China most-trusted friend of Pakistan: PM

Islamabad, May 18: Pakistan sees China as its most-trusted and all-weather friend, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said as he began his four-day visit to China Tuesday, reports Wang Zhaokun Global Times.


"We appreciate that in all difficult circumstances China stood with Pakistan, therefore we call China a true friend and a time-tested and all-weather friend," Gilani told the Xinhua News Agency in Islamabad before flying to Shanghai.

The Prime Minister also appreciated that China recognizes Pakistan's contribution and sacrifice in the war on terror.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters Tuesday that China will "unswervingly continue to support Pakistan's efforts to fight terrorism."

Leaders from both countries will witness the signing of agreements concerning trade, finance and culture. They will also participate in a reception to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, Xinhua said.

 The two governments are also reportedly planning to seal a extending of the Saindak gold and copper mining project.

Gilani's visit has long been planned as part of the anniversary celebrations, but the timing also coincides with the ongoing diplomatic spat between Islamabad and Washington over the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Tuesday, NATO helicopters originating from Afghanistan wounded two Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border attack, triggering a protest from Islamabad.

Andrew Small, a researcher at the German Marshall Fund think tank in Brussels told Reuters that Gilani's visit to China will tell the US, the Pakistani public and the wider world that "Pakistan has other options."

However, Sun Shihai, vice director of the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that China and Pakistan have long maintained close cooperation with each other at all times.

"I don't think Gilani's visit to China has any special implications for Pakistan-US relations because all parties have their own to play for the regional stability," Sun said.

Secret deal with US not acceptable: Nisar Ali Khan

ISLAMABAD: May 17: The government will have to finish inking secret deals with US. No behind-the-curtain agreements will be acceptable from now and onwards, these were the warning statements made by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the leader of opposition in National Assembly (NA) and the leader of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), Geo News reported.

“No Pak-US joint operation against a high-value target in Pakistan will be allowed in future and a judicial commission to probe into US raid on a compound in Abbottabad on May 2 be immediately formed, ” Nisar demanded.

Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was addressing a press conference here at the Punjab House. He said that he came to know though media reports that the federal government and US administration have agreed upon a new code of conduct.(Writer-South Asis)

Osama bin Laden's Jerusalem home for sale

Srinagar, 16 May:  While real-estate agents say that location is everything in considering buying a home, sometimes an infamous former owner can also be a big selling point, reports Xinhua news agency.

Ginkgo biloba : http://jkmpic.blogspot.com

Especially when it's al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's handsome digs in northern Jerusalem's Palestinian Shuafat neighborhood.

"This is a historic house, and to this day I have not talked about it with anybody," current owner Mu'in Khoury told the Yediot Ahronot Hebrew daily on Sunday.

"Bin-Laden's father came from Saudi Arabia in the 1940s, bought the house, and lived in it from time to time," Khoury said, adding that "Osama also spent time there on several occasions in the 1960s."

Since then, however, the property has changed hands many times, and came to be Israeli state property as a result of the 1967 War, and served as the Spanish consul's office.

Khoury is the latest in the line of owners of the site, which has become a well-known neighborhood landmark since the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

"The house is not for sale to anyone. But if Osama makes me an offer, I will be willing to consider it," Khoury said, according to the report.

America, Osama and Kashmir

By: Hashim Qurashi
Many people are angry with the US dropping Osma’s dead body into the sea. They rubbish the US claim that the body was submerged according to Islamic rites. But why be cross with the US? It has always been oppressive to freedom loving but subjugated nations. Its policy is to enslave countries politically and economically in modern age.  Americans dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 20th century taking a toll of the lives of more than three hundred thousand men, women and children. The soil there cannot grow any greenery even today. Children are born with various debilities and disabilities. Thousands of people were massacred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in carpet bombing by the Americans. Rusted bombs are still recovered occasionally from the farms there. A scare of communism was created in Latin America, especially Chile. Widespread killings were done in African and Muslim countries, view point Hashmi Qurashi in GK.

Desecrating a dead body is such an insignificant event in face of these atrocities. US would not care for the living beings, leave aside the dead. But those who created the US did it on the basis of the principles of freedom and self-determination for the nations. Naturally the souls of those founding fathers must be turning in their graves on finding the US converting to a colonial country.

Innumerable write ups have been produced on the life and death of Osama bin Laden. From publicity point of view his death is the third biggest news of the  21 century. According to a conservative estimate the US spent tens of billions of dollars to locate him. Osama is the Frankenstein of the US being its creation. They used him against the Soviet Union in Afghan war. He was privy to many secrets of the US and its CIA. After the Afghan war was over, the US left Afghanistan leaving Afghans in lurch. When the Afghans realized that not Russia but the US and its colonialism were the real enemy of Muslims, they pledged to seek revenge from the US. They struck at the roots of the American interests.

Unfortunately Osama or Taliban could not realize that their actions did more harm to the cause of the Muslims. It was just because they were obsessed with hatred towards the US. Osama was an educated person and many of his comrades had received their education in western or American universities. They found that the US was out to enslave the Muslims politically and economically. In particular, the US wanted general loot of the oil booty of the Arabs. They saw that the US adopted divide and rule policy vis-à-vis the Muslims; they saw that it protected illegal occupation of Palestine by the Israelis, and they saw that it was privy to the massacre of the Palestinians by the Israelis. All this created lava of hatred in their mind against the Americans.

Thus not distinguishing between the oppressor or the oppressed, innocent or the culprit, Al Qaeda let loose terrible terror against the US and the European countries. The US did carpet bombing on Tora Bora hills, and deployed one and a half lakh American and European troops against war in Afghanistan which resulted in the killing of hundreds of thousands of Afghans.

Al Qaeda targeted American missions in foreign countries. In 9/11 attack the Twin Towers of World Trade Centre in NY and the building in Pentagon. This was the first attack of the enemies of the US on the American homeland which turned the US almost mad. The US began picking up anybody and every body in Afghanistan and Pakistan whom she suspected of involvement in 9/11. The arrested persons were interned in Guantanamo Bay prison.

Al Qaeda attacked a train in Spain that killed about 250 persons. On 7/7 it made the British underground rail system its target that resulted in the killing of many innocent people. Many of its horrible missions did not materialize. The US and the western countries got exasperated by these recurrent attacks. The US challenged Muslim countries, including Pakistan that “those who were not with the US in war on terror were against the US and would be sent back to Stone Age”. At the same time the US put a heavy prize of millions of dollars on the heads of Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.

Pakistani governments made a good use of the situation. They picked up Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, handed them over to the Americans and in return received billions of dollars. General Pervez Musharraf has described it fully in one paragraph of his book “In the Line of Fire”.

Rumours were floated during past one decade about the arrest and death of Osama. In 2003-4, I participated in a discussion in Europe. We talked about Osama, whether he was alive or dead and if alive, where was he hiding. I said with some analytical view that if he had managed to escape alive from Tora Bora bombardment then, surely he must be hiding in some city in Pakistan or must have taken shelter with some powerful elements in Pakistan. Now that we know he had been living first in Haripore and then in Abbatabad for last eight and a half years, it means that he had left Afghanistan as early as 2003 while the Americans and their allies were looking for him in Tora Bora and Waziristan. Drone attacks killed thousands of innocent Afghans and Pakistanis.

Conflicting reports are coming in in the aftermath of American raid on Osama hideout. On the one hand the US President and Pakistani rulers claim that Pakistan rendered significant service to CIA in getting Osama. President Obama thanked Pakistan for operation against Osama. But then the Pakistani’s suddenly made about turn and began saying that Pakistan was not informed about operation against Osama. It protested to Americans for violating Pakistani air space. But ours is the age of computers and everybody feels a compulsion to think that Pakistan was an accomplice with the Americans in their operation against Osama.  And if it was not so, then is Pakistan a paralyzed banana state?

I cannot believe it. Pakistani army and its ISI are a highly trained force and the ISI is one of the world’s most efficient organizations. Despite several challenges looking straight into Pakistan’s face, it has opted to be the standard bearer of jihad in the world. It is unthinkable that three American helicopters stay put in Pakistani air jurisdiction for two hours and neither the Pakistani army nor the intelligence has any information about it. It has to be remembered that the site of operation was Abbotabad where Pakistani Army has its Divisional Headquarter and Kakol Military Academy.  At a distance of just 20 kilometers from the site of operation is Kamrah air base. It is preposterous to say that Pakistan had no information of this operation.?

The fact is that Pakistan wanted to ward off the backlash from religious extremist elements among the Pakistani people, Taliban and Al Qaeda activists after the American operation was over. This was a gambit jointly contrived and executed by the Americans and Pakistanis. This has been confirmed by the statement of former Pakistani Corps Commander Salahu’d-Din Tirmizi who categorically said that “the entire operation was executed with full cooperation of Pakistan. Pakistan was forced to adopt this stand in order to escape the torment of terrorism. Now the US is not a foreign power for Pakistan. She is in fact the supremo of our rulers, and they are all the slaves who have no guts to say no to its diktat.”

Please come out of blind emotionalism. Don’t label them traitors who speak and write the truth. There are many around who could be on the pay roll of India or Pakistan. Imagine a man who carries a prize of 50 crores of dollars or 25 arab rupees on his head; here is a man who lives in a house in Abbotabad with three wives and eight children; here is a man who is a kidney patient and survives on the dialysis and needs medical support regularly, and here is a man who has to fulfill the daily needs of his household. And then Pakistani authorities aver that they had no knowledge on his being in Abbotabad. This is the biggest lie of 21st century.?

