Abdul Hamid Khan of Balawaristan National Front in a letter to United Nations Secretary General
Date: 30th June 2015
His Excellency
Secretary General
United Nations, New York
Subject: Emancipate 2 Million People of Gilgit Baltistan from the Slavery of Pakistan
Gilgit Baltistan (Pakistan China Occupied Gilgit Baltistan) which comprises of 72000 Sq KMs of disputed territory sandwiched between China, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, is currently under the occupation of Pakistan in violation of UNCIP resolutions adopted on 13th August 1948, 5th January 1949 and 28th April 1949. Pakistan has kept its occupation of the area on the pretext of a fraudulent agreement between Pakistan and two of its stooges (Sardar Ibrahim, and Choudhary Gholam Abbas) from Pakistan occupied Jammu & Kashmir, without the knowledge and due consent of the people of Gilgit Baltistan. Pakistan hatched up this so-called agreement on 28th April 1949 - the same day when UNCIP had asked Pakistan to withdraw its forces from this disputed territory. In 1963 Pakistan illegally conceded 7000 Sq. KMs area of Shimshal, part of Hunza (Occupied Gilgit Baltistan) to China for the construction of Karakorum Highway (KKH) which is being used extensively by both China and Pakistan for economic as well as for military purposes. Pakistan is using KKH for importing nuclear and missile accessories from China without the knowledge and consent of the local residents who are the actual ancient inhabitants of the land. In addition, a large number of hideouts, bunkers, tunnels and small Air strips have been constructed along this highway to deploy/stock their nuclear arsenal. This poses a serious threat to the life of human beings, animals, plants and even the long-surviving heritage of the region. It is not out of place to mention that in the same year i.e.1963, China had assured UN that it accepts the disputed nature of Gilgit Baltistan pending in the UN and that its acceptance and occupation of Shimshal from Pakistan is temporary and conditional, and also that a final agreement will be struck with the legitimate sovereign authority after the settlement of Jammu & Kashmir dispute. I would like to highlight that, instead of withdrawing its forces and civilians from Gilgit Baltistan as well as from its occupied part of J&K within a period of 3 months, as mandated under the UNCIP resolution of 28th April 1949, Pakistan has, on the contrary, increased the quanta of its forces in Gilgit Baltistan to manifolds and has also settled hundreds and thousands of foreigners including Pathan fundamentalists from its own territory and other foreign nationals of China and Afghanistan to deliberately change the demography of this disputed land.
Pakistan has been perpetually violating the fundamental rights of the people of Gilgit Baltistan, including political rights, right of vote to choose their own representatives for the parliament, right of free expression, right to have a share in the revenue from the natural resources (including Uranium, Gold, Copper, and Molybdenum which is used in space technology by China), and right of access to Justice (indigenous people are given death sentences without legal and constitutional High Court and Supreme Court and without the right to appeal with the President of Pakistan or elsewhere) for the 2 million local inhabitants, in violation of both UNCIP resolutions as well as Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
While Pakistan has no right to establish its own political and religious parties in this disputed part, on the very contrary it encourages, promotes and supports its own political and religious parties and discourages indigenous nationalist political parties with its full state power.
I would like to draw your Excellency’s attention to an event preceding the so called elections illegally conducted by Pakistan in the disputed Gilgit Baltistan on June 8, 2015. A mere four days prior to these sham elections, in a yet another open violation of UNCIP resolutions, its forces stationed at Gilgit tortured and arrested several local nationalist political leaders to pave their way for completing the "selection" process of its own stooges in the name of elections. Some prominent names among those who were arrested are:
Safdar Ali, leader Balawaristan National Front (BNF), Col. (Retd.) Nadir Hassan of Blor Thinkers Forum, Iftikhar Hussain, Akbar Hussain, Muddasar, Wasim, Faqeer Hussain. These leaders along with them many supporters were arrested in front of the UN Military Observer’s Office at Jutial Gilgit, on 4th June 2015 just 4 days before the so-called elections/selection.. These nationalist political leaders were simply planning to present their memorandum to the UN observers, stating their grievances against the Pakistan China Economic Corridor conspiracy (a secret sale deed of Gilgit-Baltistan) and against the fraud elections. The nationalist leaders were stopped and many of them were tortured on the orders of Pakistani Military by its Punjabi Police officer. Moreover, they have been framed under Sedition and anti-terrorist laws of Pakistan. The occupation regime has set up JIT (Joint Investigation Team, consisting of ISI, MI, Police and several other expert torturing bodies) to send a message to the whole local population, so that nobody may dare raise his voice to challenge orders from the Pakistani occupation regime. They were allowed to torture physically by anti-terrorist Court judge for 9 days in the ISI headquarters at Helipad near Gilgit Airport. This is the same judge who has already given life imprisonment to the political people of Hunza including Baba Jan, who were protesting for justice against the Police who had killed 2 protestors in Hunza, Gilgit.
