Before I express my views on the
subject of the article, let me first write some details about Minsk, the
capital city of Belarus where the UNO - IPU conference took place which I
attended and raised the issue of Kashmir over there. One cannot stop to admire
the beauty of this city which is capital of Belarus. I met their top leadership
and I found support in their hearts for Kashmiris.
Belarus, officially the Republic of
Belarus, formerly known by its Russian name Byelorussia or Belorussia, is a
landlocked country in Eastern Europe bordered by Russia to the northeast,
Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the
northwest. Minsk is also the most populous city of the country. Over 40% of its
area is forested and beautifully maintained.
Belarus declared independence on
25th August 1991. Alexander Lukashenko has been serving as the Country's
President since 1994.
Belarus mostly imports crude oil,
machinery and transport equipment, manufactured goods, chemicals, iron and
steel, and food and live animals. It has attained expertise in IT sector and
has been managing the country with their modern IT technology.
The top exports of Belarus are
Refined Petroleum ($4.04B), Potassic Fertilizers ($2.01B), Cheese ($690M),
Delivery Trucks ($631M) and Tractors ($476M). Its top imports are Crude
Petroleum ($3.97B), Petroleum Gas ($2.63B), Refined Petroleum ($567M), Apples
and Pears ($427M) and Packaged Medicaments ($402M).
Main source of revenue of Belarus
are its exports including heavy machinery (especially Tractors as currently
there are about 100 producers of tractors in the world out of which only 8 hold
96% of the world Tractor Market and Belarus is among these eight), agricultural
products, and energy products are the main source of revenue for Belarus.
People of Belarus are so welcoming and nice to interact with. It also deals
with the production of defence equipment.
The country owns a middle class
economy and city, streets main roads are extra ordinarily clean. The buildings
constructed in Belarus during Russian era are still intact. The old
architecture in Minsk reminded me of Russian Tsar(King) Nicholas II’s time when
Belarus was a part of Russian Empire and was also directly involved in First
World War.
This city was destroyed 11 times in
the history but the local people brought it back to its old historical shape. I
didn’t see a single person over there who was not smiling also there was no one
to throw garbage on the streets as they appeared to be civilised nation.
Now I would like to make a few
comments on IPU which is the international organisation of parliaments (Article
1 of the Statutes of the Inter-Parliamentary Union). It was established in
1889. The Union is the focal point for world-wide parliamentary dialogue and
works for peace and co-operation among peoples and for the firm establishment
of representative democracy. There are currently 173 Members and 11 Associate
Members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
The president of the
Inter-Parliamentary Union is the political head of the Organisation and is
elected to the post by the IPU Membership through its Governing Council.
Gabriela Cuevas Barron is a Mexican politician and the current president of the
Inter-Parliamentary Union. She also attended the conference and subsequently we
both met the foreign minister and others together. I found her to be a highly
competent lady who had great regard for Pakistan.
On 18th October, 2017, Cuevas
Barron was elected as the President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the first
female from the Americas.
The IPU has been helping
parliaments around the world strength their capacity to better serve their
people by following democracy for over four decades. They work in partnership
with over 65 parliaments and have delivered punctual support as well as
hundreds of fully fledged projects around the world to promote democratic international
relations.
They get funding from the United
Nations Development Programme (through agreements with individual country
offices), the European Union, Swedish International Development Cooperation
Agency (Sida), and parliaments themselves.
While attending a much different
session among the world leaders, I have made some sharp observations region
wise in general.
The high-level conference was based
on “Counter-Terrorism and the Use of New and Emerging Technologies”,
co-organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus and the United
Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism which brought 400 participants from 55
countries. The President of the Republic of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, The
United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Counter Terrorism, Vladimir
Voronkov, The President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Gabriela Cuevas
Barron, the Secretary General of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe, Thomas Greminger, and the Executive Secretary of the Commonwealth of
Independent States, Sergey Lebedev were also present in the opening ceremony.
Upon my turn to address the meeting,
I posed a question about Kashmir and some of the participants did not even know
about it. Some of the alarming as well as interesting questions made me realise
that there are no effective and result oriented briefings.
This is not a complaint because, I
feel that as senior politician I must put my observations as I did not find any
major contribution from Pakistani officers deployed there in this UN-IPU
conference and found them to be highly unconcerned like typical bureaucrats of
status quo with no extra contribution as no intervention was seen by the Pak
official in Kashmir issue. These officers were nominated by the MOFA for this
conference.
This was understood to me during
the conference that MOFA has not yet activated the ministry fully to explore
every available platform. Anyhow, I took up the illegal actions of PM Modi
& Kashmir issue not only in this conference but I also met the foreign
minister of Belarus and briefed him about the recent Indian illegal acts in
Kashmir and the curfew thereof etc.
I injected the issue of Kashmir
based on human rights violations in both of my speeches, though the chairperson
was not comfortable with it but I managed to present my stance and got a very
good response from countries present there.
I also informed them about the
great role of Pakistan in “War on Terror” and how we have lost uncountable
number of lives and loss of lives fighting it which was widely reported on
local as well as on international media. I am worried about this defensive
policy of foreign office as to why MOFA has not activated all its resources to
highlight Kashmir case.
I not only condemned the change of
status of Kashmir but also elaborated ethnic cleansing during the meeting with
the National Security Adviser, The Foreign Minister Kazakhstan, Beibut
Atamkulov and also the USA ambassador nominated for this conference who has
been designated as the ambassador in UNSC as well. They seemed concerned but
did not have the Pakistan and Kashmir narrative.
The entire political leadership
from all over the world appreciated my paper on counter terrorism and my
tactful induction of Kashmir based on violation of human rights with suggestion
for a high powered commission to Kashmir.
India once tried block me during a
round table meeting but failed as I took cover the control of South Asian peace
through Saarc. I see a great space and thrust in the international community to
know more of the brutalities happening in Kashmir.
I hope MOFA gets out of the
apprehensive syndrome and gets on the fast track before the PM’s speech in UNO
to create a strong lobby in favour of Pakistan among the members states of UNO.
My very detailed interactions
suggested me that if the MOFA does not move fast track they will embarrass the
PM as well as the nation in the UNO and other international forums.
The main difference between these
developing nations and us is that we live in status quo and hardly make any
constructive and positive contribution towards our national issues and nation
building.
I want readers to mark my words
that the day curfew is lifted in Kashmir we will be again driven in to status
quo and start looking for some divine help but we will not chalk out any long
term planning both at diplomatic and international legal fronts.
We have wasted national 70 years
playing on pitch set by successive Indian governments and RAW. It looks that
Modi will lure us into new pitch on Kashmir with the support of USA which will
further complicate Kashmir issue for us.
The government has not been able to
draw any visible policy to put pressure on India. It must at least drag Modi as
a war criminal according to Rome Convention towards International Criminal
Court with proper charge sheet based on international human rights violations
in Kashmir which will make Indian version weaker.
PM Imran Khan will have to speak
out of the box and not on the basis of mainstream speeches written by
bureaucrats. Let the Kashmir issue not die because of weak response to India. I
hope PM will go to the UNO with substantive evidence of brutalities by PM Modi.