I am ready to accept that President Zardari and the Prime Minister, meaning political establishment and the bureaucracy had no wink of it but definitely the top brass of the army and ISI were in know  of it.  It has to be reminded that Pakistan has been an ally of the US in latter’s war on terrorism. Pakistan has given large sacrifices also. Pakistan even handed over to the Americans some top leaders of Al Qaeda like Khalid Shiekh and some Taliban leaders during the regime of Pervez Musharraf. Even an atomic scientist lady Arifa Sidiqe too was handed over to the Americans on accusations of supporting Al Qaeda.  All this was done to convince American masters that Pakistan was their ally in war on terrorism.  

As a person and as an entity, Osama is dead but his thoughts and his war against the US and the European countries will continue as long the US and the European countries do not stop exploitation of the entire world in general but the Muslims in particular. The British too had disposed the body of Bhagat Singh and his colleagues after hanging them but they had to leave India at the end of the day. Indira Gandhi ordered hanging of Maqbool Bhat and his dead body was buried within the premises of the Tihar jail. But today Maqbool Bhat is the brightest lighthouse for the people of the state.  An organization may be liquidated, leaders can be butchered, and their dead bodies can be disposed off clandestinely or thrown into the sea. But staunch followers of truth and fighters for the rights of oppressed peoples have their thinking and ideas which cannot be buried or submerged under water.The US contrived the death of Che Govera in 1960s. CIA buried him secretly. But his grave was identified after a lapse of thirty years and he was re-buried with full rites and with great respect.

Whether Osama bin Laden was a terrorist or a great mujahid is not the point. There is a UN resolution against him and Al Qaeda. It declared Osama as the chief of Al Qaeda a terrorist organization. The US and European countries, of who the UN is a puppet, spend over 3 billion dollars in locating Osama. They considered him responsible for the killing of thousands of civilians. If I open a discussion on whether Osama was a terrorist or not, I will provoke many followers of blind emotionalism against me. I would therefore remain content with the commentary of a famous Pakistani journalist Manu Bhai. This is what he says:

“There are many questions arising in the context of Osama bin Laden. In the name of service to Islam he became the prime cause for greatest decimation of Muslims and their destruction. He was the cause for humiliation of Muslim travelers especially Pakistani Muslim travelers at all international airports where they are required to undress and even take off their shoes for security reasons. There are many questions about projecting Osama first as a mujahid and then a terrorist.”There should be no need for any further comment on the subject. According to Quranic injunction, killing an innocent person is tantamount to killing all the humanity in the eyes of God.

It is true that after 9/11 event, Muslims came under great stress. They are being harassed at the airports under the pretext of security check. Western universities imposed a ban on the admission of Muslim students in universities and professional institutions. Even issuing of passport and visa too became very difficult.  Previously Muslim missionaries visiting western countries on propagation missions were given visas but now these too have been stopped. Now if somebody announces that namaze janazeh (prayer in absentia for a dead) be performed, is it not doing harm to the struggle of Kashmiris? Will not Kashmiris be associated with Al Qaeda? I cannot understand the logic of offering namaze juma for the dead Osama after five days of his death. Since Jamaate Islami Pakistan and Lashkar-eTaayyiba and other religious organizations offered prayer in absentia for Osama on Tuesday and Wednesday, Geelani and Shabir Shah found no justification in not following the suit. Reports say that Geelani’s appeal for prayer in absentia was by and large ignored by the people in Kashmir so much so that the Imam of Batmaloo mosque slipped out of the backdoor of the mosque without offering the prayer in absentia.Will Kashmiri leadership come out of egoism, urge for temporary popularity and thirst for media publicity? Will they not spare the helpless people of this state?

(About the writer: Hashim Qureshi is ChairmanJk Democratic Liberation party. Feedback at hashimquireshi@yahoo.com. Visit his blog hashimquireshi-jkdlp.blogspot.com)

Geelani asks people to offer funeral prayers in absentia for Osama bin Laden

Srinagar, 5 May: Chairman of Kashmir based Hurriyat Conference-APHC  has urged Imams and people to hold funeral prayers in absentia for Sheikh Osama bin Laden after Friday prayers tomorrow afternoon, a APHC spokesman said in a statement.
 

Meanwhile, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen militant outfit has paid rich tributes to its slain commanders including Gazi Naseeb-ud-Din on their anniversaries. In and emailed statement a spokesman of Hizb said, “An obituary meeting of Hizb Command Council was held in Muzafferabad under the chairmanship of Syed Salah-ud Din where glowing tributes were paid to Gazi Naseeb-ud-Din, Engineer Firdous Kirmani, Commander Manzoor Khan alias MK and Abdul Majeed Wani alias Gazi Illyas on their 14 martyrdom anniversary.”
 

The Hizb commanders were killed allegedly in custody after their arrest on March 6, 1997. “The commanders were martyred in custody after they refused to divulge secrets of the organization. They were given third degree torture,” he alleged.

A Canadian newspaper, which reported the Hizb link to the house, said Pakistan was hushing up the issue of ownership of the place.

Quoting an unnamed police source in Pakistan, Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail reported that the mansion where bin Laden lived belonged to Hizbul Mujahideen. "But the authorities have asked us not to share any information about the exact ownership," the paper said.

Land-registry officials in Abbottabad were summoned to a meeting on Tuesday and urged to keep quiet. "They are being instructed not to say anything about the land-ownership issue."

American officials have described the owners as 'brothers', and neighbours recalled seeing a pair of men, possibly ethnic Pashtuns from the rugged western frontier, who largely kept to themselves. Their names were reported in the local media as Bada Khan and Chota Khan.

A Pakistani official said the mystery surrounding the two men has deepened with the discovery that their national identity cards were fake. Demands grew louder on Tuesday for an investigation that would determine what support bin Laden received inside Pakistan.

Hizb, the biggest Cashmerian group in J&K, has a large local component of young Cashmiris. It was formed in 1990, at the initiative of the  Jamaat-e-Islami by merging nearly a dozen small  organisations of J&K and Pakistan-administered Kashmir-PAK. The outfit headed by Syed Salahuddin has several camps across the LOC in PK.

If the ownership is traced to Hizbul Mujahideen, it would mark an unusual example of co-operation between the militant group and its more extreme cousin, Al-Qaeda, the report said. HM has maintained a narrow focus on removing Indian forces from Kashmir, while al-Qaeda pursues global ambitions.

"This is the first time I've heard of links between Hizbul Mujahedeen and Osama, but its members would probably admire him," Stratfor's South Asia regional director Kamran Bokhari said.

Like other groups fighting Indian troops in the borderlands, HM's membership has never been rounded up by Pakistani forces, said the report, noting that some analysts say that Islamabad covertly supports the group.

Pakistan has denied any collusion with Cashmerian groups, saying that its leading intelligence service had been sharing information with US counterparts since 2009 about the compound where bin Laden was found.

Still, in the wake of the raid, Islamabad scrambled to ensure that precise ownership of the compound would not become public knowledge, and any link to HM would deepen Pakistan's embarrassment over bin Laden's death.

According to media reports, Hizbul Mujahideen, a cashmirian active in disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, owns the mansion that sheltered Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

India is interested in Kazakhstan's uranium

Srinagar, April 15 : India's attempts to make some headway in the Great Game in Central Asia may be the reason behind Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Kazakhstan, says Rediff.com's Nikhil Lakshman, who is travelling with the PM to the Kazakh capital of Sanya

After spending three days interacting with the Brazilian, Chinese, Russian and South African Presidents in Sanya, southern China, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh flew across the expanse of East Asia to Astana, Kazakhstan's flashy new capital.

One colleague on Air India One, the prime minister's special flight, asked this reporter why the 78-year-old prime minister was making this tiring journey (a 7 hour, 20 minute flight) after all those hectic interactions in China when no relationship-transforming agreements currently appear on the anvil in Kazakhstan.

Three reasons: Geography. Natural Resources. Strategic relevance.

And, oh, did we mention China?

When Dr Singh meets President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the Ak Orda, the presidential palace, on Saturday morning, he will be the first world leader to meet the Kazakh leader after his April 3 election victory (eat your heart out Indian politicians, Nazarbayev won 95.5 per cent of the vote).

It will also be the first visit by an Indian prime minister since June 4, 2002 when then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Kazakhstan's then capital Almaty for the first CICA summit. The Conference on Interaction and Confidence Measures in Asia is Nazarbayev's personal multilateral diplomatic initiative to ensure that Central Asia, where Kazakhstan is the biggest nation, stays calm.

No Indian leader can stay away from Central Asia for so long especially when China appears, in the opinion of some observers, to be the 'only great power pursuing a coordinated strategy in Central Asia,' expanding trade and exploiting the region's natural resources.

China has an impressive footprint in Kazakhstan, already. In February, during Nazarbayev's visit to Beijing (he visits the Chinese capital every year), Kazakhstan agreed to supply uranium pellets to Chinese nuclear plants, a deal worth billions of dollars.

Kazakhstan has the second largest uranium deposits in the world, more than 15 per cent. This year, Kazakhstan will produce 19,600 tonnes of uranium; it has enough reserves to last more than a hundred years.

India too is interested in Kazakhstan's uranium and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dr Sukumar Banerjee is already in Astana to discuss an agreement on possible supplies. The DAE and Kazakh's nuclear establishment are also likely to work on a feasibility report to provide Indian small reactor technology to the Kazakhs.

Interestingly, the four groups the DAE set up in the wake of the Fukushima disaster last month to examine the state of readiness at India's nuclear reactors to deal with a catastrophe like the one that befell the nuclear plant in Japan will submit their reports soon.

