‘Save Gilgit Baltistan’ demonstration and Jammu and Kashmir dispute, Dr Shabir Choudhry

‘Save Gilgit Baltistan’ demonstration and Jammu and Kashmir dispute Dr Shabir Choudhry London 12 April 2017

On Tuesday 11 April 2017, there was a demonstration held outside Pakistani High Commission, London. It was called ‘Save Gilgit Baltistan’. Prior to that Jammu Kashmir National Independence Alliance arranged a conference in Bradford with a similar name.

I reached there on time; and at that time there were 5-6 people standing there. Later on, the crowd swelled to around 80 people; and considering that it was a working day in London it was a good gathering (stalwarts of Pakistan sometimes can only manage 20-25 people outside the Indian High Commission). The parties which took part in this demonstration were as follows:

1/ United Kashmir Peoples National Party; 2/ JK National Awami Party; 3/ Kashmir National Party and 4/ Kashmir Freedom Movement. As I have formed a Think Tank, South Asia Watch, London, I don’t ascribe to any political party, and Professor Ejaz Pracha and I presented SAW, London.

I can understand that pro Pakistan political parties and pro Pakistan individual activists didn’t get permission from the political masters and they thought it was a futile exercise to join a protest to save Gilgit Baltistan. Perhaps in their view, Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Islam and many other countries can only feel safe in Pakistan, hence no need to protest.

Perhaps the JKLF groups also did not get a green signal on time and they also felt it was not important to join ‘Save Gilgit Baltistan’ protest. Or maybe they felt, Gilgit Baltistan is already safe because it is the resting place of their political guru, late Amanullah Khan. Other nationalist parties of Azad Kashmir must have had other good reasons to stay away from this protest, these reasons could be personal or political.

Why there was no one there from Gilgit Baltistan?

One thing is clear all the participants of the ‘Save Gilgit Baltistan’ demonstration belonged to so called Azad Kashmir; or more appropriately Pakistani occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Whether it is to do with human rights abuses in IOK, or issues related to Gilgit Baltistan, it is people of Azad Kashmir who take lead in arranging public meetings and protests in various parts of the world; and yet it is these people who are discredited and accused of not doing enough.

I know there are not many people from Gilgit Baltistan in Britain. However, last November, in one function, arranged by students of Gilgit Baltistan to commemorate ‘Independence Day of Gilgit Baltistan’ they managed to muster around 25 people. It means, they have some presence in Britain. They have different reasons for not attending any function arranged by people of former Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir. They don’t even interact or socialise with people of Jammu and Kashmir belonging to other regions. I can think of the following:

1/ Some of them feel they have to go back, and why endanger their lives and lives of their families;

2/ Some feel they are not part of Jammu and Kashmir;

3/ Some hold other regions responsible for their miseries and suffering at the hands of Pakistani establishment;

4/ Some have been advised not to associate Gilgit Baltistan with rest of Jammu and Kashmir, as they on their own stand a better chance of getting independence or some kind of autonomy. If they remain ‘stitched’ with the Jammu and Kashmir State, they will never get anything, as people with vested interests don’t want to resolve the dispute. Their interest is to manage the dispute that it doesn’t get out of control and remains within certain geographical boundaries.

So, one can see why no one from Gilgit Baltistan expressed any interest in this move initiated by people of Azad Kashmir who are also occupied by Pakistan. Does it mean people of Gilgit Baltistan do not care what we do to ‘save them’? Some people of Gilgit Baltistan even say we create problems for them. How many people even expressed their support on social media or in local media?

I know some people will claim that they are not expressing their resentment because they are frightened of ISI and the Pakistan army. What about people of the Valley of Kashmir? Don’t they express their resentment and bitterness; and resist despite bullets, tear gas, beatings, imprisonment and human rights abuses?

Why there was no one there from IOK?

A sizable community from the Valley of Kashmir live in Britain, which includes Muslims and non-Muslims. Non-Muslims of the Valley don’t want to take part in anything which exhibits Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed territory. Vast majority of them feel it is part of India, and they feel safer with India; and what Pakistani backed militancy has done to them they cannot forget and don’t want to be associate with anyone remotely associated with it, either now or in the past. They feel very bitter because they were targeted in name of religion and were forced to leave their homes.

Result of this ‘jihad’ against non-Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir is that many of them don’t want to trust Muslims again. In view of this, why should they take part in any demonstration organised by Muslims and which is about issues of Muslims. When I was in Kashmir National Party, we managed to persuade some Kashmiri Pundits and Jammu people to express solidarity with us and they took part in a demonstration; and they also participated in a Conference in London.

