Crimea and Kashmir Viewed Through a Western Prism of Hypocrisy

Brian CLOUGHLEY

In early August India deployed 38,000 troops in Indian-administered Kashmir to join the half-million already there. (There are two Kashmirs, administered respectively by India and Pakistan, following post-colonial dissent concerning accession of the territory.) There was then a massive clamp-down after a decree of 5 August annulled Article 370 of India’s Constitution which guaranteed the rights of Kashmiris to freedom under local laws. The region was subjected to military occupation, with central rule imposing unprecedented restrictions on movement and banning communication with the outside world. These have been enforced for over six weeks.

Associated Press managed to report some incidents, however, including one when “Indian soldiers descended on Bashir Ahmed Dar’s house in southern Kashmir on August 10… Over the next 48 hours, the 50-year-old plumber said he was subjected to two separate rounds of beatings by soldiers. They demanded that he find his younger brother, who had joined rebels opposing India’s presence in the Muslim-majority region… In a second beating at a military camp, Dar said he was struck with sticks by three soldiers until he was unconscious.” They released him but “on August 14, soldiers returned to his house… and destroyed his family’s supply of rice and other foodstuffs by mixing it with fertiliser and kerosene.”

Although there was a petition on 12 September to President Trump by four US Senators “to immediately facilitate an end to the current humanitarian crisis” in Indian-administered Kashmir, there has not been one syllable of condemnation by the administration in Washington. London remained silent also. These energetically vociferous supporters of human rights have voiced not the slightest criticism of India for its persecution and imprisonment of innocent Kashmiris.

Why?

If this sort of thing had happened in Crimea there would have been massive coverage in the Western media and loud and penetrating censure and denunciation of Moscow by politicians, pundits and the ever-attentive US military.

Western media always refer to the 2014 accession by Crimea to Russia as ‘annexation’ by Russia of the land that is historically Russian, whose citizens are predominantly Russian-speaking and Russian-cultured, and whose government held a referendum which overwhelmingly indicated preference for accession to Russia. One would not know it from Western media, but the referendum was witnessed by 135 international observers from 23 countries, including the Austrian MP Johannes Hübner who said that “The view we get from the American and European media is very distorted. You get no objective information. So we decided to come here to have a look at what’s really going on and see if this referendum is credible”. Which it was.

In contradistinction, there has been no referendum in Kashmir, as required by international legislature. In January 1949 the UN Commission for India and Pakistan announced that “The question of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite” and the BBC notes that “in three resolutions, the UN Security Council and the United Nations Commission in India and Pakistan recommended that as already agreed by Indian and Pakistani leaders, a plebiscite should be held to determine the future allegiance of the entire state.”

But it seems that Western governments are given to condemning referendums when they don’t suit their purpose and ignoring UN Resolutions to hold them when that action would be embarrassingly inconvenient for the country involved.

There’s no freedom in Kashmir, and instead of enjoying a modicum of self-governance and being permitted a referendum on its future, Indian-administered Kashmir is subjected to what is called ‘lockdown’. Mobile phone networks and access to the internet have been blocked for over six weeks — and there hasn’t been an official syllable of disapproval in Washington or London. Certainly, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said on 9 September that she is “deeply concerned about the impact of recent actions by the government of India on the human rights of Kashmiris” and also “alarmed” about “restrictions on internet communications and peaceful assembly, and the detention of local political leaders and activists” — but no Western government paid the slightest attention. Nor did the freedom-loving Western mainstream media, which is always alert for violations of human rights around the world. Well — in some parts of the world.

They ignore the savagery of Indian troops and the denial of basic freedoms in Indian-occupied Kashmir, but would they do that if such excesses were evident elsewhere? Imagine the uproar, the feverish surge of self-righteous passion, the fiercely critical condemnation of brutality and suppression of democracy if anything like this occurred in Crimea. The US and Britain would go berserk with sanctimony.

On 12 September Reuters reported that “Authorities in Indian Kashmir have arrested nearly 4,000 people since the scrapping of its special status last month, government data shows, the most clear evidence yet of the scale of one of the disputed region’s biggest crackdowns… More than 200 politicians, including two former chief ministers of the state were arrested.”

