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‘Time to end armed struggle’
(from greaterkashmir.com)
Islamabad, Jan 20: All Parties Hurriyat Conference (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has called for giving up armed struggle to pave the way for fruitful negotiations for a lasting settlement of the Kashmir dispute.
The Mirwaiz, who along with other senior leaders of the APHC, is on a visit to Pakistan, stated this after a series of meetings in Islamabad, including crucial talks with President General Pervez Musharraf.
Speaking at a dinner meeting with Pakistan-administered Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Attique on Friday, the APHC leader said peaceful negotiations were the only way out. “We have already seen the results of our fight on the political, diplomatic and military fronts which have not achieved anything other than creating more graveyards.”
The Mirwaiz said some people involved in the struggle could still have some reservations, but as far as the APHC was concerned, “we are not prepared to sacrifice any more of our loved ones.” He said with their new strategy they would convince India to arrive at a more agreeable settlement.
Earlier in the day, the APHC leaders held a detailed meeting with President General Pervez Musharraf, which was part of what is being described as a fresh effort to push forward the three-year-old peace process between Pakistan and India.
The meeting attained a lot of significance because soon after their arrival in Pakistan, the APHC leaders had declared that their separatist organisation and the majority of Kashmiris living on the Indian side of the divide supported President Musharraf’s four-point settlement formula for Kashmir.
The meeting largely focused on President Musharraf’s proposals which include self-governance, demilitarisation and joint control of the disputed territory.
Conscious of the expected opposition to such a settlement from hardline groups, President Musharraf called for discouraging elements hostile to the peace process.
Earlier, in a meeting breakfast with the APHC leaders, PML chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said: “Time has come for a bold decision, even if it is an unpopular one.” He said that at this crucial moment in history there was no time to remain bogged down in a debate on the UN resolutions.
“Resolution or no resolution, now all sides need to consider what was in the best interest of the Kashmiri people, and then push for a settlement of the dispute,” the PML leader added.
APHC leader Abdul Ghani Bhatt on the occasion said that there was little room to include the Kashmiris in the negotiations between India and Pakistan. “These talks are taking place between two the sovereign states, and ours is just a disputed territory,” Bhat said.
“So, instead of creating problems, we think our purpose is solved by separately holding negotiations with both India and Pakistan,” he said. However, Bhatt was quick to clarify that these were his personal views, and not those of the APHC.
The Mirwaiz said there were many groups and parties in Kashmir, but it was the APHC which truly represented the aspirations of the people of Kashmir.
He said since President Musharraf publicly presented his proposals for a lasting settlement, the majority of the people in Jammu and Kashmir had accepted them as the best possible solution, adding that now it was time for India to match its efforts to move the peace process forward.
The APHC leaders also had a series of meetings with the Indian side, but their scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was postponed.
Copyright and courtesy of Greater Kashmir. com [link]
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Tags: Azad Kashmir, Freedom Struggle, Hurriyat, India, Kashmir, Militants, Mirwaiz, News, Pakistan
‘When GoI Could Push The Most Popular And Towering Kashmiri Politician Like Sheikh Abdullah To The Wall, Then What Is The Worth Of Hurriyat (M)’
Tariq Naqash
(from greaterkashmir.com)
Muzaffarabad, Jan 20: An alliance of Kashmiri militant groups has rejected the call of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq to give up armed struggle to pave the way for fruitful negotiations for a lasting settlement of Kashmir issue.
The militant leaders have been shocked by the baseless and uncalled for statement of Mirwaiz and his colleagues who are ignorant of the background and realities of Kashmir issue,” said a spokesman for the United Jihad Council (UJC) in a statement here on Saturday.
“The statement of Mirwaiz may please some Western circles and Indian leaders, but it cannot change the ground realities,” he added.
The militant leaders, he said, had made it clear time and again that only a “strongly coordinated state-wide” armed struggle, enjoying the patronage of sincere, robust and representative (political) leadership, could take the freedom movement to its logical end.
“A freedom movement can weaken due to any temporary defeat, it can also grow longer than the anticipated time but it can never die down unless the freedom seekers surrender themselves before the tyrants out of spinelessness,” the spokesman said.
He also rejected the reported statement of Mirwaiz that UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir had become redundant and said people saying such things appeared to have forgotten the fact that these resolutions made Pakistan a party to the Kashmir dispute.
“The people who make mock of the issue’s recognised status as well as the sacrifices of Kashmiris have no right to take any decision or give suggestions on Kashmir…”
The spokesman recalled that the people of Kashmir had taken up arms against their will after failure of their peaceful political and diplomatic struggle spanning over 42 years.
During the ongoing armed struggle and prior to that, he said, “nearly 475,000 people laid down their lives for the noble cause of freedom while material losses worth billions of rupees and other inhuman atrocities unleashed by the occupying forces are in addition to that.”
