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Only Western EVER Allowed in Indian-Kashmir Speaks: Prof Baker [Interview Excerpts] by Saima Alvi 26 May 2002 12:07 UTC |
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Professor William Baker, Director of CAMP (Christians And Muslims for Peace), is the Only Western EVER Allowed in Indian-Occupied Kashmir, and he talks in great detail of the Kashmiri people, their struggle and their leaders; Indian atrocities; Pakistani involvement; the need for UN & US mediation; and much more....... P.S. FOR QUICK READING, YOU CAN JUST READ THE QUESTIONS THAT INTEREST YOU! ****************************** "They have a separate cemetery for children martyrs because they are so may killed. I tell you, on one of the cemeteries there is a famous inscription, 'Don’t forget that we have given our today for your tomorrow.' " PROFESSOR BAKER. [See below for details] ****************************** INTERVIEW EXCERPTS ================================== 1. About the struggles of the Kashmiri people as seen in his trips to Indian Occupied Kashmir: ================================== Kashmiri people: Its one of the least known disputes in the whole world and of course one of the least known geographic places on earth. I have met very few people who know where Kashmir is located, what hemisphere etc. also in which continent. Kashmir is known for centuries as “The Happy Valley of The Happy People”. Kashmiri people much like the Palestinian indigenous people in Palestine fighting with the Israelis, they are happy, non-warring and peaceful people. They had no organized army no organized militia- Nothing! They had been occupied on and off for centuries by the Mongols, my book details that. But no one occupied them and brutalized them to the point that it forces them to pick up guns to defend their lives, their families and their faith: Islam. And indeed this is the difference, as I told the Vice president. I said, “This is not the situation. That beautiful idyllic happy valley has turned into the valley of death and its death for the Kashmiri people. They are dying by the thousands and tortured. I documented of course for the fifteen days I lived on a houseboat. I had to secretly enter the country because it is sealed. The Indian Government allows no one in and out of there without someone who is going to parrot the official position of India on Kashmir. Or should we just say a pro-Indian perspective? I was able to get in there for 15 days and survive coming close many time to being arrested and loosing my own life and being beaten to death. I documented with the camera and still shots hundreds of photographs, and probably 15 roles of film on a high aid video camera. I was able to document women who had been raped pregnant with Indian solders children. I documented children who had been shot, assassinated and killed. I photographed their bodies. I photographed dead children, these infants being burried in a martyred cemetery. There are so many cemeteries actually. They have a separate cemetery for children martyrs because they are so may killed. I tell you, on one of the cemeteries there is a famous inscription, “Don’t forget that we have given our today for your tomorrow.” I saw that in many places just as a little remembrance for those children. Also the young Kashmiris that have been killed defend their families, soil and Kashmir itself against the Indian forces. I witnessed this over and over and over. Again, do not forget that, we have given our today- in other world their lives – for your tomorrow. That is on the cover of the back of my book in bold letters. I promised those people after the fifteen days that I was able to get out by the help of the love or God himself, or I would have never have made it out myself alive. I was able to get out and bring these things out. I immediately went to the US congress and petitioned the senators and congressmen as well as the Vice president and president telling them of what I saw, documenting it; speaking to congressional committees and just doing everything that I promised the Kashmiris, “if God permits me to live and get me out of here and back to America, I promise you you’ll have a voice and my voice will be your voice. The world will not forget you and I will speak for Kashmir.” Indeed that is what I have done; I wrote the book I put photos in the book. The publisher said that the photos I wanted to put in the book were so terrible that he asked if he could at least put them in black and white and not in color because it is awful. So I did say ok, but even people who read it now…and you and our listeners have probably looked at the book at least on the cover there is the dead body with bullet holes of Dr. Abdul Haq Guruh. He was a wonderful man who spoke wonderful English well educated in the west: A heart specialist in Shirinagar. He helped me so many times into the homes of the people who had been injured, shot, maimed and raped. He told me he knew they would kill him one day. He was a non-violent man, he had never raised a hand in anger, never carried a gun or knife or anything. He was a classic Kashmiri really: World-renowned surgeon and the only one for 13 m people. And indeed they did assassinate him and I have photographs of his funeral cortège being attacked by Indian soldiers; His son-in-law, Atiq Hussain, who was trying to burry him and getting shot, and laying there next to the casket of Dr. Guruh, both of them dead on the street. I tell you…these