Muhammad Hanif
THE EU Disinfo-Lab, is a Brussels based independent NGO focused on researching and tackling sophisticated disinformation campaigns targeting the EU, its member states, core institutions, and core values. As published by the Diplomat Online Magazine, the EU Disinfo-Lab has unearthed a massive campaign orchestrated by the Indian government sponsored/RAW, New Delhi based, Srivastava Group/Organization with offices in Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada, to spread disinformation, against the countries in conflict with India, mainly the Pakistan, by using fake NGOs like HR organizations, and think tanks in Geneva and Brussels to influence members of the EU Parliament (MEPs), the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the UN against Pakistan..The operation led by the Srivastava Group began in 2005 and is still ongoing at this date.
The Disinfo-Lab Report titled the Indian Chronicles, released on December 9, 2020, reveals the following. The Srivastava Group led operation’s long-term objective is: to reinforce pro-Indian and anti-Pakistan (and anti-Chinese) feelings; to consolidate internationally the power and improve the perception of India; to damage the reputation of other countries and ultimately benefit from more support from international institutions such as the EU and the UN. There is an entire network of coordinated UN-accredited NGOs promoting Indian interests and criticizing Pakistan repeatedly.
These UN-accredited NGOs work in coordination with non-accredited think-tanks and minority-rights NGOs in Brussels and Geneva. Several of them, like the European Organization for Pakistani Minorities (EOPM), Baluchistan House and the South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF),discreetly created by the Srivastava group. In Geneva, these think-tanks and NGOs are in charge of lobbying, organizing demonstrations and speaking during press conferences and UN side-events. They were repeatedly given the floor at the UN on behalf of the accredited organizations.
The Srivastava Group operation takes just about any defunct NGO it can find and revives it to promote Indian interests. Such NGOs have worked to defame and discredit Pakistan by despatching students to the UN to talk against Pakistan, by organizing side events on human rights at the UN; organizing unofficial trips for members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to Kashmir, but presenting those as official EU delegations; secretly creating three informal groups, the “South Asia Peace Forum”, the “Baloch Forum” and “Friends of Gilgit-Baltistan” in the European Parliament and organizing press conferences and events within and in front of the European Parliament
As per the EU Disinfo-Lab, the WESTT (the Women Economic and Social Think-Tank), have drafted and suggested parliamentary questions to the European Commission, along with articles for fake EU magazines such as EP Today. These served to attract many MEPs into a pro-India and anti-Pakistan discourse. These op-eds and other published content is then picked up, amplified and given wide publicity by the India’s major press agency named ANI (Asian News International).India’s disinformation campaign also works by maximization of negative content about Pakistan online, primarily using a network of fake local media across the world. There is an entire network of 500+ fake local media in 95 countries that have helped reproduce negative iterations about Pakistan (or China).
The above discussed revelations of the EU Disinfo-Lab’s Research about India’s 15 years long disinformation campaign against Pakistan indicate that the Disinfo-Lab has done a good job in exposing India’s game plan, which is based on utter lying. As Pakistan was already aware of this Indian propaganda campaign, time and again it had warned the world leaders that India was defaming Pakistan through sheer propaganda based on lying, but the western world was reluctant to hold India responsible for its dirty politics.
India’s disinformation campaign against Pakistan was and is aimed at defaming Pakistan by misleading the US and EU countries, in dubbing the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle as terrorism,, undermining Pakistan’s nuclear credentials by blaming it for supporting terrorism, discrediting Pakistan’s role in fighting war on terror and in facilitating the US-Taliban talks and the intra-Afghan dialogue. India has also misled the world on human rights situation in Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, and Pakistan’s credentials regarding the rights of its minorities.
In this context, the EU Disinfo-Lab’s revelations about India’s disinformation campaign against Pakistan have vindicated Pakistan’s stance and it is an eye-opener for the US and EU countries to understand India’s nefarious designs against Pakistan. In fact, the US and EU countries’ officials have also recently seen Indian officials lying in cases of Pulwama attack in IIOJ&K, the surgical strike across the LOC on 26 February 2019 on a bare ground in AJ&K, on 27 February 2019, when two Indian aircraft were hit by the Pakistani air-force, India lied by saying that Pakistan’s one F-16 was destroyed. The US officials are also aware that India is sponsoring terrorism to destabilize Pakistan by using the Afghan soil. They have also seen India’s HR violations and genocide in IIOJ&K and trampling of minority rights in the mainland India.
In view of the above discussion, to face the Indian designs successfully, while Pakistan needs to counter India’s ongoing hybrid war, it should also focus on its economic development to become a wealthy country with sufficient foreign exchange reserves to face the crisis situations. Also, Pakistan should pursue proactive and strong foreign and defence policies to deter India from committing genocide in IIOJ&K, and to muster strong diplomatic support on Kashmir.
—The writer, retired Lt Col, is an ex-research fellow of IPRI and senior research fellow of SVI, Islamabad.
