Saudi Arabia, Pakistan face-off over Kashmir

A world map minted in Saudi Arabia's banknote shows Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan not in Pakistan - Photo: Public Domain

SALEEM SAMAD

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan has now fallen out of grace from Saudi Arabia. The diplomatic relations have gone cold after Islamabad attempted to ally with Turkey.

In recent times, the relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Turkey have dived further after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.

The Kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (popularly known as MBS), squeezed Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan to repay a $1 billion loan.

To further humiliate Pakistan, the Kingdom announced that the $1 billion, repaid by Pakistan, would be invested in Reliance Jio Fibre in India.

Embarrassed, Pakistan saved its face by repaying the debt with the help of China, and Khan’s electoral vision for “Naya Pakistan” is in shambles. 

After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi struck Article 370 from Jammu & Kashmir on August 5, 2019, which revoked its special status, Islamabad did not hesitate to criticize Riyadh over the contentious issue.

The worst is yet to come.

On October 24, Saudi Arabia released a 20 Riyal banknote to commemorate its presidency of organizing a G-20 summit on November 21-22. The world map displayed at the rear of this commemorative banknote deliberately scraped Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir from the map of Pakistan.

Riyadh was angered over Islamabad’s official publication of a new political map in August 2020, which has shown Kashmir annexed with Pakistan, leading Delhi to term it as “political absurdity.”

Riyadh believes Pakistan has no legitimacy over Gilgit-Baltistan and Jammu & Kashmir. The depiction of the map of Pakistan devoid of Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan has adequately disgraced Pakistan in the international arena, particularly in the Muslim world. 

Well, the disputed Jammu & Kashmir have been taken out from the map of India too. The map depicts Kashmir Valley as an independent nation.

South Block in New Delhi immediately protested for the exclusion of Kashmir from India and demanded an explanation. Riyadh is yet to issue a statement. 

China, an all-weather friend of Pakistan, had been irked in the process and along with Pakistan has thrice dragged the Kashmir issue to the UN Security Council in the past year.

Pakistan miserably failed to draw the attention of the 57 members of Muslim nations -- the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) -- for a call for condemnation on scraping Kashmir autonomy.

During the China and India face-off over Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, Pakistan became desperate to form a new bloc with Turkey, Iran, Malaysia, China, and Russia, outside the traditional dictates of the United States. Malaysia silently backed out.

The Kingdom has given a clear signal to Islamabad that the KSA-India economic ties strengthened with a rejection of any financial aid to Pakistan is a new marker in international relations.

Observers understand that Saudi Arabia’s attitude towards Pakistan may also be “read” as “no confidence” against China.

Further pouring salt in the wounds, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran refused to allow Pakistan diplomatic missions to hold public events to observe the October 27 anniversary of Jammu & Kashmir’s accession to India as a 'Black Day'.

Plans to hold a public event inside Pakistan’s consulate in Riyadh were also blocked by the Kingdom.

Similarly, the Pakistan embassy in Tehran’s proposal to hold an event at Tehran University to observe Black Day was refused.

The change in stance adopted by two influential Islamic countries is a reflection of Pakistan’s equations in the Middle East as a fallout of its growing partnership with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is seen to aspire for a leadership role in the Islamic world.

Analysts believe Imran Khan had bitten off more than he could chew. It’s a clear sign of Khan’s growing desperation for his failure to garner support over India’s abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 3 November 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com. Twitter @saleemsamad

Pakistan needs new enemies

Pakistan army-soldiers. Photo: Reuters

SALEEM SAMAD

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government-backed Rawalpindi military hawks recently published an official country map that showed Kashmir Valley as part of Pakistan.

In fact, Pakistan has repeatedly given India the opportunity to present the restive Kashmir to the world as nothing more and nothing less than a Pakistan-backed insurgency. 

Pakistan’s policies have effectively undermined the struggle of the Kashmiris, even those living under Pakistan’s occupation.

When Islamic militias and terrorists engaged in an armed insurrection in Kashmir, it was dubbed as jihad -- holy war. 

When the Baloch people demonstrated through peaceful struggle for their basic rights, they were labelled as terrorists. What a contradictory interpretation of the regime in Islamabad!

All of Pakistan’s actions are an attempt to counter India’s move in August last year, which changed the status of Kashmir by bringing it under Delhi’s direct control under Article 370, scrapping Kashmir’s autonomy. Then they imposed a blackout of the internet and enforced a curfew.

Since then, India has been accused of using excessive force to maintain peace in the valley. 

Delhi obviously has a reason to be cautious, on account of Pakistan’s interference in Kashmir for the last seven decades. Since the Indo-Pakistan partition in 1947, the Pakistan army has unsuccessfully attempted to infiltrate Kashmir innumerable times.

