The hypocrisy of this government with regard to the Kashmir issue has been decried by Kashmiris and Pakistanis alike.
KARACHI: The hypocrisy of this government with regard to the Kashmir issue has been decried by Kashmiris and Pakistanis alike. On January 1, Pakistan took over the monthly rotating presidency of the UN Security Council and in this position, it is entitled to propose and prepare a list of vital issues for discussion in this body, on whose table the Kashmir issue has been gathering dust since 1948. Sixty-five years have passed, several wars have been fought and thousands of Kashmiri freedom fighters and Pakistani soldiers have laid down their lives for the Kashmir cause but nothing substantial has been achieved. Now, with the establishment of the US-India strategic partnership, a neo-colonial era has surfaced in the West, which has enabled the Indians to efficiently promote their stance on Kashmir and due to the moral bankruptcy of our policymakers, Pakistan has failed to assert its stand. The present UNSC agenda for deliberations in January is a reflection of that.
Pakistan has the chance to bring the Kashmir question before the UNSC again and initiate a discussion about it to mobilise the international community and world opinion about the sufferings of the Kashmiris.
However, so far Pakistan has not mentioned even a single word on the Kashmir issue on the UNSC floor. The two questions for discussion brought up by the Pakistani representative are UN peacekeeping and methods of counterterrorism. While these questions do need to be discussed, the priorities for Pakistan should be different. And if the priorities and our just stand on the Kashmir issue have changed, then the people of Pakistan should be told about it so that the electorate can ask for an explanation for this change from the leadership in the forthcoming elections. The whole matter is another failure of the sitting government, which has failed already in the fields of economy, finance, energy, poverty reduction and others. How long are we ready to go along with this?
Ali Ashraf Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, January 20th, 2013.
