Thousands lost in Kashmir mass graves

Srinagar, 3 August: Hundreds & thousands of unidentified graves – believed to contain victims of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other abuses - have been found in   Kashmir.

Amnesty International has urged the Indian government to launch urgent investigations into the mass graves, which are thought to contain the remains of victims of human rights abuses in the context of the armed conflict that has raged in the region since 1989.

The findings appear in the report Facts under Ground, issued on 29 March by the Srinagar-based Association of the Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP). The report details the existence of multiple graves which, because of their proximity to Pakistan controlled-areas, are in areas not accessible without the specific permission of the security forces. Since 2006, the graves of at least 940 people are reported to have been discovered in 18 villages in Uri district alone.

The Indian army has claimed that those found buried were armed rebels and "foreign militants" killed lawfully in armed encounters with military forces. However, the report recounts testimonies from local villagers saying that most buried were local residents hailing from the state.

The report alleges that more than 8,000 persons have gone missing in Jammu and Kashmir since 1989. The Indian authorities put the figure at less than 4.000, claiming that most of these went to Pakistan to join armed opposition groups.

In 2006, a state police report confirmed the deaths in custody of 331 persons, and also 111 enforced disappearances following detention since 1989.

Unlawful killings, enforced disappearances and torture are violations of both international human rights law and international humanitarian law, set out in treaties to which India is a state party. They also constitute international crimes.

Amnesty International has called on the Indian government to unequivocally condemn enforced disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir and ensure that prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations into all sites of mass graves in the region are immediately carried out by forensic experts in line with the relevant UN Model Protocol.

All past and current allegations of enforced disappearances must be investigated and, where there is sufficient evidence, anyone suspected of responsibility for such crimes must be prosecuted in fair trial proceedings, with all victims granted full reparations. (Writer-South Asia)

Writer-South Asia is updated every minute of every hour with the latest news, features,analysis: Manmohan is fast becoming Jagmohan for Kashmir. Zafarul-Islam Khan

Writer-South Asia is updated every minute of every hour with the latest news, features,analysis: Manmohan is fast becoming Jagmohan for Kashmir. Zafarul-Islam Khan

Manmohan is fast becoming Jagmohan for Kashmir. Zafarul-Islam Khan

	Kashmir: Act before foreign forces land in Srinagar The Valley today is a Kosovo-in-waiting. The government should act now before it is too late. By Zafarul-Islam Khan New Delhi (2 August 2010): For the last two months only bullets are talking in Kashmir. Dozens of lives, mostly school-going young men and women, have succumbed to the bullets fired by the security forces directly into their chests. Ten such victims have died within the last twenty four hours for pelting stones and violating curfew. The central cabinet?s security committee met last night without the attendance of even the  governor, the de facto ruler, of the state. Today the dummy chief minister of the state was called for a meeting in Delhi and assured that direct central rule will not be imposed on the state. The situation in the Valley has not deteriorated within a day or two and forces across the border alone are not responsible for the chaos seen in the length and breadth of the Valley. Today?s chaos in the Valley basically reflects the failure of the central government which despite declarations and promises to the contrary, has utterly failed to negotiate with the people who matter in Kashmir, which has thrown in the dustbin the autonomy and self-rule proposals presented by its own trusted hands in the state. Musharraf and even the current Pakistani government have been time and again offering proposals to arrive at a settlement of sorts taking into account the ground realities but visionless people in Delhi have squandered the opportunity. The army bullets once again prove what our enemies claim that India is interested only in the land of Kashmir and not in its people. Manmohan is fast becoming Jagmohan for Kashmir. The way forward is to sack the childish government of Omar Abdullah, set free all activists and political leaders arrested during the last few weeks, withdraw the army and allied forces from all inhabited areas in the Valley, impose governor raj for a fixed and declared period of six months, accept the autonomy proposal presented by the J&K Assembly during Farooq Abdullah?s tenure in 2000, announce a general amnesty for all militants and welcome those who crossed over into POK, hold a fair election with none barred from contesting and monitored by foreign observers like Jimmy Carter and representatives from the UN, EU, OIC etc and let the real winner rule the state. Meanwhile, India must engage in a serious and purposeful dialogue with Pakistan taking into account the various proposals offered by Musharraf and the current government in Islamabad. Failure to work on these lines will be fatal. The protests in the Valley are quickly taking the shape of an intifadah which no amount of army bullets will be able to control. Rather, these criminal bullets and their innocent victims will invite foreign intervention. Let the short-sighted strategists in Delhi realise that foreign intervention is no longer a myth. A prolonged protest, wanton wholesale murder of the civilians and children by the security forces and collapse of the dummy civil government will be enough to pass a resolution in the UN to authorise foreign military intervention and the small men in Delhi will not be able to prevent such forces from landing in Srinagar. The Valley today is a Kosovo-in-waiting. Act now before it is too late. About the author: Zafarul-Islam Khan edits The Milli Gazette and author of several books including Wounded Valley.

