Zaheer Bhatti
DONALD Trump by attending Modi’s Houston rally barely a couple of days prior to the UN General Assembly session obviated his partisan tilt, and made his offer of mediation between Pakistan and India a non-starter. This also strengthens the widely circulating view that Modi did not have the courage or capacity to take the Kashmir merger step without tacit understanding of at least the US if not France and Britain. No wonder Donald Trump despite the situation created by India over Kashmir is advising both to settle the matter mutually through dialogue; Dialogue over what Mr. Trump! when you and the likes of you neither have the moral courage to condemn the Indian act and ask for its reversal nor feel it your moral obligation to cause vacation of the siege, curfew and clampdown under the cover of which Modi has been allowed to carry out the carnage through the worst form of State terrorism.
Even the New York Times in its Editorial the other day has castigated India over the Martial Law-like situation imposed upon its own Country while claiming to be the largest democracy, and that the world could no longer ignore the Kashmir issue which had brought two nuclear neighbours eyeball to eyeball. Becoming the voice of tens of millions of subjugated and strangulated Kashmiris, the editorial incisively criticized Modi over illegally depriving the Kashmiris of their special status, jailing over four thousand Kashmiri youth and political leaders, journalists, lawyers, imposing curfew and blocking communications. Terming these regressive measures to be for development of the occupied territory posing to have solved the problem at his Houston rally but not uttering a word on Kashmir at the UN forum, is laughable. True that the Kashmir issue has been brought alive after Modi’s illegal merger of the State into the Indian Union; true that President of the Security Council, UN Secretary General, the European Union, Genocide Watch, Amnesty International, British Parliamentarians, even some US Senators and Kashmir diaspora throughout the world have expressed concern over the human rights situation in occupied Kashmir, but none of them except the Kashmiris, Iran, Turkey and China have condemned the Indian action, leave alone demanding reversal of the Indian merger action which is clearly aimed at persecution and purging of Muslims.
The New York Times Editorial reinforcing Imran Khan’s view of world apathy over the volatile issue due to their economic interests with India, realistically chastens him against pinning any hopes with these vested interests. Despite over two months into the Indian clampdown in its occupied territory of Kashmir, the Pakistani leadership particularly its Foreign Minister does not seem to be growing out of the holding of Security Council meeting on the issue after over half a century despite Indian efforts to have the meeting stalled, while his diplomatic failure to muster a minimum 16 members to effect a Resolution in the Human Rights Council, not only speaks of his insufficient efforts to garner support for the universally acclaimed cause but is also reflective of attitude of Organization of Islamic Cooperation which had a dozen members on the HR Council.
Pakistan has been found amiss in tangible measures to alleviate human suffering across the Line of Control by reaching medical supplies, clothing and eatables through International Red Cross and Hilal-e-Ahmer, besides demanding release of Kashmiri Hurriyat leadership arrested and transferred from the State to various Indian jails. Pakistan ought to have activated Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to particularly demand immediate release of Yasin Malik whose health was fast deteriorating in the infamous Indian Tihar jail and who the authorities were refusing to produce in court. Buttressed by the Genocide Watch Report on Kashmir apprehending the grim situation, going to the Criminal Court of Justice should have been the course adopted weeks before, rather than wait and allow continuation of bloodletting and mayhem of the besieged 80 million Kashmiris.
Global hegemony is the end all of the game plan of the Zionist Troika without knowing what providence had in store for them. Why Donald Trump called off the peace deal with Taliban and the Camp David announcement alongside Afghan Taliban, is not because an odd American marine was among the dozen other casualties in Kabul the other day, but because of Afghan Taliban’s reservations over American plans to leave behind some 7/8 thousand Americans ostensibly for training and guidance, but were actually a bunch of the infamous ‘Blackwater’ operatives (renamed ‘Academi’) already functioning at its Headquarters located near Kabul International Airport known as ‘Integrity Camp’. American planners termed as think-tanks, keep floating all kinds of weird ideas considered as strokes of genius, but often removed from ground realities and woefully ignorant of the psyche of the people. These have ranged from the customary carrot and stick approach, to making inroads into its social fabric with the help of NGOs and the so-called civil society, in an effort to transform and deface their socio-cultural norms and educational system, a recipe prescribed by the 9/11 Commission Report and put into operation in Pakistan ever since.
And now that the bogey of Pakistani nukes getting to extremist hands has back-fired, as has US Administration’s flawed strategy to anchor itself in Afghanistan by force, its unsavoury objectives in the region cannot be achieved. The US may have momentarily succeeded to find proxy rulers in the region but in the end, must listen to the parting advice by its specifically tasked representative Late Richard Halbrook who wished this fruitless war to end sooner, if not the reverberations in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. Pakistan’s unassuming Army Chief had then drawn the lines on the score of which the political leadership in the country made it clear that Pakistan will not be a party to any greater imperial game in the region.
—The writer is a media professional, member of Pioneering team of PTV and a veteran ex Director Programmes.
