WASHINGTON: Kashmiri leaders on Thursday criticized the indifference shown by world powers toward the ongoing brutalities in the Indian-held Kashmir, saying their silence was encouraging Indian forces to continue to unleash reign of terror on innocent people, including women and children.
“Kashmir represents a government’s repression not of a secessionist or separatist movement but of an uprising against foreign occupation, an occupation that was expected to end under determinations made by the United Nations,” said Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General, World Kashmir Awareness Forum during an event organized by Kashmir House, Washington.
He regretted that the world powers including the United Nations have responded to the situation in Kashmir with studied unconcern that has given a sense of total impunity to India.
“All the peculiarities of the Kashmir situation become more baffling in view of the fact that the mediatory initiative which would halt the violations of human rights and set the stage for a solution would entail no deployment of the troops of the United States, no financial outlays and no adversarial relations between United States and India,” he added.
Abid Khurshid, President Kashmir Journalists Forum, Islamabad said that the plebiscite as promised by the United Nations to the Kashmiri people was the only way forward to settle the Kashmir dispute. He urged the United Nations and other peace-loving countries to play their role in persuading both India and Pakistan to fulfill these internationally accepted pledges and promises.
Khurshid said that the peace process and human rights in Kashmir cannot be separated. They will succeed or fail together. He expressed the hope that the United States and the American leadership will help to resolve the issue.
Khurshid said it was time India realized that the Kashmiri resistance movement that was initiated in 1990, is a popular peaceful peoples struggle.
Professor Imtiaz Khan, President, Kashmiri American Council, said Kashmir being a nuclear flashpoint should be of major interest to the world powers and they should help to prevent this dispute exploding into a conflict which can be catastrophic for a large proportion of the human race, both in Pakistan and India.
He said ever since the start of the popular uprising in 1990 against alien military occupation, United States has remained unmoved by the killings of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Kashmir.
Another Kashmir leader, Hamid Malik, said that India makes no apologies for its human rights transgressions in Occupied Kashmir. An ostrich like methodology will not resolve the oldest conflict of Kashmir which is pending for the last 70 years in the United Nations Security Council.
Sardar Zubair Khan said that if international agreements mean anything, then Indian Government must release unconditionally all political prisoners including Syed Ali Geelani, Mohammad Yasin Malik, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Musarat Alam and many others who are currently under house-arrest.
Raja Liaqat Kiyani while thanking the audience for their participation pointed out that the continued occupation has turned Kashmir into a prison for innocent Kashmiri people and situation in Kashmir presents a grave danger not only to the regional stability but also to international peace and security.