The DAE committees, sources said, are likely to review among other things, the review criteria for sites to locate future nuclear reactors as well as operating measures at plants like the nuclear facilities in Tamil Nadu. Eventually, the government plans to make these DAE reports public, the sources added.

US-NATO-JEWIS WAR: 'US Drones Kill 938 Pakistanis in 2010'

By: Sheikh GULZAAR
Srinagar, March 20 : The US has stepped up its drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a new report by a Pakistani Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) says.

The Islamabad-based NGO, Conflict Monitoring Center, revealed the details of the deaths by US drone attacks in its annual report.

The report gives detailed accounts on how the CIA killed innocent people merely on the suspicion of being militants.

In 2010, the CIA carried out an unprecedented 132 drone attacks in tribal areas, claiming the lives of 938 people, it said.

The Conflict Monitoring Center points out that none of the media organizations throughout last year reported on body counts from independent sources.

Many analysts believe the geo-strategic game plan of the US has turned out to be counterproductive.

The year 2010 was one of the deadliest years for civilians living in the tribal regions, as the number of drone strikes exceeded the combined number of such attacks carried out from 2004 to 2009.

The report states that 2,052 people lost their lives in drone strikes during the 5-year period between 2004 and 2009. The rising civilian causalities have left behind many tragic stories in the tribal areas.

The reaction of Pakistani people against the frequent use of drone strikes is finally gathering momentum. In the worst of several US air strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent days, up to 51 civilians were killed last Thursday in Afghanistan’s north-eastern Kunar province. General David Petraeus, the commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, expressed the colonial-style hostility of the occupation force’s senior command toward the Afghan population, reportedly accusing local residents of burning their children to fake evidence of civilian casualties.

In a five-hour operation on the night of February 17, US Apache helicopters strafed a group of alleged Afghan insurgents with gunfire, rockets and Hellfire missiles. Surveillance drones guided the helicopter assault in the mountainous district of Ghaziabad, near the Pakistan border, and according to the Washington Post, bombs were dropped by at least one of the unmanned Predator aircraft. The attack was one of a number of recent US operations in the district, ordered as part of President Barack Obama’s broader escalation of the Af-Pak war.

Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, senior military spokesman in Kabul, stated that three dozen people were killed in the incident. He maintained they were all “suspected insurgents who had gathered to attack US and Afghan troops”. However, the remarks of one unnamed military official, cited by theWashington Post on Monday, made clear that American authorities had no knowledge of the identities of those killed. The official admitted that those targeted had been wearing civilian clothes.

Kunar Governor Said Fazlullah Wahidi contradicted Smith’s claims. He said: “According to our information 64 people were killed: 13 armed opposition, 22 women, 26 boys and 3 old men.” The governor sent a three-man “fact-finding team” to the area on Saturday, which returned with seven injured people suffering burns and shrapnel wounds, including a young man and woman and five boys and girls.

Dr. Asadullah Fazli, chief doctor at the provincial hospital in Asadabad, the capital of Kunar, told the New York Times that the hospital had treated at least nine wounded from the area, including three women, four children and two men. One two-year-old girl had to have her leg amputated because of shrapnel injuries. The Times noted: “There were several other military operations in the area over the last few days, so it was not clear which one caused those injuries.”

In an attempt to defuse outrage among the Afghan population over the latest atrocity carried out by the occupation forces, President Hamid Karzai issued what has become a pro forma denunciation of American military operations. He stated that “about 50 civilians have been martyred” and pledged to send investigators to the scene of the killings.

Karzai met with his national security council and General Petraeus at the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday. According to an account of the meeting published in the Washington Post, “Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, dismissed allegations by Karzai’s office and the provincial governor that civilians were killed and said residents had invented stories, or even injured their children, to pin the blame on US forces and force an end to the operation.”

One unnamed participant in the meeting said: “He claimed that in the midst of the [operation] some pro-Taliban parents in contact with a government official decided to create a civilian casualty claim to pressure international forces to cease the [operation]. They burned hands and legs of some of their children and sent them to the hospital.”

The discussion demonstrates the contempt with which the American military command regards Karzai, the figurehead first installed as Washington’s stooge shortly after the 2001 invasion.

The Washington Post reported that Karzai and his colleagues found Petraeus’s baseless allegations “deeply offensive” and “shocking”. One official declared: “Killing 60 people, and then blaming the killing on those same people, rather than apologising for any deaths? This is inhuman. This is a really terrible situation.”

Petraeus declined to respond to the published account of his meeting with the Afghan president. The day after his provocative remarks on the Kunar killings, more Afghan civilians were killed in a US air strike. In Qilgha village in Nangarhar province, immediately south of Kunar, a missile destroyed a family’s home, killing the parents and four children aged between three and eight who had been sleeping inside. The father, named Patang, was a member of the Afghan national army.

A provincial official told the AFP news agency that American forces had targeted three insurgents planting mines on nearby road, but had hit the home by mistake. NATO spokesmen confirmed there had been civilian casualties, but said no further details would be released, pending an investigation.

One village resident told Pajhwok Afghan News that foreign forces intercepted a vehicle taking the wounded father to hospital, halting it for two hours. “The troops beat us and tied our hands,” the man, Psarlay, said. “Meanwhile, Patang died because of excessive bleeding.”

Another resident, 26-year-old Ezatullah, told the Wall Street Journal: “The house was completely destroyed by the strike. Only two children [aged] four and six survived.” He added that “thousands of people attended the funeral of the slain family Monday and are planning a protest against coalition forces Tuesday”.

A report issued February 1 by the Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM) tallied at least 2,421 civilian deaths and 3,270 injuries inflicted last year by US-NATO forces, Taliban and resistance groups, and Afghan government police, soldiers, and militia. The violence in 2010 was the worst since the invasion a decade ago. The real casualty rate for civilians is likely to be significantly higher than the ARM tally, with US-NATO forces routinely covering up their crimes and labelling victims as “insurgents” or “terrorists”.

 The Obama-Petraeus counter-insurgency strategy effectively centres on the use of overwhelming force against the population, aimed at crushing continued resistance to the occupation of the resource-rich and strategically vital country. At the same time, the Obama administration has illegally extended the war into Pakistan, with US ground forces active in the border region near Afghanistan, backed by a steady bombardment of CIA drone missile attacks.

On Sunday and Monday, two drone attacks killed a reported 12 people. In the first incident, seven alleged militants were killed —including, according to Pakistani intelligence agents cited by various media outlets, an Iraqi Al Qaeda operative—after multiple missiles struck a house in the tribal agency of South Waziristan. Five more alleged militants were killed the next day in North Waziristan.

These operations mark the resumption of US drone attacks after a four-week pause—the longest period in which Pakistan had not been hit by American missiles since December 2009. The temporary cessation was widely believed to have been connected with Washington’s efforts to secure the release of CIA agent Raymond Davis, arrested on January 27 in Lahore on murder charges. Obama’s bombings have generated enormous anger among ordinary Pakistanis, and destabilised the government in Islamabad. The US government is nevertheless proceeding, underscoring the ruthlessness of its Af-Pak war.

An article in the Washington Post on Monday pointed to the indiscriminate character of the missile strikes. It explained that at least 581 alleged militants had been killed by drones in Pakistan last year, but just two of the victims had been previously listed on the US list of “most wanted” terrorists.

 “Despite a major escalation in the number of unmanned Predator strikes being carried out under the Obama administration, data from government and independent sources indicate that the number of high-ranking militants being killed as a result has either slipped or barely increased,” the Washington Postexplained. “Even more generous counts—which indicate that the CIA killed as many as 13 ‘high-value targets’—suggest that the drone program is hitting senior operatives only a fraction of the time.”

The article noted that drones were no longer restricted to striking known targets. Anyone in Pakistan witnessed doing something deemed suspicious, such as travelling to or from alleged terrorist-controlled buildings, could be killed by CIA assassins, operating the drones from Langley, Virginia.

"Kashmir should be an independent state, not Indian, not Pakistani.

New York, Mar 6: Libyan scrambling premiere Muammar Gaddafi told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week that his actions against his people in Libya were akin to India's actions against Kashmiris.

On the eve of the UN Security Council debate and vote against Libya on February 26, Gaddafi, in a missive to Manmohan, asked for India's support for his actions as civil war broke out in Libya, a Delhi-based newspaper reported.

The request for support came even as African and European countries, including Libya's UN envoy who defected to the rebels, made an impassioned plea in the Security Council to refer Gaddafi to the International Criminal Court. India voted for the UNSC resolution, which was passed unanimously.

Gaddafi's mercurial character, though, was on full display on Libya's national day, which he celebrated earlier this week. In a five-hour address in Tripoli, he mentioned India at least five times, including saying that he would give future commercial contracts to Indian and Chinese companies and that he was very pleased with India's vote in the UN Security Council.

Gaddafi has rarely been a person India has been comfortable with. In September 2009, Gaddafi, in a 100-minute speech at the UN General Assembly, railed against India and Kashmir as well. "Kashmir should be an independent state, not Indian, not Pakistani. We should end this conflict. It should be a Ba'athist state between India and Pakistan," he said. (Writer-South Asia)

India is afraid of China : ‘Forget maps, Delhi better takes up incursions in Ladakh with Beijing’ PDP Kashmir

Srinagar, Feb 15: After Indian  Home Minister P Chidambaram warned of action against the Peoples Democratic Party for displaying controversial State-map, the party president Mahbooba Mufti Monday accused New Delhi of being silent on Chinese incursions in Jammu and Kashmir.“PDP is the only party which talks about the parts of JK’s territory under China. When we talk about final Kashmir resolution,

we demand JK’s territory under China back,” Mahbooba told Rising Kashmir at her Gupkar residence.She said the party displayed the map of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir  which includes the then territory currently under China’s control. “One should not forget that Kashmir used to remain connected with Central Asian countries like Iran, China and Afghanistan through the ancient routes like Yarkand and Kashkghar.

