http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=2815&Cat=13
<http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=2815&Cat=13>WikiLeaks exposure and our leaders Tuesday, December 21, 2010 By Dr Syed Nazir Gilani <http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintWriterName.aspx?ID=13&URL=By%20Dr%20Syed%20Nazir%20Gilani>The information released by WikiLeaks on the widespread torture in Kashmir in early 1990s to seek confessions from Kashmiri youth is not any news to human rights defenders and the conscious members of civil society in Kashmir. The news item transported me back in time when I was Field Director (number 2) in the Pakistan Red Cross (now Red Crescent) and used to look after the tracing section covering India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) faced similar challenges in tracing the missing civilian and military nationals of these three countries. Secretary General of Pakistan Red Cross was a retired air commodore and had been reemployed. I was very young and my feet were restless on the roller skates to see his exit at the expiry of fixed extended tenure and step in as number 1. General Zial ul Haq regime did not let it happen. What has hurt me as a human rights defender, not one of post-1990 regime but one who raised the issue of abuse of power in J & K at an international conference in Dubrovnik, former Yugoslavia in May 1986 and to the utter chagrin of Indian delegation co-chaired (as Kashmiri) one session of the conference with China and Finland, is the leak that the abuse continued because “security forces need promotions” while for militants “the insurgency has become a business”. There are no two opinions about the use of torture and fake encounters for promotions. We have living examples of such officers in the police who have allegedly used this ‘killing’ as a fast track to seek promotions. It is our duty to name these people and use the rule of law and constitutional guarantees to make them accountable. But WikiLeaks have made a collateral and instant revelation that “the insurgency has become a business”. Although we don’t have the insurgency of the kind referred to in WikiLeaks today yet it is important for us that we sit and consider this aspect of exposure, which has come from a neutral and important source. A Kashmiri source on this point would have been branded as ‘anti-Tehreek’ and added to the long list of graves scattered all around Kashmir. WikiLeak is far too big and safe for any Kashmiri Fatwa to touch it. One does not need to wait for WikiLeaks expose on the point that insurgency, soon after its most effective start, slipped into a shocking phase of commercial enterprise in Kashmir, Pakistan and in various capitals of the world. For a discerning observer, the evidence that insurgency became a business is splattered on the streets of Srinagar, in Delhi, in Azad Kashmir, in Pakistan and in Europe. It is important to point out that the Kashmiri has played the role of a weak and submissive commission agent. The bulk of the profit made out of this ‘insurgency business’ has been retained in Islamabad or diverted to other destinations of their benefit. Delhi did not lag behind and successfully pledged itself in the stock market created by the insurgency business. It helped create renegades and militants and renegades became interchangeable identities. After the WikiLeak expose a common Kashmiri has reason to challenge the authors of militancy and ask them to show gains as against the mounting losses namely, loss of a generation, massive violation of human rights, loss of dignity and respect of a common citizen, opportunity provided to the Indian security forces to come and live within the close proximity of our private life and disturbed the quality of life in Kashmir. One needs to ask a question to the politicians who owned the militancy without any control over it, whether the death of a generation in fact is not the death of the right of self-determination. Someone somewhere has to be made responsible for the deficit caused in the number of Kashmiri population, desperately needed for self-determination. Another important concern, which needs to be addressed, is the lack of interest in the plight of the common citizens. One does not need a WikiLeak to understand and expose the success and failure of militancy and the separatist politics. A generation has been laid to rest. Another generation decided to seek employment in the Indian security forces. Many of them may not rise in ranks for obvious reasons. Another generation comprises of employable educated unemployed, unemployable educated unemployed and uneducated unemployed. We seem to have lost the focus of our trust obligations towards the people that we claim to represent in their demand for right of self-determination. It is very disappointing to note that life in Kashmir is over-politicised and it appears that doors of a peaceful, secure, respectful and dignified life have been shut on the people. The common man is nowhere on the radar and all we witness is that everyone is interested in a small road in Srinagar to engage a post-1990 political number. We don’t need numbers in the two Hurriyats but we need at all costs conscientious substantive characters having reliable understanding of the case at home and abroad. The information made public by WikiLeaks on torture in Kashmir and the fact that the ICRC never got access to ‘Notorious Detention Centre’ Cargo Building should shame us as responsible citizens of the State. It should unease all those in Delhi who have a genuine desire to see the life, honour and property of the people in Kashmir duly protected. It is a question for the Indian civil society to see why the people in Kashmir have not been able to raise their heads as equal people. The information made public should not be used (or may be used) to march on Delhi, as it is too late for many. It should not be used as an excuse to avoid our part of obligations. Our leaders have failed the present and the future generation on a number of counts. The non-transparent apparatus of Kashmir politics and its political rhetoric has been the worst enemy of the Rights Movement and the common citizen. Our leaders should be brave enough to concede that even today they have no control on the broad spread of Kashmir agenda being handled inside and outside Kashmir. The various centres run by not more than three or more people are in no way run by Kashmiri leaders but by gainfully employed people of Kashmiri origin. One may not take away from their person their title as State Subjects but they are in a difficult cul de sac of the pressures of the purse and personal interests. They can afford to live by compromising on the interests of their people but they have no nerve to disobey the purse that keeps them in charm. Kashmiri politics is caught in a flux of many variables. The bulk of Srinagar or Muzaffarabad-based politicians have no substantive role. It is the media in Srinagar and TV screens in Islamabad or Delhi that keep their images alive. It is high time we delved into the recesses of our conscience and responded to the WikiLeak exposure that ‘insurgency became a business’ for our politician and killing became a ‘need for the security forces’ for promotion. One has helped the other. The writer is London-based secretary general of JKCHR - NGO in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations and can be mailed at [email protected] http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=2815&Cat=13 _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
