Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai Expressed Sympathy, Condolences and Solidarity with the bereaved families in Peshawar

If we were to judge the UN based upon its history of involvement in efforts to resolve international conflicts, the simplest answer is that it has been an enormous failure. The UN of course is a far more complex organization whose work covers such a wide range of activities that conflict resolution is really only a small aspect of its work. Nevertheless, if we consider the fact that its fundamental mission in being created was to be a means of preventing global catastrophes like the Second World War, then conflict resolution would have to be considered Job One. In addition, the word “conflict” in the phrase “conflict resolution” was defined as conflict among or between sovereign nations. As Chapter I, Article 2, stipulates, ” Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter;”

Washington, D.C. July 13, 2014. The Kashmiri Americans join the worldwide Kashmiri community to observe “Martyr’s Day”, in memory of 22 Kashmiris killed by Dogra troops on this day in 1931. The ‘Martyrs Day’ memorializes all those innocent victims, nearly 100,000, “who have been forcibly silenced by the occupation forces that erupted two and half decades ago,” said Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General of the World Kashmir Awareness.

Fai expressed concern over the on going tragic situation in Kashmir because all available evidence testifies that human rights violations are systematic, deliberate, and officially sanctioned. India has given its forces powers to shoot to kill and the license to abuse the people in whatever ways they like in order to suppress the popular movement for basic human rights and self-determination.

He emphasized, ‘India trembles at any attempt to resolve the Kashmir crisis because she is frightened by its outcome.’ When a former Defense Minister, Krishna Menon, was questioned as to why India would never hold a free self-determination election in Kashmir, he confessed that all of India’s political leaders knew it would lose. And would 700,000 soldiers be needed in Kashmir if the main opponents to India’s occupation were but a handful of outside “extremists”? The question answers itself.

The evolution of the right of self-determination has been one of the great normative narratives of the twentieth century. It was part of the visionary contributions of President Woodrow Wilson, who despite a deep-seated conservatism, seemed to have an uncontrollable tendency to give credibility to normative ideas that contained implications that carried far, far beyond his intentions. Ever since the words of self-determination left the lips of President Woodrow Wilson, the wider meaning of the words has excited the moral, political and legal imagination of oppressed peoples around the world. Although, self-determination even now, decades later, still seems to be a Pandora’s Box that no one knows how to close, and despite concerted efforts there is little likelihood that the box will be closed anytime soon. 

One of the darkest chapters of Indian judicial partiality was left hanging half closed and banging in the wind when Major Avtar Singh, the killer of internationally known human rights activist and Chairman of Kashmir Commission of Jurists, Advocate Jalil Andrabi, was found dead after he killed his wife and two children, and finally himself this past Saturday morning, June 9, 2012, in Selma, California. Avtar Singh, a fugitive from justice, who lived in the hot dry central California community, a suburb of Fresno, was clearly haunted by his past, a past that had seen the blood spilled of more than one man by his own hands. He had killed four others to hide the murder of Andrabi, and now he had killed his own family.  

In killing Jalil Andrabi, Avtar Singh certainly did not act on his own volition. He was only a major.   His act was no doubt a response to orders from above and occurred in a longstanding climate of impunity that the Indian army enjoys in Kashmir.   The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which gives any Indian soldier the right in Kashmir to take a Kashmiri’s life under any circumstance, has enabled such a climate for decades.  And Jalil Andrabi had become a hated, despised man by the Army, a man dangerous to the status quo of continued murder and torture that had been taking place in Kashmir’s jails, interrogation centers and detention facilities for many years.  

Cumberland, Maryland. October 27, 2012. “The international community must intervene on humanitarian grounds to ease the suffering of the innocent and unarmed Kashmiri population. The suffering and abuses are so pervasive as to extend beyond those directly affected. The pattern of abuses reaches every man, woman and child in the Valley of Kashmir. The people live under the constant threat of the abuses. The prevalence of military personnel and bunkers serve as a constant reminder to Kashmiris of the potential for them to fall victim to such a horrible occurrences,” this was stated by Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai from Cumberland Prison Camp in Maryland, USA. Fai warned that India may be the largest democracy but its policies in Kashmir has been uniformly brutal and deceitful.

When the Kashmir dispute erupted in 1947-1948, the world powers championed the stand that the future status of Kashmir must be ascertained in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of the people of…