About Home Minister’s warning, the PDP chief said, “I respect Chidambaram. But instead of issuing warnings against PDP, he (Home Minister) should check the Chinese incursions in Ladakh and settle the visa row with Beijing as well”.

She said India takes bold stand when it comes to getting back the part of Kashmir under Pakistan. “But it (India) seems to be afraid to talk about Chinese incursions and the huge infrastructure including roads being built by China in Ladakh,” she said.

Claiming that China is constructing huge infrastructure especially roads every year on the State’s territory, Mahbooba said, “Why isn’t India talking about such things”.

“We want freedom to walk on all ancient routes of the State. We want restoration of all roads which were used by the people of Kashmir when they were travelling on horses. We have Karakoram pass, which can connect JK not just with India but with the rest of the world as well. We want JK to be trade-hub and a gateway of Central Asian countries,” she said.

The PDP chief said her party’s stand had been to see Kashmir as it existed before 1947, which means Prime Minister, Governor (elected), joint council having member of PaK as well, dual currency, State as a free economic zone and full administrative powers.

The PDP in a power-point presentation in Srinagar on Saturday depicted Aksai Chin in red colour and as part of China, while the Pakistan Administered Kashmir was coloured in green.

The move, however, triggered strong criticism first by the chief minister Omar Abdullah and then by Home Minister.

“Mahbooba should clear her stand on map. We cannot gift State’s territory to China,” Omar had said.

Chidambaram had also reacted sharply to the development. He told a news channel that PDP had made a big mistake and if it did not correct it, he would take action against it. (Writer-South Asia)

Pakistani nuclear weapons are heavily deployed near its border with India

WASHINGTON: Pakistan has doubled its nuclear arms stockpile to 110 warheads, developing new weapons to deliver them and significantly accelerating production of uranium and plutonium for bombs to edge ahead of India.

Islamabad's nuclear weapons stockpile now totals more than 110 deployed weapons in a sharp jump from an estimated 30-80 weapons fours years ago, 'Washington Post' reported.

"Pakistan has expanded its nuclear weapons production capability rapidly", the Post quoted David Albright President of the Institute for Science and International Security as saying.

Albright said that based on accelerated production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, Pakistan may now have an arsenal upto 110 weapons.

The non-government US analyst said that while continuing to produce weapons-grade uranium at two sites, Islamabad has sharply increased its production of plutonium, enabling it to make lighter warheads for more mobile delivery system.

Pakistan's has developed a new missile Shaheen II, with a range of 1,500 miles which is about to go into operation deployment. The country has also developed nuclear capable land and air launched cruise missiles, the Institute said in a new report.

"The Pakistanis have significantly accelerated production of uranium and plutonium for bombs and developed new weapons to deliver them. After years of approximate weapons parity, experts said, Pakistan has now edged ahead of India, its nuclear-armed rival", Washington Post said.

The paper said while Pakistan has produced more nuclear-armed weapons, India is believed to have larger existing stockpiles of such fissile material for future weapons.

Dubbing Pakistan as one of the world's most unstable region, Post said an escalation of nuclear arms race in South Asia possess a dilemma for Obama Administration.

It said in politically fragile Pakistan, the Administration is caught between fears of proliferation or possible terrorist attempts to seize nuclear materials and Pakistani suspicions that the US aims to control or limit its weapons programme and favours India.

Quoting Pakistan's Defense attache at its embassy in Washington, Post said the number of Pakistani nuclear weapons are heavily deployed near its border with India.

The paper said that in December 2008, Peter Lavoie, US national intelligence officer for South Asia, told NATO officials that "despite pending economic catastrophe, Pakistan is producing nuclear weapons at a faster rate than in any other country in the world".

After Blair's conversion to Catholicism, his sister in law says: I'm a Muslim

Conversion: Lauren booth chose to become a Muslim after a holy experience at a shrine in Iran

By David Wilkes
London : It could certainly make family get-togethers interesting. Tony Blair’s sister-in-law Lauren Booth has converted to Islam. The former prime minister is also a religious convert – he became a Roman Catholic after leaving office in 2007.

Miss Booth, who is Cherie Blair’s half sister, decided to adopt her new faith after what she described as a holy experience in Iran.

She now covers her head with a hijab when she leaves home, has given up alcohol and visits a mosque ‘when she can’.

The 43-year-old mother of two, who has long sympathised with the Muslim cause, described how she had a religious awakening six weeks ago on a visit to a shrine in the Iranian holy city of Qom.

‘I sat down and felt this shot of spiritual morphine, just absolute bliss and joy,’ she said. The former reality TV contestant decided to convert immediately on her return to Britain.

‘I always felt that the ummah [Muslim community] is a very loving, peaceful place and I am proud to be a member of it,’ she said.

Miss Booth, also a journalist and human rights campaigner, has stopped eating pork, reads the Koran every day and has not ruled out wearing a burka in the future.

‘I also haven’t had a drink in 45 days, the longest period in 25 years,’ she said. ‘The strange thing is that since I decided to convert I haven’t wanted to touch alcohol, and I was someone who craved a glass of wine or two at the end of a day.’

Miss Booth works for Press TV, the English-language Iranian news channel, and has worn a head scarf on screen. She announced her conversion at the Global Peace and Unity Event in London on Saturday. To cheers, she said: ‘What I wanted to share with you today is that I am Lauren Booth and I am a Muslim.’

Miss Booth’s conversion follows a turbulent time in her personal life, during which her marriage to actor Craig Darby hit the rocks. She described publicly how she had fallen on hard times and was being forced to return to Britain after six years in rural France with her family.

Miss Booth was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war and recently criticised Mr Blair, accusing him of bias towards Israel.

She said: ‘Your world view is that Muslims, are mad, bad, dangerous to know. A contagion to be contained.’Her conversion was welcomed on Muslim internet forums. One post read: ‘Now a war criminal has an innocent sister in law! God bless her!’

But not all the comments were so favourable. Another read: ‘Lauren Booth craves attention, that’s all.’