are the things that I saw; I saw things that I have never seen anywhere else in the world. I promised those people, “I will speak if God saves my life; I will speak for you”, and I am still doing it. ===================================== 2. About death toll of the Kashmiris? ===================================== Since 1988 there is upwards of 40- 45,000 at least. The death toll that you hear quoted [of 25,0000] is the one in which they can document the bodies, thousands upon thousands are missing, and have never been recovered. They have been taken away they have been executed in mass graves somewhere. As our listeners might know that is a massive area in the Himalayas. There is a lot of area there; a lot of huge areas where bodies can be placed in mass graves. The usual method over there that I have witnessed, you notice right away that there are no men, no young men or even middle aged anywhere. They have all either been taken or hiding for fear or left the area. Many men; missing men, no word is given on why they were arrested; they are taken away at night. Many times they are walking along the road and they are taken. Their families never see or hear from them again. Sometimes they show up in the Jehlum River, which is the river down near the capital center of Shrinagar. Usually the bodies are left there floating in sacks or something and I have photographs of the bodies. Their families hear about it. They go down and pull them out of the water and you can just see the desecration of the body parts. I have a color photograph of an old grandfather probably in his late 70’s or early 80’s, his whole right arm has been torn off. He’d been stabbed and his whole chest has been ripped open. This is how they find their loved ones if they ever find them. There are literally thousands of Kashmiris, who no one has seen again. I smuggled out a list of those people. A list from Justice Farooqui who kept it all these years hoping that someone will come in some day from the west and will be able to get it out. And I was able to get those out and turn them over and testify in Geneva, the Human Rights Commission, Amnesty international and other human rights organization. It’s a terrible story. ================================= 3. About insinuations about the Kashmir struggle begin perpetrated by Pakistan, or the “Talibanization of the Kashmir struggle”? ================================= Well, it’s not true at all. I say it very pointedly and very plainly. I was there. I am neither Indian nor Pakistani. I am Christian, not a Muslim, although I certainly love the Islamic people and have written a book about it: the common ground between myself as a Christian, and Islam. But still… what I saw when I visited the camps of the Kashmiri Mujahideen up in the mountains: the resistance struggle fighters, and I must tell you they were all Kashmiris. I never saw Pakistanis there. What I did see was one million Hindu Indian soldiers: Armed to the teeth at every single block and every junction of every square of every city block and every street there is an Indian with an automatic weapon and sand bags and machine gun behind it. Every bridge has a machine gun emplacement on both: front and back as you exit and start on there. I mean there are guns on you every second of your life. Yet I hear, “Pakistan is this and Pakistan is that”, “Pakistani agents” and “Talibanization” as you say. This is Nonsense and nonsense means that there is no sense to it. That is what nonsense is! These are Kashmiri kids, Kashmiri people living, struggling and fighting and they are dying, not for Pakistan, they are dying for Kashmir. They are dying to be free. You know there is a great statement that John F Kennedy made, certainly an icon hear in America people will always remember him. John F Kennedy said hat the most powerful force in the world today is neither communism, nor capitalism nor the H-bomb or guided missiles. He said its Man’s eternal desire to be free. That is the summation of what I found in the Kashmiri people, there is no Taliban mentality. In fact the Hurriat conference, which is an organization of all of the resistance groups that came together and said, “we’ll meet with India, we’ll have a tri-part type meeting with Pakistan, India and the Kashmiri group. Lets all meet together and work this thing out.” This is not fundamentalist/ extremism, it’s not a fundamentalist extremist who fights for his country and his family to protect his wife from being raped and his children form being tortured. There is a non-existent education. The schools are closed, the universities are closed and there are no jobs, no income and no cash flow. It’s a country completely cut off and being strangled by the Indian government and isolated. This is the tragedy of it. So the answer is: Absolutely not! The young men that I was with and I saw them form one end to the other: all Kashmiri. ======================= 4. Should the US or the UN have more of a role in this struggle? ====================== I am very concerned that if we continue to ignore the Kashmir issue, the subcontinent and Pakistan and India. Indeed there are those on both sides who feel they can loose thirty or forty million people: Mumbai, Karachi; that’s doable we’ll survive the rest of us- that’s a horrible way to think. I really believe the nuclear flash point of he world is not the Palestinian Israeli conflict, its not Sadam Hussain, its certainly not Osama Bin Laden it is Kashmir. The west needs to pay attention o start