To call Kashmir a territorial dispute is to dehumanize it: Ambassador Buch
November 12, 2017. New York. “It was an honor to have an hour-long meeting with Ambassador Yusuf Buch at his residence in New York City,” said Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General, World Kashmir Awareness Forum. While paying homage to Ambassador Buch’s life in exile, Fai said: “Ambassador Yusuf Buch born in Srinagar (Capitol City of Kashmir) was along with few other promising and brilliant youth exiled from the state in 1947 for his political beliefs. Mr. Buch was the Senior Advisor to the United Nations Secretary General for 20 years. His contribution to Kashmir cause has been legendary ever since Kashmir dispute was brought to the United Nations by India in 1948. Working in tandem with Kashmiri diaspora, Ambassador Buch had added vibrancy to the Kashmir cause. The nation of Kashmir salutes his commitment and dedication, and pay tribute to his inspirational spirit. Ambassador Buch is undoubtedly, a living encyclopedia on Kashmir.”
Ambassador Buch told me that “It is of utmost importance to counter the impression that the Kashmir issue has somehow lost its urgency or shed its significance or is being addressed in some kind of a mythical peace process. The impression needs to be countered because it is false, because it ignores the agony of the people of Kashmir and because it thereby hardens the psychological underpinning of the current diplomatic inaction regarding the issue. We owe it to the tens of thousands whose blood has consecrated the cause of Kashmir’s Azadi to try and disentangle it in whatever degree we can.” Buch Sahib added “The attitude that needs to be fought in the context not only of Kashmir but of every major international problem is that of turning our backs to the Charter of the United Nations. The Charter is not scripture or a book of morals but, let us not forget, a multilateral treaty as binding on the largest or most powerful member state of the world organization as on the smallest or weakest. The sanity of international agreements must remain one of the bases of a sane and stable international order. The Kashmir issue involves that principle most pointedly.”
When asked whether Kashmir was a territorial issue between India and Pakistan, Mr. Buch replied “Not much argument is called for to refute the proposition that Kashmir is just a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan. To call it a territorial dispute is simply to dehumanize it. And to go as far as saying that the dispute is not really about Kashmir amounts to saying in effect that Kashmiris are but a mythical people.”
Buch Sahib responded when I asked: Why do the Kashmiris call for third party mediation? “The breaking of the impasse over Kashmir between India and Pakistan would be greatly facilitated by the presence of a mediator who would define the obligations of the parties under the agreements concluded between them, spell out the contentious issues and the conflicting positions and remove the confusion about what needs to be done to narrow the gap.”
Ambassador Buch suggested: “The Governments of Pakistan and India have ample opportunities to articulate their positions and make them known to the world. Not so the people of Kashmir. I neither pretend impartiality nor claim a thorough knowledge of, or adherence to, the position of any particular section of Kashmiri opinion. But I think that an attempt to see the conflict from a Kashmiri – and human – perspective may not be useless in any mental exercise towards its resolution.”
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.