New York: Pakistan has called on the United Nation’s Decolonisation Committee and the Security Council to take action to end India’s colonialisation of Jammu and Kashmir and enable its people to exercise their right to self-determination.
“Eradicating colonialism is part of the unfinished agenda of the United Nations,” Ambassador Munir Akram emphasised in a speech to the General Assembly’s Special Political and Decolonisation (Fourth) Committee. After his speech, delegates of India and Pakistan had a verbal duel over the Kashmir dispute.
In his remarks, Ambassador Akram said that the Indian occupation of Jammu and Kashmir is the “worst manifestation of modern-day colonialism”.
Since 1946, 80 former colonies have gained independence, he pointed out but still, the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine are among those who are denied the right to self-determination.
Noting that the Declaration on Decolonisation proclaims that all people have the right to self-determination, Ambassador Akram said that in the case of Jammu and Kashmir, this right was further sanctified by the UNSC resolutions that state the future of the region should be decided by its people through a free and fair plebiscite held under UN auspices.
But Kashmir today is the most densely occupied place in the world, with 900,000 Indian troops, deployed in the disputed territory, he said, adding that the entire Kashmiri leadership has been imprisoned, thousands of Kashmiri youth, including women and children, detained, protests put down violently, with neighbourhoods and villages destroyed as “collective punishment”.
“It (India) has locked down the internet and locked out impartial observers from occupied Kashmir,” Ambassador Akram remarked.
The body of iconic Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani was snatched from his family, whisked away and buried hurriedly in a non-descript place, denying his family the right to the prescribed Islamic burial rites, he recalled.
“This is not only a measure of Indian tyranny but also its fear of the free voice of the Kashmiri people,” the Pakistani envoy said.
Since its illegal attempt to annex Jammu and Kashmir, he said, India aims to achieve its ominous “final solution” by seeking to change the demographics of the region, providing fake domicile certificates to Hindu outsiders.
“This surely amounts to genocide,” he stressed, calling for action by the Security Council that would enable the people of Kashmir to exercise their right to self-determination.
UN peacekeeping operations
Speaking about UN peacekeeping operations, Ambassador Akram emphasised the need to protect peacekeepers and welcomed the use of modern technology to strengthen camp security, monitor convoy movements and provide troops with telemedicine care. AFP