Beauty and The Wounds of Kashmir : Paul Barrow

One of Virginia Woolf's well-known quotes, which she wrote in 1929, is that "the beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder." Perhaps nothing could be more descriptive of Kashmir. During a visit to Kashmir many years ago, Prime Minister Nehru described what he saw: Like some supremely beautiful woman, whose beauty is almost impersonal and above human desire, such was Kashmir in all its feminine beauty of river and valley and lake and graceful trees. And then another aspect of this magic beauty would come into view, a masculine one, of hard mountains and precipices, and snow-capped peaks and glaciers, and cruel and fierce torrents rushing to the valleys below. It had a hundred faces and innumerable aspects, ever-changing, sometimes smiling, sometimes sad and full of sorrow … I watched this spectacle and sometimes the sheer loveliness of it was overpowering and I felt faint … It seemed to me dreamlike and unreal, like the hopes and desires that fill us and so seldom find fulfilment. It was like the face of the beloved that one sees in a dream and that fades away on wakening. Georges Bataille, the French novelist, has also said, "beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled, not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it." As of its beauty, of its anguish and it's befouling, in Kashmir, there isn't any shortage of evidence. There's been a little brouhaha in India recently over the release of videotape on YouTube of what appear to be Kashmiri men being paraded nude in front of women and chldren by Indian soldiers. Obviously, authorities have protested, called the tape a fraud, and said that it was released merely to embarrass the army. Copies have been removed from Facebook and YouTube. The tape, however, is still available online, The above photo is used as a profile on Facebook by several Kashmiri freedom fighters. Source unknown. and doesn't lie. Fraud, not likely. Embarrassment, yes. Amnesty International has called for an investigation into the incident. It is inconclusive as to how recent it is or exactly where the video was shot, but it has in all likelihood been videotaped by a cellphone, which dates it as fairly recent, and there is language that is used in the tape that is uniquely Kashmiri. It is also clear that it is an operation conducted by an armed force of some kind, and probably CRPF troops. This is a huge crime, not just an embarrassment. This was in fact a sharp-pointed attack upon religious beliefs and sensitivities that has been compared widely among Kashmiris to Abu Ghraib. Another video that is in wide distribution is of a man who has been beaten, is nude from the waist down, and is being carried on the back of another man while he is taunted and threatened with sodomy as another attempts to poke a stick up his anus. The tyranny of one religious culture over another is obviously different from intellectual disagreements within a culture between liberals and conservatives such as in the abortion issue where there are nitpicky debates about which trimester life begins. The question of a victim hasn't left the debate, even if liberals, for the moment, have the upper hand. People have just agreed to shut up about it. Imagine what a bunch of Qur'an-burning American fundamentalists would do. In this case, nobody's agreed to shut up about anything. The extreme quality that sets their differences apart from the usual mainstream kind of politics is as difficult for Americans to comprehend as it is for Kashmiris to understand why no one else seems to give a damn. However, it is a particularly odious basis for dispute, because it creates opportunities for abuse where differences are not merely cultural but religously based, where not only shrines to one's deepest faith get trashed, but all of the little symbols and habits as well that mark those differences. Religiously based terrorism is only one aspect of this problem. Consider this: on August 2, Greater Kashmir reported that in one hospital in Srinigar, out of 31 patients with gunshot wounds, 14 of them were shot in the head. Just a couple of weeks ago, a friend in Kashmir told me that his cousin, 18, was shot that morning along with four other friends while playing carom in the street. One was 25, the rest were younger than my friend's cousin. All of them shot, two in critical condition. They were not engaged in protest of any kind. They were simply playing in the street. A police jeep drove up, two men got out and simply started shooting. Another man ran up and tried to grab the gun of one of the policemen. He was simply pushed away and arrested. There was no curfew at the time, although that is unusual, because curfews have been almost constant since June 11 in which the people cannot leave their homes during daylight hours. Thousands of mass grave sites of unknown victims are everywhere. "BURIED EVIDENCE: Unknown, Unmarked, and Mass Graves in Indian-administered Kashmir a preliminary report" by Dr. Angana Chatterji, Professor, Social and Cultural Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies, with others, documents this and says that "The Indian state’s governance of Indian-administered Kashmir requires the use of discipline and death as techniques of social control. The structure of governance affiliated with militarization in Kashmir necessitates dispersed and intense forms of psychosocial regulation. As an established nation-state, India’s objective has been to discipline and assimilate Kashmir into its territory. To do so has required the domestication of Kashmiri peoples through the selective use of discipline and death as regulatory mechanisms. Discipline is affected through military presence, surveillance, punishment, and fear. Death is disbursed through “extrajudicial” means and those authorized by law. Psychosocial control is exercised through the use of death and deception to discipline the living. Discipline rewards forgetting, isolation, and depoliticization." Stories of torture abound. It's been widely reported that soldiers arrest all the men in a neighborhood, and then go back and rape their wives. A very thorough Catalogue of Indian Atrocities in Kashmir documenting some of the abuses in the early 90s was done, and such acts continue without letup. In his introduction, Dr Ayyub Thakur, President of the World Kashmir Freedom Movement, states that "It is common practice for the paramilitary forces to walk into a quiet village/town and start shooting indiscriminately, killing innocent and unarmed civilians - all under the pretence of crack-down operations against the Freedom-Fighters. In most cases, innocent civilians are killed, women gang-raped and properties set on fire." In one case, called the Khanyar Incident, "a peaceful procession carrying the dead bodies of persons killed in Dachhigam incident and those killed at Saidkadal locality were being brought for burial, reciting verses of Holy Quran, [and] the armed forces deployed in the area started indiscriminate firing on the mourners and killed about twenty unarmed civilians and injured more than fifty two persons." Personal accounts reported to me indicate that attacks upon funeral processions and emergency vehicles are also quite common even today. The attack upon a peaceful protest just this past Wednesday leaving more than 80 people injured and many dead is reported to have been unprovoked. This is a war upon a people by a people. This is oppression by its very name. This is a war of dominion. This is a war against popular will. This is a war against religious sentiment. This is a war not only against democracy and against self-rule; this is a war against common decency and consideration, against the right to even be human. This is a war against every possible difference that could be imagined between people. And it is being committed by India against Kashmir. Even more incomprehensible is that its not even really about them. They are but grist in a global mill that churns pure evil. In "A Visit from the Footbinder," a story by Emily Prager, Lao Bing says, "Beauty is the still birth of suffering." I can certainly see the conception; but I'm not sure that I see the child. Paul Barrow is Director of Policy and Communications for United Progressives.

Don’t push Kashmiris to violence again : ‘UN Has Failed In Kashmir, Appointment Of Interlocutors Futile’

Srinagar, Jan 5: The Chairman of Hurriyat Conference (M) Mirwaiz Umar Farooq Tuesday warned that Kashmiris will be again forced to take to violence if India continues with its “oppressive” policies to suppress the ongoing movement for right to self-determination and delays resolution of the Kashmir dispute, reports Greater Kashmir

Mirwaiz proposed a resolution at the seminar in which he castigated the United Nations for failing to implement its resolutions on Kashmir and declared Kashmiris as ‘masters of their destiny’ maintaining they will on their own decide the future of Kashmir. The resolution was unanimously adopted.

Addressing a seminar ‘UN resolutions—the legal foundation of disputed nature of Kashmir’ at Hurriyat office Rajbagh here, Mirwaiz said the delay in implementation of the resolutions was taking a heavy toll on the Kashmiris.

On January 5, 1948, the UN had passed a resolution noting that both India and Pakistan had accepted that the question of accession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of free and impartial plebiscite.

“By virtue of UN resolutions, the Kashmir dispute has achieved international dimensions. The resolutions have made the case of Kashmiris strong. Ironically, the UN which projects itself as a credible institution has failed to implement its own resolutions. The UN as a failed institution should be disbanded,” Mirwaiz said.

Mirwaiz however maintained that whether India or Pakistan will accept or disapprove the UN resolutions, Kashmiris will remain committed to achieve the right to self-determination. “We won’t let the sacrifices rendered by Kashmir in past over six decades go waste. On the eve of January 5, when the UN passed the resolutions, we unanimously pass a resolution that Kashmiris are masters of their destiny who will on their own decide the future of Kashmir,” he said.

Terming the appointment of interlocutors and formation of working groups as a futile exercise, Mirwaiz said the writing on the wall is clear for India. “If India tries to suppress Kashmiris movement for right to self-determination, they will be forced to again take to violent recourse to achieve their goal. I want to maintain that there is no rule of law or accountability in Kashmir. The troopers and police are killing innocent at their will and whim. Kashmir has been turned into a military and police state. Ironically, the international community including the UN Human Rights Commission has maintained a criminal silence over the killing spree in the Valley.” he said.

Mirwaiz underscored the need for building consensus between pro-freedom parties to jointly take the movement to its logical conclusion.

Stating that India and Pakistan can’t thrust solution to the dispute, Mirwaiz said the conglomerate had been supporting the dialogue process but it failed to make any headway. “Despite being a primary party to the dispute Kashmiris have been kept away from the dialogue process. As a result the process has not yielded any result. Need of the hour is to streamline the dialogue process and make it time-bound on the pattern of dispute in middle-east and other countries,” he said.

Defending the conglomerate’s support to former Pakistani President General Pervez Musharaf’s  four-point formula on Kashmir, Mirwaiz said it was an internal arrangement and not a permanent solution. “Even Musharaf has maintained that the formula was a temporary arrangement for 5-6 years and ultimately the people of Kashmir had to themselves resolve it. We also believe that before the final settlement of the dispute, confidence building measures have to be taken,” he said.

However in the same breath, Mirwaiz accused India of taking Confidence Building Measures to hoodwink the international community. “The cross-LOC trade has been a glaring example of India’s non-seriousness. The CBM which was aimed at restoring trade links between Kashmirs, has turned out to be a mere public relation exercise. In absence of banking, communication and facilities how is the cross-LoC trade possible? India is trying to control everything in Kashmir, from governance to bus service from New Delhi,” he said.

Mirwaiz minced no words in accusing India of hatching a conspiracy to defame the ongoing movement. “Kashmiris have rendered over one lakh sacrifices for the indigenous movement. But India is leaving no stone unturned to defame our sacred movement by saying it is aided and funded. There are more Indian troopers in Kashmir than their NATO counterparts in Afghanistan. Still the alienation of Kashmiris has taken the shape of hatred.”

He said in the survey conducted by Times of India and Jang Group under their Aaman Ki Aasha campaign 70 percent of people of India and Pakistan have maintained that the two countries can’t improve their relations without resolving Kashmir.
“It is high time for India to come out of its denial mode and accept the ground reality in Kashmir,” he said.

‘Paradise lost’
The senior leader of Hurriyat (M), Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat, in his typical style termed Kashmir as a paradise which has been turned into a hell.

“India became free on August 14, 1947 but it draped the paradise in its autocratic rule. Till August 15 and 16 Maharaja (Hari Singh) had not taken any decision to decide the future of Kashmir. He was neither with India or Pakistan but wanted to maintain status-quo. On October 26, Maharaja acceded to India and its troopers landed in Kashmir,” he said.

Referring to VP Menon, a senior official of India instrumental in accession of Kashmir, Prof Bhat said in his book ‘Freedom at Midnight’ he had written that “the bastard (Maharaja) has done it. We have it (Kashmir) and we will not let it go.” “This exposes the motives of India. The matter was taken by India to UN, which facilitated truce and passed resolutions giving right to self-determination to Kashmiris,” he said.

Prof Bhat said aim of the seminar is that Kashmiris are prime party to the dispute. “The UN resolution provided legal foundation to the dispute. But Kashmiris were never given the right to self-determination despite wars between India and Pakistan. We want to maintain that Kashmiris are the rulers of Kashmir and they will decide its future,” he said.

‘SHOW SERIOUSNESS’
The senior leader of Hurriyat (M) and chairman of National Front, Nayeem Ahmad Khan, underscored the need of showing seriousness as a nation to achieve right to self-determination.

“India has been trying to suppress the aspirations of Kashmiris by guns. Our movement has transcended from 20th to 21st century. Despite formation of graveyards across the Valley, Kashmiris are fighting with great resolve. The so-called democracy India is doing every undemocratic thing to quell the voice of Kashmiris,” Khan said.

Khan said many teenagers and youth in Pattan, Sopur and Varmul have lost their eye-sight after being hit by pellets by the CRPF during the summer unrest. “This is just a glimpse of so-called democracy. Kashmiris are being selectively killed. When eight people were killed in Humhama no action was taken against the accused cops and troopers, while following the killing of a youth in Mendhar Poonch the DGP and IGP rushed to the spot and suspended the accused cops including SHO,” he said.
Khan maintained that Kashmiris are the prime party to the dispute by virtue of their sacrifices. “Need of the hour is to show seriousness as a nation to achieve our goal. We need to accommodate every voice whether they are for independent Kashmir or merger with Pakistan,” Khan added.