This is the plight of the UN-declared disputed Gilgit Baltistan under Pakistani illegal occupation, where political leaders are being treated as terrorists and real terrorists are actually free to torture and even kill political and religious opponents who dare to simply not obey the enslaving orders of the occupying forces and their intelligence agencies. Military proxy Talibaan has been declared brothers (statement of Sartaj Aziz, in charge of foreign affairs). This is Pakistan’s worst colonial rule where infamous terrorist laws are being imposed to deprive the innocent 2 million people of their due basic and political rights, awarded to them over six decades ago by UNCIP resolutions as well as by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The people of Gilgit-Baltistan, particularly the nationalist political leaders are always charged under Pakistani sedition sections, despite the fact that Gilgit Baltistan is disputed under UNCIP, and its status has been accepted as disputed by the very constitution and Supreme Court of Pakistan itself. Pakistani laws cannot be legitimately applied to those who are not even Pakistani citizens by international law and by Pakistan's own constitution.
It may be recalled that Pakistanis had also arrested BNF and other nationalist leaders just a week before the so called elections even in 2009. Is this not a farcical election under the Military then, who just want to select their own puppets in the name of elections? All Pakistani Political parties like Imran Khan’s Tehriq-e-Insaf, Sajid Naqvi’s Tehrik-e-Islami, Majlise Wahadat Muslimeen and other Pakistani parties like PPP, PML (N), JUI, MQM and JI are acting like 2nd wives of Pakistan Army. They never dare to challenge army’s foreign and security policies, behaving just like dumb and obedient wives for Pakistan army. Military had been deployed in Gilgit Baltistan on the request of these Pakistani parties, just to get them selected by the show of force, instead of the count of free vote. Balawaristan National Front (BNF) had rejected and condemned this type of fraud and pre-rigged election drama. We also fear that the deployment of Pakistan Army is an exercise to force the people and its so-called Selected body of Gilgit Baltistan Legislative Assembly (GBLA) not to challenge its design, by which they conspire to hand over this area to China to implement its illegal economic Corridor agreement in violation of UNCIP resolutions.
Your Excellency, if this Pakistan-China Economic Corridor conspiracy is not checked in time, South Asia and rest of the civilized world, eventually, will have to face serious environmental and geopolitical consequences, besides human catastrophe. In this project of 46 billion dollars it is proposed to construct 6 Mega Dams (including Diamar Bhasha Dam, Bonji, Henzel Gilgit, Skardu and other parts of Baltistan). As a result of this a large area of the Gilgit Baltistan region will be submerged due to the construction of unusually large water reservoirs in the world’s highest barren mountain ranges. Besides dams, China and Pakistan also plan to construct Railways under these high mountains, to make the movement of their forces easier and quicker, to be able to suppress the people of this region, and very likely, to be able to advance beyond it. Pakistan also plans to further deploy large numbers of security forces and members of their secret agencies to provide security to keep their control over the area and to coerce the local population into submission. The extent of geographical and human destruction that will be brought about due to the realization of these illegal construction projects can neither be fully estimated nor imagined. I would also like to mention here that after the construction of the KKH in early 1980s, mass killings of local people was perpetrated on the basis of their religious and political beliefs in the towns and homes of Gilgit under the command of Pakistan Army during 1988. The sole purpose of this genocide was to create a sectarian division among the indigenous people, so that nobody would dare to raise their voice against Pakistani occupation and its unhampered illegal use of the land for terrorist activities inside as well as across the borders. Pakistani regime is perpetrating a similar approach against the protesters of this illegal Economic Corridor agreement once again, by declaring them as Indian agents.