After the birth of Pakistan, it violated the status quo agreement and invaded a part of the valley, with recruits of ferocious Pashtun tribes in the absence of sufficient infantry soldiers to push into Jammu and Kashmir.

This invasion started the current 70-year conflict between India and Pakistan, as India deployed troops to defend Kashmir against the marauding Pakistan military.

In September 1965, Pakistan soldiers crossed into Kashmir to foment a rebellion -- but failed. 

In the 1990s, Pakistan-backed jihadists, trained by the Rawalpindi General Headquarters (GHQ) to fight against the Soviet occupation in the 80s, were later mobilized as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed against the Indian-administered Kashmir.

In 1999, Pakistan made another failed attempt to capture the Kashmir territory through infiltration but ended up abandoning its own soldiers once the international media exposed Pakistan’s actions and Delhi countered the move with its military.

Since then, Pakistan has relied increasingly on backing militant networks that have terrorized not just the Kashmir Valley but also mainstream India. 

This includes Delhi’s parliament assault and the Mumbai terror attack in 2001 to recent terror attacks in Pulwama and Pathankot, carried out by Pakistan’s militants recruited from Kashmiris.

These aggressive tactics by Pakistan army GHQ have sealed India’s perception of the Kashmiris through the lens of its historic confrontation with Pakistan.

Meanwhile, a growing schism between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan has unfolded recently as tensions threaten their strategic partnership.

Pakistan has pushed for action since August last year when India revoked Kashmir Valley’s special status, but had limited success. 

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation -- OIC -- has only held low-level meetings on the Kashmir crisis despite Islamabad’s crying calls.

Nevertheless, Imran Khan has denied rumours that Pakistan’s relationship with Saudi Arabia “soured” over its lack of support for Kashmir during the crisis.

There was also a recent statement by Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi concerning the establishment of an alternative Muslim platform to deal with the Kashmir issue -- in the face of Saudi opposition to raising it within the OIC.

Acting as another nail in the coffin, Maldives, after plugging Pakistan’s attempt to target India on “Islamophobia” at an OIC meet, has recently echoed New Delhi’s wishes in blocking a bid to conduct the failed 19th SAARC Summit in Pakistan, on the excuse that South Asia, like the rest of the world, is preoccupied with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The rapidly shifting geopolitical realities, especially the current circumstances in South Asia, behoove Pakistan to treat the Kashmir issue as its top priority. 

Thankfully, Islamabad is doing that.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 5 October 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

Imran Khan's tantrum, much ado about nothing

Pakistan PM Imran Khan at UNGA in 2019 - Photo AFP

Imran Khan did not impress many with his speech at the UN General Assembly

SALEEM SAMAD

Anybody would have mistaken Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s speech at the UN General Assembly as the one he delivered in 2019. Retrofitted with pandemic era phrases, Khan spelled out what was effectively an abridged version of last year’s rant on India.

The video broadcast beamed from Islamabad was framed against a flag festooned backdrop and a painting of Muhammad Ali Jinnah on the wall behind him. Khan sat at a desk amidst a haze of green coloured props and rattled off a bucket list of macro-level grievances.

Khan’s tantrum speech last Friday was no dif.ferent from last year’s wide swipe at the world, talking about “corrupt elites,” tree planting schemes, Islamophobia, RSS, Modi, Jammu and Kashmir, and then Kashmir again.

Ranting that India “sponsors Islamophobia,” he called India’s Hindu-nationalist government a sponsor of hatred and prejudice against Islam while denouncing its moves to cement control of Muslim-majority Kashmir.

Reiterating the threats of climate change posed by global warming, Khan lamented that his country is severely affected by the climate crisis. As part of its efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change, Pakistan will plant 10 billion trees over the next three years.

Hours later, an Indian diplomat turned the mirror on Pakistan after Khan concluded his speech at the UN -- dripping with vitriol -- and recalled its record of genocide committed during the brutal birth of Bangladesh in 1971.

Indian UN Mission’s First Secretary Mijito Vinito, a Nagaland-born diplomat, articulated his statement in response to the acclaimed cricketer and said: “The only crowning glory that this country [Pakistan] has had to show to the world for the last 70 years is terrorism, ethnic cleansing, majoritarian fundamentalism, and clandestine nuclear trade.”

The young diplomat, in a strongly-worded reply to Pakistan’s call to outlaw those who incite hate and violence, said that it left others wondering whether Khan was referring to himself. There was a ripple of mild laughter among the diplomats in the hall, as well as embarrassment for the friends of Pakistan.

In July, Imran Khan referred to the dreaded Al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden as a “martyr” in Pakistan’s parliament. A leaked intelligence document surfaced in the media, which detailed that UN-listed terrorists had received pensions from state coffers.