delving into this t get in there and promote peace with justice and especially first and foremost justice for the Kashmiri people. Convening a tripartite and this is all they have to do, the US is doing it in the Middle East its doing it in Afghanistan, its doing it in everywhere in the world even in Somalia, why can’t we do it Kashmir. .......I call for that in my book: a UN buffer zone to move in now, to move into this line of control as it is called, it is really a cease fire line and there really is no ceasing of fire. There is still exchanging of artillery and small arms almost daily. People are dying between India and Pakistan. So why can’t the UN begin right now and say, we’ve passed these resolutions as a world body, we want to come in, we are going to come in and now which side is going to drag it’s feet? This is of course the test to the rest of the world which government would not really want the UN to come and enforce these resolutions, which they agreed to themselves by the way. Both parties are signatories to these resolutions: India and Pakistan. Why not then the UN should come forward. The reason is because it’s political, the reason is because you have old friends in the UN, ambassadors who say listen you give us that on Kashmir and we will vote for you on the other issue. That’s what happens, it is not their will. If you had in the UN average hardworking people, just for representing their countries, like the Kashmiris should be there, if we had these kinds of people in the UN these kinds of resolutions would be passed. This is the same problem with the US government. The new partner that they are discovering in the world is India, and we are trying to play with India and China both at the same time. China has no use for India, there is going to be a grudge match some day between those two. China leans towards support for Pakistan. The US like the UN has ignored the Subcontinent and the issue of Kashmir. It is sort of like what they did with Sadam Hussain on the Issue of Kuwait. When he asked the ambassador one week before he moved his forces into Kuwait what the US official position was. The ambassador wired the state department and got the answer she read it to him, I have a copy of it, it read we view the issue of Iraq and Kuwait to be an Arab to Arab issue and its not ours. So do what you want in other words, you have a green light, we don’t care. As soon as he moved across the border we’ve got our president drawing a line in the sand and drawing a war on Iraq. This is the foolishness and nonsense of politicians and political agendas. They always lack human rights and justice and if everyone can put away their pettiness and political aspirations and say, what can we do to stop the killing and the suffering of the Kashmiri people and by the way enhance the economies of Pakistan and India. ....I hope to live long to see these countries have the Kashmiri people free and having no occupation forces, being Kashmiri and speaking Kashmiri if they wish and dealing with countries, having families in both countries and trade and open borders with both countries, and then I’d really like to see the relations between India and Pakistan, because the relationship is there the roots are deep; the associations are very very long term between the Indian people and the Pakistani people. But they can never come together with the generations being raised with animosity and hostility towards each other’s countries over Kashmir. It just doesn’t need to happen if we can just seek justice, everybody gets together in one room and say lets put away ourselves, lets talk about justice for Kashmiris how can we heal this land and people, and the by product will be a healing for the whole region. ========================== 5. Solid reasons why India has prevented and deferred and delayed a plebiscite in Kashmir, does not want to discuss the Kashmir issue at all and also doesn’t want mediation on the Kashmir issue?? ========================== The Indians of course say, well all of India can unravel if we allow Kashmir to get away from us then we cannot stop the other states of our nation. The problem is that all the other states got to decide and vote weather they wanted to be part of India or not. The Sikhs in Punjab and so on who want an independent area themselves and states want to be independent from India, that’s an internal problem. By the way that is going on now weather Kashmir is given its right for a plebiscite or not. India is fragmenting anyway. They need too just pay attention to why are the Sikhs looking to get out of this democracy and not wanting to be part of this nation. Why do three other states want to withdraw? They need to deal with those issues and it has nothing to do with Kashmir. It is a matter of pride, it is a matter of saving face as you know and as many of our listeners might know saving face is such a foolish thing, but it’s everywhere in the world. Its here in America, its in the west. Politicians saving face by doing this or doing that even if it is wrong, even if it’s silly even if it perpetuates a war and death on people. We have the same thing in the subcontinent. To save face India says we don’t want anybody to negotiate this issue because this is our issue- Well, its really not. They signed on for intervention as did Pakistan and frankly as I say in the book, they have to adhere to the very solutions that they agreed to weather its saving face or not. This concern for hegemony of - nobody is going to