Last week I received an SOS message
from the senate Secretariat to fly and address the joint UNO - IPU conference
on Counter Terrorism. The visa was arranged within just few hours and I managed
to reach Belarus to attend the said conference in time.
I would like to write some details
about Minsk, the capital city of Belarus where the said conference was
arranged. I want to admire the beauty of this country and present description
of Belarus as a country.
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 the capital of Belarus and 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 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 civilized nation.
Now I would like to make a few
comments on IPU which is the international organization 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 Organization 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 18 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-organized 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 Organization 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 realize 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 Advisor, The Foreign Minister Kazikistan, Mr. 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 favor 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 violation in
Kashmir which will make Indian version weaker.
PM will have to speak out of the
box and not on the basis of mainstream speeches written by bureaucrats.
I hope PM will go to the UNO with
substantive evidence of brutalities by PM Modi.
The Article was published in The
Nation on September 8, 2019 and link to the original article is https://nation.com.pk/08-Sep-2019/uno-ipu-joint-conference
No comments:
Post a Comment