Dr Muhammad Khan
IN order to snub India over its massive human rights violations and genocide of Kashmiris in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) Germany has stopped weapon supply to India.
As per German sources, India has a very poor record of human rights violations in IIOJK. With such a criminal record over human rights in IIOJK where Indian state is involved in terrorism over innocent masses of an occupied territory, the German government declined license to two firms planning small arms export to India.
It is worth mentioning that, Germany is 6thlargest trading partner of India at global level and largest from European Union.
On its part, India is the largest arm importers of the world ever since 2010. According to Hindustan Times, India increased its arms “imports by 43% between 2007–11 and 2012–16 and in the last four years its global procurement was far greater”.
The German Government is afraid that, Indian Army and its paramilitary forces will use these weapons against innocent civilian population of IIOJK. As per Telegraph, Indian security forces’ human rights record in IIOJK had raised a barrier before Germany’s small arms exports to India.
German regulations and covenants restrict, and often prohibit, arms sales to nations or regions where their use against civilian populations.
In this regards, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, ruling this great European nation ever since 2005 has a major contributory role. She is an advocate of peace and inter-faith harmony.
Most of the human rights activists believe that one of the reasons for the continuation of wars and conflicts is the economic interest of world’s top weapon manufacturers’ countries.
The economy of the defence industrial complexes of some European states, America and Russia are heavily dependent upon their arms sale to conflict zones of Asia and Africa.
Most of these conflict zones of Asia and Africa have been under occupation of colonial powers of the Europe from 17th century to 20th century.
At the end of their colonial rules, these European powers deliberately kept hot-spot (unresolved states, regions and territories) as the causes of conflicts and wars.
Over the decades, these hot-spots turned into major conflict zones at two levels; inter-state and intra-state.
The conflicts in these hot-spots served three purposes for the former colonial powers; their unremitting relevance for any arbitration that never concluded on positive side, arms supply to either side for the persistence of conflict and economic and strategic exploitation of these conflict zones for implementation of their own national objectives.
Despite knowing these facts and the massive awareness through mainstream and social media, the people and governments of these conflict zones have not learnt any lesson nor do they reconcile to put right their historical wrongs.
The state of Jammu and Kashmir is such a conflict zone, a legacy of British colonialism. Despite passage of 73 years, India is not ready to reconcile its illegal occupation over its 67% territory and the bulk of the population of the state.
In last 72 years India has kept state of Jammu and Kashmir under its illegal occupation. Besides occupying the state, India has perpetrated unparalleled atrocities in IIOJK. Unfortunately, despite presence of dozens of UN resolutions about right of self-determination of Kashmiris and its international commitments, India is still reluctant to conduct plebiscite in IIOJK.
Rather, on August 5, 2019, it has violated its own Constitution and Constitution of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir besides UN resolutions while illegally annexing the state with Indian union as union territories.
Indeed, after illegal annexation of occupied Kashmir India has started misleading the world primarily to hide the massive human rights violations in occupied Kashmir.
The US based human rights organization; Genocide Watch had revealed and alerted the world that, there are signs of the genocide process in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
This organization has mandated its-self “to build an international movement to predict, prevent, stop, and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder.”
According to this organization, India has taken extreme steps of revoking Article 370 and 35 A, which indicates that, it can undertake killings of Kashmiris, protesting against these illegal acts of India.
Recently, Turkey has once again raised the Kashmir issue at the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling to resolve the decades-old dispute on the basis of UN resolutions and the “legitimate” expectations of Kashmiri people.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that, “We reiterate our call to the Government of India to ease current restrictions in Jammu and Kashmir, and resolve the issue peacefully.”
Under Angela Merkel, the German Government has set precedence for rest of the world by not supplying weapons to India for its worst record of human rights in IIOJK.
If today, the major weapons supplying states decide to stop arms supply to India, there will be a visible decline in the massive human rights violation in IIOJK.
Besides, a reconciliation over economic and diplomatic relations with India (over its human rights violations) by international community will compel India to give Kashmiris their UN mandated right of self-determination.
— The writer is Professor of Politics and IR at International Islamic University, Islamabad.
