An influential Jewish-American leader, Jack Rosen, has called for addressing the plight of the people in Jammu and Kashmir as India’s month-long clampdown and August 5 repeal of autonomous status for the disputed region draws sharp criticism from human rights activists.
“Their (Kashmiris’) plight must be addressed and a number of international organizations like the United Nations and NGOs such as Amnesty International are sounding the alarm bell over human right violations — including persecution of minorities — in the region,” Rosen wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Times.
“Peace between India and Pakistan means security for them and the possibility to at last develop and grow,” he added amid world media focus on the deteriorating situation in the heavily militarized area.
The head of the prominent lobbying group asked President Donald Trump to get both the countries to the table to address the decades-old Kashmir dispute “once and for all”.
Picture taken by Views and News of a poster exhibition on Kashmir at Pakistan Embassy in Washington D.C.
“There are humanitarian, legal and security interests in such intervention,” Rosen wrote in the conservative newspaper, popular among Trump’s supporters.
“Given that India and Pakistan are both nuclear powers, escalation of tensions between the two countries is incredibly dangerous,” he said, while pointing out that the U.S. had forged trading and security alliances with both India and Pakistan over the decades, with each country having a large diaspora in this country.”
“While nuanced diplomacy has ensured that the United States has not faced a zero-sum game between the two, it is time the United States use its moral and strategic leverage to get both sides to the table to address the issue of Kashmir once and for all,” Rosen said, noting that Trump had offered to personally mediate the Kashmir dispute in a meeting and Prime Minister Imran Khan last month.
Advocating the need for immediate deescalation in the region, Rosen writes: “The first step is for the United States to convince India to return to the status-quo-ante: the Line of Control prior to the recent crackdown. That step will build confidence, calm simmering tensions, respect long-standing international agreements and create room for negotiations. Those negotiations — given the scale and gravity of the Kashmir issue — must be mediated and multilateral. Indeed, until President Trump’s offer to mediate, the dispute has festered as a bilateral standoff.”
“The most immediate benefit to talks will be to the the 12 million people of Kashmir,” who continue to suffer under India’s military lockdown, now in its fifth week. “
“Kashmir”, Rosen acknowledged “is a delicate issue that the United States and the United Nations, as well as India and Pakistan, have worked hard to balance over the years, especially given the nuclear stakes.
“India’s move is thus a break with this tradition of diplomatic even-handedness and military restraint. If the lessons of Israel-Palestine teach us anything, it is that blunt, unilateral force is not a true solution but a path to conflict and war. Indeed, pressure is building upon the Indian and Pakistani leadership to take decisive action…”
“Cooler heads must prevail. Both sides should immediately accept President Trump’s offer to mediate the conflict, first to de-escalate the current crisis then to address the final status issues that can no longer be ignored,” Rosen said.