Some Muslims of the Kashmir Valley are active in Britain. However, they also decided to stay away from ‘Save Gilgit Baltistan’ demonstration. There can be more than one reasons why they did that. Perhaps, the organisers of the demonstration did not invite them in a manner which they expected; or they could be busy in their work and with other commitments.

We all know that some are ‘soldiers’ of Pakistan and are programmed to only speak against India; and serve interests of Islamabad. Their task is to promote extremism, hatred and intolerance in name of religion. They only go to the Pakistan High Commission when they are summoned; or when there are some meetings with senior Pakistani officials. In view of that, why should they stand on the other side of the barriers and risk their rewards and perks?

Apart from that, sadly, some people feel that until all problems of people of the Valley of Kashmir are not resolved in accordance with their demands, no issue, no matter how grave, should be raised because that diverts attention away from their miseries and suffering.

We people of so called Azad Kashmir have always stood up for the rights and struggle of the people of Kashmir, sadly, they have miserable failed to reciprocate it. All they demand is ‘do more’; and minus a few we know personally, others do not even care to speak about problems we face under the occupation of Pakistan.

What India does to people on the other side of the divide, we have always opposed it and condemned it. A country that occupy us, exploit us, deprive us of our fundamental rights on this side of the divide is Pakistan, and not India; and yet Muslims of the Valley of Kashmir wave Pakistani flags and sing laurels for them. Don’t they feel that they are rubbing salt in our wounds? I am sure if people of Jammu and Kashmir State living under the Pakistani control wave Indian flags and praise India, knowing full well what is going on there, you people will be angry and feel hurt. I request you to consider us as human beings too. We also have feelings. We also feel pain. We also get hurt when let down by friends and colleagues.

Situation of nationalist parties in POJK is not any better. We pay more attention to personal rivalry, point scoring and ‘leg pulling’. With this strength and attitude do we really think we will be in a position to deter Pakistan in declaring 5th province of Pakistan?

Writer is a political analyst, TV anchor and author of many books and booklets. Also he is Chairman South Asia Watch and Director Institute of Kashmir Affairs. Email:drshabirchoudhry@gmail.com

India should question legality of Durand Line between Afghan Pak, by Satish Chandra

India should question legality of Durand Line between Afghan Pak

The Pashtun Times in Latest News, Opinion April 6, 2017

Men coming from Afghanistan move down a corridor between security fences at the border post in Torkham, Pakistan on the Durand Line on 18 June 2016. REUTERS

All successive Afghan regimes since 1947 have refrained from granting de jure recognition to the Durand Line.

In a welcome departure from the past, we are beginning to see the evolution of a new get tough policy by the government vis-à-vis Pakistan, designed to impose costs on it for the continued export of terror to India. Some initial indicators of this are the abandonment of the dialogue process, the diplomatic campaign to isolate Pakistan as the fount of terror, highlighting its human rights violations in Gilgit-Baltistan, PoK, Balochistan, Pakhtunistan, and Sindh and the resulting discontent there, the surgical strikes, the effort to maximise the utilisation of the Indus waters, etc. Not only will these moves have to be sustained, but much more will need to be done over the years in order to make Pakistan desist from its use of terror as an instrument of foreign policy against India. An innovative, low cost, and effective step, which can be taken by India towards this end, is to weigh in, at an appropriate occasion, against the legitimacy of the Durand Line.

Established in 1893, through an agreement between the Indian Government and Amir Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan, the Durand Line was designed to demarcate the “respective spheres of influence” of British India and Afghanistan. It is a matter of record that it has, since inception, been mired in controversy.

The Durand Line was never intended to constitute an international border between Afghanistan and India, but merely to mark the limits of the spheres of influence of Amir Abdur Rahman Khan and British India. Indeed, after signing the Agreement, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the Indian Foreign Secretary, had no hesitation in asserting that “The tribes on the Indian side are not to be considered as within British territory. They are simply under our influence in the technical sense of the term…” That the Durand Line merely marked spheres of influence, and not territorial limits, is further borne out by the fact that the British right till 1947 allowed the tribals under their sphere of influence to conduct their own affairs without any hindrance and did not attempt to bring them under their administration, much less occupy the area.

Pakistan has consistently failed to observe the assurance of non interference “in the territories lying beyond this line on the side of Afghanistan”, which was expressly provided for in the 1893 Durand Line Agreement.

