Right Of Self Determination For the People Of Kashmir

Dr. Muhammad Ayyub Thakur, the first of four children, was born in 1948 in Pudsoo village near Shopian, in the Pulwama district of Kashmir.

It was 1973 when I first heard that Dr. Ayub Thakur was active in raising the awareness about the Kashmir dispute at Kashmir University and was the President of Kashmir University Research Scholar’s Association. One fine morning I went to see him along with a family friend, Jinab Aashiq Kashmiri, then the Editor of Daily Azan. We just knocked on the door at his university apartment and went in. I had never met Dr. Thakur until that time. After greeting us, he went out and in few minutes brought a cook and told him to prepare the lunch for us. We told him that we did not want to eat. It is customary in Kashmir to say that even if you are hungry. He did not listen to us and the cook prepared the lunch and we had a delicious meal.

March 17, 2014

Sir Nigel Rodley
Chairperson
UN Human Rights Committee
Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Fax: (41 22) 917 90 11
E-mail: CP@ohchr.org

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

I am grateful for the opportunity to submit this testimony on the state of human rights in Kashmir to the 110th session of the United Nations Human Rights Committee being held in Geneva, Switzerland, this week until March 28, 2014. Much to my chagrin in light of the warming of diplomacy between India and Pakistan and incipient dialogue between India and Kashmiri leaders, the state of human rights in the disputed territory is chilling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience.

Indiscriminate killings:

The best estimate of extrajudicial killings in Kashmir since 1989 approaches a staggering 100,000. That number dwarfs the killings in Northern Ireland, Palestine, Bosnia, Kosovo and Southern Sudan which have brought the world to tears and revulsion. The 100,000 corpses also tops the death toll for United States forces in Vietnam over 10 years.

Arundhati Roy, an Indian novelist, essayist, the Booker Prize and Sydney Peace Prize winner said that “Caught in the middle are the people of Kashmir. More than 100,000 people, mostly innocent civilians, have died in the 20-year conflict.”

So much for Ban Ki-moon’s heart and possibly even more so his soul. One can only recall the quote in Matthew and the betrayal of Jesus, “When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this Man’s blood; see to that yourselves.”

The United Nations has walked away from the slaughter in Kashmir and washed its hands of it, and the world body has told India, “it’s your problem. See to that yourselves.” Even the U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby has deferred all inquiries about the “killing fields” of Kashmir to the Indian government, the very source of all the bloodshed. That’s like referring the problem of foxes in the henhouse to Chief Minister Fox.

Washington, D.C. February 6, 20114. “The United Nations Security Council resolutions on Kashmir were not resolutions in the routine sense of the term. Their provisions were negotiated in detail by the United Nations Commission with India and Pakistan and it was only after the consent of both Governments was explicitly obtained that they were endorsed by the Security Council. They thus constitute a binding and solemn international agreement about the settlement of the Kashmir dispute,” said Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai in a paper read during a seminar organized by Mohtaram Shabir Ahmed Shah Sahib in Srinagar entitled: Kashmir Dispute and the Role of the United Nations.