Toronto – July 9, 2009: (PCP) On the occasion of the G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy (July 8-10), Peace and Justice Forum (PJF) has urged the Summit Leaders and President of the European Commission for their active involvement to help resolve the longstanding Kashmir issue. Mr. Mushtaq A. Jeelani, Executive Director of the PJF, in separate letters to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, US President Barack Obama, President of the European Commission José Manuel Durão Barroso and President of the European Union Fredrik Reinfeldt, expressed his serious concern about human rights situation in Indian- administered Kashmir and the failure of bilateral process in resolving the festering Kashmir issue. The Executive Director wrote: The G8 Summit Leaders are meeting in L’Aquila, Italy at a particularly difficult moment for the people of Kashmir. Thousands of people have been protesting against the occupation forces’ tactic of using rape as a “Weapon of War” to suppress the people’s movement demanding justice, freedom, and respect for human rights. The ongoing uprising against foreign occupation underscores the fact that overall situation remains on knife’s edge. He underlined the recent case of rape as a “Weapon of War” of 17-year-old Aasiya Jan and her sister-in-law, Nilofar Shakeel, 22; their corpses were found floating in a shallow stream on May 30th, 2009 after their disappearance from their family’s apple orchards in the city of Shopian in Indian-administered Kashmir. The local people point finger at the occupying Indian soldiers, from a military encampment in the neighbourhood, for the gruesome crime. During the last few weeks, several protesters have been killed and hundreds have been wounded in pitched street battles between anti-India demonstrators chanting: “we want freedom,” and the Indian occupation troops using brute force to get the situation under control. Mr. Jeelani said on June 10th, 2009 Amnesty International demanded immediate release of Kashmiri freedom movement leaders, the statement said: “These protests are about the ongoing failure of the Indian government to bring members of the security forces to justice for serious human rights violations,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director. “Until the Indian government provides accountability for the conduct of the armed forces in Kashmir, it will continue to face discontent from the residents.” The Executive Director underlined that since October 1989, the 700,000 strong Indian forces have killed more than 100,000 Kashmiris to silence the people’s demand for freedom, justice, and respect for human rights. They continue to carry out arbitrary detention, summary executions, custodial killings, extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, rape, sexual exploitation, torture and fake encounters. Generations of Kashmiris have grown up under the shadow of the gun; not a single family is unaffected; property worth hundreds of millions of dollars has been destroyed and the suffering and devastation continues unabated, sadly drawing no significant attention from the international community, including the G8 nations. He underscored that Impunity has become a licence for the Indian occupation forces to wreak havoc with the lives of Kashmiris. The deliberate and unprovoked attacks and other patterns of abuse have all become too frequent to report. No perpetrator has ever been prosecuted in a real manner, despite the fact that such crimes have been extensively documented by many international human rights organisations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Mr. Jeelani reminded the Leaders that Amnesty International has repeatedly called for repeal of the security legislation in force in Jammu & Kashmir that facilitates impunity by providing discretionary powers to security forces and effectively enabling them to violate human rights. Serious concerns also remain over the effectiveness of past inquiries ordered by the authorities into human rights violations including unlawful killings, enforced disappearances and sexual assault of women. The Executive Director further added that the New York-based Human Rights Watch has called for an independent, transparent, and time-bound commission to investigate allegations of enforced disappearances. The commission should be empowered to summon members of the security forces to testify and to order forensic investigations to establish the identities of those buried in unmarked graves … “There can be no lasting political settlement in Kashmir unless human rights abuses that have fueled the insurgency are addressed,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Mr. Jeelani underlined that the Kashmir issue has dominated the geopolitics of South Asia for nearly 62 years because of continuing rivalry between India and Pakistan. They have fought three major wars since their independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over the disputed region of Kashmir. The dispute between the rivals is the root of the nuclear arms race, which has resulted in the diversion of resources from human development to militarisation. Unfortunately, the people of Kashmir are caught in the middle of this deadly tug-of-war. The Executive Director underscored the perception that the Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan is unfounded. Kashmir is not a territorial or bilateral issue. It is about the future of 15 million people with their own history of independence; their own language and culture. This has been an explicit explanation for the failure to resolve the Kashmir issue through on-again and off-again bilateral dialogue for the past 62 years. The people of Kashmir have lost complete faith in the bilateral process of India and Pakistan and their ability to resolve the issue. He said that 15 million people of Kashmir are yearning for peace, justice and freedom. They want a just and dignified peace that guarantees total freedom from foreign occupation and alien domination. Their struggle to achieve that right to self-determination will not be extinguished until India and Pakistan accept its exercise by the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The Executive Director reminded the G8 Leaders that the right to self-determination is the cornerstone of the United Nations system that underpins the contemporary international order. Its unquestioned acceptance has been established by core international instruments including the Charter of the United Nations, the two Covenants on Civil and Political and Economic, Social and Cultural rights and the declaration adopted by General Assembly resolution 1514. Mr. Jeelani said given its unquestioned legitimacy and reaffirmation in almost all international human rights instruments, it is an obvious conclusion that breach of an obligation arising out of recognition of the right of peoples to self-determination constitutes a contravention of international law, which gives rise to an international responsibility towards states which infringe their legal duties in the matter. Security Council, the General Assembly and all other UN bodies have reaffirmed the legitimacy of the right for the self-determination of peoples together with the need for the international community to render support to this noble cause. He emphasised that international human rights fora continue to reaffirm the validity and significance of the right of peoples to self-determination in situations of foreign occupation and alien domination. Contemporary international developments further testify the importance of this right, and its centrality to the international system. Mr. Jeelani reminded the G8 Leaders that effective exercise of a people’s right to self-determination is an essential pre-requisite for the genuine exercise of other human rights and freedoms. Only when self-determination has been achieved can a people take the measures necessary to ensure human dignity, the full enjoyment of all rights including the political, economic, social and cultural progress without any form of discrimination. He underlined that the right to self-determination is thus the raison d’etre of the contemporary international order and an absolute must for the progressive realisation of all fundamental human rights. The right must be exercised freely without covert influence, coercion or repression. It cannot be exercised under conditions of foreign occupation and it is non-lapsable. The Executive Director reminded the G8 Leaders that stabilising Afghanistan is interlinked to a peaceful solution of the festering Kashmir issue. If they are serious about resolving the problems of Afghanistan, they would best take a page from President Obama’s first major foreign policy paper, penned in July 2007: “I will encourage dialogue between Pakistan and India to work toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir,” he wrote in Foreign Policy magazine, focusing on longstanding tensions over Kashmir that has led to two wars between the nuclear-armed neighbours. Mr. Jeelani said that the time is excellent for the G8 countries to actively help resolve the longstanding Kashmir issue. “Peace between Pakistan and India will achieve far more for Afghanistan — and the war on terror — than further deployment of troops and an open-ended bank account.” He continued: “Such a resolution would bring other rewards as well — deprived of the Kashmir issue, militancy within Pakistan would lose ground.” “The G8 Leaders must demand an end to systematic human rights abuses by Indian occupation forces in Indian-administered Kashmir and to bring the perpetrators to justice,” concluded the Executive Director.