Why Pakistan is losing the high moral ground on Kashmir

  By: Farheen Rizvi, Pakistani blogger

This week at the United Nations, Pakistan will once again mention the Kashmir dispute and seek the assistance of the international community in its resolution. Pakistan’s claim to speak on behalf of Kashmir and Kashmiris has rested primarily on the moral dimension: that as the Muslim majority country that came out of British India, Pakistan would speak for fellow Muslims.

Over the last six decades Pakistan has been a vocal champion of various Muslim causes around the world. However, this moral dimension has suffered a dent with the rise in human rights violations and extra judicial killings within Pakistan.

For Pakistan and Pakistanis, Kashmir is the unfinished business of Partition and lies at the heart of India-Pakistan ties. Pakistan and India have fought four wars, three over Kashmir (1948, 1965 and 1999). Every few months there is cross border firing and the fear of conflict between the two countries.

Right from 1947 Pakistan has insisted that there are three parties to the dispute: India, Pakistan and the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan supported the United Nations resolution of 1948 that any agreement should be in accordance with the people of Kashmir should have the right to

The latest deadlock in the peace process were the result of India’s refusal to hold talks when as per norm Pakistan’s high commissioner to India insisted on meeting with Kashmiri separatists. When Prime Ministers Modi and Sharif met in Ufa they agreed to a talk between their national security advisors but India insisted the issue should be terrorism, whereas Pakistan insisted on Kashmir.

Since the India-Pakistan war of 1948, Pakistan has supported the United Nation resolution on Kashmir which asserts that the final disposition of Jammu and Kashmir should be made in accordance with views of the people of Kashmir. Pakistan remains committed to this position until the three parties; people of Jammu and Kashmir, India and Pakistan will come on the same point of settlement.
Ever since the violent uprising in Indian occupied Kashmir in 1989, more than 90,000 Kashmiris have been killed by over 700,000 Indian troops deployed in Indian held Kashmir who continue to commit severe human right abuses. A September 2015 report by the International Peoples’ Tribunal on Human Right Justice in Indian Administered Kashmir (IPTK) and Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (ApDPP), identified 1080 extra judicial killings, 172 enforced disappeared persons and numerous cases of sexual abuse committed in Jammu and Kashmir.

The report identified 972 alleged perpetrators of cases amongst whom 464 were Indian Army Personnel, 161 Paramilitary personnel, 158 Jammu and Kashmir Police Personnel and 189 government militia.

In its July 2015 report, “Denied: Failures in Accountability for human rights violations by security force personnel in Jammu and Kashmir” Amnesty International highlighted the extra judicial killings of the people of in Indian held Kashmir by the hands of Indian security forces. The report focuses primarily on the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 (AFSPA), that grants virtual immunity to members of the security forces from prosecution for alleged human rights violations.

According to the report, between 1990 and 2011 over 43,000 people were killed of whom 21, 323 were “militants”, 5,369 security force personnel and around 20,000 civilians.

Unfortunately, Pakistan, the country, that has been the most vocal about Kashmir’s rights before the world community, has been facing a similar situation in its financial hub, Karachi as well as its largest province territorially, Baluchistan.
In September 2015, one of Pakistan’s main political parties, the liberal secular party MQM, organized a rally to protest the extra judicial killings by paramilitary forces and issue of missing persons. The party was protesting against allegations that Sindh Rangers were involved in the wrongful abduction, torture and killingof MQM party workers.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan report released on September 12, 2015 noted the rise in extra judicial killings in Karachi in the last six months. According to the report, 402 people were killed in encounters by law enforcement agencies in the first eight months of 2015.

In contrast if we look at the same time frame period in 2014, the numbers of encounters were only 362. This is an increase of 11% for the year 2015. In 402 encounters, 320 were killed by the Police while 81 were killed by the Rangers.

The Working Group of Enforced and Involuntary Disappearance of Human Rights Council of United Nation has asked the Pakistan government for urgent action on 35 missing MQM workers allegedly abducted by Sindh Rangers without any warrants. The Government of Pakistan has not yet submitted any reply to queries issued by this working group.
Baluchistan too is facing a situations similar to Karachi. The 2015 World report of Human Rights Watch highlighted, the “enforced disappearance” of Baluch Student leaders and “despite the Supreme Court ruling against such acts, as well as government has failed to meet its obligations under the constitution and international law prohibiting enforced disappearances.”

In August 2015 on the International Day of the victims of enforced disappearances, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan issued a statement that the government of Pakistan “should criminalize enforced disappearances.” The commission pointed to the fact that Pakistan is unique in the world that it has promulgated two distinct laws that provide legal cover to the practice of enforced disappearances.

Under the Pakistan Protection Act of 2014, “based on reasonable suspicion, it is legal to deprive any person of liberty for 90 days without warrant.” Similarly, the Action in Aid of Civil Power Regulation of 2011 “provides legal protection to the actions and operations of the armed forces.”

This is not the first time paramilitary forces have been deployed in Karachi ostensibly to control law and order. Between 1992 and 1997 the governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, depicted these forces as “anti-terrorist” in nature and launched operation against militant groups allegedly run by the local political party MQM.

According to the Human Right Watch report “Soiled Hands” in 1995 alone, Karachi experienced more than 500 extra judicial killings primarily at the hands of paramilitary forces and Sindh Police.