Indian, Pakistani delegates clash over Kashmir at UN

UNITED NATIONS: Delegates of India and Pakistan engaged in a verbal duel during the the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session on Thursday, after Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram exposed New Delhi’s human rights abuses in the occupied Kashmir as well as the design of the Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (BJP-RSS) extremists against Pakistan.

Indian delegate Vidisha Maitra reacted to Ambassador Akram’s pointed words, claiming that Kashmir was an integral part of India.

Exercising his right of reply, Pakistan’s delegate Jawad Ali rejected India’s claim that Jammu and Kashmir was its part.

“As far as Jammu and Kashmir is concerned, India has no other claim than that of an occupier,” the Pakistani delegate said in his hard-hitting reply.

“Like all occupiers and colonizers of the past, India wants to physically, politically and psychologically crush the indigenous Kashmiri struggle.

“Today’s India has become a nightmare for its minorities,” Jawad Ali said. “Its current leadership has sacrificed every trapping of secularism.”

“From orchestrated pogroms against Muslims in Gujrat and Delhi to discriminatory citizenship laws, from demolishing Muslims shrines and monuments to erasing centuries of history of Muslim rule, from outlawing interfaith marriages to blaming Muslims for the spread of coronavirus, India’s human rights record is replete with gross and systematic violations of rights of minorities,” the Pakistani delegate said.

“Today’s India is a quintessential majoritarian state. Subservient state institutions, compliant judiciary and a complicit media ensures that the ugly truth about India’s crimes against its own people, and those it illegally occupies, are conveniently shrouded.”

He said that it was ironic that a country that continued to flaunt its so-called vaccine diplomacy abroad, had turned hospitals in the occupied Jammu and Kashmir into graveyards, choking essential medical supplies, let alone the Covid-19 vaccine.

“At the same time,” he said, “it continues to plan, support and finance its proxies – like UN listed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) – to carry out subversive and terrorist activities against Pakistan.”

“India can try as much as it wants, but it will never be able frustrate the struggle for self-determination and prevent the Kashmiri people to determine their own destiny,” Jawad Ali said.

“No matter how long and difficult the struggle for freedom is, it is always crowned with success. If history is any guide, we have no doubt, that the brave people of Kashmir will prevail against the dark night of occupation.”

“The process of de-colonization will be incomplete until the people of Jammu & Kashmir are enabled to exercise their right to self-determination through a UN-supervised plebiscite as called for in several resolutions of the Security Council,” Ambassador Akram told the UNGA.

Speaking in a debate on the annual report of the secretary-general on the work of the organisation, the Pakistani envoy said India was suppressing that fundamental right through its “brutal” campaign.

“While India seeks to silence the Kashmiris through this colonial project, it seeks to silence Pakistan through the threat of aggression – incessantly violating the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC),” he said, adding that it perpetuates terrorism and subversion against Pakistan and was planning false flag operations.

Ambassador Akram warned that BJP-RSS fanatics may engineer another conflict to retain their totalitarian grip on power– referring to their sneak attack in February 2019.

In his remarks, the Pakistani envoy regretted that respect for its principles and purposes has significantly eroded, with conflicts raging around the world, great power rivalries revived, unleashing a new global arms race, and aggravating poverty and suffering.

“The imperative of responding collectively and urgently to the current existential crises – diseease, poverty, climate change – is being trumped by vested interests,” the Pakistani envoy said.

“Xenophobia, racism and extremist ideologies have risen like ghosts from the past; the trappings of democracy are being exploited to advance authoritarian agendas.”

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated these trends, he said.

He highlighted Prime Minister Imran Khan’s five-point action plan for equitable vaccine distribution, debt relief, concessional finance, Special Drawing Rights (SDR) creation and reversing illicit financial flows.

“Beyond recovery from the current crisis, we need to build an equitable and efficient international financial architecture, a fair-trade and tax regime, investment in sustainable infrastructure and optimum utilisation of science and technology to create a world economic and social order that is fair, resilient and sustainable.”

Supporting the UN chief’s diplomacy for peace, the Pakistani envoy said that it must ensure strict adherence to the UN Charter and implementation of the Security Council resolutions; halt and reverse the new global nuclear and conventional arms race; oppose the rise of fascist, totalitarian and majoritarian regimes that trample human rights; end racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and promote universal observance of human rights; and above all, activate multilateral, UN-led measures to resolve the old and new conflicts and disputes across the world.

Pakistan, he said, will continue to contribute actively to promoting the United Nations as the central actor and guide in building international peace and security and prosperity for all.

Separately, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, responding to a question from an APP correspondent at his first press conference of 2021, called on nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to “come together and seriously discuss their problems” stemming from the unresolved Kashmir dispute, saying his good offices were always available for mediation.

The UN chief warned that there was no “military solution” to the decades-old conflict.

“It is clear when seeing Pakistan and India, any military confrontation between the two would be a disaster of unmitigated proportions for both countries and for the whole world,” he stated.

“I do believe that [it] is absolutely essential to have a de-escalation of the situation, namely in the Line of Control,” Guterres said, adding, “I think it’s absolutely essential for the two countries to be able to come together and seriously discuss their problems.”

He further responded to a question about the continuing human rights abuses in Indian-occupied Kashmir and said, “I think it’s essential that human rights are fully respected in all territories that you mentioned.”

He said that he stood by his statement of August 8, 2019, which called for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute based on UN resolutions and the UN Charter.

“Now, things have not moved in the right direction, our good offices are always available, and we will insist within them on finding peaceful solutions for problems that have no military solution.”