Concentration of army leads to social problems, Dr Shabir Choudhry

21 September 2007, Geneva

'Democracy cannot be implanted by use of F16 and helicopter gun ships, as some Western countries are trying to do in some parts of the world. It is a process and each country finds its own way to achieve a goal of democracy, said Dr Shabir Choudhry, Chairman JKLF Diplomatic Committee. He was speaking to a conference held in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.  

Dr Shabir Choudhry said, 'Unlike other countries government of Pakistan thinks biggest service to democracy is to ensure that uniform of a ruling general is saved and made sacrosanct. Also they feel in this process they should bulldoze all institutions of civil society including the Supreme Court'.

This Conference was organised by NGOs Co-ordinating Committee on Human Rights, and the title was: Europe and South Asia a partnership of democracy, development and human rights . It was addressed by two European Members of Parliament, Secretary General, Secretariat for Coordinating of the Sri Lankan Peace Process and Director International Institute for Peace, Vienna. The conference was attended and addressed by some other leaders from Kashmir and other countries and human rights activists from various countries.

Dr Shabir Choudhry said, 'colonialism might have ended from some parts of the world but it has never ended in Kashmir. We are still forcibly divided, oppressed and deprived of right of self-determination, which is a fountain of all other social, economic and political rights. An illegal tribal invasion forced the ruler of Kashmir to accede to India, which was provisionally accepted. The entire State of Jammu and Kashmir in our opinion is disputed and people should have the final say to determine their future'.

He further said, people rightly say that there is a large concentration of Indian army on the other side of LOC, and wherever there is army people bound to have social and political problems. But it is like a chicken and egg situation, which came first. Was there a large concentration of army before 1988? Or it came in when militancy started, and before that army was in much smaller number and was confined to barracks.

But the question is why people resorted to violence and militancy? Generally when youngsters feel they are denied of their due rights and they are faced with continued injustice they rebel against the system. He said, 'denial of right of self-determination has been the root cause of this problem.

But we must note that there is a concentration of army on the Pakistani side of the divide as well. We have Pakistani army in Azad Kashmir and in Gilgit and Baltistan. We have our own share of problems on this side even though the army here is not on scale we see on the Indian side of the divide. END