There is no legal/constitutional judicial mechanism in place to protect the people against mass human rights violations. Many indigenous people are facing death sentences in Gilgit Baltistan Jails for their petty crimes without giving them access to any legal/constitutional recourses like High Court and Supreme Court. On the other hand, Pakistani terrorists who actually commit terrorism are never brought to any of these illegal and un-constitutional courts set up in the region. Some of Pakistani terrorists, who were actually caught by local Police in defiance of the ISI, were facilitated to escape from prisons or taken back to Pakistan on one pretext or the other by Pakistani occupation regime to let them free. Local residents working in administration, Police, Education and Security Forces are not promoted for the top jobs and are always put under the ultimate control of Pakistani citizens. Indigenous people working in government service have been insulted, degraded and are never trusted. After the so-called Empowerment Package of 2009, Pakistani nationals are deputed in the region even for low ranking posts in Police and Administration in order to firmly hold their iron grip over the region.
The holding of elections in Gilgit Baltistan on 8th June 2015 is just a new drama by Pakistan to befool the international community, UN, and specially the EU which had passed a resolution on Gilgit Baltistan in 2007 under Baroness Emma Nicholson. The absence of free and independent Judiciary, independent media, and human rights organizations in Gilgit Baltistan immensely helps the Pakistani regime to openly violate the chapter of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Anyone who dares to protest against the atrocities of Pakistani administration and its intelligence agencies is brutally tortured and eventually eliminated. It is extremely sad to note that innocent protestors were killed in Chilas, Gilgit, when they were just peacefully protesting against the construction of Diamar Bhasha Dam on their land, without their consultation. Similarly, innocent protestors were also killed in Hunza. In addition, after these brutal killings a large number of innocent supporters who were peacefully protesting against these killings were arrested, declared as terrorists, and were brutally tortured by intelligence agencies. Many of these peaceful protesters, including Baba Jan, were awarded life imprisonment by the illegal and unconstitutional terrorist courts in Gilgit.
According to the UN resolutions as well as Pakistan's official stand, Pakistan has no right to change the demography of Gilgit Baltistan by settling its own citizens in the area, it has no right to adversely change our geography and put the lives of 2 million people into great danger by illegally constructing 6 mega dams. Pakistan has no right to make any agreement with any country on behalf of Gilgit-Baltistan, unless the 2 million people of this land are granted their due rights by impartial referendum under UN mandate.
In view of the above mentioned facts, we the 2 million indigenous people of Gilgit Baltistan (Pakistan and China occupied) and Chitral (borders with Al-Qaida Taliban controlled area of Badakhshan, Kunar and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan) hereby make our appeal to the Civilized world to put sufficient pressure on Pakistan and China to vacate the occupied Gilgit Baltistan by simply committing to their obligation under UN resolutions. Furthermore, we also seek support from the UN in urging Pakistan to end its illegal occupation of Chitral (which was tributary to Muharaja of Jammu &Kashmir).
Finally, Balawaristan National Front (BNF) appeals to the UN on behalf of the 2 million indigenous people of Gilgit Baltistan, to ask the Pakistani regime to withdraw sedition and terrorism charges against the innocent political leaders of disputed Gilgit Baltistan, whom are facing double death sentences or double life imprisonments merely for their crime of handing over memorandums against the fraudulent elections and the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to the UN Military observers stationed at Gilgit. We also appeal to your Excellency to take necessary measures to emancipate the 2 million people of Gilgit Baltistan from the forceful clutches of Pakistan by implementing UNCIP resolutions regarding Pakistan Occupied Gilgit Baltistan.
Abdul Hamid Khan
Chairman
Balawaristan National Front (BNF)
Head Office Majini Mahla, Gilgit,
Balawaristan (Pakistan and China Occupied Gilgit Baltistan)
Resident in Political Asylum: Brussels, Belgium.
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Open Latter To UN, UNSC and Civilised World
Comparison of 3 UN Disputed Part of J&K and Threat Of Genocide In PoGB
I would like to throw light on the violations of Universal Declaration of Human Rights by a UN member country and also on its state sponsored terrorism.
