The Londoner

By Wajahat Ahmad 27 August, 2008 Countercurrents.org Kashmir, along with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Korean Peninsula, was among the first crisis that the United Nations had to confront in the post-World War II period. Sixty years have passed by since Kashmir conflict was first debated in the U.N and yet the conflict continues to elude a solution. The U.N involvement in the Kashmir Conflict largely lasted for 17 years (1948-65).After the Indo-Pak war of 1965, the U.N engagement with Kashmir continued at a very nominal level till the 3rd Pakistan-India war of 1971 and completely ended with the signing of the Simla Agreement in 1972, an Indo-Pak peace agreement, which laid emphasis on adopting a bilateral framework to solve the Kashmir imbroglio and kept the U.N out of the picture afterwards. During the course of its engagement with the Kashmir Conflict, spanning 23 years (1948-1971), the U.N passed a number of resolutions, which were aimed at mediation and resolu...

After 60 years, Kashmir is threatening to boil over and we cannot just blame Pakistan for it. If the Army and armed policemen could be used to give yatris a safe passage to Amarnath, why couldn’t they be used to give Kashmiris’ trade a safe passage through Jammu? It’s a simple question, but very pertinent. One concerned people’s lives while the other involved people’s livelihood. Yet, there was a positive response in one case and a negative one in the other. Why? We, who are in the middle between politicians and agitators, can only ask. We know there won’t be an answer. There are so many questions about Kashmir to which there aren’t answers. They came to my mind, on a recent visit to the troubled state, when I came out of Srinagar airport amid security even tighter than what I had experienced at Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut at the height of the Vietnam War; when my car was held up for hours on the way to Kargil to let a yatri convoy pass; when Iqbal, owner of a Dal Lake houseboat, said his ne...

NEW DELHI, Aug. 28 (UPI) -- Civil groups in India have called on the international community to intervene to thwart a humanitarian disaster from a looming curfew in the Kashmir region. New Delhi said it would begin a staged drawdown of a curfew enacted Sunday as pro-independence demonstrators staged mass protests over the past few weeks. Indian forces have killed at least 30 protesters in the past three weeks. Civil groups complained a media blackout and the curfew have led to a massive shortage of medicine and other essentials, leaving several hospitals without health services, the Daily Times of India said Thursday. "In view of the deteriorating humanitarian situation and the media blackout of the events in Kashmir, we call upon the international humanitarian agencies, particularly the United Nations bodies, and the world press, to intervene immediately to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Kashmir," said a statement signed by several civil organizations. The statement g...

Etalaat News Service New Delhi, August 28: Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) had a review meeting about the growing unrest in Jammu and Kashmir which was chaired by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and in which Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil briefed the meeting about the proposed agreement underway with the Hindu Shri Amarnath Sangarsh Samiti in Jammu. Congress said the government was willing to talk to separatists wanting more autonomy, but not with those demanding total freedom. “Those who want more autonomy are on a different footing than those who want secession,” said Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi at a press briefing. “For those who want secession, there is a single and firm message. The decades-old parliament resolution that the whole of Kashmir across the Line of Control is an integral part of Jammu and Kashmir is still valid,” he said. “The UPA has said time and again that the government is open to dialogue with those who want alternative models of autonomy,” said Si...