February/March 1996, Pages 26, 97

Point of View

American Leadership on Kashmir Can Further Peace in South Asia

By Chulam Nabi Fai

The people of Indian-occupied Kashmir have no means to make their demand for final release from India's brutal control directly heard by the U.S. government. In these circumstances, we, U.S. citizens of Kashmiri origin, urge our government to assume the leading and active role in evolving a just settlement of the Kashmir dispute for which the United States is uniquely qualified. We urge that it exercise its good offices with all the three parties to the dispute—the people of Kashmir, Pakistan and India—immediately to set a credible peace process in motion. Every day of delay means many innocent lives lost. We ask for no partiality but we do expect that our government will uphold the principles proclaimed by our founding fathers for a world order, governed by the rule of law. We also expect that it will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of anguish coming from the Vale of Kashmir.

Pertinent Considerations

In this context, the following considerations are most pertinent:

1. When the Kashmir dispute erupted in 1947-1948, the United States championed the stand that the future status of Kashmir must be determined by the will of the people of the territory and that their wishes must be ascertained through an impartial plebiscite under the supervision and control of the United Nations. The U.S. was a principal sponsor of the resolution which was adopted by the Security Council on April 21, 1948 and which was based on that unchallenged principle. Following the resolution, the U.S., as the leading member of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP), adhered to that stand. The basic formula for settlement was incorporated in the resolutions of that Commission adopted on Aug. 13, 1948 and Jan. 5, 1949.

2. These are not resolutions in the routine sense of the term. Their provisions were negotiated in detail by the Commission with India and Pakistan and it was only after the consent of both governments was explicitly obtained that they were endorsed by the Security Council. They thus constitute a binding and solemn international agreement about the settlement of the Kashmir dispute.

3. The part played by the United States government was apparent from: a) The appeal made by President Harry Truman that any contentious issues between India and Pakistan relating to the implementation of the agreement must be submitted to arbitration; b) the appointment of an eminent American, Admiral Chester Nimitz, as plebiscite Administrator; c) the bipartisan expressions of support for the U.S. position from statesmen as different otherwise as Adlai Stevenson and John Foster Dulles; d) the appeal personally made in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy to the president of Ireland to the effect that Ireland sponsor a resolution in the Security Council reaffirming the resolutions of the Commission; e) the forceful advocacy by the U.S. delegation of points regarding the demilitarization of Kashmir preparatory to the plebiscite at countless meetings of the Security Council from the years 1947-48 to 1962 and its sponsorship of 12 substantive resolutions of the Council to that effect; f) the protracted negotiations conducted by another distinguished American, Mr. Frank Graham, from 1951 to 1958 in the effort to bring about the demilitarization of Kashmir, making possible the holding of a free and impartial plebiscite.

The realities of the dispute have become more accentuated with the passage of time.

4. All this may be regarded as history but there is no reason why, when the human, political and legal realities of the dispute not only have not changed but have become more accentuated with the passage of time, it should now be regarded as irrelevant. It is no less relevant to the settlement of the dispute than the termination of the South African mandate was to the question of Namibia or than the circumstances of the incorporation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the Soviet Union were to the reassertion of their independence.

5. The statements made by the U.S. government that it urges India and Pakistan to try to reach a solution in accordance with the Simla Agreement may be well-intended but their effect is to encourage India's obdurate stand. These statements not only sideline the United Nations; they also amount to a repudiation of the principle espoused by the United States itself that the primary factor in the dispute relating to a territory is the people of that territory. Kashmir does not constitute an undemarcated frontier between India and Pakistan which could be marked through a bilateral agreement between the two. It is inhabited by a people with their own history, their own language and culture, their own individuality; it is not real estate which can be parcelled out between two countries. The people of Kashmir cannot understand how and why the Simla Agreement should be regarded as superseding the pledge made to them under the authority of the United Nations, with the firm support of the United States, that they will be enabled to decide the disposition of their state by their own will.

6. What is both baffling and dismaying is that this should happen even at the present stage of international affairs. The United Nations is being progressively empowered to intervene in human rights emergencies within states. Yet it is supine when the emergency occurs in a disputed territory whose people have been pledged the exercise of their right of self-determination by the United Nations itself. Should the U.N. wait until these people—the people of Kashmir—perish through India's sustained program of gradual genocide? Should preventive diplomacy be kept in reserve until the worst happens and there is nothing left to prevent?

7. The massive violations committed by India have not been adequately reported in the world press because India at first barred and then limited the access of media representatives to Kashmir. Yet, despite this factor, they have been documented enough by human rights activists in Kashmir and also in India to justify international intervention.

In these circumstances, we urge the following steps: a) That the U.S. government encourage the secretary-general of the United Nations immediately to designate a personal representative for Kashmir, of high international standing, who would confer with the governments of India and Pakistan, visit both the Indian-occupied part of Kashmir and Azad Kashmir and report on the situation in the state; b) Should the secretary-general not consider himself competent to despatch a representative to the area, the U.S. government convene a closed-door meeting of the Security Council for the necessary authorization—such a meeting would not involve a public and acrimonious debate between India and Pakistan. It could be made plain to both that no issue is being pre-judged by this measure.

Alternatively, the United States government send a high-level official to the subcontinent to urge the governments of India and Pakistan immediately to initiate a peace process through a meeting between the two heads of governments. The meeting could be held at any appropriate place: in Washington at U.S. initiative or in New York or Geneva at the invitation of the U.N. secretary-general. It should be made clear that, at an early stage of the process, the accredited leadership of the people of Kashmir, the All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC), would be associated with it.

The U.S. leadership must also recognize that the Kashmir question must be an integral part of any regional dialogue. One cannot talk of nuclear non-proliferation in South Asia without simultaneously addressing the regional conflict of Kashmir. It is important to note that the people of Kashmir do ask for a settlement that would be in accordance with their wishes, impartially ascertained. The modalities for putting such a settlement in place can be worked out through negotiations.

Finally, Kashmiri Americans call upon the American leadership (both Democrats and Republicans) to take a stand on the Kashmir issue in their 1996 platforms, and send a strong message to Kashmiri-American voters that they stand with them.

Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai is executive director of the Kashmiri American Council, 733 15th St. N.W., Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20005.