Ahmed Mukhtar Naqshbandi/Monitoring Desk
UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has urged those who propagate the concept of responsibility to protect (R2P) including the UN to reflect on the need for collective action to protect the people of occupied Palestine and of Indian Illegally-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
“For more than seven decades, India, in violation of multiple resolutions of the Security Council prescribing a free and fair plebiscite, has used force and fraud to deny the right of self-determination to the Kashmiri people,” Ambassador Aamir Khan, deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, said while speaking to a special meeting of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
He was speaking on ‘Social and economic measures to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”.
The Pakistani envoy also drew the world community’s attention to the “systematic campaign” underway in India by the followers of Hindutva where Muslims were being murdered by lynch mobs, subjected to periodic pogroms and robbed of their livelihoods and citizenship, under the patronage and with the encouragement of the ruling BJP-RSS Government.
BBC Documentary on Modi
Referring to a BBC documentary on Modi’s role in Gujarat riots, he said BBC also examined the pogrom against Muslims during the Gujarat riots in 2002, noting that the documentary, which was blocked in India, underlined that the campaign had “all the hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing.”
Noticing this dangerous trend, Professor Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, has warned of a genocide of Muslims could very well happen in India.
“Such crimes fall squarely within the ambit of the World Summit’s decisions on the responsibility to protect,” the ambassador said.
“One specific circumstance where provisions of the principle of protection should be applied is in situations of foreign occupation or alien domination, which can easily lead to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the Pakistani envoy said.
“We would request the views of those who support the R2P concept on the need for collective action to protect the people of occupied Palestine or of Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” the ambassador added.
In conclusion, he said Pakistan looks forward to further talks on the application of the concept of R2P, adding that any collective action must be authorized by the Security Council.
In her opening remarks, ECOSOC President Lachezara Stoeva noted how the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, together with global commitment on the responsibility to protect, underlined the need to uphold the dignity and worth of every person on the planet.
Stoeva said protecting fundamental freedoms and human rights, including socio-economic rights, reinforces the 2030 Agenda, and is critical both to make communities more inclusive and resilient and to address the root causes of conflict.
However, she warned that only promises were not enough in the face of current global challenges, which were undermining progress towards achieving sustainable development and reversing the already achieved gains.
President UN General Assembly
The President of the United Nations General Assembly, Csaba Korosi, noted that Genocide refers to actions aimed at destroying a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, adding that “sad experience” has shown that it is a gradual process.
Dehumanization of groups as “others”, hate speech and recurrent violations of their rights are precursors to mass atrocities, he said.
“Like a weed, genocide is enrooted in discrimination and artificially aggregated religious, ethnic or social differences. Its seedling breaks through when the rule of law breaks down,” Korosi said.
Preventing genocide requires pulling out its roots, he added, as well as protecting at-risk communities, including minorities and especially women and girls.
The concept of R2P rests upon three pillars: the responsibility of each State to protect its populations; the responsibility of the global community to assist States in protecting their populations; and the responsibility of the global community to protect when a State is manifestly failing to protect its populations. — APP
