Daily Times

The Kashmir imbroglio persists with the residents of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) getting the short end of the stick. Pakistan has made tremendous efforts to internationalize the issue and highlight the unilateral action by India to annex IOK and Ladakh but so far it has only made the human rights activists aware of the atrocious Indian action and the plight of the beleaguered Kashmiri, women, children and men. World leaders, apart from China and Turkey appear to be oblivious to the sufferings of the Kashmiris and continue to either support India or refuse to speak up for the oppressed Kashmiris. Under the circumstances, the offer of the US President to mediate in the Kashmir dispute was like milk and honey to the ears of Pakistan as well as Imran Khan, to whom the offer was made in person. Unfortunately, Indian Ministry of External Affairs was quick to dismiss the US offer while the US State Department too distanced itself from its President’s generous offer. This was before the August 5th Indian unilateral act of repealing portions of Article 370 and 35A of its Constitution and amalgamating IOK and Ladakh.

Donald Trump did call the Pakistani and Indian Prime Ministers to show restraint and resolve the issue. Narendra Modi complained to Trump that Imran Khan was blackballing Modi, calling him a Nazi and Fascist. On August 26, President Trump and Narendra Modi met on the sidelines of the G-7 Summit at Biarritz and Modi politely rejected the US President’s offer of mediation stating that the situation was in India’s control and the issue will be resolved bilaterally with Pakistan. President Trump accepted Modi’s logic but insisted that he is there to mediate whenever called upon to do so. If that is not mediation, what else is?

The fact is that the US is on the table with India and Pakistan whether India likes it or not. Donald Trump believes Pakistan holds the trump card to US extradition from Afghanistan. There is a window of opportunity for Pakistan, which needs to be utilized to get the Kashmiris of IOK freed from the yoke of tyranny and Indian slavery

Indian media is declaring it as a major diplomatic victory against Pakistan, but the ground situation is far from being under control. For the last seventy-two years, the IOK situation has not been under control. Its Legislative Assembly was dissolved and IOK was placed under Governor’s Rule. The August 5th unilateral action by Indian Government did not have the will or consent of the Kashmiris, whose leaders were incarcerated even before August 5. Curfew was clamped and still persists; total information blackout prevails. Even Indian political leaders from the opposition have been barred from entering Srinagar. The residents of IOK were not allowed to offer Eid-ul-Azha or Friday prayers, they could not offer sacrifices of animals on the Muslim festival. Schools, offices, trading centers remain closed and there is acute shortage of food, medicines and items of necessity. IOK has become a giant prison with large numbers of additional troops, who continue to wreak havoc on the Kashmiris.

During a talk show on India Today TV Channel on August 26 at 9 PM, in which this scribe was also a participant, known Pakistan baiter US Political Scientist Christine Fair called her own President “ignorant” but took India to task when asked if Pakistan had got the message after the Balakot Strike. Christine stated: “as someone who is very critical of Pakistan and someone who wishes India well in its defence modernization, many of the outright bogus claims that India made about Balakot really undermined its credibility, so alternately I don’t think that Pakistan was made to suffer in a way in which India claims. I think this idea that an F-16 was shot down that has been circulating around India, there is absolutely no evidence for that; no evidence of 300 people being killed or what have you? I think there is an asymmetry between what Indians think happened between what India thinks it delivered to Pakistan by way of a punishing cost and what actually happened. So, I think what is going to happen the next time there is going to be another terrorist attack there is going to be a demand to outdo what happened at Pulwama when in fact not all that much happened at Pulwama and Pakistan knows this…”

The fact is that the US is on the table with India and Pakistan whether India likes it or not. Donald Trump believes Pakistan holds the trump card to US extradition from Afghanistan. There is a window of opportunity for Pakistan, which needs to be utilized to get the Kashmiris of IOK freed from the yoke of tyranny and Indian slavery.

In my previous op-ed I had prescribed that we should be wary of taking the Kashmir issue to ICJ as India will use the Gilgit Baltistan card against us, but we can charge India under the Rome Convention for war crimes. India’s war crimes constitute changing the status of occupied territory unilaterally, altering the demography of the occupied territory. We also have the right to charge India with genocide in IOK.

The writer is a retired Group Captain of PAF. He is a columnist, analyst and TV talk show host