‘FORM PARALLEL BODY’
Hurriyat leader Advocate Shahid-ul-Islam read the paper of Patron Mahaz-e-Azadi, M Azam Inquilabi, who could not make it to the seminar due to illness.

Before the speech, Shahid said he was feeling privileged to read Azam’s paper as he was his teacher when he started his political career in 1984.

In his paper, Azam castigated the UN for failing to implement its resolutions on Kashmir. “We have every right to grumble against the inaction, passivity and in fact dereliction of this world body in reference to its resolutions. Delhi did everything possible to obfuscate the Kashmir issue notwithstanding the promise and pledge of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to facilitate free and fair referendum in Kashmir to decide its political future,” Azam stated.

He said some pacifist and altruistic global leaders were thinking to launch a parallel world body to thwart the trend of UN collapse. “It will become indispensably paramount proposition for futuristic global politics to address all the longstanding disputes like Kashmir, Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

‘LANDING OF TROOPS ILLEGAL’
 Noted columnist Dr Javid Iqbal threw light on the controversies and legality of instrument of accession. “Some writers say that VP Menon who had to get the instrument of accession signed by Maharaja, did not reach Jammu on October 26. By virtue of this argument even if the instrument of accession was signed later, the landing of Indian troopers in Kashmir was totally illegal,” Iqbal said.

He said India manipulated the accession of some Muslim dominated areas of Gurdaspur to facilitate construction of a corridor to Kashmir. “The UN resolutions demanded demilitarization of the State to which India did not agree. At some places Pakistan also showed reluctance,” he said.

He termed the appointment of interlocutors as a futile process saying they can only recommended not take decisions. “When everything is clear and majority of people in Kashmir want right to self-determination, the job of interlocutors becomes redundant,” he said.

KPSS condemns attack on Mirwaiz

SRINAGAR, Nov 25:  Kashmiri Pandit Sangarash Samiti (KPSS) has condemned the act committed by some right wing Hindu groups in Chandhigarh under the KP banner to widen the gap between Kashmiri communities, reports GKNN.

In a statement Sanjay K Tickoo, president of KPSS, said the role of UT government and the organizers should also be put under scanner who allowed the people to instigate the situation that can lead to more damage in Kashmir Valley.
 

“In 2008, during Shri Amarnath land row, when so called Indian mechanism failed to protect the rights and lives of minorities in the Valley from the un-scrupulous elements, it was Syed Ali Shah Geelani, , Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, Shabir ahmad Shah and other Hurriyat leaders who provided sigh of relief to the minorities living in Kashmir by showing concern and sending their cadre to protect the minorities whenever needed,” he said.

Whatever the political or religious ideologies Syed Ali Shah Geelani or Mirwaiz and other pro freedom leaders belong to, they always extended the helping hand to the minorities in the hour of need,” he added.

Kashmiri leaders plan visit to China, IRAN

Srinagar, Nov 21: Encouraged by China and Iran’s recent stand on Kashmir, both factions of Hurriyat Conference are planning to visit the two countries to mobilize their ‘permanent’ diplomatic support towards resolution of the Kashmir issue.

As part of the process, the chairmen of the two factions will meet the envoys of the two countries during their scheduled visits to New Delhi in coming days.

“A visit to Iran and China will not only strengthen our movement on diplomatic front but will help us to garner more international support for resolution of Kashmir issue. Like Pakistan, we have to garner support from these countries to pressurise India to resolve the Kashmir issue amicably and according to UN resolutions,” Hurriyat (G) chairman Syed Ali Geelani told Rising Kashmir.

He said during his planned visit to New Delhi he would be meeting the envoys of China and Iran. “I would meet the ambassadors of the two countries to formulate a proper mechanism for a formal visit,” Geelani said adding, “A permanent support for the implementation of UN resolutions will strengthen our long-pending demand for Right to Self Determination to allow Kashmiris to determine their fate”.

He, however, said any visit to these countries will be subject to the issuance of travel documents by the Indian authorities.

The Hurriyat (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq also said that his conglomerate is working on diplomatic front for such a visit. “International support for Kashmir is must and we will surely visit these countries whenever such an opportunity comes. We are working on such things and as a first step we would be meeting the envoys of China and Iran during my scheduled visit to Indian capital in the coming weeks,” Mirwaiz said.

He said China’s stand on Kashmir has always been encouraging and the recent statement by Iranian spiritual leader on Kashmir is a beginning of support building process on international level for resolution of Kashmir issue. “To garner the support permanently, visits to these countries is necessary and must,” he said.

The Hurriyat (M) chairman said the senior conglomerate leader Aga Syed Hassan has been frequently visiting Iran, apprising its leaders about the Kashmir situation and its implications on the peace and stability of the region.

He said he has a standing invitation from a Chinese NGO and plans to visit Iran as well in the near future.

Kashmir on United Nations Security Council agenda: UNO

United Nations, Nov 16: The Jammu and Kashmir dispute remains on the United Nations Security Council’s agenda, a UN spokesman categorically stated while rejecting as “inaccurate” reports that it has been removed from the list of unresolved issues.

“Some articles today on Kashmir are inaccurate,” UN Spokesman Farhan Haq said, referring to those reports.

He said the latest list of matters the Security Council is seized of “continues to include the agenda item under which the Council has taken up Kashmir which, by a decision of the Council, remains on the list for this year,” the spokesman added.

Earlier, a spokesman for the Pakistan Mission clarified that Pakistan’s Acting Ambassador Amjad Hussain Sial, in his speech to the General Assembly on Friday, November 12 had referred to the omission of Jammu and Kashmir dispute in a statement by the President of the Security Council, and NOT from the Council’s Annual Report-as reported in a section of press.

“The agenda item entitled, ‘India and Pakistan Question’, which covers Jammu and Kashmir dispute, is duly mentioned in the Annual Report of the Security Council and is also present on its agenda,” spokesman Mian Jehangir Iqbal said in a statement.

In his statement, the 15-member Council’s President for the current month, British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, while presenting the Annual Report to the 192-member assembly, did not mention the Kashmir dispute in the context of unresolved long-running situations, despite the fact decades-old issue is included in the Annual Report.

“We understand this was an inadvertent omission, as Jammu and Kashmir is one of the oldest disputes on agenda of the Security Council,” Ambassador Sial remarked, after Grant’s statement.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon, who is on a visit to Pakistan, said there was no question of the Kashmir issue being dropped from the Council’s agenda. “The Security Council Report in its annexures is explicit,” he said in a statement.

“The President of the Security Council, the Permanent Representative of the UK, is amply clear on the subject and is cognizant of the matter. I would request all concerned not to speculate unnecessarily upon the subject”. (Agncies/Writer-South Asia)

Speaking out on Kashmir and Palestine in the US

By :Yasmin Qureshi

Washington, October 10 : The United States has become a battleground for both the struggles of the peoples of Palestine and Kashmir, for freedom from military occupation and for justice. Awareness amongst the US public is broadened as the repression of both struggles grows ever more violent, and meanwhile those wishing to stifle debate on these issues in the US resort to harassment and intimidation.

The same day that renowned activist and writer Arundhati Roy commented that "Kashmir was never an integral part of India," for which her home was later attacked, I was subjected to harassment here in the US while I spoke about the human rights situation in Kashmir. Though not threatened in the way that Roy was, what we both experienced were attempts to silence us. Forces sympathetic to the same right-wing ideology as those who attacked Roy mobilized their ranks by putting out an alert stating: "An Indian Muslim Woman is speaking about azadi [freedom] of Kashmiris and we should protest."

After my presentation at the main public library in San Jose, California last month, I was told by one member of the audience that "You are the very reason why we Hindus hate Muslims," and that comment was followed by many that were worse. I was called an extremist and told "Your presentation is a lie; this is India-bashing." The abuse I received will be familiar to those who have been on the receiving end of the backlash when speaking about the Palestinian cause.

Indeed, a week earlier, Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa was called an extremist by Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz at the Boston Book Festival after she presented well-established facts about Palestine. He resorted to name calling and ad hominem attacks.

Israel and India are often represented in US media as bastions of democracy in the Middle East and South Asia, respectively. Supporters of the policies of both governments delegitimize any resistance or criticism and discourage revelation of the truth through intimidation and personal attacks.

Kashmir is the most militarized zone in the world with close to 700,000 Indian troops. According to Professor Angana Chatterji of the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), between the years of 1989 and 2000, "In Kashmir, 70,000 are dead, over 8,000 have been disappeared and 250,000 have been displaced ... India's military governance penetrates every facet of life. ... The hyper-presence of militarization forms a graphic shroud over Kashmir: detention and interrogation centers, army cantonments, abandoned buildings, bullet holes, bunkers and watchtowers, detour signs, deserted public squares, armed personnel, counter-insurgents and vehicular and electronic espionage" ("Kashmir: A Time For Freedom," Greater Kashmir, 25 September 2010).

Because she has spoken out, Chatterji has become a target of right-wing Hindutva groups -- those espousing an exclusivist Hindu nationalist ideology in India that often denigrates and denies the legitimacy of non-Hindus in India. Hindutva groups in the US and India have attacked her because of her work tracking funding to Hindutva groups from the US after the 2002 pogrom of Muslims in Gujarat and more recently as co-conveyer of the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir. Chatterji told me: "I was threatened with rape by Hindutva groups in 2005. Since announcing the Kashmir Tribunal in April 2008, each time I have entered or left India since, I have been stopped or detained at immigration." Richard Shapiro, her partner and chair and associate professor at CIIS, was banned from entering India on 1 November 2010.