Let us first compare the Human Rights situation in all 3 parts of the UN disputed territory of Jammu & Kashmir (J & K), viz., 1. Indian held Jammu & Kashmir (IHJK), 2. Pakistani held Jammu & Kashmir (PHJK), and 3. Pakistani Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (POGB). I would like to briefly mention about representation, administration and Justice System in all these three parts of J&K including Gilgit Baltistan, which are lying disputed under the UNCIP resolutions of 13th August 1948, 5th January 1949 and 28th April 1949.
In 1947, the Government of Pakistan had signed “Stand Still” agreement with the Maharaja of J&K. This meant that Pakistan had accepted the Authority of Maharaja over the whole J&K including Gilgit Baltistan. However, soon after signing this agreement, Pakistan sent its troops and Tribals (similar to its present Talibaan) to occupy J&K forcefully. As a result of this external invasion the Maharaja was compelled to sign the Instrument of Accession with India on 26th Oct 1947. On the very next day, 27th Oct 1947, Indian forces landed in J&K and expelled the Tribal looters. Ever since that accession, IHJK has become a constitutional part of India enjoying special status privileges unlike its other provinces/states. But, Pakistan still continues to lay its claims over the whole J&K including PoGB, solely on the bases of religion.
There is no such legal instrument signed by the people of PHJK and PoGB with the government of Pakistan. That is why both PHJK and PoGB have never been part of Pakistan and is till date disputed between both India and Pakistan. The fate of both PHJK and PoGB is still in the dark. It is worth recalling that it was Pakistan which had asked UN to limit the option of freedom in the UNCIP, following which UN changed its resolution of 13th Aug 1948 and amended on 5th Jan 1949, by allowing the people of J&K to have two options- to give vote to either Pakistan or India.
The reason of Failure of UNCIP as per UN official Records. The failure of the Commission's mission is therefore not solely ascribable to the intransigence of the Governments of India and Pakistan, both of which understandably tried in the course of repeated negotiations to gain the most advantageous position; the reasons must be also looked for in the activities of the Commission per se, with a proper light thrown on the substance of the whole problem of Kashmir.
The report of the Commission sets forth the three most important obstacles which balked its efforts to reach agreement:
(a) Disposal of Azad Kashmir forces,
(b) Withdrawal of regular forces from the State, and
(c) The northern area.
COMPARISON of 3 UN disputed part of J&K including Gilgit Baltistan
1. Indian Held Jammu & Kashmir (IHJK):
(a). Has its elected members in State/Provincial Assembly, which enjoys an even greater autonomy than other provinces/states of India as per Indian constitution’s chapter 370, which provides special status, where Indian Government or Indian citizens other than J & K residents cannot buy land and cannot occupy any job in this state/province permanently. While the citizens of J&K have the right to buy land and the right to to occupy jobs in the centre or other provinces of India.
(b). People have the right to establish their own party or to join any Indian central parties. Presently PDP is the indigenous ruling party of IHJK. National Conference headed by Dr. Farooq Abdullah was the previous ruling indigenous party.
(c). Citizens of IHJK have the right to vote for its own state/provincial Assembly as well as to the Indian Parliament. They elect their own representative in Lok Sabha. A citizen of J&K who is elected can become member of Indian parliament and can become a minister of the Central government of India.
(d). Administration is run by its own elected Chief Minister (who is elected by the elected members of this state/province without Central government of India’s interference), Ministers and its own Bureaucrats with full powers like other states of India. Chief Minister presides the Military and other law enforcement agencies in this state.
(e). Province/state has its own High Court like other states/Provinces of India and have no interferences from Central government of India in the Justice system. A citizen of J&K state/Province has the right to appeal in Indian Supreme Court against its own High Court. A citizen of IHJK state has also the right to appeal to the president of India for clemency against the decision of Supreme Court of India, if he/she is given death sentence. The people of IHJK have the right to appeal in their High Court as well as in Supreme Court of India against any human rights violation.
(f). Sectarian harmony prevails among the various Muslim sects in IHJK, where all mosques are safe for prayers.