Recently, Khan in a telephonic tête-à-tête with Sheikh Hasina urged her opinion about Article 370 revoking the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir. She quickly responded that the Kashmir issue is an “internal affair” of India. To stop Khan from dragging her into the discussion of the J&K issue again, she asked that Pakistan seek public apology for the war crimes committed in the Bangladesh Liberation War.

Well, most South Asian leaders are not in a mood to listen to Khan’s sugar-coated sermons for a peaceful solution to the J&K crisis.

Except few Muslim countries, no one seemed to lend their ears when he made frantic appeals that India must rescind Article 370 which granted special status to the state of J&K and end its military siege and other human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune,  28 September 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com. Twitter @saleemsamad

Who committed ethnic cleansing in Kashmir?

Kashmiris take cover as Indian security forces (unseen) fire teargas shells during clashes, after scrapping of the special constitutional status for Kashmir by the Indian government, in Srinagar, August 30, 2019. Photo: REUTERS

SALEEM SAMAD

Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan claims India's move to end the special status enjoyed by Kashmir by scrapping Article 370 was motivated by a 'Hindu supremacist version of Hitler's Lebensraum.'

For the sake of argument, if I agree to his argument, has he not been responsible for the violence which has significantly changed the Valley's demography? Pakistan has been aiding and abetting the jihadists responsible for terror in Kashmir.

Let's not forget that from the summer of 1989 until the winter of 1990, Kashmir witnessed a grotesque and bloody ethnic cleansing. Islamic militants operating in the Kashmir Valley sent a very dark, chilling message to non-Muslims in the region.

In effect, their warning said: "We order you to leave Kashmir immediately; otherwise your children will be harmed. We are not scaring you but this land is only for Muslims and is the land of Allah. Sikhs and Hindus cannot stay here. If you do not obey, we will start with your children. Zindabad Kashmir Liberation!"

SUCH sermons delivered from the pulpits, radical Islamists encouraged Muslims to take up arms and drive out the "Kafirs," the non-believers. The mosques in the Valley – roughly 1100 of them – blared their hate-filled, inflammatory speeches through their loudspeakers. "Islam is our objective, the Quran is our constitution, jihad is the way of our life," they called out.

The scary part was that they did not hesitate to issue warnings to the non-Muslims: "If you want to live in Kashmir, you must convert to Islam."

Spineless newspapers in Kashmir, published "press releases" funded by terror networks called on all Muslims to wage their Jihad against India.

On 14 April 1990, Al Safa, a local Urdu language daily, published a "press release" from Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, warning all non-Muslims to "leave Kashmir within 36 hours or face our bullets."

Hours after the deadline was over, the Jihadists launched a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing. Armed with Kalashnikov-AK47s, they patrolled the streets shouting slogans: "Oh Kafirs! Leave our Kashmir"; "From East to West, there will be an Islamic Ummah" They desecrated Hindu temples and vandalized several places of worship.

In the darkness of night, Hindu families were terrorized: men were dragged from their homes and shot dead. They were systematically targeted for their faith, which was not Islam.

The terror campaign claimed perhaps 60,000 lives, according to Amy Waldman of the New York Times.

Over half-a-million Hindu Pandits fled the Valley. This mass exodus caused a dramatic shift in Kashmir Valley's demography. Today, only a few thousand Hindus are left there.

Three Jihadi terror outfits - Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – launched these attacks. They are Pakistan's proxies – "strategic assets," as the Pakistani military calls them. They were created, financed and trained by Pakistan's dreaded ISI.

After the expulsion of Kashmir's Pandits, the ISI operated 30 training camps in Pakistan for Kashmiri militants in 1990; by 2002, that number had ballooned to 128 camps training one thousand militants a year.

Unfortunately, the atrocities perpetrated by Pakistan backed Jihadist groups on Kashmiri pandits did not lead to global condemnation--- until many years later.

With Modi's revocation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, troll armies are drawing comparisons between Kashmir and Palestine; the world's media are busy painting a narrative presenting "blood brothers" India and Israel as "invaders," "occupiers," and "colonizers."

Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan's former Ambassador to the United States, stated that Pakistan supports terrorism.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned, "Pakistan must not provide a safe-haven for terrorists to threaten international security," as it is currently doing. Some of the world's most wanted terrorists - such as Hafiz Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh – find a warm home in Pakistan and are consistently protected by the ISI.

Ironically, it is Imran Khan, who in a recent tweet, has expressed his concern over "impending genocide of Kashmiris" alleging that the there is an "attempt to change the demography of Kashmir through ethnic cleansing."

First published in the Bangla Tribune, 09 September 2019

Saleem Samad, is a journalist, media rights defender also recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad; Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com