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Kashmiris must be granted self-determination: DG ISSI

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Round Table titled “Commemorating Kashmiris’ Right to Self-Determination Day” held

Naveed Ahmad Khan

ISLAMABAD: The India Study Centre (ISC) at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) organized the Round Table titled “Commemorating Kashmiris’ Right to Self-Determination Day” on Wednesday.

Dr. Saifur Rehman Malik, Director ISC, said that ISC focuses on all events pertaining to Kashmir and commemorates the special days in Kashmir. On January 05, 1949, the promise was given to Kashmiris to the right of self-determination and free and fair plebiscite would be held according to the wishes of Kashmiris and the promise so far remains unfulfilled. The ISC at ISSI is commemorating the Right to Self-Determination Day with the aim of highlighting the Kashmir cause, he added.

In his welcome remarks Ambassador Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhary, DG ISSI said that today is the special day in the annals of Kashmir. DG ISSI in his speech gave a reference of his op-ed titled “Self-determination” published on January 05, 2022 in Dawn Newspaper in which he articulated that imagine yourself as a Kashmiri born in Srinagar on Jan 5, 1949. You are 73 years old, and have completed nearly every phase of your life. But at every stage, you were reminded that you were not free, that you were under Indian occupation, a kind of colonial rule. Kashmiris do not want to live with India and the day is reminder for us that Kashmiris must be granted self-determination, he added.

Nasir Qadri, Advocate, a Human Rights Lawyer from IIOJK also heads the Legal Forum for Kashmir (LFK). He opined that Kashmir deserves the right to self-determination. We have seen Kashmir through a small prism, but we need to look at Kashmir through the lens of armed conflict. We are losing the ground and losing the case and Pakistan has to recognize the Kashmir liberation movement, he added.

Dr. Waleed Rasool Sheikh, Director General at Institute of Multi-Track Dialogue, Development and Diplomatic Studies maintained that the primary responsibility of presenting a solution for Kashmir issue rests on the shoulders of academicians and scholars who are not consulted enough. He highlighted the fragility of the international system and criticized the fact that it is manipulated by countries for their own benefit. In this case, he mentioned the instance of India breaching the sovereignty of Pakistan in 1971 in Bengal, breaching Simla agreement and breaching international protocols again in 1984 by invading Siachen yet no legal action was taken against it by the international community.

Dr. Sameera Imran, Assistant Professor (IR) Department at NDU analyzed the Kashmir issue in the philosophical context and said that the idea of freedom is only based on consent. Men are born free and the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination is linked with the idea of freedom. Pakistan has both historical and philosophical reasons to support the Kashmiris. Continuation of resistance of the Kashmiris shows that they have rejected the Indian occupation of Kashmir. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has threatened Indian democracy, she concluded.

Barrister Needa Salam, a practicing lawyer in the Islamabad High Court condemned the grave human rights violations carried out by Indian Armed Forces in Kashmir, calling them the worst crimes against humanity in the modern time period. She pointed to the violation of Article 1 of the United Nations Charter which provides every individual with the right to self determination. She further highlighted how India was responsible for breaching both the United Nations resolutions on Kashmir as well as the sanctity of the bilateral agreements with Pakistan. Paying tribute to the sacrifices of the Kashmiris, she called for the world to take immediate action against the fascist policies of the Modi government with regards to Kashmir and treatment of minorities.

Ambassador Riffat Masood, a seasoned former diplomat, stated that India falsely tries to present the Kashmir case as a bilateral affair when it is a global issue, very much in accordance with the United Nations charter and identical to the cases of previous national liberation movements. She emphasized on the need to view Kashmir from a humanitarian lens first and stated that Pakistan needs to build a strong economic foundation to be able to present the Kashmir issue more effectively in the global arena. She emphasized that Pakistan must mobilize the Kashmiri youth and diaspora to expose the flaws of the so-called largest “democracy” of the world.

Mrs.Midhat Shahzad, Secretary Tourism, Information and Information technology at Govt of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, discussed the issue of plebiscite with regards to Kashmir. She maintained that India itself took the Kashmir issue to the UN in 1948, henceforth internationalizing the matter but gradually began to shift its stance to bilateralism after realizing that it had no moral and legal ground over Kashmir. She pointed to the fact that even the Article 1 of the Simla Agreement clearly maintains that the UN Charter shall be instrumental in governing the relations between the two states. She perpetuated the stance that since Pakistan enjoys clear legal supremacy of this affair, the Kashmiri diaspora must be educated on legal grounds for a better representation of this case internationally.

Syed Faiz Naqshbandi, Convener of APHC said that throughout the world, Kashmiris are celebrating this day as the day of right to self-determination. He stated that India has been desperately trying to mislead the world by posing as if the UN resolutions on Kashmir stand invalid. They stand valid and the presence of the United Nations Military Observer Group in both the countries is evidence of it. He also mentioned the persistent violations of UN resolutions on Kashmir by India and maintained that this behavior should legally result in the termination of India’s membership from United Nations Organizations under Article 6 of the United Nations Charter. He further added that despite 7 decades of waiting, the people of Kashmir are still looking forward to the implementation of relevant UN resolutions on Kashmir.

Ambassador Khalid Mehmood, Chairman BOG, ISSI in his concluding remarks reiterated that till date, more than 28 UN resolutions have been passed on Kashmir but no implementation has been processed, representing the fact that Kashmir is not the internal part of India. He nullified the Indian claims of bilateralism by stating that in the presence of an international agreement and a UN resolution, the UN resolution must prevail according to Article 103 of its Charter. He dilated the spectrum by stating the relevance of Kashmir’s right to self determination with identical cases like South Sudan, Kosovo, Montenegro and Eritrea and pressed on the question of why the right to self-determination has still not been handed over to the Kashmiris. In his final remarks, he highlighted the necessity of persuading the UN Secretary General to look into the Kashmir issue more actively and suggested that special UN representatives should be appointed for Kashmir and the international community must be consistently kept informed of developments in Indian Occupied Kashmir.

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