NEW YORK, Oct 03 (DNA): Pakistan has called on the United Nations to
push for a peaceful settlement of lingering Kashmir dispute in
accordance with the Security Council resolutions and Kashmiri people’s
wishes.
Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the world body in New York, Munir
Akram told the General Assembly’s Special Political and Decolonization
(Fourth) Committee that since 1946, 80 former colonies have gained
independence but there are still peoples who are denied the right to
self-determination, most prominently the people of occupied Jammu &
Kashmir and Palestine.
The right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people, the Pakistani
envoy said, was explicitly recognized in UNSC resolution 47 and several
subsequent resolutions, which prescribed that the final disposition of
the State of Jammu & Kashmir should be decided by its people through a
free and fair plebiscite held under UN auspices.
These resolutions were accepted by both India and Pakistan, he said,
adding that under Article 25 of the UN Charter, both parties are obliged
to implement these resolutions.
In his remarks, Ambassador Akram also said that durable peace in the
Middle East can only be achieved through the two-state solution and the
establishment of a viable, independent and contiguous State of
Palestine, with the pre-1967 borders and Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its
capital.
On Kashmir, the Pakistani envoy said that for 75 years, through force
and fraud, India has avoided the implementation of UN resolutions, and
since 1989, it’s “brutal” campaign of repression killed 100,000
Kashmiris.
Since 5 August 2019, he said, India has taken “unilateral and illegal
steps” to annex occupied Kashmir in what its leaders have termed as a
“Final Solution”.
“Resolution 122 (1957) of the Security Council provides that unilateral
measures ‘to determine the future shape and affiliation of the entire
state or any part thereof, would not constitute a disposition of the
state’”, Ambassador Akram said, adding that consequently all unilateral
actions taken by India on and after 5 August 2019 are not only illegal,
but, ipso facto, null and void.”
“Kashmir today is the most densely occupied place in the world, with
more than 900,000 Indian occupation troops deployed there who have
perpetrated a vicious campaign of extrajudicial killings in fake
encounters and so-called ‘cordon and search’ operations; abduction and
enforced disappearances of 13,000 young Kashmiri boys; collective
punishments, destroying and burning entire villages and urban
neighbourhoods,” he said.
“In a classic settler-colonial project, India is seeking to convert
occupied Kashmir from a Muslim-majority state to a Hindu-majority
territory,” the Pakistani envoy said, pointing out that over 3.4 million
fake domicile certificates have been issued to Hindus from across India.
“The land and properties of Kashmiris are also being confiscated for
military and official use,” he told the committee.
India’s brutal campaign, he said, is turbo-charged by the ideology of
‘Hindutva’, which asserts the religious and ethnic supremacy of Hindus
and hate against Muslims. “This has led the organization – Genocide
Watch – to warn of the possibility of genocide in occupied Jammu and
Kashmir and, indeed, against Muslims within India itself.
Underscoring that the resolution of the Jammu & Kashmir dispute is
essential to achieve durable peace in South Asia, Ambassador Akram said
the onus is on India to create conditions for a dialogue towards its
settlement.
To that end, he said, India must stop its human rights violations in
occupied Jammu and Kashmir; halt and reverse the process of demographic
change there; and rescind the illegal and unilateral measures imposed on
and after 5 August 2019.
“The United Nations and all its Member States are bound by the Charter
to promote a peaceful settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in
accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of
the Kashmiri people,” the Pakistani envoy said in conclusion.
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