Hindutva groups try to scuttle any broader discussion about human rights violations in Kashmir, the conditional annexation by India in 1947 or right to self-determination by limiting it to the issue of the displacement and killings of the upper caste minority Kashmiri Hindu Pandits in the late 1980s and by insisting that Kashmir is not an international issue.

Similarly, Zionists seeking to draw attention away from Israel's abuses of Palestinians' human rights often focus exclusively on suicide bombings or the rule of Hamas. Their aim is to silence any discussion of the historic Palestinian demands for the implementation of the refugees' right of return, an end to the military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and equality for Palestinian citizens in Israel.

And the front line in the battle to influence US public opinion towards both the Kashmir and Palestine struggles can be found at the university campus.

"There is a well-orchestrated and funded campaign of intimidation and harassment by Zionist and Hindutva groups on campuses to target academics," says Sunaina Maira, Associate Professor at the University of California, Davis campus. Zionist academics tried to pressure the University of California, Berkeley to cancel an event last month titled "What Can American Academia Do to Realize Justice for Palestinians," organized by the Students for Justice in Palestine. In a letter to the school's chancellor, the groups urged him to withdraw official university sponsorship of the event and publicly condemn the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israeli apartheid at the school's campus.

A similar attempt was made in 2006 by Indian American members of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, when they tried to cancel a panel titled "South Asian-Arab solidarity against Israeli apartheid" at Stanford University. The objective was to bring South Asians and Arabs together to take a unified stand against US imperialism and Israeli apartheid and speak up against the Zionist-Hindutva alliances. Despite the attempts by outside groups to stifle free speech, both these events eventually did take place on the campuses and were quite successful.

The attempts to silence those who speak out in the US are not the only thing that Kashmir and Palestine have in common. Both Kashmiris and Palestinians are struggling for justice and freedom against highly-militarized occupations. The recent protests by stone-throwing Kashmiri youth drew comparisons to the first intifada in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

And it is perhaps the linking of these struggles that those who stand in the way of freedom for oppressed peoples fear the most. Notably, Zionists and Hindutva advocates have adopted a similar Islamophobic language and worldview that considers any grievances or struggles by Muslims to be simply a cover for "jihadism" or "wahhabism" and thus justifies treating all such movements for justice -- however they are conducted -- as "terrorist."

While the situations in Kashmir and Palestine are not completely analogous, in recent years India and Israel have fostered political and military links, including arms sales, joint intelligence, trade agreements and cultural exchanges.

Historically India has been supportive of the Palestinian struggle. But in 1992 India established diplomatic relations with Israel and ties were further strengthened in 2000 when India Home Minister L.K. Advani visited Israel; Advani is considered the architect of the rise of the Hindutva movement in the 1980s and '90s. Today India is the largest buyer of Israel's arms and Israel is training Indian military units in "counter-terrorist" tactics and urban warfare to be used against Kashmiris and resistance groups in northeast and central India.

The repressive governments of both India and Israel enjoy a warm relationship with the the US. Bilateral defense ties between US and India -- based on the new strategic realities of Asia -- is one of the objectives of US President Barack Obama's current visit to India, according to the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), a Washington-based think tank. The US also gives $3 billion in military aid to Israel annually.

Such alliances between states, which aim to perpetuate injustice and maintain regimes that are rejected by those forced to live under them, underscore the need for education and solidarity among supporters of those long denied their freedom, equality and self-determination.

Those in the US who defend the status quo may resort to tactics of intimidation. But just as state repression in Kashmir and Palestine has failed to quell those struggles for freedom, those of us in the US concerned with justice in Palestine and Kashmir -- and the US government's role in each -- will not be intimidated into silence.

About the Author : Yasmin Qureshi is a San Francisco Bay Area professional and human rights activist involved in social justice movements in South Asia and Palestine. Her article on Kashmir, "Democracy Under the Barrel of a Gun," was published in June 2010 by CounterPunch and ZCommunications.

Kashmiri Journalist filed a Case against Government for the denial of Passport.

Johan Simith

Srinagar, Oct 6: Jammu and Kashmir High Court (HC) has issued notices to State Government, Police and Secretary, Union Home Affairs and Regional Passport Officer (RPO) on a petition filed by Ajaz Ahmad War, a journalist by profession, seeking direction to respondents to issue passport to him.

A single bench of the High Court, comprising Justice Hussnain Masoodi today directed the respondents to file objections with two weeks against the petition.

Mr War, in the petition filed by his lawyer M. Aijaz today, alleged that he has applied for an International passport on February 27, 2008 and deposited Rs 1000.

 He said after the issuance of the passport was delayed abnormally he made a representation to the Chief Minister who directed the Additional Director General of police, CID, for immediate action as per existing policy and also to intimate the action taken in the matter.

The petition alleged that nothing happened in the matter as a consequence thereof he approached different authorities and also asked for a report under RTI Act.

 The petition said that the CID department in its reply to Chief Minister on January 9, this year alleged that Mr Aijaz was brother of Hilal Ahmad War, Chairman of the Peoples Political Party (PPP) and Jameel Ahmad War, a pro-freedom leader .CID department has written in its reply that Jameel Ahmad War is the close associate of Syed Ali Shah Gilani and Syed Salahuddin which is one of the reasons of the denial of passport to Ajaz Ahmad War.

 The department declared him a threat to security and warned that separatists may use his visit for anti national activities.

However, the department said that he himself was not involved in any anti national activities. Finally the Public Information Officer, Police headquarter communicated to the petitioner through a letter that as per the existing guidelines the issuance of passport to the petitioner is denied.

However, the petitioner approached the First Appellate Authority by virtue of a representation that in the light of the norms guidelines issued by the Chief Minister that if a relation of an applicant is involved in any anti-social or anti-national activity and the applicant is not directly involved cannot be denied the passport.

The appellate Authority acceded to the request of the applicant and communicated to IGP, CID, to consider my case for the issue of passport. However, the IGP CID declined to clear the name of the petitioner for issuance of the passport.

Mr War prayed for direction to concerned authorities for issuance of passport to him. The notices were accepted by Additional Solicitor General of  India on behalf of secretary union home affairs and RPO, Srinagar and Additional Advocate General for state government, IGP, CID and Senior Superintendent of Police headquarters. (Writer-South Asia)

Pay Rs 1.73 crore income tax, Ali Shah Geelani told

Srinagar, Nov 3: Kashmir’s hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has been asked to file Rs 1.73 crore in tax dues over a period when he had not filed his returns after rejecting his appeal. Geelani’s spokesman said that they do not know the details of the notice and came to know about it through media, reports PNS (3/11)

PTI reported that IT sleuths, which had swooped on residences of Geelani and his family members in 2002 and seized valuable items, including a diamond-studded watch gifted by Pakistan Government, had raised a tax demand of over Rs 1.5 crore.

Geelani challenged the demand and approached the Commissioner of Income Tax (appeals) for review of the case and also sought a waiver, saying he did not earn anything other than the pension from Government of Jammu and Kashmir and from agriculture land.

The case dragged on for nearly three years and recently the appeal was dismissed after which he was asked to deposit Rs 1.73 crore as tax liabilities by end of 2010.

A spokesman of Geelani told The Pioneer that even our lawyer has not received any notice after filing appeal in the relevant court. “We will comment on the issue on Thursday”, he said. Geelani, who has been legislator for 15 years, has stopped receiving pension after mounting public pressure and his opponents.

Geelani, who heads the breakaway faction of the Hurriyat Conference, still has the option to go to the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT). The Tax Department had raised the demand of Rs 1.73 crore against the firebrand

Jamaat-e-Islami leader after giving him ample opportunities to furnish answers to a questionnaire about his sources of income.

The questionnaire followed an assessment of Geelani’s wealth by the department following a series of raids conducted at his house and other places in June 2002 during Farooq Abdullah’s regime. His journalist son Iftikhar Gilani was also arrested from Delhi but later exonerated from all charges. Other persons arrested during the raids were also subsequently released.

The department had raided Geelani’s house and other places of his kin on June 9, 2002 and seized Rs 10.2 lakh and US $10,000 in cash, vouchers showing purchase of substantial amount of jewellery, a diamond-encrusted watch inscribed with “From Pakistan Government” besides documents pertaining to purchase of property and vehicles.

Geelani had shown an annual income of Rs 17,100 - Rs 7,100 as pension from the State Assembly as a former MLA and Rs 10,000 as agriculture income.

However, according to the assessment made by the Income Tax Department, the monthly expenditure of Geelani allegedly ranged from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh as he had 15 servants at his house and his wife had confirmed that she used to get Rs 25,000 per month for kitchen expenses.

