GIVEN the critical situation in India-held Kashmir, with the death toll rising by the day, the world, especially the oppressed people of the valley, would have expected from Islamabad a response better than sending parliamentary delegations to world capitals to do a job for which few of them appear well equipped. They may not have fake degrees, and some of those named indeed do deserve to be there, but PTI’s Shah Mehmood Qureshi had a point when he said only those parliamentarians should have been chosen who could raise the Kashmir issue abroad in an effective manner. The former foreign minister must have been piqued by his omission from the list, but he was not wrong when he said the list of nominees showed the government’s lack of seriousness on the Kashmir cause. That an overwhelming majority of the delegates belong to the ruling PML-N-led coalition is itself a sad commentary on the prime minister’s choice, as is the inclusion of seven lawmakers from southern Punjab, and one PPP MNA and one PML-Q senator to flaunt political ‘fair play’. What is outlandish is the choice of such friendly capitals as Beijing and Ankara in the itinerary. Do the governments in these countries really need goading and entreaties by what the prime minister calls ‘special envoys’ to side with Pakistan on this issue?
Nowhere, however, is the frivolity of the entire enterprise starker than the visit by these delegates to capitals of the other four of the P-5. Decades back, the UN Security Council, that then included KMT China and the Soviet Union with its frequent use of veto, had passed resolutions calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir to decide the fate of the disputed territory. Since then, as the Cold War ended, a sea change has occurred in world politics, with Pakistan losing the priceless clout it once had with Western powers which had had the equitable UN resolutions passed. Today, with the US-led West pressuring Pakistan to ‘do more’ against terrorists, and all Western multinationals vying with each other to cash in on India’s economic boom, it is highly unlikely that the 20-odd, and in some cases uninspiring, parliamentarians will be so persuasive as to convince these world powers to allow a seismic shift in their Kashmir policy. Let us accept it: these ‘missions’ are merely costly junkets draining an exchequer sustained by Pakistan’s heavily taxed people.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1280795/missions-or-junkets
Comments are closed.