Dr. Syed Nazir Gilani
India and Pakistan addressed the 70th session of UN General Assembly at the Ministerial and Prime Ministerial level. Pakistan’s Prime Minister addressed the General Assembly on 30 September and only four countries addressed the Assembly at the ministerial level. India’s External Affairs Minister addressed the General Assembly on 1 October and the protocol dropped, significantly to a level that 13 countries addressed the General Assembly at the ministerial level. One could see a marked difference in the India-Pakistan narrative on Kashmir.
Team Aizaz (Foreign Secretary), team Raheel (Army Chief) and team Nawaz (Prime Minister) in their aggregate made it very different and very difficult for India at the United Nations. Pakistan decided to throw out of the window Indian hopes that it would content itself with the routine expression on Kashmir and let India off the hook for all her failures in honouring the UN charter obligations and for her massive excesses committed against the common man and woman in the Valley.
Pakistan re-dressed its narrative, made it dignified and fully authoritative. One could give the Foreign Office team and military diplomacy A+ for their understanding and for discharging the diplomatic trust held on behalf of the people of Kashmir. Prime Minister of Pakistan took the diplomatic offensive at least two notches up to the one we had seen at the 69th session of UN General Assembly last year.
All are equal in the General Assembly and the equity is seen in the same protocol given to President Obama and to the President of Guyana. Pakistan has cautioned the world body that it ‘supports a comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including that of the Security Council’. Pakistan made it clear that, there is a need for a ‘Security Council that is more democratic, representative, accountable and transparent. A Council that reflects the interests of all member states, in accordance with the principle of sovereign equality. Not a Council, which is an expanded club of the powerful and privileged’.
It is obvious that India under present circumstances, in particular, Kashmir issue sitting pending at the UN Security Council and its feuds with Pakistan may not be successful to stake its claim at the Security Council. A member nation cannot sit as a trustee of Peace and Security at the Security Council if it continues to remain a non-compliant party in a ‘peace and security’ dispute since January 1948. American vote cannot assist India at the UN Security Council in the same manner in which American vote could not save Israel from unprecedented censure at the UN Human Rights Council special session in July 2014 on her alleged war crimes in Gaza during the Operation Protective Edge.
Kashmir has been referred to United Nations, when the organization was only 3 years old. The matter was duly raised by Pakistan at the 69th session of the UN General Assembly in 2014. At the 70th session of UN General Assembly Pakistan has refused to fall in any trap and err in its diplomatic behaviour at the world scene or accept any pleading for a bilateral discussion on Kashmir and leave the people of the Valley, Muslims in particular at the mercy of massive deployment of Indian security forces.
Prime Minister of Pakistan seemed to assume all credentials as a world Muslim leader when he referred to campaign against terrorism being used to “suppress the legitimate right of occupied peoples to self-determination”. It is for the first time in many years that Pakistan has updated its narrative on Kashmir. It is a transparent and a critical world. This phrase would have been dissected not only in Delhi but in all important capitals of the world.
Indian security forces are restrained under the terms of the provisional accession letter and further their behaviour, number and location is stipulated in the 21 April 1948 resolution of the UN Security Council. If Indian security forces free themselves of these two bilateral (Between Srinagar and Delhi) and international disciplines, they become without any iota of doubt forces of occupation.
India would have to undo this stigma to be able to make her first move for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. Pakistan has proposed steps be taken to demilitarize Kashmir. The expanse of Pakistan’s argument was further supported by informing the world body that due to unimplemented UN Security Council resolutions, three generations of Kashmiris have seen persecution and the death of over 100,000 people in their struggle for self-determination. Demilitarization and disengagement of armed forces, is one of the basic duties of the Security Council. Therefore, Pakistan has rightly set up a road block in India’s travel to UN Security Council.
Digital secular India has an untold list of atrocities committed against Muslims, Christians and low caste Hindus. However it has been discredited beyond repair by the lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq a Muslim of Dadri, in Uttar Pradesh on 28 September during Eid festival by fanatic Hindus for allegedly eating and keeping beef in his refrigerator. The communal intolerance is ripe in public, military and administration of India. If it can take such a viciously barbaric form in an Indian state, there could be no restraints to its revenge in a disturbed Muslim area like Kashmir, Valley.
Therefore the call by the Prime Minister of Pakistan to save future generations in Kashmir makes sense and it would have attracted the attention of the world. It is now up to the people of Kashmir, good meaning people in India, Government and people of Pakistan to enlarge the constituency of justice for the people of Kashmir and seek to bring Indian security forces under the discipline of the terms of accessions and terms of UN resolutions. Pakistan’s prime minister and team Aizaz and team Raheel have endeared themselves in all parts of Kashmir and the demand for demilitarization would receive a swift response from all capitals of the world.
Pakistan has been exceedingly superior to Indian narrative at the UN General Assembly. All members as “The People of The United Nations” would have no issue with Pakistan’s stand that, “Consultations with Kashmiris, who are an integral part of the dispute, are essential to evolving a peaceful solution.” This updated narrative has been equally supported by the military diplomacy, during the address of Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif, at Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) in London on 2 October 2015. It was a selected gathering of RUSI Members and I was present in the discussion.
It was my second time after General Musharraf that I had a warm hand shake with Army Chief. General Raheel made two references to Kashmir and most important was that conflict and peace with India/or in the region reside in Kashmir dispute. He has continued to remain conscious of the miseries of the people of Kashmir and Kashmir has continued to occupy the narrative of his military diplomacy. Four point formula of Prime Minister and the Kashmir narrative of military diplomacy of Army Chief have brought India out in the rough seas of reality ahead. Pakistan has consolidated its narrative on Kashmir and fastened its seat belts to voice the miseries of other Muslims, including Palestinians around the world. It is a new beginning.
Indian narrative on Kashmir, it’s rightly of reply on 30 September 2015 are poor and without merit. One should have no issue with Indian position that Kashmir is a bilateral issue as long as India does not misconstrue the caveats. Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan to the point that they have to consult UNCIP to decide on “fair and equitable” conditions for the plebiscite.
United Nations has retained its principality in the dispute through UNCIP Resolution of 5 January 1949. This outlines a plebiscite process to begin with the UN Secretary General nominating a plebiscite administrator with sweeping powers. Both India and Pakistan accepted the resolution with only a few reservations. Its adoption completed the basic structure for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute through UN mediatory efforts. Pakistan has rightly agitated the memories of the leaders present at the world body that India continues to fail in the duties outsourced to her under UN Resolutions on Kashmir.
India has continued to use this phrase to mislead the world and deprive the people of Kashmir of the international protection embedded in the UN Resolutions. India seeks a run away from UN and attempts to force Pakistan to treat Kashmir as a bilateral issue. The people of Kashmir and their leaders could re-phrase their Kashmir narrative to seek world protection as a child of the United Nations.
President Obama remains less informed if he states that Kashmir is a bilateral matter to be settled between the two countries. Obama is partly correct because United States at the 607 meeting of the UN Security Council on 5 December 1952 stated that, “we welcome any agreement which the parties themselves can reach on any basis which will settle the dispute, provided of course that basis is consistent with the principles of the Charter of the Unite Nations”. Everyone would update himself on Kashmir, if we launch a political, military and civil society diplomatic offensive on a regular basis.
Source: RK