It may also be underlined that the Durand Line took no cognisance of the ethnic groups in the region and divided not only the Pashtuns, but also the Mohmands and Waziris. Since the separation effected by the line was not territorial in nature, tribes on both sides of it freely interacted with each other and conducted trade on both sides of the line.

Above all, contrary to what is made out by Pakistan, the Durand Line established by the agreement of 1893 did not put in place a clearly defined and sacrosanct international border.

Afghanistan has, over the years, repeatedly questioned the alignment of the line as projected by the British, with Amir Abdur Rahman Khan at the very outset asserting in 1895 that he was to receive the entire Mohmand territory and not just a part of it. It is also significant that the line defied delimitation and demarcation for decades due to differences of interpretation.

After the 1893 agreement, the alignment of the Durand Line saw repeated changes emanating from the agreements of 1905, 1919 and 1921. The agreements of 1893 and 1905 were in the nature of personal agreements between successive Amirs of Afghanistan and the British government, and those of 1919 and 1921 were between the governments of the two countries. Significantly, the treaty of 1919 was concluded in cancellation of all previous treaties. Furthermore, the treaty of 1921 expressly provided in Article 14 that either side could denounce it with one year’s notice.

Given Afghanistan’s long standing and deep rooted unhappiness with the Durand Line, it is no surprise that in 1949, soon after the departure of the British from the Indian subcontinent, it repudiated all treaties made with the latter. Indeed, it was on this issue that in 1948 it opposed Pakistan’s joining the UN. All successive Afghan regimes since 1947, whether monarchist, republican, communist, Islamist, or democratic, have refrained from granting de jure recognition to the Durand Line. Even the Pakistan sponsored and supported Taliban regime had no compunction in resisting Pakistani pressures to accept the Durand Line.

It is ironic that while Pakistan swears by the sanctity of the Durand Line it has consistently failed to observe the assurance of non interference “in the territories lying beyond this line on the side of Afghanistan”, which was expressly provided for in the 1893 Durand Line Agreement. In a similar vein, the 1921 agreement unequivocally guaranteed to Afghanistan “all rights of internal and external independence”, which too have been consistently ignored by Pakistan.

Regrettably, both the US and the UK have made known their acceptance of the Durand Line. This is the result, no doubt, of their historic tilt towards Pakistan, as the legitimacy of the line is clearly questionable.

Indeed, a British House of Commons 20 June 2010 research paper found that “The legal status of the Durand Line has never been definitively settled. Although the British policy was and remains that the line represents a legal frontier, Afghan arguments that it was never intended as such have considerable credibility…”

Given the dubious legitimacy of the Durand Line as a legal frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the latter’s implacable hostility towards India, it is worth considering the possibility of expressing our reservations about it at an appropriate occasion. This is all the more so as independent India has so far refrained from taking any firm official position on the Durand Line. The reported off the cuff remark to the media on return from Iran by Atal Behari Vajpayee, as External Affairs Minister, way back in May 1978, that the Durand Line be respected by Afghanistan and differences be settled through negotiations, was a one-off comment and cannot be regarded as binding on India today, particularly in the light of Pakistan’s increasingly hostile moves towards it in recent times.

A clear-cut stance by India against the Durand Line as a legal frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan would redound to its benefit in two ways. Firstly, it would take the already excellent India-Afghanistan relations to an even higher level, as no other country has supported it on this issue. Indeed, even the Taliban would find it difficult not to be appreciative of India for this step. Secondly, it would promote the unravelling of Pakistan, which India needs to seriously consider as the ultimate riposte to the former’s relentless use of terror against it.

The downside of coming out against the Durand Line is negligible. Pakistan will, no doubt, be upset, but that is nothing new. There will also be those who may argue that we cannot object to the Durand Line while calling for the acceptance of the McMahon Line.

This line of argumentation is flawed, as the latter clearly marked territoriality, while the former merely marked spheres of influence and cannot be regarded as constituting a formal boundary between two sovereign nations. Moreover, non interference in Afghanistan, a critical component of the Durand Line agreement, was not observed by Pakistan and the line was, furthermore, formally rejected by Afghanistan as per the provisions of the 1921 agreement.

