother, husband, son or father. These adverse conditions have not only given rise to various psychological disorders in them but have driven them to drug abuse.

According to the research report in 1989, about 1,700 patients visited the valley’s lone psychiatric hospital and by the year 2003, the number had gone up to 48,000, which constitute almost 50 percent of women. The report reveals the prevalence of posttraumatic disorder, followed by major depressive disorder (MDO) amongst women. The other mental diseases like bipolar disorder, panic, phobia; general anxiety and sleep disorders are also found.

Psychiatric diseases like bipolar disorder, panic, phobia, general anxiety and sleep disorders have shown existence amongst the women in Kashmir besides post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which tops all. These psychiatric disorders have motivated women to switch to psychoactive substances. The problem is more urban than rural though a good percentage of women in rural areas are addicted to locally grown cannabis and tobacco. Around 1.5 percent of women in Kashmir are addicted to opiates alone the highest in the world.