|

Kashmir: challenge to the World Conscience: Dr. Fai

Articles, Uncategorised

Peoria, Illinois. August 18, 2014. “India cannot disentangle from her responsibility by just calling off the foreign secretary level talks with Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan must realize that the people of Kashmir must be the integral component of ongoing peace process as they are the primary stakeholders. The Kashmiri leadership should be included as it will facilitate permanent, durable and honorable settlement of Kashmir dispute. Both countries should understand that they cannot and must not try to resolve the Kashmir dispute by themselves. If they try without the the involvement of Kashmiri leadership, they will be performing Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark,” said Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General of ‘World Kashmir Awareness’ while addressing a forum at Peoria Convention Center, Illinois entitled “Muslims Around the World Series” subtitle, “Kashmir: Challenge to the World Conscience.” The event was a part of the ICNA Midwest Convention.

The leadership of both India and Pakistan must recognize that there can be no settlement, negotiated or otherwise, without the active and full participation of the people of Jammu & Kashmir living on both sides of the Ceasefire Line, Fai added.

“There are certain characteristics of the situation in Kashmir, which distinguish it from all other deplorable human rights situations around the world. It prevails in what is recognized – under international law and by the U.N. – as a disputed territory.  According to the international agreements between India and Pakistan, negotiated by the United Nations and endorsed by the Security Council, the territory’s status is to be determined by the free vote of its people under U.N. supervision,” he stressed.

He added that it 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.  The Kashmiris are not and cannot be called separatists because they cannot secede from a country to which they have never acceded to in the first place,”

Fai ruled out one thing about the resolution of Kashmir and that is doing nothing.  Because time, he said is not on the side of people of Kashmir.  Time has made the things worst.  It will never heal this problem of Kashmir.

He suggested the following agenda to help resolve the Kashmir problem:

(1).      The conflict over Kashmir cannot be resolved through military means. Kashmir issue is a political issue and has to be resolved through political means;

(2).      There has to be a cease-fire from all sides during negotiations.  Negotiations cannot be carried out at a time when parties are killing each other;

(3).      Talks must be tripartite between India, Pakistan and genuine leadership of the people of Kashmir;

(4).      There cannot be and should not be any condition from any party, other than commitment to non-violence and to negotiations;

(v).      Negotiations should be initiated simultaneously at four different levels, including:

(a).       an intra-Kashmir dialogue between the leadership of the Kashmiri political resistance, and the leadership of Azad Kashmir, Gilgat-Baltistan and the leadership of Pandits, Sikhs and Buddhists;

(b).      talks between the government of India and Pakistan;

(c).       talks between the Governments of India, Pakistan and the Kashmiri leadership;

(d).      talks between India, Pakistan, Kashmir, China and the United States.

(vi).     There should be third party facilitation to make sure that the talks between India,  Pakistan and Kashmiri leadership remain focused.  Third party facilitator could be a person of an international standing, like Nobel Laureate, Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa or Dr. Kofi Annan of Ghana.

Dr. Fai can be reached at:  gnfai2003@yahoo.com   OR   1-202-607-6435

Similar Posts

  • |

    Kashmiri American community vowed to continue the struggle for self-determination

     

    bombay1

    Washington, D.C. June 5, 2012. The Kashmiri-American community in the Washington metropolitan area has vowed to continue their struggle for right to self-determination. At an impressive gathering at Bombay Tandoor, Tysons Corner, members of the community including academics, political activists and friends of Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, pledged to carry forward his work during the period of his incarceration.

    Speaking on the occasion, Dr Fai said there is no restriction on him to continue his work for a universally acknowledged cause. He clarified to his well-wishers that the prosecution had withdrawn charges initially leveled against him to be the agent of a foreign government.

    Judge Liam O’Grady, while announcing the verdict for two-year imprisonment earlier this year, had made it clear that “it’s (sentencing) necessary, even though you have done some very moving things on behalf of the Kashmir people and that your cause is a wonderful cause,” Fai told the gathering.

    Dr. Fai urged the community members to continue to support the cause of Kashmir. He quoted again Judge O’Grady who said, “I sincerely hope that while you’re at a minimal security facility like Cumberland, that I see no reason why you can’t continue to advocate on behalf of the Kashmiri people and to write. I know that the KAC is dormant, I guess is the word for it at this stage, but there may be an opportunity to arrange conferences through other people in the future, and I hope that cause continues to be identified as an important international matter. And good luck to you.”

    “No solution to the 65‑year‑old Kashmir conflict that does not command a consensus among the 17 million Kashmiri people can endure, Dr. Fai stressed, just as no solution to East Timor held a chance of success until the East Timorese leadership was consulted and a referendum on independence from Indonesia was held.”

  • Kashmiri aspirations must be respected

    “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,

  • |

    Kashmiri Americans Observed July 13th As the Martyrs Day: Dr. Fai

    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 road to peace in Afghanistan goes through Kashmir: Barrister Sultan

    Washington, D.C. June 8, 2014. “The freedom struggle in Jammu & Kashmir has passed through its transformation from armed struggle to a non-violent mass movement. This non-violent, indigenous and peaceful struggle needs to be recognized and strengthened by the world powers.” This was stated by Barrister Sultan Mahmood Choudhary, former Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir and Senior Leader of Pakistan Peoples Party – Azad Kashmir while addressing the press and community leaders in Springfield, Virginia.

    Barrister added that the international community has maintained silence at the unending atrocities, which the people of Kashmir are facing on daily basis. The international community seems to forget about Kashmir in the midst of everything that happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The world powers should know that there would be no peace in Afghanistan until there is a solution of the Kashmir conflict. The road to peace in Afghanistan goes through Kashmir.

    Barrister Sultan urged India to positively respond to Pakistan’s sincere efforts and willingness for a peaceful settlement on all issues through composite dialogue, including the Kashmir dispute. He added that Kashmiris are the real sufferers and unless they are taken on board no such process can make any headway. He underlined it was imperative that self-determination be granted to the people of Jammu and Kashmir to maintain peace and stability in the region.

  • |

    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ Needs to be Applauded: Dr. Fai

    Washington, D.C. December 10, 2013. 

     

    “We need to applaud the 1948 ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, which stands as a moral reproach to wrongdoing nations that may facilitate reforms, even though its lofty provisions safeguarding fundamental human rights remain dishonored in many parts of the world,” said Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the United Nations Human Rights Day.