By Satish Chandra

Satish Chandra was formerly High Commissioner to Pakistan and later Deputy National Security Advisor.

http://thepashtuntimes.com/opinions-india-should-question-legality-of-durand-line-between-afghan-pak/

Illegal annexation - Respect the wishes of Gilgit Baltistan, by Bob Blackman MP

Illegal annexation - Respect the wishes of Gilgit Baltistan, by Bob Blackman MP  1 April, 2017

After having annexed Baluchistan, Sindh, Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit Baltistan is the fifth annexation by Pakistan.

Pakistan has recently announced its plans of annexing the northern areas of Gilgit Baltistan and declaring it as their Fifth Province. In an early day motion tabled recently and at Foreign and Commonwealth oral questions in the Chamber, I have raised my concerns over this arbitrary announcement by Pakistan to the attention of my colleagues in Westminster.

The early day motion stated: “This House condemns the arbitrary announcement by Pakistan declaring Gilgit-Baltistan as its Fifth Frontier, implying its attempt to annex the already disputed area; notes that Gilgit-Baltistan is a legal and constitutional part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India, which is illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947, and where people are denied their fundamental rights including the right of freedom of expression; further notes the attempts to change the demography of the region in violation of State Subject Ordinance and forcibly and illegally to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which further aggravates and interferes with the disputed territory.”

I have been speaking for the hapless and less heard minority voices of the sufferers of worst forms of human rights violation by Pakistan for over two decades, including the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits and their forced exodus, the plight of Sindhis and Balochis.

Illegal annexation by Pakistan of their neighbouring territory and interference in the geo-political make-up of the region by them is nothing new. After having annexed Baluchistan, Sindh, Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit Baltistan is the fifth annexation by Pakistan. The plight of the people of each of these regions is not unknown to the world, but certainly is left ignored.

Calling it a “Big Brother” intervention, human rights campaigner from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Dr Shabir Choudhry, in his recent address at a conference held at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva said, “The ministers and so called Azad Kashmir government is controlled by Pakistani officials known as Lent Officers, namely Chief Secretary, IG Police, Finance Secretary and Accountant General. Further control is exerted through Ministry of Kashmir Affairs; and Azad Kashmir government officials find themselves at their mercy. Apart from that more than 20 secret agencies operate in these areas to ensure that no one tries to expose Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. Moreover, Kashmir Council which is chaired by Prime Minister of Pakistan and Pakistani Ministers control everything of importance. Azad Kashmiri government cannot take any decision or challenge decisions of the Kashmir Council on 52 important policy areas. This in practice means they are in worse position politically and administratively than Kashmir under the administration of India.”

“The ministers and so called Azad Kashmir government are controlled by Pakistani officials. Further control is exerted through Ministry of Kashmir Affairs; and Azad Kashmir government officials find themselves at their mercy. More than 20 secret agencies operate in these areas to ensure that no one tries to expose Pakistan’s Kashmir policy.”

In the words of a famous Baloch leader, Harbbyaar Marree: “There are more than 200 independent countries in the world, but none has this prefix azad or independent. For example, France is called France and not independent France and Britain is called Britain and not independent Britain etc. If your country has (the) prefix Azad, then it means there is something wrong. Think carefully, Pakistan is fooling you by giving this false sense of being Azad.”

China’s fast growing influence in the Indian subcontinent has been a matter of concern especially the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, which has nothing to do with providing any form of federal benefits to the already suffering people of Gilgit Baltistan. The move is only to give China the eyewash impression by Pakistan of their legal position of Gilgit Baltistan’s constitutional status within Pakistan.

As per Col Tej Tikoo in the India Defence Review, “this alliance holds enormous strategic and economic value. It is speculated that Pakistan gains an economic windfall as a result of this project with the creation of nearly 700,000 additional jobs and an increase of 2.5 percent in its growth rate—highest ever since 1970!” The locals, however, have expressed strong resentment to the construction of CPEC through their area, as this brings them no benefits and in fact will be utilised to further exploit them and their resources to satisfy Pakistan’s elite.

Whilst the economic benefits to Pakistan are immense, it cannot be viewed in absence of its continued record of state sponsorship of terrorism and human rights violations in not only its neighbourhood but also within its own territories. The global fraternity ought to recognise the suppressed voices of the people of Gilgit Baltistan and in speaking of freedom, respect their own wishes.

Bob Blackman, British Conservative Party MP from Harrow East, tabled in the British Parliament an early day motion to condemn Pakistan’s announcement declaring illegal annexation of Gilgit-Baltistan as its fifth province on 23 March. The motion also highlighted the potential danger emanating as a result of the CPEC.

 http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/8924-illegal-annexation-pak-respect-wishes-gilgit-baltistan