What a shame IHK Kashmiris equating Pakistan with India

Srinagar, Oct 4: Reports emanating from Srinagar say that the ongoing reignited movement of the Kashmiris has taken an altogether new turn. The new generation, fiercely engaged in giving a tough time to the Indian forces, is of a different breed and one may compare it with the fearless children of Gaza in Palestine. They have not only stood up against the tyranny of the Indian occupation forces but some of them, or a few of them, are now equally getting disenchanted with Pakistan as well. They are using modern communication technology for highlighting their just struggle against the worst State terrorism in the history. Short video clips of protests by Kashmiri youths and their clashes with Indian security forces are often shot on cell phones and passed from device to device or posted on the Web and Facebook to document their own struggle and to inspire more resistance, reports PO(2/11)

The protests have led India to one of its most serious internal crises in recent memory. Not just because of their ferocity and persistence, but because they signal the failure of decades of Indian efforts to win the assent of Kashmiris using just about any tool available money, elections and overwhelming use of brute force. A report in the New York Times on 12th August 2010 said, “India today faces a threat which is potentially more dangerous to the world's largest democracy an Intifada-like popular revolt against Indian rule that includes not just angry young men but their sisters, mothers, uncles and grandparents.”

The new developments are also being taken notice of by analysts and strategic writers in India who are of the opinion that the new surge has no backing from across the LoC. I pay my compliments to Sialkot-born veteran and respected Indian journalist and analyst Kuldip Nayar who, in a column published in Pakistan on 20th August 2010, openly stated that there was no Pakistani hand in the present movement in Kashmir and that it had nothing to do with the militants. He termed it as a spontaneous movement which started with the killing of teenager Tufail Ahmad on June 11, 2010.

Amitabh Mattoo, a Professor of Strategic Affairs at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and a Kashmiri Hindu said in an interview, “We need a complete revisit of what our policies in Kashmir have been,” He also said “It is not about money you have spent huge amounts of money. It is not about fair elections. It is about reaching out to a generation of Kashmiris who think India is a huge monster represented by bunkers and security forces.” These comments reflect the ground realities and are believed by the Indian Government as well. If India had a slight suspicion of foreign backing, it would have accused Pakistan and the much-maligned Hafiz Saeed and raised uproar the world over as it did after the Mumbai attacks.

Indeed, Kashmiris' demand for self-determination is louder today than perhaps it had been at any other time in the region's troubled history. It comes in part because diplomatic efforts remain frozen to resolve the dispute created more than 60 years ago with the partition of the Subcontinent. With no apparent avenue to progress, Kashmiris are getting despaired that their struggle is taking place in a vacuum, and they are taking matters into their own hands.

It is, therefore, proved that the new Intifada is home-grown and women and youths in the IHK stare into the eyes of the occupation troops and are confronting the security forces without any fear. It is a known reality that when youth and women come on the streets then history is rewritten. It was also evident from the incident of 15th August when Abdul Ahad Jan, a Kashmiri police official, hurled a shoe at puppet Chief Minister Omar Abdullah at a ceremony in Srinagar to celebrate India's Independence Day, which is routinely observed by Kashmiris as Black Day. This was an indication that even the civil servants too were with the people in their struggle for the realization of their birthright.

Another dimension of the movement is that it is now more independence centric and the old Kashmiri leaders who are on both sides of the LoC and were for independence, today feel encouraged. However, it does not mean that all Kashmiris are disenchanted with Pakistan as even now the senior, respected and popular leaders like Mir Waiz Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Gilani having influence over a vast majority of people are still raising the slogan of “Kashmir Banay Ga Pakistan” and it is amply reflected in their statements and policies. A proof of their following can be judged from the fact that when they gave a call for shutdown on 15th August, there was a curfew-like situation in the IHK and everything came to a standstill. In no way, these Kashmiri leaders are marginalized but there is a visible trend among the youth for independence for Kashmir and disenchantment with Pakistan.

The cold-shouldering of some youngsters towards Pakistan needs to be analyzed and understood. Let us recall that there was a time when all the Political Parties and other stakeholders in Pakistan used, rather openly, to extend, moral, diplomatic and political support to the struggle of Kashmiris at all international fora. The IHK Kashmiris had a psychological feeling that Pakistan was with them. Now this position seems to have watered down in the recent years. The founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam described Kashmir as the jugular vein of Pakistan and now the water issue has proved that Kashmir is vital for its own survival. Kashmir is rightly considered as the unfinished agenda of independence and its annexation by the then Hindu Maharaja in October 1947 was in sheer violation of the will of the majority Muslim population of the State and principles of partition of the Sub-continent. But now, hardly anyone in Pakistan talks of the occupied Kashmir, particularly the present Government has an altogether different, rather enigmatic, approach to the Kashmir issue. I happened to be at the Presidency on September 9, 2008 when President Asif Ali Zardari took oath and later during his maiden press conference in the company of Afghan President Hamid Karzai declared, “The nation would hear good news about Kashmir this month”. The said categorical statement created a lot of stir, and apprehension as well. I fail to understand even now what prompted the President to make this unusual categorical statement. How come a sudden and dramatic development could take place that he became so sure of a solution within the remaining 21 days of the month. Earlier too, Kashmiris were angered when in March 2008, in an interview to the Wall Street Journal, Zardari denounced the liberation struggle in Kashmir as terrorism, even though nearly one lakh Kashmiris embraced martyrdom for this most legitimate struggle. Angered by Zardari's betrayal, the Muslims of occupied Kashmir burned the effigy of a Pakistani leader for the first time in history because the remarks were seen as an insult to their sacrifices and tantamount to rubbing salt into their wounds.

Such overtures by the successor and worthy son-in-law of PPP founder Z.A. Bhutto, who was very vocal for the Kashmiris' right to self-determination, raised many eyebrows in Kashmir and Pakistan. I am sure that had BB been alive, she would not have uttered such casual and childish remarks on such a crucial national issue. I, without going into details, think on the whole the incumbent Government has quite deviated from the slogan of Z.A. Bhutto, “We will fight for a thousand years for Kashmir”, and this must have injured the sensitivities of the new generation in the IHK

I may say that a top Pakistani strategist in a meeting with me last week inquired, “Mr Malik, how come the Pakistani media is not reflecting the new Intifada in Kashmir despite the developments having such a big news value?” He referred to 100-hour candle light vigil in front of White House on 22nd August and demonstrations in Britain and European countries against Indian atrocities. He said even MPs in Kuwait on 25th August condemned rights abuses in the IHK but strangely all these were media ignored by Pakistani media. I shared his concern because our media is indeed too much focused on day-to-day issues in Pakistan and the country's vital crucial and strategic interests and regional situations having serious repercussions are sadly being ignored.

Leaving aside media, after the said encounter with the strategist I rang up the young and vibrant newly elected Prime Minister of AJK Sardar Attique Ahmad Khan, drew his attention and shared my views with him on the new anti-India wave in Srinagar and other major towns in the Valley. I consider Azad Kashmir as base camp for the legitimate struggle of Kashmiri people and want its leadership to play its due role effectively. Not only that I, for the first time, visited on August 19 the residence of Barrister Sultan Mahmood, another heavyweight Kashmiri leader having considerable influence in Kashmir, Pakistan and among overseas Kashmiris and exchanged views with him on the new phenomenon in Srinagar. He appeared to be inspired by the new developments.

Readers are well aware that Independent Kashmir is not altogether a new idea. I remember late Dr Mahboobul Haq, in an interview to popular and influential Urdu weekly Hurmat (of which I was Editor-in-Chief) in 1994, mooted the idea for handing over Kashmir to the UN Trusteeship Council. Later, he repeated his idea during an interview to an English daily. At that time, veteran Kashmiri leader Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan, who was Prime Minister of AJK, got somewhat inquisitive and telephonically inquired from me about the importance of the timing and motives of such a statement. This telephonic call later resulted in a meeting between Mujahid-e-Awwal and Dr Mehboobul Haq at my residence, and I still remember how vehemently during the meeting Dr Mehboobul Haq, himself a Kashmiri, advocated for an independent Kashmir. I also remember the late financial wizard saying that if Kashmir gets independence, the US will invest about $ 10 billion there and it will become Switzerland in this part of the world. He also posed a question to Sardar Qayyum Khan “What Pakistan has given to the Kashmiris and what the Indians have given to them?” When I posed a question on the occasion whether in such an eventuality the Karakoram Highway, the only road link of Pakistan with all-weather friend China, will be cut off, to which he emphatically stated “YES”.

The JKLF is the main advocate of independent Kashmir. Its committed Chairman, Amanullah Khan, in one of his articles said, "The future independent Kashmir is to be neutral, like Switzerland, having friendly and trade relations with all its neighbours.' According to Amanullah Khan's proposal, 'Independent Kashmir is to consist of five federating units: Kashmir Valley, Jammu Province, Ladakh, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

In any case, if the concept of independent Kashmir with inevitable US presence materializes it will be a rude shock to the Peoples Republic of China as such an eventuality will be against its vital strategic interests. Similarly, such a development will also be detrimental to the interests of Pakistan and if I may say to India as well. Kashmiris should bear in mind that if peace and security and even sovereignty of bigger States like Pakistan, Bangladesh and now even Afghanistan are imperiled because of hegemonic policies of the USA, then what would be the fate of a comparatively smaller State of independent Kashmir?

Anyhow, I am sorry to point out that despite monumental changes taking place in Occupied Kashmir, Pakistani leaders seem to have put the Kashmir issue on the back burner, which may cause irreparable damage to our stand and position on this vital issue that is the question of life and death for Pakistan's economy and geo-strategic interests. Therefore, it is high time that leadership in Pakistan and all other stakeholders should ponder over the fast emerging new ground realities in the Valley and please see to it that the new breed of Kashmiris should not get disenchanted with Pakistan. Our monumental sacrifices and sufferings for the last 62 years for the sake of the Kashmiris should not be now drowned in the Kishanganga or in other Indian dams. History will never forgive those who have scanty respect for the blood of poor innocent Kashmiris spilled over in the whole of Jammu and Kashmir during all these long years. (Writer-South Asia)