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Monday, November 15, 2010

UN may wind up UNMOGIP hqs in Srinagar

Major setback for Kashmir’s separatist leadership

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Nov 15: Immediately after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has deleted Jammu & Kashmir from its list of unresolved disputes, Government of India is understood to have begun diplomatic efforts aimed at winding up headquarters of the UN Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan in Srinagar. Omission of the 63-year-old “flashpoint” from the UN list, that has served as lifeline for the sub-continental geo-political strife, has come as an unprecedented setback not only for Pakistan’s diplomacy but also for the Valley’s separatist leadership.

If highly placed authoritative sources are to be believed, Kashmir’s deletion from the list of outstanding world disputes is the result of New Delhi’s aggressive diplomatic campaign in which both United States of America (USA) and United Kingdom (now holding Chairmanship of the UNSC) have played key role. Sources privy to recent developments in South Block insisted that a major diplomatic exercise had been underway, weeks before the US President Barack Obama’s maiden visit to New Delhi, to get J&K removed from the UN list.

According to these sources, winding up UNMOGIP headquarters for ever in Sonwar area of this capital city, was part of New Delhi’s diplomatic exercise. Members of the Cabinet Committee on Security, senior Defence and intelligence officials, as also Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, are said to have knowledge of the new development that could have significant diplomatic, strategic and political consequences. Granting India permanent membership in UNSC and settling the J&K dispute “in the next two years” are understood to be interlinked initiatives in which USA, UK and even China were playing a key role.

Even as the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces and UNSC had a complicated procedure to remove their bases from disturbed and disputes parts of the member countries, sources said that efforts were “visibly underway” to permanently close down UNMOGIP headquarters in Srinagar. Acceptable to Pakistan and unacceptable to India, UNMOGIP has been holding its headquarters for six months of the winter at Rawalpindi in Pakistan and for six months of the summer at Srinagar. All the top ranking observers, invariably from some west European countries, are currently at their Rawalpindi office. None of them could be reached for comments.

Stressing on implementation of the UN resolution of 1948 on J&K, Kashmir’s separatist leaders and their followers have been arranging marches to the UNMOGIP to pass on their memorandum to the observers since 1990. These resolutions and consequent placement of Jammu & Kashmir in the list of the world body’s unresolved disputes is being projected as the most authentic argument of the embattled state being a “disputed territory”.

As UNSC has no history of inadvertent lapses, Kashmir’s omission from the list of outstanding disputes has come as an unprecedented shock for heads of both factions of the separatist Hurriyat Conference. Hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who is known to react to everything and issues his statement bulletins without break every day, had not reacted to the big news till late this evening. However, his spokesman Ayaz Akbar maintained that it could have been an inadvertent lapse. He told KNS that the UN officials had not only confirmed to the agitating Islamabad but also assured that the lapse was being duly rectified.

In his immediate reaction, Chairman of so-called moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, said that he was surprised how the UNSC had removed J&K from the list when UNMOGIP bases was still existing in Srinagar as a perpetual endorsement of the 63-year-old dispute. He called it “shocking”.

Inspite of Pakistan’s public protest over Obama’s speech in the Indian parliament last week---when a US President for the first time declared support to New Delhi’s claim over a permanent UNSC seat and did not mention Kashmir---all of the Valley’s separatist leaders had hailed Obama’s reply to a journalist’s question as “victory”. Many in Srinagar understood Pakistan’s predicament and viewed the separatist leaders’ expression of “jubilation” as their attempt to come out of the 5-month-long agitation that is now dying down fast without any achievement for its sponsors. As many as 111 civilians died and more than 3,000 sustained injuries in this spell of turbulence.

Reports from Islamabad and Muzafarabad said that Chairman of United Jihad Council and “Supreme Commander” of Hizbul Mujahideen, Syed Salah-ud-din was viewing it as a major defeat of Pakistan’s diplomacy and foreign policy. In a statement, he is reported to have emphasized that the Kashmir dispute was the creation of none other than the UK (currently Chairman of UNSC) and it was that country’s bounden responsibility to solve it in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiris.

With everybody beginning celebrations of the festival of Eid-ul-Azha, that falls on Nov 17th this year, there was immediately no reaction to the unprecedented development from the common people in Kashmir.

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