But Mr Trump didn’t say a word. He was otherwise occupied, tweeting insults, and while repression was surging in Kashmir was at a G-7 meeting in Biarritz where he referred to Egypt’s tyrannical Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as “my favourite dictator” which tells us a great deal about the outlook of the US President. It is not surprising that Trump doesn’t want to criticise Indian Prime Minister Modi, the director of despotism in Kashmir, as he considers that “Prime Minister Modi and I are world leaders in social media.” His final G-7 tweet was that he had “Just wrapped up a great meeting with my friend Prime Minister Modi of India at the G-7 Summit in Biarritz, France!” so it seems that the twitter soul mates approve of ultra-authoritarianism and that Trump isn’t going near the Kashmir human rights’ button anytime.

Britain’s Prime Minister Johnson is desperately trying to avoid the catastrophic outcome of quitting the European Union and has little time for wider affairs, so cannot be expected to say anything definitive about the atrocities in Kashmir other than his pronouncement of 9 August that the situation was “serious.” His stance on Crimea is set in the Western mould of ‘annexation’ and he is rabidly anti-Russia, so there is no chance of a movement to dialogue by the United Kingdom. The rest of Europe just wishes the Kashmir crisis would go away, and hangs on to the ‘annexation’ story about Crimea, where there was no ‘lockdown’, persecution or detention of innocent civilians at accession time. Imagine the furore if there had been use of pellet guns in Sevastopol.

Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Kumi Naidoo, urged the Indian government “to act in accordance with international human rights law and standards towards people living in Jammu and Kashmir, including in relation to arrests and detentions of political opponents, and the rights to liberty and freedom of movement” and pointed out that “The actions of the Indian government have thrown ordinary people’s lives into turmoil, subjecting them to unnecessary pain and distress on top of the years of human rights violations they have already endured.”

Will there be any action at all by Washington and London? No: not a hope. They’ll continue to bounce up and down about Crimea, where there is liberty and freedom of movement, while keeping silent about persecution in Kashmir.

They are looking at the world through a prism of hypocrisy.

Brian CLOUGHLEY

British and Australian armies’ veteran, former deputy head of the UN military mission in Kashmir and Australian defense attaché in Pakistan

US Courting Trouble by Intruding into the Black Sea

By: Kayhan Int’l 

The US it seems has become so accustomed to being kicked around that it always looks for new spots to meddle and get thrashed to the embarrassment of the American public which has been burdened with humiliation after humiliation.

Pounded in the Persian Gulf, bloodied in Syria and Iraq, and outwitted in the South China Sea, it is now scheming to intrude into the Black Sea to court more trouble, especially since Russia is the dominant power determined to safeguard its strategic interests.

Western European powers ought to be cautious against venturing into the crisis created by Ukraine where an unpopular regime with the support of the US is suppressing the Ukrainian people and picking up an unnecessary fight with Russia.

It is worth noting that Crimea is essential to Russia both strategically and economically, while it is a far-fetched to expect Turkey be dragged into the US conflict with Russia with which Ankara has developed vital trade and political relations. 

According to observers, a power struggle in the Black Sea Moscow and Washington, with NATO on the US side, might turn out to be Great Game of the 21st century.

The chessboard from Syria to the Persian Gulf, Turkey and Crimea, has become complicated because of outside intervention that threatens to set fire to the whole region. 

In the mythology of ancient Greece the Black Sea was depicted as the dividing line between the known and the unknown worlds, where to the east lived the Iranian Scythians, renowned for their archery, horsemanship, and warlike nature.

The Greeks built up the myths of Jason and the Argonauts travelling to the farther shore of Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea) to steal the Golden Fleece from Colchis (in present day Georgia).

Historical developments are something else. With the conversion to Islam of the Mongol Golden Horde, the Black Sea soon became a Tartar Lake and then Ottoman Turkish Lake.
When an expansionist Czarist Russia reached the shores of the Black Sea the balance of power changed. First Russia and then the Soviet Union became active in building trade routes through the strategic straits of Kerch in Crimea, the Dardanelles, and the Bosporus.

Now with post-Soviet Russia calling the shots and Crimea back under Moscow’s rule, the region has become a formidable fortress incorporating S-400 and Iskander-M missiles – capable of ensuring total Russian primacy all across the Black Sea.

Next year the Black Sea fleet will be upgraded with an array of anti-ship missiles; protected by S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems; and supported by a new "permanent deployment” of Sukhoi SU-27s and SU-30s.

