Int’l Convention Supports Musharraf’s 4-Point Formula
'Pakistan Times' Kashmir Desk

GENEVA (Switerzerland): The speakers at the International Convention on Kashmir held in Geneva Monday supported the four-point strategy proposed by President General Pervez Musharraf for the solution of Jammu and Kashmir dispute.

The participants of International Convention on Kashmir held under the aegis of International Human Rights Association of American Minorities (IHRAAM) stressed upon India to stop human rights abuses in Occupied Kashmir.

Prominent among participants were Pakistan’s permanent envoy at United Nations Masood Khan, Kashmir Centre Brussels Executive Director, Barrister Abdul Majeed Tramboo, All Parties Hurriyat Conference leaders Bilal Ghani Lone, Farooq Siddiqui, Dr Z U Khan, Nazir Ahmad Ronga, Mr Pergahrton, Mariana Babar, Masroor Abass Ansari, APHC Azad Jammu and Kashmir chapter convenor Syed Yousaf Naseem also attended the convention.

Noted journalist/analyst Mumtaz Hamid Rao, who, besides being a pioneer of television network in Pakistan is also the architect of web newspapers in the country and heads TIMES Group of Publications – with ISSN-certified multilingual E-daily ‘Pakistan Times’ as its Editor-in-Chief was also invited to this moot.

However – owing to his previously-set professional commitments – which also included his assignment as Special Diplomatic Correspondent/Analyst for UK – of Pakistan’s apex multi-channels Indus TV Network – Mr. Rao could not participate in this global conference of Kashmir.

While, wishing the Geneva moot all the best and endorsing all the contents, which are resolved at the moot – Mr. Rao – assured the organizers of the Conference that he shall make sure to attend the next moot – by prefixing his journalistic schedule.

The speaker said lasting peace in South Asia is only possible through a durable solution of Jammu and Kashmir issue.

Message from Dr. Fai

'Pakistan Times' US Bureau adds from Washington; Noted Kashmiri scholar Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Executive Director Kashmiri American Council/Kashmir Center has sent a message to the Geneva moot, wherein he says;

Barrister Majeed Tramboo, distinguished participants of the conference, I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to be invited to participate in this conference at Geneva with such an esteemed audience.

Unfortunately, my health condition will not allow me to attend at this time. The loss is undoubtedly mine. Dear participants, the people of Kashmir are not vengeful. Charity and magnanimity would be their loadstars if self-determination were honored despite so many betrayals and hardships within the past 60 years.

Kashmiri culture is neither vengeful nor retributive. It teaches sympathy and compassion for all humans of whatever station, religion, ethnicity, or ideological persuasion. Kashmiris are deeply empathetic towards the victims of terrorism and other manifestations of human rights abuses because they daily experience the horrors themselves: extrajudicial killings that surpass 100,000 in the last decade and half alone, rape, torture, arbitrary detentions, and ruthless suppression of political expression.

Indeed, advocacy for implementing the United Nations Security Council self determination resolutions is criminal under Indian rule. The people of Kashmir welcome the peace talks between New Delhi & Islamabad . They are not opposed to bilateral India Pakistan talks if they advance the cause of peace, international law, and human rights. But something is missing in these negotiations. It is the aspirations and sentiments of the Kashmiris themselves.

If they are neglected, Kashmir will forever remain a South Asian cancer and nuclear tinderbox. What is outrageous about asking that these talks be made meaningful by including the Kashmiri leadership? Isn't that how progress was made in parallel circumstances in East Timor, Northern Ireland, and the Middle East? What happened when Czechoslovakia was excluded from the Munich negotiations over the Sudetenland? A word catastrophe!

The Kashmir conflict has been won. The question is no longer if Kashmir's right to self determination will be honored, but when. It may come five years hence, or it could take ten years of more unwearied resolution.

But it will come. India will ultimately come to recognize that it has lost the struggle to choke freedom in Kashmir, as Great Britain did in Ireland after more than a century of recurring rebellions and as the United States did in withdrawing from South Vietnam after thrashing the Ho Chi Minh Trail with more bombs than had been dropped in all of World War II.

In sum, the ingredients of a Kashmir solution are there. What remains are healthy doses of statesmanship and magnanimity.●