Questions:
1) As diplomats, what actions can the committee take to ensure no human rights are violated despite the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan?
2) What do you think, as a delegate from countries other than India and Pakistan, is best for Kashmir? What can you back up your claim?
3) Although both ends are willing to launch talks and negotiations, what can the governments do to prevent the violations of human rights in the area prior to those dialogs?
4) How should the Indian government tackle the previous violations so that no such brutality will be happening again?
5) Besides India and Pakistan, China also plays a vital role among the disputed area, what do you know about it?
Topic A: Human Rights in Kashmir
1) As diplomats, what actions can the committee take to ensure no human rights are violated despite the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan?
2) What do you think, as a delegate from countries other than India and Pakistan, is best for Kashmir? What can you back up your claim?
3) Although both ends are willing to launch talks and negotiations, what can the governments do to prevent the violations of human rights in the area prior to those dialogs?
4) How should the Indian government tackle the previous violations so that no such brutality will be happening again?
5) Besides India and Pakistan, China also plays a vital role among the disputed area, what do you know about it?
Topic A: Human Rights in Kashmir
Committee background knowledge:
The area in Southern Asia that is known as Kashmir is extremely contentious. To call it Pakistan would please some people and enrage others, and to call it India would have the same effect. This tension over who should have power in the area of Kashmir has led to a create number of human rights violations and violence that has resulted in the deaths or displacements of many civilians in the area. In the debate, there are three main viewpoints. The first is that the territory should return to India, to whom it originally belonged. The second is that it should be allotted to Pakistan, with main supporters arguing that the largely Muslim population would feel more comfortable belonging to the Pakistani state. There are other still who argue that Kashmir should be its own nation, independent of both India and Pakistan.
The main duty of this committee is to decide where Kashmir should belong, or at least, until that decision is made, with whom the responsibility should lay to ensure that in the midst of the tensions between the Indian and Pakistani governments, no human rights are sacrificed for the purposes of gaining territory or economic possession. What actions can the committee take, and what external organizations can be utilized to ensure that human rights are preserved in the region, despite the ongoing tensions?
Pakistani official calls for peaceful solution to Kashmir dispute at UN
Foreign Minister of Pakistan Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi
28 September 2010 – Pakistan’s Foreign Minister told the General Assembly today that his country is willing to engage in a dialogue with India to find an “amicable” solution to the dispute over Kashmir, which he noted is one of the oldest on the agenda of the United Nations.
The princely state was split between India and Pakistan after they won independence from the United Kingdom in 1947.
“The Jammu and Kashmir dispute is about the exercise of the right to self-determination by the Kashmiri people through a free, fair and impartial plebiscite under the UN auspices,” Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi said at the Assembly’s annual high-level debate.
His country is gravely concerned over the prevailing situation in Indian-administered Kashmir, where he said more than 100 Kashmiris have been killed by Indian security forces over the past two months.
“We condemn this brutality,” Mr. Qureshi said.
Last week, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate end to violence in Kashmir after recent deadly clashes.
“The Secretary-General regrets the latest loss of life,” his spokesperson Martin Nesirky told reporters in response to questions. “He calls for an immediate end to violence and urges calm and restraint by all concerned.”
Mr. Qureshi said today that the Kashmiri people’s human rights must be respected “and their voices heard to create an enabling environment for a peaceful solution of the long-standing Jammu and Kashmir dispute.”
He reaffirmed his country’s solidarity with the Kashmiri people, urging the international community to persuade India “to end its repression in Kashmir.”
The official stressed that a peaceful resolution to the dispute, in line with UN resolutions and taking the Kashmiri people’s aspirations into account, “would create [a] conducive atmosphere for durable peace and stability in the South Asian region.”
The UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) has been deployed to observe a ceasefire in disputed Jammu and Kashmir since 1949.
In his address today, Mr. Qureshi also expressed his gratitude to the UN, Pakistan’s development partners and others for their support following the deadly flooding.
Earlier this month, the UN and its partners launched their largest-ever natural disaster appeal, seeking more than $2 billion for millions of Pakistani flood victims devastated by nearly two months of massive inundations in what the Secretary-General called the worst such disaster that the UN has faced.
Overall the floods in Pakistan have affected more than 20 million people, equivalent to over 10 per cent of the population, and the new $2.07-billion appeal will provide aid for up to 14 million people over a 12-month period.
“The Government remains focused in its resolve to address the challenges posed by this humanitarian crisis,” Mr. Qureshi said today.
“We are determined to build back a better and vibrant Pakistan, and to do so in a transparent and accountable manner,” he added. “The resilience of our people should enable us to achieve this objective.”
Indian PM Manmohan Singh renews Kashmir talks offer
PM Manmohan Singh in Srinagar, 7 June 2010 PM Singh addressed a university convocation in Srinagar
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has renewed an offer of talks with Kashmiri separatists who shun violence.
He made the comments during a visit to a university in Sringagar in Indian-administered Kashmir.
He is on a two-day trip to the state to review development schemes. Separatists have called for a shutdown in protest.
Hundreds of thousands of Indian troops are based in Kashmir, where there has been a two decade-old insurgency against Indian rule.
Mr Singh has disappointed those who expected him to announce a political package, the BBC's Altaf Hussain in Srinagar says.
"We felt that the people of the state are not only interested in financial assistance and development projects, but also desire a political process that meets their aspirations," Mr Singh told Monday's gathering at the agricultural university in Srinagar.
"We want to take the dialogue process forward. We are ready to talk to representatives of all sections who are opposed to terrorism and violence," he said.
'Strict instruction'
The prime minister repeated his government's policy of "zero tolerance" for human rights violations.
"The security forces in Jammu and Kashmir have been strictly instructed to respect the rights of the civilians. We'll act to remove any deficiency in the implementation of these instructions," he said.
A policewoman (right) detains a woman during a protest in Srinagar on June 7, 2010
The PM's visit was greeted by protests against human rights violations
The prime minister's visit came a day after the Indian army suspended a senior officer accused of killing three civilians in a staged gun battle.
The incident happened at Machhil near the Line of Control, the de facto border which separates Indian-administered Kashmir from Pakistani-administered Kashmir, in April.
The Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley came to a near total standstill in protest at the prime minister's visit.
The strike was called by hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
Mr Singh's visit has also disappointed the moderate faction of the separatist Hurriyat Conference, headed by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, our correspondent says.
Mr Farooq had urged the prime minister to announce a political package during his visit.
He had demanded the withdrawal of troops from cities and towns and the release of political prisoners to facilitate talks between the separatist leadership and the government, our correspondent adds.
Violence has declined in Kashmir in recent years, but analysts say militants opposed to Indian rule are now trying to regroup.
There has been a spate of clashes in recent months along the LoC.
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