Now compare the re-acquisition of Crimea by Russia, without firing a shot and validated by a democratic referendum, to the US occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya.
Under the circumstance, it will be up to a new government in Kiev after the upcoming March elections to realize that any provocation designed to drag NATO into a Kerch Strait entanglement is doomed to failure.

Defeated in Syria, US & Accomplices Plotting Kiev-Moscow Confrontation

By: Kayhan Int’l 

Similar to any geopolitical phenomenon, the Ukraine crisis has multiple roots, but the most important one is the involvement of the US and European powers in Ukraine’s coup, which overthrew the democratically-elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February 2014.

Following overthrow of the elected government in Kiev, people in largely Russophone eastern and southern Ukraine, the bases of support for Yanukovych and his ‘Party of the Regions’, opposed the foreign-engineered coup and began to call for closer ties with Russia. As a result various demonstrations were held in Crimea in favour of leaving Ukraine and accession to the Russian Federation.

Crimea and large parts of southern Ukraine came under Islamic rule in the 13th century with establishment of the power of the golden horde, which in the early 15th century evolved into the Crimean Khanate, with its distinctively rich Muslim culture and the Perso-Arabic alphabet in which the local language was written.

Towards the end of the 15th century the Crimean Khanate became a vassal state of the expanding Ottoman Empire, a status that lasted till the closing years of the 18th century and Russian encroachment upon it.

The Russian Tsars tussled with the Ottoman Sultans for control of the region, and from 1853 to 1856, the peninsula was the site of the principal engagements of the famous Crimean War, which ended in victory for Russia, despite the support of France and Britain for the Turks. 

Following the Revolution in Russia in 1917, the military and political situation in Crimea was chaotic like that in much of Russia. During the ensuing Russian Civil War, Crimea changed hands numerous times and was for a time a stronghold of the anti-Bolshevik White Army. The White Army controlled Crimea before remnants were finally driven out by the Red Army in November 1920.

Crimea became part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1921 as the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which became part of the Soviet Union in 1922.
On 19 February 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree on the transfer of the Crimean region of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR) to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). This Supreme Soviet Decree states that this transfer was motivated by "the commonality of the economy, the proximity, and close economic and cultural relations between the Crimean region and the Ukrainian SSR”. At that time no vote or referendum took place, and Crimean population had no say in the transfer.

The transfer was described as a "symbolic gesture”, marking the 300th anniversary of Ukraine becoming a part of the Tsardom of Russia.

On 27 June 2015 the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation accepted the request of the leader of ‘A Just Russia Party’, Sergey Mironov, to evaluate legitimacy of the 1954 transfer of Crimea and stated that it violated both the Constitution of the Russian SFSR and the Constitution of the Soviet Union. 

The text of the document signed by Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Sabir Kehlerova Mironov stated: "Neither the Constitution of the RSFSR or the USSR Constitution provide powers of the Presidium Supreme Soviet of the USSR for the consideration of the changes in the constitutional legal status of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, members of the union republics. In view of the above, the decision adopted in 1954 by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviets of the RSFSR and the Soviet on the transfer of the Crimean region of the RSFSR to the USSR, did not correspond to the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the RSFSR and the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the USSR.”
Thus, in view of these facts and the meddling of NATO states in Ukraine following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, elements seized power in Kiev which were hostile to Moscow, although they lacked popular support.

The West wanted to politicize and militarize the whole issues, and the destabilization of Ukraine gathered speed following the defeats of the western-backed takfiri terrorists in Syria. The US and its allies wanted an excuse to provoke Moscow nearer at home.

This week when the regime in Kiev wanted to test the patience of Moscow by sending naval vessels through the sensitive waterway connecting the Sea of Azov with the Black Sea, it was but natural of Russia to seize the three vessels.

In response, the regime in Ukraine lacking popular support, declared martial law, and even threatened Russia with war, banking on the support of the US.

Against this backdrop, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, Nov 28 said Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is orchestrating a naval provocation in a bid to boost his flagging popularity ratings before election next year.

The onus is now on the western backers of the regime in Kiev to defuse the crisis, and although Moscow does not want war between the two Slavic nations, Russia is determined to thwart NATO’s encroachment in Ukraine.