Toronto, November 16, 2009: (PCP) On the occasion of Prime Minister Stephen Harper‘s visit to India (November 16 - 18) for building stronger ties between Canada and India, Kashmiri-Canadian Council (KCC) has urged him to help India and Pakistan to transform the Kashmir issue from being a bone of contention to a bridge of understanding for lasting peace and prosperity of South Asia and Afghanistan. Mr. Mushtaq A. Jeelani, Executive Director of the KCC, in a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed his serious concern over the worsening human rights situation in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir and lack of progress in finding a peacefully negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue. The Executive Director wrote: 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 Canada. He warned 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 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 militarization. Unfortunately, the people of Kashmir are caught in the middle of this deadly tug-of-war. He reminded the Prime Minister 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 underscored that Kashmiris 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 warned that the Kashmir conflict is a “political” and “human” tragedy and the world community, including India and Pakistan, has overlooked this critically important human dimension of the issue. Kashmiris’ demand is simple and in accordance with international law: implementation of the United Nations resolutions for a plebiscite to determine the future status of the disputed region in a peaceful and democratic way. Whatever the outcome, it will be impartial and binding for all the three parties – India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir. Mr. Jeelani reminded the Prime Minister that when the Kashmir dispute erupted in 1947-48, Canada was firm that the future status of Kashmir must be determined by the will of the people, and their wishes must be ascertained through an impartial plebiscite under the supervision and control of the United Nations. “Canada was one o the principal sponsors of resolution 47 (1948) on the India-Pakistan question, submitted jointly among others by Belgium, China, Colombia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and adopted by the Security Council at its 286th meeting on April 21st, 1948,” added the Executive Director, “following the resolution, Canada and other leading members of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan adhered to that position.” Mr. Jeelani underlined that it was a distinguished Canadian, Gen. Andrew McNaughton, who, as the president of the Security Council, sponsored the proposal for the basic formula for a settlement, which was incorporated in the resolution of that commission adopted on August 13th, 1948 and January 5th, 1949. He emphasised that Canada’s help can aid India and Pakistan to transform the Kashmir issue from being a bone of contention to a bridge of understanding for lasting peace and prosperity of South Asia’s billion plus people. A peaceful solution of the dispute will help to bring stability in the South Asian region, including in Afghanistan and eliminate a potential threat of another major war. This would further help laying the foundation for a new era of coexistence between India and Pakistan. “Ottawa has a moral obligation to play a leading role in ensuring that a UN-sponsored plebiscite in Kashmir takes place,” continued Mr. Jeelani, “Canada is uniquely qualified to take the leadership role in resolving the issue that could give peace a chance in South Asia and Afghanistan; it would also put an end to unprecedented repression against the innocent people of Indian-administered Kashmir.” “We trust that your visit to India will bring its influence to bear on New Delhi to initiate meaningful and result-oriented tripartite dialogue involving all the three parties to the dispute – India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir to hammer out a negotiated settlement to the longstanding issue,” hoped the Executive Director.