tell us, we’re going to do what we’re going to do- that isn’t true, the world has shrunk since 1948 and prior to that since the dive for independence. We are a small world today and its getting smaller everyday. No man and country lives by itself and to itself anymore. India has a big partner that it needs to start dealing with to resolve the Kashmir issue with Pakistan, we’ll focus on that, it’s called China. China is emerging as a super power, it already is and even more so in the near future. China doesn’t want this on its border, china doesn’t want Kashmir to be a possible nuclear exchange flashpoint and as I said they certainly won’t want in the wings and watch the fireworks form Beijing. They would enter into it. The fear of what you hear form the Indian government that it would unravel our whole country, there country is already. Those areas that are troubled are troubled, the Sikhs and so on, you need to deal with them, the Tamils that they created, they need to deal with them. They need some honesty and some integrity in their system and justice, and Pakistan the same way. The generals who in may cases are guided correctly; they mean well to save the country form slipping this left or right. They also need to understand the people cannot continue to sustain the militarism indefinitely for the sake of education of their children, for economic growth stimulation and survivability of families. [India's attitude towards Pakistan also flows from..]...a naive view...also associated with that same attitude of ‘Pakistan how dare you leave us when we become India, a country in the partition’ And they said well, you’ll never make it, you’ll never last on your own’. The fact that it has and it continues to survive. IT comes back to what we talked about quiet a bit earlier in our discussion, the element of saving face and national pride and political pride of ‘Oh My Gosh they cannot govern without us’ and they have and continue to. ==================== 6. About Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front? ==================== The JKLM is a genuine front. I am met both leaders- Yasin Malik and Aman-ul- Haq and many others. Of course there was Dr. Abdul Haq Guruh. Dr. Abdul Haq Guruh was a leading spokesman for the JKLF. It is not a terrorist organization. I mean here is Dr. Haq Guruh who has never even owned a knife, except a surgical knife. He was the most peace full man I have met all over the world: A loving, kind, compassionate, super educated and gentle soul. This is not a terrorist, this is a man who truly was a freedom fighter who lost his life and gave it as a Muslim. Inshallah he said he believed it and it happened. Again the people who are carrying out the issues, who are dying are the youth as it always is in every war. Everywhere I went there were JKLF people weather they were educators, weather they were religious leaders they were all promoting the JKLF. I felt that that, that was a very legitimate representation collectively of the Kashmiri people. I met Jamat- e-Islami, I met them all but the JKLF was in the forefront in Newspapers in educating the public and the world attempting to portray the realities of the occupation and what they were going though. Much of what I say is from my notes and my memory from Kashmiris themselves. I mean men of stature like Abdul Ghani Lone, Ali Ghilani, Abaas Ansari and of course Abdul Haq Guruh and more. These are the people who have the right to speak for the Kashmiri people and these are their words, much of what you’ve heard me say. They are not property to be owned by either country. They wanted to trade, to care and be part of both at the same time and the only way of course is neutrality or an independent Kashmir with open borders to both Pakistan and India. Of course I was blessed and fortunate while I was in Kashmir to meet all of these wonderful and outstanding leaders. I met the young mujahids of the JKLF of the Jamat-e-Islami I met them all. [Mr. Gillani] stood out and still does, I remember him saying, “ The Indian’s are trying to eradicate our culture but culture is tied to Islam, they attack Islam and we will continue to preach and educate Islam as a way of life and Law. We shall never give up our faith and our struggle to be free.’ And another quote, and I love this because I am a Christian, “ It is time for all believers in one God to join hands and oppose all the evils of the evil doers in the world. We Kashmiris have been in the clutches of India since 1947. When the British left the empire to two nations and two religions, Hindus and Muslims, India and Pakistan, we will never surrender or cease in our struggle for freedom not only to practice our religion Islam but of self- determination.” ================== 7. Farooq Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir?? ================== It’s power it’s political materialism, he doesn’t represent the Kashmiri people. A true leader of the Kashmiri people doesn’t need to be defended by Indian Guards and troops. You follow me? …A leader who is loved and respected by his people anywhere on earth doesn’t need that, the fact that he is one of the most despised person in Kashmir...It’s obvious he wants to be a member of Indian congress and feather his own nest where he has a plush plump position as a laky for the BJP, Advani and the rest. Anytime they need some statement about Kashmir he gives it dutifully. This is outrageous. Let the people of Kashmir have an honest vote and see if the Kashmiri people would