2. Pakistan Held Jammu & Kashmir (PHJK):
(a). Citizens vote for a non-state, non-Provincial Assembly in elections, where those candidates are always elected whose party has affiliation with the ruling party of Pakistan. This part has also a dummy constitution which is called 1974 Interim Constitution. The head of this non-state, non-Province Assembly is chosen by Islamabad on the basis of the recommendations of Pakistan Army’s Corps headquarters at Murree Pakistan and its ISI and not by the will of the elected representatives.
(b). In Pakistani held Jammu & Kashmir (PHJK) indigenous people are discouraged to establish their own national parties and crushed brutally if and when they dare to do so. Like Arif Shahid, an indigenous nationalist leader was killed by ISI when he dared to challenge the occupation and did not accept their diktat. Another political leader Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri was kidnapped and tortured twice by ISI and now he is living in exile in Switzerland, because of the threat to his life. While another leader Sardar Mumtaz Khan Chairman United Kashmir Peoples National Party also fled and now lives in Canada, because of his indigenous party affiliation defying the ISI dictations. Only pro-Pakistani political and religious parties are encouraged and facilitated by full Military and administrative power of Pakistan.
(c). Citizens of Pakistani held Jammu & Kashmir (PHJK) have no right to vote to elect their representative to the Central government of Pakistan.
(d). PHJK’s so-called Prime Minister is selected by the ruling party in Islamabad on the recommendations of Army’s Corp. Commander and ISI and not by the elected members. He can be removed from his job, at any time, when he fails to obey orders from Islamabad or from army without any notice. The so-called Prime Minister of PHJK has no powers over the security forces. PHJK Prime Minister has no power over the top bureaucrats, deputed from Islamabad without his consultation, unlike the Indian held Jammu & Kashmir (IHJK). All the top bureaucrats including Chief Secretary, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Finance Secretary and Auditor general are appointed by Islamabad and they are neither accountable to the PHJK Prime Minister nor to its Assembly.
(e). Pakistani held Jammu & Kashmir (PHJK) has its own High Court and Supreme Court, but they have no powers to hear Human Rights abuses committed by the Pakistan forces and its Intelligence agencies. There is no mechanism to check the human rights violations. The citizens of PHJK have no right to appeal in the Supreme Court of Pakistan against human rights violations. Pakistani administration, its Military and even their citizens have full impunity in this disputed part of PHJK. The High Court and Supreme Court of PHJK are unable to provide any remedy to the victims of Human Rights violation, in spite of the false claims of safeguarding under the so-called 1974 interim constitution. The people of PHJK have no right to appeal in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
(f). There is a similar sectarian harmony among the Muslim sects in PHJK, where mosques are safe for prayers.
3. Pakistan Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB):
(a). There is a so-called Elected/Selected body in Pakistani Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB) which is called Gilgit Baltistan Legislative Assembly (GBLA). There is no Provincial/State Assembly in Pakistani Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB). GBLA is neither like Indian held Jammu & Kashmir (IHJK), nor like Pakistani held Jammu & Kashmir (PHJK). It’s rather equivalent to a local body/Municipal Corporation of a backward country. In real sense it has less power than any civic body or Municipal Corporation. Since its establishment in 2009 GBLA has not passed any legislation, instead it passed many resolutions and presented them to Ministry of Kashmiri and Gilgit Baltistan Affairs in Islamabad, but never received any response from there.
There is no protection to the land, customs and resources of this region. Pakistanis have settled and occupied the land, jobs and natural resources unlike Indian held Jammu & Kashmir (IHJK) and even Pakistani held Jammu & Kashmir (PHJK). This is also a violation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
IHJK and even PHJK are protected by state subject Rule of 1927, where outsiders of the state have no right to buy land, but in POGB, it stands violated. In 1963 even 5000 Sq.Km of this area was handed over to China by violating the state subject rule and UNCIP resolutions. Now the whole PoGB has been given to China in a secret deal by terming it as “Pakistan China Economic Corridor”. In IHJK, people went to protests against government of India’s decision for allotment of a piece of land for Amarnath Yatra. By respecting the democratic rights of its people, Government of India withdrew its decision instead of implementing it by force or by killing people, like how Pakistan did in Chilas, of PoGB, where peaceful protestors were killed to forcibly use their lands for the construction of Diamar Bhasha Dam for the sole benefit of Pakistan. Pakistan has also settled its nationals as well as Afghans and Chinese in POGB, thus violating the state subject rule to change the demography of this disputed land, which is also a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as UNCIP resolutions.