IRAN NEXT SUPER POWER

by Pyotr Goncharov

Srinagar: There are reasons to suspect that Iran's nuclear program is neither peaceful nor civilian. Its Natanz (pictured) facility will have 54,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges, and it has already put into operation two cascades with 164 centrifuges each. Iran intends to turn on all of the 54,000 centrifuges. 

There are reasons to suspect that Iran's nuclear program is neither peaceful nor civilian. Its Natanz (pictured) facility will have 54,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges, and it has already put into operation two cascades with 164 centrifuges each. Iran intends to turn on all of the 54,000 centrifuges. What for? Photo courtesy AFP.

Moscow (RIA Novosti) Dec 29, 2006
Iran may become one of the top 10 features of the outgoing year for a number of reasons, including its nuclear dossier and the Holocaust conference, as well as the anti-Israeli rhetoric of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In short, Iran has made others view it as a regional superpower and the key player in the Middle East.

Its nuclear program remains the top issue, with good reason, because it threatens the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

If Iran implements its nuclear program in the proclaimed format, namely on the basis of its own uranium enrichment technologies, this will deal a death blow to the NPT. Iran's program will trigger the domino effect, encouraging Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to follow suit.

The bomb is not the issue, as Iran will most likely decide against creating it. But it will hover merely one step away from it, forcing Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to cover the same distance. Tehran promises to share its nuclear technology with Kuwait and Syria, which, taken together with Israel's 200 nuclear charges, will turn the region into a nuclear powder keg.

There are reasons to suspect that Iran's nuclear program is neither peaceful nor civilian. Its Natanz facility will have 54,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges, and it has already put into operation two cascades with 164 centrifuges each. Iran intends to turn on all of the 54,000 centrifuges. What for?

Russian nuclear experts say this number will allow Iran to produce its own nuclear fuel for 20 nuclear power units. So far, Iran plans to turn on only one unit, at the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which is being built with Russia's technical assistance. The unit is expected to be put into operation in September 2007 and start generating electricity in November. The construction of the other 19 units is not planned so far.

On the other hand, the same experts say, given the political will, the 54,000 centrifuges can be used to create five to seven nuclear charges within two weeks at the most.

Therefore, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) cannot issue guarantees of the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, although it cannot prove its military goals either. The IAEA has questions to Tehran which it has refused to answer so far, keeping the world on nuclear tenterhooks.

The talks on Iran's nuclear program, as well as endless debates by experts, political analysts and other specialists, have turned into a cliffhanger compounded by Iran's intricate diplomatic embroidery. More than three months have passed since the UN's August 31 deadline, by which Tehran should have stopped work on its first cascade of 164 uranium enrichment centrifuges. Since then, Iran has put into operation a second cascade and announced the intention to increase the number of working centrifuges to 3,000 by March 2007.

It is certainly bluffing, as it does not have the necessary capacity for this. Yet it has played a joke on the UN Security Council no other country has dared to play before.

Ahmadinejad's statements to the effect that "Iran has made a crucial decision and is moving honorably along its chosen path," and that Tehran would consider any Security Council resolution on sanctions as a hostile move are most likely just verbal bravado, which the world has learned to regard calmly.

Tehran fears sanctions, or else why did Ali Larijani, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, rush to Moscow shortly before the planned stopover in Moscow by U.S. President George W. Bush? Tehran thought President Bush and Vladimir Putin would discuss the Iranian nuclear dossier, and feared that Bush would convince Putin to vote for harsh sanctions against Iran. Tehran needed Russia's support, and Larijani received it. But nothing lasts forever.

Putin later said that Russia's support to Tehran was aimed at encouraging it to maintain relations with the IAEA so as to clarify the nuclear watchdog's questions and restore the world's trust in the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programs. But it appears that Tehran is not willing to resume talks, at least not now.

On December 23, the UN Security Council voted on the Iranian resolution. The permanent members of the council, who form, together with Germany, a six-country group on Iran, have coordinated sanctions against Iran. The resolution proposed by the European Trio, which is negotiating with Iran on behalf of the European Union, differed radically from Russia's stand.

Moscow argued that the sanctions should cover only the areas that worry the IAEA - enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and work on all heavy water-related projects, and the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems.

The Security Council heeded the Kremlin's arguments, but future developments are almost impossible to predict, especially considering the "Persian motifs" in Tehran's foreign policy. One way or another, Russia's neighbor, Iran, will continue to play a key role in the region, and this is the main result of the story with its nuclear dossier.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board. Source: RIA Novosti