vote for him or his party. You would see in an instant he would be no more. He is a strictly a front person for the wishes and whims of the Indian government. ===================== 8. Confidence building measures? ===================== The confidence building will have to be lead by the west. I am sorry to say. I believe the two parties; India and Pakistan are feeling that they cannot move forward towards making any kind of proposal or compromise or even to talk together about the issue of Kashmir, to convene the tripartite. They cannot comfortably do this with the population uneducated about the realities of Kashmir. I find people in both countries who don’t even know the background of how Kashmir became the Issue that it is. You know there is a lot of non-education in both countries and illiteracy is very widespread in both countries. So here are the facts we have, 465-mile line of Control that sees about 10- 15 deaths per day. There was hope that perhaps Pakistan could convince the US to mediate on the Issue. The US can go to the UN if it wanted to. This is what I have solicited the congressmen and senators to do and will continue to do so. When I have the opportunity to meet the Presidents and Vise Presidents, I say the exact same thing. It’s in America’s interest to have peace in that part of the world. The new economic openings for India, this 1 Billion people and China on the border, you want relations with Pakistan who is always going to be a player in that part of the world not only geographically but also because of it’s military and again it’s priorities for it’s own security on it’s boundaries. It’s in America’s interest to take the lead again; I say that in the conclusion of the book. I don’t just write books and say here’s a terrible situation and here are some terrible photographs. I spent a lot of my time in that last chapter talking about solutions. What India must do, what Pakistan must do, what UN must do and what the rest of the world must do. And then what America must do. Right now America must take the lead like it does anywhere when it wants to. We’ve got there UN resolutions on the table for 53 years, lets get a UN force in here, We know India’s not going to like it, we know Vajpayee and Advani, you’re not going to like it but you know what, we’re going to do it because you signed on. Just because there is another regime in power doesn’t make null and void the signatures of your former president and parliament. You were both signatories to these resolutions we are going to bring it in. Now I don’t believe Pakistan would argue that much. I don’t know if I should give an opinion here but, I’ll try and be detached and speak as a Pakistani student, most of us are of the view that Kashmiris right of self -determination must be addressed, weather they choose to be Independent or they choose to be with India or with Pakistan, that it’s suffered too much and I think that has been the official position of Pakistan. Well it hasn’t been, I have to say. When Ms. Benazir Bhutto was Prime Minster she did voice opinion with me in Cyprus and elsewhere publicly. She started including and using the term, “or the right to be an independent country”. I had to break through quiet a wall. I don’t know how successful I have been in Pakistan as we are talking about Pakistan, because as I said I addressed many secessions of members of parliament and members of the senate as well; The president, Farooq Leghari and others. I was probably the first, as I said I spoke for the Kashmiri people. In Islamabad at the holiday Inn, when we had the president and foreign ambassadors there I said, Ladies and gentlemen, you leaders of Pakistan must stop using the 1948 furbish of ‘Kashmir has a right of plebiscite to choose us, Pakistan or India.’ There is a new element they fought and bled and died for and that is Independent belonging to neither one. This is their plan and it has been drafted, it’s known that they want a relationship with both countries, like I said open borders. To anwer your question weather the political leadership of Pakistan has finally adopted as a profile public statement includingthe term, “or the right of self-determination of an independent state.” It definitely should, and I hope that everyone has got that message through what you’ve said today. I hope all listeners, weather they are upset or angry, that’s ok, at least we got you thinking of this subject. I’d like to encourage everyone listening to this program to get a copy of my book. Not to make money, not at all. If I wanted that I wouldn’t be writing books on Kashmir or anything like this. I would like them to read the subject to be honest, objective and analytical, try to forget what they were taught at home by families and the usual lies of their countries, but to consider just the merit of the Kashmiri people: Their struggles to be free people. If they do that they will come up with the right decision and they’ll come down on the right side of this issue. =============== 9. Contact to get in touch with you regarding the book? =============== I would be happy to correspond with anybody, If they’d like to follow up and get the book they can order it through there. The main thing is to get the message out as you have done today. Getting these facts out, because it’s one of the least known areas and it’s the most dangerous nuclear flashpoint. POSTED FROM http://www.paknews.com/articles.php?id=1&date1=2002-01-04
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