Kashmir Watch, Nov 3
Shams Rehman
Top leadership of Gilgit Baltistan Democratic Alliance (GBDA) and Jammu Kashmir All Parties National Alliance (APNA) along with all three GBDA candidates for Gilgit constituencies for Legislative Assembly elections to be held on 12th November were detained prior to the election rally here in Gilgit. According to the latest news from Gilgit through sources that ca not be disclosed, the leaders of APNA including its chair and ex member of Gilgit Baltistan Council, Mr Wajahat Hassan, Secretary Gen. Arif Shahid, Col (rtd) Nadir Hassan and Engineer Amanullah Khan (not the JKLF supremo) were later forcibly expelled to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Three detained candidates are named as Shahid Hussain for LA Gilgit 1, Advocate Mohammed Farooq LA Gilgit 2 and Afsar Jan LA Gilgit 3. Other detainees include Avocate Ehsan Ali former President of GB Bar Council, Mohammed Javed former member of District Council and several others whose names have not been confirmed as yet.
Given the strong and wide spread opposition to the Presidential Ordinance by Pakistan titled ‘Gilgit Baltistan Empowerment and Self Governance Order 2009’ (GBESGO 2009) which induced the forthcoming elections in these long suppressed and exploited regions of the divided Kashmir state, the arrests of election campaigners who of course oppose the Pakistani hegemony in the region are bound to contribute in the rising tide of political resistance against Pakistani domination in all areas of Kashmir State under Pakistani control.
On November the 5th Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) has given a call for ‘Long March’ towards Islamabad. Its theme song that is already available on Youtube says Ghasib yeh Kaam na Hoga! Gherat Ka neelam na hoga. Bacha Bacha Kat Mareyga; Gilgit Baltistan Sooba Naheen Banayga. ‘Listen! O the oppressor! We will not let you do this. We will never let our pride to be auctioned. We will not let you annex Gilgit and Baltistan till the last person.
Jammu and Kashmir National Liberation Front (NLF), Jammu Kashmir National Awami Party (JKNAP), Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation (NSF), Jammu Kashmir Peoples National Party (JKPNP), United Kashmir Peoples National Party (UKPNP), Kashmir National Party (KNP) Jammu Kashmir National Independence Alliance (JKNIA) and JK Council for Human Rights (JKCHR) have in the past few weeks organised scores of meetings, conferences and protests to denounce the Pakistani steps to govern G&B through a Governor and Chief Minister which they claim are provincial sounding posts indicating that Pakistani is moving towards annexing G&B and paving the way for making the division of Kashmir permanent. On the other hand some voices from within Gilgit and Baltistan are criticising the ‘Kashmiri Nationalists’ as a bunch of reactionaries whose claims over G&B are as feudalistic as those of the Indian and Pakistani claims over these territories.
In this context Pakistan declared elections in G&B to be held on 12th November 2009. All the nationalist Kashmiris rejecting the whole process as illegal asked for boycott as they do in AJK and IOK. However, many of the G&B nationalists decided to challenge the process through participating in whatever democratic space was created through the GBESGO2009. The Gilgit and Baltistan Democratic Alliance (GBDA) is an amalgamation of various local groups that fielded its candidates for elections. However, preventing them from campaigning, their detention and expulsion is not a good example of empowerment or of free and fair elections.
In Britain while the Kashmiri political groups have unanimously rejected any moves by Pakistan to annex G&B, the pro independence Kashmiris went a step further and launched a campaign against the de facto annexation of Gilgit Baltistsn. The Jammu Kashmir National Independence Alliance organised a picket outside of the Pakistani High Commission in London and are going to protest outside of the Pakistani Consulate on 9th November followed by Birmingham consulate at a date yet to be announced.
If we compare this situation with that of Indian occupied Kashmir in 1987 when the Indian authorities and their subordinates in Kashmir Valley were hell bent to keep Muslim United Fronted (MUF), there appears at least one similarity. Keep the voices that can challenge you and expose your lies to the world out of ‘elected’ forums. Despite the fact that Indian military, political, civil, diplomatic and bureaucratic hegemony was and remains far more powerful and influential than Pakistan, the Indian forces failed to suppress the voices of dissent. The Pakistani rulers who already have too much on their plate to deal with are very unlikely to suppress the real voices for actual freedom and democracy in Gilgit Baltistan. Therefore it is better for Pakistani rulers to stop any coercion of the people who want to participate in elections. Indeed if any parties that should be banned from participating in these elections are the Pakistani parties whose legal status in G&B is questioned by many.
In conclusion I would like to suggest to Pakistani government who is currently calling all the shorts in G&B to realise that the democratic process in these areas Kashmir State is already undermined by the ‘colonial like’ control of Pakistan in these areas and the 12th November elections could most be described as a sign of ‘controlled’ or ‘undemocratic’ democratic process.
In other words the definition for G&B ‘self-government’ will be a government without people participation by the bureaucrats and for Pakistani rulers. There are two other similar Kashmiri governments already in existence in ‘Azad’ Jammu and Kashmir’ government in Muzaffarabad and ‘Jammu and Kashmir’ government in Srinagar/Jammu. A third puppet government will only strengthen the determination of pro freedom and democratic Kashmiri state subjects across the divide for genuine self determination for all the state subjects about their future – free of Indian and Pakistani hegemony.
Author can be reached at: shamakashmiri@yahoo.co.uk
Posted on 03 Nov 2009 by
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