Essay competition on Kashmir conflict
10. All essays will become the property of the WKA.
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“If parties (India & Pakistan) come here and both of them call upon the Security Council to make recommendations for the solution of their (Kashmir) dispute, ought they not in advance agree to abide by it? They are not bound to ask the Security Council to make such recommendations, but if they do, I ask the Committee of Experts if they have not thereby implied that they will conform or try to conform to them.” Ambassador Warren Austin of the United States at the Security Council on May 26, 1948.
If promises are made to be broken, then Kashmir may be summoned to prove the treacherous proposition. Broken promises haunt Kashmir’s history, and explain its tragedy.
The Kashmir issue is simply this: the people of a large territory which is not part of any existing sovereign state were assured by the entire international community represented by the United Nations that they would be enabled to decide their future by a free vote. Until now, this assurance has not been honored.
With the lapse of British paramountcy on August 15, 1947, broken promises over Kashmir came not like single spies but in battalions, to borrow from Hamlet. Princely states enjoyed three options: accession to India, accession to Pakistan, or independence. But the choice, according to India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and tacitly endorsed by the British,
New York, June 13, 2015. Ambassador Yusuf Buch is home now after spending almost a month, first at New York University Hospital, then at New York Rehabilitation Center. A delegation of Kashmiri Americans, including Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai & Sardar Sawar Khan visited him this weekend at his residence in New York City. Buch Sahib was resting comfortably and felt much better today than what we experienced during our visit to him both at the Hospital and the Rehabilitation Center, said Dr. Fai.
Gaylord National Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland
April 13-16, 2014
International Conflicts & the Role of Media
Cihangir Isbilir
Coordinator, UNIW & International Rabaa Platform, Istanbul, Turkey
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen. I greet you all respectfully. I hope and pray for the success of the Global Donors Forum of 2014.
Syria: I was at the Turkey-Syrian border last week. I wanted to make an assessment of the life condition of the people in the region. Especially, I wanted to observe personally the situation of Turkmens and Armenians who have been the subject of the media recently. I was deeply moved during my visit to the area. The people there are asking: “How can this happen in today’s World and that too in 2014?” Why the death of one hundred sixty thousand innocent people cannot shake the conscience of the humanity? Millions of people had to abandon their country because of the grim condition. The World powers have remained passive to this barbaric situation. They ask, why?
Washington, D.C. February 15, 2104. “Our efforts should be to persuade the world community including the United States to urge both India and Pakistan to include the leadership of the people of Jammu & Kashmir in the negotiations to peacefully resolve the dispute over Kashmir. When we talk of Kashmir, we talk of the sentiments and enormous sacrifices made by the Kashmiri people during the past 67 years for a cause dear to all inhabitants, be they Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists. It is time that both India and Pakistan realize that until the Kashmiri leadership is included in the peace process, these negotiations between India and Pakistan may not lead them to any logical conclusion,” said Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai at a seminar, held at Holiday Inn Hotel and organized by Kashmir Form, Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C. August 21, 2017. “The conflict in Indian Occupied Kashmir has acquired a new dimension. Since, July of last year, Kashmiri youth have taken the lead to press for their inalienable right to self-determination, a right guaranteed by the United Nations. The youth has taken to streets, paralyzing the unlawful local administration. They have made it abundantly clear that there is no turning back – this is a do or die phase of the long struggle for “Azadi” (freedom) after decades of the oppressive Indian rule,” said Barrister Sultan Mehmood Choudhry, the former Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir during a press conference in Washington Metro-Politian area.