There is youth-led resistance in Kashmir: Barrister Sultan

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 He clarified to his well-wishers that the prosecution had withdrawn charges initially leveled against him to be the agent of a foreign government.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.”

Do you know what’s happening in Kashmir? 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…

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.  

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.

This flood was the first in history, in the living memory of Kashmir.  More than 450 people are dead, and more than $1bn in destruction has been estimated.  The actual magnitude of the total destruction, the number of dead and the people who are missing may not be known for some time. Kashmir Valley was cut off from the rest of the world for days.  Thousands of villages have been submerged, including the capitol city of Srinagar. Hundreds of thousands of people particularly in the rural areas still remain trapped without any outside help or rescue and relief. There has been a total breakdown in communication with no telephone contact of the people with their loved ones  Boats were not available.  People had to stand on their rooftops waiting for someone to rescue them.

“Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.” George Bernard Shaw

It is tragic that civilized nations have fallen from their lofty calling: namely, human rights for all mankind. There is a sad commentary on the state of human rights all over the globe. It seems to me that until there evolves a generally accepted moral duty among peoples and nations to assist all victims of widespread human rights violations by force or other stiff retaliation, human rights enforcement mechanisms will operate haphazardly and whimsically for reasons unrelated to the harm to the victims or the villainy of the perpetrators. It is the job of all human rights defenders to jump-start that moral evolution.