(b). The indigenous people of PoGB have no right to propagate and run their own indigenous political party which is also a clear violation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pakistani occupation regimes always discourage and even crush and do not allow indigenous political parties to participate in the elections/selection for the GBLA. In 2009, three candidates from Gilgit were arrested just before a week ahead of the so-called elections. This year on 4th June 2015 four days before the so-called elections/selections a large number of leaders were arrested, tortured and framed as terrorists and charged under sedition and terrorist acts, at the occasion when they tried to present their memorandum against the pre-rigged so-called elections/selections and against the Pakistan China Economic Corridor, which is actually a secret deal between Pakistan and China to sell Gilgit Baltistan by keeping the people in the dark.
(c). Neither PoGB has any constitution of its own nor it has any attachment with the constitution of Pakistan. IHJK is protected under the Indian constitution and even PHJK has its own interim Constitution of 1974 with greater protection than PoGB.
The people of PoGB have no right of vote, because the local body (GBLA) is not considered as a sovereign representative body, which has been assigned a submissive role to the occupation regime of Pakistan. PoGB have neither its own state/province nor it has the right to vote for the national Assembly of Pakistan, unlike IHJK, which has the right of vote to its own Provincial assembly as well as to the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha. The people of PoGB have neither the right of vote to send representatives to the Parliament of Pakistan nor they have their own Assembly or parliament. All the laws and rules are forcibly applied here without giving us the right of vote anywhere.
(d). Unlike IHJK, GBLA (Gilgit Baltistan Legislative Assembly) has no powers to run the administration of PoGB. The so-called elected/selected members of GBLA cannot chose or elect their own Chief Minister like IHJK. Here in POGB Chief Minister and even ministers are selected by Prime Minister of Pakistan on the recommendation of Commander of the security forces and ISI. Bureaucrats are sent to control this colony of the 21st Century from Pakistan not only for the posts of Chief Minister, IGP (Inspector General of Police) but also for the lower ranks like DSP (Deputy Superintendent of Police), ASP (Assistant Superintendent of Police) and AC (Assistant Commissioner) under the so-called Empowerment package of 2009, which was introduced to snatch more powers from the local indigenous officers of Police and Administration to make it more colonized. Unlike Chief Minister of IHJK, who presides over security meetings of the highest Military, here in POGB like PHJK a colonel of Pakistani ISI dictates to the Chief Minister what to do or not to do.
(e). Pakistani Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (POGB) people have no right to access Justice as per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Unlike IHJK and PHJK, PoGB has no high Court of its own, nor do the people of PoGB have the right to appeal in Supreme Court of Pakistan. While the people of IHJK have their own High Court and have the right to appeal in the Supreme Court of India. There are three type of Courts in PoGB: 1) Civil District/Session Courts; 2) Chief Court; and, 3) Supreme Appellate Court. Both Chief Court and Supreme Appellate court have no legal mandate under any internationally recognized law/constitution. The judges for these so-called courts are not appointed on the basic ideology of justice, but on the basis of their political and religious affiliations. This is why the political parties who do not support Pakistani occupation and who oppose the atrocities by peaceful democratic means are tried in terrorist courts. The decisions of these courts cannot be challenged in any High Court or Supreme Court, because of their non-constitutional status. This is why last year dozens of people from Hunza (Pakistan Occupied Gilgit Baltistan) who were demanding for justice and peacefully protesting against the killings of people by the Police, were given life imprisonment by declaring them as terrorists. Again, this year on 4th June, eight (8) people who wanted to present a memorandum to the UN Military Observers for India and Pakistan were declared as terrorists and were charged in anti-terrorists court. In the eyes of Pakistani occupation regime, to write and present any documents to the UN is terrorism. Now it’s feared that those 8 nationalist leaders will be given two times death sentences or two times life imprisonment, one for sedition and another for terror charges. This is totally against the international law as well as an open violation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
(f). However, in Pakistan Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB) such sectarian harmony had existed only up to 1971, after that the government of Pakistan used the trick inherited from its past colonial master, the UK, to divide and rule by instigating sectarian divisions among Shia and Sunni, which continues till today. Mosques and religious places in PoGB are not safe, not because of the differences of indigenous people, but because of the differences purposefully created by Pakistani occupation regime. As a result thousands of innocent people of PoGB have been killed but nobody has been brought to justice for it.