“These unmatched sacrifices were not offered for self rule, internal autonomy or for that matter for an irrelevant ceasefire line (Line of Control) but for the Kashmiris’ internationally acknowledged and inalienable right to self determination,” he said, adding, “those who have turned a blind eye towards these sacrifices and are showing signs of retreat have no right to lead the nation.”
“If Mirwaiz and other leaders of his like have become tired, disenchanted or hopeless about the future of freedom struggle due to adverse circumstances, we suggest them to sit back in their homes to lead a life of comfort. But they should not teach the lesson of cowardice and hopelessness to the caravan of freedom seekers,” he said.
The spokesman said the people of Kashmir had proved by observing a state-wide strike on Jan 17 that they could not back out from their sacred mission and that they were instead prepared to shed the last drop of their blood to achieve this goal.
He said Mirwaiz knew well that he could not secure release of even two detainees from New Delhi during the several rounds of talks with Indian leaders while showing unilateral flexibility and deviation from the traditional stand of Kashmiris.
“When the Indian government mercilessly could push the most popular and towering Kashmiri politician like Sheikh Abdullah to the wall, then what is the worth of this group of people who have conflicting views and interest,” he said of the moderate leaders.
The militant leaders, according to the spokesman, had expressed serious desire that all ‘sincere political leaders’ should unite to achieve the Kashmiris’ right to self determination because friction and differences among them had caused irreparable losses to the freedom movement.
“Still there is time for political leaders to rise above their personal and organisational egos and interests and launch joint struggle for right to self determination and freedom. Otherwise there will be no space for them in the chapters of history.”
Copyright and courtesy of Greater Kashmir. com [link]
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Tags: Azad Kashmir, Freedom Struggle, Hurriyat, India, Kashmir, Militants, Mirwaiz, News, Pakistan
Kashmir imbroglio-an identity problem
The dispute could be resolved by addressing the roots of the problem,
says S G H Naqshbandi
(from greaterkashmir.com)
As a result of new world realities the Kashmir question has once again come to limelight and both India and Pakistan are trying for a viable solution to this vexed problem and restoration of peace in this trouble-torn region. In this regard some some confidence building measures like that of ceasefire on the line of control, exchange of POWs and civilian prisoners, exchange of parliamentarians, journalists, writers, social activists, followed by fresh round of talks between the external affairs secretary of Pakistan and Indian foreign secretary has started.
The UPA government favours talking to APHC and will not be rigid in talks with separatist groups and would talk with an open mind.
The world’s newly changed nature in which the socialists and western liberal models have been changing into a supra national model and each nation is undergoing internal democratic changes as also the struggle of ethnic minorities, for recongition of their distinct identities have erupted. West is saying good bye to nationalism and third world to non-alignment and engaged in the formations of international superstructures like European Union, SAARC, Asean, OIC, OAU, IMF and World Bank etc. Uniparty system yielding place to multiparty system, coupled with emergence of ethnic struggles in Russia, China, Africa, Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan including Kashmir are continuing unabated. In the process of globalization and interdependence national interest has turned into global one.
In today’s world no country can progress by adopting a confrontationist policy. Sooner the disputes are settled, the better it is. In this way the heavy expenditure on military and security will be reduced enabling the recovery from economic crises.
The method of dialogue and discussion, not force, is the only way to solve long standing problems. Kashmir is no exception to it. It continues to be a bleeding wound and malignancy. The practice of past 15 years shows that the practice of bullet for bullet has failed in Kashmir and elsewhere.
KASHMIR’S GREATEST CONFIDENCE BUILDING MEASURE
MISSES THE BUS
(from adnki.com)
Srinagar, 30 Oct. (AKI/Asian Age) – Apart from the October 8, 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, red-tape and other manmade impediments seem to have played spoilsport for the trans-Kashmir bus. The resumption of the bus services across the Line of Control (LoC) that divides the disputed region between India and Pakistan was termed a great stride and the biggest confidence-building measure since 1947, when Jammu and Kashmir was divided as a result of the first war over it between India and Pakistan.
According to official statistics, since April 7 last year, when the first bus between Srinagar (in Indian Kashmir) and Muzaffarabad (in Pakistan Kashmir), the two principal towns of divided Kashmir, rolled out, only 1,590 people have been able to travel by it, or have walked across the LoC from Teetwal in Kupwara district, the other main crossing point in the Kashmir Valley.
Of these, 768 were citizens of Jammu and Kashmir who travelled to visit their relatives on the other side of the LoC. The rest were visitors from various parts of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. As many as 6,228 people from the Indian side and 2,103 from the Pakistani side had applied for the special permits. The stories of the Poonch-Rawalkot bus service and the Balnoi and Silikot crossing points are not different.
Though officials in Indian Kashmir insist that only about 10 percent of the applications moved before the Srinagar passport officer, designated as the main authority, were rejected following adverse reports about them from the verification agencies, it is a mystery as to why only less than 20 percent of the original applicants have been able to travel across the dividing line so far.
The main reason for the rejection, according to these officials, has been either an aspirant’s relationship with a militant or police cases registered against the person.
