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| Delhi permits UN to interfere in the country's internal affairs | | Heyns, Kashmir & AFSPA | | RUSTAM
JAMMU, Apr 1: It was expected that United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur Christof Heyns would make common cause with secessionists in Kashmir and ask New Delhi to revoke the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and it actually happened on Friday. (The AFSPA arms the Army with special powers to tackle the menace of secessionism and terrorism.)
Interacting with reporters in New Delhi, Heyns said that the "AFSPA has become a 'symbol of excessive state power' and 'has no role to play' in a democracy". He was in India on a fact-finding mission to "examine situations of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions in India". He toured different parts of the country, including Kashmir, for almost two weeks. He visited Kashmir on March 26 and left for Gwalior the next day. "During my visit to Kashmir, AFSPA was described to me as 'hated' and 'draconian'. It clearly violates International Law. A number of UN treaty bodies have pronounced it to be in violation of International Law as well," he told reporters.
It needs to be underlined that the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) had charged Heyns with the responsibility of "examining situations of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions in the last more than two decades of conflict" (in India). Earlier, Heyns had asked the Government of India to submit a report about "2010 killings in the (Kashmir) Valley". A letter which was sent by his office to India's representative at the UN on October 12, 2010, suggested that he had sought a report on the allegations of "killings of civilians by the military and police forces in Kashmir from June 11 to August 7 that year". This became evident from the report which Heyns tabled at the 17th session of the UNHRC at Geneva in 2011.
In Kashmir, Heyns had met with some so-called human rights activists, members of Kashmir Bar Association KBA) and Kashmiri civil society, besides "victims". According to reports from Kashmir, Chairperson of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), Parveena Ahangar, met with Heyns. The APDP coordinator, Zahoor Ahmad Wani, reportedly said that "Parveena briefed the UN Rapporteur about the human rights violations in Kashmir and also presented documentary evidences". A delegation of KBA led by its President Mian Abdul Qayoom and members of Coalition of Civil Societies (CCS) also met with him. As per CCS coordinator Khuram Parvez, a delegation of members of the CCS would meet with Heyns and submit to him "a detailed report related to fake encounter killings, custodial killings, enforced disappearances and killings of peaceful protesters by police and troops". It actually happened.
It is hardly necessary to reflect on what the Kashmir-based human rights activities, members of the KBA and Kashmiri civil society stand for. Suffice it to say that they poisoned the ears of Heyns by painting things in lurid colours. That they would spew venom on India and its institutions, including the institution of Army, was a foregone conclusion. Reports, which emanated from Kashmir on March 25, 26 and 27 clearly suggested that full preparations had already been made by the champions of "human rights" and others in Kashmir to tarnish the image of India and make Heyns believe that the "Army and paramilitary forces have committed atrocities on the Muslim of Kashmir on an unprecedented scale during the last more than 20 years of freedom struggle".
That Heyns was sent to Kashmir by the same UNHRC which adopted a resolution against Sri Lanka on the issue of human rights abuses in that country on March 22 must cause alarm in India. India had gone ahead with its declared stand on the issue of human rights violation in Sri Lanka by voting in favour of the US-sponsored resolution in the UNHRC session in Geneva. The resolution was on the alleged atrocities committed on the Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sri Lankan government during the fight against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. 24 countries, including India, voted for the resolution, 15 against it and 8 abstained.
It was perhaps for the first time that New Delhi voted for a resolution on human rights that was country-specific. New Delhi deviated from its age-old foreign policy under pressure from the United States as well as Tamil Nadu political parties, especially DMK, part of the UPA. Had New Delhi voted against the resolution the DMK would have withdrawn its support and the UPA government would have collapsed. China voted against the resolution and won over Sri Lanka, India's neighbour. China, which is already very active in Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan, Gilgit-Baltistan (which is Indian), and even Bhutan, would surely use Sri Lanka against India and further promote its geo-political interests in the region. There should be no doubt it. India will have to pay a very heavy price for what it did in Geneva for a group of people, not Indians, to save the UPA government. It was feared that the Sri Lankan government would take on India for its support to the UN-sponsored resolution and it happened on March 25 with its spokesperson Lakshman Yapa Abey wardena warning India of "possible repercussions" over Jammu and Kashmir. According to Chinese news agency Xinhua, Abeywardena said, "some countries might use the vote on Sri Lanka to bring a similar resolution on India over the Kashmir dispute". "Countries which voted against Sri Lanka would have to be concerned about consequences," he was quoted as saying.What Abeywardena reportedly said just could not be ignored. For, what he said was very significant and meaningful. For example, the very obliged Sri Lankan government would be there at the back and call of Beijing, which has already been all out since years to weaken the Indian position in Asia in order to become leader of this continent. The Abeywardena's warning that the "countries which voted against Sri Lanka would have to be concerned about consequences" needs to be taken very seriously. If US could manipulate vote against Sri Lanka in the UNHRC it could also do the same in the Indian case. US want to keep Pakistan in good humour because it wants to pull out its troops from the ravaged and Taliban-infested Afghanistan. It can do anything. It can be said that the Indian vote against Sri Lanka would prove counter-productive. And more than that, the Indian vote against Sri Lanka on the issue of human rights violations in Sri Lanka would be used by the anti-India forces in Kashmir and elsewhere in the world as a God-sent opportunity to queer the Indian pitch in the Indian Kashmir. What Heyns said on Friday in New Delhi is just the beginning. |
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