(g) Arguably, PoGB is strategically the most important and most resourceful area out of all the three parts of J & K.
Threat Of Genocide because:
People of Pakistani Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB), which borders with Badakhshan, a province of Afghanistan in the North directly and via neighbouring Chitral, are living under grave threats, because of the increasing activities of large numbers of the Talibaan and Al-Qaida terrorists near the borders in Afghanistan. Another Talibaan bastion towards South West of POGB is a vast porous border with Swat valley of Pakistan. Taliban and other terrorist groups can easily cross over into our area, because their sympathizers are in the security forces, intelligence agencies and administration as well as hiding among the people as disguised traders with the full support of ISI. In the year 1988 during Military Rule under General Zia, PoGB was attacked by these groups from Pakistan and Afghanistan and Pakistani security forces on Karakoram Highway (KKH) facilitated them and provided full Military and logistic support. Hundreds of innocent people were killed and women were kidnapped and raped. A large number of locals who were displaced have not got their houses back till date and Pakistani government has not taken any action against the culprits. In the year 1999 during Military Rule, a conspiracy was hatched by General Musharraf against the people of PoGB who refused to take part in the terrorist activities across the borders on the directions of ISI. General Mushrraf took revenge and sent our youth (soldiers of NLI) to Kargil without proper weapons and food supplies. The Pakistan Army denied the involvement of NLI and declared them as Mujahideen (holy warriors) instead. More than 3000 NLI soldiers were killed and thousands others became disabled during this ill-designed operation. More than 200 dead bodies of NLI soldiers were not taken back by Pakistan Army in spite of Indian offer and were subsequently buried honourably on the heights of Kargil by India. The two million population of PoGB is under serious threat, because the terrorists on our borders with Badakhshan, Afghanistan and Swat Pakistan can be incited and used any time against those who oppose Pakistani occupation.
On behalf of the 2 million people Pakistani Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB), I would like to make an appeal and a cautionary warning, that it is high time for the UN and its Security Council to initiate a swift crackdown against those government institutions (using their proxies by using the term of non-state-actors)who encourage human rights violations and support terrorist activities not only in Pakistani Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB), but also in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. We, along with the other similarly oppressed people of the civilized world, hope that UNSC would not remain a silent spectator till the destruction and death of civilized societies is completed at the hands of those who are aiding and abetting terrorism. Evil cannot be defeated by evil. The past is a witness that such behaviour has increased and will unleash more evil in the future too. The Talibaan, Al-Qaida, ISIS/IS, Al-Shabab, Boko Haram,, Lashkar e Toiba, Lashkar e Jhangvi and many others, who have no respect to the human beings and the creation of God, should not be allowed to commit further heinous crimes against humanity. All these terrorist organizations follow one ideology which emerges from one country (which is darling of Western Powers), from the text books it follows, and from the practices it encourages. That hatred and destructive teachings (just opposite of Mohammad’s Islam) are followed by all the global terrorists in the world, trained and used by many other countries, by mostly dictators, where humans have no value. Unless their masters and those who provide support by weapons, money and ideologically, are stringently punished, terrorism is not going to end and mass Human Rights violations are not going to cease.
Gilgit Baltistan is the most deprived part of the world due to the continued lack of implementation of the UNCIP resolutions by UN since 13th August 1948. It is the moral and legal duty of the UN and UNSC to protect the 2 million indigenous people of Pakistani Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB) from the slavery of Pakistan as well as from the imminent terrorist threat to the region from Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Abdul Hamid Khan
Chairman
Balawaristan National Front (BNF)
Head Office Majini Mahla, Gilgit,
Balawaristan (Pakistan and China Occupied Gilgit Baltistan)
Residing in Belgium as a political refugee because of my letter to UN on 4th Oct 1998
10:40 PM
Moderate Islamist here
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