IWe have failed to tell the world about Kashmiris: Rabbani

Senate chairman says the UN has become a redundant institution

ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani has appealed for reassessing the country’s policy on Kashmir while acknowledging his country’s failure to turn the tide of global public opinion in favour of Kashmiris.

Addressing a seminar on Kashmir on Friday, the Senate chairman said that there is a need for taking into account all the ground realities. The seminar was organised by the Young Parliamentarians Forum in collaboration with the Foreign Office and Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Services on Friday. Rabbani added that the Kashmir policy should focus on sensitising the world about the human rights violations in the disputed valley.

The chairman said, “This issue is considered as a dispute between India and Pakistan without presenting a real picture of the movement.” He added that the UN has become a redundant institution which only follows dictates of Western imperialism.

Rabbani lamented that the international community has become a silent spectator to the atrocities and human rights violations in the Indian Occupied Kashmir. In a statement, the Senate chairman said hundreds of Kashmiris have lost their eyesight due to the pullet guns used by the Indian forces yet there is silence in the west about it.

The Senate chairman said that those who label themselves as keepers of the conscience of the world and talk about human rights remain silent spectators, as the people of Kashmir continue to be suppressed by the Indian occupied forces.

However, he said that this was not new and has happened in the past. Rabbani said, “Western history is replete with such examples where the West has taken care of minor acts of rights violations, if the western strategic interests were involved.” He added that where it does not suit the interests of the West like Kashmir, the skies may fall but they their silence would be maintained.

He said these contradictions have been happening since 1947.  The world has remained a silent spectator to the violence in Indian Occupied Kashmir, said the chairman.

During his address he mentioned how unjustly Kashmir was taken from Pakistan. Rabbani said, “In 1947 India took over the princely states of Hyderabad and Junagadh on the basis that these were Hindu majority areas and have a geographical connectivity with India.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2017.